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Quick Poll: are you a FS9er or a FSXer ?

Let’s do it quick and dirty so we all know what we are and where we are at as 2008 draws it’s last curtain. Pleaaaase be honest, we do want to get a quick but accurate view of the status quo of you, our readers. We believe this to be of interest to all. Go for it:

[poll id=”2″]

UPDATE 29/12: i had planned to close this poll after the christmas weekend, but decided to keep it open for a while longer as developments show how interesting this issue is currently.

UPDATE 06/01: Poll now closed.

0 Responses

  4. If you still have the results from a year or so ago, Miguel, it might be interesting to do a comparison when this closes?

    From what I remember, it was a lot less close last year, with FS9 still by far the most popular sim. So what’s changed? Are people upgrading their rigs, or finding that FSX isn’t as bad as they were told?

    Ian P.

  6. Hmm. One was definitely done by Francois some time ago… Might it have been a forum, rather than front page, poll?

    I’ll have a dig in the archives when I get chance.

  8. The only great interest I found in FSX is the quality of the water. The remaining is not enought to make me letting down sweet FS9.
    Still FS9ER for a long time!!!

  9. ooops nick, thanks! definitely the spirits! 🙂

    what frightens me most is the total number of voters last year and this year… are there less and less simmers and interest? the poll runs until sunday, lets see what happens.

  10. I remember the previous poll started with the same difference, then later on FS2004 took the final sprint.
    The poll was running quite a while if I remember well.

  11. Ian P., you must remember that FSX was released in October 2006. We are now approaching January 2009 and FS9 is still leading the poll. There is a poll at the PMDG forum as well and FS9 is leading that one as well. I use FS9 as well and I cannot for the life of me think of any past MSFS release were the old version, 2 years 2 months later is still the leading FS sim of choice. Who cares if FSX has closed the gap somewhat, it (FSX) at this point will never be an outright favorite among users.

  12. ACES/MS messed up royally with FSX, unfortunately. Too many different versions, too many problems to deal with at once for a development community that had got comfortable with FS9. Unfortunately, FSX is, without doubt, a vastly better sim, but many people will never see that or, indeed, want to see that.

    There are still a large number of people out there who, without ever having used FSX, decry it as a “child’s game” because of the inclusion of missions, yet they’ve never tried the missions to see what they actually are.

    People used FS98 well past the release of FS2000 and then moved directly to FS2002 or, in some cases, FS9, so this is far from the first time it has happened and primarily for the same reasons – familiarity with an existing sim, a far wider range of add-ons available and perceived inability to run it on hardware.

    No, it will never be more popular than FS9, it will certainly never have more add-ons available than FS9, but then neither will anything. The demands on developers will increase from this point forward, not decrease, so some people might want to stick with FS9 permanently, the same as they have with FS98. Whether that’s the “right thing to do” is open to debate, but it will undoubtedly happen.

  13. Predominately FSX when I fly these days. While I have a lot invested in fs9, most of the time I just enjoy FSX more. After sp1, the performance seemed workable to me (that and not looking at fps anymore). I miss my AK addons though.

    In my mind, Ian is right in that there were too many issues with FSX out of the gate and as a result it’ll never see the penetration / use that FS9 does. I’m hoping that FS11 will be an improvement and build upon the lessons learned in FSX… some things really turned out great and others a great disappointment.

    Interesting point on the missions in FSX. I tried my first one last night and had a blast. Tried a couple others today with mostly the same result (missions or not, I’m still not much a chopper jockey). Wished I had done that sooner…

  14. I am skipping FSX and wating for the next sim. I am running FS9 fully maxed out with amazing graphics and AI aircraft and I am having too much fun enjoying my framerates to watch an FSX slide show.

  15. The problem with FSX is you have to buy a “robo” computer to make it work good. I have upgraded parts twice and it still struggles at big airports with Ultimate traffic. FSX is dang cool. But, there is no prgram like AITM with TTools that even allows you to change the traffic inside FSX and the prgram has been out two years. I love FSX it is just not where FS9 was at the two year mark. I find that I still use FS9 alot. I am just orn. It is fun to make your own flights inside of FS9 with AITM. But FSX is so much better as far as how the world and aiports look. I just wish AITM workes in FSX. Pain in the Butt.

