Com-Central.net

~S~ All,

Flightsim.com has a great article on FS10, FSX, or whatever, with some really good screen shots and guarded M$ comments.

Regards,
Ken

I hope FS2004 scenery, planes, etc. will port right on over....if not, it's gonna' be a "no-sale" for me. And I ain't kiddin', neither. I've got my people at Anomaly Airways to think about....

Lots of talk and speculation about this one, as expected. I'm certainly looking forward to it and HAVE to get it. Although you'd never guess it from my skill level, I've been using FS since before it was a MicroSoft product......back around '84 or '85 when the box still said "SubLogic" on it, Bruce Artwick was still involved in development and it came on 5-1/4" floppies. Still recall my first landing on runway 36 at Miegs field using the keybord in the C-172. I even have some scenery I designed (yes it's true Ascout!) for Flight Sim version 4. It's a racetrack with timing gates spread throughout and it winds across a ridgeline of some "mountains" and then between them in a canyon run then under a bridge and a nice long straightaway. All just single-colored polygons. and texture mapping was a newfangled high-end technology it didn't offer. And even back then, FS4 offered PC-to-PC multiplayer capability that's still a lot like what we have in FS9. That aspect has improved very slowly.

Funny though, back in those days, FS actually had more built-in stuff to do...anyone remember the "Crop Duster" game or even the WW1 Red Baron game? I guess they replaced that with tutorials and videos and stuff, but even FS4 had an add-on scenery editor that MS provided, which was cool.

Then FS5 came out and it had...texture mapping! I still remember my jaw dropping open when I saw a runway that was more than just one shade of gray, dang it had tire marks on it, and the airplane had stripes! AWESOME! And here we are today...essentially the same engine and interface entirely, really, but with cool weather, ATC, effects, great flight modeling, helo support, all that really good stuff.

So, heck yeah I'm looking forward to yet another step in the evolution, and will just have to run BOTH for a while if there are backward-compatibility issues. The only speculation I'll offer (haven't read the article yet) is the "new graphics engine" looks, and sounds a lot like it ought to be, something evolved from the basic graphics engine from CFS3. This would make a lot of sense since it really does have some advantages, albeit some kinks that needed to be worked out (and gawd knows they've had plenty of time to do that). One advantage that newer code offers is much smoother performance in multiplayer, so online flight should be much better, and they gave that aspect some proper attention, let's hope.

Ascout, I have a free round-trip ticket on United that I have to burn by sometime in January, and I'm dying for an In-N-Out burger, and some fries....and a choco shake...(buurp)....we need to upgrade your machine buddy!

- JG300-Stoopy

Ascout, I have a free round-trip ticket on United that I have to burn by sometime in January, and I'm dying for an In-N-Out burger, and some fries....and a choco shake...(buurp)....we need to upgrade your machine buddy!

I'm down with that, Buddy! Leaving for Portugal late next week...for one week, back on the 21st...anytime after that! (You get your own room and bath on the main level of the house...always welcome). Not to mention being about 600 meters from Mission Bay!

I can take you over to CV-41 "Midway" and we can fly THEIR flight simulater....F-4's in REAL cockpits on the hangar deck. 10' screens outside the aircraft. I got three kills and about 8 of 9 successful carrier traps the one time I tried it (about $20 for 20 minutes or so). Great new floating museum....and there's the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park (even have a Sea Dart!)....and a bf-109.

Hmmm!!!! Enticing!!! I'm going on the road for the next 3 weeks myself in a few days, back on the 27th....will double-check the date on that ticket (it was one of those deals, you know, where you're sitting at the gate and they come on the PA and start off with "We're overbooked and if anyone wants to help out this family who is trying to get to...."). I forgot all about the ticket, it's been sitting on my wife's dresser all this time.....if it happens though we may spend a buncha time xferring your stuff over to a new HD (or a new system if ya want some input....my new Gateway rig was pretty reasonable and it ROCKS...50FPS and 240 GIGS of free space buddy!).....

OOPS! Actually I got my months wrong (hate that!).... it's dated February sometime.......will double-check, and take up the rest in a PM or two, eh?

Aha!!!!

