C90B for FS9 from Carenado

0 Responses

1. This is an awesome release. Mods are being created over on Avsim for the FDE and night lighting (so the panel lighting isn’t slaved to the landing lights). When people gravitate to a release like this it must be good. I hope Carenado follows this up with the King Air or the Malibu. Heck what’s on my list would be:

   1. Malibu
   2. King Air
   3. A36
   4. TBM
   5. C340

   Heck all the aircraft they make would be a welcome addition to FS9 that aren’t currently ported over… The C90 is fantastic. Thanks Carenado.

2. I don’t know why this company is still supporting FS9… stupid!

   Forget FS9 people!!!

   1. Just because you don’t use it, doesn’t mean everyone else has to stop too. The reason Carenado still choose to support FS9 is because there is still a large market for FS9 add-ons. A lot of developers still develop only for FS9 (although they may also advertise their FS9 add-ons as for FSX) simply because FSX introduced a large number of limitations and backwards steps which have never been fixed.

      So not stupid, actually.

3. A lot us still use FS9. I have my installation looking a lot like FSX. With the right settings and the right addons, FS9 preforms well on my system and looks great. There are some FS9 config changes that help to make it look that way. I am happy that Carenado has chosen to continue supporting FS9.

4. I’ve own all FS versions since FS5 (after having flown FS3 and FS4 and perhaps fallen in love with PC flight simming after trying an FS2 version). Everytime a new version came I never looked back, always upgraded. But with FSX it seems to have been different for many. With all it’s advances, I never saw so many in the FS community stick with the previous version, me included, or – a first – keep using BOTH, as I do. Perhaps its the economic crisis, persuading many from upgrading their system. Perhaps the addon market had grown enough by the time FSX came out that many didn’t want to waste all the investments they made in payware and start over again… Who knows for sure?

5. Let’s try FSX never ran right on existing hardware (recently the most expensive overclocked PC’s need apply). Today FS9 looks very similar to FSX with the right add-ons and is 100% more stable:

   1. GE PRO (Flight1’s Ground Environment)
   2. REX
   3. Activesky Evolution
   4. Zinertech’s Water
   5. Zinertech’s Airport Environment
   6. Contrails Pro
   7. TrackIR
   8. CH Yoke/Peddles

   For those on a budget FS9 is easy to get into, runs well, and has many more add-on options versus FSX. That’s why people stuck with it plain and simple…

   Again, thanks Carenado for bringing us another great product.

6. Forgot to add:

   9. ENB (Bloom effect for use with the brightest sky texture REX has to offer), enhances the visuals and shadows in FS9.

7. Well, OK, most of that is complete cobblers, as usual, Dillon. FS9 can and will never look like FSX, simply because FSX is capable of a lot more than FS9 does and for every one of those, there is an equivalent – or it is unnecessary – for FSX.

   What is correct is that FS9 with add-ons can look as good as – and run better than – default FSX (without the sliders turned up) on lower specification hardware.

   Biases aside (that chip on your shoulder is growing into an entire potato, Dillon!), FS9 and FSX still very much have a place, for different users, with different requirements, on different systems and both are ver much relevant sims for developers – hence continuing development for both platforms.

8. Ian, you mentioned backwards steps with FSX, which do you mean?

   I stick to FS9 mainly due to budgetary reasons, I like the visuals in FSX best: orbx’s sceneries for alaska are a dream-come-true, FS is beggining to look how I dreamed it should years ago, I like the way the aircraft handles more like real life, like in turbulence, I love what A2A did with their physics module. But in the end FS9 gives me a lot too and I have much invested in it and too little in my wallet to part with that investment. The best part is that while I keep investing in scenery for FS9 the majority include an FSX version in that price.

   1. A good example is that a significant amount of scenery design is still done in the FS9 SDK for FSX, Alex – you can always tell which sceneries use these techniques, because they are not DX10 preview compliant.

      The primary reason is that you cannot do “conditional animations” in the FSX SDK. That means you cannot change a scenery object due to weather, season, user position, etc. Some companies (e.g. Orbx) have developed external modules that can jelp help* with this, but for the most part it’s a fixed limitation. You’ll see no snow on the a building roof and bright green trees in the middle of hard winter. Another example is that custom windsocks, “wig-wags” that are only operational on the active runway and suchlike are also coded in the FS9 SDK. That’s just one example, but there are a number of others.

      * – I’ll learn how to type one day.

