FS2004 is a great base program. You can't shoot or destroy anything but all the other pet peeves you have can be solved by the top rated commercial add-ons you so easely dismiss.

I currently fly the Real Air SIAI-Marchetti SF260 http://www.realairsimulations.com/products/sf260/index.php It has cristal clear, smoothly updated instruments in the virtual cockpit and top of the line real life flight charteristics.

I fly in the Paris region using FLIGHTSERIES - FLIGHTPARIS Base & Autogen pack http://secure.simmarket.com/product_info.php?products_id=1960

For the viewing system I use Active Camera 2004. It was available since day 1 and its free to try out. http://secure.simmarket.com/product_info.php?products_id=557

By adding these 4 add-ons I changed plain vanilla FS2004 into the greatest General flight simulator with a 12000 km2 real world area that is more real then any other program can give me.

Looks to me like you never realy looked around at what was available. FS2004 out of the box was merely adaquate at the time of its release which as you say was 3 years back. But over time and with the right add-ons FS2004 has become unbeatable.

Maybe its beter to turn the question around. What flightsimulator program do you find beter than FS2004. Its much easier shooting down the other guys idea's then posting something constructive.

So what other flightsimulator gives me access to almost all the aircraft in the world to 24,000 airports worldwidea\ and lets do that in accurately portrayed realtime weather

And can even double up as an aircraft systems trainer for a large airliner
http://www.leveldsim.com/sevensix_screenshots.asp

OR a turboprop

http://atr.flight1.net/

And can give me every minute detail of some of the largest international airports in the world:

Like Frankfurt
http://www.aerosoft.de/_php_projekte/_ph...irportfrankfurt

Or San Francisco Intl Airport
http://secure.simmarket.com/product_info.php?products_id=948

Do you know any program that can give me that? Sure it will cost you but if you're willing to invest you too can make it 'as real as a 50 dollar flightsimulator game can get'

gotta disagree there, easily within 50ft...

exhausted,

Do you have any proof of the feature list changes from one version to the next? Seriously, I'd like to know.

"So you have to nerve to make posts as critics to me in my FS2004 thread and you call me a troll?"

If you don't want people to think you are a troll don't post immature and inflamatory rants like this, because that's what trolls do. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck...

don't feed the trolls

remember exhausted your only allowed to post positive things about sims here

Yea basically.

God help us if they open a Nations: Fighter Command forum...

Ask Oleg to help!!?!?? HAHAHAHA that sure WILL help!! Dream on!

Theres a MS lawn mower sim? I'd like to here more about that one.

It comes bundled with Microsoft Tractor Pull 2006 and Microsoft Tubing Ozarks Adventure. You can find it at Walmart.

There's also Microsoft Reliable Windows Simulator.

Haha, now that is one i do want

I agree with some of your comments, but MSFS to me is an overall superior sim for the civil aviation enthusiest. Some of the payware is actually quite amazing, try the Level D 767, the Aeroworx King Air, or the Carenado's Cessnas.

Some of the default models are brutal. Yet the world they have created have simulated much. Theres no other flight sim out there which could do the same.

It has been an invaluable tool for improving real world flying as well

dude...what a rant. FS2004 is awesome for a flight sim. If FS2004 is so ****e, then whats better? Ofcourse its not like the real thing - if you want the real thing, go get a pilots licence. There are thousands of players world-wide who are perfectly happy with FS9.

Well, while some of your points have validity I think the overall conclusion is a little over the top.

Don't forget that much of the limitation of the sim is due to the fact that by default it must be able to be run on a variety of computers and be played by a variety of experience levels.

When you are recreating the entire world, you will invariably run into the limitation of how detailed you can make any one area, much to the dissapointment of many. As an example, the scenery for the add on mesh FSGlobal2005 encompasses 13GB of data and even still, the mesh has to make interpolations between data points in rugged terrain.

By the same token, the aircraft must be able to be played on a wide variety of systems but more importantly by a much wider variety of simmers. From those with flying experience to those who wouldn't be able to figure which side of the attitude gyro to keep upright if their life depended on it, few would buy the sim, if every Cessna cartwheeled off the runway the second you added power.

