I seemed to have been more impressed with the feedback that FS2004 got when it first came out.  I got FS2004 not long after I got my old P3 700mhz, which ran the game only at about medium.  It was ok though, and I was quite impressed with the product.  From FS2002 in which I could run with full sliders to FS2004 with medium sliders, I can still justify the buy.  Somehow I managed to get payware to work alright on it too, another plus!

Having been into real life aviation as well though, it seemed to me that FS2004 wasnt far off from what I see while I fly in a real airplane.  The FSX demo runs ok on my new rig nowadays, which is not top of the line, but not bad for gaming either.  Despite that fact, unfortunately I was quite disappointed.  It wasnt up to par with FS2004, and from what I've read and screenshots ive seen from the forums, the full release isnt much better.  Theres really not a whole lot of upgrades, aside from a new interface, cars on the road and animals on the ground, and it doesnt really balance out the performance impact.  What kind of computer would we need if we wanted to run payware aircraft with full avionic suites in FSX?

In the long run though, its just my opinion and I don't want to change others opinion on the sim.  Its just another sim, just like X-plane is another sim.  Though I've pre-ordered it, im probably going to cancel and hold out to see what happens and whether or not DX10 will do huge justice 

Mobius,

Thanks very much fo the link to the screenshots and your thoughts.  This is very helpful in giving people useful information, I think.

I think that this is a good place to illustrate the reason that someone really has to evaluate the information one reads carefully..... in order to make a good decision in such matters.  

It is really all about "standards" and how one measures things.

For "frame of reference" purposes, I have to say that I have never yet been happy with the framerates and smoothness that I get in my existing setup running fs2004 on the machine listed in my sig info below my posts.

In shots 3 and 4 in the above link to your FSX screenshot thread, I see the framerate counter sitting at about 25, I think.  Those shots are the ones with the plane flying up a valley in the mountains with snowcapped peaks in the distance.  Now in a similar location in fs2004 with FSgenesis 10m terrain mesh installed (somewhat similar to FSX) and stuff maxed..... I would get maybe 40-50 fps.    

Great huh?  Nope.

BUT to me that particular type of location (along with maybe 30,000 feet over the Pacific, out in the boonies away from most AI, and other such remote places) did not matter all that much and I never would consider that performance to affect what I said my "average frame rates were".    

Because while very pretty and all,.... the places that for ME in which the framerates mattered was in a place like Boston's Logan or NYC's Kennedy, on short final or takeoff, flying a somewhat complicated aircraft with all the AI around and all the city buildings and all the airport objects chewing on the graphics card and processor.  In those settings with the sliders maxed in fs2004...... it was/is pretty much unflyable running under 20 fps.

So I am sure that this machine would get reasonable frame rates and smoothness in a location like that in those two shots again on FSX.  But in the places that fs2004 bogged down....which is my real measureing stick...... I think that FSX would almost lierterally be a slide show.

So from my point of view... I can barely run fs2004...... and FSX is just a distant dream. 

I really don't "get" why people would be happy with most all of the wonderful new effects and features turned off so as to get acceptable framerates so that you can FLY the planes.  If someone can explain this to me... I'd love to have my mind changed.


best,

..................john