Welcome to TechNet Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

P-12C Pilot

The Flight Simulator experience and other tangential thoughts
FSX Hell

It's pretty much hell in the office these days. Not that it's particularly unusual when trying to wrap up a huge software project. It's always this way with pretty much any game, but at the end  of a three year cycle after pushing agressivly for over a year, FSX is especially brutal. The team is really putting in the hours and focusing on the work at hand and things are coming together very quickly.

Performance improvements continue to trickle in. Frame rates are looking better and stutters are much better than just a couple of weeks ago. Considering everyone's machine and settings are different, I can't really state actual frame rates that mean anything, but my overall perf has improved alot. I can also happily say that "the blurries" have improved a lot as well, which is great news for all of us.

We've still got some bad bugs, and a lot of work to do yet, and frankly some people are ready to collapse right now after working so hard. I know a lot of people have been working all nighters and we have several weeks to go still.

Unless you've gone through a major software release, it's hard to appreciate just how difficult it is and how hard it is to get everything perfect in the end.

Posted: Friday, August 04, 2006 11:06 PM by P-12C

Comments

marcin said:

Hi Paul!!
we are all very appreciate for whole work you guys make for us!!!
thank you for all of you !!!


p.s Paul did you know when demo will be ready to download?

brds
Martin
# August 5, 2006 6:28 AM

jonpatch said:

Thanks for the update, and your honesty. To the pressure of being on the home stretch, add the energy it takes for you guys to interact with the community, and it is hard to imagine what you're are going through.

Remember to breathe ...

Jon
# August 5, 2006 12:25 PM

P-12C said:

One of the reasons why it's so tough right now is the demo. People are scrambling right now trying to get it done. I'm not sure exactly what date it will be available though. It won't have the final bits in it as we are still working on the final bug fixes and perf tuning for the main release.
# August 5, 2006 11:32 PM

marcin said:

yess that`s what I affraid for... the team is focusing on demo than on final release... in my opinion leave alone demo and give us main product as soon as you can... what for demo of FS????

BRDS
# August 6, 2006 4:47 AM

P-12C said:

The bugs need to be fixed either way, it just puts more heat on us to meet deadlines that's all.
# August 6, 2006 11:20 PM

jonpatch said:

Ya, been there with the twin targets of demo and RTM.  As you say in theory the fixes apply to both; in reality it's a distraction, some would say necessary.  What's the best way the community can support the team?
# August 7, 2006 1:03 AM

Francois_Dumas said:

Sounds pretty much like many of the corporate projects I have worked in over the past 30-odd years..... and I've seen a lot of good people drop out because of sheer pressure. The announced release date DID take me by surprise, and reading what you wrote here, still surprises me Paul. Sounds like the Marketing Guys got the better of it once again ;-)

We postponed quite a few of our recent projects for quality reasons..... for a small publisher that is easier to do than for the mighty MS I suppose, although Vista would be a could example for FS perhaps ?

In any case, I wish you and your colleagues lots of energy and wisdom in the weeks to come !!!

Kindest regards,
Francois
(ja ja, the guy who pisses off FS deves sometimes ;-) ).
# August 11, 2006 5:27 PM

Dennis_k said:

Paul,

Just hang in there ;)
Like alway's, there are a lot of critics on the FSX Demo.
But, my bet is when the final product is released, everybody will love it.
I can't wait to get my hands on FSX!
# August 14, 2006 2:32 AM
Anonymous comments are disabled
Page view tracker