Bleedings?

[virtuali]

You port the FSX scenery over to FS9 and whatever doesn't work right for FS9 is the user's problem, not yours, am I close?

It's correct that we don't pay much attention to the FS9 port, because it's either done quickly, or we just stop publishing it in the first place.

But it's wrong to say that we don't fix the problems, when reported. The post you have mentioned, when followed to its end, just prove the opposite: that we FIXED the issue.

I'm only mentioning the issues with FS9 against FSX, JUST to make users understand what we were always saying about FSX being a better plaftorm to develop for, NOT as an excuse of the why problems are not going to be fixed.

and have you ever considered charging (more) for the FS9 version of your sceneries?

Never. We want the users to MOVE AWAY from FS9. Offering a free upgrade path to the FSX version, seems to be a reasonable way to do it. Nobody would ever need to spend a cent on our purchased products, when he'll eventually migrate to FSX.

[virtuali]

With the default AFCAD I don't see double hold markers, just the double arrows as you mentioned.

That's what is supposed to be. I only see double end arrows, the double holding zone arrows are not in the scenery.

Hopefully it's something harpsi can fix because as we already discussed most people are counting on a third-party AFCAD to fix the parking issues the default has.

That's not correct. You will NOT have to "rely" on a 3rd party AFCAD to fix the issues the default has. We are just waiting for Harpsi to finish his work and, when it's done, which seems to be just a few days more, we'll take his modifications, and integrate them with our AFAD, and THAT one will become the default supplied with the scenery.

[md11forever]

You port the FSX scenery over to FS9 and whatever doesn't work right for FS9 is the user's problem, not yours, am I close?

It's correct that we don't pay much attention to the FS9 port, because it's either done quickly, or we just stop publishing it in the first place.

But it's wrong to say that we don't fix the problems, when reported. The post you have mentioned, when followed to its end, just prove the opposite: that we FIXED the issue.

I'm only mentioning the issues with FS9 against FSX, JUST to make users understand what we were always saying about FSX being a better plaftorm to develop for, NOT as an excuse of the why problems are not going to be fixed.

and have you ever considered charging (more) for the FS9 version of your sceneries?

Never. We want the users to MOVE AWAY from FS9. Offering a free upgrade path to the FSX version, seems to be a reasonable way to do it. Nobody would ever need to spend a cent on our purchased products, when he'll eventually migrate to FSX.

I certainly mean no disrespect here, but I have continually noticed this attitude when lurking about your forums. I totally understand the reason FSDT is in business- to make money. However, you may want to take a look at the way you are treating the remaining FS9 users.
Obviously you recognize that you can make additional money selling to FS9 users as well as your beloved FSX- my question is why every issue (whether you decide to fix it or not) a FS9 user has with your products turn into a "why FSX is better" thread. Personally I like your scenery products and have purchased almost all of them- but I am beginning to feel like a second-class citizen with them, simply because I do not choose to move "onward" to FSX.
FSX is NOT the be-all-end-all of flightsim- in my opinion it isn't even close. Unfortunately with ACES shut down now the entire community is left divided...those of us who were hoping FS11 might fix the problems inherent in BOTH FSX and FS9 are disappointed. Any visit to the myriad number of flightsim-related forums on the internet will show you this.
Forgive me for voicing my opinion, but if you are going to release a product for FS9, please support and address ALL the issues. Don't simply say "If you'd use FSX it wouldn't happen" or "I don't see that in FSX so I can't help you" or "Eventually a user will migrate to FSX".
If you aren't going to be 100% in supporting your products, maybe FSDT should in fact go FSX-only. Other developers will rise up to fill the void, or us luddites will just have to go without. In the meantime, FS9 users are left holding the bag, trying to get issues with your products fixed that FSDT doesn't want to spend time fixing because, after all, "we'll all eventually migrate to FSX".

Kindest regards,

George Widener
Alpha India Group
(opinion related here is my own)

[Mike...]

The post you have mentioned, when followed to its end, just prove the opposite: that we FIXED the issue.

No it doesn't. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we.

