What do you think the most annoying thing on FSX is?  For me, it has to be the default "don't sink" warning.

I hate it when i'm sometimes flying and for no apparent reason FSX will freeze and ask to restart with no explaination as to why. I have a pretty good system with all the latest drivers installed and a decent video card,cpu,etc..

MS should somehow write into there code that when the application (game) crashes it should give the reason why, like "APP CRASHED, insufficient video card memory". I know it will sometimes give an error code, but that is useless if you don't know what the error code means.

I know exactly what you're talking about, that will happen to me sometimes when I'm looking at traffic.

The fact that the LOD radius is never large enough--there will always be bluriness.

Oh, and I don't know about the "Don't Sink" one, but those warnings are present in real airplanes. As I was boarding a plane last week, the Captain and F/O were checking some systems I heard "Terrain, terrain!" and, I believe "Too low, flaps!" in the same exact voice as in the sim.

dont sink??  DONT SINK??? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT GUYS!???!!

i'll explain :)
Say you approach a narrow 4 to 5000 ft long runway is some forgotten by everybody super-small village in your trusty old 727-100. your landing weight around 130 000 lbs coz thats just the first leg of your super busy day as pilot of super-small company which btw not forget to fly in that kinda airport :) and coz here just not enough good jet-A to refuel you. so you kinda busy in calculating where you are coz airport you departed has only NDB, and airport you fly to have only NDB, and no DME. and you have no GPS or INS on you plane. so you busy calculating, watching the RMI, and HSI course needle, and you on short final and there it is: THE MOST ANNOYING THING IN FSX: A TREE JUST AT RUNWAY THRESHOLD PRECISELY ON CENTERLINE!!!!  i mean they plant forests on short final approach path - well you got used to it, BUT A LONELY TREE  AT THRESHOLD aaAAaaaaAAAaaaaAAaaaaarghhh!!!
:)

P.S. Thats really stimulating to buy FTX AU :))

LOL  ;)  I also hate those forests or trees just before the runways. I laugh but it's certainly annoying if those RWY's are not long enough for your plane.  ;D

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What do you think the most annoying thing on FSX is?  For me, it has to be the default "don't sink" warning.

Yep, that also annoys the hell out of me.

i'd say second annoying thing - is incomplete dx10. all that flicker and loss of antialiasing if you use drivers to do it, so you gotta turn it on in FSX itself and its reealy eats power. Thats annoying for sure :) i'd say even more, - that SUCKS :)

and how about super-small MAP window? you cant resize it, and map controls aint make you happier too. That's can be annoying all the time :)

and crazy fuel trucks that drives across runway when you just about to land, and then they can collide with you while you taxiing to gate. that is totally annoying and reeeealy unkool :)

To me, bad usage of high spec hardware. That includes the incomplete DX10 which is much faster but incompatible with so much stuff  :(

Most annoying thing for me, the aircraft selection.

Firstly it takes ages to load, then I always use the mousewheel to scroll in all games/apps and Windows. So my natural action is to scroll down using the mousewheel, only it changes the top left aircraft manufacturer menu because that is where it always defaults to. I have to change it back to "All", wait ages for it all to load up then click one of the aircraft to scroll. Yes I do like to look through what I have installed rather than go straight to something.

It's a small thing, but small things can be very annoying.

DarrenL wrote on Dec 5^th, 2011 at 8:09pm:

Most annoying thing for me, the aircraft selection. Firstly it takes ages to load (...)

It's not cheap, but an SSD solves this and many other problems  :D

NaMcO wrote on Dec 6^th, 2011 at 10:16am:

DarrenL wrote on Dec 5th, 2011 at 8:09pm: Most annoying thing for me, the aircraft selection. Firstly it takes ages to load (...) It's not cheap, but an SSD solves this and many other problems  :D

My FSX takes up 102GB, so I would need a decent size SSD. A 128GB SSD costs around $AU200 which I would need just to put FSX on, so I might wait a little while longer for the prices to drop before I get one.

Windplayer there is a fix availble for the tree problem that clears an area around all FSX airports so that the annoying tree problem is removed, I don't have it after a hard drive malware problem led me to loose a lot of stuff that I had not backed up properly and the backup not restoring properly. I think it was called lumberjack or something like that. I am presently looking for it searching on 'tree-fix'. Trouble is it takes away all the trees and gives you a big brown rectangle or similar around those small airports. Another fix would be to change all the tree files, which is actually easier, but yeah that big pine on final can be a pain.

