Ok Dan, I got FSX. Now how do I purchase FS Passengers?

[ar81]

I bought FSX.
I see that documentation of the game is quite poor.
I do not know how to understand instruments.

I flew around the city where I live and I do not see any landscape and even streets do not match... and it is San
José, the capital of a country...  Where did M$ get their surface tiles?

Where could I buy your game?

[willy88]

Dan hasn't made FSP for FSX yet. He's busy working on it right now.

[Brando14100]

Has Dan made stuff for FSX?

[DanSteph]

Working on update yet, for Fs2004 you have www.fspassengers.com

Dan

[ar81]

I find FSX very annoying in terms of performance.
I almost double minimum specs in every aspect, and still I need to keep detail to minimum.
They seem to be hiring software and user interfase experts.

M$ seems not to have the habit of optimizing their software.
For games, that makes a nice frame killer slideshow, and keeping detail low kills its cool factor.

As for documentation, doesn't M$ know what it is a PDF manual?
Making an online manual is not good, for you can't read it while playing.

I find that Orbiter beats FSX in every aspect.
My computer can use the most frame killer addons for Orbiter, while it barely runs FSX at minimum detail.
Setting minimum reuirements far below that seems to me like cheating to make more people to buy, and then to be
disappointed...

There are no charts, so you are basically lost.
Do you know where is Airport Tobias Bolaños in Costa Rica?
I know, but there are no landmarks like the 1 km long park of La Sabana that is not in that sim.
I see my city and it seems like a fictional city, for I know very well the streets and FSX failed to even use sat pics for
that city.

The other landmark I would use is the tallest building which is not there.

Another one would be to find the cliff that is near that airport, along the river... and the river is not there and land is
flat there...

I tried to look for the crater of Poas volcano, which is 1 km wide... the biggest volcano crater in the world...  it is not
there.  So IMHO, even Orbiter is more accurate.

FSX is quite disappointing if you ask me.
I recall that someone claimed that FSX is like Google Earth, but it is not.
So I also doubt of the accuracy for other places in the world.

I planned to recommend FSX for educational programs to teach geography from the air.
But that inaccuracy made me to step back.

It looks like they put a random collection of buildings.
A randomly generated city...
And low resolution Earth features...

[DanSteph]

mhhh well, personnaly I don't like Fsx, you can get much more visually with Fs2004 and some addons (free and
commercial) and with much more FPS.

This said "fs sim world" is like Orbiter, the more time you spend on it , the more you get from it.

Beetween a "hard core FS simmer" that have all nice addon installed and know well all aircrafts procedure and
another one that have the basic install and try some flight there is a world of difference.

Tuning Fs and installing all cool addons can take hundred hours, you can't compare with orbiter if you have spent only
some hours.

Dan

[ar81]

Well, I took the flight lessons in FSX.
The instructor took control of the plane and did not let me turn and bank.  The plane crashed in my 3rd lesson.
I decided to retry later.  What I need is to keep speed low to maximize the time before reaching mountains.
Who in the world may put mountains in front of the plane of a newbie, and an instruction that locks banking controls?
Instructor was going to tell me about flaps when I crashed, so it seems a lot of time with some speech while headed
to the mountains.

When I teach kids or newbie adults I bring DG to 5 km, so they can correct any mistake without crashing.
Kids want to crash it (they enjoy it) but fortunately there are no special effects around it, so they get tired of
bouncing in Orbiter and they attach to flight instructions.

Adults or young people (non kids) do not like to crash in the first minutes.
Crashing brings them a sense of failure.
That's why I keep students high.
If I wasn't with air combat sims I would have thought that I am an idiot after crashing in that lesson.

I evaluate a sim like a game, game is an experience.
The first minutes of flight are what makes a gamer to trash the game or not, specially for adults.

If I can get more visually from FS2004, I wonder why they sell FSX... probably they want to force people to buy a
more powerful computer?  Or is it just lack of optimization in FSX?  What is certain is that FSX fails in those first key
minutes of gameplay.

