Merry Christmas!

With 2006 fast coming to a close, I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope Santa brings what everyone is hopeful for! Thanks for a wonderful 2006, and we'll see you in 2007!

Eaglesoft Christmas Sale!

Effective immediately, Eaglesoft Development group now has 30% discount coupons for all of our products through December 30th. So if you've been waiting for a good opportunity to purchase some cool add-on aircraft for Flight Simulator, here is your chance to do it at a great price!

FSX SDK SP1 now available!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the promised update for the SDK has been published to FSInsider. This update includes the eagerly anticipated Gmax export tools that were missing from the SDK on the shipped DVD. Hurray!!

-JOH

Suspended!

How cool!! The airplane I got over the summer, has now been suspended over the staircase in our house! I won't go into the trouble it took to get it there (thanks Mary Lake, Will, and Ryan), but lets say that I've become more acquainted with my attic, and its peculiar arrangement of ceiling studs. Christy and Christy Lake are going to love seeing this!

-JOH

Can this thing go any faster?

Hal Bryan has recently posted an article entitled "What's your frame rate? (Part II)" in the FSInsider.com article section. He hits on several areas relevant to improving the performance of FSX such as: defragging, closing non-essential programs, using the latest hardware drivers, and video card settings. He dives into the settings sliders, and how the sim is affected by each. He explains why having bloom and 2.x water effects on dramatically impacts performance. Finally, Hal describes some advanced editing for the FSX.cfg I've spoken about before that can improve things a bit. Excellent piece, Hal, keep them coming!

-JOH

Real world paint schemes for the FSX Columbia 400

Several members of the Columbia pilot's organization, better known as Club Columbia, sent me images of their real aircraft, and I recreated them over the weekend. Here's a quick look (click the picture for a larger version)...

Skip pre-load of the default flight in FSX

Thanks much to Adam for this helpful tid-bit of information. When you open FSX, it automatically begins to load the default flight in the background as it assumes that is what you are going to fly. I, like many other flight simmers, don't like to load the default flight every time I enter FSX. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I did fly the default flight! So, to turn this "feature" off, Adam gives us this code to use:

[Main] section of FSX.cfg:
DisablePreload=1

Those who don't know where to locate the FSX.cfg file, have a look here.

Mike Shore Photography

I recently made the acquaintance of Mike Shore, a professional photographer from Austin, Texas. Mike's specialties are climbing/outdoor, landscapes, medical and aviation. Just have a look at his gallery to see some examples of the incredible shots he has taken over the past year. His Red Bull Air Race images will take your breath!

Rotorwash Christmas Giveaway!

Rotorwash e-magazine has just announced a Christmas Giveaway for one lucky simmer. In order to be eligle, you must have already registered or register by the 17th of December. Registration is free. Over $250 in gifts will be awarded:

• Flight Simulator X Deluxe (courtesy of Microsoft)
• Traffic 2005 (courtesy of Just Flight)
• Active Sky 6.5 (courtesy of HiFi Simulations)
• Sikorsky S-76 (courtesy of Nemeth Designs)
• Ultimate Night Environment 2007 (courtesy of Zinertek)
• Ground Environment Pro (courtesy of Flight1)
• 1-Year Subscription of PC Pilot (courtesy of PC Pilot)
  

TrackIR + FSX = Awesome!

I spoke of the dramatic immersion effect that TrackIR^TM 4 gave FS 2004 in December of last year. You haven't seen anything yet until you give TrackIR^TM a go in FSX! It's unbelievable! It works seamlessly with the new camera system - gone is my need for the top-hat on my joystick! I said this last year, and I'll say it again - this has to be the single best hardware add-on for FS. I continue to see people rave about it on the public forums, and you can't go wrong with testimonials. If you're looking for something as a stocking stuffer for your favorite simmer, this would be it!

More animations completed on Columbia 400

I've completed a new assortment of animations on the Columbia 400, and I decided to take a short flight in Asheville, NC to try them out in FSX. Click each for a larger shot.

Precise Flight speed brakes deployed to prevent shock cooling while in the descent.

