I write this hoping Phil Taylor will chime in with his thoughts as what I have to say is pure speculation.However, with MS announcing DirectX 11 at Gamefest 2008 and the already announced next version of the Windows OS to replace Vista on the horizon, one begins to wonder if we are headed for another release of FS10 were a new OS was coming out along with a new version of DirectX API.Now Microsoft has reassured existing DX10 and DX10.1 users that their very expensivevideo cards will still work with DX11. The new version of DirectX is totally compatible with these APIs, unlike the split between DX9 and DX10. As well, DX11 offers some new things such as one major feature of the API will lead to an

"Microsoft has officially said it would ship by January 2010. What do you know, thats around the time that FS11 ships!!"What holiday season is in January 2010?Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Seems like more of a TS2 potential impact to me.scott s..

Jim- yes, your right, I was confused on the dates. Nevertheless, FS11 is being worked on now one can presume. Still, when DX11/Windows 7 comes out, one wonders how FS11 will behave with it.

Yes, your other statements are good thoughts!Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

>The million dollar question is, are we setting the stage for>another hardware/software changeover that occurred with>FS9/FS10 and the resulting massive headache it was for many of>us again? Speculation...I believe that DX5 or DX7 was the "milestone" release for DirectX up through DX9 - whereby the systems maintained a strong compatibility and coding. You could have DX8 hardware, and have DX9 installed, and the system would know what features you could and couldn't use. The DX10 situation was a large, fundamental change in how the DirectX system was architected into the operating system. DX10 will likely be the "milestone" release for the Vista+ platforms - and future DX's will share basic coding and compatibility. Heavier Speculation...With DX11, you can have DX10 hardware and DX11 software, but the systems will have the knowledge as to what features can be utilized, be it shaders, multicores, etc. etc. In the end though, it's probably just too soon to roadmap out what we'll need... ACES is concentrating on Train Sim 2, whose core will no doubt continue to be tweaked and enhanced prior to and during the FSNext development. Too many variables... too much time...-Greg