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From a UI designers perspective, I would suggest a few improvements. The 2-column approach of the news is confusing for the user because they eyes have to wander not only up and down, but left and right, which makes it very hard to follow for the average user that reads top to bottom. If a newspaper approach is desired, then the full width should be used. The content on the site now has only approx. only 50% of the available width, which is way too little. The headlines should also stick out more, but can't, because they are a lighter color on a white background. There are too many pictures and adverts (visual distraction) in either side column. Some blocks are duplicated in functionality, like the search function and the main header doesn't provide the user any info instead of an empty blue bar and a lower darker blue section where the AVSIM logo doesn't blend in at all. The categories block should be moved closer to the top - the ads can be blocks between news articles and maybe be on on sidebar, but not both. Imagine a newspaper where all the content is surrounded by ads - the user will automatically blend out the areas on the side, which is not good to steer the users inadvertently attention to the ads. Lastly, on an iPad the layout is displayed poorly and doesn't resemble the look and feel of the "full browser" version and is very confusing to navigate. Hope this helps, Kind regards, Pat

I have trained at KOQN (formerly N99) and regularly flew into KPHL as part of the training in Class B airspace and at any given time, I have seen ground movements of at least a half dozen planes on the ground, not to mention the ones in the pattern - I am not even mentioning KPHL. I recently moved to the UK where the airspace is a lot tighter and congested, where you have to be exponentially more careful and have to look everywhere when flying VFR. And what about the heavy-iron flyers? Heathrow certainly has more than 4-10 planes "in play" at any given time.Happy Weekend.

(edited for spelling) ;)Yep, I have the demo and I am also a real-life pilot (single-engine, IFR, sea). The things are you mentioned are eye-candy, none of what you listed what I would describe as revolutionary. To some extent, I could fly VFR already with XP9 and yes, XP10 looks very, very nice, but I am still chugging around in the same Cessna from 3 years ago. I am not expecting all of those additional points to be developed by Laminar Research. For me it is the C152 from Carenado for XP, that round up the picture a little more. But in terms of AI, I unfortunately foresee that nothing is going to change much in XP10. AI is a fundamental cornerstone of piloting and flying a plane from startup to shutdown.I have no clue what MS Flight will look like, but what we're all sure about that it is all about the eye-candy again, which is great, wonderful and exciting (just like XP10). I am just missing functionality, frameworks and ideas APART from eye candy, like AI planes, marshallers and airport buildings, realistic ATC - anything that enables me, the arm-chair pilot, to get immersed in the simulation. Eye-candy is part of it, not all of it. I don't care, if Boccelli is blaring on the strip, but what I do care is that ATC doesn't vector me in a mountain.What I am concerned about is that XP10 doesn't even have a framework to enable developers, for example, to start a realistic AI project (see Burkhard from MyTraffic's response over at SF forums, quote: "It is completely impossible to create only a small part of what MyTraffic has today using the possibilities of X-Plane.", reference on bottom). Realistically, I can use now maybe 10 instead of 4 AI planes in XP10? I don't see much progress here.Pathttp://forum.simflig...and-x-plane-10/

I agree with the original poster to some extend. XP10 is a great leap forwards and I enjoyed the new eye candy in the demo. However, the default planes are still a years behind of what we already saw in FS2004/FSX. The default Cessna, the most popular trainer, seems to be unchanged and doesn't look (or fly) anything like the real deal. The scenery is greatly improved, but apart from that what else is new? Burkhard from MyTraffic wrote a lengthy post about the differences of AI traffic compared to MSFS and XP10 has virtually no advanced in this department. A limit of 10-20 AI planes is not realistic by any means, apart from the fact that there are no AI models available that might make this possible sometime in the future. I cannot comment really about ATC, it seems to be an improvement, but nowhere up to the standards of popular addons, like RC, PFE or VoxATC.Yes, great scenery, great eye-candy - MS Flight will probably shine in those aspects as well. But what about the rest, the "immersion factor" that enables us to fly in a dynamic, living and breathing environment? I am missing this completely in the new release.Thank you,Pat