KAVL is in sight.

Flaps full & red over white - looking good.

Switch to ground and taxi to the ramp. Nosewheel animation looks great.

Parked next to a beautiful Beechcraft Baron. Success!

Start a saved flight in FSX via desktop icon!

From a public newsgroup contributor Peter Greenstein, we now have a way of opening a saved flight via an icon saved to the desktop, or anywhere you choose. Here's Peter's post:

Unless I'm wrong, the last time this was possible was FS98.

FSX has restored the ability to load a saved flight via an icon on the desktop.

In a subfolder of My Documents are my "Saved Flights." I can double-click on one of these, tell Win XP to associate this file with FSX. Then FSX will start, and then load the file, returning me to a flight in progress. In FS2004 all this accomplished was loading the default flight.

This is great, considering how long everything now takes on my system. Double-click on a desktop shortcut, walk away, go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, return to the cockpit!

Very good information, Peter, and thanks for sharing with the public!

MS Flight Simulator as a training aid

Former PM for the ACES flight simulator team Bruce Williams has a new book due out mid-December entitled Microsoft® Flight Simulator as a Training Aid: A Guide for Pilots, Instructors, and Virtual Aviators published by ASA. It has a foreward written by aviation author Rod Machado. The book also includes a bonus CD-ROM that includes over 150 VFR and IFR practice flights that will work in both FS 2004 and FSX.

Here's a small snippet of the details found on the ASA product page:

Applicable to both Flight Simulator 2004 and Version X, this new book merges the “virtual world” of flight simulation with “real life” flight training. It is the only book of its kind because it provides specific advice and tools for pilots, flight instructors, and students who want to use the world's most popular PC-based flight simulation as an effective, easy-to-use training aid.

This sure looks to be a "must-have" for anyone wanting to maximize their enjoyment of the virtual skies.

New screens of the Columbia 400 in FSX

Here is what I have been working on the past couple of weeks. She's shaping up very nicely! Click each picture for a larger version.

FSX from the Cab

Mike Singer, experience architect for FSX, has just written an interesting article describing how the team put the multi-player experience of FSX to the test by inviting several real air traffic controllers from KSEA (SeaTac) and KPAE (Payne Field). I'll let the article speak for itself, but I believe that ther are three new FSX fans out there. Great article, Mike!

Cirrus SR-22 for FSX!

Here's a shot from this morning's flight of the SR-22 in FSX just released today. She sure is a joy to fly in FSX!

Eaglesoft Development Group incorporates digital signing!

After weeks of research, Eaglesoft Development Group is pleased to announce with the release of the Cirrus SR22 for FSX that digitally signed gauges have arrived! When the aircraft is loaded for the first time in FSX, this window will appear:


Select the more options tab.


Tick the "Always run software from 'Eaglesoft Development Group'" and then...


Click on Run. You will never have to approve any other gauges from Eaglesoft Development Group. How cool is that? I'd like to commend Ron and Bill for implementation of this!

A fresh face from ACES speaks...

A relatively new member of the ACES studios has made a post in the AVSIM FSX forums that explains things a bit from the graphics side of ACES development. Phil Taylor, who is Senior PM for Graphics and Terrain, gives a very detailed explaination (in fact, a lot of it is lingo that is above my understanding - and I'm a dev!) of what should be reasonable expectations for today and what to expect for tomorrow when DX10 appears.

If you are interested in reading about their plans forward, give it a go. It might not all make sense, but at least it lets us, the FS enthusiasts, know that they are taking note of the discussions as of late in the forums. He mentions that constructive criticisms are most effective in gaining favorable response, and that the "bashing" should be toned down. It's about time one of 'em said "enough is enough."

[EDIT] I found this post by yet another ACES dev Sebby regarding modifying shaders for FSX - some good info here as well!

Crow anyone?

ACES dev Adrian Woods just posted a rebuttal of some of the comments he has received recently regarding FSX performance. It is an excellent post with a lot of thoughtful perspective that is well worth a read. ACES is listening...