You may look down upon developers that port an FS9 version to FSX, but what you're doing and how you're doing it, is not much better. In FS9 nothing should be visible through the ground textures. And an Afcad for the kind of sceneries you make should not have to contain any visual (control) elements. The huge aprons in the Afcad have a negative effect on performance. You've clearly made a design choice, fine, that's your prerogative, but then just be honest about it. No need for questions like, do you have any other Afcads installed. Or for comments like "The only thing I can see, is double threshold arrows, but that's another FS9 bug that has been fixed in FSX, that is not possible to use the "noThreasholdEndArrows" parameter in the AFCAD (this was added in FSX), so we should need to find another way to exclude those.", when you full well know what the deal is, see Geneva. And it's not another bug. It's simply not in FS9 or was not enabled, but that doesn't mean it's a bug. And if it really is, then this is the first time I've seen it surface in a scenery... As I said before, you haven't used a new method for lighting, it's used all the time, but without any visual anomalies.

Is there any chance you could give instructions or at least point us in the right direction so that we could come up with something better than there is now. I'm talking about this specific byproduct of backporting the scenery. I've already played around with the elevation values in the klas_papi_sa.BGL file and although I did see changes, not the changes I was looking for.

And I seriously wonder if you would sell enough sceneries if you went FSX only. You say you're barely selling enough copies as it is. A company like ImagineSim is selling 85:15 in favor of FS9 at the moment. They would go belly up if they stopped developing for FS9 now. And I'll say it again, not everyone will "eventually migrate to FSX". I won't. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hardware has nothing to do with it. I have more than enough horsepower to run FSX and then some. But the migration is just not worth it to me.

[bousma]

Thank you for these excellent comment on FS9.  To get an idea of the proportion of FSX users versus FS9's, just look on this site how often the updates were downloaded for each scenery in both FS9 and FSX version.  Numbers speak for themselves, as to the proportion of each version.  There is no need to brainwash us about the merits of FSX against FS9. Just one rule to apply : "everything that's woth doing is worth doing well".

[virtuali]

And an Afcad for the kind of sceneries you make should not have to contain any visual (control) elements. The huge aprons in the Afcad have a negative effect on performance.

Sorry, but that's the only way to make the scenery works in FSX. And, since the FS9 version is a port of it, it will be exactly the same. In any case, I don't see any negative effect on performance, this might have been an issue 6 years ago when FS9 was released, not now.

And it's not another bug. It's simply not in FS9 or was not enabled, but that doesn't mean it's a bug

It's a missing feature which, from our point of view, create issues when back-porting from FSX. This, as I've said already, and as WAS PROVEN (opposite to what you keep insising saying) by the other post, CAN be fixed, WAS fixed in Geneva and WILL be fixed at KLAS.

And if it really is, then this is the first time I've seen it surface in a scenery...

Because nobody usually ports back from FSX to FS9.

As I said before, you haven't used a new method for lighting, it's used all the time, but without any visual anomalies.

Well, since you apparently would like to learn new things, here it is: the issue is caused because we need to have PAPIs to show up on top of the detail textures which are ON TOP of the AFCAD so, PAPIs are not in the AFCAD, so we need to have them as a Scasm runway. IF we were to work on FS9 only, we could have used the instruction that creates only runways lights but, unfortunately, this is the one that creates issues with FS9 AI airplanes in FSX, making them disappear if shadows are on. So, in order not to run on this problem (on FSX), we have a scasm runway, not just scasm runway lights but, on FS9, it's no possible to exclude the arrows from the AFCAD, so the double with the ones on the scasm runway which, apparently, can't be excluded as well. While the AFCAD command to exclude arrows is really missing in FS9, the scasm command that does the same exists, but it doesn't work and this IS AN FS9 BUG

Of course, there is a specific workaround, and that will be what we'll release, SAME AS GENEVA, which is to create a FS9-specific BGL.

It's not really difficult, that's why we did it for Geneva, but it's simply that it has slipped away in the conversion process, because we simply use the same BGL in FSX and FS9, which is an 2002 SDK BGL to begin with...

Is there any chance you could give instructions or at least point us in the right direction so that we could come up with something better than there is now.

You shouldn't worry about fixing this yourself. We are supposed to do it, and we'll do it, same as Geneva.

And I seriously wonder if you would sell enough sceneries if you went FSX only. You say you're barely selling enough copies as it is. A company like ImagineSim is selling 85:15 in favor of FS9 at the moment.

We are selling about (it's a ROUGH estimate, because we don't reall "sell" for FS9 and FSX, we just have downloadable Trial ) 55:45 in favor of FSX. Which means FS9 is still strong enough to warrant support, for now.