Let's not forget that MS (ex-Aces) stopped development of the next release approx. one year before a possible release and I doubt that they just threw the old code in the trash bin. The release might be closer than anticipated. Almost 4 years after the release of FSX and only the top i7 game rigs are powerful enough to fly heavies with the best eye candy and full traffic vs. FS9 now showing its full potential on mainstream hardware - that doesn't spark a lot of confidence for the longevity of FSX for the hardcore folks who love the hobby, but spent thousands of dollar on upgrades only to find a few percent of performance increase, so, yes, FSX might (is?) well Microsoft's Vista and "Flight" could well be Windows 7, as long as a lot of the code has not been recycled and the entire graphics engine has been given a complete overhaul. Vista was a disaster, MS has listened and Windows 7 turned out to be a great OS. Let's hope the same will come true with FSX. Not saying that FSX is a disaster, I enjoy FSX tremendously with Orbx and GA flight, but it was pretty messy upon release before SP1 and still doesn't live up to its potential 4 years later vs. FS9 was pretty much capable of running maxed out with all the good add-ons about 3 years after release.-Pat

Very interesting topic that again outlines that it is very hit or miss when it comes to FSX performance. I am now at a level, almost 4 years(!) after the release of FSX, where I can use FSX for some great VFR flying with Orbx Pacfic NW and a ton of other addons with an average of 30 fps, but as soon as I load a heavy my FPS turns into a slideshow, especially with any traffic add-on. I have spent thousands of Dollars over the years tweaking my setup and came to the conclusion that no matter what you throw at FSX, that it will possibly never catch up to even the most modern hardware. I have read reports of people spending $600 on a new GPU with only marginal or reverse improvement and other throwing a $900 state-of-the-art CPU.I followed all of the advice in the forums, including NickN guide, but came to the conclusion that a setup with little to no tweaking (no nHancer) provides me the most fluid fps - at least for my setup. Defragging, in my opinion, is highly overrated and will only help very little with performance issues. Yes, eventually you do need to defrag, but not every day. The best "tweak" that I have done so far, is no tweak and I believe someone from Orbx once said that his setup is completely non-tweaked with only o/c his CPU and using "Defraggler" once in a while.I read that ATI cards have problems in general with AA, which supposed to kill FPS in clouds, but I also read that newer ATI cards are not supposed to have this issue anymore. Since your CPU cannot possibly be a bottleneck, I would take a look at your GPU.Good luck!-Pat

No need to surrender. I had massive problems with my Geforce 8800 GTS with nHancer with the various recommended 3D settingss and AA/AF. I finally resolved all the problems by going back to a 'non-tweaked' setup with AA/AF through the FSX and I was positively surprised with the framerates (20+ with Wilco Airbus, 40% MyTraffic) AND with a much improved image quality and stability. nHancer would sometimes work with certain drivers, sometimes it would not and produced quite some graphic corruptions and abnormalities (menu issues, black screens, problems switching from full-screen to windowed and vice versa). For me, nHancer has been more of a hassle than a benefit and I have tried every possible setting.-Pat

FSBuild with ASX/ASA weather data integrated can calculate avg. winds and fuel burn.Cheers,Pat

For weather I prefer ASA (or ASX), simply for the fact that it interfaces with some of my essential 3rd party add-ons, like FSBuild, for accurate route planning and has the ability to download historical weather data for more realistic airliner flights.As far as visuals, REX, GEX and UTX is probably the best combo that you can currently get.-Pat

You could try enabling the in-game AA for some more fluid frame rates. That might contradict many other posts, but in my case it helped me quite a bit. I would also add a little bit more memory - 2x2GB dual channel is now as low as $50 and a very good investment. I doubt that your 3GB is all matched. You can also check, if FSX is using all cores (in taskmgr) and eventually adjust you AffinityMask in fsx.cfg. Last but not least it could be the ATI card - I don't have one, but I have read quite a few posts that they're having problems with anti-aliasing. Not sure.Good luck!!