  16. Speaking of lessons learned hopefully Aces won’t repeat the trend of FSX and understand in sim performance is key on the latest hardware of the day (waiting of ‘future hardware’ has fell on a sour note when looking 2 years after FSX’s release and one still can’t max out the settings with the default sim). I stay with FS9 because it just runs wonderfully. Thanks to time and product maturity including hardware FS9 runs better than any version before it. Performance issues are a thing of the past and we’ve never seen that. The genie is out the bottle and unless Aces can produce a product building on improved ATC, weather, Flight dynamics, Graphics, and performance to name a few FS9 will be around for quite some time. I liken it to the graphical engines of multi-million dollar simulators Aces is trying to corner. These Level-D sims use what works and that’s where this community is at. We just want to fly and not tinker especially when money’s tight. Market FS11 as a sim and not a game and get serious about the franchise. FS from this point on will fail trying to market it to gamers. That’s one of the failings of FSX, they didn’t take the sim aspect of the product seriously. Aces didn’t take the community around FS seriously and listened little to what we had to say so most of us stuck with FS9…

  17. fsx wins for me hands down i have fs9 aswell…got it cheap after fsx was out and its not half as good as fsx!

  18. There are tools for changing traffic in FSX – a number of them. You can also easily convert FS9-format plans using AIFP or AIFPC, so that’s not an issue.

    Regarding your comments, Dillon, the biggest complaint about FS for as long as I’ve been around it (since FS4) is that “there’s nothing to do”. That’s why so many people create and join VAs, why packages such as FSPassengers, Cargo Pilot, FS Cargo and many similar ones exist. Yet when ACES included something to give people goals, to give them challenges that will increase their piloting skill, it becomes a “game”? No, it gains extra content. It works exactly the same as every version before it, yet also allows you to do something and get a reward for doing so. People really do need to try a few of the more difficult missions before decrying it as a “game”.

  19. Ian, I have to repectfully disagree with you. If I want for example to make TWA my own virtual airline, or US air, or whatever airline. Let’s say I pick Miami for one of my hub cities. Let’s say I want to creat my flights inside of FSX, you can not say this is not an issue. There is nothing out there as easy to use as ATIM / TTools in FS9. Nothing. Your prove my point when you tell me to make it in FS9 and tranfer it over. Traffic X will allow you to do this in a weird kind of way, but to me, after messing with traffic X, it is just not as good as ultimate traffic. The planes and scheudles are just not as good. But yes they have a weird way of doing it. There are other programs out there, but if you run vista they don’t work. There is not a lot of stuff out there that allows me to edit my traffic the way I want like AITM / TTools. It’s been two years!

    FSX has been out for over two years. Developers had a hard time at first to even make scenery for it to work. A perfect example of this is Flytampa. This guy was kicking out great scenery packages left and right in FS9 ( Miami, Tampa, Seattle, Midway, SFO, San Diego) the list goes on and on. I mean he was on a roll. Great scenery. Remember how long it took all these scenery guys to get up to speed with the new FSX? Nothing like when FS9 came out. You just dropped and draged your old stuff to the new stuff. I was so excited when I first got this prgram. But it took close to a year to even get a computer to run it right.

    There is just a lot of erros in FSX. The graphics just blow away FS9. It is night and day how much better the idea FSX is over FS9. But, there are just little bugs here and there that keep me still flying FS9. I want to burn FS9 and move on, but I can’t yet. FS9 is so much more stable even after two years. I have 8 gigs of memory and in FSX I constantly get out of memory issues. 8 gigs! I have a $480 dollar video card, and one of the best CPU’S money could buy last June ( 18 months after the program was out). I still have performace issues with FSX. I want all my sliders to the right at this point. I guess I need to upgrade parts again huh? My point is, after two years of FS9, none of this was an issue. After two years of FS9 I could not even remember anything about the last flight sim franchise. Why after two years is FS9 still on our mind and still being used be any of us? Why after two years do I have to still use FS9 to transfer my AI over? FS9 at this point should just be a memory not a reality.

  20. AI Flight Planner works for both FS9 and FSX native traffic. It’s easy to use – I’d thoroughly recommend looking at it, regardless of which version of the sim you are using.

    Just for record, I have hand coded and used tools to develop AI traffic for both FS9 and FSX. Neither are that difficult, but both are easier with tools. What FSX will allow you to do, which FS9 wouldn’t, is to develop “random” AI files for things like GA aircraft within a few clicks. For FS9, you had to manually hand code each and every flight.

    However, having created AI files for WW2 aircraft and virtual airlines in FSX, I would recommend using AI Flight Planner and simply compiling them into your preferred format. The only reason I mentioned the ability to convert is that if someone already has AI files – or wishes to use those available from the big freeware AI teams, you can do so with just a few clicks.

