Parping Couplet

I'm amazed at the negative attitude to the migration tool that I often read here and elsewhere. Given that we've spent the whole of the past decade using oddball tweaks in an often fruitless effort to get our sim running smoothly when fully loaded with addons, why not use this excellent utility to wedge old add ons into P3D and actually get some decent use and performance out of them, rather than mothballing them and simply reflecting on the usually unsuccessful 10 year fight we all endured with FSX. One major addon supplier I could mention is SO far behind with P3D updates that I wonder if they'll ever catch up, that's if they are even trying to. In those circumstances the migration tool is indispensable.

I use CH Pro pedals and, though some seem to not like their basic nature/look, I find they are absolutely great and will basically last forever, if you want them to. Not the fashionable choice, but definitely a wise one and within your budget.

Not a project in which Steven Hood was involved...

Well that's where I think you've totally missed my point. Yes, the F1 titles were very popular with console gamers and the like, but profoundly, and I do mean profoundly, unpopular with hardcore simmers. The difference, if you will, between a game and sim. That's where the concern stems from. But, as I've already stated, the guy deserves a second chance. However, I for one will be sitting on the fence until the verdict is out.

When Steven Hood (the Creative Director in the Flightsimcon video) was appointed by Dovetail, my hopes for the promised new flight sim on the block nosedived. As some of you may be aware, he was previously with Codemasters' F1 franchise and promised us race sim fans the earth in much the same way as he's doing now. However, if you analyse what he says in this talk, in actual fact he says very little of much substance at all - essentially it's a wishlist of vaguely outlined attributes. Again a total similarity with how he tried to "engage", as he would put it, with the race sim community, who I can assure you have nothing good to say about him, or the arcade games that the Codies F1 titles have always been. There were all kinds of "sim" promises made when that title was first in development, with Hood very much in the limelight, something he seems to relish. Sadly, the substance of the titles he has worked on has been very lacking in the realism stakes. So why should this change now? The conclusion many of us reached in the race sim world was that Hood doesn't really understand what an out and out sim is, as he is clearly a somewhat commercial animal, always with an eye on the biggest possible audience and "accessibility" which in financial terms equals dumbing something down to the lowest common denominator for maximum sales. When you think about it, that never applied to Flight Simulator, as it was essentially a flagship vanity project, encouraged by Bill Gates (and quickly and unceremoniously abandoned very soon after he relinquished day to day control of Microsoft). Everyone deserves a second chance, of course, but has Hood really changed his spots.... Anyone who remembers the disastrous launch of F1 2010, the first in the Codemasters Formula One series, will already be fearing the worst. What was most concerning about this presentation was how little there was to show us all, considering the launch is just a few months away - basically nothing at all.

It's a difficult moment in the hobby where you have so many format options for the developer to satisfy. In some senses, the wider arrival of 64 bit software will finally lay the compatibility issues of legacy add ons to rest. I sense the point has arrived where developers are tiring of being forced to make expensive changes to their products every time LM brings out a new P3D version. As such, I wonder if many of us will stick with 3.2 as it has attracted a decent portfolio of legacy support. Developers are running a business, after all, and the costs of quad installers and changes to code should not be underestimated. Can we reasonably expect them to keep eating away at their margins by responding to LM's somewhat unpredictable development path? The result of these costs is to make their business models less viable and we could soon see a knock on effect of reduced release schedules etc. When the 64 bit sims arrive, however, a new dilemma arrives in that we've had so many years of platform stability that the investment in add ons for many of us has been pretty huge. The thought of starting again is frankly horrendous, from a financial point of view. This really is a pivotal moment.

Worryingly, I see that Stephen Hood is now Creative Director at Dovetail. This is the same guy that was Creative Director of Formula One games at Codemasters and oversaw the design of a series of glorified arcade titles masquerading as semi-simulation. Those credentials don't bode well for anyone expecting anything even approaching a hardcore simulation. If the Codemasters F1 experience is anything to go by, expect lots of enthusiastic and over-promising developer videos with an incredibly underwhelming result at the end of the day. The race sim community gave up on Hood and his cohorts long ago, though admittedly, and perhaps even more disturbing for these new flight sim titles, Codemasters has got more "sim" since his departure, with the excellent Dirt Rally.