Screenies...hadn't seen these before but I DEFINITELY smell a reworked CFS3 graphics engine! What do you say Sau's, or any other CFS3'ers (ex or otherwise) here? Lookit the link! Lots of terrain will look familiar, other things like water effects and some ground reflections have definitely been getting improvemetns......

www.fsplanet.com/fspla...om_fsx.htm

Hey, COm-C will be ahead of the game because the "CFS3 Tweak and Tune Guide" will probably still apply in many areas, LOL!

And Ascout......from the Q&A:

Q: Will aircraft from FS2004 be compatible with “Flight Simulator X�?

A: Backward compatibly with existing 3rd party content is and has always been a priority for us, and we attempt to test as many add-ons as possible in order to provide the greatest level of compatibility.

Honestly you can't ask or expect much more than that, and they can't commit to much more than that either because that's a BIG can o' worms as it is, with so much 3rd-party stuff around (and much of it having development roots in older versions as well, causing even more complexities). I remember when FS5 and FS98 came out there were compatability issues and a conversion tool was included to port over planes n'stuff. Kind of a pain but it worked, most of the time, pretty well. It's the price of progress though, dangit.

Well, the skies look about the same, the ground (where there's hills) looks about like FS9 with enhanced mesh (like the California and S.E.Asia ones) and the WATER especially looks a helluva' lot better. I don't get too excited about streets and autogen buildings, but good terrain I like.

If they fix those cracks in the earth at Stockton or Milwood Lakes, they'll be sorry! (BTW, Anomaly Airways scenery works in FS2002, and just digs holes where there was no anomaly...usually they work). Maybe the same will happen if they fix the anomalies (which I hope they don't).

It's likely the "Pig sty", Com-Central Wilderness Camp, and a couple of others would be unaffected as they are built on stock ground anyway with no altitude manipulation.

Yeah, February is better for me, Stoopy....try to think dates ASAP, as I wanna' take the wife skiing again this season....long weekend in Utah, probably, and need to look into tickets...we wouldn't be gon long...maybe four days including a weekend.

Quite likely (and as usual) there'll be NEW anomalies just waiting to be discovered....hard to have it not happen in a release like this. One could also speculate that some interaction or sourcing with online terrain data such as NASA's WorldWind or Google Earth could be coming down the pike, if not in this version then subsequently......exciting stuff to think about!

I just hope they bring the online functionality up to 20th-century standards. Been too archaic for too long now. Hey, we have a whole year to speculate!

Sent ya a PM bud......some things to consider that I'd be remiss not to bring up, gotta check the date on that ticket, and yup, it'd be a quicky trip if she happens. Originally I envisioned using it as a lark, just to fly to the nearest city out West that had an In-N-Out, grab a coupla Double-Doubles with grilled onions, eat 'em, and come home happy... mixin' a buddy in there would be icing on the cake

Well if you fella's have read the article here

then you will have noticed some "equipment requirements"

Simply put, our recommendation is that flightsimmers should plan to upgrade to Windows Vista. It only hurts for a minute, so quit complaining already. FSX will be released at the same time as the 64-bit Windows Vista operating system. We know that it will take full advantage of Vista. The question remains as to whether it will also take full advantage of dual core Intel Pentium processing. We would be very surprised and disappointed if it did not. Stay tuned and as soon as we know, you will know. But, it stands to reason that FSX will run very well in both 64-bit and 32-bit operating system environments. For the ultimate, "as real as it gets" experience, 64-bit Windows Vista and a powerful dual core Pentium processor system will be a sure bet.

recommendation is a system with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor 670 that runs at 3.8 GHz with an 800 MHz front Side Bus (FSB). You'll also want hyperthread technology (HT), 2MB cache and Intel PCI Express graphics

consider the benefit of a dual drive RAID array that's optimized for gaming performance. A 500GB array that consists of two, 250GB drives would be best. If you need less overall storage, you could downsize to a 320GB array with twin 160GB matched drives.

You'll also want a minimum NVIDIA 6800 or ATI Radeon X850. Best would be NVIDIA 7800 with 256MB GRAM. But, save your money on the 512MB models. That's probably overkill and over-spending.