On a side note, it appears that Mike Gilbert, a.k.a. tdragger, is bowing out of the FSX public eye and moving on to his new responsibilities. His blog is now closed to comments. Best of luck, Mike!

"Official" support site for FSX

Tdragger was kind enough to point us to the official MS technical support site for FSX. You'll have to register a Live log-in if you do not already have one before being able to access it. There is a lot of good information that should be updated on a regular basis, as more and more feedback is registered through support.

Comprehensive FSX Tweaks blog article

Courtesy of Matt Fox, he has compiled an un-official tweak guide for FSX. He covers everything from slider suggestions, AutoGen mods, FSX.cfg edits, texture replacements, and has a section started for moving vehicle tweaks (though none have been found -- yet). He warns that these tweaks are to be done at the users risk, but I understand that many have been very effective at improving performance.

FSX podcast today on ANN Internet Radio!

I ran across this podcast today featuring Brett Schnepf, Hal Bryan, and Mike Singer from ACES published by Aero-News.Net Internet Radio. Check it out!

Autumn is here!

The other day before going to church, I snapped a few pictures of Christy and Christy Lake on our porch. Do you like Christy Lake's rocking horse dress? It's perfect for the autumn season!

Eaglesoft Beechjet 400A & Hawker 400XP Complete!

After many months of revisions to just about all facets of the project, I'm very glad to see the project completed and available for purchase. I was responsible for revising the exterior and VC with numerous improvements including, but not limited to:

* Remapped fuselage across two 1024x1024 bitmaps for improved resolution
* Added authentic representations of vents on rear of fuselage
* More accurate clamshell design
* Revised and added accurate representations of antennae
* Added a cargo bay with luggage
* Reworked cabin seats to look more accurate (with moving headrests)
* Fully positionable window visors
* Revised VC gauges, adding depth where appropriate

I'm thankful to the team at Eaglesoft for working so well together to get the job done!

What's your framerate, part 2

My colleague Bill Leaming, with the assistance of Burkhard Renk, has put together a great tutorial on how to actually measure video card memory demand that FSX is exhibiting in real-time. If tuning FSX to run reasonably well is a challenge, I recommend using this advice to help tailor your experience.

iblueyonder has a new home

I just got a quick note from Bill Womack, author of iblueyonder, that he's orphaned blogspot for wordpress. Bill, the new site looks nice. Is that Mt. Hood off your wing?

Flight Simulator X commercial

I haven't had a chance to catch this on cable, so I was pleased to run across it at Youtube. I sure hope that Baron pilot has his seat belts tightly fastened!

What's all of this about framerates anyway?

The single most discussed topic regarding performance of Flight Simulator has to be FPS (Frames per Second) or framerates. Exactly how this all works has been a bit of a controversial topic, especially with the new version because it is so resource hungry. Well, ACES is to the rescue with their first featured article.

There's much more to what makes up framerate performance that the number itself. Something that most do not realize - framerate performance should be measured only when the sim is in a paused state. To determine how a setting change has affected FPS, it is best to pick a single location at around 1000 feet AGL. The area between KSEA and KBFI has been a good benchmark area for me. Panning around the aircraft while in pause gives a good representation of the performance you should expect.

In the article, ACES explain that it is not only the framerate itself that makes FS fluid, but also avoiding what they call volatility, or, better known to the on-line community, the dreaded "stutters." I found a tip by an ACES dev on the AVSIM forums that gives us a way to improve volatility that is worth repeating here:

If you're getting stutters/"pops" during turns or when pan your view around, try adding this to your fsx.cfg (located in yourprofile\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX):

[BufferPools]
PoolSize=5000000

The default pool size is 1 million but sometimes (If a lot of things are drawing like autogen) that isn't enough. Increasing it to 5 or even 10 million trades off some of your video memory against having to re-allocate these things all the time.


-Brian @ Aces

Of course exactly what size the PoolSize should be increased should be tailored to one's specific PC, and experimented with. If you take away too much from the video card's buffer, then other areas of the simulation will suffer.

