I think one must keep in mind that the clouds as presently implemented are one of the greatest performance takers.(Try setting their slider to the max and doing a rw download).I'd love to see everything and more requested above on clouds-but there always has to be a balance between what can be done and performance. Since the biggest complaint about fsx has been performance, and Aces has promised that performance will be high priority in the next version, I would expect that many features such as the above which take a huge amount of computing power and would severly reduce performance will be left out accordingly in an effort to follow the communities strongest wishes.imho with fex the clouds are very good. Much better than the look of autogen which looks to me artificial, along with realistic looking and working aircraft instrumentation which are sorely needed.GeofMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

This is the way I see it... If I need to BUY 3rd party addons such as:FEX - for better clouds and waterFSGenesis - for better mesh terrainUTX - for better terrain texturesGEX - for better ground and road texturesASX - for better weather generationMyTrafficX - for better AI trafficRC4 - for better ATC serviceLD767 - for better airliner simulationin order to make my flight simming more realistically, then it's obvious that MS is failing tremendously. Why do they market a FLIGHT SIMULATOR where out of the box, it fails miserably. I mean, I only listed 8 addons which I personally use and I bet that many users would have longer lists.This only shows that ACES should simply devote all THEIR TIME AND EFFORT into making the CORE of it's flight simulator a more SOLID platform for 3rd party developers to make their magic, and stop wasting time on adding "eye candy" features such as waving hands and what not. Give us a STRONG CORE application and the community will do the rest.______________Efrain RuizLiveDISPATCHhttp://www.livedispatch.orgCooler Master cosmos SDFI LP UT P35 T2R (3-17-2008 BIOS) | E8400 @ 4GHz (500MHz x 8) | 2 x 2GB OCZ Flex II PC9200EVGA Nvidia GTX280Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Operating System RAID-0) | Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Flight Simulator RAID-0)Corsair CM PSU-750TX | Asus 20X DVD

>I can only imagine the difficulty trying to simulate>something as complex as clouds.>The visibility issue overall needs to be solved.>One thing I hate even when using ASX is this.>You look up and see a solid cloud layer,say 3000 ft.>Vis is marginal vfr or IFR but you cannot see blue skies>through the solid layer.>You climb through it and BAM, 100 mile vis,scattered clouds>and you can see the ground.>Descend through the back and BAM, back to solid layer and you>cannot see blue sky above.No we dont need that, remember this is a flight simulator. What we need is people that can walk, talk and wiggle. ;)Sorry, but this is exactly the point that some where trying to make in the "real people" thread, Lets see some of the core issues fixed and then shows us the added eye candy ...fix the weather, fix the bad terrain texture issues (Low rez masks. mismatched textures desert etc., fix the AG and ATC, and the like...show-off that first, would love all the extra eye candy...After fixing the above.but this forum seems to becoming the "police Aces from any possible critique" forum or the "Mods opinion rules the day".Too bad, this once was the place to find honest open pationate discussion.Hopfuly Aces can pull something off...but who knows.

I see no policing or mods opinion rules the day.I think I should be allowed to express mine-as you are allowed to express yours-and have.GeofaMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

Funny you should show up then eh?Rest my case.

Yeah-I do happen to frequent these boards-both as a mod and a simmer.Take another read of your post in the hangar chat and I rest my case.It was left also.GeofaMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

>Yeah-I do happen to frequent these boards-both as a mod and a>simmer.>>Take another read of your post in the hangar chat and I rest>my case.>It was left also.>>Geofa>My blog:>http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/Show me.I think you may want to re-read. I said nothing personal about anyone, I made comments specific to the topic and the sim. You are the one that made it personal, you made a specific comment about me, how my specific comment was this and that, some what akin to what set Phil T. off.Its feels like your riding me and others like your a troll looking for trouble (Geof, I know thats not the case but thats how it feels.

>and stop wasting time on adding "eye candy" featureswhich is probably the reason it didn't ship with features you get from FEX, GEX, UTX, FSG as they are, IMHO, "eye candy" enhancers :). Of course they could have had those features built in too, but it could have taken more time before release, shipped in 4-6 DVDs, priced higher, etc. ;)I do agree with "making the CORE of it's flight simulator a more SOLID platform", which is hopefully what they will achieve in the next release :( (if they are indeed re-writing the core from the ground up?)

