See the press release here:

http://www.dovetailgames.com/news/2014/d...-on-december-18

Looks like they have made some updates to the app as well:

Son of a %#*&$&$()

I just re-installed FSX

If I'd know I would have waited.


Glad to see the updates though. I'll be interested to see how add-on comparability works going forward.

Personally, I plan to order. Glad to see someone is working on the series without all the licensing baggage P3D carries with it.

The hint at it going on sale for beans is interesting. Suggests to me they're looking more at the add-on market than anything else (which is inferred at the bottom of the release anyway).

As for things that might've changed, AFAIK then Windows 8.1 compatibility was easily achieved with the standard product anyway provided you ran it as Admin (which you have to for quite a few add-ons anyway). So I suspect its going to be pretty much the same product.

Will it run better? Or is it the same FSX just via steam?

Minor fixes here and there. MP functionality (without port forwarding) and Win8 support. Other than than that, not really.

So, looks like a few months ago they said that they would partner with Flight 1 on steam launches:
http://www.dovetailgames.com/news/2014/j...launch-on-steam

A good sign that they're willing to play ball with third party devs.

If nothing else, this means that when/if MS shuts down activation servers for FSX gold, the community won't be SOL. Might also breath some new life into the FSX customer base; which is good for all involved in the eco-system.

I will most likely support DTG on this venture- gawd knows I've spent enough on DLC for their trainsim LOL. It will be interesting to see what they can do with this classic over the long run as they gained a bit of notoriety amongst the trainsim community- doing really daft things (like not fixing some of the physics modeling) to some really great things (like free massive sim upgrades for existing users). Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how compatible my current FSX DLC is with the DTG version

As a developer of a few FSX addons I really hope they fix some of the bugs in the simconnect library.

Just checked and its up for £3.99 for the next couple of days with a normal price showing as £19.99. Reading the FAQ then all they say they've really changed is the multiplayer code. It is designed to co-exist with an existing installation but won't automatically share add-ins (i.e. you'll have to reinstall anything you want to use to the new location). Add-in support is expected to be OK but may vary from product to product.

Daily deal -80% here, $4.99

Which is an awesome deal, I might buy a license just to have incase.

It shows on the front page of steam that the deal is for 12 Hours. I'm not sure why I'm excited by the download progress bar, I can just boot up my DVD version that is already installed or Prepar3D or X-Plane...

Didnt they move some of the MP components to Steam instead of GFWL.

From avsim:

Change Log:

The below change log represents the key changes made to FSX: Gold Edition to create FSX: Steam Edition.

General
* FSX: Steam Edition is now built using the VS2013 compiler for better optimisation and performance. (Still makes use of VS2005 libraries for backwards compatibility.)
* Updated splash, launcher and mission preview images for FSX:SE versions.

Multiplayer, networking and communications
* Gamespy networking now replaced by new Steam networking.
* Game chat now integrated with Steam chat
* Friends/Banned lists now integrated with Steam.
* Game invites now use Steam.
* Host networking defaults to a single port 6112.
* Host networking uses 27016 for Steam Master Server Browser.
* Host timeout (loss of connection to host) now 35 seconds by default (was 55).
* "Disconnected" message dialog now retained on screen for 4 mins before automatic dismissal (was 30 secs).

Steam Support
* Top Down Camera (camera view select 4) was previously bound to F12 by default which is normally used for Steam's screenshot feature. Camera View Select 4 now uses Shift+F12 by default to avoid potential clash.

Compatibility with FSX boxed
* FSX and FSX: Steam Edition co-Existence feature allows both versions to be installed on the same machine.

Default System-Setting Alterations
* Increased TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD to 4096 up from 1024
* Changed HIGHMEMFIX=1
* Increased Vertex and Index Buffers and the number of buffers.

Bugs Fixed
* Fix to particle emitter controllers which were not being updated properly.
* Fix to flush all levels of detail in terrain cache.
* Fix to Texture Composition preventing fail and crash.
* Fixed issue where player is able to reserve more slots for friends than maximum players allowed in the game.
* Fixed issue where invalid Briefing Room was presented to player when cancelling session creation.
* Fixed issue where weather text in the multiplayer briefing room is partially cut off.
* Fixed issue where no error message appears when attempting to host a session with the network adapter disabled.
* Fixed issue where there is no error message when attempting to host a session with the network cable unplugged.
* Fixed issue where host player is frozen after a collision occurs in multiplayer.
* Fixed issue where client gets dropped from a multiplayer game after they crash into the host.
* Fixed issue where the Host Options in multiplayer/ Free Flight allow a user to have a maximum of 99 player slots.
* UIAutomationCore.dll work-a-round is now supplied by default with FSX:SE. This fixes a number of crashes relating to UI interaction on 64-bit versions of Windows.
* Fixed issue where the application’s taskbar preview window displays no content on Windows 8 and above
* Prevent default colour mode for Windows 7 and above (enable automatic display composition).
* sserife.fon file now automatically supplied and loaded.

OK so I told myself I wasnt going to buy it, but $5!!!!! you can't pass it up! Now it will sit in my steam library for awhile. Good deal. Be interesting to see what payware doesn't end up working with it.

Also according to the store page for FSX Steam its on sale for another 44 hours or so.

So far I've been unable to get FSUIPC or Active Sky next to work. The multiplayer seems to work as expected.

Thats not good.... Lots of addons wont work if fsuipc isnt happy.

Are you tryimg the full (paid) version, or the free version?

I just purchased and installed the Steam version of FSX and tested my addons and they are all working fine without any modification of my software. I'll try installing some of my various purchased addons over the coming days

http://vineripesoftware.wordpress.com/

I've been trying to get FSUIPC to install into the Steam version but I have not had any luck yet. I have the disk version and the steam version installed and when I run the fsuipc installer it seems to only want to update the disk version. It looks like Dovetail did update SimConnect in some way as it's a new version (10.0.62607 (FSX.20141212-2206)

Interesting.

Good news there, is it sounds like it's simply an issue of the Installer looking in the wrong place. I've not tried it, but apparently A2A birds work (I think they install the free version as a redistributeable), so that might be a way around getting the free version in.

Since I have P3D, I might actually just do an entire uninstall of my disk version, and use the Steam version. Maybe having only one FSX copy will allow me to bypass the issue you're seeing.

Our birds works directly through SimConnect, we don't use FSUIPC. If the aircraft doesn't work install this:

Steam\SteamApps\common\FSX\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\LegacyInterfaces\FSX-XPACK\

It's FSX-Acc SimConnect version.

I was using the paid version at the time, but the free version doesn't work either as far as I know. It's not an installer issues but something deeper unfortunately. A manual install and creating the xml.dll causes FSX-SE to crash on start up.

Pete's looking into it, but he doesn't expect anything till January http://forum.simflight.com/topic/78250-new-fsxsteam-edition-does-not-work-with-fsuipc4/?p=474333