I have just completed a flight from Harvey Field to Swanson in the Beechjet. I made a slight modification to the taxiway that connects to runway 32 at Harvey Field, since this was an EXTREMELY tight turn for the Beechjet (it still is, but I can't be bothered to do it again) :-) Anyway, the flight was uneventful, apart from identifying the wrong plane during a traffic advisory response (I realised my error when the correct AI plane became visible after it had passed above me at a reasonably close range). When I arrived at Swanson, a couple of AI Cessna planes p****d me off by getting in the way of my first two landing approaches :-) When I finally did make a successful landing, I realised that all of those trees that I added a few months ago had reduced the framerate to no more than 9 fps :-eekSo, maybe it's about time that I started looking for a new PC. After all, I'll be needing a more powerful system for juicy stuff like Unreal 2 and Deus Ex 2 next year. Mind you, I can't help feeling that FU3 will be the software that actually NEEDS all of this extra power the most ! ;)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

>Mind you, >I can't help feeling that FU3 will be the software that >actually NEEDS all of this extra power the most ! ;) >Hehe... That is my feeling too, Chris :). In my type of weathers, FU3 gets around 16 fps near Seattle, whereas in FS2002, under similar weathers and near Seattle, I get around 20-25 fps.I can only imagine the poor types who bought FU3 in its early times and tried to fly in such weathers on those early machines!!

Hehehe guy

Ansgar,Your high detail AI planes are a good reason to upgrade in the near future. FU3 will take another leap forward when we have other planes flying around that look almost as good as those in FS2002.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

I didn't noticed any significant changes in framerate after I installed your new AI planes.B.Adamski

Hi Bogdan,Hmmmmm, my PIII-667MHz shows some problems if you are at SeaTac standing on the runway and look to the hangars. If there are severl HQ AI-birds around you should also notice an FR hit.The problem is, that this hit is only appearing if you have several HQ birds really close to you. If they are a bigger distance away they swith to their low-resolution models and then you sure didn

Put it this way Ansgar. If I need a new PC (and I have a 1.2 Ghz Athlon Thunderbird), then I think that it's fair to say that you need one also :-)Of course, it all depends on what you are prepared to accept. Personally, I like to run all of my software at the maximum possible level of detail, so I have no other option ;)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

Now we need to do some budgetting here. Let's see, each new AI plane is, what, about 600 polygons? Now for that price I can buy a couple of hundred of Jon's trees, and throw in a few new hangars and the odd building or two.Why can't you plane builders catch up with us model builders? When are you going to start making your DC-3 and B747 using just two polygons? OK, I'll be generous, you can have four. Can you remake your B747 with just four polygons? OK, ten then (two wings,tail, horiz stabiliser, fuselage, yep, 10's more than enough. Generous even).Otherwise I'll just have to upgrade too ... :-rotor(next week I'll be serious)Rob D

Robert,If I had a choice between keeping my existing PC with low detail AI planes (something that wouldn't cost me a penny), or spending

True - I'm very much looking forward to the new models, and I enjoy watching the AI traffic at airports while I wait for mission control to launch me. And I also want to load Cristian's scenery, but don't have enough space. So its time to upgrade. As soon as I can afford it ...