Author Topic: I hope KDFW is still on and next...  (Read 30535 times)

CaseyD

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #30 on: August 10, 2009, 01:14:36 am »
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We are not *that* naive, and I'm quite able to judge sales. I was obviously not speaking about total sales only, but also sales in the same amount of time.

Anyway, it doesn't change much: Zurich is our best selling scenery, probably together with JFK and in this case, yes, JFK has sold less, but only because it has been released many months after.

These statements appear to contradict one another.

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So, we could say they are BOTH best sellers, with the difference that Zurich had a VERY good freeware alternative, compared to JFK that only had a very outdated commercial version. It DID NOT make ANY difference, since both sold very well and in comparable numbers. My point, exactly.

You also offered Zurich for free to people who bought both ORD and JFK, which is really the only reason I have it. That also could be a reason.

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That what we always said. If we wouldn't do this, there would be no FS9 version to begin with. Would you prefer no FS9 version, instead ? What should we do more, other than openly saying that, and letting you TRY the scenery, BEFORE purchasing it ?

Considering it's optimized for FSX, I would expect the FS9 version would be sold separately at a cheaper price. Or, a specific FS9 version to be made.

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As we explained, many times already, we DO NOT "take away" features from the FS9 version. What you are seeing in FSX, it's COMING FROM FSX! Should we *remove* what FSX gives us for free, just to please FS9 users ? You are getting exactly the SAME scenery as in FSX, the only thing you are missing, it's what's coming from FSX itself so, if you made the choice to use FS9, maybe you weren't that interested in those features, otherwise you would use FSX instead.

The road traffic for example, which I think is what one of the things your are referring to: we DON'T create it in the FSX version. It comes out automatically, when we draw a road! It's FSX that fills the road with traffic. The SAME road is featured in our FS9 version but, since FS9 doens't have that feature, the road is empty. But, what you are buying from US, it's just the same!

Another FSX-only feature we have in the sceneries are the user controlled animations or ParkMe. Everything is done with Simconnect, we wouldn't know how to do that without it. So, if you were able to convince Microsoft to create Simconnect for FS9, we'll gladly support it but, I doubt it will ever happen...

That's understandable. However, why not make animations scenery specific, rather than just utilizing the default software? There are plenty of other payware companies that are able to do this. Surely FSDT has the talent to as well.

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That's something new, you really should check better because, I can easily surpass 25 fps at JFK on FS9, and I have about 37 fps where it matters ( on the runway of course ) and way higher with KORD. So, the simple fact you are seeing JFK and KORD as being the same, leads to believe something is not right, because KORD is usually way faster, of course mainly becasue what's around the area. 

The JFK area it's a very problematic one, because you have several airports very close together AND a major detailed city, that is already visible from JFK.

Users are generally very satisfied with JFK performances, considering where it is placed, and usually nobody complains about KORD!

Anyway, you are wrong comparing different airports, even if they are "large". Being large is not just the only parameter. If we put our JFK in a flat area with nothing else around for miles, like at KATL, it would be much faster than every KATL around.

Believe me, I have checked plenty of times. JFK could be very comparable to ATL or any of the other sceneries I mentioned when pointed towards Long Island eastward rather than towards the city and LGA. Still, it under performs with all those other things out of view. ORD for me was even worse than JFK though. Dropped into the teens routinely before I removed the pushback tugs which helped some.

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So, the real question you should ask is, instead: are there other sceneries for JFK or KORD that are faster than ours ? Because, every other comparison it's just wrong.

I would be more than happy to test it if there were other sceneries available, but unfortunately that's not an option.

virtuali

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #31 on: August 10, 2009, 01:47:52 am »
These statements appear to contradict one another.

They don't. You were saying that Zurich sold more than the others because it was the first one released. I've simply replied that yes, Zurich sold more than anything else in total, but it also sold more than the others even considering the same amount of time, the only one that is performing like it, it's JFK, and that obviously doesn't counterdict anything I've said: in the worse case, Zurich is the best selling scenery together with JFK, which still proves my point that, having a freeware alternative, doesn't impact sales.