I can see why Imagesim sells much more for FS9: it wouldn't make much sense to use a scenery that looks like FS9 from top to bottom and it has been probably designed with FS9 in mind, under FSX. It will look just the same and perform probably works so, why bother ? But that doesn't mean that FS9 is 85% of the market. It's 85% of THEIR market, maybe. If you go ask Aerosoft, they'll tell you they selll much more for FSX than we do, it all depends how the developer presents its products.

We are not afraid to openly tell user that the version to use is the FSX one, at cost of losing FS9 sales. If we had something to hide, we wouldn't offer a Trial to begin with.

They would go belly up if they stopped developing for FS9 now

I can understand, from the point of view of a developer that does only scenery, and it just stops at that, and probably decided it wasn't worth to invest time into getting to know how to fully use FSX. It quite normal FSX didn't worked very well for them.

Hardware has nothing to do with it. I have more than enough horsepower to run FSX and then some. But the migration is just not worth it to me.

The migration is not YET worth it to you because you, by keeping insisting using FS9, have contributed to slow down full FSX adoption by developers. This, in turn, has created a lack of compelling products that would make the migration not worth for you so, it's going in circles.

We are just trying our best to break that circle, and try to show what FSX can do, and this might require taking a break from scenery design for a while, at least with one group of people at FSDT. Because, "showing what FSX can do" doesn't mean making better scenery, it means adding FEATURES, and that is something we are working on for a while. The issue is that, it takes time, we are now finally seeing the end of it and, in a not too distant future, we'll be able to announce some products. But we had to build the foundations, before being able to build the house/roof so, it's frustrating having to hear such comments about FSX not being worth, because we KNOW what we have in hand...

[Mike...]

I think we're finally getting somewhere.

This, as I've said already, and as WAS PROVEN (opposite to what you keep insising saying) by the other post, CAN be fixed, WAS fixed in Geneva and WILL be fixed at KLAS.

...

It's not really difficult, that's why we did it for Geneva, but it's simply that it has slipped away in the conversion process, because we simply use the same BGL in FSX and FS9, which is an 2002 SDK BGL to begin with...

Now, I may be inclined to believe you. But I hope you understand that without the knowledge that is got overlooked, it certainly didn't appear to have been addressed properly.

You shouldn't worry about fixing this yourself. We are supposed to do it, and we'll do it, same as Geneva.

Good, because I didn't pay 27.71 EUR to support your FSX activities and get the shaft as an FS9 user.

The migration is not YET worth it to you because you, by keeping insisting using FS9, have contributed to slow down full FSX adoption by developers. This, in turn, has created a lack of compelling products that would make the migration not worth for you so, it's going in circles.

I in turn blame ACES. If they would've spent a little more time on say the ATC system, AI management, airport managent, then I wouldn't still be using FS9. My hesitance to migrate has nothing to do with lack of compelling products. It has to do with the fact that areas I'm interested in, have been completely ignored by ACES and deemed legacy. The moment you announce an ATC program that controls both user and AI in ways never before seen (according to the same rules and where AI is fully aware of the user), I'll migrate. If it can do smarter vectoring, approach separation, holding patterns, intelligent use of runways (no stars needed, ability to close runway ends independently from their reciprocal ends), day vs. night use, etc... I'll have my deluxe copy ready to be installed for the third time (a charm?!). But no sooner.

it's frustrating having to hear such comments about FSX not being worth, because we KNOW what we have in hand...

Maybe it's time to start sharing?

[Tom C]

The migration is not YET worth it to you because you, by keeping insisting using FS9, have contributed to slow down full FSX adoption by developers. This, in turn, has created a lack of compelling products that would make the migration not worth for you so, it's going in circles.

We are just trying our best to break that circle, and try to show what FSX can do, and this might require taking a break from scenery design for a while, at least with one group of people at FSDT. Because, "showing what FSX can do" doesn't mean making better scenery, it means adding FEATURES, and that is something we are working on for a while. The issue is that, it takes time, we are now finally seeing the end of it and, in a not too distant future, we'll be able to announce some products. But we had to build the foundations, before being able to build the house/roof so, it's frustrating having to hear such comments about FSX not being worth, because we KNOW what we have in hand...

I'm a user of FS9 and FS-X, and have all your sceneries for both sims.
I have recently spent €4500 on a new system configured to run both Sims, yet the usage here is still well over 80% FS9 to whatever % FS-X.
Why, you may ask?
The straight answer is money.

