Not wanting to sound like a fan-boy but MS Flight will be hard to outclass FSX with moderate/heavy payware.

Placing this clip next to a FSX clip using REX and taking off from eg. redcliff/bundaberg (Orbx goodies), TNCM (Fly Tampa) and MS Flight looks very old.

I do believe that many folk will fly FSX for a very long time, wait for decent add-ons to hit the MS Flight market.

Unless ofcourse MS Flight provides out of this world performance which I really doubt will be the case.

Only time will tell..

   It's been a couple of months since I've been in the forums section. I've been busy learning to make my own AI traffic plans. Yeah, I know, it took me long enough 

  I'll first say, that my main use of Flight Simulator is to actually "fly" the aircraft as close to by-the-book as possible. Although, I realize many folks like making nice looking screenshots and such, which is fine with an ok pc. The "flyabilty" factor demands a bunch more "horsepower" though, in order to make good, smooth take offs and landings, as well as low level "flight" such as being in the flight pattern for practicing touch & go's. THAT'S where my problem starts with new sims.

  I bought FS 9 in the fall of '03, but didn't get serious about it until '05 so I had a pretty good pc to handle everything well by then. I began learning more and more about the sim (add ons, changing textures, etc) and I was happy with it.

  Then I heard about FSX and all the cool stuff that it be capable of doing. I was really interested in learning the G1000 glass panel. I bought FSX right when it came out, and like many of us, I bought a new pc for the sole purpose of running FSX. The biggest beef that I had when coming out with a new sim is, that, it usually takes the hardware folks quite awhile to catch up and build components to process all the bells and whistles that the new sim demands - that was a painful process. I went through 6 pcs before I found a pc (i7 920 w 12G memory - Windows 7 only recognizes 10.5Gs) that would allow good "flight" performance for FSX.

  I became so frustrated with the first 3 pcs that I returned them to the store. Then I got physical, the 4th one I took a small 10 lb sledge hammer and smashed it completely. The 5th one, I threw it off of my third floor balcony and watched it disintegrate on the concrete below. The 6th one I took to a private gun range and shot it up with armor piercing and incendiary rounds with an M4, two 37mm flare grenades and finished it off with four 12 Gauge "Dragons Breath" rounds. Needless-to-say, nothing was left, it was completely incinerated, and I felt much better. Then after about two years and all of that, the i7s came out. I still needed to upgrade the memory, but it is finally flawlessly "flyable" and I am happy again.

  Right now, I'm looking at motherboards and a 6-core processor to build myself, which, I'm figuring, would be great for FS 9 & especially FSX. This pc MIGHT be a good start for the new sim, but if history repeats itself, we would probably need a 12-16 core processor, a motherboard that can handle it, we would need a 6-10G vid card, and an incredible amount of memory (probably somewhere in the range of 24-32Gs or possibbly more) in order to make the sim look good and fly well without skipping, studdering and jumping. And, not to mention, a Windows program that will accommadate, recognize and use all of this system's hardware.

  Another beef I have is that, I, and many others, payed a premium price ($80 USD in my case) for FSX when it first came out and then Acceleration came out ($60 USD ?) and most of us couldn't use them for about two years. The "Gold Edition" (FSX & Acceleration) has been out for 1.5 years and sells for $40 USD - that's a bunch of bvllsh!t in my book.

  I hope that Microsoft would let the hardware companies know what to expect will be needed to run the new sim, so the hardware folks will have a running start this time around, but I'm not banking on that...     

Semper Fi,

Dave