Flight Simulator X Demo

I never know how they'll solve the terrian texture problem. In order for it to look good from all heights, you'd need terrabytes of storage.

Doesn't support Win2k?! Oh, fuck Microsoft! That is such bullshit, there is no technical reason why it wouldn't work in Win2k.

Screenshots look good to me, except this one:

http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/flight_simulator_x/Flight+Simulator+X/3/thumbs/080906_flightsimx_3.jpg

Holy mismatched textures, batman!

Not noticing the giant skyscraper whose sides do not line up even slightly is one thing, but then using it in a promotional shot? heh. Whoopsie.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel ripped off just by downloading this.

Damn, the ground looks ugly! This had better be the "beta" textures still in there, because if this is what they are aiming for, they are way off the mark.

Mini-review

The Good
-The 3d geometry of land is much better and looks like actual landmasses more often rather than the "almost there" polygonal edges of FS2004, less "hey, a green pyramid" but some still remain
- Finally a 3d cockpit with sliding zooms instead of locked multipliers
- The scripted AI conversations are very smooth now, unfortunately that will be 2% at best of the actual game for most virtual pilots
- The AI has a better feel for your position, no more 'cleared to land' on 5 miles removed downwind legs
- Overall, vastly improved and detailed panels and panel windows
- The GPS call up doesn't cause a gigantic crush on performance
- The Lear floats more like an actual plane than the riding rails version in 2004

The Meh
- As always with flight sims, running full rich on the graphics will slay even today's giant killer systems. Running at 1280x1024 32 bit, high plane detail, high ground detail, with anti-aliasing dropped the framerates into the tens regularly and below from certain angles. I never, never see below 30fps in FS2004 unless I'm canyon blasting at Mach 1.5, but this is to be expected really. The good news is the ground detail seems to be the largest factor. To an airliner at FL35, who cares about farmhouses and accurate ocean wave reflections?
- These 3d cockpits are going to ratchet up the skill in creating custom aircraft quite a bit, but again, that's just the way the world works, every tech upgrade weeds out more artists

The Bad
- Ground textures, yikes. Still scarcely better than FS2004 at max res. I thought we were supposed to see near Google Earth/Google Maps stuff to provide some actual VFR travel, no? The demo certainly didn't pack it in.
- Overall it doesn't feel like much of an improvement flying into Juliana, the airport textures are just slightly improved, it kinda feels like the Doom3 plastic realism issue, sure it's better graphics technically, but overall, the experience isn't much better. I will say the geometry is better, it felt like I was island hopping over random islands rather than passing bits of generic geometry for islands.
- Zero airspeed bug STILL NOT FIXED IN EIGHT GODDAM YEARS? What the fucking fuck? Have you made no low speed engine improvements?


Some fun items

The demo includes Saba, the world's shortest commercial paved runway. 1300 feet of sheer braking terror in the Lear jet, heh. To reach it, take off on runway 9/27 out of PJI (TNCM) and turn heading 205-210 for roughly 25 miles.

Yay! Lets see some next gen graphics (maybe) on this one. I've always been a fan of the FS series.

Looks pretty decent. I thought this game was going to be dx10 only though?

Nice to see there is a reasonable amount of detail in the terrain these days.

missions? Can I just take off and land at my own will? Also, are there any limiting factors (time limit, game forces a quit when you fly too far, etc.)?

Does not even start installing on Vista Beta 2 (my XP install is messed up right now...)

Anyone else seem to be hanging on startup?

I went to St. Maarten many years ago as part of a cruise to the Caribbean. That place is most excellent indeed, although my parents wouldn't let me go to the nude beaches. :(

Oh well, I always wanted to go back. Thanks Flight Simulator X!

They say:

System Requirements
Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista
Processor: 1.0 Ghz
RAM: Windows XP SP2 - 256MB, Windows Vista – 512MB
Hard Drive: 14GB
Video Card: 32MB DirectX 9 compatible

Well, would a generic p4 3ghz / gf 6600 / 1g ram box run this nicely?

HOT

FS1 forever.

http://chuckyboy81070.shackspace.com/NeverTopped.gif

Can you even change the resolution? It looks like its running in 1024x768 even though I have details cranked.

come see me when I can crash the plane anywhere i want, jump out and start killing people in highly detailed towns.

Not as good as I was expecting. :-\ Guess i won't find a good flight sim anymore.

Runs like poop and I crashed a few times. Oh well, I don't have a flight stick to play it properly any how.

Anyone tried this with just keyboard/mouse? I've gotta get a new flightstick sometime

MS download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/downloads.html

I used to have a MS force feedback flightstick.. that shit was great for FS. I kinda wish MS was still making them for times like these.

The game would not install correctly.

I am thinking it had something to do with my current install of FS 2004?

Anyway, I couldnt run the game.

Has there ever been a demo of a MSFS game?

Thank goodness for this, Gamespot is crawling at 7 kbps on my DSL line.

Now where did I put my Saitek X36...

Is multiplayer enabled? Anyone up for a Shack fly-in?

what kind of system specs are we looking at?

Anyone else hearing a strange sound every time you click on one of the screenshots?

Downloading now. This is going to be horrifically complex, isn't it?

gotta get out the ol sidewinder