FSX SP1:Beta4 posted
While we fixed the perf regression issue in B3, we still had aircraft mouse-rect and animated part issues left over and found a photo-scenery corruption issue. In both default and 3rd party aircraft. Thus we felt we needed confirmation on those fixes.
So we posted B4 at about 5:35pm PDT today. Jon Patch was first in at 5:37 to start downloading, Now we wait to hear that we fixed these issues.
This should not significantly delay the release of SP1, because we expect to take only 1-2 more builds before having an RC for RTW. Then we final test, then we ship. We will ship SP1 in the month of May.
We want to get it right wrt performance and not introducing any regressions.
Comments
Anonymous
May 04, 2007
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May 04, 2007
Hopefully the servers are ready for SP1 downloads.Anonymous
May 04, 2007
Edited:Funny inside joke. Editor LOL. Original Text: Thanks for the update Phil.Anonymous
May 04, 2007
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May 04, 2007
lol you can have SP1 Perfect still it comes down to hardware DX 10 video card good ram and fast cpu without that your never going to get FSX to fly rightAnonymous
May 05, 2007
Any idea of the file size Phil?Anonymous
May 05, 2007
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May 05, 2007
Good news, could you give a hint as to whether problems such as non updating squawk codes (in multiplayer) have been tackled? I know there's been an emphesis on textures.Anonymous
May 05, 2007
About 210m, per language. Std and Dlx are handled within the same download package, per language. We detect SKU and do the right thing.Anonymous
May 05, 2007
Squack codes didnt get any treatment, although we did address the griefer issue and tried to make lost connections better.Anonymous
May 05, 2007
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May 06, 2007
I've been looking around and couldn't find anything mentioning this problem, so here goes ... it's about the logbook in FSX. Has anyone else noticed that the mission logbook dates are really wacky? It almost seems like the logbook is recording the dates relative to the date the missions were created, rather than "now". I've got logbook times for 2004 for missions I finished today. No, my system time is not out. :) Free flight seems to work okay, even though sometimes my flights simply don't turn up in the logbook, which is a little frustrating after spending an hour in IFR conditions, to have it not show up. Grrr. Cheers, Michael.Anonymous
May 06, 2007
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May 07, 2007
Phil, A big thank you for the update. I've only one question; have you addressed the engine start issue for the Air Creation 582SL? When in VC, the Air Creation will not start, however, when I revert to 2D cockpit, the engine will start. My engine start is not done via the Ctrl-E but rather I use the engine "ON" switch. I have no add-ons install. The issue does not occur every time but it does happen. I was wondering if this could be related to battery drain or just a minor glitch. SubLogicBoyAnonymous
May 07, 2007
We just didnt get time to look at aircraft specific issues.Anonymous
May 07, 2007
this might sound like it comes out of left field, but it's actually connected to FSX. while I'm an avid Flight Simmer and student GA pilot, I am an even bigger fan of the MS Train Sim series. Following the Train Sim site, they have said that they will be sharing the core engine from FSX in Train Simulator II. Which, if any, of the patches and updates performed for FSX at this point (particularly CPU loading and mutli-threading) will find their way into the Train Sim core? Or, will I have to buy Train Sim II and then wait for similar engine updates like we've done with FSX?Anonymous
May 07, 2007
XPack and Trains2 will contain all of the fixes in SP1. Happy multi-coring!Anonymous
May 07, 2007
Phil, Have you ever considered that if the game had of been released so that the "max" on the "sliders" would have worked well on the fastest hardware available, then as you updated the progaram also make the "max" do more; we would all be happier with fsx and care less about when sp1 is released? Just a thought I had. I know for myself personally I hate having any game running less than "max" even if "max" wasn't really the whole "max", what I don't know can't hurt me! Hope you can understand my thoughts.Anonymous
May 07, 2007
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May 07, 2007
