Bearracing

There are a large number of fairly good (Freeware) B-17s and I've had the most luck at finding them at either flightsim.com or simviation.com. Use the search word A.C.T. for A.C.T. Publishing (author of the best B-17 so far) and though their B-17 was intended for FS2000 they work just fine in FS2002. There is also a pretty good payware version at Alpha Simulations (specifically designed for CFS2 & FS2002).Bear!

Fellows,I have a new ATI 9700 Pro video card and the ATI (FS2004) works great, no flicker and the text is crystal clear. I guess it must be last minute jitters by a few or something, but believe me, FS2004 doesn't have any hidden flaws or anything of that sort, unless we haven't found them yet.:-outtaBear!

Denis,In all likelihood, the opening date will be July 29th (a couple of weeks from now). That's the release date for FS2004 here in the USA.Bear!P.S. There is no date we will relax the rules for those with illegal copies.

>>>>Bear,that statement would only be true if there were no obvious bugs in FS2002. But in fact there are quite a few. Just one example: when flying past clouds, if you look sideways you may occasionally see a 'thin cloud', which happens because the flat texture hasn't been correctly rotated. However, if there is any on-screen text this problem gets far worse and is very obvious. Strange but true! Most likely one of the programmers made a simple mistake that had quite a bizarre effect.If the MS people had lived up to the comments they made to you, then this bug - and several other obvious visual bugs - should have been fixed with a patch. By the very nature of the on-screen text/thin clouds bug, it should have been easily diagnosed and corrected. But they did nothing.<<<<<Chris, with all due respect, this is exactly what I was eluding to. To you this may be a bug, but the occasional appearance of a cloud as a thin line was not a bug rather than a characteristic of how the 2D clouds appeared on your system releated to its performance capabilities. Now with FS2004, they (MS) have updated the way clouds are displayed, which is simply an improvement or upgrade, but I don't think they would consider it a "bug" fix any more than I do.>>>>I believe that, provided the bug is fairly obvious and could be fairly easily fixed, then any software company that takes a pride in their work would indeed fix the problem and issue a patch. Remember how TRI supported Fly! Although I regard FS2002 as a great simulator, I am disappointed that Microsoft were unwilling to properly support it. I hope things improve in the future.Best regards,Chris<<<<<<<I'm disappointed you feel this way Chris though I've noted similar statements from others, in other forums or threads, about the MSFS team before (statements indicating MS doesn't take pride in their work or is unwilling to support it), but nothing could be further from the truth. I personally know a number of the individuals on the MSFS design team and they're some of the most dedicated group of guys you could ever know and they take great pride in their work, as well they should. The last version of Flight Simulator, that had serious "bugs", was FS2000 and the MSFS team attempted to patch it out, but the patches could do little but bandaid the real basic problems, so it was only with FS2002 that the performance issues were finally corrected (which took the better part of a year after the release of FS2000 to fix properly). Because so much of the programmer's time was being spent improving the performance characteristics of FS2002 vs FS2000, several of the new features had limited time alloted for development, leading a lot of people to complain about, for example, "..why doesn't the new ATC allow me to choose my approach, or why doesn't the FS ATC allow me to change my flightplan in flight, etc.". The weather or clouds in FS2002 were exactly the same weather-clouds in FS2000, as the new stuff wasn't ready at the time of FS2004's release. The development of the new weather/clouds has progressed sufficiently that it could be included with FS2004 and in the mean time they've had time to improve on the ATC and AI aircraft so that those features are more complete and work more real world like. The work continues at improving all of these features for the release of FS2006.It all boils down to lot of people assuming that because it says "Microsoft" on the package then they must have unlimited manpower and resources, but that's simply not true. For example, its taken nearly 3 1/2 years to get the new weather developed up to a level where they can finally release it (FS2004) and that's been because they've only had a couple of people available to work on it part-time because of all the other items needing development work.Believe me, if for some unknown reason a major flaw or bug (a real bug and not just some pet peeve of someone) should showup after the release of FS2004, then the MSFS team WILL drop everything and within days of FS2004's release, we will have a patch. If you expect a "patch" because you don't like the way the clouds look or you think the AI aircraft land funny, or whatever, then I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait until the fall of 2005 for the release of FS2006!Bear!

