Mortgage Interest Rate in 2010?

[BimmerCop 332]

While surfing another FS site, I came upon a thread where someone posted the following:"Well, if FS11 is more graphics intensive than FSX, I won't have enough proccesor power... Too bad..."But what really made me cringe was Phil Taylor's response to his post:"two things should help with that:1) the fact that FS11 is still a ways off gives folk a chance to get fundage ready for upgrades2) we are doing a lot of performance oriented work in the engine"I can understand point #2, but point #1 simply baffled me. I just hope I can build up some equity on my mortgage, which will allow me to refinance and "upgrade" my PC so I can run FS11 at half settings.

[RFields5421 1]

What Phil is probably referring to with #1 is that any game or other software produced to run at optimal speeds on older computers is doomed to a quick death.It just won't sell.Computers are consumables, with a shelf life of 3 to 4 years max.Anyone who expects to run FS11 on the same computer they ran FS9 - not going to happen.We all understand the budget issue - but the most expensive FS computer I every purchased was one to run FS98.My Vista FSX computer cost about 60% of that one - even with 4GB memory, four huge SATA drives, a fast dual core processor and a DX-10 graphics card.We all also understand that some people will not be able to move to the latest version of FS due to hardware/ budget issues. That's the same with FS as any other game.But the folks who have to stay with a past version of FS are much luckier than most gamers - because they have a wealth of freeware and often critical payware available for older versions.

[Mace 1,926]

I predict that the mortgage interest rate will stay fairly low for the next 1.5 to 2 years.The relatively low rate right now has meant that I have seen many, many refinances going on right now. Not quite to the level it was in 2003 or 04 (when interest rates were even lower) but still the refi'ing is going on at a good clip. Unlike some parts of the U.S., the economic slowdown is a bit minimal where I live--sales, commercial or residential, are humming along quite nicely.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.16 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

[Guest ianrivaldosmith]

Try living in the UK, were all screwed!

[Guest SkullxBones]

At least your currency is worth more than ours.

[january 19]

Reggie- Re "Computers are consumables, with a shelf life of 3 to 4 years max." -Wow- wonder if the Smithsonian would make me an offer for my 5 year old AMD XP 2200 sys? Still runs FS9 not badly, even with triple monitors! Since I don't buy lottery tickets, guess I'm stuck.------Rhett- When I see a report that a major chemical company has announced 20% price increases across the board- and other forecasts of $150 oil soon, I think the end of low interest rates is nigh!Alex Reid

[michal 44]

>I can understand point #2, but point #1 simply baffled me. Because unfortunately many folks on this forum lost any sense of humor or detachment. Any such passing comment by Phil, however innocent, serves immediately as an opportunity to put the worst possible spin on the whole PC-cost/F11/technology story and this even though we hardly know anything at this point about F11 which is way ahead of us. But sure enough - such posts only flame fears and fuel imagination & disinformation. I think some people on this forum probably have no families to feed, no health insurance bills to pay, no college tuitions, no sick pets and FS11 is their only preoccupation in life.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

[boshar 6]

>What Phil is probably referring to with #1 is that any game>or other software produced to run at optimal speeds on older>computers is doomed to a quick death.>>It just won't sell.Software designed for only upper spec hardware won't sell either if it doesn't perform on lowerspec hardware.There currently is a trend thats fed via the OLPC initiative. If the popularity of the ASUS EEE pc is anything to go by then a part of the market is going toward cheap, economic energy efficient hardware.So we are going to have folks 'upgrading' to lower spec hardware. Even now when you look at the PC as a gaming platform there is only a small percentage of that market that posses upper spec hardware which 'alledgely' runs FS-X without problems. (I still haven't seen that in the wild, only read about it). In my FS11 only build for newer computers (ie high spec) is repeating old mistakes.I do wish for a new modular FS engine with radical choices. Drop the ATC engine and use an online server that gives you the choice between synthetic (computers, private sandbox) or real people interaction (VAT Sim). Either way you offload a lot of processor cycles. Ship a high detail area (region of sale) and a basic rest of the world scenery. Playing online will provides you with detailed streaming scenery (Google Earth, MS Virtual Earth) You have the choice between data based or photo scenery.The basic client software must be mean and lean. It can talk to several rendering engines so it will make best use of available hardware (not just highspec). Some of the interfaces will be DX 9, DX 10, Open GL. The basic client will also have a Linux version.2010 is still 2 years away. Flightgear keeps on evolving and a combination of an improved FlightGear coupled with Google Earth might be a real possibility in a few years time. Just add an ATC interface/module for FlightGear and they will have basicly the package I describe without the great FS heritage. If Aces/Microsoft don't evolve they will become irrelevent.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Wow- wonder if the Smithsonian would make me an offer for my 5 year old AMD XP 2200 sys?"Since my work has provided me a laptop for a number of years, I never felt a need to upgrade my desktop rig once I saw how it performed with FS9. I was going to update it for FS-X, but FS-X's changes weren't profound enough for me to feel compelled to spend a grand on new equipment. If the next version does change profoundly, that will change. My rig?It has you beat in the Smithsonian competition. I built it in 1999, originally with a P3/450 and 64 megs of Ram and later upgraded the box to a P3/800 with 512 megs of Ram. I'm on my third video card and fourth hard drive. It still has Win 98 and moreover, FS9 never locks and with a small concession to screen resolution keeps me satisfied at 25 fps most of the time. I've upgraded the rig along the way, tried updating to XP but my MB was too old to work properly with XP. But I don't mind, money I've saved by not getting suckered into throwing my box on the scrap heap has gotten me in a real cockpit, flying two very different types of aircraft--fixed wing and trike. But the money is there to spend, if and when a simulator wows me the way FS2002 and FS2004 have.Regards,John

[january 19]

John- at one time I had & could use an abacus! But I don't think it would have run FS decently.Alex Reid

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"....at one time I had & could use an abacus! But I don't think it would have run FS decently."Loved that one!

[dmaher 0]

That