Addon Scenery in FSX... :: Archived

[Uhu_Fledermaus]

Stoopy,

Did read yer post at AVSIM forums, you told 'm correctly what the issue is, I must admit I have toyed with the tought of pre-ordering fsX deLuxe, boy am I glad I didn't.

Don't read me wrong, I feel for you and all them other folks that are hanging in there by their teeth and cursing the sob that is not complying with his "promises"

Contemplating a way to get a "copy" to ya before the festive days ............................

cheer up we'll think of something


fled

[JG300-Stoopy]

Aww no sweat Fled.....'tis Christmas, the season of perpetual hope.....it's on the shelves in local stores (should be, at least) and I have a spouse wondering what to get me

She also knows the story behind this (matter of fact, she's saying "I told you so" for the last month) so it's been brought to her attention that it would make a fine last-minute gift idea.

I just hope it doesn't override the effectiveness of all those TrackIR brochures I've hidden in her purse, vehicle, makeup kit, magazines, vehicle, clothes closet, mail, and sock drawer.....If nothing else I can hang out by the customer service counter at the local big-box store and wait for the inevitable customers who aren't happy with it's performance who want a refund on it.... when they get turned away because it's been opened, I'll offer 'em a couple twenties and not mention any tweaks....

[JG300-Ascout]

OK, so what's the scoop here on FSX and "Phu Bai"? It looks like the trees don't show, (but no unsightly "white boxes", right?) and the transparent (read: missing) textures on two of the parked aircraft (the C130 and the C-7) are about it, correct? Who has both and is there anything else?

So, since I don't have FSX and have no way to fix this stuff, I see two solutions:

1. Someone bellies up and tries to fix the textures and I just make a version with the trees deleted to ease the load...then upload that version for FSX....

2. I delete the trees, the C130 AND the C-7 Caribou on the ramp and leave everything else as is (assuming there are no other FSX anomalies associated with this scenery to report) and I upload that one. As I have no way to test such a version, I need a volunteer or two, but it should be a no-brainer as I just need to delete a few items from the existing scenery so that should have no other unexpected effects. Then we call it "Phu Bai for FSX" and charge oodles more money for it!

Whaddaya' think...Bentley GT or Aston Martin for my next ride?

[Uhu_Fledermaus]

Ascout,

To be honest with you, I've "deleted" fsX from my system and put the case on the shelf.

Reason, I'm not gonna let 'm spoil my fun for the time beeing, at the moment my system is almost 4 years old and handles fs9 good enough to still enjoy that for quite a while.

Also when you look at the $$$$ involved to set up a rig that handles fsX decently and one still has some "spare power" to play with,
I'll hold till the whole circus is settled down for a bit on the hardware end, at the moment nobody really seems to know what works with eachother and what not.

btw, wadda you think of my lil banner

[JG300-Ascout]

- Uhu_Fledermaus

Ascout,

To be honest with you, I've "deleted" fsX from my system and put the case on the shelf.

Reason, I'm not gonna let 'm spoil my fun for the time beeing, at the moment my system is almost 4 years old and handles fs9 good enough to still enjoy that for quite a while.

Also when you look at the $$$$ involved to set up a rig that handles fsX decently and one still has some "spare power" to play with,
I'll hold till the whole circus is settled down for a bit on the hardware end, at the moment nobody really seems to know what works with eachother and what not.

btw, wadda you think of my lil banner

1. I like your banner, though I can't vouch for the "cheese banner thing. Though it seems to be true what they say, you Dutch will apparently try most anything at least once, apparently.

2. I'm seeing a lot of posts essentially like yours, and one over at Hovercontrol lamenting the lack of people in multiplay over compatibility issues. I'm getting the feeling someone shot themselves in the foot by over-reaching with the latest release and not sufficiently considering backwards compatibility and what's emerged as most important to that pesky but important group known as consumers.

3. I don't have it and have no plans to buy. I also spec'ed my wife's new laptop with XP and will do the same with my new desktop. Some damn body better start listening or prepare to watch people flock to alternative systems in droves. It's not like there aren't options....

[JG300-Stoopy]

The status on the Phu Bai textures, at least on my end, is that I've tried a few conversions to different file formats for the transparent C-130 textures with no change yet. I haven't yet been able to go through all permutations, and also attempt applying some alpha layers to see if there's an involvement.

However, the other side of the issue/fix might well be in the sim itself, and I've read now on a couple sites (developer blogs and such) that there IS a texture issue in the sim with regard to how "legacy" texture methods were handled and the upcoming "performance patch" does include, among myriad other changes and corrections, a fix for some transparency issues. Wether that will live through the BETA testing of the patch that's going on now, remains to be seen.

Feedback so far seems to be very positive from what little has leaked out due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) the testers are under. So it seems that some relief in the performance aspect is on the way. Of course there's no telling if that'll be enough to make everyone with every system happy. Maybe, at best, the 80/20 rule will apply there.

But, the patch is scheduled to be out in the latter half of this month (April) and if you were to throw some healthy real-world pessimism in there, I'd say I'm expecting it mid-May. Only because the longer it takes, the better....a couple of (or few) weeks delay won't add up to smack in the big scheme of things. Once that patch is out, then it seems the most logical point to re-assess the situation with regard to Phu Bai, add-on scenery, performance etc.

Personally I'm cautiously optimistic and in no rush since it's clear that the development team was pressured and overruled in terms of product readiness back in Sept/Oct '06. For a long time now we've been at a dangerous crossroads in the general industry as a whole wherein schedule and product timing is seen by management as far more critical than the word of the development and testing personnel. Powerpoint presentations and MS Project schedules mean more than requirements fulfillment, compiler warnings and failed test cases. Not defending this company, but they're simply not alone in this regard and it takes tremendous effort and convincing arguments from the development lead to make the case for a decision to delay product deployments to the higher management. Sometimes it's so entirely futile that there's several orders of magnitude more work involved in the argument than the code fix itself. To lobby with upper mgmt. for a free follow-on patch (or "upgrade release") consuming apporox. 6 months of essentially no-return investment on development effort just about takes an act of God to win...but can still be done when the cards are played right and the data, feedback and fortitude is there.

The development team has, apparently other than a very short interruption to be involved in early promotion efforts, really not stopped develpoment/bug fix efforts ever since FSX went "gold" anyway and hopefully the patch will be the fruit of their labors intended to make it far more like the product they actually envisioned releasing.

Guess we'll see, huh?