I have spent almost as much money in the last 4 years as I've just spent on my new system, on add-ons from scenery to Aircraft models.

Why should I suddenly stop using any of those, because you think us FS9 users are holding up FS-X development?

I don't think any developer that would like my hard earned money should be telling me to stop using the "old" sim, and convert over to the "new" one.
I know you can say you never asked for my money, but I actually do happen to like what you as a team design apart from certain small area's as discussed in this thread.

[virtuali]

Good, because I didn't pay 27.71 EUR to support your FSX activities and get the shaft as an FS9 user.

Other than saying openly the version we work on it's the FSX one, the FS9 one is just a straight 1:1 port stripped with everything that FS9 doesn't support ( meaning, you should expect the FS9 version being limited because of this ), and providing a full working Trial, what should we do more ?

It's not that we tried to lure you into buying a product that was passed as a real FS9 product, or we don't give ample opportunity to test it, considering the Trial doesn't have any expiration date, can be launched an unlimited number of times, and files like the AFCAD, for example, are not even protected...

The moment you announce an ATC program that controls both user and AI in ways never before seen (according to the same rules and where AI is fully aware of the user), I'll migrate. If it can do smarter vectoring, approach separation, holding patterns, intelligent use of runways (no stars needed, ability to close runway ends independently from their reciprocal ends), day vs. night use, etc... I'll have my deluxe copy ready to be installed for the third time (a charm?!). But no sooner.

I didn't know such a marvel existed in FS9...

Stating "I won't switch until I get that one", doesn't make much sense, because you might well get other compelling features that might interest you that FS9 doesn't have as well, while not necessarly a smarter ATC which is the typical case of a software problem related to Artificial Intelligence that, in order to appear just "a little bit" smarter, requires an HUGE amount of resources, the ATC AI is a whole interesting problem that hasn't really been solved, even in the professional market...Microsoft has not decided not to touch the ATC because they are dumb, they don't listen or anything like that, it's just they known very well that the effort/return ratio of improving the ATC is so unfavorable, that it can't be done, and only 10% of THEIR users (which means, the millions, not the few hundreds) wouldn't notice the difference in any case.

Maybe it's time to start sharing?

I can only say we are working to cover one of the things you listed as being important to you.

This doesn't necessarily mean we have discarded entirely the idea of replacing the ATC entirely, because we know very well it's a top wanted issue, it's just that is an extremely complex task, which so many implications, that it can't be taken lightly so, we'll probably need more intermediate steps to get there...

[Deltalpha]

Did you (FSDT) ever wonder WHY we love FS9 over FSX?

Its the performance (for me at least). I've used FSX since the start of my fs career altogether. And you can guess that I thought FSX was the greatest, only because I was never exposed to anything else, such as FS9. I would get 10 FPS on my low end system at the default JFK with 50% traffic. So I said "why not give it a try"....

It was the best choice I had ever made (FS wise, of course). Frames went up plenty. Now, it never looks like a slide show when flying.

Sure FSX has some great features, but in the end, it doesn't cut it for me anymore. Theres plenty more reasons that FS9 users would prefer to 'hold up FSX development', but im not going to go into that. Besides, the list would be too long.

When an affordable computer that can run FSX on its highest settings comes out, then I'll buy it. But for now, I'll do my part in "FSX development".

[virtuali]

I have spent almost as much money in the last 4 years as I've just spent on my new system, on add-ons from scenery to Aircraft models

We are getting somewere...

I know I might say something that might sound blasfemy to many but, I was always convinced that this market, as with ANY market, has grown too much in offerings, without being balanced with a similar increase in the user base, and has reached an unhealthy situation. The user base is basically always the same or even lower compared to what it used to be with, let's say FS98, but the number of products on the market has increased, during the last 10 years, probably about 100 times.

This means the sales expectations for an addon product are now much lower, and the fact we need to support two platforms doesn't help it.

Something had to happen, like a drastic decrease on the number of developers. It has already happened in some way, but I think this is just the beginning. Many might just be scared FS doesn't have any future (we are not so sure...), so they'll just quit before the market would shrink even further.