Thanks for the updates, makes the waiting more pleasant. a question, is the multi core update in sp1 the same as setting my dual core affinity in task manager, does it simply use both cores now instead of one by default? People nags about CPU power, more RAM etc, I cannot find this particulary related to the fps problems, certainly not as we got the 'minimum specs' for CPU and RAM for FSX. As far as I concern, no matter all the tweaks editing with my FSX, i've found that it's all about graphic card power that FSX needs today (before sp1) or am I totally wrong? /thanksAnonymous
May 08, 2007
I am just wondering if by "aircraft mouse-rect issue" you refer to the problem I experience once in a while? It exposes like the internal mouse coordinates are shifted to real screen coordinates. So, when using mouse on virtual cockpit or other sim panels, I have to click below the control I try to reach. Also I am curious, what is the proper way to report bugs in FSX? And is there some bug tracking system in place - so I can check whether the bug was already reported (and eventually solved)?Anonymous
May 08, 2007
These are 2 different things. Setting affinity in the Task Manager affects the app globally in terms of what cores it tries to use, but does not add new features. In SP1 as a new feature we create and schedule additional threads for both terrain ( loading, in-flight ) and autogen ( in-flight ) which does not happen in RTM.Anonymous
May 08, 2007
Hi, I have noticed that when I set a lot of AI traffic there is a huge performance drop. I cannot set it more than 20% in all sliders. wouldn't it be interesting to put the AI traffic processing in a dedicated thread? In this way if there is now in SP1 the main thread, the additional thread terrain and the additional thread for autogen, if there were a AI thread it would be perfect for quad cores.Anonymous
May 08, 2007
Hi Phil. I'm sorry if this was already answered - I tried to find a list of what is being addressed by SP1 but I couldn't. Are you guys working on the overcast issue? This is something I miss quite a lot, specially when having fun with instrument flying. Best regards, Fabio.Anonymous
May 08, 2007
Are there any optimizations for 64bit environment? Is it native or wow64? I have QX6700 processor and Vista 64bit ultimateAnonymous
May 08, 2007
Hi Phil, this one would be a bit personal, so I do not expect you publish it here, but I hope you will read it. Last time my comment did not make it through (though I made sure, it was not violating anything :)), so I guess you did not have time. At the beginning when I found your blog I really appreciated it and even though it is clearly your personal initiative it is great way to communicate to community. However, you and "us" have noticed that such communication sometimes gets out of hand. My point is I believe that regular forum would be great. I know this was not culture in Microsoft in the past (for games), but even that seems changing (see: http://forums.xna.com). I know about other forums (run by producers) which have pretty great traffic (e.g. http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi) and are great place to exchange ideas, report bugs, comment on progress, etc. There are probably forums on inet about fllight sims, or MSFS in particular, but having one about the product moderated by authors is completely different. Because then you can keep it on topic (i.e MSFS), you can let people to contribute ideas in controlled way and you have one "access point" to all that info. However it can get out of hand too, if you decide to abandon the community (e.g. Battlefield 2), but I believe this was never case for MSFS. In my previous comment I was concerned basically about what you fixed (or did not) and also where I could find what was already reported or not. Do not take me wrong, I am not interested in participating in beta program, I am just a program user and incidentally also professional programmer used to the facts that programs have bugs and that it helps to authors (if they are honest) let them know about them. In fact, when I was working on boxed software, I found our product forum great way to be in touch with user base. I mean, your blog, even buried in MSDN domain, attracted people, and showed some interesting info, but also shew some limitations. Going to regular forum would be natural evolution. And second point, even if you do your best, having comment being dropped is also discouraging (I mean due to time, of course it is ok, if it clearly violates netiquette).Anonymous
May 08, 2007
Hi Phil, thanks for the update, in your opinion, do you think there will be a Beta 5 release addressing any additional items? I know it's varied from pc to pc regarding best optimal settings, but in your opinion from what you've seen so far, will performance increase quite a bit?Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Phil: A MS support rep told me to turn off one of the processors in the affinity settings. Will I leave them both checked with SP1?Anonymous
May 09, 2007