    I do agree, however, that FSX will never and could never replace FS9. I don’t think FSXII or FS XIII will either, because there will simply never be the amount of add-ons available again that there were for FS9. The add-ons made will be better, but far fewer in number due to the complexities involved.

    That said, there’s no reason at all that the big freeware AI organistions couldn’t support FSX – they just don’t want to. Will they want to support FSXI?

  21. fs2004 for as long as aces puts up a new version with a decent AI traffic engine … all i need really 😉

  22. Ian let me clarify my comments above… O.k. Aces added missions to FSX which in my book is a plus. That’s not what constitutes the ‘Game’ aspect for me. What constitutes ‘Game’ is it was marketed as a ‘Game’ aggressively by Aces themselves yet we are supposed to take away something greater than that from this effort. Aces departed from playing up real world endorsements from companies like Cessna to make it more accessible to gamers, which ended up not working do to the ever present performance issues we all to well know about. This was their choice not any of us in this community… FSX virtually in 90% of it’s underlying features has not grown or even surpassed anything in FS9. It was meant to be a graphical feast to lure in the ‘WOW’ factor crowd… To this fact FSX didn’t bring us or was intended to advance any sim progressions over FS9 in areas that would be more logical for a sim. What got pushed out the door was basically three major things over FS9, missions, online control tower module, and better graphics (the hallmarks of the audience it was trying to reach). We didn’t get better ATC in the aspect of more options during flight (examples would be ‘alternates/holding patterns/AI spacing/vectors around storms/in flight emergency vectors, etc). We didn’t get a truly updated FDE engine where for example realistic water landings could be possible and better turbo prop simulation could be realized (heck, you can still fully land in FSX without doing a controlled stall before touchdown in light aircraft)… Nothing has basically changed concerning the weather engine outside of better looking clouds (actually some things got worse if we look to rain and snow effects). Like I said missions are a plus as it gives something to do but that’s not a meaningful leap over FS9.

    I find myself hard pressed telling FSX screenshots from FS9’s. The so called graphical advantages are marginal at best considering 2+ years after FSX’s release most can’t run this feature in all it’s glory. People comment here about how advanced FSX looks over FS9 and the reality is FSX took a page from FS9 coupled with add-ons like ASV and Flight1’s Ground Environment to exploit much of what we already had (an age old Microsoft tactic). FSX took a note from our add-on developers and released a tricked out version of FS9. A problem that could be cited to the fact there’s no real competition on the market for FS. In the past products like ‘Fly’, ‘Fly2’, and Sierra’s ‘Pro Pilot’ drove FS development where as today the add-ons built around FS itself is the only motivation/creative juice driving Aces. I would bet anyone if X-Plane came out with a version that had all the ATC bells and whistles including other advancements I mentioned above you’d see those things added to the next installment of Flight Simulator…

    So Ian there’s allot legitimately going on hear than you care to realize and it’s not because people are being hard on FSX, it goes way beyond that…

  23. Then clearly, Dillon, you actually have no idea of the advances that FSX has brought. You might like to speak to some of the developers writing code that could never function in FS9, or the huge increase in polygons available to modellers without any effect on the sim compared to FS9 modelling techniques. I agree that there are still things that could be done better (ATC and turboprop modelling being two good examples) but ACES also have to take into account what will sell to the general public, not just to the tiny percentage of that market that want a hardcore flight simulation. It has to be accessible to everyone, not just someone training for or already holding a real world flight license.

    Your comments about no real changes are simply not correct. FSX has made a large number of steps forward, primarily in the background engine, which is why it takes so long to “retool” existing products for it. You evidently don’t want to know what the changes are, after two years of saying how terrible it all is, as you have done, and that’s fine. There’s no reason at all why you have to move forward with the sim, if you are happy with the one you have. As long as you’re enjoying it, the same as anyone else, then why not continue to do so?

    Microsoft Flight Simulator – an entertainment product – has been marketed as a “game” since Microsoft took over the branding. Yes, it is a game. It always has been. It is not and will never be in the same bracket as Elite, which can be used legitimately to train for instrument hours, because Microsoft/ACES have developed their own professional platform – ESP – to do that. Therefore MSFS will remain, as it always has been, an entertainment title.

  24. Lot of interesting comments here. But I just wanted to add a new view. If what it was important wasn’t which product is better. If what it was important was how many new users you can reach with a “same” product, I mean FS9 or FSX… still a modern flight simulator, isn’t it?

    I think FSX bring a bunch of new users, as me, and therefore enlarge the sim community. That is important I say.

    So a lot of FS9ers still stay on FS9, that’s a good choice, but now FSXers are almost many as FS9ers. That means a lot of new simmers.