As I see it, FSX is a failure as a game.  It could be a nice sim, but not really an experience.

In the other hand I realize that combat sims did not give you the insight of the proper handling of a plane.
Combat sims do not require you to fly softly and gently.  So I think this is the only plus for it.
I suck at soft maneuvers.

Probably FSX has something to offer (like your cool FSPassengers) but I do not think that FSX is very good in terms of
design of gameplay.  M$ is more in the business and corporate software business, where usability can be poor and
no CEO will notice the loss of efficiency and productivity.

It is just like USAF during the Vietnam era, where they decided that high tech gadgets would eliminate the need for
conventional things like guns and pilot training.  The decision of removing guns must have been a decision made by a
desktop general.  Usability of combat planes suffered back then.  Soon someone asked why pilots were firing so
many missiles without hitting...

Here is a list of sim games I have played, so you may have an idea on what kind of comparison I am making...
-Chuck Yeager Air Combat for DOS (great gameplay and great AI)
-Microsoft Combat Simulator (very poor AI, poor visuals for downed craft)
-Fighter Squadron (very good AI, very realistic physics once in the air)
-USAF (good AI, too hard to the point of frustration)
-Advanced Tactical Fighter (good for entertainment but it lacks some realism)



Post Edited ( 12-30-07 21:45 )

[tl8roy]

DanSteph wrote:
mhhh well, personnaly I don't like Fsx, you can get much more visually with Fs2004 and some addons (free and
commercial) and with much more FPS.

This said "fs sim world" is like Orbiter, the more MONEY you spend on it , the more you get from it.

Beetween a "hard core FS simmer" that have all nice addon installed and know well all aircrafts procedure and
another one that have the basic install and try some flight there is a world of difference.

Tuning Fs and installing all cool addons can take hundred hours, you can't compare with orbiter if you have spent only
some hours.

Dan

[Kadet]

You must have gotten a lot of money for food, college money, etc, etc, etc by selling FS-Passengers

[computerex]

Kadet wrote:
You must have gotten a lot of money for food, college money, etc, etc, etc by selling FS-Passengers

Not really...With all the piracy going on these days.

[DanSteph]

Kadet a écrit:
You must have gotten a lot of money for food, college money, etc, etc, etc by selling FS-Passengers

No, computerex is right and FsP is my only income so...

Dan

[ar81]

I flew FSX from Merrit Island to Runway 33 at KSC.
I think I changed my view of FSX.

At least VAB and LC-39 pads are there.
But no accurate surface tiles...
Still I came to think that for a worldwide modelled sim it is not that bad.
It is still a great deal of effort and money.

I think I will give FSX a chance.
I will try to test it a bit more.

Installing was quite a disappointing process, so I think I was conditioned by it.
It was quite a bureaucracy for product activation by phone (no other game asks me to call anywhere).
If I had no modem connection I would not even be able to get the codes.

Then it was very slow, and I know why... the cockpit has reflections and that is very processor consuming.
I knew it when I made some 3D renders, rendering reflections takes more time than rendering a whole image.

I still think that documentation seems to be made in a rush, you need to surf a lot.
Even reference card was poorly made.

-----

Edit:
-Visiting the pyramids look a bit interesting.
-Flying from calgary to the mountains looks cool.
-Departing from katmandu towards the Himalaya is just cool, but I wonder which mountain is the Everest.  The flatlands of India are impressively big.
-Sea at KSC looks magnificent...

I am beginning to like it.



Post Edited ( 12-31-07 06:04 )

[ar81]

As for piracy, I would have to say this...

Dan makes a living out of FSPassengers.
He is not a multibillion dollar corporation, he is a single man, an entrepreneur who struggles in the market to bring
food to his table.  He brought DGIV to OUR table, so I think that what we can do is to bring some money to his
account, so he can dedicate some time to put more addons on our table.
Sounds fair to me...

If Dan was a single, money making a living would not be so risky, but with a family he will need money for the bills,
education of kids, etc.  So it adds extra financial pressure.

Not helping Dan would be the equivalent of not helping us...

