George. I'm delighted you're pleased with FS9 but must disagree strongly with this.
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First. Many people have had problems running FS9 "straight out of the box". Mine takes no longer or shorter time to load than FS2002. To most people, the open-architecture structure of the M$ series of sims is its main attraction. I know that I would be a lot worse off without the 3rd party developers & their wonderful achievements. In fact I'll go further. I would most likely have uninstalled all my M$ sims long ago. They would now be gathering dust on a shelf with all the other stuff I no longer have any use for.

I've been installing addons regularly since 1999 to every M$ sim from FS98 thru FS9 (including CFS) with very few problems. I suggest your unfortunate experience with them might be down to you.

I agree with Hagar and Poseidon.

I chose not to get FS9 since, the same as Fozzer, I had spent a long time customising 2002 to what I am happy with. Most of the areas that I routinely fly in have been upgraded scenery-wise (even with payware addons), so that when I do any low-level stuff, the detail is all I could want it to be.

To explore a new area, then what I do is look for scenery addons first. There is also some fantastic freeware stuff out there; people are very creative and talented. I've just recently found some terrific Caribbean scenery for 2002 which is great fun to fly around. I've never had any issues with addons - I'd recommend that you follow the installation instructions to the letter.

I tend to fly airliners mostly, and at FL370, ground detail (when you can see it) is minimal anyway!

My processor speed (PIV, 2gHz) was cutting edge when I got it a year ago, but it's looking dated now, but that's how it's going to have to stay for the foreseeable future. My average frame rate per second in 2002 on not-too-taxing planes, scenery and weather is around 16 to 20, which is acceptable. I certainly wouldn't want it to drop for routine flying, and since MSFS is a frame hog anyway, that was another reason for not going with FS9. What's the point is fantastic weather generation effects if you are seeing them at 3fps?

8)

I'll agree wholeheartedly that if it wasn't for the addons(payware and freeware) I would have gone looking for something else.

I've learned a lot about FS here on the forums just by reading the various posts and replies,apart from my own questions(thanks Hagar!) and I've got 2K2 just about where I want it. FS9 was an attraction at one stage but I've just completed some more fiddling and quite honestly after reading comments in other forums 2002 will do me for a while.

Cheers

Well I don't worry so much about the load time because I know I am going to be there for a while. All the same a lot of it comes down to how you manage what you have. A lot of us have a huge collection of aircraft gathered over time and if you put all of those into FS sure you'll have loading problems. Same as scenery.
What I do is pick an aircraft to fly,load it,fly it,then take it out. I've got a MAIN HANGAR to park them in and load them as I want.

Weather wise I'd wouldn't mind FS9 but with FSsky and downloading real weather every hour I'm happy.

Bottom line is we are all enjoying what we do and if your happy with what you've got that's great.

Heres to fun and games

I'm afraid the logic of your last statement sort of escapes me, Fozz.  It's probbly a bit early in the morning for me.  But you are right about FS2000, the biggest disappointment in sim history.

Remember those scalpeled coastlines, and then the 'fix' MS came up with which gave you proper coast but moved it so that the San Francisco bridge went over dry land!  Only good thing on FS2000 was the adventures which I am afraid I lost when my HD went down.  Aah, happy days

Is this what you were after Micro...?



Try flying a bit closer to the Bridge to show the detail....
...mine is fine in FS 2002, and appears exactly the same as the photo's of the Bridge.. ...!

Paul.

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Hi Doug...
..haven't open the new bottle yet...
But...
on my monitor, Micro's Pic of the Golden Gate Bridge appears as pretty little red "X" inside a box...nothing more... ...!
So I re-painted it... ...!
LOL...!

Paul.

P.S. it still apears as a pretty little red "X"...ditto... ...!