We did take a rebuild of 3 AI aircraft to reduce their Draw calls. The MD-80, the Dash-8, and the Cherokee. Those 3 aircraft are 25% of the global traffic database. That is as good as it is going to get for SP1. Terrain will use all available cores ( with core 0 understood to be already in use ) so we already do better than what you theorize. I dont believe its the core usage of AI that costs, it is the Draw calls that eat up the FPS.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
64-bit is too big for an SP, so no we didnt do anything for 64-bit in SP1. FSX is a Wow-32 app running on 64-bit OS's.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
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May 09, 2007
hey Phil, will FSX support 64bit in the future, maybe even with the distant DX10 update ? :)Anonymous
May 09, 2007
To Michaelvg1: You should reset affinity to the default, SP1 takes care of it. To Shel800521: There will be no beta 5. We are close, and in final test. We will definitely hit the 20% across the board, some scenarios will see 40-50%. Its really going to depend on hw and settings. We expect you can either fly at greater FPS if your machine was lagging(20-50%), or if you already had good FPS you get to bump the sliders 1 tick.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Phil, A while back in your post regarding Intel's quad-core press release, you mentioned that the batching of D3D calls will be scheduled on secondary cores. What exactly is encompased by this "batching"? Specifically, are the D3D calls actually issued from the 2nd core, or is the 2nd core simply organising calls that will still be issued from the 1st core? I guess this is a round-about way of asking approx what percentage of the D3D overhead will be processed on secondary cores? (How are the reports from B4 coming?) Thanks...Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Risa2000:its more being busy, as you suggest, and not a direct netiquete violation. I just wont talk about specific contents of SP1.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
This is probably a dumn question and if it is just ignore it but, the SP1 will have a detailed change log correct? I would love to see everything that got changed. ThanksAnonymous
May 09, 2007
Bug about strange wings in Boeing 747-400 is fixed? http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/2368/wingsyg3.jpg http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9189/wings2by8.jpg http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9627/wings3ll0.jpg Best regards, RenatoAnonymous
May 09, 2007
Phil. I utilize a few add-ons to supplement FSX, namely Traffic 2005 (for real world airline AI traffic), Real Sky (mainly to correct what I felt was the overly deep- blue of the default FSX mid-day sky) and Xclass US and Xclass Canada (to enhance the default ground textures). Is there any reason why SP1 would not be compatible with these add-ons? Thanks. BobAnonymous
May 09, 2007
CaptDoodad:XPack is a different team. Yes we are fixing rendering bugs. SP1 runs on both XP SP2 and Vista. I was talking about the default AI aircraft. Absinthe:64-bit is further off than DX10. Its too big for a service pack, which is what DX10 is. Although a more constrained one than SP1. Mauihawk:while the creation of terrain textures and batching of autogen objects is scheduled on the non-primary cores, D3D9 still has to issue Draw calls from the main thread unless you use the performance killing multithread flag when you create the D3D device. the gains in terms of D3D usage are the reduction in sheer number of draw calls not where they are issued from. Quilnux: I am stil pondering what to publish about what we changed. We will provide some guidance here, stay tuned.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
BobKK47:The compatibility of add-ons and FSX SP1 depends on what the add-on is doing. Certain things, like FSUIPC, FSInn, etc - that make deep hooks into the app may need to be changed. The landsclass add-ons should be safe since they just add files and no code. Anything that adds code may need a refresh.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Yamane:I am not talking to specific bug fixes at this time.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Risa2000:I went back and saw your mouse-rect question. No the problem is new to SP1. And we believe we have fixed it. We did re-plumb the panel system in SP1 since it wasnt respecting our internal graphics abstraction layer. Making the panel system conform is a 1st step towards the DX10 port.