    And about the performance, c’mon guys, with a decent computer right now you run smoothly FSX as default it is. No need to have 8 gig of ram lol.

  25. “but ACES also have to take into account what will sell to the general public, not just to the tiny percentage of that market that want a hardcore flight simulation.”

    I hate this old tired argument that dumbing down and/or keeping the sim dumbed down is what’s selling the product. The whole reason the series has lasted this long is the continued advancement (“As Real as it Get’s”) and real world aircraft manufacture support/recognition that’s been made over the years. Add-on developers added to that with realistic add-ons that further took this hobby into the stratosphere. Fixing things so aircraft land properly among a host of other issues is not going to kill the franchise that’s hogwash. This is another example of blind justification instead of challenging Aces for a better product in the future. If we want to talk about underlying aspects of a product Vista has great features as well behind the scenes. The business world as well as most home users opted to stay with Windows XP for some reason. MS forced the issue by forcing people to use Vista on new machines (nothing new as this is how it’s always been right). A protest erupted in both sides of the customer base when MS wanted to prematurely cut XP. Now I’m finding a new version of Windows will be released next year (09). The point is people could care less what features a product brings behind the scenes if the front end is a mess. FSX on the user side of the tracks is a mess and the numbers in this and every other poll show that. All the polygons in the world mean nothing if the resulting visual representation looks like FS9 with add-ons piled on top of it at the cost of performance. As far as most are concerned all the bells you outlined above did nothing for the end user but cause more headaches for all but the same view outside the cockpit. 2+ years and the thing still runs like a dog. That officially beats FS2000’s record for the worst performing version in FS history. Some developers may like it but the general population isn’t falling for it. Fix the mess so it at least runs decently and add features that advance the simulation then we have something. If your argument holds true all FSX is at this point is a developers toy leaving the vast majority in the cold as all they bought the thing for was to fly not tweak for the next 2-3 years…

    “I think FSX bring a bunch of new users”

    Benoit any new version of FS is going to bring aboard new users. Even if FSX wasn’t released FS9 would still be bringing in new simmers. That’s just the nature of the franchise. I will say this I’ve seen allot of people turned off by FSX’s performance that otherwise would have stuck around. I have also seen new people switch over to FS9 because of FSX’s for the better performance on their hardware…

    Ian since you brought up developers one thing I have to acknowledge is the poll shows there’s a market for both sims. It would be foolish for any developer to abandon FS9 at this point even though some (Aerosoft) would like to…

  26. Why are you not using FS2002, Dillon? After all, you’re trotting out exactly the same non-arguments that people did for the change from that to FS9… The arguments are still not valid and not correct.

    Go out, talk to developers, listen to what they have to say rather than just shouting them down and saying “you’re wrong, I’m right, you should be developing for FS9”.

    They will tell you that what they are developing will not work in FS9. The changes made to FSX are significant, and have opened up a lot of new avenues for development that FS9 simply doesn’t have.

    That’s the reality. FSX is a step forward. A hard one, but one that has to be taken. You, as a user, have the advantage of being able to wait for FSXI. The developers don’t, if they don’t want to find themselves having to learn the things that their competitors already have in the future. Remember that ESP, FSX and TS2 all use the same platform, as stated by ACES on a number of occasions. The FS9 techniques and methods are now a dead-end for anyone who wishes to continue development into the future.

  27. Ian based on your answer here it’s obvious you either didn’t read, read part of my post, or totally missed the whole point in what I was trying to say. Go back and read my posts above again if you so care to and maybe you’ll get it the next time around (you have to read the whole thing though to get the overall meaning). For the record I’m not faulting developers for developing for FSX just summarizing the thoughts of many in this community as to why the poll results are what they are. In short Aces/Microsoft needs to take a good look at what happened with FSX and do a better job next time. This will either happen or they’ll find older versions of the franchise continually more popular than their newest efforts. People have no time for bogged down software that continues to function poorly years after it’s initial release. You can make whatever argument you want but that’s the bottom line. The only people getting away with this kind of performance these days is Auto Executives… Now that there’s finally a version of FS out that looks great and runs outstandingly well on hardware most people have and/or can afford they’ve made their choice…

  28. Ian,
    I will give ai flight planner a try. Does it work with vista? It seems like I tried it once and it had vista issues?

  29. Ian help me understand this,

    In one post your say,

    “Yet when ACES included something to give people goals, to give them challenges that will increase their piloting skill, it becomes a “game”?”
    “People really do need to try a few of the more difficult missions before decrying it as a “game”.”

