FSX again.....

[Garry Russell]

No worries Dave

Just remember this.................................

You are 32...in hex :dance:



Garry

[DelP]

I'm really still 16

..that's what I always say to myself..until I catch site of myself in a mirror :shock: :-$

ATB,

Derek (50 and three-quarters.. )

[DaveB]

That's far too clever but I'll accept it anyway

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[MALTBY D]

Happy 32nd Birthday DB (yes way too clever Garry )

And just to add to the original debate, I think FSX is crap.
That's just a guess though because I didn't buy it.
I'm still having a problem with the idea of paying for something that's going to break all my models & make my PC obsolete. :think:

DM (nearly 28 in hex, I think)

[DaveB]

Cheers DM and happy B'Day for the not too distant

The whole FSX 'thing' reminds me of an interview in Superbike mag many, many moons ago. They used to have a 'Star' turn every month (obviously one who was into bikes!) and one month.. the celeb was Mickey Most. His pride and joy was a 'then' brand spanking new BMW R100RS.. the old boxer version with the all-enveloping fairing. One of the first questions Mr Most was asked was 'What do you think about your R100 then' towit he replied 'It's good in traffic.. but so is an FS1E!!!!'. That shows the age of the interview and I suppose you need to be 'into' bikes to understand the gist but basically.. Mr Most had BMW's finest of the day and the best he could say about it was that it was as good in traffic as Yamaha's cheap, baby 2-stroke

FSX does have a lot going for it.. not least a helicopter that can be flown but.. the changes are such that where you could get away with loading FS2004 onto a system that perfomed well with 2002 and turn a few things up with acceptable performance .. you'll find FSX will run ok at it's basic level and not much beyond. It's fair to criticise the fact that certain things don't work as expected (or not at all) but let's not forget this happened with 2004 too. Suddenly, panels using the 2002 dual res format XML had problems in 2004 and many of our fave 2000/2002 aircraft were without landing gear and props, not to mention some fs98/2000 gauges starting to throw up errors. 2004 only really looked good after we'd spent years adding things to it to make it look good :roll:

Maybe it IS the quantum leap we all expected.. notwithstanding the immediate need for SP1 but.. not as many folk will be able to enjoy it as did with 2004

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Sl4yer]

I think people expect too much. The simple fact is that FSX will have an expected life span of at least three years. So it's got to be designed to stretch (at maximum settings) a PC from 3 years into the future. How many games run well straight out of the box on a system close to the minimum hardware requirements? In my experience, none. You have to turn the graphical settings down, and then it maybe doesn't look as good as the previous versions. (Midtown Madness 1 and 2 spring to mind - detailed textures and detailed vehicles, shadows, pedestrians, etc. would slow them to a crawl, even on a decent system of the time).

I don't update my system like I used too. Apart from the drives, it's firmly 2003 technology. I can run FSX with the VFR scenery at 30fps with the supplied aircraft, and maybe 15-20 with addon aircraft. But even at 15-20fps, it still looks good, and smooth enough to use. And to be honest, that is all I expect from new software on a 4 year old system. No point me complaining about it! I'll probably update to DX10-compliant hardware sometime later this year, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it even more then.

Of course, it's far from perfect, and hopefully the patch will address some of the issues. But I don't think it's bad enough to be permanently condemned at this stage.

James

PS Happy birthday DaveB! :partyman:

[Garry Russell]

I think what really upsets folk is that MS promised full backwards compatibility.

You can't blame folks for being annoyed that it's not

Often as in a post above it is mentioned that in the past we have not had that and it is implied it is just one of those things...but no, it was promised and therefore expected.

The recent FS9 models are very complex and take a long time to make......there is no way they can kept getting remade for the latest sim. They have to go in without change or else we will never get new types as all the time will be spent updating a range which could take in excess of the life span of the sim to upgrade properly.

As a Sim FS.X will be very good when the computers and graphics have caught up to use it in it's full glory.

But that is a separate issue as none of that will make all FS.9 addons run properly.

It just remains to be seen no how any patches or upgrade can affect FS.X .

There are ways to get a good result but not everyone is keen, or feels able to make various changes.......and tbh why should they have to.

It should run as promised out of the box and doesn't.

Like buying a car, it is one thing to tune it and add bits to make it something special but not have to adjust and modify just to run as the brochure said.

Perhaps if they had said that is was here now but it's time would be later but for those that wanted to get on with it and could make it work would be able to use it........but that would not help sales.

It is really the disappointment of the failure to come up to unrealistic promises that seems to be the real problem rather than the product itself.

As a stand alone sim it is unfairly being compared as a basic to a fully developed FS.9

But of course it was expected that those FS.9 addons would go into FS.X

So again a feeling of let down putting many off.

It's surely time to move on

Forget the promises and look at FS.X as something separate and see how patches, Vista and DX.10 run it.

For many it will mean forgetting it until they upgrade, other as already done can fiddle around and make it work.

As FS.X potential becomes more apparent there will be more moving across and a better chance of someone coming up with something that may help FS.9 addons work better without a lot of fiddling

In meantime it might help is folks stop trying to see FS.X as a natural extension to their FS.9 simming..think of them as separate and take it from there.

In other words think as it as what it is.....not what was expected it should be.

And hope that interchangeability can be improved with some yet to be devised patch.

Garry

[hinch]

have any of you read some developer blogs? Owen Hewitt when talking about his beta version of the FSX service pack: 'I am seeing a drastic improvement in performance'

fingers crossed.

[Sl4yer]

I think what really upsets folk is that MS promised full backwards compatibility.

Garry,

It may have been promised at some point during development, but it isn't promised in the finished article.

I'm not technical enough to know what has changed and what hasn't, although to change the order of the values in the smoke settings (as was posted somewhere the other day) does smell of a deliberate attempt to break stuff. Strange really, because there is STILL comparitively little out there for FSX, and the supplied aircraft aren't too much improved from FS9. :think: It's easier to understand why FS9 scenery doesn't work well though. I'm sure they consider this a sacrifice to "progress".

Maybe I've become too cynical during my third of a century on this planet, but I'm ALWAYS reluctant to believe the promises of anybody who is trying to sell you something! Especially if it isn't in black and white at the point of delivery!

James

[Garry Russell]

Hi James

I can't say when it was promised but it was and the message was there and expected.

Maybe it has not been in the final as a get out for anything that says it was.

But it was said and it was expected and it remains too big a task to convert everything over to the latest sim.


Garry