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Thanks for taking time to respond to us, and congrats on clearing the beta period. Maybe after its released you'll actually get a week or so where we'll stay outta your hair ;) "D3D9 still has to issue Draw calls from the main thread" ... is that a subtle hint that the same might not be true for DX10? Are you able to speak of what will become of FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION with SP1 and dual-core? Does it lose its meaning because texture loading has an entire free core at its bidding, or is there still enough texture work that has to be done in the main thread that the setting is still important? Will it get a new default value for DC systems?Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Bobby McNair:There is an issue with FSX, both RTM and SP1, where depending on the settings we just chew thru all the available virtual address space. Yes, we are trying to put too much onto the screen. The point where this happens depends on your settings and machine. How fragmented memory is when the game launches is definitely a factor. The problem on our end is, we dont know this is going to happen until an alloc fails. At that point, we are deep down the stack and it is hard to trap and recover in a meaningful way. The efficiencies of SP1 means you should be able to go farther with higher settings. but it can still happen. We are looking at this, but its too early to promise for DX10.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
MauiHawk: MauiHawk:yes DX10 is written so that you can issue Draw calls from any thread ( on any core ) without such a performance hit. I'll have to ask Adam about how important FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION still is, but we still have the existing fiber system running on core 0 so I suspect that tweak is still valid although hopefully not as important.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
First off, thank you for the updates. I am not sure I understand all this programming jargon, but I do understand hardware. My question to you Phil, what are the hardware specs of the test systems you guys use? Keep up the good work!Anonymous
May 09, 2007
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May 09, 2007
Yamane: I can't explain your bug, but I have never seen it. Looks like a corruption, which would suggest you should run a Repair. And those frames are really low. Simviation and other sites have got good threads on how to get the best out of your system and the game.Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Thank you Phil ! You reply to every post here. I feel good when entering this Blog :)Anonymous
May 09, 2007
Hi Phil, Are you guys having greater perfomance with the QX6700 or the QX6800-if you have one!? I am lookink to buy a new rig. Do you think these options are good: Intel QX6800 4 gb RAM 750GB + 250GB Hard disk 2 ASUS 8800 Ultra ASUS Striker Extreme i680 Thanks in advanceAnonymous
May 10, 2007
Hi Phil, thanks once again, i know everyone who is inspired by FSX is gratefull for the constant updates. Just a quick one, i downloaded a 8 mg file off a FS site which rewords and resized autogen textures in FSX, the author claimed that he was now able to play with autogen set at 60% and get a fps increase of nearly 30%, i tried this file and and for some reason FSX is running 60% slower than previously and my default textures look pretty similar to the ones in FS9, any ideas of why this would happen, i know i would probably have to re-install fsx as i made no backups.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Panos95: The 6700 is a stronger overclocker so if you are into that, its a better deal. With that said, if you are not in the OC set and run one of the other applications thta benefits from multi-core a lot, then the 10% speed difference could be beneficial. OC or not is the question.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Shel800521: Try a repair first before you do a reinstall, it might fix this. I dont know all the tweaks out there so its hard to say what it did and why it didnt work.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
hey Phil- I've discovered a bug but- it's a secret. i'm not going to tell you becuase I don't want anymore delays :) :) :) Also I'm glad you are patient type. Good Job.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Hey Phil, thanks so much for keeping us in the loop! Its cool to see the progression of SP1 from the viewpoint of the guys coding it. Couple of questions:
- Nice rigs, but why no AMD? Are you guys specifically optimizing for the Core2's or is that just your own personal preference? I hope us AMD X2 owners get as big a performance increase as the Intel folks!
- Why only 20% of a performance gain? If you're essentially doubling the CPU power available to the game, shouldn't it be closer to an 80% gain (or ideally a ~100% gain, given how little of the GPU FSX uses)?