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You also offered Zurich for free to people who bought both ORD and JFK, which is really the only reason I have it. That also could be a reason.

We obviously know exactly how many free Zurich we have given away, and they are a negligible percentage over the total sales, nothing statistically significant: Zurich would still be the best selling one, even by excluding the free copies.


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Considering it's optimized for FSX, I would expect the FS9 version would be sold separately at a cheaper price. Or, a specific FS9 version to be made.

No, because we would not be able to offer an easy upgrade route to FS9 customers that will eventually switch to FSX. We are sure that many FS9 users bought our FS9 product with confidence BECAUSE they known it would not be necessary to spend anything extra when they finally switch to FSX. And they will, sooner or later.


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That's understandable. However, why not make animations scenery specific, rather than just utilizing the default software? There are plenty of other payware companies that are able to do this. Surely FSDT has the talent to as well.

And why should we spend time to do extra work, when FSX does it for us ? Without even mentioning that, in case of road traffic, how FSX handles that is FAR more efficent that anything that could have been made with BGL animations, which it would be the only way to port it to FS9 but then, you would have an fps impact at worse-than-FSX levels. At that point, you'd better use FSX directly, if you ARE interested in road traffic.


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Believe me, I have checked plenty of times. JFK could be very comparable to ATL or any of the other sceneries I mentioned when pointed towards Long Island eastward rather than towards the city and LGA. Still, it under performs with all those other things out of view.

Not relevant. The default scenery at JFK has several issues, which impact performances even when not looking directly at the most problematic areas. I guess the main issue is the huge number of library objects that are loaded *anyway*, even if not actually displayed, and it's specific to JFK area. As I've said, it's just wrong to compare to any other area.


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ORD for me was even worse than JFK though. Dropped into the teens routinely before I removed the pushback tugs which helped some.

Then you clearly have something that doesn't work right. KORD is WAY faster than JFK, and this has always been the general consensus amongst users.


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I would be more than happy to test it if there were other sceneries available, but unfortunately that's not an option.

My point, exactly. Since there aren't any other JFK sceneries, you can't say anything about JFK performances. Simflyer's one (if it even works in FS9), it's WAY slower.  JFK never had the reputation for being an fps hog, there's MUCH worse stuff around, and not made for the worse area in the world, which is, incidentally, JFK.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2009, 01:52:01 am by virtuali »

CaseyD

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #32 on: August 10, 2009, 05:28:52 am »
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No, because we would not be able to offer an easy upgrade route to FS9 customers that will eventually switch to FSX. We are sure that many FS9 users bought our FS9 product with confidence BECAUSE they known it would not be necessary to spend anything extra when they finally switch to FSX. And they will, sooner or later.

You are sadly mistaken. FSX in general is a subpar product and there are many users who will likely never switch. That's why most payware and freeware companies continue to support FS9 in general more so than FSX. FS9 provides almost double the performance of FSX and with the proper addons, even better quality. I don't understand why it would be difficult to offer two serials, one to an FS9 version, and one to an FSX version. Many developers use this method.

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And why should we spend time to do extra work, when FSX does it for us ? Without even mentioning that, in case of road traffic, how FSX handles that is FAR more efficent that anything that could have been made with BGL animations, which it would be the only way to port it to FS9 but then, you would have an fps impact at worse-than-FSX levels. At that point, you'd better use FSX directly, if you ARE interested in road traffic.

People buy a scenery to get away from what is FS default and of course, what is custom made is almost 100% of the time better than what was made by Microsoft. I have plenty of sceneries with animated ground equipment that have no FPS impact whatsoever.

All this is why I originally said I wouldn't mind seeing Imaginesim make DFW. They are more committed to FS9 than FSDT seems to be, and of course that's what caused you to be hell-bent on proving me wrong about that.

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My point, exactly. Since there aren't any other JFK sceneries, you can't say anything about JFK performances.My point, exactly. Since there aren't any other JFK sceneries, you can't say anything about JFK performances.

Which is why I'm comparing it to the rest of FS. I understand that La Guardia and Manhattan may have some affect on frames at JFK, but neither should have as much of an affect as they seem to. The biggest factor in NY is not the city or the scenery but AI traffic, however there are areas with much more and yet better performance. The way the JFK ground texture was made seems to also have a detrimental effect.

