PTaylor's WebLog : FSX SP1 flight simulator

FSX SP1: The blog posts

Phil Taylor — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:52:00 GMT

We have collected the set of blog posts I created on release of SP1, and turned them into an article on FSInsider, here http://www.fsinsider.com/tips/Pages/SP1HowtoPrepareforSP1andWhatYouGetWhenYouInstallIt.aspx, that makes for a little easier reading.

FSX SP1:Beta3 posted

Phil Taylor — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:52:00 GMT

We just posted SP1 Beta3 to the beta testers.

We had a couple extra 3rd party bugs that needed to be fixed ( animated parts, mouse rects on the panels, lighting ) that we needed to fix and in fixing the stutters with the first round of threading code we lost some perf and had another bad bug lurking in there. And we identified an issue with 3 AI aircraft, 1 of which is fixed in Beta3 - if that aircraft passes muster in Beta3 we will fix the other 2.

We hope Beta3 shows these all as fixed. That does mean we have lost April for SP1. So we are into May now.

As far as how long it’s taken us, it has been longer than we thought and would have liked. Back in January, we clearly thought we had time in front of us. Just not as much as it has taken. We did hope the multi-core work would be done a good 6 weeks before it was. And the beta tests, while valuable, have added their fair share of the "extra" time. We have found and fixed a couple extra 3rd party bugs that we think are going to be of good benefit to the community because of that time investment.

So that was time well spent. As was the performance and thread bake time.

It is what it is; we are trying to get it right. That does take time. And we believe the result will show that care and attention to detail.

FSX Progress Update - SP1 and DX10

Phil Taylor — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:52:00 GMT

Its time for another update on FSX Progress. This is largely similar to what I posted on Avsim.com.

SP1

We are working thru the set of tasks we identified for SP1, are getting closer to closure and a final test pass, and should have more to say as far as details in the next couple of weeks.

The only things I can say is:
a)we are not toning down the experience and
b)we are aiming at a targetted set of perf and content fixes.

DX10

In terms of DX10, we have continued to make progress albeit slow. So DX10 will be after SP1. How far after SP1 remains to be seen, but its not a matter of weeks after since we still have serious feature work to do. Once SP1 ships and we get fully into DX10 development and a sense of velocity then I can start to talk to DX10 timeframes. One thing I will commit to doing soon after SP1 ships is walking the community thru the FSX "magic screenies" for DX10 and explaing what features Aces sees in those. If anyone saw the FSX presentation at the nVidia 8800 launch, I did just that so repeating it here is a good thing. Its just a matter of time, as in when I find the time :-).

Fair enough?