I've had a conversation with a couple members of the MSFS design team (managers) about this specific subject and their feeling is that a patch is only needed to correct a program or piece of software that fails to work as advertised. I know that a few individuals pointed out a few things about FS2002 they would like to see "improved" and in some cases almost demanded a patch, but frankly I agree with the MSFS design team. You must remember a patch or an upgrade are not the same thing! An upgrade is just that and all upgrades will be held until the next version of the software is released, but a patch is quite different, as a patch is needed to correct an error where something is not functioning as intended. The whole purpose for having beta testers is to prevent the expensive possibility of having to provide a patch, a month or two after the release of the product.After FS2002 was released, there were numerous individuals wanting or demanding patches for every little pet peeve you could name, but there never was nor has there ever been one single issue with FS2002 where a patch could be justified. That's not to mean there weren't some issues with FS2002 that everyone or someone wouldn't have liked to see improved and the MSFS team has now provided the upgrade, its called FS2004.Bear!

Dan,You're not the first to mention Oleskiy's DASH 8, but I found that particular aircraft unusable on my system that I have been using for FS2002. I don't know if it is an issue of my graphics card (GeForce2 MMX) or display settings, but the panel in that aircraft is completely unreadable and I simply have never been able to use it. I deleted that aircraft from my system many months ago and until your posting had completely forgotten about it. Sorry!Bear!

Glenn,Sounds bad doesn't it...??? :-lolActually I had them all interlinked so that I could get some comparative screenshots for that Tribute to FS2002 we posted a couple or three weeks ago. Interestingly, I had FS2002 & FS2004Beta acessing scenery folders in FS2000 and I could run FS98-FS2000-FS2002 at the same time (only FS2000 required the CD install to run).Bear!

Barry,As Lou pointed out, there are no issues with running FS2002 and FS2004 on the same machine. When I was finishing up my Tribute to FS2002 a couple of weeks ago, there was one point I had FS98, FS2000, FS2002, and FS2004Beta on the same machine and there were absolutely NO issues whatsoever, period! :-)Bear!

Fredrik,Don't sweat it my friend, you and everyone else should be pleased as punch when you get your hands on the "new" General Aviation aircraft in FS2004. Are they absolutely perfect? Not hardly! Are they better? YES they're much much better!For the last 10 days I've been doing nothing but flight testing each and every GA and COF aircraft in FS2004 and when we post our (AVSIM's) review of FS2004/COF in the next couple of weeks, I think everyone will be quite surprised by what we've found, I know I was. Just to give a hint in the direction I'm going, when FS2002 was released, I kept FS2000 on my system for nearly 2 months afterwards (mostly because of all the payware aircraft and scenery I had added). I've only had the Beta/Gold versions of FS2004 for maybe 4 weeks, but I have already deleted FS2002 from my system. (did a quick re-install of FS2002 on another computer I have for some comparative testing only) This should tell you something, because I have spent 4 or 5 times as much money on addons for FS2002 (easily totalling over a $1,000USD) than I ever did for FS2000, but FS2004 will really spoil a person, believe me.Bear!

>Great signature image Bear !<By the way, that signature image is a unedited (except for cropping) screenshot from FS2004 (launch pad 34A I believe) and the VAB has been updated as well.Bear!

I was going to post my short list of favorite items that I've found so far in FS2004, but I think I'll wait until our (AVSIM) review is posted. I had made my list of interesting things (new) here, but once I had reached 100 individual items I decided to delete the list and save it for my review. I will say that when all the subtleties of all the improvements are experienced, FS2004 is truly a wonder.There are so many improvements with FS2004 (as compared to FS2002) that it would be impossible to list them all. Even something as simple as opening a door (for example) you'll notice that the door handle moves first, then the door opens. If you're inside the aircraft, you not only see the door move, you'll hear the door handle or latch release and you can actually hear the door opening, same goes for closing it. Or maybe you just happen to notice a tour boat moving along, like you do at Niagara Falls or an elevator going up a building. I've also noticed a lot of new easter eggs, but the one that I guarantee will drop your jaw is what they (MSFS design team) have done with Cape Canaveral, trust me, you won't believe it.Bear!http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/22379.jpg

Frame rates are certainly a big part of everyone's concern, but my experience has been that even with the improvements (environment, scenery, autogen, and weather) FS2004 still performs slightly better than FS2002 in almost all conditions. My feeling is that if you're getting acceptable performance now with FS2002, then FS2004 will almost certainly run better on the same equipment.Bear!

