Remember we are at the FAR edge of the bell curve. The general business and entertainment market has very little need of 64 bit. Your average computer user is barely sure they are on a Windows machine, let alone the chipset, RAM, etc. If you can buy a budget laptop for $300 that’s 32 bit, versus spending $500 for a 64 bit, most people will take the 32 bit. Most of the non-tech people are on tech that is a decade or more old.
Back to FSX2020, it will be whatever the next gen MS console is going to be (64 bit I’d hazard) for compatibility reasons.
Windows is sold by edition (Home, Pro etc), so there’s no price difference between 32-bit and 64-bit anymore (well, since 2015 at least). A laptop with a maximum RAM of 4GB being sold today would likely be an ARM Windows Surface or perhaps a Chromebook (both ironically 64-bit only).
On only a cursory look at the cheapest laptops, it seems hard to find less than 8GB of RAM, so they’ll be using a 64-bit OS. Windows XP end of life support was 2014. While we often are on the the far edge of the bell curve, probably not in this case.
Just a quick search on Wikipedia but the very first Chromebook in 2010 had a 64-bit chip. All the ones listed here up to 2013 are 64-bit hardware even when sporting less than 4GB of RAM. My thought is that the hardware industry has been 64-bit for a long time. I remember having to convince others in my family that it was ok to upgrade to Windows 7 64-bit as their hardware was already ready.
I also think backwards compatibility should be thrown out. You have a bunch of stuff for the older titles? Ok, fine, keep them! Nothing will force FSX to uninstall or disable them.
I think it would be up to the various 3rd parties to decide if they want to provide a free port of their old plane to the new standard or if they charge an upgrade price or just remake it for full price. None of ROF’s planes work in Il-2, that’s what Flying Circus is for. FC2 didn’t work with DCS World, we had to wait for FC3.
Besides, we’re not talking about FSX being 4 years old at this point. I think people have got enough time in it by now that trying to make that old stuff work with an entirely new code base is not a sensible option.
In addition to Il-2 BoX and DCS, I still have CloD (fixed edition) and Il-2 46 w/TD patches installed. There are planes and terrains in those that I don’t have in the newer titles. If I want to do PacWar or BoB or one of those “crap planes”, I go to the older ones. If I just want to fly WWII with the latest graphics and terrains, I use the new ones, more limited plane set and terrains notwithstanding.
HD space is cheap, even on SSDs now. Just keep 'em all installed and follow your whims!
While this is not the moment to answer every question being asked, we do want to take the opportunity to answer a few important ones:
We are making Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emphasis on the word SIMULATOR.
Designed for PC, optimized for multiplatform support (e.g. Xbox).
Yes. We are supporting 3rd Party Content Development and Community Content creation. We are aware of the concerns in the current eco-system and are working to address them.
Yes. We genuinely want to work closely with the community in the development of this title.
Accessibility is important to us. Whatever your abilities are, if you want to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left behind.
All sounds very positive. Perhaps this won’t be a MS Flight do-over?
Thank you for being patient enough to weather the turbulence caused by some of our previous missteps.
That last statement is very important - the admission of previous mistakes means they should be taking the community feedback to heart, rather than try to just force another potentially bad idea at the consumers.
Microsoft has done well with comebacks before.
Windows XP was widely successful after issues of 98 and lackluster ME/2000.
Windows 7 was a hit after Vista flopped despite still having the evil User Account Control that everyone hated about Vista.
Windows 10 again has pulled ahead of a flop in Windows 8.
The Xbox One has had far more reliable hardware than the Xbox360 (of which I had two go bad - a 1 light and 3 light RROD (Red Ring of Death)).
There are people who see the glass as half full, people that see the glass as half empty and then there is me…I try to find out who drank the first half and why.
With that in mind, my take on the important info.