JFKpilot

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #33 on: August 10, 2009, 06:32:08 am »
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You are sadly mistaken. FSX in general is a subpar product and there are many users who will likely never switch. That's why most payware and freeware companies continue to support FS9 in general more so than FSX. FS9 provides almost double the performance of FSX and with the proper addons, even better quality. I don't understand why it would be difficult to offer two serials, one to an FS9 version, and one to an FSX version. Many developers use this method.



Do you seriously want to get less product for the same price? I assume you are someone that thinks Imaginesim, for example, is giving you are better deal by offering separate versions. But in fact, they are just ripping you off, because they fs9 and fsx versions are identical anyway! The Fsdt way is seriously a win-win situation for everyone. Ever considered some people run both sims? And despite the fact that fs9 seems to have a larger base, sales of the PMDG Md-11, just as one example, proves otherwise.     



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People buy a scenery to get away from what is FS default and of course, what is custom made is almost 100% of the time better than what was made by Microsoft. I have plenty of sceneries with animated ground equipment that have no FPS impact whatsoever.
All this is why I originally said I wouldn't mind seeing Imaginesim make DFW. They are more committed to FS9 than FSDT seems to be, and of course that's what caused you to be hell-bent on proving me wrong about that.

The animated ground equipment takes time to do and is bad on fps so it's rather pointless in fs9. And as far as an imaginesim DFW goes, if you're satisfied with fs2002 tech, then it might be for you.


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Which is why I'm comparing it to the rest of FS. I understand that La Guardia and Manhattan may have some affect on frames at JFK, but neither should have as much of an affect as they seem to. The biggest factor in NY is not the city or the scenery but AI traffic, however there are areas with much more and yet better performance. The way the JFK ground texture was made seems to also have a detrimental effect.



New York is the worst performing area in FS, yet even still, Fsdt JFK praised for its fps. And it is not ai that is the bottleneck. As for your assertion that the ground is causing performance issues, care to explain how that would be the case? If you mean the ground causes stuttering, yes, that is a common complaint and was addressed long ago for all Fsdt fs9 airports except KORD. If you mean bad performance as in bad fps, it's probably a local system issue.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2009, 06:53:50 am by JFKpilot »
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SirIsaac726

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #34 on: August 10, 2009, 07:47:12 am »
There is one disagreement I have with what has been said by Umberto.  With the example of FlyTampa sceneries, I'd say there IS a way to do animated traffic for FS9 that doesn't affect frames horribly, if at all.

Other than that though, I agree on the overall picture FSDT gives.  I mean, two sceneries for the price of one by other developers, can't beat that.  Right now, I too wouldn't mind to see an ImagineSim DFW because I feel, when looking at the sceneries, as if their products are more custom to FS9 (once again, that is just a feeling...I'm not speaking about whether or not it technically is).  Not to mention, I am sticking with FS9 for now (mostly because I am too lazy to do all the tweaks and things to get FSX to an acceptable level graphics-wise and frame rates-wise).  But, for people who use both products or will be switching from FS9 to FSX (which I plan to do in the near future), FSDT offers a great deal that really can't be beat.

EDDK

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #35 on: August 10, 2009, 08:21:35 am »
crazy to think that somebody who still is with FS9 will switch to FSX. lol FSX is dead, seems two new flightsimulator will reach us withing next three years (Aerosoft and the independent ACES team). So why the hell switch to FSX  ???

virtuali

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #36 on: August 10, 2009, 10:54:02 am »
You are sadly mistaken. FSX in general is a subpar product and there are many users who will likely never switch.

Wrong. FSX is a way better product compared to FS9, and this has bee clearly demonstrated by products made with FSX in mind, that wouldn't not be possible with FS9. They are just an handful of them, but even ONE product would be enough to prove how FSX can do, if programmed properly.


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That's why most payware and freeware companies continue to support FS9 in general more so than FSX. FS9 provides almost double the performance of FSX and with the proper addons, even better quality.