    Then in a lower post you say,

    “Microsoft Flight Simulator – an entertainment product – has been marketed as a “game” since Microsoft took over the branding. Yes, it is a game. It always has been.”

    Make up your mind Ian, is it or is it not a ‘game’??? You started going at people for their view of FSX as a game yet you acknowledge yourself in the context of FS9 and FSX’s shortcomings it is a game. It’s like you take a side when the mood suites the situation or angle your addressing (you need to stay constant no matter what angle coming from). I still say either way there’s things that shouldn’t still be present in the sim especially with the various surveys, polls, and user research conducted by Aces. It’s not going to kill them to do better next time and if they don’t understand the results of community polls taken every now and then. I also don’t buy the argument that future FS versions won’t see the same level of add-ons currently offered for FS9. With new tools, a desire to work with this community, and product time on the market Aces could easily achieve the same success they currently have with their FS9 effort. If FSX was a better product FS9 would have been history 2 years ago. All developers would be focusing on one version and by now we would have double the output that we currently have.

  30. I wouldn’t have voted in this particular survey but for the interest shown by our hosts. The question is too ambiguous for the purposes I suspect it is designed to serve. Anyway … I voted FSX, even though I use both X and 9. The reason for my vote is to designate what I am willing to spend new funds on. That’s what I suspect the underlying purpose of the poll is all about. When it comes to buying improvements, I have two, maybe (at the most) three, existing improvements for FS9 that I’m willing to spend new funds on. That’s the finale. That closes it out as a living system for me. I have lots I want to explore in FS9 that I haven’t had time to deal with yet, but I view it as a closed, completed project whose successor supports improvements with a further useful life.

    The other debates are amusing. Game? Sim? Well, it isn’t real, so it has to be a sim, but game seems somewhat politically incorrect for categorizing what people put so much effort into in order to simulate something from the real world as opposed to simulating something from a fantasy world. Perhaps adding that third level and calling one a real world game simulation and the other a fantasy world game simulation might assuage some bitter feelings, but I think it unlikely.

    Arguing about the failures of the design of FSX or its dependence on extraordinarily powerful hardware is tediously old business. Use what you like and can afford to support. I honestly believe the complaints have not gone unheard at Aces. Whether they care enough and respond enough won’t be known until FS 11 is released.

    At the risk of starting WW IV, let me hypothecate that there are really two vastly different major audiences (Markets) for Flight Sim. One is the hyper-professional commercial airline pilot simulator, and the other is the general aviation pilot (including, strangely enough, combat flight sim pilots). One group is excited about Artificial Intelligence Traffic; the other about Autogen. One likes terrain accuracy; the other gets excited about AFCAD perfection and Air Traffic Control precision. One is sensitive to winds aloft, wind shifting, and barometric pressure, while another group is more concerned with the graphical depiction of the clouds themselves, the visual depiction of rain, snow, whatever. There are many more ways to deliniate these stratifications among users, the point being made that they exist, however they may be described, and always allowing for the fact that these interest elements shift and migrate between the major groups; for example, AI matters a lot more to combat sim pilots than to GA pilots. It’s not so much a bipolar array as it is a spectrum, but with heavy tendencies toward the ends of the spectrum for each of the major camps. Proceduralism isn’t a fair distinction. It’s more a matter of where and with whom that proceduralism is expressed.

    If I read correctly – a major supposition – the trend of comments among the camps, I would suggest that the majority of users of the sim who use it primarily as simulated professional commercial pilots prefer the benefits of FS9, while FSX doesn’t yet fully meet their standards. On the other hand, GA users find FS9 was mighty good, and see FSX showing a modest but discernible edge with a lot of future promise.

    For your purposes of assessing my bias, I fall squarely in the GA camp. -Doug

  31. Now you’re just arguing for the sake of it, Dillon.

    FS of whatever version is an entertainment title, not a professional simulator. It can be used in a professional way for entertainment purposes, but cannot be used for professional training. As far as the simulation and aviation worlds are concerned, it is a “game”. So yes, FSX is a “game”, but so is FS9, FS2002, FS98… Therefore when people say that people should stick to FS9 and shouldn’t use FSX because it’s been “turned into a game”, they’re talking utter rubbish. It hasn’t been “turned into” anything, it’s still what it was – a piece of software designed entirely for entertainment purposes. A pretty realistic game, but getting on your high-horse and saying “it’s not a GAME, it’s a SIMULATOR!” as some people tend to do is ignoring the very obviously point that the JAA, CAA, FAA, etc, will allow you to put simulator hours in your logbook. MSFS hours cannot be entered into your logbook and do not count as flight hours, however much fun you had clocking them up.