- Speaking of the GPU, why does FSX seem to use it so little? Changing my GPU clocks don't seem to affect performance at all. Enabling or disabling SLI makes little difference. I even tried out an 8800GTS 640MB (from 2x 6800GTs) and that seemed to do nothing for me. Thanks!
Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Aberforth: DON'T SAY IT! SAY IT AFTER THE SP1 RELEASE. But if you discovered it, then the SP1 team must also have discovered it!Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Perhaps a good place to have these discussions would be in a news group :) MS has many public NG's and it would be great to see flight simluation, fs2004, fsx in there. G Its easy enough to setup an NNTP server I have one, if interested I could set up a public NG for everyone. GAnonymous
May 10, 2007
It just worked out that I got all Intel, we have a good mix of AMDs on the team and in the perf lab, including AMD quads.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
Panos: the product is pretty big and pretty deep, so we often do learn things from the community. But it is a bit too late to look at anything else now.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
GSX: thanks for the offer, but for now I am sticking with my blog.Anonymous
May 10, 2007
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May 11, 2007
I have been using FSX for many months. I love it. However, when I upgraded my video card to a VisionTek Radeon X1950 Pro XGE yesterday, I started having a puzzling problem. Many times after I try to save a game or switch to map view, I can't get back into the game. FSX just misteriously terminated. No error message, no error logged in Windows system (Event log). I can start FSX right away, but the same will happen. I feel it occurs when the full screen views being switched from one to another. I searched today online, and found other people posted the same thing on different forums, but no answers that resolve the abnormal shutdown of FSX. My system contains E6400, 3G DRR2, 2x160G SATA HD.Anonymous
May 11, 2007
Shsun1: thats a new one. if it happens again and you get a chance to submit a watson report please do so, we see and investigate those regularly.Anonymous
May 11, 2007
Phil, thanx for your quick response. That is the problem: no error message, nothing! FSX just shut itself down in 1 seconds. I tried to get some information on the error from the system log, but can't find any, no Watson report. Let me describe the problem in a little details to see if it rings a bell to anyone here. I push ";" to save a game, everything looks right. I can browse or enter a name, then push "OK", the game is saved (because I can reload it back). After the game save, FSX is supposed to return to the previous view (cockpit most the time). But, aha, it just returns to my desktop! The same happens after I push "OK" in the full-screen map view. My OS is Vista. So far, I don't suspect it is a video card defect or a driver issue (I used the latest one for Vista from ATI, released in late April), because all my other games (such as Falcon AF 4.0 @ 1200x1024 32) run just fine, only better. I don't expect an immediate fix on this type of subtle issues, but I really can't quit flying! :-)Anonymous
May 11, 2007
Shsun1: did you install the Vista multi-mon patch? Given this is fullscreen, I am wondering since you are fullscreen if there is any overlap but other than that, I dont know what to suggest. this isnt really a tech support forum, so I just dont have time to investigate.Anonymous
May 11, 2007
One other small item, that I only just noticed, as I always fly in "Full Screen Mode", if it is changed to a window and one hits the maximize screen the screen corrupts but if one stretches the screen no problem. Not a major issue for me but wierd is this a Vista Ultimate 32 bit, NVidia 8800GTX, DirectX, or FSX issue? Again not important to me but maybe to others. My machine specs are listed in the link above; the 8800GTX is not overclocked.Anonymous
May 11, 2007
Surfsup: I dont know that one, but I am not tech support either. Sorry about that.Anonymous
May 12, 2007
Phil, Thank you for the quick reply on the full screen issue. Could you answer the first post regarding the serious memory issue that FSX has. There are literally hundreds of posts on the net regarding this but no definitive response from either Aces or Microsoft or are you still looking into this? Thank you.Anonymous
May 12, 2007
Surfsup: its just hard to categorize a user crash that we cannot get under the debugger. we did fix a few crash bugs and tried to reduce memory in SP1. it should help, but no one is perfect.Anonymous
September 17, 2007
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