Wrong again. FSX-native products have MUCH better quality AND better performances too, the new L-39 Albatros, which is an FSX-only airplane, made from the ground up for FSX, blows out the water of ANYTHING ever seen for FS9, both in quality AND fps.

The undeserved bad reputation for FSX performances, is MAINLY due to sub-par FS9 stuff ported in FSX, which is exactly what you are trying to suggesting we should do.


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I don't understand why it would be difficult to offer two serials, one to an FS9 version, and one to an FSX version. Many developers use this method.

It's not "difficult", it's just WRONG becasue, opposite to what you are saying, everybody WILL eventually switch to FSX, even the ones that are saying that they'll "never" switch, because the product that it will make them switch hasn't probably released yet, but they'll switch sooner or later, be it because of something in FSX itself, or because Windows 7 and/or because faster PC will gradually go down in price, and everybody changes hardware, at some time.


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People buy a scenery to get away from what is FS default and of course, what is custom made is almost 100% of the time better than what was made by Microsoft.

Wrong, in case of what we were discussing, which are mainly ROAD traffic, that is highly efficent in FSX, at the same amount of vehicle density (which is also user-controllable, BTW)


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I have plenty of sceneries with animated ground equipment that have no FPS impact whatsoever.

And wrong with regard to animated ground equipment because, FSX here is A LOT better than FS9, because the vehicles are not dumb static animations, but are full blown simulated objects, with their own physics simulation and behaviour, like stopping in front of the user airplane, accelerating, turning correctly, etc. In this case, FSX default it's already way better than anything that was ever done in FS9.

And, of course, by "default", in this case, it's only referring to the simulation engine, but the vehicles can be of course fully customized, modeled, painted and even with custom-made positional sounds. Sorry, but FSX just dwarfs FS9 in this area, there's no comparison.


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Which is why I'm comparing it to the rest of FS

Which is wrong, as I've always said, and as other users told you. JFK area is a bit of a special case, and everybody knows that.


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The biggest factor in NY is not the city or the scenery but AI traffic, however there are areas with much more and yet better performance.

AI traffic is surely a problem. However, the NYC area is slow even without AI. We don't know why, but I think something very wrong has been made there. Funny thing, is not THAT worse in FSX. Not that it's "fast" in FSX, but while in FS9, your typical city area has usually very good fps, NYC area just collapse to at least half of the typical fps in cities. In FSX, you don't see much difference, it's all slower, but NYC area is not significantly slower.


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The way the JFK ground texture was made seems to also have a detrimental effect.

First, they don't, unless you have a low-end video card with less than 512 MB, but nowadays every 512 MB card that works with FS9 can be bought for very low prices. And, we have a texture resizer avaialble, that would help with less VRAM.

Anway, the ground textures at JFK are the ONLY thing in the scenery that is made exactly like you would like we did all the scenery: they are MADE FOR FS9!

JFK (and KORD too) are the only sceneries we did, that have the ground made DIFFERENTLY for FSX and FS9, in the way that we did a specific FS9 programming for ground in FS9, while used the FSX native photoreal scenery in FSX.

We didn't do this for later sceneries, like KLAS or KFLL, that use a different method, were the programming was driven by the requirement to have rain effect on FSX, and this was ported verbatim to FS9, because having to do two version with two different programming methods was time consuming, and the native FSX photoreal could suffer from bluriness, if the user doesn't correctly set the resolution slider.

But, as I've said, this doesn't affect JFK and KORD, that are using a purely native FS9 method in FS9, and a different FSX method in FSX so, the ground it's not an issue.

cmpbllsjc

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #37 on: August 12, 2009, 09:05:51 am »
Well said Umberto. If you got the right equipment FSX is way better than FS9. I have the right equipment and I also have both sims, but the only one I now use is FSX. The only way FS9 is better is if you don't have the power to run FSX.

FAlonso22

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #38 on: August 12, 2009, 03:52:13 pm »
crazy to think that somebody who still is with FS9 will switch to FSX. lol FSX is dead, seems two new flightsimulator will reach us withing next three years (Aerosoft and the independent ACES team). So why the hell switch to FSX  ???