Not true Ulisses, I'm using a 128MB ATI 9700 Pro and FS2004 runs great, no issues at all.Sounds like somebody that's trying to sell Nivida cards came up with that one!Bear!

Gabrial,My system is a Athlon 1.2Ghz, 512MB ram, Win98SE, with a 128MB ATI 9700 Pro video card and I keep most sliders max'd out and the performance I'm receiving with FS2004 is very good, much better than FS2002 was with similar settings.Bear!

I've already had the opportunity to test 3 or 4 dozen aircraft (addon) in FS2004 and for the most part they all work well, as long as either Gmax or FSDSv2 were used to design them. Otherwise if the FS aircraft in question was designed using any other design program the question rather one addon aircraft works properly or not is a hit or miss situation.Bear!

Rob,Don't despair, they probably had their "Aircraft Realism" set to minimums...?????? :-)Bear!

Eric,That's an interesting situation Eric, as my experience has been quite different that what you've apparently ran into. I have two systems sitting side-by-side, one with FS2002 and the other with FS2004 (Gold)and my experience has been that FS2004 is slightly better than FS2002 on similar systems. The exception being that if I add any clouds to FS2002, then the difference between the sims is very dramatic in favor of FS2004! So far, FS2004 has proven to me to be superior in fps and in its glassy & fluid feel as compared to FS2002. The biggest difference being that adding or taking away clouds or weather in FS2004 has no affect whatsoever on performance with my system.System specs:FS2002Compaq 7110AMD 1.3Ghz64mb GeForce2 MMX video Card256Mb ramFS2004AMD 1.2Ghz128mb ATI 9700 Pro512Mb ramBear!

I agree 100% as well, that's why I chose it (David's Stearmans) as one of my 30 best aircraft downloads for FS2002!Bear!

Jordan,Here all along I thought that a troll was a short person that lived under a bridge...! :-lolBear!

The reason they call a version of a program "Beta" and the reason they don't want people who have it discussing it is that it is not a complete verison. In the case of FS2004, the red line you use to adjust your position from the spot view is there, its just not in the Beta version (I have the Gold version).As far as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, I don't have any idea where that is (I live on the west coast). I did check my Rand-McNally maps, but there is no Chesapeake Bay Bridge shown. There is a William P. Lane Jr Memorial Bridge and a Chesapeake Bay Tunnel listed, but no bridge.Bear!

The requirement of having the 4th CD in to run the game is true, both with my "Beta" version FS2004 and with the "Gold" version. The disc only runs during startup and I've never noticed FS2004 to access this disc while running the game. Don't know about the autogen buildings being non-region specific, but the trees in autogen are much much better and ARE region specific. The Northwest USA trees, in the default autogen, appear to be Ponderosa Pine and the new palm tree shows up in Southern California, Arizona (at the New Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport), Florida, and of course Hawaii and looks really good.The default start-up point IS now Seattle-Tacoma International. Meigs is still there and open, but it is no longer the default.Bear!

Ken,Yes you can, and in fact if you look closely you'll note that the animated construction worker waving the flag an directing the trucks is actually the major of Chicago.Bear!

I have found that more aircraft work in FS2K4 (from earlier versions of FS) than don't. It appears to me that those aircraft developed in Gmax and following the original FS2002 aircraft SDK work perfectly.I'm going to be covering the General Aviation aircraft in the AVSIM review and I can say up front that it appears that the flight modeling (airfile) for all default aircraft (that I've flown in FS2004) has been improved, including the Lear45.Bear!

I received my "Gold" copy yesterday and its much different (better) than the Beta I received last month. Question: "How well will FS2004 run on your system"?Answer: If FS2002 is running satisfactorily on your system now, then I would speculate that FS2004 will perform equally as well or better.Question: Which aircraft have VCs and which have "clickable" VC panels?Answer: They all do!Question: Is the Weather and ATC better?Answer: Yes, much much better!Overall, I don't think anyone will be disappointed, except for those wanting too much in their $50 sim.(secretly my favorite "new" FS default aircraft are the Cessna 182S, the Piper J3, and the "new" Lear45. The default 3D virtual cockpit in the Lear is beautiful)Bear!

Thanks for the comments Steve, they're much appreciated. Working on some new screenshots for FS2004 and I've got some dosies already!Steve (Bear) CartwrightAVSIM Online