I would be more enthusiastic about this news, if I weren't already one of their Train Simulator customers. Others have mentioned why that may not be a good thing and for a good variety of reasons. My other main concern here is that their business model for TS seems to be mainly based on their own original dlc content. That's a model closer to Flight than FSX, and probably tells us a lot about the direction this is likely to go. To save you from Googl'ing the Wiki on this: "Steam is an internet-based digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer, and social networking platform developed by Valve Corporation. Steam provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games on multiple computers, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and in-game voice and chat functionality. The software provides a freely available application programming interface (API) called Steamworks, which developers can use to integrate many of Steam's functions, including networking and matchmaking, in-game achievements, micro-transactions, and support for user-created content through Steam Workshop, into their products." To that I would add that Steam has proven to be a slick, fast and reliable way of keeping one's PC titles up to date and permanently stored in the cloud. It is now the de facto PC games delivery platform, with imitators such as EA's Origin. It's definitely a good move.

I'm encouraged that the completely justified bad feelings over ProATC have spilled over to as influential a forum as this one. One, indeed, that their over zealous, rose colored spectacle wearing admins, one of whom I see has been rather desperately fire fighting on this thread, cannot unfairly censor. In over 20 years of serious flight simming I have never ever come across a developer with a poorer product service ethic, as distinct from forum support, which they do certainly provide but only via work arounds that limit product functionality. They charged and are still charging, big bucks, just shy of 70 bucks in fact, for this unspecified as alpha/beta product and yet it has been well over a year that a much needed update, to make the product at least properly functional, has been consistently promised and still nothing, nor any word on what the update actually contains or when it might finally surface, despite a claim made by an admin almost six months ago that it was imminent. Things have gone south on their forum as a direct result, and no wonder . This kind of developer contrasts with the otherwise mostly very professional flight sim add on industry and I can only echo the views of others that this is a product to be avoided at all costs, or at least until it is fit for its intended purpose. Might I even go as far as to suggest that this developer is fast becoming a candidate for Avsim forum Hall of Shame treatment ! They have taken a large amount of cash from enthusiasts and have so far failed to deliver a fully functional, bug minimized add on, and yet their website contains no fair warning, plus the forum is now being cleansed of negative comment. In the meantime, if negative feedback on here limits further customer disappointment, that will be a very good thing. Caveat Emptor.

Not relevant to 780's, but FWIW I recently moved from a GTX460 1GB to a GTX770 4GB and I am amazed by the difference. I upgraded for other reasons than FSX enhancement, as I frankly never expected a card to make much of an impact, but boy does it! Basically running maxed out and completely smooth with extremely complex add on soup. Trying to figure if it's the GPU or more VRAM that's making the bigger difference. Somehow my money is on the VRAM.

In the final analysis, it now seems widely acceptable for developers to release less than complete products and the onus is therefore completely on the customer to decide when a particular add on has reached a sufficient stage of maturity to warrant the opening of the wallet. Unfortunately there is also a culture of buying such software less than a nanosecond after release, then the recriminations, aka early adopter's remorse syndrome, begins, as we have seen. The only way the situation is going to change is if customers exercise more restraint before buying. Until that happens, we can look forward to low motivation of developers to release completely ready products and the cycle will continue ad nauseum.

Not so. When you step away from all this drama, you realize there are better ways to spend your spare time and money. I will stick with the add ons I have, but I'm not spending any more until things settle down and we all finally know what works with what again.Seriously, one of the big problems is that folks race to get the latest add on without a second thought. I think more caution would make these premature releases a lot less common. It's apparently making some developers rather careless about what they unleash on the community, in terms of its actual readiness for market/fitness for purpose.

I tend to agree with you. Endless releases and endless added confusion as to what works with what and what doesn't. A few weeks ago I decided to take a year out from buying any more add ons to let things settle down after the even thicker soup that P3DV2 has created. Popped on here today, after a long absence, only to discover the latest fiasco of a clearly premature "please the bank manager" major product release operating at a fundamental operational level and a developer who seems to be blaming his customers for his organization's own failings. Even worse, some folks are even defending him. I think I may never come back.