I just bought an AMD 940 and found the same to be true. My frame rates dropped significantly when using the recommended affinity mask (14), but all cores are used when using 15 or 0, along with a nice increase in performance and frame rates.

"One of the main reasons that FSX had so many issues is that the graphics engine was originally made for software rendering."That is very good news! I actually had to chuckle at that comment, because software-based rendering is technology from, what, 1999? I assume that most modern games take full advantage of GPU/HW-based rendering, which is finally a good indicator why the GPU in the past FS releases didn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of performance and why FS9/X performs relatively poorly on modern hardware.I think everyone kinda knew that already, but it's good to hear a confirmation from the source - for the first time.Very good news for FS11 (and TS2) indeed. Thanks for sharing.Pat

I am doing a similar "fly around the world" challenge right now, but it's much slower for me, because I am flying GA. I started on the East US coast and am just half-way across Canada now, so I have a few more weeks (months?) to go. It's a great challenge though, because you get to see places that you would usually never fly to.Great fun. Thanks for sharing.Pat

The MSFS franchise is a civilian aviation simulator and it should stay that way. The Combat Flight Simulator is, well, a combat flight simulator. Two different things.I don't mind flying an F-18 or other military planes or helicopters, but when it comes to dropping bombs or weapons then that's a tad silly and way to arcade-style gaming for me.There is plenty other software out there that fills the void.Pat

You can use MyTraffic for the airliners and GA-Traffic (freeware, here in the library) for GA. MyTraffic is getting better and better and now offers settings for the level of detail and AI interaction (I assume with AI jetways), which can increase performance probably a tad more than UT.Pat

Totally agree. The only thing that I am really, really missing from FSX are the dynamic movements in the cockpit that really visualize the forces while taking off or in turbulence very well. And the cloud shadows.I think Active Camera had those "head" effects as well. Is anyone aware of a similar add-on effect in FS9? (The Active Camera dev seem to be defunct and I am not sure, if they still answer to give me my replacement key as my hardware has long changed since I installed AC last.)Pat

I would purchase Active Sky X (without ASG), Ground Environment, Ultimate Terrain and Flight Environment. Eventually some high quality mesh from FSGenesis and you should be all set for a breathtaking experience. I don't regret purchasing any of those addons and I would even think that they're universally considered to be the best universal scenery add-ons for FSX.Pat

15 fps with 21% MTX is not bad at all around busier airports. I am pushing around 20 with the Cessna and similar settings most slider high or max, but before I do the 747 I need to get a least a very good Quad or Duo.You should fly the GA more. Can be surprisingly fun to do VFR especially with FSX and UTX and really see all the landmarks down below, but, well, it's a different style of flying ;)Thanks!Pat

Wow, 11-15 frames on a Q6600?How much do you get with the default Cessna? Just out of curiosity, because I am still torn between the Q6600 and E8400.What kind of traffic? (Default, MTX, UTX, PAI/WOAI?)I would really love to get any heavy iron for FSX, but 15 frames would be probably the borderline for me to fly approaches (and enjoy it).Thanks!Pat

Thanks for the explanation. Wow, I once learned all that in college for my BS in Computer Science when we built 286 systems and learned all about bus speeds, timings, etc, but I forgot all about it, mainly because speed back in the days was not as important as it is now - everything was slow compared to today's standards.But in plain English: With totally optimized and synchronized RAM timings, the performance boost would be what? Objectively 1%?Can you give us some benchmarks?I know that overclocking is a serious hobby and can be a lot of fun, but I am possibly just not understanding the bigger picture in relation to FSX.Anyway, thanks again for the extensive explanation. Very much (and honestly) appreciated.Pat