I understand that many simmers lament the lack of fidelity in the MSFS series, but I myself used it in flight school to figure out those damn NDBs and VORs, used it to practice my scan in low level navigation, used it to prepare for a Cathay Pacific Hong Kong simulator interview and eventually used it (with the fine though not perfect PMDG 737 addon) to get ready for my class at Southwest.

As for the fidelity, within the constraints noted above and a few addons which I loved but could still live without, I think the series does a pretty good job:

http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=101;t=002382

Again, many of your points are very reasonable. I just don't feel the series is really all that bad and probably has done more to promote aviation to the budding pilot who can't fly worth a damn than any other single factor since the beginning of the series if not longer.

Just my two cents.

Deacon

How's Virginia? What about the Arlington/Alexandria area? I would have liked to take a trip up there in 2000 or 2004. Sounds beautiful. If you have heard "There Is Nothing Left To Lose" by Foo Fighters you would have heard some songs directly inspired by that area in Virginia..... it seems so nice and dark green.

I have had some good times on the good ole' MSFS. But let's keep this in perspective.... as customers we keep the developers employed with Microsoft. Without us there would be no MSFS, as CFS4 gladly showed us (and as we gladly accepted hehe). As with any customers we enjoy the amenities and the new things that come to us. But there are some serious flaws with the MSFS series which could be described, from the functionalists' point of view, as "Microsoft liking the temperature of the water a little too much."

It's like the old parable of the duckling. At first the duck makes a splash and it truely is a move forward for the young duck. But even though the duck grows he chooses the same shallow area of the pond every time as the other ducks and ducklings pass him by and go on to do great things.... like cure duck cancer and make submersibles. That is Microsoft.

Hell! Even the younger Maddox games knows when an engine has outlived itself and when it is past time to update with new blood!

MS doesn't and should not be supported until the developers challenge themselves enough to address old issues and concerns of the fans. There is so much great potential that I think if members of the developement team truely liked MSFS so much then they would use the SDK to create free features for the fanbase, not depend on the fans to do it many different ways.

Does MSFS has a couple of good things about it? Well... maybe there are a couple. Are they stuck in the same area of the pond and has their engine become a living joke of the flight sim genera?

DEFINTATELY!!!!

MSFS - The living joke of the flight-sim genera.

MSFS has been $50 very well spent IMHO. Exhausted, do you have any RL flying experience ? I found the sim most useful for Instrument Procedures, visualizing unfamiliar airport and cockpit procedures in the King Air (the Aeroworx King Air 200 is as real as you can get on a desktop sim IMHO).

Honestly Paul Rix,

Just a few minutes that I shouldn't have been flying at all make up all of my real life expirience. I remember them very well.

MSFS does have it's benefits, but it's days of being a pivotal computer-based simulation are limited, and should have long been over. For a pilot there are a few things that MSFS can be especially useful for. Though the flight models are questionable and not-so-hi-fidelity, it does give you the benefit of trying procedures and it challenges you in a few areas closely related to real flying.

MSFS may have been a good $50 spent for you, but how many MSFS have you bought? How great was the leap each time you bought the latest installment? I'm not talking about the latest 'twist' (be it a Concord or be it vintage planes), I'm talking actual progression.

But as far as familiarizing oneself with a new airport, I would like to point out that the sim actually has vast expanses of voided airports which the company habitually seems to deem 'unimportant.'

IT'S CRAP

The saddest part about MSFS is that there is a long list of problems that have existed since the early 1990's that haven't been fixed. I seriously think MSFS X has made the most progress in the MSFS series since 5.1. AND THAT WAS 12 YEARS AGO!!!!

If you think MSFS is the best at what it does, then you are missing out. Try X-Plane 8.0 and tell me which is better.

Microsoft Flight Simulator sucks as a whole.

If you think MSFS is the best at what it does, then you are missing out. Try X-Plane 8.0 and tell me which is better.

With this statement here, you really sound like you are just trolling.

IMHO, there are things Xplane doesn't do well either. Perhaps you should try JSBsim?