You heard me! Now DISCUSS!

Check out the Orbx scenery shots all over these forums. It's an old dog but it still hunts.

You may be right, MSF may be the future but in my "present" FSX is a joy! For me "A century of flight"(2004) was a let down. It was just MS squeezing a few more dollars out of previous versions of Flight Simulator and trying to fool us into believing that we had something new. FSX on the other hand was a genuine attempt at "pushing the envelope" And push it did! I've spent more hours exploring the behind the scenes goodies of FSX than I have spent flying in FSX. And as far as your topic title goes "FSX is a dog. Bring on MSF" may I borrow a quote " Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans"

Gary (CVA0319)

My biggest disappointment with FSX was the fact that it wasn't designed with multi-core processing in mind. Aces was on a ridiculously tight schedule (FSX was timed to come out in line with Vista and the 'Games for Windows' campaign launch) and so they weren't investigating the new processor tech at the time.

Yes, it's been patched since, but that is not the same.
The biggest crux for FS has been the dual load of rendering a detailed 3D environment while performing all the calculations required to do that accurately (flight model, weather, etc)

With modern-day i-series processors, this problem should be largely non-existent. I'm hoping that we will see excellent performance on midrange processors and graphics with MSF.

I like FSX alot the only thing I do not like is the weather. I can never get true overcast.

Now, what about MSF?

FSX has been out long enough and has enough horse power (even if no longer very efficient technology) to develop quite the world of third party products. I wonder what the business model will be for an online game.

Online game?
Are you saying the MSF is a 'cloud' game??

I'd imagine there'd still be an HD footprint of substantial size.

Right. I'm assuming. But okay, what kind of implementation model will it be? Does anyone know?

I know its going to have an integrated marketplace. (think app store)

I read in the PCPilot Mag that it would be an offline game also if one chooses,
will we will be able to hook up to Vatsim?..... or will it be just an Microsoft server, Well it didn't say

They (MS) have categorically said that they plan to support the third-party 'experiences' - in fact, they want to enhance access to them (a la app market) so the API's for MSF are probably going to get three times the resources thrown at it than in the past.

Times have changed and MS finally gets it (although only since they really started playing with the mobile/cell market) so expect MSF to be better than ever for third-party development and online environments.

What WILL change is that MS will want a piece (small piece) of the third-party 'pie' vis-a-vis the FS app market (whatever that will be called) so offline 'stores' like those run by Flight1 are probably in big trouble. Also, all devs will probably have to conform to a unified installation platform (which isn't a bad thing in my opinion) so that add-ons can be installed directly from the market.

All in all, it should be a way better experience to learn about and enjoy add-ons and all of them (payware and freeware) will be all in one place, installed at the click of a button.

Sounds good. Do you think Franks good old P4 at 3.something GHz will be good enough then? Or my e8500 at 4.1?

The key to 'surviving' MSF will be three-fold:

1. 64-bit Operating System (Win 7 or better)
2. As many cores as you can find (i5 should be a good compromise for price/performance)
3. A midrange graphics card that has lots of buffer, RAM (this will not need to be a powerhouse, just capable and well resourced)

MSF is being written for 64-bit from the ground up, so the application itself will be able to do novel things like directly access memory over 2 gigs (smoother experience, better caching) as well as deploy itself across the cores more effectively. Furthermore, game writers have learned a hell of a lot since 2006 about multi-core optimisation (console gaming has driven this actually) and will be able to apply an architecture which is better thought out in terms of multi-tasking.

Answer your question, Rob - yes, I think you should see pretty good results with MSF provided you're running win7/64. My suggestion is to stock your RAM (4gb+) and upgrade the GPU to compensate - but you should be pretty good.
However, it wouldn't hurt to look for deals on a Quad-core upgrade.

Well hopefully my i7 with 12 GB of ram should run it.

well yes. I would presume so.