Well said. I am just curious why those attacks keep on coming - a year and a half after release.I remember a similar outcry when FS9 hit the shelves, but it certainly didn't last for years and was followed by more polite threads asking for assistance.There is no doubt that FSX has been a milestone and a disappointment at the same time. We got a lot of eye candy and maybe got too spoiled by the various (and frequently) expensive add-ons that FS9 provided. Developers had to re-engineer a lot of their products to not only work with FSX, but with Vista and DX10. User were frustrated with the initial release and the abysmal performance, plus with the confusion about add-ons. It sort of all added up to make the pot boil over and I think that FSX was just one part of the bigger picture of faux-pas from Microsoft in 2006 and 2007. Many had high hopes when Vista and then DX10 was released. Both were touted almost as the "ultimate enhancement" when it comes to render quality and performance and unfortunately neither could really make FSX truly shine.Many people, including myself, spent hundreds of dollars to upgrade their machines only to find a marginal increase in performance. Naturally that lead to a lot of frustration and anger. Eventually, I got over it, because FSX has grown on me. I know that I can't fly the heavies with FSX, because my machine is just not powerful enough. Disappointing? You bet. But there's nothing I can do, so I just use my tweaked old FS9 for that purpose.An interesting point might also be the evolution of the Internet that has let to a partial decline of the quality of forums and online discussion in general. Back in 2004, things might have been more civil; the "troll phenomenon" wasn't nearly as apparent as it is right now.As for Phil's departure: I somewhat expected it. I was highly surprised to even see blogs by FSX team members nevertheless personal forums posts. You have to have a very thick skin to not let personal attacks get to you. I haven't seen a single forum by a game developer where the devs (or community managers) didn't try desperately to keep the "crows" under control. The post with the benchmarks sort of touched a wrong nerve in some; especially while some of us are probably dealing with frame rates in the lower digits, it seemed to be a little out-of-touch to advertise 80+ fps (without AA for that matter) It's like showing us a delicious box of candy that we never get to eat (yet). Personally, I didn't find Phil's involvement overly helpful (sorry). It just let up to more frustrations with DX10, SP release dates, magic screenies, etc.Yes, most of his post were informative, technical and somehwat insightful, but in the end they didn't really help me to solve the core of the problem - performance and usability of the product.Pat (the other one).

I have a few planes that I love and fly 90% of the time:- The default Cessna 182. This is my default "trainer", because I used to fly this model during my PPL. (~20 fps)- Carenado Mooney. Love that plane, very detailed, looks great, very accurate, almost no impact on frames. (~18 fps)- Eaglesoft Piper Twin Comanche. Love that plane, but it's a little tough on the frame rates. (~12 fps).I usually don't fly heavies on FSX, because any type of glass cockpit has a significant impact on my FSX performance.Pat

The Carenado Mooney has a great VC and no impact on framerates whatsoever.Pat

I am (positively) surprised and amazed that after almost two(!) years, we still have a lot of NEW FS9 addons and continued support by add-on developers.I stand corrected when I posted in a few threads that FS9 developers would shift towards FSX and that FS9 would become legacy as soon as FSX shipped. In fact, I still prefer flying the heavies FS9 anytime over FSX, mainly because of frame rate issues, but also that my favorite add-on for FS9 have not been ported or re-developed for FSX (PMDG 737 for example).I cannot recall any legacy version of MSFS being supported longer and more passionately by the community and developers alike.Pat

Your argument is true on so many levels. Imagination is always a lot more powerful and vivid.Adventure games have evolved in a similar fashion. I remember playing MUDs and MOOs and other text-based adventure games and felt totally immersed. The highly detailed graphic adventure games started to spoil the fun for me.On the other hand, we have become spoiled by the "as real as it gets" promise expecting to simulate real life, but we can only go so far with the current state of technology. All the home cockpits, hydraulic chairs and TrackIRs cannot replicate the feeling of a first solo takeoff. We expect AI, ATC and other players to be as professional and "real" as we are, but fact is that it is probably never going to happen. However, we're getting close! ;)Pat