Has the tide turned? FSX or FS9?

[Trev Clark]

If I'm not mistaken, the creator of this poll is an FS9 user!

I did (before a mishap that I cannot solve) have boths sims! I took part in that amazing 5 hour Dambusters raid on MP in FSX that Ben mentions. I agree that for MP stuff FSX is far better than FS9.

This is not one of those 'which is better' threads, with two camps. I just thought it interesting to find out 'how the wind was blowing' as some of us here are involved with projects (payware and freeware) and it is good way to find this out.

I prefer the 'look' of FS9, but that is just me, if I could get FSX re-installed, I would run both sims. The prospect of formation MP stuff in the new Hawk is very exciting and I will probably miss out on it.

It has also generated much more response than most recent posts, and I thought the forum needed some life injecting into it

[DanKH]

What is a A321? :think:


Really!

[Vulcan_to_the_Sky!]

James, are you running SP2?

I tried it with that as well, but I didn't seem to get much of a difference.

I Might give it another go in the near future and see what I get.

[TSR2]

Just a thought mate, as a few folk seem to have found SP2 much better performance wise. ;-)

[PhilipsCDRW]

The type of flying I enjoy - waffling around the airways in an aircraft with as comprehensively-modelled systems as reasonably possible - really suits FS9. Also my PC (which got downgraded by a dead graphics card) probably wouldn't load the loading screen for FSX without throwing a wobbly. Also I'm getting into C gauge programming and from what I've heard on the bush telegraph FSX has less functionality with its movement towards XML?

If the AirlinerXP Airbus is half as comprehensive as the previews suggest then that would motivate me to eventually update my PC and get FSX. But is that likely to happen before 2020, I don't know...

[TSR2]

Hi Philips,

I think you'll find even FS9 was moving toward xml coding. The C++ gauages are a dead duck ;-)

[DanKH]

There will be some work to do over at HJG then, as "our" gauges are C-gauges ;-)

Well for all it's worth both types are supported in FS9 as in FSX. Where MS recommends XML, but one of the reasons for making C-gauges might be that they aren't easily "tampered" with, where the XML-gauge is a bit more "straight-forward" and intuitive...

[PhilipsCDRW]

There will be some work to do over at HJG then, as "our" gauges are C-gauges ;-)

Well for all it's worth both types are supported in FS9 as in FSX. Where MS recommends XML, but one of the reasons for making C-gauges might be that they aren't easily "tampered" with, where the XML-gauge is a bit more "straight-forward" and intuitive...

Well I know and love C++ and like the alleged extra power! I've made a total of two gauges so far - a switch, and an annunciator which tells you which lighting circuits are on - so I'm not exactly an experienced gauge programmer (sorry 'simulation control interface' programmer) yet but it's something I want to work on over time.

[SkippyBing]

Dan,

I've only looked into it briefly in the last couple of days, but there appears to be a utility in the FSX SDK to convert XML gauges to a binary format which is faster to load and presumably less tamper-able with.

[DanKH]

Yes you are right, when making a genuine FSX-XML gauge you have the option to convert it to sbp-format which is preferred over the XML. And yes it load quicker too.

But remember to ALWAYS keep the XML as you main file and edit in that one. Generate the sbp after finishing the XML. But KEEP the XML. you are not able to (easily) revert and/or edit the sbp file.....

But as mentioned it requires a genuine FSX XML-gauge. You can't just import a FS9 XML-gauge into the ace.exe program that is used for building XML-gauges in FSX... and then convert the FS9 version to sbp format....