9. Thanks Ian for your explanations, that is some serious step back, indeed. I did some scenery design in the later days of FS2002 and early FS2004 and conditional scenery was a sort of holy grail that I never got to finding but I really wanted to – in order to have alaskan cabins with snow on their roofs I had to have two scenery versions, one for winter, and the user had to activate one or the other, very cumbersome. And FSX looses that? Doesn’t make much sense.

   I can’t avoid feeling amazed with the improvement in quality and amount of detail of today’s FS9 sceneries compared to the first years. Addon developers have been stretching the limits immensely. I’d never have thought I’d see something like, for example, Fly Tampa’s Athens in FS9, and this is just the first example that comes to mind. Or Simwing’s Anchorage… FS2Crew in another field..

10. Ian what I wrote above was a backup to my statement FS9 can look just about as good as FSX (the exception being water). Zinertech actually does a great job with getting close to FSX. That being said there is no chip just the fact that if one wants ease of use in getting into simming I’ve outlined how to get up and running. FSX on the other had requires knowledge in overclocking CPU’s and tweaking until a sweet spot is found for their setup. Time can be better spent for example customizing AI as the real world keeps changing with airline mergers and buy outs. My post is giving people an informed option. I hate saying FS9 can look as good as FSX without backing it up and/or showing people how it’s done. If you don’t believe me re-install FS9 and apply the recommendations I posted above. You’d be amazed at what FS9 can do visually. Some people want to fly not tweak. Put that on top of what iFly and Carenado is doing we are truly not in the stone age sticking with FS9 as some FSX users may think.

11. This thread is supposed to be about Carenado’s C90 and not (another) discussion about FS9 v FSX. Can we please keep to the subject?

12. But you haven’t backed it up, Dillon. Can you please show how FS9 can display the same scenery and model resolution textures as FSX? Answer: It doesn’t. It simply cannot do so. Therefore it cannot reach the standards set by equivalent generation FSX add-ons. This is why I always have to remind you that for every FS9 add-on you claim brings FS9 up to FSX standard, FSX is improving as well. Therefore, while FS9 can look like default FSX with sliders turned down, FS9 cannot display as much autogen, it cannot display as high resolution textures and much more. What you claim simply isn’t true, but you keep denigrating and belittling FSX in spite of the facts. You most certainly do have a very large chip on your shoulder.

    You do NOT need an overclocked CPU to run FSX unless you buy a 5yr+ old CPU. You don’t need “magic tweaks”. You haven’t for years now, but you had a bad experience years ago and believe the same things still apply now as applied in 2007.

    FS9 performs as well now as it did in 2007. FSX now looks and performs a lot better than it did in 2007. All the options that people used to have to turn off – if they are not running <2010 PCs - they now don't need to.

    I have FS9. It's not installed right now because I have just bought a new PC (a 7yr old one - running both FS9 and FSX quite happily - died and needed replacing) but it will be, alongside FSX, P3D and XP10, at some point when I need it for something. It does not, cannot and will not look as good as either FSX or XP10. Your belief otherwise does not change the programming changes between the sims (both good and bad!)

    Edited to add:

    David: The discussion started because someone made a statement that it was "stupid" to support FS9 for developers - as the following posts prove, many people do still use FS9 and have no intention of moving off it, this proving the incorrect nature of the original post.

13. Ian first off my comments are not “Stupid”. There are threads on every FS forum in existence stating how people are having trouble running FSX on today’s hardware let alone years ago. You can yell and scream all day about it but that’s the facts. People who don’t have time for OOM errors or the issues reported have options. Yes FS9 can’t display in the same manner as FSX but outside of city ground texture, in many cases you can’t tell the two apart. FS9 with the add-ons I mention don’t make FS9 look like FSX default but rather FSX with add-ons. Fly Tampa’s sceneries don’t look like FSX default airports in FS9. REX doesn’t look like FSX default clouds and sky textures. Carenado’s C90 in FS9 looks every bit as good as it does in FSX (look at the picture at the top). SO your statement is ‘STUPID’ not mine. FSX and FS9 today can look pretty much the same outside of the water and high detail city ground texture (unless one is using Orbix or photo textures like Megascenery). Any other graphic advantage you can point to is not a show stopper (it’s not like looking at FS2000 versus FSX). In many pics you’d be hard pressed to tell the sims apart.

