Hi Folks,

Been quite a while since I've posted here. I've been on a flight sim hiatus for a couple of years, but I'm getting the bug again. My "main" sim a few years ago was FS2004, modestly upgraded with some terrain mesh, Ultimate Terrain USA, and Ground Environment replacement textures. I have FSX, but don't really have the greatest computer to run it (my impression is here we are 8 years after its release, and it STILL doesn't run that great on anything but the most powerful beast of a machine). My best rig right now is a laptop with a 3Ghz dual core, 8gb Ram and an AMD 4870 1GB graphics card (actually it has dual gfx cards but I'm not all that happy with the micro-stuttering that occurs when they run in crossfire, so I usually just use one card). I probably haven't put more than 30 minutes into FSX since I got it, and I know with this computer I won't be able to push it very far. So I've been thinking of just sticking with FS2004 and "maxing it out". X-plane is missing some things that I'd prefer to have for the kind of sim flying I like to do, so at the moment I'm not going down that road - but I'm keeping an eye on it.

Is there still life in the FS2004 community? Do any developers still make stuff for it, or is it pretty much all FSX now? I'm guessing most of the old payware stuff is still available (I hope). Probably besides ground scenery upgrades one thing I would look into is sky/weather/water upgrades. Everyone seems to be crazy over "REX". I checked their site and it looks like the only currently available product for FS9 is REX2, plus "Overdrive" - but not the newer "Essential" packages. Anyone have this for FS9? Is this a good "one stop shop" for that sort of thing? It seems like a pretty comprehensive sky/runway/taxiway/cloud/water/weather/flight planner package.

What do you guys think - is pushing FS2004 as far as I can a good strategy considering performance should be much better overall than FSX on my machine, or am I wasting my time (and potentially money)? Also I should say I'm generally happy flying VFR in my old "Wings of Power" P-51 most of the time. Actually I've got a couple of old Shockwave/A2A WWII box sets that I'll probably do most of my flying in. For jets I'd probably be content for the most part with the default 737, 747, and lear jet. I'm more of a virtual VFR kinda guy and general navigation than complex system management. Oh, and I just found out the old Alphasim/Virtavia B-1B for FS2004 is FREEWARE now, along with just about ALL of their FS2004 models!

121 views, no responses... I'll take that as a "no, nobody uses FS2004 anymore" I guess!

I fly FS9 off and on, as I've got several AC that are FS9 only that I like quiet a lot. FSX has a lot of great improvements stock, when compared to stock FS9, but I think 3rd party stuff can makeup the difference easily. If you've already got the money invested in FS9, there's nothing wrong with running it in my book. Your not missing out on anything major really. If you were really into complex AC with modern avionics, then FSX definitely is the way to go though.

-Jenrick

AVSIM has a large FS9 community.

The major drawback to FS9, that got me off of it, was the low res ground textures.

Not to mention, you are missing out on some incredible addons from Orbx and A2A, just to name a few. FS9 was good in it's time, but the addon quality is through the roof better for FSX on the high end.

I still use FS9. There's still quite a community producing freeware stuff, but the payware side has slowly withered away.

I usually have FS2004 installed on my computer, but I rarely fly it anymore. I have a few FS2004 sceneries that I wish were available for FSX but otherwise I find FSX's flight modeling to provide a much more satisfying experience. I only fly A2A's AccuSim aircraft BTW.

I have FS2004 on my hard drive still. Biggest reason i no longer fly it is because my Disk 4 is in storage lol.

I fly FS2004 exclusively. Don't even have the time, inclination, or desire to play the FSX fiasco game. There aren't any features in FSX that make me even remotely want to try it.

If you're holding out for FS9 to be a graphics simulator/platform, or if you're the ignorant many that think "updated graphics" make a better Flight Simulator... well... can't help you.

No, I'm not holding out for FS9 to make some giant leap graphically - it is what it is and to my eyes is still pretty good. The handful of addons I already have - Ultimate Terrain USA (drastically improved coastlines, roads, water locations, landclass), Ground Environment, and improved terrain mesh made a pretty big improvement over stock. I'd like some better sky, cloud and water though, and I do find the never ending issue of "blurry" textures just outside the immediate vicinity of the aircraft annoying. I've tried a bunch of tweaks but I'm coming to the conclusion I'll just have to live with it. I don't think "updated graphics" make it a better simulator, but there's nothing wrong with it looking better and that it can add to the enjoyment of it as long as it doesn't crush the performance. I like to do "virtual VFR", and clearer ground makes it better.

I did end up spending a little bit of time with FSX over the weekend, and it actually ran a little better than I expected - however this was bone stock with mid-level settings in a rural area. Honestly the higher resolution terrain textures are a big improvement over the best that FS9 can do, but it's not as much of a factor once you get up a few thousand feet. Water is significantly improved as well, and I'm not just looking for "eye candy", I mean it as in it makes for a more realistic looking world. If I have to choose quality of planes and flight models over scenery, I'll take the planes. I'll have to see how it fares on my computer near a big city.

