Classic British Flight Sim

An interesting blog Skippy. And a thought occurs - there has been a clear move recently toward mobile computing in the form of laptops. Laptops are fine but they aint so good at running FSX; FS11 may well fix that but clearly its release has at the very least been delayed. Laptops will continue to improve performance wise but lag quite a way behind even cheap(ish) desktops and are likely to do so for a time to come. MS had an opportunity to allow more laptop uses join in the fun (all the uni students for example) - or at least that was the possibility of a much more efficient rendering engine; now we may never know.

Oh the joy of keeping your shareholders happy - never mind those unfortunate enough to loose their jobs, just as long as we don't upset the bankers eh! :@ (not entirely enamoured with capitalism - just not sure with what it should be replaced!).

Regards,
Chris

Good point on the laptop side Chris. MS have certainly shown that they're willing to learn lessons about running on lower powered computers with Win 7 taking a step back from the bloat of Vista.

As most of my investments are related to the stock market in some way I wish some other companies would take the same approach as MS to maintain their worth rather than relying on bail outs from the taxpayer.

Regarding the comment from Pielstick about the PC gaming section in Game shops,I was in Glasgow yesterday and went into one branch of Game and there wasn't a section for PC games at all. :roll: EricT

It seems every time I go into a Game branch I have to search for the PC section, it's so small and tucked away at the back of the shop Likewise I can't remember a time when I was stood in the queue with someone who was buying a PC title, everyone seems to be buying for the consoles or hand helds.

I can see a time when online distribution,the likes of Steam and Impulse supercede buying a hard copy in the shop. The advantage of actually having a hard copy of the game on a disc is wiped out when a publisher starts putting things like SecuROM on their discs and only allow a limited number of installations before the game is disabled.

OK you lot, not often am I serious .. so listen up,

you've got two sims that are pretty darn good over alll to whats available. an easy 8 years with FSX with the new OS not yet available for sale.
the FS9 users will migrate to FSX once the stuff they love is developed for FSX ,...... it really is a better sim. , or stay with FS9 . If it works for your needs.
so since we have some FACTS that future development of FS11 has been put on hold let us continue to improve what we have and enjoy that.

....plus the pressure of developing something for FSX is off really , you don't have to worry about it being out dated for awhile.... you know what I mean ??

Of coarse we will encourage future development , but it obvious it's not comming soon

Focus on what we have, the rest will take care of itself.

happy simming

and also , I hope those who need work will find work ,
ATB

Joe

PS. I run FSX on a 820 D
XP SP3
4 gig of PC 533 .. ( i know I know )
8800 GT oc

and I'm very satisfied .. It's not perfect but then neither is the real world. and no matter how well the sim gets to real world, it's not,

Not one time when flying in real life have I ever had the sensation or visual experience that gave me the impression I was simming.
Joe

Agreed Joe - this is an opportunity to get more out of FSX.

Regards,
Chris

Yes . maybe I'll be able to develope something too...... I have an Idea how it'll go anyway

ChrisHunt wrote:there has been a clear move recently toward mobile computing in the form of laptops. Laptops are fine but they aint so good at running FSX

I'm writing this on a laptop that can run FSX very will indeed I've been restricted to using laptops for the last five years or so now, and I've tried various brands and models of laptop to get decent gaming/FS performance. I got myself an Alienware m15x earlier this year, it wasn't cheap but it was designed with gaming and portability in mind. It's got enough power to run FSX pretty well at the native res of 1440x900 and absolutely eats FS9 with loads of addons and scenery installed. It's also very fast for other games too, I can push the latest games to high detail and still get good framerates. I got the new Black Shark sim just before Xmas and it runs very nicely indeed

However, I had to go to a special retailer and pay 1800 quid for it... and the laptops that you find in PC Wold, Currys, Comet, etc fall woefully short in terms of gaming performance.

I've been watching this thread with great interest, and would like to add my own 2 cents to it.

I find it interesting that a lot of people think that this is the death of flightsim. Ok so it might curtail what comes next but what we've already got, for me anyway, is more than good enough. When FS98 came out all those years ago, most of us thought "great, excellent graphics, good gameplay" and we were happy with what we got, until FS2000 came out. Then came FS2002, FS2004, FSX and each time the reviewers were again relativlty happy with what was achieved.

For me, although FSX is out, FS9 still is as good as I want a flight simulator to be. The graphics are good, there are tons of addons, freeware and payware, and with FSX it looks better than it ever has done. So I wonder why people are so worried, OK so FS11 or FSXI or whatever it might have been called may never appear, but I certainly don't mind.

In FS9 (or FSX) I can fly all of the planes I want, there are many classic types and modern types, the sound and detail are excellent, and its still as fun as it was when I first installed FS98! So I have to disagree with some of the comments that say it is the death nail in our hobby. I certainly have no intention of giving up just because the latest version might not appear. In FSX the scenery is more that good enough, and even in FS9 theres still plently of life left in it yet.

Developers, for me anyway, could revert back to producing FS9 stuff and I'd probably buy it, cause the quality would still be good enough, and even if it was in FSX then theres still potential for development.

Looking at the screenshots in the gallery, Flightsim still looks excellent to me, and with the quality of it I'll probably still be running FS9 in four years time. So what, I can't launch rockets, drop bombs and use all of the features of FSX such as moving carriers. But I can still fly a detailed 767 from one airport to another, or jump into a piper cub and fly around the Alaska bush, cutting through small airstrips, I can even download ships and sail around harbours if I so wanted.

And if I want to fly something a little more classic, then the VC10, Chippie, Argosy, Trident, 1-11 etc are there in excellent detail to be taken around addon airports in equally excellent detail.

What Im basically saying is that with each version of flightsim we've been happy with what was presented to us, and that shouldn't change just because something new may or may not appear.

Just my 2 Cents.

James.

Three words 'Grand Prix Legends'

Sim released in 1998, still going strong. Don't think its all over!