So I got this comment from my FSX FAQ about why you can't turn all the sliders up: "It really bothers me to see MS design a game for hardware two years out. I want to play the game today (when I bought and PAID for it), not two years from now. Do...

Okay, maybe not crow entirely, maybe something more like pigeon or seagull. This was posted in response to my earlier rant about performance in FSX: "It's been said that the performance drop between FSX and FS9 is greater than between any other two...

So I got this new machine at work. It's one of them new-fangled Core 2 Duo machines that Intel's making. And man does it show just how CPU bound we really are with all of our draw calls. The machine specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (a huge leap ahead of...

I must say, I am really excited about where we are heading as a team in terms of tools and content creation pipeline. I think we've finally gotten on track. And by "on track", I mean we're actually on the rails. We may still be sitting in the station...

Okay, so I'm not going to get dressed in a sheet and speak in a made-up language while someone projects images from my childhood on me. I'll leave that to the qualified people. Instead I'm going to talk about performance art in the sense of art that is...

I haven't posted in a while, but I find this both funny and sad all at the same time. The whole Windows / Mac debate that follows in the comments is rather interesting as well. I must say, as a Mac user my whole life, I would generally side with the Mac...

I got a question about how to post comments, so here's a simple guide: Click on the # comments link (for example, the 1 Comments in "posted by torgo3000 with 1 Comments ") On the following page, click on the " Post a Comment ::" link. Fill in...

Lotus has a really great post about aircraft performance in FSX . I highly reccomend reading the whole post. It's a bit technical, but does put into practical terms a lot of the ideas about how to create performant aircraft (especially for multiplayer...

There has been some confusion about what tools will work with which version of 3ds Max and I hope to set the record straight today (for those who might be using our SDK and 3ds Max). In general, the SDK tools that were released for 3ds Max for FSX and...

This is kind of fun, you can find out how much your blog is worth at this business opportunites site. Here's mine: My blog is worth $0.00 . How much is your blog worth? Yay!

Every weekend when I drive down to Portland, there's a special landmark that tells me I'm 45 minutes away from my destination. It's Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon. It was operational for about 16 years before leaking radioactive steam forced...

I've heard from our good buddy Nick that the IK on the jetway is a bit confusing, even with the documentation provided. I could see how that would be the case since IK in general is a pretty steep learning curve and the jetway is a pretty complex bit...

... is located here . A lot of great stuff mentioned in both videos. In particular, our new shader pipeline (2.0 and 3.0 is mentioned as well as possible DX10 support and shader 4.0), the new structured gameplay / mission system, the completely reworked...

Well of course, the simple answer is that it is obviously the model immediately following the Torgo 2000. Okay, let me back up a second. I guess I'll start from the beginning. It has something to do with MST3K , an old screen saver for After Dark ...

So we know that draw calls are a major killer for us. So you would basically assume that the more draw calls there are, the worse the performance. Well, this is not always true. There's a funny scenario happening in the Adrenaline Expansion Pack right...

As next gen technology came online, people started repeating this mantra: "Polygons don't matter anymore." For the longest time (okay, about a week) I was stuck thinking, "Awesome, we can throw any amount of geometry at the new cards and they'll just...

For this issue of the ever-continuing "Performance Art" series, I'll talk a little about flat-shaded or colored polygons and the use (or overuse) of bones in a model. Always use a texture: In the past, when the memory on graphics cards was very...

Well folks, I'm still employed at MS (or rather re-employed at MS after having been canned with the rest of the group). And I'm working on an as-yet-unannounced project. So as long as the muzzle is still on, I'll try to cover some FSX stuff and some general...

Autodesk has made a couple of huge announcements this week. The one that has most shaken the games community in general is that Autodesk has signed an agreement to buy Alias . There's a real hilarious depiction of the fantacism that people have about...

Just thought I'd let you know that our panel developer EnGauged has entered the blog-o-sphere. (I hate that word. Can't we come up with something better? I hear there's rumors on the internets that new terminology is imminent.) EnGauged's covering a lot...

I'm probably coming late to the party here, but there's some really cool stuff over at SceneryDesign.org , a nice little site put together by 3rd party scenery gurus Arno and Nick . It's got tools, documented formats and a wiki for all of your Flight...

The forums are already buzzing, and flightsim.com has a great preview here . Avsim also has some screenies and the standard Q&A , as well as a new FSX Forum . PCGamer has issued a correction for its original release date of February . As the technical...

I got this question the other day and I thought I should answer it, since I've seen it in a few threads since we shipped: "Since I use FSX as a real training device, I would like to know if in the incoming patch there will be an optimization for 2d...

I know for a fact that if we ever modeled any of these phenomena , we'd get so many complaints about how unrealistic our atmospheric simulation is. [ ;)] One of these days, we'll model some mammatus clouds as well. Talk about a serious bug in the weather...

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I know there's probably been a general silence throughout the Flightsim team as we slave away working toward feature complete and eventually content complete and eventually shipping Flight Simulator...