[Colonel Sanders1]

is fsx or any specific microsoft flight sim worth buying.. if so which one. and what are the differences between microsoft
flight sim x and the deluxe edition.  i have only played the demo and i still cant decide

[ar81]

Deluxe has SDK as far as I know.
It depends on what do you mean with "worthy".

The good thing for me is that you have many airfields and airstrips around the world.

The bad thing is that even if you double minimum specs it still may be a nice slideshow, and not a game.
Also, landscape is not quite realistic.  Do not expect Google Earth.  KSC does not have realistic surface tiles and in my
country city streets do not match and most of landmarks (like a 1 km long park in the capital city, the biggest volcano
crater in the world, etc) are not there.
Also, third lesson makes you fly straight to the mountain.

Also, unlike Freespace, Starsiege or Mechwarrior tutorials, FSX tutorial is filled with speech and tons of information.
Documentation is a built-in HTML doc, so you can't read it while you play.
Reference keys sheet does not have all the keys available to play, so either you dig in the program settings and write
it on paper, or you dig on the multiple pages of the HTML document.

Document seems to be made on a rush, not really designed for newbies.
I have had a hard time reading the docs to understand terms and concepts because information is not organized in a
way you can learn, step by step.

So if you are willing to spend some hours lurking docs like a detective to try to understand things, and you are not for
realism and geographic accuracy, FSX could be worthy.

FSX is about flying, and it is made by Microsoft.  Microsoft is not really good for software performance, and it also is
not as good as game developers to make tutorials or documentation.

If you want an enjoyable combat sim to challenge your skills, you may want Fighter Squadron.
It does not keep combat records, but it has good AI, nice combat visuals and plenty of addons.

What I find more enjoyable is to look through the aim (with the F8 zoom key) and see the markings of enemy planes.

[ar81]

I came to a funny idea that explains geographical inaccuracy.
Probably they do not want anyone to find the path to crash another WTC...
But since Poas volcano is missing, perhaps they are trying to protect volcanos too...

I might suggest M$ to make a Microsoft Mars Flight Simulator, so no one will crash anything.
Or perhaps a new Orbiter simulator, for in deep space you can't crash your ship.



Post Edited ( 01-02-08 21:08 )

[tl8roy]

ar81 wrote:
I came to a funny idea that explains geographical inaccuracy.
Probably they do not want anyone to find the path to crash another WTC...
But since Poas volcano is missing, perhaps they are trying to protect volcanos too...

I might suggest M$ to make a Microsoft Mars Flight Simulator, so no one will crash anything.
Or perhaps a new Orbiter simulator, for in deep space you can't crash your ship.

Olympus Mons is over 30km High....

[ar81]

New discovery...

Irazu volcano crater is not there.
Turrialba volcano crater is not there.
Charrara lagoon which is about 1 km is there, but the 1 km diameter crater of Poas volcano is not there.
Poas volcano has the biggest crater in the whole world.
That caused me to be lost, for the main landmarks of my country are volcano craters.

If you go northeast to the plains, there is Reventazon river that is as wide as Charrara lagoon, visible from the central
valley, but it is as wide as as a wide road, at most it could be 30 meters wide.

How do you want me to feel that it is somehow realistic?

At least Orbiter uses surface tiles which you use to find landmarks for landing.
Even KSC is more realistic in the stock Orbiter installation than it is in FSX.

For some reason I am beginning to feel that flying FSX is like playing Star Wars... a fictional universe...

[ar81]

More useful info from http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000U96L54/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?%
5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
about Acceleration expansion.

Expansion pack won't install - says it requires FSX to be installed first. It is. I can be flying a plane in FSX, and
the Expansion Pack Installer says FSX isn't installed. The support rep did say they have been getting a lot of calls
from people who are having problems installing the expansion pack...
____________________
Support Update: It's now December, and after a month of working directly with Microsoft Games Support, the problem
appears to be caused by running 64 bit Vista Ultimate on an Intel Core 2 Quad processor. The base game, Flight
Simulator X, does not install properly, and the expansion pack can't find it. I tried a single cpu system, running XP, and
everything installs and runs fine, including the expansion pack.
When you install FSX, if the install screen says "IDS_WELCOME" and "IDS_CONTINSTALL" you've got a problem.
Another symptom of a bad install is if the Add/Remove Program screen in Control Panel says "PRODUCT_NAME"
instead of "Flight Simulator X". Microsoft does not appear to have a fix yet for the installer failure on 64 bit Vista. XP
works fine.

