MSFS 'future-proofing' strategy poll

[Mothball]

Yeah Nick, the more parts and suppliers, the more possibilities of failure, and then human nature takes over, and the finger pointing begins whether deserved or not, and things escalate and... whatever... Agreed, this time next year we'll be knocking beer bottles together and boasting about our rigs and recent feats.

[Slotback]

I really do understand krigl's perspective

I don't really understand either of you, because with my two year old Athlon system I, now, with Acceleration, can run fs10 very nicely, yep, now I find it better than fs9 (I will still use fs9 as some of my aircraft only work with 9).

Look at my newest screenshots, all were at the framelock.


EDIT: I only have 6 screenshots, but I don't want to get rid of one. I'll take a few more then post them in a few hours or so.


EDIT2: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 467634/0#0

[Tweek]

I really do understand krigl's perspective

I don't really understand either of you, because with my two year old Athlon system I, now, with Acceleration, can run fs10 very nicely, yep, now I find it better than fs9 (I will still use fs9 as some of my aircraft only work with 9).

Indeed. Too many people still are under the impression that you need the latest Cray supercomputer to run FSX at a decent standard.

Say Aces/MS released FSX, as exactly the same sim as it was on release in 2006, two years down the line (so one year from now). Yes, more 'average' computers would be able to run it, but at the cost of 2 years worth of development, both by Aces and third party sources, and a period between late 2006-8 where those who have decided to fork out on a bit of hardware don't have the opportunity to move onto a more advanced simulator.

Think about it:
- FSX is released in 2006 and your computer isn't good enough to run it. So you wait a couple of years, and buy it in 2008.
- Same scenario in 2009 with FS11. Your computer isn't good enough, you wait another couple of years and buy in 2011.

Or...

- FSX is released in 2008, your computer is good enough to run it, almost straight out of the box. The difference being, there are currently no addons or patches that have been developed, so you're stuck with the default for a while.
- FS11 is released in 2011, again with a lack of development. You can run it, but again, stuck with default.

Lo and behold, your waiting time between the two sims, in both scenarios, is 3 years. The only difference being the level of modfication, and subsequent improvement of the current simulator. Therefore I can't see what you're missing out on, just by not being able to run the sim immediately after its release...

[Brett_Henderson]

Here's a funny reference...  

A gaming computer in 1995 was a 133mghz 80486 (not even Pentium)...  loaded up with a WHOPPING 32MB of EDO RAM...  an amazing, 16MB Voodoo Video card... a Dolby sound card...

Add a nice 1024X768 EVGA monitor (as big a sub-compact car) and you'd have plunked down nearly $4,000 to take it home ...



Hardware has never been cheaper than it is today  :)

[NickN]

I really do understand krigl's perspective

I don't really understand either of you, because with my two year old Athlon system I, now, with Acceleration, can run fs10 very nicely, yep, now I find it better than fs9 (I will still use fs9 as some of my aircraft only work with 9).

Look at my newest screenshots, all were at the framelock.


EDIT: I only have 6 screenshots, but I don't want to get rid of one. I'll take a few more then post them in a few hours or so.


EDIT2: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 467634/0#0

Krigls point is he wants to have full slider, or close ot it, ability out of the box the day the title is released. My point is you can get close to that now with the expensive hardware and you could not even come close to that with FS9. It was at least a year or more before high setting FS9 was possible where with FSX the only thing holding one back are the CPU related areas such as traffic/autogen and multiple shader pass settings.




I never said you could not enjoy FSX on slower hardware.

Krigl wants MS to develop like a 7800GT is a top of the line video card.

Ain't going to happen

[Fly2e]

You need to talk to Steve Ballmer who now runs Microsoft

I have met Steve Ballmer 4 times!
Once I was in a private room with him for over 1/2 an hour.
Me, Him, some other techs and MS people.
Bill Gates twice...


Dave

[NickN]

Smart man.


I have a ferry to catch...   see you guys later

[krigl]

30 votes now....slightly more representative... sorry about the one-sidedness, I did try....

I think the results would have been different had I posted it Xmas 2006  ::). All those people who rushed to buy it and were dissappointed it looked and worked like crap for them. Now with SP1 and 2 things seem a lot rosier - glad I didn't get it earlier and use it stubbornly with it limping like an injured pig.