We are making Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emphasis on the word SIMULATOR. OK…
That a bit MOTO. Of course it’s a simulator otherwise they’d be selling real airplanes. So why make that statement and why is it #1? Something to do with them not doing in-depth system modeling on default aircraft? i.e. Ctrl E for engine starts? If so, then OK.
Designed for PC, optimized for multiplatform support (e.g. Xbox). Good.
Yes. We are supporting 3rd Party Content Development and Community Content creation. We are aware of the concerns in the current eco-system and are working to address them. Concerning.
A very carefully worded paragraph. I particularly note the use of the non-word “eco-system”. The real word is ecosystem which, according to my MacBook dictionary, is “a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.” I think “eco-system” more likely refers to MS’s “economic system” in which case, as was pointed out above by a PMDG forum admin (in post 89 by @boomerang10 ) in recent year MS’s "eco-system"s has not been all that friendly to 3rd-party developers. My assessment: This paragraph doesn’t really say anything new and certainly does not promise any change. At best it says that they are aware that their eco-system is not that conducive to 3rd party development. However, working to address concerns is not the same as changing the eco-system. Stay tuned.
Yes. We genuinely want to work closely with the community in the development of this title. OK…
This is a throw-away sentence. “We genuinely want to work closely with the community…” is not the same as “We will work closely with the community…”. Not that MS or anyone else is obligated to do so…so why include it at all?
Accessibility is important to us. Whatever your abilities are, if you want to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left behind. Confusing.
What are they talking about. Typically when speaking of “accessibility” in flight sim terms we are talking about hardware requirements - CPU speed, graphics card, RAM. Given that I still cannot use FSX with all the sliders to the right, over a decade after it was. released, this might be an important issue. But then, “Whatever your abilities are,” What are they talking about now? Physical disabilities? Poor eyesight / hearing / motor function? If so, great! But then, they mention controllers/peripherals… I would hope they support those. And finally, “No pilot left behind?” Really? Seriously? A hackneyed reference to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.
IMHO, the “accountants” are still in charge at MS. “ACES reborn”, this is not. That said, I still have FSX installed and running so will take a “wait and see” approach to this.
Ya know… I was going to offer a prologue to my post, stating that this type analysis is what I did for most of my intel career but then thought “@Hangar200, everybody is tired of hearing you talk about that.” …well…I used my real name when I thought that…but essentially the same.
Please continue. Your dissection is equally entertaining as it is thought provoking. You can be the proverbial knife to cut through the veil of legalese and corporate bureaucracy of these public statements.
I’d say this was probably in reference to Flight. I didn’t purchase it, but general consensus I saw was that it wasn’t a simulator.
I actually like this statement. The reality of our hobby of flight sim’ing is that is VERY gear heavy in the last decade to be a simmer. Most of us have hundreds or thousands of dollars in peripherals and lately with the push to VR, we’re looking at massive upgrades in hardware to support VR. A lot of the products that cater to our .1 standard deviation here in the “hardcore simmer zone” don’t have much to offer those who don’t already have a sim-aviation or real aviation background. With FSX having been stagnant for the last 13 years or so, there hasn’t been to much of an “entry flight sim” that was mass market. I bought my last physical copy of FSX at Office Depot to give to a friend of mine who was interested in getting started with flight sim’ing. Sure Xplane and P3D have existed, but compared to the 3-4 year release cycle of FS which you’d find next to the Sims and Diablo in Target they were/are niche products. Offering a product that gets back to MSFS roots of having flight lessons by Rob Machado (FS9 and FSX) with keyboard directions I think is a good thing to grow our hobby.
I read #5 as:
We want to offer a product that engages as many different skill levels, and control options as possible. We want to allow the novice, the seasoned, and the professional, the opportunity to have a positive experience with the product. Having access to certain peripherals shouldn’t be a requirement or barrier to learning and enjoyment. If all a new customer has to work with is a keyboard, we’ll make it so they too can learn to fly.
I was going to offer a prologue to my post, stating that this type analysis is what I did for most of my intel career but then thought “