If Microsoft haven't fired the ACES studio, I still think something major would and SHOULD have happened on the next version of Flight sim like, for example, Microsoft deciding to get a cut of the addons business market. Which would have meant: much better support for developers, licensed developers, approval process like console games, and probably control over the distribution channel, which works very well on the Xbox Live. Which DOES NOT necessarily mean Flight Sim would have gone on the Xbox, not immediately and not on the *current* Xbox (perhaps the next one...), but it might have been some kind of offering similar to the Xbox Live, related to Flight sim and the addon market, on the PC.

As I've said, at the risk of sounding heretical, I would have been in favour of this. Because, as scary as it might sound, initially, it's just a normal "growing up" step and we shouldn't be afraid of it. The iPhone business model works like this, the console market works like this, and these are markets that WORK, and this is where the money is.

However, I think this was just too ambitious and far reaching, and it would have required a more imaginative Microsoft than the one we have now...the one that around 1995 seemed to be unstoppable. One that was really focused on the PC, which doesn't seem to be as high as a priority for the current one.

What really happened, instead, was just the "easiest" solution: just have ACES let go, blaming the economics for this, and put flight sim in the fridge, waiting for better times...

[Mike...]

Stating "I won't switch until I get that one", doesn't make much sense

It does to me and that's all that matters...

in order to appear just "a little bit" smarter, requires an HUGE amount of resources

I don't agree with you on that one. There are a number of things ACES could've tweaked that would've required little effort, but would've made a world of difference. For example, an aircraft ready to depart is currently only cleared to take-off after the landing aircraft has vacated the runway. How much work would it take to get the following behavior instead? Aircraft is told to taxi into position and hold as soon as the landing aircraft is clear of that position (this behavior is already in the sim when a departing aircraft starts its take-off roll, so it's not something new), then told to take off when landing aircraft has vacated the runway.

How much work would it take to allow the user to configure runway ends independently from the reciprocal ends? I mean, everything needed is already there in the Afcad. Opened, closed, landings, take-offs, it's all there. How difficult would it be to go from, if you want to close a runway end for landings, you have to close the other end for landings as well, to if you want to close one end for landings, you can!

I don't see how either tweak would require huge resources. And there are a lot more examples. In the three years they had to do FSX, surely they could've looked into that... Yeah, in FSX runway usage can switch even with AI in the Active AI zone. As a bonus head-on collisions are possible! Meanwhile, hordes of animals are roaming the middle of nowhere... And you wonder why people are reluctant to migrate.

I have spent almost as much money in the last 4 years as I've just spent on my new system, on add-ons from scenery to Aircraft models

In that sense, ACES has been the victim of its decision to use an extra year to develop and allowing addon developers to go for it with FS9. ACES is the victim of its own success. It could've worked, with a better FSX, but not with the FSX we have now.

[virtuali]

Its the performance (for me at least). I've used FSX since the start of my fs career altogether. And you can guess that I thought FSX was the greatest, only because I was never exposed to anything else, such as FS9. I would get 10 FPS on my low end system at the default JFK with 50% traffic. So I said "why not give it a try"....

I guess it's very likely that your first experience with FSX was pre-SP1, which was basically half the fps of what it is now, since I have a VERY different frame rate at the default JFK (and ours, of course) in FSX, with a 3 years old machine:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1304.msg10480#msg10480

However, if your machine was much lower than that, I AGREE that FSX wouldn't have been a good experience. We don't have anything to say agains users that do not want to update hardware, so they use FS9. Because, one day or the other, they WILL update their hardware, maybe for other reasons, and they might give FSX another shot.

However, my biggest issue is with people that HAVE the hardware to run FSX, even one that is much better than mine (now aging), yet they insist using FS9, which is not the best choice for the hardware they have, FS9 might run just the same on a much lesser machine. And FSX might run much better, because although it starts with lower fps, it CAN take MUCH more beating, PROVIDED THE ADDON IS WELL PROGRAMMED, before going really down, and is FAR smoother, thanks to the use of multi-core at least for the things that creates stuttering, which should be enough reason to switch, even if all the things were equal.

The main error is, one shouldn't feel "diminished", if it can't put all sliders on the right, on a 4500$ uber-machine. PRETENDING to do so is wrong, because it just shows no understanding on what the sliders do. It has been said several times: one of the most demanding feature in FSX is the Autogen. But the slider has an entirely different meaning from FS9. What you see in FS9 at the "Extremely Dense" setting is roughly compared to FSX at "Sparse". So, if you were happy with what you saw on the densest FS9 settings, why not just use FSX in a slider position that will show you the same amount of things ?