I'm no puter expert, but whit my limited knowledge of the subject at hand I think we are looking at some new systems market beeing opened up ergo our wallets beeing emptyed again

And of course we addicts will get the game and try to run it on our systems to discover it will run in limited form, so we are off to the shop to get the newest stuff and blow another hole in our annual budget or worse blow it away completely

just food for tought gentleman, M$ has done it again

me two pence for the proverbial bin

fled

New Sim AND a new O/S???

Ewwwwwwww.........

Talk about a buzzkill!!!!

Well I still say we gots a year to plan ahead fer it.......

Could be worse....could be, just for the XBox 360........

wow, I think it's absolutely stunning...I needed a new rig anyway, just have to figure out where to appropriate funding (sounds like a government conspiricy when I say that) for the new system and I'm sure this new version will be quite pricy as well...I'm still waiting for the day when there's a more "interactive" environment you know? Like cars and people on the ground to buzz....just imagin what gaming is going to be like in another 10 years....

Stoopy I remember the old Sub Logic flight sim you were talking about..I think it was probably on one of the first PC's I had ever seen..ugly old things weren't they?..lol...we've come along way boys and girls..

- JG300-Stoopy

Sent ya a PM bud......some things to consider that I'd be remiss not to bring up, gotta check the date on that ticket, and yup, it'd be a quicky trip if she happens. Originally I envisioned using it as a lark, just to fly to the nearest city out West that had an In-N-Out, grab a coupla Double-Doubles with grilled onions, eat 'em, and come home happy... mixin' a buddy in there would be icing on the cake

Got your PM....your cross-dressing fetish won't be a problem, that's why you'd be installed on a different floor from us and, it's California and all....we're jaded about stuff like that. No short skirts, though...you look to be pretty hairy.

I think we can locate an In-N-Out burger...but you need to meet a carnitas burrito from "Reybertos"....MMMMMMMMM!

- JG300-Stoopy

Aha!!!!

Screenies...hadn't seen these before but I DEFINITELY smell a reworked CFS3 graphics engine! What do you say Sau's, or any other CFS3'ers (ex or otherwise) here? Lookit the link! Lots of terrain will look familiar, other things like water effects and some ground reflections have definitely been getting improvemetns......

www.fsplanet.com/fspla...om_fsx.htm

Hey, COm-C will be ahead of the game because the "CFS3 Tweak and Tune Guide" will probably still apply in many areas, LOL!

.

Funny you say that it looks alot like CFS3, I was thinking the exact same thing..especially the buildings and towns.

- JG300-Ascout

I think we can locate an In-N-Out burger...but you need to meet a carnitas burrito from "Reybertos"....MMMMMMMMM!

I'm down with that!! My old hangouts are farther north up the coast than you so Olemende's is out anyway.....I'll take anything I can get my hands on, Virginia mexican food is a joke and Texa-Mex is good but not the same as home!

- 01RCAF_HitMan

Funny you say that it looks alot like CFS3, I was thinking the exact same thing..especially the buildings and towns.

Yeah, and it only makes sense.....they spent a ton of effort developing that engine for CFS3 with the ACES group and didn't get the return on investment they needed, but ended up with promising if somewhat finicky product waiting to fulfill it's potential....plus, there WERE some screenshots passed around from the CFS4 prototype before (or shortly after) it was shelved, that definitely indicated they were still spending development effort on it (the CFS4 shots were from a developer working with MS and I'll absolutely confirm it was not CFS3 or photochopped). Certain things like new shadow functions and lighting.....exactly what is being shown off in these screenies.

Pretty jazzed about it still. So whut if it requires a new O/S to reach it's full potential, I'm still betting that when run on the same XP system but with sliders turned down, it's still going to be an altogether new, functional and promising product, never in this series has there really been a letdown. Well, okay, FS98 was kind of a yawner......

- Hangman

Stoopy I remember the old Sub Logic flight sim you were talking about..I think it was probably on one of the first PC's I had ever seen..ugly old things weren't they?..lol...we've come along way boys and girls..

Very true! And those mono-color polygons were beatuiful and exciting at the time weren't they?!!

I was reading that article and was wondering...does your computer hafta be able toplay DVDs to play that game or what. Because if it does then a serious mod would be needed for the old Diesel Powered Computing whitchamacallit