+1

The FSX is a complete failure. FSDT know this one, like me and you, but we aren´t a software sellers . When you sell many addons for fsx and few for fs9, the FSX is the best software in the world.

Regards

virtuali

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #39 on: August 12, 2009, 04:50:47 pm »
The FSX is a complete failure. FSDT know this one, like me and you, but we aren´t a software sellers

That's your own opinion, which we don't share, and sales figures are not confirming this either. FS9 used to prevail, up to last year, but FSX sales are constantly going up, not down, FSX is now in the majority. Just not as much as we would like, but the direction is clear.

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When you sell many addons for fsx and few for fs9, the FSX is the best software in the world.

Wrong again, because we have ALL our products available for FS9, except one (XPOI) so, we don't have any iterest pushing FSX *because* we have too many FSX-only products to sell.

I'll alert this once more: the next message of the already famous  YAPD ( which means: "Yet Another Pointless Discussion" ) of FSX vs FS9, will be removed and locked.

NOTHING you can say about how bad FSX is can make us change our minds or our developement policy, which is to offer FS9 products as long as they are viable and as long as we can quickly convert them from the FSX version. And, as we said many times already, this is only valid for airport sceneries. Other kind of products will be FSX only, because what we are doing here, can't just be made on FS9.

Only SALES have the power to change our policies and, if it was TRUE (and it wasn't) that FSX was a failure, we would have seen that in sales, and we would have stopped doing FSX products long ago, and probably we would have quit FS developement altogether, because you can't base a business on a supposedly failed product, and on a 6 years old platform.

So, logic dictates that FSX is NOT a failure, otherwise we would have long disappeared.

Without even mentioning the fact that, stating such nonsense about FSX being a "complete" failure, is also highly offensive to many happy FSX users, as if they didn't know better, and enjoy a failed product without realizing it...
« Last Edit: August 12, 2009, 04:56:02 pm by virtuali »

virtuali

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #40 on: August 12, 2009, 04:57:49 pm »
BTW,

Dallas DFW will be made for FS9 as well. So, please, just stop worrying about it.

EDDK

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #41 on: August 12, 2009, 08:21:56 pm »
We are all very pleased that you release products for both sims, that's fantatstic. But what some customers try to tell is, that it's nonesense to think that there are still people who think about switching from FS9 to FSX. Perhaps a nonsignificant minority. Hey it's 2009 and not 2006!! Some new Flightsims are visble in future, I never would think about buying FSX, now, and in future...  :)

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We are sure that many FS9 users bought our FS9 product with confidence BECAUSE they known it would not be necessary to spend anything extra when they finally switch to FSX. And they will, sooner or later.


virtuali

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #42 on: August 12, 2009, 10:09:39 pm »
But what some customers try to tell is, that it's nonesense to think that there are still people who think about switching from FS9 to FSX.

I know what they are trying to tell, but we simply don't agree. There are two things that slowed down FSX adoption so far:

- Lack of affordable hardware that can FSX properly

- Windows Vista

The former is starting to be solved, both because of the i7, which is getting high praises by anyone that tried it, and because there are several video cards that works well with FSX, without costing too much. The latter will be solved quite shortly, because the release of Windows 7, on top of being MUCH better than Vista, will compel many users to upgrade hardware, OS, or even both.

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Some new Flightsims are visble in future, I never would think about buying FSX, now, and in future...

It would be much better to be very cautious and realistic about this.

AS3 is not going to be a replacement for FSX or FS9, because it has a much narrower scope. And, it took about 9 years to be made, assuming it will be released before the end of this year. So, you have an idea how much could take to develop the "next" flightsim that Aerosoft is considering, starting almost from scratch, aiming to replace FSX.

I'd consider having a new sim, comparable to FSX, in *only* 5 years, to be quite an achievement but, even assuming this would be possible, it's nonsense, instead, being sure to still use FS9, up to 2014...

#1-Stunna

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #43 on: August 13, 2009, 02:35:51 am »
Whats AS3?

mpo645

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Re: I hope KDFW is still on and next...
« Reply #44 on: August 13, 2009, 07:13:21 am »
Airline Simulator 3

its being made by Aerosoft