I understand that. Why not to put extra 25% to the price of FS9 version for the additional effort?
We don't want to sell the FS9 version separately, we want to have users MOVE ON from FS9 and, of course, the only way to do this, is to have a single license which is valid in both sims.
If you don't respect FS2004 market - that's ok, it's your choice. Simply do not release products for FS2004 with 'we are not willing to do", it hurts your status of quality developer.
I know you don't want to believe it, but KDFW has same or even BETTER FPS in FSX right now, even with the FS9 version missing all that stuff.
This scenery is simply too big, and way over what the obsolete FS9 engine can do. We were able to solve the problem in FSX, by using Shaders instead of cobbling the scenery with lots of ground polygons, otherwise it wouldn't been possible to offer anything at this level of quality, with such a large area, if we were using the old FS9 methods.
Remember the complaints about JFK ground not being sharp enough ? This is as large as JFK+KORD COMBINED!! Since in FS9 we are *forced* to use lots of ground polygons, instead of shaders (that we don't have), we start with a performance penality, even without starting to add animations, and all the other stuff that is missing.
So, the FS9 version is not limited just by our unwillingness to do things, it's limited by FS9 itself because, if we put *all* that was in FSX, it would have been unusable.
We don't HAVE to deliver the same quality on two platforms, with one being vastly superior to the other.
If you take a scenery made with FS9 methods in FSX, it might look good in both sims, but a scenery like this, which couldn't be done in THIS quality level without exploiting FSX features, will just show the real difference between FS9 and FSX.
In the videogaming world, is as if you, as a Wii user, would complain with a developer the PS3 version of their games looks better, and the developer shouldn't release for the Wii, unless he could match the PS3 version feature by feature, otherwise his reputation would be "hurt". Doesn't make any sense...