Was FSX the best thing that ever happened to FS9?
What on earth am I talking about, you may ask. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and a recent post on the SimFlight Network has got me thinking about it even more. In that post, the author basically states that FSX add-on developers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I can see why.
Let’s face it. FSX is a bit of a mess. How on earth can add-on developers be expected to write for a platform that has so many versions? We’ve got users who’ve probably never even heard of SP1, SP2, DX10 preview etc. So, we have the following potential types of FSX user:
- Those with the base product with no service packs installed
- Those with SP1
- Those with SP2 and presumably the ‘DX10′ preview
So, which one or more of the above are the add-on developers supposed to develop against? Whichever one they choose (and I presume they’ll pick the latest SP2/DX10 variant), they’re automatically excluding a certain number of users.
As the author of the post mentioned above also states, it appears that freeware developers have all but given up, and who can blame them? Freeware developers have the same problems I’ve mentioned above, but with the additional overhead of not being paid for their trouble.
All is not bad news, though. I would guess that nearly as many FS9 add-ons have been released since FSX was released as have FSX add-ons.
I believe there is a large number of FS9 users that either have no intention of moving to FSX, or have tried and gone back to FS9. Take myself, for example. I have the option of running FSX on my MacBook Pro. It’ll run okay, but only just. There are some performance issues and, frankly, there shouldn’t be. No other application I have (i.e. games) have performance issues of any kind. I can run the latest first person shooter at maximum detail, all options on, the full monty and get the smoothest gameplay imagineable. So, do I take FSX with all it’s lumpiness, or do I go for a flight with FS9, using one or more of my literally hundreds of add-ons? I’ve got the full set of UK airports in amazing detail, VFR scenery for the UK, a good enough terrain mesh. And it all runs at 50+ FPS and as smooth as silk. In fact, with all my add-ons, FS9 actually looks more realistic than FSX. What would you do?
Without wishing to open the "mine is better than yours" debate, there’s also X-Plane. Now in Beta at version 9, it really is starting to look stunning. The trick being done to load the scenery in using the second processor of a multi-core CPU is a work of genius.
So, back to the title of the post. I can honestly see add-on development for FS9 continuing and declining for FSX. If I was an add-on developer, I’d be mighty miffed at having to re-write to some degree my add-ons every few months for a new service pack. Microsoft should have waited for FSX to be stable before releasing it. No previous release has ever needed this amount of patching and FSX shouldn’t need it. And, even after all the patching, it’s still lacking in my humble opinion.
So, is it all bad news? No, of course not. FS9 is a brilliant sim now we’ve nearly all got the hardware required to max it out. And there’s X-Plane. And there’s Condor for those of us - like myself - who enjoy soaring. In a couple of years, we’ll probably saying the same about FSX. And there, I believe, is the problem. I don’t believe that, with any other release of Microsoft Flight Simulator, there has been such a huge gap between the demands of the sim and the hardware available to the general public. God only knows what they used to test it on!
Your thoughts?
Related posts
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I remember when I just bought my Pentium III 400Mhz, the fastest you could buy at the time and to showcase it I bought FS2000. It barely ran, everything had to be set to low, it really was a beast.
I’m fortunate. I’ve got a very high spec PC now, flew with FS2004 but didn’t really have the time to immerse myself into it as work was extremely demanding. This made it easy for me to go with FSX upon release and really build on it with all the add-ons.
In a years time when machining of new gen processors gives us much more performance giving us awesome complex scenery, detailed craft and silky framerates, how will FS9 compare to FSX then?
I think you’re absolutely right, Ed. But, 2 years between release date and having the hardware capable of running it well is a long time!
Mark - FlightSimX
It is a long time but maybe there’s a clue there somewhere. If FSX has been hardware scaled to that degree then I guess they see FSX lasting some years. I wonder if this means that FS11 will be a complete rewrite? (hence the long bridge in time needed that FSX potentially provides). I guess we’ll find out in good time. I know patience is a virtue but when it’s a pastime I really enjoy it’s hard to be.
All in all, I’m sticking with FSX. I’ve built quite a sim with all the add-ons and look forward to having the hardware to really stretch its legs. Being an ‘early adopter’ AND impatient, I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later.
Another thing; I’ve just checked and flightsim9.co.uk is available. Let me know when you set the site up
In addition to the hardware issues the post Mark refers to mentions the fact that there are now 2 variants of FSX with unique coding required for each. This was never the case with FS9. The “showcase” status of DX10 and seperate coding required is going to seriously limit the financial viability and therefore number of 3rd party DX10 add-ons we will see. As far as I was concerned DX10 was the whole point of FSX, so I’m left feeling cheated as the reality of the situation is FSX now brings nothing to the graphics table that FS9 isn’t capable of producing with less overheads. So I can certainly understand the sentiments that FSX has only served to promote FS9’s position as the MS sim for serious simmers. Now I have offloaded my copy of FS9 and all it’s add-ons I have little choice but to stick with FSX, I will however be much more scepticle about what MS promise for the future.
LOL Ed
Although, as I’ve mentioned previously, this is not specifically a Flight Simulator X site, but a flight sim site in general 
PieEater - I tend to agree regarding realism in FS9 compared to FSX with less overhead. With all my FS9 add-ons, it does look more “realistic” than FSX, and a lot of the add-ons aren’t even available for FSX, so I couldn’t get it looking that way even if I wanted to.
PieEater, the problem is SP2 didn’t really make a difference. I was expecting DX10 and a performance boost but nothing happened. If they’d of invested heavily in SP2 (we could have waited, SP1 gave us the performance to keep us quiet for a time) then there would have been a ‘need’ for SP2 which would drive the majority of users to install it and standardise the codebase making it easier to justify the investment in add-ons for third party developers.
A sign that FS9 still has a life is that the sim is still on the shelf in the high street as a premium game.
I’m not dissatisfied with FSX from a standalone perspective. Perhaps because FS9 is so very good it means early FSX is going to get some stick. I’ll be interested to see how FS9 compares in a years time.
[...] my recent post about FSX and some of the feedback from other people (i.e. that now SP2 has been released, [...]
Leave a Comment