And no, saying "If I have to dumb down FSX to FS9 level, then I might just use FS9", while it might have some sense on low/mid machines, doesn't have any sense with hi-end machines, because by using FSX without going over the top with settings on FAST hardware, leaves a very good amount of headroom for addons (again, if WELL PROGRAMMED) solves the issue of blurries because the multi-core are happy loading textures in the background without slowing down, something that FS9 doesn't do very well, because it reaches a point were you can keep adding hardware and not getting much benefits anymore. FS9 doesn't SCALE as well as FSX.

That's why we say it has no future, when even the cheapest machine you could buy would be 8 cores, with a single one running at the same speed of 3-4 years ago, FS9 will STILL use only that core. And most of the addons as well because, apart for the ones that are entirely separate programs, the most demanding ones are either scenery running on the single-core FS9 scenery engine, or in-process apps like airplane gauges, that run in the same process as FS9.

The fact that FSX has a client server architecture for addons (Simconnect), allows for addons to run externally, make their processing entirely on their own, getting advantadge of multiple-cores themselves, and talking back to FSX only when needed.

This why we are moving ALL our stuff to our Python engine, which runs as a external process, so it gets multi-core support automatically, and with each new release we refine the process, that's why KLAS updates all our released sceneries, because we are shifting some of the things we did in-process to the out of process executable, so we progressively move on the spare multi-cores, which are only going to increase in number.

The next products we'll release are going to require a lot of complex calculation but, the beauty of this, is that we can do it without impacting one bit on FSX, in spite of the popular myth that "FSX has no headroom for addons".  Yes, it might be the case for Addons that are programmed AS IF IT WERE FS9, without understading the huge implications the shift towards a client-server architecture like Simconnect has brought on the table, coupled with the fact clock speeds are not going to increase, but the number of cores is, so we better start using them.

People that say that, because FSX is not even using 4 cores entirely today, it can't grow on future 8 or 16 cores PCs, don't take into account that what can *potentially* slow down the sim on these machines are the addons but these CAN be made to use multi-cores, if made correctly.

[virtuali]

It does to me and that's all that matters...

Since you don't know what will be offered in the future ( and not necessarily by us ), it's wrong to say that you will never switch, because you can't obviously known in advance if a new product might eventually catch your attention enough to convince you switching, even if it's not *that* ATC marvel you were asking for.

For example, an aircraft ready to depart is currently only cleared to take-off after the landing aircraft has vacated the runway. How much work would it take to get the following behavior instead? Aircraft is told to taxi into position and hold as soon as the landing aircraft is clear of that position (this behavior is already in the sim when a departing aircraft starts its take-off roll, so it's not something new), then told to take off when landing aircraft has vacated the runway.

That's just a timings/condition tweak, not what I call "smarter" ATC. You were mentioning smarter ATC, and that's very different from such minor things. They might have fixed this but, it's just the typical example of something that doesn't look good on the back of the box, it's not a selling feature, it sounds more like a bugfix.

Smarter ATC means entirely different things like, for example, integration with a smarter weather sytem too, with frontal sytem, and ATC that directs you outside of a cumulus, or airports that gets suddendly crowded because everybody has diverted there to escape a storm...

THAT'S what I call "smarter", and that was I meant when I've said a smarter ATC would have huge ramifications on other major aspect of the sim, with weather being the most obvious, but not the only one.

I don't see how either tweak would require huge resources.

Tweaks, exactly as I've said.

In that sense, ACES has been the victim of its decision to use an extra year to develop and allowing addon developers to go for it with FS9. ACES is the victim of its own success. It could've worked, with a better FSX, but not with the FSX we have now.

No, the FSX undeserved bad reputation has been caused by the unhealthy and unjustified market growth, that would have collapsed in any case, even if there was no FSX relased at all. Unhealthy, because you can't have more developers than users...we were getting very close to that, and it's not going to work for too long, in any market.

[B777ER]

Umberto and others- Here is another catch holding up (at least for me) into getting and using FSX; MS's Vista OS. Why would I want to get a known resource hog like Vista when Windows 7 is coming the end of the year? Thats my hold up. As soon as I can get Windows 7, I plan on upgrading the computer (with the newer Intel chips that come out the end of the year as well) and going to FSX at that point. It is getting so close to Windows 7 release, you need to be desperate now to buy a computer with that Vista crap in it.