They explain how FSX analyzes your PC upon installation and determines the best settings for optimum performance. Certainly users are free to experiment, but the state that is first implemented should be the benchmark. ACES also emphasize the importance of striking a balance to gain a satisfactory sim experience. If the simulation experience is not to your satisfaction, experimentation is the answer. I also suggest creating setting profiles based on the type of flying you will be doing. For example, if you are planning to do an IFR flight, it may be beneficial to turn off all of the AutoGen, since your attention would be centered inside the cockpit. We have Mike Gilbert a.k.a. tdragger to thank for that added config saving feature.

Pumpkin Festival in Pumpkintown, SC

Christy had a brainstorm this morning, and decided that we all should go and visit a pumpkin patch. I looked on the internet to find some local pumpkin patches in the upstate, and found one in Easley. So off we go in the car and head towards there mid-morning. We arrived in Easley around lunch time, so we grabbed a bite to eat. As we arrive to the farm, it becomes apparent that there is nothing there, so we turn around and call the number listed. It turns out that the farm in fact had no pumpkins this year. According to the woman who answered the phone, she hadn't produced pumpkins in 3 years!! Sounds like that website needs a bit of a revision.

I know the area fairly well, so I suggested we head up toward Pumpkintown (yes, there really is a place called Pumpkintown). Christy and I kept seeing signs about a Pumpkin Festival that was happening today, but didn't know exactly where it was. Well, the closer we got to Pumpkintown, cars were lined up for miles, and then we saw huge numbers of cars parked all over the place. It was becoming quite obvious that the festival was in Pumpkintown. As we slowly approached the festival grounds, we saw tents, horse-drawn carriages, and lots of people (there must have been thousands there).

Where have we been - under a rock? Christy and I had never heard of the Pumpkin Festival, but it was obvious that many other had. We had a great time walking around and seeing what all the vendors had to offer. The food sure smelled great! Christy Lake enjoyed herself, helping us pick out a pumpkin to take home (I mean, c'mon, you can't leave the pumpkin festival without a pumpkin!). So next year, if you happened to be in the upstate of South Carolina mid-October, be sure to attend the Pumpkin Festival! We'll sure try and be there in 2007!

Flight Simulator X featured on CNN

On CNN.com tonight, I was having a look at the Tech column to see what is going on in the world of technology, and I was pleasantly surprised to see this small review of Flight Simulator X there. This is the first I recall the Flight Simulator franchise ever getting any notice from a large news organization, even more so since the news media wrongly accused the Flight Simulator franchise being used to train terrorists back in the days of 9/11. I'm glad to see that perception has been extinguished with this unbiased look at FSX.

The new and improved FSInsider.com online!

I'm proud to report that the promised new-and-improved FSInsider website has been published and is available! Be sure to check out the message from the ACES team and see who the featured FSInsider is (I couldn't have picked a better person myself!). They have also put up a page specifically for MS FS MVPs - thanks guys! Wow - I am exploring it as I type here, and I just cannot begin to touch everything they have done to improve the site. The best advice I can give is to check it out for yourself!

Follow the 500th Columbia

Spawning from Lancair, Columbia Aircraft Corporation in Bend, Oregon has a long history of making composite GA aircraft that is continually recognized for excellence. To celebrate their 500^th production aircraft off the production line, Columbia has created a web portal to follow it along the production process. It is quite interesting to see how composite aircraft are created in an assembly line - I invite you to have a look.

Paul to the rescue!

Paul Lange has taken the initiative to give us even more control over AutoGen. Take a look at his latest post! Thanks much, Paul!!

FSX a bit sluggish for you?

FSX has been out in several places around the world already, and the forums are buzzing with FSX related discussions anywhere from extreme praise to extreme disappointment. I remember this sort of views back when FS 2004 and FS 2002 went public. I often sit back and watch, letting the dust settle a bit (and it will), but I thought that I would voice some of my own thoughts here while the air is thick...

