Let's do a recap of what we have just witnessed after seeing all the latest videos and screenshots from M$.



1. Self-shadow render [new]
2. Car traffic and animals [new]
3. 99,999-foot barrier has probably been raised [a lot]
4. Possibility that the globe is now a perfect sphere
5. Missions [new]
6. Awsome vegetation [denser and more eleborate trees]
7. Water reflections [improved and reflects scenery and aircraft].

Possible reasons:

1. The self-shadow render has become popular in LOMAC so it's obvious that M$ is trying to keep up with the competition.

2. With all the new miscellaneous addons becoming more popular in FS [boats, cars, birds, etc.] it's possible that M$ has put these in for the bush flyers.

3. Judging from the video, it looks as if the barrier has been increase do to popular demand. Awsome transition BTW.

4. If Orbiter Space Flight Simulator [a free sim] can render awsome surface textures on a perfect sphere rather than a cylinder then it should be easy for M$ to achieve the same.

5. Missions also appear to be added by popular demand.

6. I guess M$ found a way to optimize the rendering a more trees without sacrificing frame rates.

7. Water that reflects the scenery and objects have been most popular in games like Silent Hunter III [a commercial product].

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Same here.  I am really hoping that my computer will be able to handle it when it can hardly handle 2k4:!

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So am I. I know I'll need a new processor and video card. My processor is only at 990ish MHz, but I have overclocked it a few times to around 2GHz. My videocard sucks...Nvidia 5200 hah.

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The computer I want 

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Have you checked the newest videos from here?  It looks to me as though they have fixed that particular problem . . .

As far as missions go, we do have them now, althought they have no real purpose.  I just hope the missions are just there as an option, and not something you have to do, turning the sim into a game

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I agree completely, Tweek.  Missions will ADD to the realism...as long as they are realistic missions .  Things like rescuing trapped people are realistic.  I hate the missions in 2k4 where it says "You are taking this person from here to here" and you can't even see the people.  Anyway, I hope they have a lot of nice, realistic, interesting, fun missions.

IMHO, the missions should have a realistic structure.

For example:

1. New pilots who are not familiar with the FS series should start [as an option] with a campaign structure that requires them to first learn how to fly and fly to earn hours towards earning their private pilots liscense, instrument rating, or commercial rating. After achieving their desired rating, the pilots can then advance to the next avialable campaign structure that has them flying for the airlines or carriers [AA, TWA, UPS, etc.].

2. Experienced FS fans should also have the option of starting off with an advanced rating so that they don't have to go through all the basic stuff that they already know.

3. Also the FS pilots [like the Bush flyers and sightseers] should also be given the option of putting in their free-flight hours into their ratings as well instead of having to go through the missions repeatedly to earn those hours needed for a specific rating.

I like the idea of putting in visual models of people boarding the plane in the sim, but you have to remember that our current computers may not be able to handle such visual details due to the processing requirements. I feel that it's better to just render certain types of people in the sim such as pilots and copilots as well as ground crew. Nothing more. Are you sure your computer can handle over 300 visual models or 2-D images of people at the same time?

Orbiter may have reach that level but that is because it doesn't have to render detailed mountains and such on plane old spheres known as planets and it doesn't have to deal with AI spacecraft that take off from earth and land on mars on their own [yet].

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I love this idea. I'm not a real pilot in life, so I don't know everything there is about planes and how to fly them. A mode that would make part of the game different would be what you said, starting out as a pilot flying at a local airfield to being hired to fly 747's acrros the world.