Why I will no longer purchase any add-on Aircraft...

[Guest robains]

Too All those folks (and you know who you are) that are cashing in on the add-on aircraft market:1. stop with the ridiculously low frame rates as compared to MS default Aircraft2. learn how to optimize GMax3. Provide a simplified version of the Aircraft (frame rate friendly -- no that doesn't mean just add 2D panels)4. Panels that NEVER match up to MS's standard control configurations key set so I'm forced to re-program my GoFlight system for every add-on aircraft5. Panels with NO obvious method of closing6. Overwriting the default MS GPS key7. Stop adding endless DLL's to the Modules dir to the point FS just can't handle it any more8. Provide accurate step by step startup procedures for these aircraft -- documentation is horrible and incomplete9. Check DLL conflicts BEFORE installing, don't just overwriteUntil you folks GET A CLUE, I'm not wasting any more money on your products and will happily fly the free-ware products that: work reliably, look great, fly great, sound great, and most importantly don't turn my Intel P4 3.7 Ghz Extreme Edition 880Mhz FSB 1.5GB 500Mhz Corsair Extreme RAM, ATI X800XT PE, WD Raptor 10K rpm RAID system into a 5 fps crash to desktop nightmare!!Anyone else thinking of getting retail 3rd party Aircraft, you have been warned!!Rob.P.S. Computer Pilot Magazine -- you need to be more responsible in your reviews, one liners that hint at possible frame rate problems should be more clear i.e. "you can't even fly this Aircraft unless you turn EVERYTHING off or down".

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I would like to hear your tips for optimizing GMAX. Instead of telling developers what not to do, tell them how to do it better.If you take as much care in citing examples as you do boasting of your system specs, your presence here in the forums will be most welcome. I'll try to see that the thread doesn't become a flame war, since I sense many satisfied payware users are lining up, ready to say (in their own unique way) "don't speak for us". As for your comment regarding Computer Pilot, you should communicate that with them directly. I'm curious as to what they were reviewing...-John

[Guest robains]

John,There are many ways to optimize GMax models, the first is to reduce the polygon count and/or run vertex optimizers (I believe these are built into most good 3D modelers) -- often a 3d coordinate will need to be shifted a tad to help the final image or to get a better optimization, but it can be done. Also, working with GMax doesn't consistute being a "developer" -- writing DLLs for use with panels is being a developer. If these companies are using Developers to do the GMax modeling then that is probably where the problem lies.PMDG 1900, 737 seriesaeroSoft EurowingsFlight One - 727Phoenix - PSS ConcordeThese are the folks I'm talking about.Are you suggesting I don't speak? Are you being sponsored by these folks? But please, if you feel anything I've written is false and mis-leading in nature then I'd expect you provide evidence and details to contradict my statements, rather than just "plenty of happy customers" -- how is that a good use of information exchange?Rob.

[Varmint007 2]

As John said, you've done a fine job of listing your system specs. If I had a system like that and I was getting 5FPS, I'd probably be a bit skeptical myself; however you have not provided a single example of a commercial product. Instead, you've made a blanket statement to all developers that they're "cashing in" developing add-ons "without a clue".How are we to know what else you have running? MegaCity with full shadows and terrain detail, Trilinear filtering with 4x AA at 1600x1200? Who knows, and quite frankly, who cares after the tone you've set for yourself.Your examples of what not to do might actually be useful to somebody, as they're generally sound principals to follow, but the way you presented them basically makes me want to vomit.Provide some examples of products, lower your tone, and MAYBE the developer(s) who's product(s) you question can actually help you. Since you have 1 post to your name, and you're coming here instead of seeking support from them directly, I have to assume you're just trolling and you'll probably never be back. Regardless, if you would like to provide your name, I'll be happy to never sell you a product.--JonP.S. Just saw your list of products - that actually helps. Now why are you putting the entire developer community down?

[Guest robains]

