FSX Release date...........

Charlie Bravo · Post by **Charlie Bravo** » 03 Jul 2006, 20:53

d0mokun wrote:Just out of interest, why are people so eager to knock the new sim? Has anybody actually tried it yet, or is it just pre-release hype (or whatever is opposite to hype) in action?

Though, I think that the only ones that can answer to questions regarding the release date are ultimately MS, and not Amazon, despite what some certain FS site would suggest!

My comments are alll in jest, though, lads, and i'm not about to start a political/FSX war!

Dan.

FS2004 was released on August 1st 2003. Having seen the preview pics and movies for FSX, MS have done feck all worth mentioning.
In late 2006, we will be offered something that looks very similar to FS2004 but in 2007 we will be offered games like Crysis with graphics like this:

Click

What on earth have they been doing for 3 years?

andy · Post by **andy** » 03 Jul 2006, 21:30

Charlie Bravo wrote:What on earth have they been doing for 3 years?

Either bugger all..................or they are holding something back.
If that release date is to be believed, and we are that close to it, I would have thought that a few snippets would have escaped. :think:

Post by **TSR2** » 03 Jul 2006, 21:39

A large part of the problem in upgrading FS is compatibility. With every new release, many of the existing addons either won't work or will require an update.

If MS were to completely re do FSX, would any of us be arsed having to buy new versions of everything, learn new ways to do the same thing we've been doing for years etc? Probably not. We'd stick with 2004.

Some games out there can have amazing graphics, but they are one offs.

Also the minimum spec for running FS is very basic. Obviously, for many of us, we need a decent PC to view all out fancy scenery etc, but a great many folk have a very basic spec machine because they are more into the flying than the visuals.

Its horses for courses, but i think MS have made a decent fist of it, and at Â£45, its similarly priced to the one hit woinder games, and I bet we all get more than our Â£45 worth out of FS over the usual 2 year life span.

Its easy to criticise, but to do a fair comparison, we need to compair apples with apples, and Other games are very differnt to FS.

TobyV · Post by **TobyV** » 03 Jul 2006, 22:23

I'd tend to agree with Ben... when I first got into FS its because I liked flying... since then its become more a case of emersing one's self in a [nostalgic] virtual world which we try to improve ever more to kid ourselves that its 'real'. I now direct you to Tonks' signature and a glass of cold water in the face.... and sitting down here in Sussex tonight, I could really use a nice glass of cold water....

andy · Post by **andy** » 03 Jul 2006, 22:31

TobyVickers wrote:I now direct you to Tonks' signature and a glass of cold water in the face.... and sitting down here in Sussex tonight, I could really use a nice glass of cold water....

Yep.........you're quite right Toby. It's like teaching pigs to sing.

I've got a glass of water here on my desk............... It's also got some distilled yellow liquid in it from Scotland.

TobyV · Post by **TobyV** » 03 Jul 2006, 22:40

andy wrote:I've got a glass of water here on my desk............... It's also got some distilled yellow liquid in it from Scotland.

Didnt know you worked in a medical lab, processing urine samples Steve. Oh you mean Whiskey... nice stuff that... but not in the height of the summer

airboatr · Post by **airboatr** » 03 Jul 2006, 22:45

Ben
Yes............... the time it ill take for the hardware to
catch up to the demands of the FSX software.
If it really has improved that much ,
For instance
My most current CPU is a Intel P d 820 socket 2.8 GHZ
with dual channel memory (2 gigs of that)
Windows XP media center
a Nvidia 6600fx
And I still get fram lockups at times
Specially around Honolulu
So it's been 3 years (or about) for the hardware
to be on the shelf that I could afford ,that will run FS9,
and have MOST of the slidders On Max .
My system from gateway was 700.00 and thats
because it was a Factory reconditioned unit
(New is 1300.00 which I couldn't see fit into my budget)
So like you was saying
cold day in , H E Double hockey sticks
before the majority shell Out 70 bucks
and wait years before they have a computer to run it
reasonablly
And on top of it Redo all the addons and AC
>> I have a feeling Billy Bob isn't gonna be happy with the
sales numbers
I think If I were to "venture" into something new
it might be the Other flight sim "X"

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 03 Jul 2006, 22:48

All I can say on this matter is -

1) Per 3 of the FSX team Blogs everything shown up to now is using DirectX 9 on Windows XP, not XP64 or Vista. This includes the build shown at E3.

2) ALL of the screenshots that have been posted are of a pre-BETA build, including the video/preview we have seen.

3) The only version the "public" has been able to view live and play is a pre-BETA build, so anything they see there will not be representative of the final product. I played the pre-BETA FS2004 and pre-BETA MS Train Sim at industry shows, and in both cases, the final product was much better than what I saw. There were "glimmers" of what would be coming, but most of what had been done to that point was on the "high level, in-your-face" visuals, so most of the background stuff and things that make it really run weren't there and there were several million lines of debuggingd and logging code running that were non-representative of the final product's performance.

andy · Post by **andy** » 03 Jul 2006, 23:33

TobyVickers wrote:
andy wrote:I've got a glass of water here on my desk............... It's also got some distilled yellow liquid in it from Scotland.
Didnt know you worked in a medical lab, processing urine samples Steve. Oh you mean Whiskey... nice stuff that... but not in the height of the summer

Distilled, Toby..........distilled. Not passed..............
Nowt wrong with a long cool woman..........erm.........drink. :redface:

Charlie Bravo · Post by **Charlie Bravo** » 03 Jul 2006, 23:34

Chris Trott wrote:All I can say on this matter is -

1) Per 3 of the FSX team Blogs everything shown up to now is using DirectX 9 on Windows XP, not XP64 or Vista. This includes the build shown at E3.

2) ALL of the screenshots that have been posted are of a pre-BETA build, including the video/preview we have seen.

3) The only version the "public" has been able to view live and play is a pre-BETA build, so anything they see there will not be representative of the final product. I played the pre-BETA FS2004 and pre-BETA MS Train Sim at industry shows, and in both cases, the final product was much better than what I saw. There were "glimmers" of what would be coming, but most of what had been done to that point was on the "high level, in-your-face" visuals, so most of the background stuff and things that make it really run weren't there and there were several million lines of debuggingd and logging code running that were non-representative of the final product's performance.

Well regardless of that, FS2004 wasn't much better than FS2002 and FS2002 wasn't much better than FS2000 so I don't hold much hope.