And like Nick says, by 2008 the story will be different again - more people will be happy for sure - yep, with those years of frustration behind them...and developers finally caught up with the technology are putting out great stuff. But like I said: working to a shorter timeframe would = less difficult to do, lower costs, better optimisation, more content and less 'risky' innovation and unfulfilled promises, fewer bugs, and something we could all enjoy to the max at once...I'm glad to see a lot of people feel the way I do. Even though 'it ain't gonna happen'  ;D

Cheers guys

Krigl

[Camel_Moe]

[quote]Here's a funny reference...

[reider]

Here's a funny reference...  

A gaming computer in 1995 was a 133mghz 80486 (not even Pentium)...  loaded up with a WHOPPING 32MB of EDO RAM...  an amazing, 16MB Voodoo Video card... a Dolby sound card...

Add a nice 1024X768 EVGA monitor (as big a sub-compact car) and you'd have plunked down nearly $4,000 to take it home ...



Hardware has never been cheaper than it is today  :)

I had the DX2-33 486 (Opus) and upgraded it to a DX2-66, if memory serves the DX4-100 was in the realms of Pentium 1, some say certain models were faster than the Pentium 1.  Heady days and lots of power  ;)  We even accessed the internet in DOS rather than Windows.....  EE, thar dun`t know thar born these days!

Reider

[NickN]

You have to remember that 3rd party developers are never going to release major add-ons within months of any RTM. They are going to take their time and make sure no patch or upgrade will destroy their work. There is also a learning curve for them as well and a test period.

The entire poll suggests things are too slow when it comes to having a realistic and high resolution sim experience, but, the reality is FS9 was SLOWER than FSX for that. UT, GE, FE were NOT released the first year FS9 was on the market and as I stated above it was NOT POSSIBLE to run FS9 with the majority of what it had to offer in less than 1.5 + years.

FSX is already on a fast-track as compared to FS9. It has the ability to do 7cm textures and mesh that would bring todays hardware to its knees, probably next years hardware too. The point is, out of the box and with a decent hardware purchase you can have 200% FS9 quality and run it smooth as glass. In the next 2 years that will jump significantly and the only reason that can happen is because of how the title was designed. If they designed it for a 7900 or even an 8800 card to run full slider, you can forget about the title looking any different next year or the year after.

Therefore I vote STAY WITH THE CURRENT PROGRAM

[Brett_Henderson]

I'd vote for, "Raise the Bar Even Higher", if that were an option...

The further out the horizon, the the better the experience is, anywhere between here and there  :)

[CaptainT30]

In my opinion, the only thing that kills my laptop with FSX is autogen. Max 2.x water only brings me down an extra 4 FPS (I still use medium anyways), but the difference between Max autogen and no autogen is around 18 FPS. If I was running no autogen, I'd get 26 FPS at the least. But now I usually get 17 or 18 FPS at the least because I run normal autogen. This wasn't the case in FS9 I don't think. The only killer of my framerate then was clouds. Everything else I could max out.

This is why I'm so excited for Flight Terrain X, because they've promised to abolish the use of XML autogen. For right now, my eyes are turned on Ground Environment X, which promised max quality with max performance textures.  

So that is probably the first step I'd recommend for FSXI, high performance, yet high quality autogen.

By the way, I have a very low end computer.

AMD Turion 64X2 TL-58
Ati Radeon X1100 Integrated 256MB
1 GB DDRII
Windows XP

and with Acceleration I can run med to high settings at KLAX with 17 FPS.

I don't know why thats not good enough for people. 17FPS is a lot more in FSX than FS2004, in FS2004, 17FPS felt more like 10 FPS

in FSX 17FPS feels more like 15FPS. Thats still a LOT of frames per SECOND

Still, I am saving up for a new desktop which should be able to push the graphics settings further.

Personally, I'm the kind of person who can deal with slightly lower framerates at the cost of higher, more realistic graphics. But everyones different so  ::)

[Tweek]

So that is probably the first step I'd recommend for FSXI, high performance, yet high quality autogen.

In an ideal world, it'd be that simple!