Jon,1st, nothing in a Internet forum should cause vomiting. This IS the Internet and difference of opinion are exactly that -- you make this sound religious.I did provide examples which I thought were not relevant but it seems you want me to name names. I was trying to keep it in the generic sense as it is the trend that is the problem.MS SDK provides good guidelines, but it appears that in the interest of making money these 3rd party "developers" are making eye candy the highest priority over a good flying experience. I can buy a 3D render screen saver any time I like -- I don't need you to sell me one.And perhaps, just perhaps, I'm interested in flying a different aircraft other than what is provide in MS default set? But the key is "IN FLYING" a different aircraft. Is it impossible for 3rd party AC folks to provide a "lower" quality render AC that does indeed have framerate as good as those provided by Microsoft?So far the only options for better framerates I've seen for 3rd party AC is 2D panels or setting lower res panels -- guess what, the panels res isn't the major performance problem, it's the GMAX model.Vol 9 Issue 6 Page 53. Computer Pilot Magazine -- what do you see? 5 steps on how to improve frame rate performance on Flight 1 Skyhawk. Come on folks!! This is getting silly. Out of the box not many people have enough PC performance to run FS2004 with just the graphical basics and 3rd party AC developers are making it even worse?? Does that make any rational sense to you? The only rational sense I ses is that eye candy sells -- the money machine, screw the end user satisfaction.So far the best Add-on AC I have is the Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador -- shareware!! Why, because it sounds good, looks good, flys good -- oh maybe that's because it does it all and doesn't turn my system into a slideshow.And what is with everyone's "lets bring out the Troll defense" -- stop it already. Just cause someone has something to say that isn't "fluffy bunny" you bring out "must be a troll". You don't like my approach then don't read, or leave the room, go get a cup of tea, takes some drugs, whatever!Rob.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Are you suggesting I don't speak? Are you being sponsored by these folks? But please, if you feel anything I've written is false and mis-leading in nature then I'd expect you provide evidence and details to contradict my statements, rather than just "plenty of happy customers" -- how is that a good use of information exchange?"I think you are the one making suggestions here. I don't get paid by Avsim to moderate the forums, and I'm certainly not sponsored by the developers, although I do produce freeware and have an add-on in just about every discipline--aircraft, scenery, and design tools.I've had my battles with payware developers and I don't need to dig those back up. You cite the PMDG 1900--fine aircraft, I have it running on a P3/800. Haven't touched the others, but just search the forums. I'd say there's more happy customers than not. You do the math--and please don't get defensive because the stats don't agree with your attempt to launch a battle here.This is a user to user forum. People say what they want about payware here, whether they are right or wrong. I've seen good payware take bad hits, and I've seen bad payware praised to high heaven. IOTW, there will always be differences of opinion. People can knock my favorite payware, and it doesn't ruffle my feathers--if they do it fairly and with the intent to have a dialog.But to choose a "shotgun" approach with a laundry list of issues, then play the "Are you calling me a liar" game when someone asks you to backup your statements isn't a great start to getting your opinions respected here. I happen to agree with you on many of them, especially when it comes to dll issues. Also, please don't waste time mincing words by saying working with GMAX isn't being a "developer". We're not talking about developing code, we're talking about developing products. And most product developers have teams of people--who specialize in graphic design, CAD, and programming.-John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Rob,The Flight 1 Skyhawk certainly isn't a slideshow on my system--again, it's a P3/800. I guess if I were sponsored by the payware developers as you hinted at I could afford more.But I am close to locking the thread. Tone down the offense please.-John

[Guest Douglas K]

Hey Rob,I hear this is a good book: "How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie". Have you read it? Me neither, but I consider most folks to be morons and feel that trying to influence them is disingenuous and a waste of time. Ostensibly, your post is trying to do just that, so you should consider a different approach if success is your goal. Otherwise, the

[Varmint007 2]

Rob,The problem isn't understanding what people are doing wrong, it's relaying that message in a way that isn't going to #### off the very people you levy your issues against.As I said, your complaints are not unsound, but the hostility of your original post, and ongoing hostile tone isn't going to solve anything. There's a big gap between "fluffy bunny" and "a-hole bunny". You shouldn't need a GPS to find it.This foum is loaded with people who help eachother every day. It's one of the most productive forums on Avsim, and if your attitude isn't such that is causes the Forum Admin to be the first reply to your message, then help you shall recieve.That being said, I agree with some of the points you make, but Ill address the issue of models: There should be options provided for lower poly count models and texture sets. But the fact is, poly counts are not the primary reason for system performance issues - it's texture sizes. The differnce between a 10,000 poly model and a 60,000 poly model would not be measurable on any recent graphics card with hardware transformations. I've been modeling for 18 years, so I know that's not an excuse to avoid optimizing models, but it's certainly not going to be the primary contributor to poor frame rates.You cannot assume that aircraft from PMDG, PSS and the like are just hobbled together. You also cannot assume that just because MS's default 747 gets good frame rates, that these developers should produce similarly simplisic aircraft in order to keep frame rates pegged at 80.Again, I don't understand why a system with your specs has ANY issues with frame rates, as my own humble 2 year old system maintains frame rates over 30 even within dense areas. I'd suggest to you that the blame may lay not JUST with the aircraft, but with your settings and possibly your other add-ons. Something just doesn't seem right when I hear 5FPS and 3.7 Ghz Extreme Edition in the same sentance.--Jon