    As I have said before, I agree entirely with what you say about Microsoft needing to learn from FSX – and for that matter Vista – although the major bugs with both were actually sorted with Service Pack 1 for both the O/S and FS. In FSX’s case, ACES openly admit that they assumed the world would go to higher and higher clockspeeds (if we were running on >4GHz single cores, right now, FSX would fly) where the hardware industry actually went multi-core to cool the chips down. ACES have accepted that mistake, put in what multi-core support they could with the SP and will have to rectify it properly in FSXI, which means that FSXI should perform better than FSX, in theory, although of course it isn’t due out until 2010 from what is being said.

    Regarding the number of add-ons available, all you are proving yet again is that you are very much a demanding user and not a developer. Developing the same add-on for FS9 versus FSX – using technology and techniques appropriate to each (i.e. higher poly models, more detailed textures, more detailed and varied autogen, terrain, lighting, bump maps, etc.) – takes massively longer. Therefore unless the number of developers increases dramatically, which it isn’t and indeed is reducing, the number of add-ons available decreases. That’s a matter of fact, not conjecture.

    As Doug says above, right now, there are two very capable sims available which cater for different kinds of user (X-Plane doesn’t cater at all for systems fans, regardless of whether they want complex GA or complex airliners – it doesn’t do complex systems, but it looks exceptionally pretty). You can use which one works best for you.

    If, however, you still cannot tell the difference between an FS9 texture and an FSX texture, then that’s an issue with you not with the sim. It’s a simple statement of fact that FSX supports far higher resolutions, particularly in ground textures, than FS9 does and techniques such as bump mapping (which have been used a lot outside MSFS since well before FS9 was released, incidentally!) are only supported by FSX, not by FS9. Those are two examples of many. What is actually there and what you choose to see can, however, be very different indeed.

  32. Hi all,

    just got back from my Christmas Holiday in Prague, to find this thread and discussions. (And believe it or not, but I managed to blow up …. physically with a loud bang, smoke and stench ….. my office PC last night…. so no CD orders for a few days please !! 😉 ).

    I think Doug makes a good point.

    Maybe next time around Aces may want to market an ‘Airliners Version’ and a ‘GA Version’ of the sim, instead of a ‘Deluxe’ and a ‘Standard’ version 😉

  33. Francois says:

    “Maybe next time around Aces may want to market an ‘Airliners Version’ and a ‘GA Version’ of the sim, instead of a ‘Deluxe’ and a ‘Standard’ version”

    Very interesting. But now it will be hard to choose, for me at least. I vote for a new poll: – Bush or Airliner for next FS 😀

  34. Doug you make some good points but tell me this, as a GA flier your perfectly fine with these shortcomings in FSX that have been reported for years to Aces and little has been done about it?

    1. Landing of GA aircraft don’t require a controlled stall upon runway touchdown
    2. Turbo Prop modeling has not been improved since FS2002
    3. Water landings still don’t remotely address factors of setting skids down on water at 115 knots, unrealistic is an understatement
    4. Weather engine hasn’t changed since FS9
    5. Aircraft ground handling characteristics while taxing around taxiways to runways hasn’t changed since FSW95.
    6. Icing conditions have no effect on aircraft and until recently wasn’t even a visual reality. So that’s one major issue you Alaskan bush pilots never have to consider in the winter…

    I could go on and on as these aren’t airliner sim issues I’m talking about here. You guys on the GA side (unless your new to simming) should have issue with some of these things yourselves. Landing a GA aircraft would be allot more fun and challenging for you guys if it was modeled correctly. As of today with FSX you may as well be landing an A36/Airliner on those small runways and water ways versus a light aircraft because you have none of the requirements of operating a light aircraft totally at the mercy of wind conditions because of it’s size and weight (I liken it to airliner speed brakes on the ground. There’s no difference in landing characteristics whether you deploy them on the ground or not in FS). These things can easily be addressed by a multi-million dollar development team especially this far into the franchise.

    As far as we’ve come in the advancement of this hobby there’s so much that could be fixed outside of ‘Greater Polygons’ for both camps (GA and Airliner) to make us all happy and greatful. As of today Aces has heard these request many times over (I’m not saying anything new) and for whatever reason ignored them. Promises were made before FSX’s release some of this would get looked at which didn’t happen. Without sims like ‘Fly’ and ‘Fly2’ among other titles there’s nothing pushing Aces to do better. When we had competition on the market we got things like AI, ATC, and functional virtual cockpits. The few things mentioned in this thread would take FS that much farther ahead which has been the advancement path of the franchise for years. Why is it so reasonable for some of you to expect ‘games’ like NASCAR (PC version), Falcon 4, and countless roll playing games to give all the bells and whistles in their genera (especially NASCAR and Sports titles) and don’t require that same attention to detail from a franchise simulating Flight? Many pilot’s have attested to FS helping them get their pilots license (we don’t want to count the many that got into aviation period because of this software)… If ‘games’ can technically progress over the years outside of graphics why can’t Flight Simulator do the same for some of you???