I'm of the opinion that the technological advances we are presented with in FSX are much like the advances made if we were to have gone from FS98 straight to FS 2004 -- that much has changed. So, essentially we are faced with a platform that puts an incredible load on the CPU and GPU, simply because of the sheer volume of 1's and 0's being processed many, many times a second. We have gone from a program previously using 4 ~800MB to two DVDs totalling 8 GIG of data!! FSX is simply way ahead of its time with regards to hardware, as it has been in the past, but with such a huge leap in data content, that jump in demand on the PC has grown exponentially.

So, what do we do as a community? We dig deep and find areas that can be optimized to help our PCs of today run FSX at acceptable levels. One of the great things I enjoy about the FS community is the diverse number of sleuths who investigate all nooks and crannys to find tiny performance gains. Combine these gains, and noticable performance improvements are bound to be found.

Over at AVSIM, these sleuths have already been doing a good job, and have been posting their findings. I recommend following this thread in the coming weeks. I'm sure there will be many more performance tweaks to surface...

In two years, I'll revisit this and see how the perception has changed... It will.

Okay, so what exactly is an MVP?

Now that I've gotten the award, several people have been asking me exactly what makes someone an MVP. To be quite honest, I wanted a bit of a more concrete answer myself, so I did some hunting. I stumbled upon this article "What Is an MVP, Anyway?" written by Jonathan Goodyear, and found some very good answers there. I'll quote a few paragraphs here to highlight his findings:

"...As an experiment, I asked numerous other MVPs, Microsoft employees, and other influential people in the industry their definition of a Microsoft MVP. The range of answers I got was pretty broad. I heard everything from “MVPs are super talented developers” (Microsoft employees are pre-programmed to use the word super in every other sentence) to “MVPs are developers who contribute to newsgroups a lot.”

While either of the previous statements may or may not be a quality of a particular MVP, it does not define what an MVP is. I didn’t have to look much further than the official Microsoft MVP Web site to track down the “party line” on their MVP definition (http://mvp.support.microsoft.com). It defines an MVP as:

'...recognized, credible, and accessible individuals with expertise in one or more Microsoft products who actively participate in online and offline communities to share their knowledge and expertise with other Microsoft customers.'"

Jonathan goes on to explain how the online community has transformed its definition recently...

"...I went directly to the source and spoke with Sean O’Driscoll, Senior Director of the Customer Service and Support Community and the MVP Program. Sean started off by saying that the MVP program is an “award and recognition program.” While a certain amount of technical skill is usually needed to accomplish the tenets of MVP membership, the MVP program is in no way a measuring stick of the technical merits of its members. Myth debunked.

When I asked Sean for details regarding how to become an MVP, he gave me some historical context. He said that the program was started more than 10 years ago as a “thank you program for outstanding contributions to the community.” At the time, “community” meant newsgroups. In my opinion, that narrow definition made the ambitious term MVP a bit of a misnomer. About three years ago, Microsoft decided that they should let their customers define what “community” is. As a result, several other community contribution avenues were added to the MVP selection criteria. Some of these are forum postings, books, articles, blogs, and speaking at and/or leading user groups and other community events.

I guess that's how I've managed to do it, because I admit that I am not very active in public newsgroups, but I am very active in forum posting, attending community events, and using my blog as a portal of communication regarding Flight Simulator.

I made MVP!!

I was delighted to find in my email inbox this message from Microsoft...

Dear Owen Hewitt,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2007 Microsoft^® MVP Award!

The Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying thank you and to honor and support the significant contributions you make to communities worldwide. As a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award, you join an elite group of technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing your real world expertise with users and Microsoft. Microsoft salutes all MVPs for promoting the spirit of community and enhancing people’s lives and the industry’s success everyday. To learn more about the MVP Program, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/mvp.

Your extraordinary efforts in Windows - PC Games technical communities during the past year are greatly appreciated.

I would like to publicly thank Hal for the nomination of this award, I am deeply humbled by this!

[EDIT]: I would like to also congratulate Joel DeYoung, Norman Blackburn, and Dudley Henriques who made it in for 2007 as well!

Rotorwash E-Zine

A good friend of mine from Portugal, Sergio Costa, has just published a new e-zine for the helicopter lovers in the flight simulation community called Rotorwash. It is free with a simple registration.