Well I am inclined to agree with the OP here. It's way too early to completely transition to V2 in my opinion and who knows what side effects non optimized add ons are causing. Patience will have its own rewards.

Fascinating thread. I can't help but wonder if OOMs are an insurmountable issue with a rich soup of FSX-developed add ons. We ask an awful lot of this code and I don't expect that LM's prime goal has been total compatibility with third party software developed for entertainment purposes. I still think FSX and Steve's DX10 is a killer combo overall. Nice screenies of V2, but stories like on this thread will keep me on the fence for quite a while I expect.

Would like to know how much on board VRAM guys with OOMs have?

This thread demonstrates why I'll be glad when this thing gets released tomorrow, ending a lot of pretty meaningless performance speculation. I am currently still in need of persuasion that this is the right move. Recently invested in an overclocked version of the GTX 770 with 4GB on board, so I am technically more than ready. My previous dabble in P3D 1.4 ended in frustration at all the messing around you have to do, plus certain expensive software, 777 included of course, just won't install. The eye candy is impressive, but just how compatible is old stuff going to be? We'll know soon enough now, but I am a supremely happy FSX DX10 camper and very wary of the merits of anything with potentially much less universal compatibility. A wait, watch and listen strategy being deployed here.

I just noticed it was brought up before in the FSDT forum http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=3158.0 This was before your fixer of course.

Hi Steve, Any time of day and in all slider positions. I'm not optimistic :-) EDIT: I tried it late at night and terminal textures didn't seem so bad, but still brighter than I remember. The buildings are a sort of off white anyways, but in DX10 they appear brilliant white.

After the initial euphoria comes the reality that there's still much to fix and it is getting complex fast. Cloud 9 Bergen is still my most used airport but has ultra shiny white buildings in DX10, with the fixer installed. Any suggestions please ?

The only issue I've seen, and probably because it's a very old airport, is Cloud 9 Bergen, which has white buildings. Anyone know a cure?

I've already bought it, but I do agree this would be a powerful sales tool for Steve.

Rather than start a new thread, can I add my praise for this absolutely amazing add on. It truly has been a seismic few weeks for our hobby, crowned by this absolute miracle software that finally allows us to see the ACES team's true vision for FSX. While it may not be a totally perfect solution, it's near enough to being so to largely consign DX9 FSX to the history books. A remarkable technical achievement Steve. Thanks so much - I'd always hoped the day would dawn when the promise of the DX10 demo could be realized. Just the immersion derived from proper shading in the virtual cockpit is worth much, much more than the asking price, to say nothing of the clearly better performance. There's never been a better time to be in this hobby. Just when you think you've seen it all, in terms of software innovation, something else arrives to change that perception. An unforgettable year for flight simulation.

Let's add DX10 Scenery Fixer to the list. Bought it earlier today and it has been growing on me by the hour. A simply fabulous add on that finally allows us to see the Microsoft ACES Team's true vision of FSX. With all the great add ons of recent weeks, this is absolutely the cherry on the cake. Worth every cent and some!

Maybe that's a little extreme and it's difficult for Avsim to be judge and jury in these situations. My commercial experience in other spheres suggests that self regulation of the add on industry, as it becomes more professional, is essential. A code of practice is badly needed to avoid situations where products are being released prematurely or are simply not fit for purpose. That's not as complex as it may first appear - basically all that is needed is for software to "do what it says on the tin" - if it is proved to have fallen short of that then the buying public should be made aware of the non compliance, or actually bring a claimed non-compliance to the attention of the body. Maybe Avsim could be the ideal forum for such info dissemination/private reporting, confident that it has the backing of a recognized industry body. It is also important that membership of the industry body is inexpensive, conditional on compliance with a code of practice, and supported on websites, marketing etc, by a logo of such membership. This should, over time, become a seal of quality and standards of customer service that hobbyists, in spending hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year, should expect and demand. As add-ons become ever more sophisticated, supported by a matching price structure, can anyone deny that the game is changing and there is a real need to set some basic consumer standards?