  35. 1. Landing of GA aircraft don’t require a controlled stall upon runway touchdown

    Correct and correct. Speaking as a real pilot, I have very rarely landed with the stall warner sounding. Airliner pilots never do. If you land in a stall, you are too slow. It’s great for very short field landings, but bad for the landing gear. You want to land just above stall, which is actually easy in FS(any recent version) with practice.

    2. Turbo Prop modeling has not been improved since FS2002

    As has already been mentioned in several posts, this is one area that seriously needs addressing.

    4. Weather engine hasn’t changed since FS9

    Incorrect.

    5. Aircraft ground handling characteristics while taxing around taxiways to runways hasn’t changed since FSW95.

    Incorrect. Actually, it has changed quite a bit on several occasions since then, as everyone complained about the changes for quite some time! First aircraft were too “sticky”, then they “ran away”. They may not be correct to the real world right now, but they have still changed a number of times.

    6. Icing conditions have no effect on aircraft and until recently wasn’t even a visual reality. So that’s one major issue you Alaskan bush pilots never have to consider in the winter…

    Incorrect. As I had the misfortune to discover very recently. Carb icing in particular is still done incorrectly (you lose all power immediately, rather than progressively as happens in the real world) but de-icing switches do actually function.

    Francois: I like the idea, but would it not be better just to do that through the option to load and save detail settings (as FSX already can, for anyone who doesn’t know this) provided ACES gave suitable defaults? I remember a lot of people being exceptionally unimpressed when first firing up FS9 because the detail sliders were all set to “low” or “off”. A lot of people like switching between lots of different aircraft – would this idea not entail them having to get both versions for all functionality?

  36. “It’s great for very short field landings”

    Ian Bush pilots in FSX and/or otherwise land on very short runways regularly. It’s sinceless to go into the subject of landing GA aircraft because we both know how it’s done in the real world. You fly and so do I although due to gas prices I haven’t went up in awhile. Unlike FS in the real world before touchdown you need to bleed off as much flying speed (alas Flare) as possible to keep the aircraft on the runway. You know this as well as I and to make like FSX is in any way depictive of the actual condition in the sim is ridicules… You can land well above stall speed in FS and the aircraft will stay on the ground no matter the wind speed. Like you stated Airliners can do this but never GA. I noticed you didn’t say anything about landing on a moving body of water in FS.

    This discussion is getting a bit long in the tooth… If you feel we have a true simulation of icing conditions on an aircraft, proper landing characteristics for GA aircraft, and a host of other advances in key areas in FSX then there’s little I can do to convince you otherwise. To each his own. I’ve stated my case and leave it to others to figure out (which they have judging my the poll results). Like Francois has stated, do to a number of conditions the wind has been let out of the sails on the FS hobby as of late. I equate that in part to FSX and it’s more visible marketing position over FS9 these days. It’s high profile and cost for admission to get decent performance out of it with add-ons has hurt our hobby… The old saying ‘First impressions always last’ holds true here. Although some things may have been fixed with service paks it’s taken FSX too long to get up to speed and our developers to get a firm grasp on it. This split has divided the customer base and in turn drove some developers out the business. My good friend Lou Betti of DreamFleet (part interest in AirlinerXP)has stated this may hold true to his business as well. You can’t say these are positives to our hobby and some of the blame has to go to FSX and Aces business decisions… I believe with more user friendly tools in the future and a desire by Aces to embrace this community with their product brighter days can be ahead. Development has to some how stay accessible to those with a desire to create on a small scale. These people grow to be our major developers. You hurt that beginning aspect you kill the hobby and/or severely hinder it down the road… Harder more expensive tools and slow performing software will kill this hobby and/or keep people on FS9 for years to come. You see this happening today. I believe Aces will address these issues with the next version and a new pool of talent will arise that’ll rival what we’ve seen for FS9. It’s all up to Aces and the smart guys that create the tools. Praising FSX today is the wrong move but we can look to a better future with a robust more vibrant version of FS for tomorrow…

    Ian the little hobbiest guys are key to our hobby continuing into the future. Aces needs to realize this and not get to high on the techi horse that hobby development is no longer accessible…

  37. FS9 plus Addons is simply perfect.

    Why not FSX:

    – to many Addons without 2D-Panels (I hate the 3D-hype and use my head for more than wearing a Track-IR-Hat)
    – needing to many recources
    – invested too much into FS9 and FSX is not compatible
    – not handsome enough to tempt me 😉

  38. I am most definitely a full-blown FSX user now. The aircraft paint detail possibilities are excellent. User editable bumpmaps, specualar shine, DXT5 DDS… from the painter’s p.o.v. FSX has it hands (and feet) down.

