Why continue developing for FSX?

[FS20 0]

Hi,

With all the known limitations within FSX, why do developers continue to build upon a frankly aged and restricted foundation?

Would it not make more sense to look towards P3D, Xplane or perhaps a completely new platform?

More or less every add-on has an OOM issue or something FSX related, whether it be "tweaking the .cfg" or something else.

Would it not make sense to build something decent, for something decent, rather than weighting the current Jenga tower that gets ever more dilapidated?

Just a thought...

FS.

[EDNR-Cruiser 319]

Good question but the simple answer might be "mass"...
It takes a lot of time to generate enough mass to get and keep things moving and there is a lot of gravity speaking for the "older" flight sims, we should not forget that even the FS2004 community is still surprisingly active and the old sim in good use.

You named the weak spots of FSX and I'd like to focus on some bright lights:

• Huge community
• Rather moderate hardware requirements
• Thousands of good addons available, commercial and freeware
• Millions of hours of experience available in the user cloud and most bugs addressed in the meantime, if not fixed then at least a workaround is available for those smart enough to ask
• Very stable and proven engine for 99% of the addons
• Tons of sources of information in case of questions, developer FAQs and so on and so forth

I agree that the FSX is somewhat restricted in the meantime but I don't care very much and I appreciate the continuing support for the FSX very much also.

Funny side note:
even though (or probably because ?!) I run such an old and limited hardware I haven't run into any problems the last couple of months or even years (except the usual stuff that you have to educate yourself about with HighMemFix and such).

[FS20 0]

Most of what you mention is merely a product of what has become, over years of not moving on.

Had we moved forward years ago, we'd perhaps has such "mass", with a product far more adept with todays standards.

[Cheyenne Chief Pilot 829]

A single addon never causes OOMs. Those are always the result of combining different addons with high graphics settings.

The ironic point about cfg tweaks is that one of the most popular tweaks (LOD radius greater than 4.5) significantly increases the risk for an OOM.

Seconding Bernd, I have to state that X-Plane doesn't yet seem to be quite there where FSX currently is. But there are indications that X-Plane is catching up on FSX and may eventually surpass it in a couple of years.

[marvic 183]

A single addon never causes OOMs. Those are always the result of combining different addons with high graphics settings.

The ironic point about cfg tweaks is that one of the most popular tweaks (LOD radius greater than 4.5) significantly increases the risk for an OOM.

Seconding Bernd, I have to state that X-Plane doesn't yet seem to be quite there where FSX currently is. But there are indications that X-Plane is catching up on FSX and may eventually surpass it in a couple of years.

Olli4740 has pointed out a big issue with FSX, compromise. The platform still works for a lot of us and without any issues. At this point a lot of people are switching to P3DV2, but a quick look at any forum and it is riddled with issues.

and is not quite there yet. I'm sure it will come. Xplane is a good platform too but who is going to switch if you have a lot of scenery for FSX with the possibility of it working in P3DV2?

[philwhite 29]

I have FSX as well as Prepar3d V2 and X-Plane 10. Now in my opinion X-Plane 10 is by far the best but still needs developing further as for comparing FSX and P3D I can see very little difference between the two so perhaps my system is not that good.

As FSX has been around for some time I have grown to like it and the available add ons for it like EZdock camera and FSrecorder I would miss very much so I am continuing to use FSX as my main simulator for now.

[Walter Almaraz 81]

An OOM is caused for a bad configuration in FSX (normally high LOD radius), I use FSX with 757 QW with some good airports, traffic (WOAI and 25%) and REX, and with the sliders in good quality, I never had problems like these. Xplane is good but I tried before and I don't like (9 and 10 version). Maybe PD3 is the future, but for now FSX is dominating.

[Herman 1591]

Pretty simple...FSX users still buy a lot of add-ons.

[PatrickZ 300]

Maybe FSX is not the best platform, but it definately is the most used. That's the reason most add-ons are being developed for FSX.

I'm running FSX myself too and I like it. I got a huge load of add-ons, so I won't be moving on very shortly. P3D does have the future, but for now it's not yet it. I've also tried X-plane, but I didn't like it.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Hi,

With all the known limitations within FSX, why do developers continue to build upon a frankly aged and restricted foundation?

Would it not make more sense to look towards P3D, Xplane or perhaps a completely new platform?

More or less every add-on has an OOM issue or something FSX related, whether it be "tweaking the .cfg" or something else.

Would it not make sense to build something decent, for something decent, rather than weighting the current Jenga tower that gets ever more dilapidated?

Just a thought...

FS.

Well we do publish a lot of X-Plane and P3D,

But in the end we have a company of 50+ people and we got to make money. And in our latest surveys we got 5% of customers on P3d, 20% of customers on FS2004 (but they hardly invest any money these days) and 75% on FSX.

[mas618 34]

Well we do publish a lot of X-Plane and P3D,

But in the end we have a company of 50+ people and we got to make money. And in our latest surveys we got 5% of customers on P3d, 20% of customers on FS2004 (but they hardly invest any money these days) and 75% on FSX.

Numbers talk, bulls**t walks

Mas

[Cheyenne Chief Pilot 829]

Numbers talk, bulls**t walks

Mas

Instead of 'stirring the pot', why don't you start developing freeware addons for your favourite platform?

That's the quickest way to find out that

- any valuable addon requires a huge amount of time and knowledge to create it

- and while that huge amount of time is passing by, you still have to make a living.

Yep, coding is way more difficult than posting ...

[mas618 34]

Instead of 'stirring the pot', why don't you start developing freeware addons for your favourite platform?