My biggest bug is the GPS. In real life you can get GPS to do all sorts of amazing stuff. My biggest bug is not being able to load a new plan or create a new plan midflight and or being able to modify an inflight plan to say miss a couple of waypoints and direct to the second last one and for the GPS to keep tracking on the original plan. Not being able to use it to overlay approaches is also a pain without a great deal of fiddling and the way once you pass a DCT TO point it stops displaying a track on screen. And so I could go on. I have better versions from friendly panels but don't think you can port them across or alias them to other models (well not that I can do it).

Second thing, the map display that can't be looked at without stopping the whole show while it brings up the map, why it could not display in a small discreet window like ATC dialogue and GPS does I don't know. IF it did you would be able to get all that good stuff about Radio frequencies, airports etc that real GPS units have in their databases.

Third - the crappy rain textures. You used to get nice beads in 2004 but now just long streaks with noise. I know there was a polygon modelling issue for the drops in DX9 DX10 and FSX but geez it looks like crap.

Fourth  and final the crappy ATC, cant get course diversions to go around thunderstorms, can't get holding patterns, don't get holding patterns, never lets you fly an NDB properly and gives you the hurry up all the time climbing or descending.  >:(

The tree problem should get solved with installing some freeware airport for the special places one is flying to. As there are some freeware scenery editors available, creating a 'exclusion rectangle' also is a matter of seconds if you don't find one.

Is it really that much of a problem? I think I saw very few default airports with it so far and, as said, a simple edit of the file could be done while pausing the sim for a minute. After this, the airport is fixed and does not turn the surrounding into brown matter, but just excludes the trees in the defined area. With addon scenery, this step will already be included most of the time.


On some other stuff that 'annoys' people, one has to state that you guys have bought a 30 to 50 Dollar sim with all sorts of features and the great ability to allow third party devs to fill the gaps. And a ton of third party devs took this step and offer their things. A business model expanded, offering a large scale of useful and sometimes less useful things, sometimes even for free.
So while I think that a vast amount of users would for example be overwhelmed with a too detailed GPS or an ATC using deviations and holding instructions, I'd say that the ones really "needing" those features should look at some addon soft to get them.  ;)

It's all there, but demanding it to come in perfect shape with the basic game is a bit too much in my eyes. Look at the price tag and then look at the people using the sim. We may assume seeing the already advanced users in forums like this, and e. g. flying some holdings will be a heavy task for most. So if the default ATC would order it, this may become a downside for some. They can still fly holdings now, if they like to.

As a side note. Sometimes even online ATC does not use any 'advanced' methods because the experience is that most users will react with a big 'oops' if they would do. This of course is sad for the people being able to perform a nice holding without a fancy FMC, but they will surely get those desired instructions when the ATC guy knows them, while on less common locations, ATC will remain basic for a reason.

As for some GPS details. They don't come for free when you want to have them in a 'simple' gauge. So the folks at MS did right and included basic things, while leaving the advanced field open to third party devs. The GPS gauge alone costs you as much as the whole FSX by the way.

I think MS did a great job with keeping the sim structure open in all directions, so I don't expect them to include fancy features for some folks only.
This won't most likely change in future versions of any sim out there. Be aware that basic users run your business when you are selling the basic package, not the addon stuff. So you aim to offer a wide field of features to attract the folks. The in-depth thingies are then open to addon devs.


Regarding previous issues. The 'don't sink' warning isn't bugged by design. It's a question of the setup and you can define the parameters in the aircraft.cfg of the planes. So, if you would mix up settings there, you'll get all sorts of warnings from the FSX engine which tries to mimic a rw warning.
I think there are some freeware gauges out too, which allow a more detailed setup for every plane.


Quote:

MS should somehow write into there code that when the application (game) crashes it should give the reason why, like "APP CRASHED, insufficient video card memory".

You will find those details in your Windows event log. Some stuff may look cryptic there, but those values help the guys with the programmer's knowledge. By the way, some of these values lead to the very latest FSUIPC improvement, which prevents certain crashes on addon title combinations.

