Future Fly! versions?

[Guest cabbepe]

Is there any info of any future Fly! development?

[Guest ftessler]

I think that the reason Fly! for the Mac was developed to begin with was that Rich Harvey had a soft spot for the Mac in his heart. It's far from certain that there will ever be another PC version of Fly!, and another Mac version is even less likely.-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator

[Guest cabbepe]

Hi Frank!Took a while for me to answer. Looks like we have to settle for X-plane if we want new versions. It's also hard to match FS 2004, especially in Scandinavia, because of the lack of local sceneries.I will still be watching the site.

[Guest Allan Jones]

Hi Bertil,I've been so busy playing with OSX that I sometimes don't have time to check in here.There was a hew and cry for TRI to release the Fly! code as open source so private development could continue. This would have been nice for the Fly! Mac users because I'm convinced that there is something in that code that's not right.However, TRI pointed out that Fly! and products they plan to keep (4x4 Evo presumably) have shared code and they could not release Fly! without releasing proprietary code that they still need. So open source will not happen unless they walk away from all their titles that rely on the shared code. Not likely.I booted into OS9 the other day and made a regional flight in the Navajo. I still like the experience in 9. Only my 216 installation of Fly! II will run under X; for some reason I can't get the patched 250 version running in X. It would be bad if I ended up with a new Mac that won't boot into 9!Allan

[Guest ftessler]

Hi, all.As I've said before, it's highly unlikely that we'll ever see another version of Fly! for the Mac. I also think that it's unlikely that anyone will do MSFS for Mac OS - it's just not workable from an economic standpoint.That leaves X-Plane, which as far as I know is still developed on Macs. After playing with various betas for the past few years, I finally bought it last week (around $49 as I recall). I've only had a little while to play with it, but it sure looks and feels different than Fly!. Performance is very good, although I can't run it will maxed out options - my dual 800 with its GeForce2 is starting to get old, I guess.I just ordered a 15" 1.25 GHz PowerBook with the Radeon Mobility 9600, so it'll be interesting to see how well it runs on that. (I also may load Fly! II on there to see how it runs.)-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator

[Guest cabbepe]

Thank you, Frank and Allan, for your answers. That's it, I guess. It would have been nice to have open code. That may have solved the radial engine sound problem in 2K.Let's hope that a bigger market for Apple in the future may change things.

[Guest ftessler]

Hi, Bertil.Even if Apple were to double its market share, it would still be less than 10%. Unfortunately, flight sim development is very time and labor-intensive, which means that it's expensive. I wonder if MS makes money on MSFS... but, even if they do, the potential user base is much larger.As for X-Plane, Laminar Research seems to be a very small operation with little overhead. From the little bit that I've used it so far, it lags behind Fly! in "realism." However, it's nice not to feel like a second-class citizen just because I'm on a Mac, and it runs well. With Fly! and Fly! II, I always felt that we were behind the Wintel crowd, sometimes far behind. I don't blame TRI for this - much of the problem was the fault of Apple's hardware in the 1999-2003 timeframe, although I suspect that more could have been done to improve Fly!'s performance on the Mac.It will be really interesting to see how Fly! II does on a DP G5 with a fast video card. However, even if it runs quickly, there will still be bug fixes and optimizations that will never get done.Still, I will always keep Fly! around in one form or another, and I'll forever be grateful for the good times I had and the many friends I made online. That's why I stick around here. :)-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator