honanhal

This! You very much did not need to be some kind of genius (or lucky) visionary to see the writing on the wall early. A lot of folks on these forums managed to talk themselves out of the obvious — and correct — conclusion that MSFS was going to absolutely devour the market, but in their defense, at least their business wasn’t on the line… Some developers immediately bet everything on MSFS, some were more conservative. But (with respect to FSLabs) it takes a special kind of talent to pivot so slowly you end up not-quite-ready to preview a product *as the four-year lifecycle of MSFS comes to an end*.

All, After reaching what appears to be the end of the road with my own little pre-built system nightmare, wanted to share with you all so that you can hopefully avoid the same. I bought a computer from CyberPowerPC in April 2023. (I’d always built my own before this, but, being in a busy stage of life, was hoping to make it easy. Ha!) It showed problems from the beginning — Sethos helped me with some of these — and failed completely in November 2023. Windows wouldn’t load. CPP told me repeatedly in writing they'd cover shipping for repairs after the first repair attempt. Relying on that, I sent it for repair in Nov 2023. It came back broken (not a LITTLE broken, “turned on for 10 minutes, bluescreened and then will not boot” broken) in December. CPP went back on its promise to pay shipping. Without other options, I sent it back. Again, it came back broken. I sent it again. It came back broken. And again...bottom line, it came back broken FOUR TIMES, most recently in July 2024; I spent nearly $1000 in shipping for this. It’s never been in my possession and functional (to the point of being usable) since November 2023. After being unable to get the computer to boot when it came back most recently in July, I took it to a local computer shop. They quickly diagnosed that three of the four RAM slots on the motherboard were broken; it would boot with either stick of RAM in the single working slot. CPP’s response? Send it back to us again, at your expense. From the beginning, all I asked CPP for was a simple refund. Instead, I was left with broken promises, failed repairs, and no engagement from CPP in a no-win-situation where CPP simply hasn’t upheld its warranty. Not only has CPP not been apologetic, they’ve been downright rude throughout this insane process. After months of fruitless attempts to get CPP to respond with something other than “send it to us again, at your expense” (oh, except for earlier this year when they had the chutzpah to claim the system was no longer under warranty!) I finally submitted a Better Business Bureau complaint. Their final response was “We already provided the customer with a rebuilt computer. If the customer claim that one has issues too, he needs to send it in for service.” Did I mention CPP also left a large metal tool inside the computer the FIRST time they sent it to me? Buyer beware. (Welcome advice on what to do now, btw. It seems I could replace the motherboard and have my local shop put it together? I’m also pretty sure CPP picked the wrong RAM for the system, so…) James

That's the thing, though -- business success often hinges on being able to predict (or simply guess!) correctly where the market is going, even when it's not crystal clear. FSL seemingly missed obvious signs that MSFS was the overwhelming future of the hardcore flight-sim market a long time (seriously, years) after that already seemed to be all but crystal clear... They're right they need to set themselves apart from their competition, but they're now so far behind the curve it sounds like they may be deep in development for a four-year-old platform that's about to be superseded. Good luck to them. I wish their proven ability to develop a quality product was more closely matched by their business acumen. Without the latter, the former doesn't do too much good, unfortunately.

I’m glad that you’re happy with the live weather depiction, but no — the changes in cloud depiction/lighting, beginning with SU5 and then SU7 were real and quite dramatic. It’s not just that we got used to the wow factor. It was immediately obvious to many of us as a “step backward” at the time as well. That said, something I’ve seen every time this discussion comes up here is that what’s “immediately obvious” to some is very clearly not so obvious to others. 🙂 Much like the whole “can the human eye see frame rates above 24 fps” discussion. However, in both these cases there’s a correct answer — whether or not you still like the MSFS clouds, they were prettier, more varied, and more performance-sapping prior to SU5. James

Based on the clues they gave, this is 100% Dubai (especially "blend of modern-day and tradition"). Great news!

Yikes, when your product is Concorde and you've lost Ray...😲 In all seriousness, I hope FSL are able to iron out these issues and prep a clean MSFS release in a reasonably short period of time (read: not 5 years from now, which is if I recall correctly around when I submitted my response to them that I'd buy a Concorde for 64-bit P3D). They seem to have done some innovative things here (with varying degrees of success, apparently!) and I'd love to see this thing in MSFS. James

All lovely, but the shot of the AirAsia approach to Hong Kong is stunning!

I had this happen a couple times recently -- once landing at Cloudsurf WSSS and once with Asobo LFPG. It's doesn't happen consistently, but when it does, exactly as you said: normal performance on approach until about 1000 feet and then the FPS dropped dramatically (I wasn't running a counter but my eyeballed estimate is that it went from about 50 FPS to 20 in both cases). With WSSS it stayed that way until I ended the flight, with LFPG the FPS recovered after I was on the ground. Both times this was a demanding area/airport with a lot of AI traffic, but I've flown into enough similar situations in the sim to know that something else seemed to be at work...something seemed to have gone wonky, somehow. James

Oh no, I know! AIG also takes forever to set up. I just meant that even the act of opening the program takes bizarrely forever. 😀

You can literally download and fully install FSLTL in the time it takes either the (already fully installed) AIG Manager or Traffic Injector to open on my brand-new system. Whatever else can be said for AIG’s merits, that’s bonkers.

Gorgeous shots!

Not great, Bob!

Same here. Seems like the site has seen a lot of technical issues in the last few weeks.

Almost certainly a coincidence. The vanished/blurry airport problem you’re describing is what happens when the sim hits the Simconnect objects limit (as a consequence of AIG).

I understand the issues with the very limited documentary evidence of the 314 interior, but looking at the screenshots side by side with pictures of an operational 314 (NOT the museum), it's beyond obvious that something about the scale of the sim model cabin is completely wrong. The cabin looks absolutely cavernous, when the in pictures, if anything, it looks quite cramped. I assume the overall dimensions of the space are correct based on the model, so my guess is that the seats and tables are simply too small, possibly by as much as a factor of 2? Anyway, I really have to disagree with the people saying the cabin doesn't matter for this aircraft. I frankly have relatively little interest in the flying part of these old birds. With all due respect to the folks that built and flew them, they're kind of a pain to operate...we've come a long way! But that mystique of flying in the interwar period, now that's really something. And being able to imagine what it was like to fly on these things is central to capturing that. These are more like the Titanic than like a 777, you know? James