As far as I'm concerned 3rd party developers are the key to a great flight simulator. ACES should focus on better performance and an open and easily editable platform with all the documentation and tools 3rd party developers need to produce a product quickly, with as few limitations as possible. And give us sliders, lots of sliders.Whatever time and money they have left over, then unleash the artist.

>>in order to make my flight simming more realistically, then>it's obvious that MS is failing tremendously. Why do they>market a FLIGHT SIMULATOR where out of the box, it fails>miserably. I mean, I only listed 8 addons which I personally>use and I bet that many users would have longer lists.>>This only shows that ACES should simply devote all THEIR TIME>AND EFFORT into making the CORE of it's flight simulator a>more SOLID platform for 3rd party developers to make their>magic, and stop wasting time on adding "eye candy" features>such as waving hands and what not. Give us a STRONG CORE>application and the community will do the rest.It wouldn't fly..............so to speak.The majority of sales go to people who haven't a clue of all these Internet related addons. Should the MSFS program just be a "core", then an awful lot of people would surely be dissatisfied and never look at the product again.Without a massive set of additional disks and extra cost, the base program is far from "miserable". It's actually quite impressive considering what it does! However, like most others who have been doing this for all these years, I certainly have my own list of 3rd party addons.L.Adamson

>but it could have taken more time before>release, shipped in 4-6 DVDs, priced higher, etc. ;)FSX - $54.95FEX - $44.95GEX - $29.95UTX - $44.95FSG - $59.95ASX - $44.99RC4 - $44.00LDS767 - $54.95MyTrafficX - $61.68Total - $440.37The question here would be, what type of simulator can we expect from ACES if they were to price it at $440.37? LOLI truly believe that ACES could provide us a simulator with ALL the quality of addons mentioned above BUILT-IN, at half the total price listed above, but like other's mentioned, WE hardcore users are not the main target of Microsoft, and as such, it will never happen.I for one would be first in line to buy FS11 at a suggested price of $199, if it incorporated the quality of addons mentioned above plus included sliders galore to fully customize what we want.______________Efrain RuizLiveDISPATCHhttp://www.livedispatch.orgCooler Master cosmos SDFI LP UT P35 T2R (3-17-2008 BIOS) | E8400 @ 4GHz (500MHz x 8) | 2 x 2GB OCZ Flex II PC9200EVGA Nvidia GTX280Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Operating System RAID-0) | Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Flight Simulator RAID-0)Corsair CM PSU-750TX | Asus 20X DVD

What if Moderators had two forum accounts?One account as a fellow simmer like the rest of us here to post opinions or offer advice.A different "Moderator" account (Moderator 1, Moderator 2, no names) for doing Moderator only activities such as dealing with offensive posts or moving posts to the correct group.Posting your opinion on an issue with the Moderator hat on, in my opinion, doesn't quite work.Richard

Who would provide Support for all the above mentioned programs?Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Hi Player1Hoe exactly do you feel this post will inspire "honest open passionate discussion"?All I see is cynical double talk. Why is it Aces court to provide the "education" needed to do exactly what you so reasonable hoped for .....and crushed all hope of it ever being accomplished with this post.It has nothing to do with the discussion of how clouds can be improved..........Particle clouds would be great though. We have seen glimpses of that with "FLY2".Maybe FS ? can improve on that. I am pretty certain that Aces will try to do exactly that.All the best and God blessAlfred

>To me, this is more important than having people waving>goodbye at you or giving you the birdie if you arrive late to>the gate.I would concur, but I have to wonder why people keep going on about this. The waving people were developed for Train Sim, where undoubtably they would make a big difference to the experience, more so than, say, clouds.There has been absolutely no indication that they will also be used in the next Flight Sim, only speculation on these boards.So why is everyone so sure that the FS people are not working on essential flight features such as this one in parallel with the TS people working on waving people?Colin