    Scenery wise – even with low FPS on my rig, the detail that is now possible and available… FSX has it hands (and feet) down.

    Low and slow flight is far more immersive in X. Sorry all you niners, you really are missing out.

    Yes, there are ‘issues’ with FSX.

    Yes, there are ‘issues’ for developers who want to build addons for FSX

    And yes – I did spend a LOT of cash on my FS9 PC and software – several thousand Euros as it happens. My PC is still an optimum FS9 box too. But the eyes (and of course the ‘Ayes’) have it for me.

    My very ‘umble suggestion: Don’t knock it if your system isn’t up to it. Accept the limitations until you can afford a new box or stay with good old FS9 – which is still very good despite what I say here.

  41. Hi.

    Somethings I would like to bring to discussion here:

    – hope we don`t see, when FSXI is being closer to be released, the same frisson we all have seen about FSX, when all we could remember was people anxious for the new sim, “killing” FS9 and schedulling it`s funeral before the time, stop ordering brand new FS9 addons being just released due to “I will not invest on an older sim right now” thinking, and forcing developers to a halt, as everyone was believing on a smooth compatibility as anounced by ACES before FSX release. That was a nightmare time or all developers, don`t being supported to develop to FS9 anymore, watching their products not working at all at the new sim, and without the tools and knowledge to deal with the new platform.

    – hope I don`t see anymore the hard time learning how to do all again, using a complicated SDK, full of tricks, and dealing with a strange round earth, service packs that destroyed almost everything already done to RTM version, and working. Things working well that just refused to work after SP-1, were fixed after a hard time discovering what had happened, and then again refused keep working after SP-2, just to be examined again, reworked again, fixed once more and re-released as an update, after a big price on work-time.

    – hope I wouldn`t see anymore the nightmare that means a new FS version for a developer, as we`ve seen when FSX appeared. Can you remember how smooth was the FS2002/FS2004 transition?

    – ACES had commented sometime ago that freeware Gmax would probably not been supported for FSXI, on it`s place the mandatory modeling software would be 3DSmax, extremely expensive, and more complex than Gmax. This will kill the freeware developer. Can you figure that?

    – hope I have never again to deal with a split market, where we are forced to do things for the new sim, using its new techs and tools (hardened learnt), and re-do/re-compile all again with the “old” SDK to serve an enormous parcel of users still using the “old” sim. We just can`t afford to leave away this huge ammount of our users, we have to still serve all of them, so, it results in much more work, much more stress, much more strengh, doing the same scenery two times.

    – hope to see again what happened to FS9, that could achieve such level of add-on development for the time it lasted alone and MS has taken to release FSX, allowing FS9 to reign absolute for almost 4 years instead of only 2 as usually happens on the history of FS. I hope FSXI still have a long, long, long way to go before being released, allowing us enough time to produce and enjoy nice addons for FSX.

    – of course that, if FSXI comes with only major improvements over FSX issues, turning simulation better for all of us, instead of being another apocalyptic earthquake of changes for all developers, that it comes early and fast to us. But I doubt that will happens. Unhappily.

    – for the user point of view I like both sims, and use both. For developer point of view, I confess FSX was (and still is) a huge suffering matter. This suffer may be minor by now, for sure as we finally got it`s secrets to the table, but it`s still hard to produce for both. The main problem is that we see very dark clouds on the horizon: the approaching date of FSXI release for next year, and the promise of seeing every thing up side down and messed up again.

    Excuse me for the long text, my bad English and the outflow, but this has been in my throat for a long time.
    I`m too old to keep being horrified at each FS release, to have bad time discovering it`s secrets and tricks, to keep things working nice after all the mess a new release brings, but at the same time I have a family to support, this is what I do for leaving and I have to keep my users happy, no matter if they use the “old” sim, the “new” one or both. So, the show must go on! But I had to talk 😉 I feel better now.

    My best regards,
    Carlos Pereira.
    Tropicalsim

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