Gentlemen, I will make this a short and sweet post.

Last weekend we had a lot of meetings regarding the new possible simulator to be done by Aerosoft. Now first of all I got to state that we are NOT yet ready to say that there will be one. But I can say that the probability is a lot larger now. From 50% last week to 80% now. We are currently investing officially money in this project. We are currently using the unofficial name Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012. A brilliant name if I say so myself, we got our name (Aerosoft) in it, we got what we intend to do (Flight Simulator) in the name and we even got the release year in it. I do not expect this name to be used for the release btw, but for now lets call it AFS2012, okay?

Following up from the less structured discussions we had we are now focusing into clearly defined topics. We hope you will be helping us shape the new sim with your comments. But please note that we will remove comments that are not structurally important to the process. You will see a new topic appear about every week.

Great news, thanks for the info Mathijs. So, what is the release date again? Ah, Ah, Ah, just joking of course!

Great news, thanks for the info Mathijs. So, what is the release date again? Ah, Ah, Ah, just joking of course!

Easter 2012

This is fantastic news Mathijs!

Indeed wonderful news! It's great to have this to look forward to

It would be nice to have topics about the game/graphics engines you are considering and also the ATC system.

Great to hear this news! I'm sure you (Aerosoft) can all pull off an incredible product, you have already proven yourselves time and time again!

Fantastic news. I am looking forward to the release.

I think the most important thing for me is to have AFS2012 last long enough (say four years?) for us to enjoy a healthy ROI. A lot of money is invested into this hobby, and enjoying it as long as possible is essential. Make it modular, and add (for a reasonable fee) upgrades every so often to keep it up to date with the latest technological advances.

I think fs9 proved the validity of age maturity to an extent. Besides that, it takes a while for developers to fill the "playground" you create for them, and leaves us with a serious lack of patience when new products are proposed. Are we there yet takes on a more vicious tone in the fs world as everyone knows.

If this is to be a success, we all (including developers) have to come to terms with the best cost/enjoyment index. Updates (not fixes) should not be free if they require serious work, otherwise no one will be interested in doing the work. I hate to say this, as it would mean more cost to me and others, but I strongly believe that we need to "reward" developers for their work so they stay with it, and not get fatigued and move on.

Good luck, and I promise to wait more patiently for this one.

Great news! Fantastic. Great name, AFS2012.

A suggestion, can you create many different topics, example:

1) ATC

2) Navigation databse, just like now

3) Graphic engine

and so on... so we can write in the appropriate section of AFS2012.

I hope you take care of users suggestions, when you start the earliear topics about Aerosoft FS 2012. There are many and many good ideas and innovation for the new simulator!

Last weekend we had a lot of meetings regarding the new possible simulator to be done by Aerosoft. Now first of all I got to state that we are NOT yet ready to say that there will be one. But I can say that the probability is a lot larger now. From 50% last week to 80% now. We are currently investing officially money in this project. We are currently using the unofficial name Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012

Matjis, very good to hear that you open the new simulator to Linux as an additional OS platform and also using OpenGL. I must say that is a very clever move. Good luck with your plans and I think you are on the right track here to become more independent.

Cheers

Chris

Hello Mathijs,

awesome news. I was really hoping for that and I hope the final decision is positive as well.

You talked about more structured discussions. Thats a good thing and I would have a suggestion: What do you think about creating a subforum or subthread just for potential add-on developers. People, who are interested in creating add-ons or would like to do that in the future for AFS2012 could talk about their wishes for the new platform, have technical discussions etc. That would be really great and is a little different to what the general user would love to have. I think this will help to get it even more structured.

What do you think?

-Pete

Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere, but I just saw news about this on X-Plane.org...

Will there be a Mac version?

Thanks.

Think of all the man hour they are taking from theirs normal addon development.

Indeed wonderful news! It's great to have this to look forward to

It would be nice to have topics about the game/graphics engines you are considering and also the ATC system.

Soon.

Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere, but I just saw news about this on X-Plane.org...

Will there be a Mac version?

Thanks.

no, we want to fully use the new DX11 options (REALLY makes a difference for sims) and that make a MAC version nearly impossible.

Think of all the man hour they are taking from theirs normal addon development.

Mwahhhh, not really as we are hiring new people for this project. And we do expect the market to get slow in 2011 anyway.

Good to hear this, Mathijs

Hopefully we can give you enough hints in the next weeks/months, so that you will finally start with the developement

no, we want to fully use the new DX11 options (REALLY makes a difference for sims) and that make a MAC version nearly impossible.

Can you please explain more how the DX11 makes a difference for sims?

Different subject.

If it is possible the sim should be designed so it is easy to port to a raytraycing game engine in the future.

Just a few interresting links:

http://www.pcper.com...cle.php?aid=455

http://blogs.intel.c...g_the_end_o.php

http://scarydevil.co...terization.html

Reco

Without a Linux version I'll almost certainly stick to X-plane, Fly!Legacy and Flightgear etc. as I don't intend to update creepy Vista64 anymore.

no, we want to fully use the new DX11 options (REALLY makes a difference for sims) and that make a MAC version nearly impossible.

DX11, excellent!

Also, I applaud you on choosing to stick with a Windows only release. This means you can focus on the best technology (eg DX11) for a single platform (Windows) instead of having to follow a "lowest common denominator" approach if you were to target multiple platforms.

Great news ... I'm looking forward to AFS12

If I may add my 2 cents...

Please don't waste time trying to surpass existing implementations regarding ATC or weather. Make AFS2012 a modular, easy-extensible platform with a sophisticated graphics engine. If this means DX11 on Windows 7, so be it.

If you want a high-end ATC, stick to online flights or purchase Radar Contact 2012.

If you want a high-end weather engine, purchase Active Sky Advanced 2012.

....

Regards,

Jörn

DX11, excellent!

Also, I applaud you on choosing to stick with a Windows only release. This means you can focus on the best technology (eg DX11) for a single platform (Windows) instead of having to follow a "lowest common denominator" approach if you were to target multiple platforms.

OpenGL can do anything that DX11 does! But it has much nicer texture rendering etc. FSX looks dead ugly...I'm sorry. Also targeting multiple platforms has no visual impact at all and only minimal additional work at inital stage.

But hey if you want DX11 why not make it run on Linux with WINE.

DX9 is already working...(not perfect though)

Matjis, very good to hear that you open the new simulator to Linux as an additional OS platform and also using OpenGL. I must say that is a very clever move. Good luck with your plans and I think you are on the right track here to become more independent.

Cheers

Chris

Sorry but AFS2012 will be based on Windows7/DX11 (with fall back to older Windows and DirectX versions). So pure Windows.

Think you are confusing Airline Simulator 3, Pilot Flying with this Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012. They are separate projects. Not linked in any way.

OpenGL can do anything that DX11 does! But it has much nicer texture rendering etc. FSX looks dead ugly...I'm sorry. Also targeting multiple platforms has no visual impact at all and only minimal additional work at inital stage.

But hey if you want DX11 why not make it run on Linux with WINE.

DX9 is already working...(not perfect though)

I know OpenGL made advances over the last few years (months actually), but we are going for the much larger and more stable platform and will be using DX11. For all the same reasons as many games developers are making the same decision.

Without a Linux version I'll almost certainly stick to X-plane, Fly!Legacy and Flightgear etc. as I don't intend to update creepy Vista64 anymore.

That's fine. We know there are users who do not like Windows. Hope you have fun with those other fine simulators.