Blaming the basic software for crashes is difficult to do. When you install more or less detailed addons of all kind and maybe some titles which 'push the boundaries' too much, the combination of all this may lead to a bad outcome. Not to mention the fancy tweaking some are running.
I think it's more likely to find a person on planet Earth looking exactly like you than to find another FSX installation which comes close to yours.

Plain FSX default runs fine and doesn't crash by design. So if the addon packed one suddenly does, the error may well be within some addons. Just stating this because people seem to praise certain addons devs if something is fine, but then blame MS if it isn't. Wrong viewpoint in my eyes.
If you get crashes with a certain plane over a certain scenery, those two devs may be the ones to talk to first. They tend to blame MS, I know. But the FSX MS team isn't there any more, so that's too easy.

Quote:

Most annoying thing for me, the aircraft selection.

While a SDD may ease the pain there, the main cause of loading times are .. too many planes and liveries installed. You can uncheck the 'show all variants' option to see how much difference it makes when FSX has to look for just one picture of each type.

Again, the FSX system is open for installing stuff. When you then sort of abuse this open policy with installing tons of things, we can't really blame the software for user made errors. Same on the crashes, so I'm repeating myself in a way.

However, there is some addon interface available I think. Maybe it enhances the way how FSX handles the tons of planes you have installed and leads to a faster loading.
I'm running a mechanical disc here and have installed plenty of planes, but I don't wait more than a few seconds to get all variants shown. SSDs aren't a magic bullet for FSX, they only help on loading times, not on blurries, not on fps. I've tried and reverted back to mech a while ago. Way cheaper, even with the currently 'flooded' prices in place. SSD for the OS, that's a good idea though.

I don't change planes every few minutes, I only do when starting a flight. So maybe this is some preference thingy too. I'd suggest to get rid of planes you don't fly or don't have time to fly. This may help there.


In conclusion, I think that some 'annoyances' and their minor nature actually show how well this old software still does. Together with the broad market it has reached, we actually have to conclude that MS did right. They've also enabled some successful business models being based on their work. A thing where X-Plane failed for nine versions by the way. So lets hope the tenth does better there.

I only hope for both devs to not go the customer unfriendly way of the DLCs and extra costs for every single basic feature, like seen on other games. Sad fact, people don't complain much, they 'obey'. Some addon devs for FSX already run that business, charging extra for minor things.
Don't read this the wrong way, CS does fine in my eyes.

It also is a matter of looking at a half full or half empty glass of water, whereas I prefer the half full one by the way.  :)

My annoyance isn't with the long loading times and isn't something that an SSD would cure. My annoyance is with it always defaulting to the aircraft selection drop down menu and not the aircraft thumbnails so when I use the mouse wheel to scroll down it changes the aircraft manufacturer and doesn't scroll the aircraft down.

DarrenL wrote on Dec 5^th, 2011 at 8:09pm:

Most annoying thing for me, the aircraft selection. Firstly it takes ages to load

Sorry, then I understood this the wrong way.

However, the thing on the aircraft selecting and the mouse wheel happened here too. But I got into the habit of clicking once into the screen before scrolling. Maybe it helps.
As said, I think I saw some Avsim posts on a different FSX interface with lots of improvements. Maybe the a/c selecting is one of them, I haven't tried it.  :-[ http://www.codelegend.com/idealflight/

There are two ways that I go about selecting an aircraft. By Publisher, or by Aircraft manufacturer. I mostly select by Publisher and have learned to hit the TAB key twice after that so that the aircraft boxes are then highlighted and I can then select the aircraft I want. I do it that way because it is easier and faster (for me) to use the keyboard than the mouse.

It is no good me having it show only one of the models, as in one CS 707-300, because the one that is showns is least likely going to be the one I want to use. I can't win there. :(

CoastalDriver, CoolP - thanks for advise. i'll look for tree fix or editor, or both ;) As for FSX, my posts wasnt offense on developer. Kinda complex software, hard to do it ideal. Hey!! There a whole world out there O_O So thats just a joke, i mean, its good idea to take it easy :)

I didn't take anything in your posts as offensive, don't worry.  :) I think that FSX leaves a lot to be desired, but I also think that the package still is the best one out there, although I'm really interested in all fresh approaches.