Regardless of how far I go into FSX, I'm keeping FS9 on the hard drive. It runs smooth as glass with hardly a hiccup, with almost everything maxed out. The newer A2A Accu-sim products are one of the biggest reasons I'm looking to FSX. I'd love to put some hours on the civilian Mustang! Really curious as to how that one would run on a low-ish end system (by FSX standards) with how they run a lot of the code outside of FSX.

Oh, and Stormtrooper there is a "NoCD" .exe out there for FS9. I don't know if we're allowed to say such things on the boards here so I won't put up any links or anything. I only recently started using it and so far have had no problems at all, and security scans still come up clean - appears to be safe. It's a heck of a lot more convenient than digging out my disk 4 all the time.

What are your system specs?

I can run the A2A C172 over ORBX Nor Cal KSFO with pretty high settings (scenery complexity on Extremely Dense and autogen on Very Dense, water 2x high, the "Building Storms" weather theme, etc...) and hold between 20-30 fps. My laptop specs are in my sig.

I prefer FS2004, too.

FSX works OK on my system, but I have to disable all the AI traffic to get good performance. The FSX clouds are actually better on my FPS than the FS2004 clouds, however.

But I've got a good collection of FS2004 only addons that I really enjoy, and I really like having a lot of AI commercial traffic at my airports. So when I fly, it's FS2004.

Hi Malibu43,

My system right now is an Alienware M17xR2 laptop, few years old with an i7 620m (I think that's the processor model#, been a while since I've looked at the specs). Despite the "i7" name, it's actually a dual core 2.66Ghz standard speed but clocks itself up to a little over 3 Ghz. At the time I bought it, it was the fastest laptop dual core available, clock speed was faster than the quads, and the L2 cache was the same size as the quads. 8 GB ram, and two ATI Radeon HD4870m cards with 1 GB each. However, I never use the crossfire feature, FS doesn't really take advantage of it and the few times I've tried it with other games it's been a little glitchy. I wouldn't go with two cards again in a future system, I'd rather just go with one good one. And most sources say nVidia is better for FS. In hindsight, I would have been better off spending the same money on a more powerful desktop. At the time I thought I was going to be more mobile than I ended up actually doing.

Anyway, I think I've been spooked for quite a long time about system specs needed for running FSX well and was convinced that "only" a dual core that wasn't running at 4.5 Ghz had no chance of even being acceptable so I stayed away. I know not to expect to slam all the sliders to the right and get smooth frames with this rig, but perhaps I can find a balance that is acceptable. I'm trying not to watch the FPS number as much as things just being smooth, and it's surprising how low that FPS number can get and still be OK. I'm going to play around with it and keep an open mind. I'm not going to abandon FS9, I have some stuff that I really like for it and still enjoy it a lot. I think I can upgrade it a little more but I don't want to invest too much more in it if FSX is going to run better than I expected it to. I'm not really a PMDG airliner based at JFK with maximum traffic kind of sim flyer anyway. I'm more likely to cruise past the big cities in a P-51 at 15,000 ft., and a handful of planes in the virtual skies and a few watercraft showing up now and then is fine with me. Don't care if I see no road traffic at all.

I've been away from flight sims for a couple of years now, so it's kind of like rediscovering what I loved about them before. If I really get enamored with it again maybe I'll just say the heck with it and build a monster flight sim rig. X-Plane is intriguing too, and seems much more optimized for taking advantage of modern hardware. Third party developers seem to be getting on board, but it's still missing some things that I like in MSFS - like seasons and prominent landmarks in major cities. I understand most people feel the flight modeling in X-Plane is better, and that's important, but it's not the only thing I want. Probably not until I'm on a more modern and powerful machine, but I could see myself having all 3 and using them for different things. I've got some combat flight sims to revisit too. Oh boy, I really don't have enough free time!

I still enjoy FS2004 also. You may also like to peek at the Prepar3D stuff. The cloud and terrain improvements are very nice. Maybe your add-ons provide the same result. I run the FS9, FSX and P3D with no mods.

Still prefer FS9 to FSX.

I've got both and tbh I go 50/50 on usage. I've lots of ww2 add ons a/c-a/d's for fs9 that I don't have can't get for fsx.

I prefer FS2004 as well. Tons of great freeware planes/panels and scenery. Some of the freeware scenery rivals payware for its quality like CYVR 1.0. Great quality payware aircraft that is dirt cheap to purchase: PSS 777, Wilco A320, 737 PIC. Payware scenery that also dirt cheap to purchase and not available for FSX world like Flightzone KPDX, FlyTampa KSEA. Also, I can shoot a full IFR approach using a complex airliner with lots of AI traffic and heavy weather while still getting great FPS. FS2004 will always occupy space on my hardrive for the foreseeable future.