That's the quickest way to find out that

- any valuable addon requires a huge amount of time and knowledge to create it

- and while that huge amount of time is passing by, you still have to make a living.

Yep, coding is way more difficult than posting ...

Ahhh... the wonders of digital communication - I seem not to have understood them yet. You definately misunderstood me Olli. I was agreeing with Mathijs - numbers talk - everything else is just talk. I was agreeing with Mathijs and his string of logic - Aerosoft are in the money-making business - as are everyone else. They will make add-ons for any platform whenver it is economically sensible do to so. But yes - enough stirring anyones pot.. Over and Out;)

Mas

[Cheyenne Chief Pilot 829]

Ahhh... the wonders of digital communication - I seem not to have understood them yet. You definately misunderstood me Olli. I was agreeing with Mathijs - numbers talk - everything else is just talk. I was agreeing with Mathijs and his string of logic - Aerosoft are in the money-making business - as are everyone else. They will make add-ons for any platform whenver it is economically sensible do to so. But yes - enough stirring anyones pot.. Over and Out;)

Mas

Thanks for clarifying. My apologies being offered to you ...

[mas618 34]

Thanks for clarifying. My apologies being offered to you ...

No sweat ;-) Happy holidays!

[meshman 15]

Well we do publish a lot of X-Plane and P3D,

But in the end we have a company of 50+ people and we got to make money. And in our latest surveys we got 5% of customers on P3d, 20% of customers on FS2004 (but they hardly invest any money these days) and 75% on FSX.

5% P3D

20% FS9

75% FSX

________

100% of customers?!?

So where does X-Plane figure into the equation?

[FS20 0]

Perhaps there is insufficient % for the likes of X-plane purely because very few are developing for it, which is what I cannot understand. Many simmers have powerful machines these days, more so than FSX is able to work with. So why bottleneck the system with FSX? You wouldn't continually upgrade your PC's and not upgrade your CPU, eventually!? As far as I know, X-plane is the only sim out there with the capability to utilise these powerful PC's to the max... not forgetting it's far more realistic: 3D modelling of weather allowing for a far more reliable wx radar - something fans have been screaming about for years - dynamic lighting effects, 64 bit memory capabilities, multicore usage, benefits from higher end GPU's, etc.

Whilst I understand it's a money making game, all it takes is for the likes of Aerosoft, PMDG, FSlabs, OrbX, GSX, REX, Active sky etc, to step up and blow everyone out of the water for everyone to jump ship. If PMDG had released their 777 for X-plane and consequently Aerosoft followed suit, I guarantee there would be a massive shift from FSX to X-plane!

Yes FSX 'works'; yes there are copius amounts of software for it; yes people still buy it... but, only because there is no alternative.

Boeing had a lot of success with the 737...

[jug 43]

So i think the community is toooooooo big to develope a complete new simulator and about the OOM's i had never one and i fly with: GEX; many complex scenerys, PMDG products such as the 777 or NGX, HDEv2 Clouds......... (Intel i7 4,5ghz, 8Gb RAM, 1TB Hdd (sadly) and a GT430 (also sadly)) I am very satisfied with my FSX actually, so I need no new one

[KarstenS 180]

So where does X-Plane figure into the equation?

Well if it is their sales statistic from their store it is probably correct. Aerosoft sells the Carenados and in the last few planes they normally took so much time that I finally pulled the trigger and bought from .org . I don't even have to talk about the Boeing 757... And even the usual Carenado end of the year sale doesn't really matter. The only Carenados I don't have are the C152 and the Saratoga. I don't need all their planes. The Grumman Traveler was much more interesting.

[Emi 5161]

Guys, after you have spend many thousands of Euros, would you really want to throw that all away by changing for example to X-Plane coming from FSX?

You can be absolutly sure that really almost NO one would want to start from 0 and buy everything again if you already have a powerfull and good looking FSX running. There you rather incevest a few hundret €s in a new CPU instead of a few thousand €s into all new addons for another simulator.

This is how humans think.

[KarstenS 180]

Guys, after you have spend many thousands of Euros, would you really want to throw that all away by changing for example to X-Plane coming from FSX?

Errm, not necessarily, but in fact The situation isn't quite as simple. There is no need for VFR Germany since I can have a much better mesh or even photosceneries for free. I simply stopped any add-on transactions after I ran into my first OOMs. And I started to look for alternatives like Microsoft Flight or X-Plane. And it was the sensible decision.

While the computers and their capabilities are rising FSX can't movwe on, while the development costs are rising. In the biginning of X-Plane 10 it was even a struggle to find a plane that matched the possibilities of the Piper Cheyenne. But now we have the first planes of the PMDV class and totally unexpected even A2A is suddenly within striking distance.

[FS20 0]

Look at other modern gaming platforms/games currently. Which do you know still run from an operating platform built and released in 2006!!? That's like having a ps4 and only running ps1 games, albeit, patched up as much as possible... it's frankly, stupid.

I understand many of you have spent ££££ on add ons, and are quite content as you are. This is not targeted towards you.

The infrastructure is there to utilise and build upon a modern era of simming.

[CJ Reed 4]

So your question about why companies don't invest in new tech is directed at those who don't provide the capital for that investment by purchasing addons. Hmm, I think as the earlier poster said "Money talks".

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

5% P3D

20% FS9

75% FSX

________

100% of customers?!?

So where does X-Plane figure into the equation?

These are the numbers of FS users.... we do have data on X-Plane users but we can't share that right now.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

So your question about why companies don't invest in new tech is directed at those who don't provide the capital for that investment by purchasing addons. Hmm, I think as the earlier poster said "Money talks".

101% right. We would happily do FS2002 add-ons if there were customers.