The first issue covers a lot of ground for the first go. Highlights include: Alan Devins giving a look at constructing his Bell 222 in Gmax, Jean-François Leblanc describing the CH-149 project, Sergio interviewing Jordan Moore, Hovercontrol.com's founder, and a review of the Nemeth Designs Mi-17.

Traditionally, I'm a fixed-wing guy, but some of you are aware of the Bell 206B JetRanger III I created as a freeware package a year and a half ago. It continues to be one of the most repainted heli's over at Hovercontrol. The default 206B had not been overhauled in a while, so I decided to take that project on myself. The FSX version has been completely revised, and looks quite stunning!!

I encourage you to have a look at the new e-zine, it is very well done!

FSDeveloper.com goes live!

Fellow FS developers Arno Gerretsen and Nick Whittome have officially opened the doors to FSdeveloper.com, a new community website designed to discuss and offer help to those interested in enhancing their flight sim experience. I have agreed to moderate there, so I encourage you to frequent there if FS development interests you - I'm sure there will be plenty of great "tricks of the trade" shared there.

FSdeveloper spawned out of the site that Arno originated back in 2003, SceneryDesign.org. It is nice to see that he has expanded it to include all facets of FS, including the new and exciting missions and SimConnect API. My area of expertise lies specifically with modeling and I'll be most active in that area, but I will certainly keep up with what's going on elsewhere there.

The "Blurries" explained...

I was very glad to see a post today by Adam Szofran entitled "Comments about the blurries from an ACES developer". Adam goes on to explain it in three "buckets" of reasons: Inadequate CPU resources for the terrain texture loader, exhaustion of video memory, and/or poor filtering settings.

I won't steal Adam's thunder, so I recommend giving his post a read. It has some insightful information and better yet, some explanation of how these (okay, most of these) have been addressed within FSX. There is a bit of a frame rate "cost" to their optimizations, but I would guess they would be a welcome trade-off. Nothing would be better than not seeing anymore "I've got blurries" posts, but I'm sure there will be those out there who will stretch the limitations of their PCs into forcing the blurries to appear - call it your computer yelling "Uncle, Uncle!!" :-)

October 17th is the day for FSX!

I found this press release at AVSIM today, and I thought that I would mirror it.

Directly from the Microsoft Offices, the official shelf date is October 17, 2006 for FSX. Microsoft writes, "The newest addition to the 25-year “Flight Simulator” franchise will fly to retailers on Oct. 17. Gamers of all ages, types and skill levels will experience firsthand what it’s like to be an aviator traveling the globe in one of the dozens of aircraft available."
Announced at the AVSIM convention on Saturday night, FSX went "Gold" earlier this month. Product has been sent to retailers and the official shelf date is set at October 17th. Several different languages will be available as well as 2 different versions; Standard and Deluxe. The Deluxe edition adds the SDK as well as some other enhancements. For more information, visit the Microsoft FSX Site.

Make sure to reserve a copy at your favorite software retailer today!

iFly - ground breaking new Aero Club

How cool is this? For the equivalent cost of owning and operating a older, antequated aircraft, you can have access to one of the most advanced single engine piston aircraft in existence, the Columbia 350. Erik R. Lindbergh, who I had the pleasure of meeting when I was at the AOPA fly-in June of this year, has co-founded this innovative new company. Too bad that for the time being, it is located only at a handful of airports in southern California. I hope that it becomes really successful, and spreads across the country.

Each Columbia 350 in their fleet will utilize the GARMIN G1000 with READY Pad^tm, an exclusive user interface device for Columbia aircraft. We at Eaglesoft do have plans for incorporating the Mindstar Aviation G1000 into the Columbia. No date set though...

Eaglesoft Columbia 400 in FSX

Well, she's not animated yet, but I've managed to get the finely crafted model done by Bob Hayes of the Columbia 400 into FSX as an FSX model. I'm glad to say that shadows are working, and the bloom effect looks really nice as well. Judge for yourself below (click images for larger versions).