    There’s no doubt that some like you are reporting no further issues with FSX but many more especially new people are having serious problems with FSX. You see this all over the forums. We in this community have options that’s all I’m saying. The graphical updates your touting seem to have caused more of a problem over the years than an asset. I could care less how many megapixels FSX can display when it can’t run without OOM issues we have problems. Furthermore a sim released in 2006 still can’t be ran maxed out in 2013, that’s ‘Stupid’. You act as if you can load up FSX without any tweaks and just run it without issue. I’ve asked advice in many places about getting a new machine to run it and everyone is telling me I can’t just go to Dell and get an i7 PC, it has to be a special i7 that has to be overclocked. I’ll let you read this ‘Stupid’ thread because it’s apparent you know something the rest of us don’t (by all means add to the conversation, give some advice to us less informed mortals):

    http://forum.avsim.net/topic/405975-this-should-run-fsx-with-little-to-no-tweaking-correct/

14. Correction I mis-read your statement above Ian, you did not call my comments ‘Stupid’. Either way I’m waiting to hear some holy grail advice from you in the thread I posted above.

15. For goodness sakes, Dillon. READ.

    http://www.simflight.com/2013/05/19/c90b-for-fs9-from-carenado/#comment-372121

    THAT is the comment I referred to. You continuously fail to read what people write and then use it to try and further your agenda. If you read what I actually said, I am saying that FS9 continues to be relevant; the exact opposite of what you claim.

    As for “looks as good”, it doesn’t. It can only support lower resolution textures. It cannot support models with as many vertices or draw calls. It doesn’t support the graphical effects. The sound engine is less capable. That does not make it a bad sim.

    Now seriously, get off your high horse, wind your neck in and any other similar description you need. Then come back and apologise, because you really need to.

16. My initial piece of advice is don’t buy a Dell. They’re built as business/home office PCs with, basically, parts built to a budget for that purpose. A small local supplier could build you a better PC, cheaper and with equal support.

    That said, I know a lot of people who run FSX without OOMs. They accept the limitations of their hardware and don’t try and shove every slider right (although my 7yr old, sadly deceased, PC could do that flying the Beaver in the back country and still achieve 25-30fps). On my new PC, which is an i7 @3.4GHz with no overclock at all, Win7 64, 16Gb RAM (although FSX can only use 1/4 of that), I can shove every slider right, load real weather and still get 50fps over New York in a low/medium complexity aircraft. I chose to take 30fps and decrease the area of complexity slider a notch to medium, so I could operate the PMDG B737-700NGX.

    I have never claimed FSX to be perfect. If you read my comments further up this thread, you will see that I have pointed out one serious flaw and noted that there are many others as well. It was – and remains – under-developed, with many unaddressed flaws, the same as its predecessor. It is capable of a lot more than FS9 is, but at the cost of significantly higher hardware requirements.

    I stand by my original statement, both sims, the same as P3D, X-Plane 9 and X-Plane 10, very much still have a role within the hobby, depending on what people want and what their hardware will allow. They’re all, in reality, very good sims in their own right.

17. Ian we have been cool for along time so I apologize for mis-reading your statement (and read what I wrote just before your last post). I do ask if you have any insight on a good machine I can get for FSX and it’s proper setup that me and many other don’t seem to know about please post it in that Avsim thread I have a link for above. If you know a way to get FSX up and running with little or no issue (look better than FS9) I’d love to hear it (read it). Thanks…

18. Definite virtual beer required here… I’m teetotal, so it’ll have to be virtual beer, but consider one bought for you at least. I overreacted there as well and I apologise for that.

    Before I say anything else, I’m going to repeat something else I’ve said before, possibly not to you, but, again, I’ll still stand by it. If you’re happy with FS9, stick with it and don’t bother with FSX. Only upgrade at this point if you want something specific (e.g. MS Acceleration, A2A Accu-Sim or Orbx scenery, for example) that FS9 can’t offer. Otherwise, why spend money to do what you can already do with slightly shinier graphics?

    If you do, £800 here will get you something like this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-323-OE&groupid=43&catid=2474 – which is overclocked, yes (the site name kind of gives it away… ;)) but that’ll run FSX better than my wife’s PC, which could run FSX at about 25fps, with better graphics than FS9, but couldn’t do the top end “PMDG NGX into detailed JFK in heavy cloud cover with lots of AI”. Shaz’s PC is an early i7 at 2.4GHz with a small overclock (it came from OCUK, which is why I looked there for a current equivalent), has 8Gb RAm upgraded from the original 4Gb and was mid-range four years ago. It never gave us an OOM error, because I lowered sliders a bit, but does slow to low single digit frame rates and laughs at you when you push it too hard.

19. Thanks Ian.