[Guest robains]

Jon and John,I will reduce the tone as best I can and remain human.I'm a software engineer and have done my own aircraft models (in prior versions of FS) and have also worked with many 3D tools over the years. I've created my own games and have worked on teams developing other mainstream games. I'm still coding and designing but mostly for business type software these days -- working on entertainment software is a grueling schedule and there were only so many years I could do it.Polygon count and memory bandwidth are the primary restrictions. Textures are only important (in terms of performance) when they can't be fetched from the graphics card's memory and must make a trip to the AGP or PCI-E bus to main memory. Texture compression is pretty good these days so you can fit A LOT into 256MB graphics card, but 256MB just is NOT enough.My real bones of contention are:1. Add-on AC vendors are not providing "lower" quality models in addition to their higher quality models. Let the consumer decide what is more important to them -- the eye candy of the aircraft, or the flight model, or new type of AC itself (not a default MS AC) and hence the experience of flying a new AC.2. Keep consist keyboard mapping with MS default AC or atleast provide an option.3. Improve Documentation.Back to my system, I don't have performance problems with my system using any of the MS default AC -- run at 1600 x 1200 32bit AA4X AF8X and everything close to max or one notch down from max. I enjoy flying with clouds and use FS Environment to help me out in this area (especially with ActiveSky and FS Live Traffic).For the $50 price tag of some of these single aircraft package, I do feel that the items 1-3 listed above should be part of that $50. I mean I did pay $50 to buy FS2004.I will not be purchasing any more aircraft until I see some of these issues addressed. If the trend continues as it is -- completely unchecked and even encouraged, then I still have my shareware sources. But I have surfed enough newsgroups, FS Forums, and more to realize that FPS is a significant key topic of discussion -- always has been. Other products like FS Environment and MegaScenery MegaBooster have attempted to at least recognize the FPS issues and provide some type option -- in FS Enviroment they offer DX cloud compression and smaller cloud textures (which can make a huge difference in fps).Also, there is no technology in the near future that can help FS2004 be realized in its full graphical glory -- dual core CPUs will not help FS2004 since it was not coded to make efficient use of the multiple CPUs (no CPU specific threading was implemented). Intel/AMD aren't producing significantly faster CPU clock speeds (they can, but they won't because of the heat & safety issues involved). There is no NEW hardware technology that is going to help double FS2004 performance -- FS2004 doesn't even work with SLI video cards. There is no killer graphics card around the corner that will double the performance over the current crop. We're gonna have to live with what we have for a while.Rob.

[Guest robains]

Douglas,"Me neither, but I consider most folks to be morons and feel that trying to influence them is disingenuous and a waste of time." So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?"Ostensibly, your post is trying to do just that, so you should consider a different approach if success is your goal. Otherwise, the

[mgh 89]

I think we can all see where you are coming from:"cashing in..." "in the interest of making money" "The only rational sense I see is that eye candy sells -- the money machine, screw the end user satisfaction."What's wrong with making money in a free market?Don't you see the contradiction in the last quote? You've never heard of the market place? If eye candy sells that's because it's what people want to buy. If they didn't then the firms would be out of business.Anyway, with your skills why don't you go into the business yourself. If your views are right you should make a killing.

[Guest Douglas K]

>>>>So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?<<<

[LAdamson 240]

It's obvious, that Rob (the originator) of this post, does NOT seem to be aware of the various 3rd party payware models............that I am.I've been doing this for what seems like forever; and I'm quite picky when it comes to both graphics & flight models. I no longer upgrade my machine every two years like I did previously for at least the last ten years. Therfore, the programming for the highest yeild of frame rates, in addition to looks & flight model still means a lot!As it turns out, THE best simulated airplanes that I own, and meet all the above objectives, just happen to be payware!L.Adamson

[LAdamson 240]

>1. Add-on AC vendors are not providing "lower" quality models>in addition to their higher quality models. Let the consumer>decide what is more important to them -- the eye candy of the>aircraft, or the flight model, or new type of AC itself (not a>default MS AC) and hence the experience of flying a new AC.>Oh, but "some" DO.....I'm interested in superior flight models, eye catching graphics, well done VC's for smaller aircraft, and 30 and above fps---------------all on my antique Athlon 1900XP/Geforce3Ti500 ----1600*1200*32 resolution. I usually sim fly over add-on mesh mountain areas, where I can keep fps reasonably high, when required.Happily--- some payware developers, who have many years experience, as well as a few freeware authors, deliver what I require.But without doubt, my all time favorite simulated airplane is "payware", and well worth the cost...L.Adamson