Leo112
10-16-2003, 09:32 AM
Last night I flew both sims back to back just as I did when I had both FS2000 and FS2k2 installed right after FS2k2’s release. Man it's hard to believe that was right after 9/11. Anyway FS2k2 seem light years ahead of FS2000 and it ran so much better...
Back to the present:
I flew around in FS2k2 and then switched to FS2k4. I'll tell you this I feel sorry for those who can't get FS2k4 to run correctly on their machines because the difference is amazing. FS2k2 seemed a bit darker than FS2k4. FS2k4 seemed more colorful at dawn and dusk better yet in general and ran so much smoother on my rig than FS2k2 (I found this due to the fact I hadn’t changed my video card settings while flying each sim. If I'm running FS2k2 I need to turn down all my settings to minimum and run AA at 4x. If I'm running FS2k4 would turn up all my video card settings and turn off AA.). But all in all FS2k4 doesn't seem to be just an upgrade when you fly both sims back to back, you can diffidently see a huge difference. The sky and weather is what got me, even though the transitions aren't always smooth, being able to see a cell ahead of you and fly into it or go around it is awesome (I have to thank FSMetro on this). You just can't do that in FS2k2. Also as mentioned before we all had a problem with the overcast issue in FS2k4. From all my experiences in the air in real life if I’m remembering correctly, I have never seen an overcast that looked as if it covered the whole world like we see in FS2k2. Now if your on the ground this may be the case but if your in the air you can actually see that a cell no bigger than say a large city is over an area and the rest of the sky is clear or scattered clouds around it. I've never seen a solid blanket of clouds stretch out as far as the eye can see at 32,000ft. Even in a hurricane you can sometimes see the end of it if your altitude is high enough. So what I'm saying is if you have a rig/configuration that can run FS2k4 the way it should run (using FSUIPC, FSMetro, FSW's clouds update, etc.), FS2k4 is diffidently a hug step forward from FS2k2 as far as the flight experience is concerned...
Now I know I've been the main one in the discussion groups harping on Microsoft about support/patches and the SDK releases. But after spending some time looking at the growth of FS in these two versions, it's all the more clear that Microsoft should stand behind this product so we all can grow with it. Many are still missing out on some really cool flight experiences with this new sim. Just flying and watching the many weather changes is fun in itself, no two flights/weather patterns are ever the same...
Back to the present:
I flew around in FS2k2 and then switched to FS2k4. I'll tell you this I feel sorry for those who can't get FS2k4 to run correctly on their machines because the difference is amazing. FS2k2 seemed a bit darker than FS2k4. FS2k4 seemed more colorful at dawn and dusk better yet in general and ran so much smoother on my rig than FS2k2 (I found this due to the fact I hadn’t changed my video card settings while flying each sim. If I'm running FS2k2 I need to turn down all my settings to minimum and run AA at 4x. If I'm running FS2k4 would turn up all my video card settings and turn off AA.). But all in all FS2k4 doesn't seem to be just an upgrade when you fly both sims back to back, you can diffidently see a huge difference. The sky and weather is what got me, even though the transitions aren't always smooth, being able to see a cell ahead of you and fly into it or go around it is awesome (I have to thank FSMetro on this). You just can't do that in FS2k2. Also as mentioned before we all had a problem with the overcast issue in FS2k4. From all my experiences in the air in real life if I’m remembering correctly, I have never seen an overcast that looked as if it covered the whole world like we see in FS2k2. Now if your on the ground this may be the case but if your in the air you can actually see that a cell no bigger than say a large city is over an area and the rest of the sky is clear or scattered clouds around it. I've never seen a solid blanket of clouds stretch out as far as the eye can see at 32,000ft. Even in a hurricane you can sometimes see the end of it if your altitude is high enough. So what I'm saying is if you have a rig/configuration that can run FS2k4 the way it should run (using FSUIPC, FSMetro, FSW's clouds update, etc.), FS2k4 is diffidently a hug step forward from FS2k2 as far as the flight experience is concerned...
Now I know I've been the main one in the discussion groups harping on Microsoft about support/patches and the SDK releases. But after spending some time looking at the growth of FS in these two versions, it's all the more clear that Microsoft should stand behind this product so we all can grow with it. Many are still missing out on some really cool flight experiences with this new sim. Just flying and watching the many weather changes is fun in itself, no two flights/weather patterns are ever the same...