And to prove the point of the documentation problem, here is a book to learn to fly FSX.
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Pilots-Training/dp/0764588222/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_i
If documentation was good, you may not need this book.

[Colonel Sanders1]

well ok i almost bought it but i think i am going to wait so i can get my driving permit

[Colonel Sanders1]

i like to push buttons until i figure everything out

[ar81]

If you find out how to pilot a Learjet, I would thank you a lot if you could post a tutorial.
Until then I will fly planes with analog gauges.

[James.Denholm]

DanSteph wrote:

Kadet a écrit:
You must have gotten a lot of money for food, college money, etc, etc, etc by selling FS-Passengers

No, computerex is right and FsP is my only income so...

Dan

Maybe you should consider going into major game development, Dan (commercial X-box games and so on, that sort
of stuff). Teach M$ a thing or two about flight sims and  optimisation.


Anyway, I recently bought FSX as well, it ran well(ish, graphics on minimum) and now it won't run on my computer. I
un-installed it, and was about 99.999999% of the way through the instalation process when, lo and behold, the
EXACT same error message popped up. Now I just want to drive a nail through the disks. Fortunatley, I kept the
recipt (it was bought on a gift card, so the recipt shows how much is left on the card. It's still in my wallet, I think).

ar81 / Pablo, I know where you're coming from. I recently attempted to fly out of Melbourne Int. (when FSX was still
working) and I didn't even reconise it. It looked like a desert. I've flown into and out of Melbourne a few times. No
desert. I'm kind of annoyed, cause it was a waste of good money.

Which brings me to three. The cost of Rich Bill's programs these days. 500 (Aud) for Vista Full thingy. Haven't checked
Office 07 or FSX Delux. Why is stuff so expensive? And why all the different "levels", for want of a better word?
Home Basic, Home what ever, Buissness, something else and Ultimate for Windows and Office, Standard and Delux
for FSX and probably every new thing M$ will bring out... what happened to the world?

[ar81]

I took off from Havana.
It looks like this.
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/4610/westui2.jpg
Compared to Orbiter, mountains with atmospheric blue look better than in Orbiter.
And if you do not care about how realistic landmarks or geography are, then it is Ok.

This is a shot from the air in FSX, looking to the west
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/6828/areaug0.jpg
This is how it looks in Orbiter
http://www.orbithangar.com/addonpics/HabanaScreenshot.jpg
Do you notice that something is missing in FSX?
Yes, the bay is missing.  City texture is generic.
If I had some more tiles I would have made some more area of the Habana base.

I flew at high altitude over Nicaragua in FSX and I noticed repeated texture patterns... not exactly Google Earth.
And during installation some companies are mentioned as they seemed to have provided material for Google Earth... I just wonder where...

To me the only good thing of FSX is the atmspheric blue, muntains and clouds.
Except for that I prefer Orbiter.
I bet that we could even make trees and mountains, and most of those houses and buildings are things we could
make.

This is another shot of the take off, looking to the east.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/5420/eastej3.jpg



Post Edited ( 01-14-08 14:49 )

[ar81]

Yesterday I went to the northern end of Grand Canyon, landed on the runway and then took off to fly inside the
canyon.  The graphics are far less than impressive.  I felt that even Drakan had better textures and Drakan is an old
game.

I never imagined how long the canyon was.  It was a good practice for someone like me, who wanted to do some
sharp maneuvers in FSX.  However the visuals become far less than appealing.  Textures look like randomly located
ordinary rock and sand, not like a layered pile of stone.

My bet is that such a game was not designed to fly on the deck.  Let alone inside the canyon.