On some points, I also think that the criticism is ok, but also points to the need to look into solutions which are available. As said, one big advantage, maybe even the, is the open structure of the thing. This leads to some resource problems if people add too much, but also allows some smart devs to jump in and make it better on certain items.

coolp, I am not "Blaming the basic software for crashes" I understand what you are saying when many of use run add-on's and MS can not be held accountable for any conflicts that the add-on may cause. I simply meant that it would be nice if they could incorporate in the error message an brief explanation of the error that caused the program to crash.
 

You also wrote: Plain FSX default runs fine and doesn't crash by design. Well,,yes it did even before I added any add-on's. My system was a clean install of Windows 7 (with the recent updates and drivers) and just FSX installed, no other software installed. My computer is set-up to ONLY run FSX and nothing else. Again I know that everyone has a different set-up and different hardware etc.... It's almost impossible for a software company to have a program that will run well on every computer out there, it just sucks when my FSX was crashing.  :-/

I think I only ever had a fatal error with a clean FSX installed (without any add-ons at all),seemed to be because my computer wasn't powerful enough for it (Core 2 Duo E6600, 4GB RAM and a 320MB 8800 GTS).
Since upgrading to my current computer system (see my specs in my signature), in August last year, the only thing that causes a fatal error in FSX, is changing between my payware add-on aircraft. Although I always switch to the default C172 before switching to a different developers aircraft, after four or five times I get a fatal error (CTD). Nothing else I do causes a fatal error.

I guess we have to consider that FSX was designed for a slightly different technology to what w have today, so that can cause problems, especially when there are no longer any updates or service packs. Just imagine, if ACES Studios was still improving FSX, we might be at SP10 by now. :D

Mark

Markoz wrote on Dec 8^th, 2011 at 4:15am:

if ACES Studios was still improving FSX, we might be at SP10 by now. :D

Wow... that would be nice, things might actually work they way they're supposed to!  ;D

NNewcomb wrote on Dec 8^th, 2011 at 1:41pm:

Wow... that would be nice, things might actually work they way they're supposed to!  ;D

I'm sorry, bad pilots like me may still land badly.  :-/

CoolP wrote on Dec 8^th, 2011 at 5:35pm:

NNewcomb wrote on Dec 8th, 2011 at 1:41pm: Wow... that would be nice, things might actually work they way they're supposed to!  ;D I'm sorry, bad pilots like me may still land badly.  :-/

Haha!  :P Psst ILS ;)

CoolP wrote on Dec 8^th, 2011 at 5:35pm:

NNewcomb wrote on Dec 8th, 2011 at 1:41pm: Wow... that would be nice, things might actually work they way they're supposed to!  ;D I'm sorry, bad pilots like me may still land badly.  :-/

That sounds so much like...ummmm....ME :D ;D

Ah can't help you with this one, never had the fatal error problem since a complete rebuild and a change in the way I reinstalled FSX. That is FSX then SP2 then SP2, then Bojote tweaks, then external internal frame limiter program, then ORBX scenery then REX Weather, then Addon aircraft one by one.

It always chokes a bit with the aircraft select however no matter what but comes good, not sure what is going on there but I suspect it is the way Windows (the graphic draw programming like X-Windows) draws and redraws windows but then comes good.

Only real hang up I get is with saved cold n dark or saved flights. For some reason I can never get them to run again properly when they are saved either mid flight or as new start up after I have shutdown and closed FSX , so now I don't bother and I don't have the problem.

The rest seems to be luck! Yeah and they sure could use an SP10 for FSX given all the updates and changes to the Windows operating system in the intervening period I just know one day there will be a new MS update or patch to WIN7 :-/ and nothing in FSX is going to work (Murphy's Law).

I Found the best way to Avoid that annoying Don't Sink call out,, is I always wear a Life Jacket when I'm flying,,, and fer sum strange reason,,, that dude shuts up !! :):):)

---

You name it, it's all about the methods in use. From your screenshot, you are obviously a user of the 'very low approach' one to avoid the radar blips.  :D Nice one!

Markoz wrote on Dec 9^th, 2011 at 1:16am:

That sounds so much like...ummmm....ME :D ;D

Practice makes good enough! Because we all know that 'perfect' landings only come once in a blue moon  ;)

Most annoying  thing, every time I do a proper A/P flight from A to B, my FSX will always(ALWAYS) crash on touchdown.