FSX v.s. FSX Gold

[jhefner]

I noticed both were on the shelf in the store; so I just wanted to ask two questions:

1. What does the "Gold' edition have, besides a few more planes?

2. Which one comes with the FSX SDK?

Thanks in advance.

-James

[Deleted]

Hi James - I asked this question a while back. I think we established that the Gold is just Deluxe with SP2 already installed. It doesn't have any extra planes - it's just another MS marketing spoof for the great unwashed.

I started with FSX Deluxe and then installed SP1. I then purchased Acceleration which has SP2. Because SP2 reintroduces all the old terrain errors that were eliminated by SP1 (Aces cockup) and makes all the FS9 planes that were quite acceptable in SP1 totally incompatible, I have uninstalled Acceleration and reverted to FSX+SP1 only.

My advice to anyone buying FSX for the first time is reject the bundled version (ie FSX Gold). It's MS leading you by the nose like they did with Vista.

Pay ONLY a very heavily discounted price (like 50% off is typical) for Deluxe and then install SP1 and SP2 yourself and decide which one suits you.

In case you wonder about Acceleration, the 'Missions' in Acceleration are not for grown ups IMO and are not worth paying for unless you happen to especially want a F18 (I don't) or a Merlin heli (I don't) or a racing Mustang (yawn... I don't).

But you might think totally differently ;D

PS ONLY the Deluxe edition comes with the SDK so it would of course be included in Gold

[jhefner]

Thanks! That's what I thought.

Do both of them come with the FSX SDK?

-Thanks again;
James

[Dave3cu]

FSX was released in 2 editions, Standard and Deluxe-www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/product_info.html

The SDK only comes with FSX Deluxe.

Acceleration is additional content and FSX SP1 & 2 (bug fixes and performance enhancements for FSX-available for download if you don't have/want Acceleration).

FSX Gold is simply FSX Deluxe Edition and FSX Acceleration packaged together.

Dave

[jhefner]

Thanks, Dave. That was what I was looking for; I think my local store has FSX Deluxe and FSX Gold in stock. Now I know what I am looking for; I agree with rollerball, and will get FSX Deluxe. (Since FS2004 is getting hard to find.)

-James

[jonathandevers]

Acceleration has some additional functionality for scenery design that you can't get with just SP2. Deer Valley Flying Club utilizes this alot in their online group events. Probably not relevant enough to spend extra money on it, but...

In any case, on my personal rig, I get much better performance with Acceleration installed than I do with just SP1.

[Tom Constantine]

If you have not purchased FSX in any form, I'd recommend getting FSX Gold. That will give you the final versions of FSX and Acceleration. These are the most complete and bug free versions available. Gold puts them in one box for a reduced price.

[Deleted]

hmmmm....

my understanding is (and I may be wrong - frequently am as I don't bother keeping up with these things now as much as I did) that the performance enhancements came in SP1. There were no additional enhancements affecting performance per se in SP2 but lots of crud was introduced by it which has not been, and will not be corrected in the lifetime of FSX.

SP1 corrected the memory leak performance issue and also the global terrain errors that created spikes, rocks across rivers, airfields in big holes in the ground etc in the original RTM version but due to the fact that the SP2 developers used RTM files by mistake for SP2, the latter all came back in SP2.

I think that SP2 was mainly issued due to the political need for MS to produce some software that was 'DX10 compatible' in a vain attempt to shore up Vista. They did this by targetting a flagship 'gaming' title but by doing so they stunted FSX as there were then no resources available to correct the by then known bugs in FSX and properly deal with the performance issues. So they ended up with the worst of all worlds...... Vista still failed and they knackered FSX.

Personally I will continue to steer clear of SP2. I don't need the transparency/opacity problems it has introduced. Although FSX native models are now becoming much more common, there are still lots of lovely FS9 aircraft that I still greatly enjoying flying in FSX which I can only do in FSX SP1 because whereas SP1 has a high 'backward compatability' factor, SP2 has little or none. I also like designing scenery with seasonal tree textures which is impossible in SP2. And as I will always regard Vista as Mickey Mouse, I can't really see any good reason to adopt it in the future.

There ya go - just my two-pennorth. Don't want to start yet another pointless FSX debate. They are always totally sterile and we don't need it. I know that some of the above is opinion/heresay based on what we now see and know but please be most welcome to correct me if I've got any real facts wrong about SP1 and SP2 (what it is, does etc etc).

[jhefner]

This may be old news to many/most of you, but I found a great website that lets you test your system, and find out before you purchase something if it will work or not. It DOES require downloaded an ActiveX object to do it's thing:

www.systemrequirementslab.com

I ran it on the relatively new Dell our family was given; and found that it will need a new graphics card to run FSX; it also needs more RAM to meet the recommended requirements. But, it also said that the system as is will be more than enough to run FS2004. So, I am back to hunting for a copy of FS2004.

Just for giggles, I ran it on my old system just to see what it would say. To my surprise, it said the only thing it was lacking was disk space to meet the minimum requirements. The processor was too slow (1.5 GHz) and it had too little RAM (512KB) to meet the recommended requirements.

-James Hefner

[beana51]

Thanx....nice tool....it can inflate or deflate your Simming ego.....not unlike that elusive frame rate seeking....thanx again...its fun..Vin

[Deleted]

James, don't believe that. FSX is being run albeit at much reduced settings (but then again almost everyone is having to considerably reduce the settings to get acceptable performance but still find it 'looks' a league better than FS9) on fairly low level machines.

My advice which I think will work is install the FSX demo (which I'm sure is still available) then SP1 and run it. That's the only way to tell for sure.

I am still a great FSX fan except I don't swallow all the cobblers that has been and is still being, dished out about it. I take what I find and make my own mind up without being told. I don't care if the 'experts' disagree and tell me it's all my fault as all I need is a mini-Cray costing a mere £3-4000 and a degree in IT and Applied Physics to set it up and then FSX will run fine, as is happening even now on other forums

If you can run FSX you really should give it a try IMO. You can always pick up FS9 for peanuts off Ebay. Just make sure it's a proper CD with a proper serial as it doesn't have to be activated the way FSX does as I recall but still needs a proper FS9 Serial to work.

[jhefner]

Nov 26, 2008 13:21:21 GMT -5 rollerball said:

James, don't believe that. FSX is being run albeit at much reduced settings (but then again almost everyone is having to considerably reduce the settings to get acceptable performance but still find it 'looks' a league better than FS9) on fairly low level machines.

My advice which I think will work is install the FSX demo (which I'm sure is still available) then SP1 and run it. That's the only way to tell for sure.

I am still a great FSX fan except I don't swallow all the cobblers that has been and is still being, dished out about it. I take what I find and make my own mind up without being told. I don't care if the 'experts' disagree and tell me it's all my fault as all I need is a mini-Cray costing a mere £3-4000 and a degree in IT and Applied Physics to set it up and then FSX will run fine, as is happening even now on other forums

If you can run FSX you really should give it a try IMO. You can always pick up FS9 for peanuts off Ebay. Just make sure it's a proper CD with a proper serial as it doesn't have to be activated the way FSX does as I recall but still needs a proper FS9 Serial to work.

Thanks, Rollerball, for the advice. I did indeed find the demo; though it is a hefty 650 MB:

www.download.com/Flight-Simulator-X-demo/3000-7544_4-10570927.html?tag=lst-0-1&cdlPid=10570926

Like you said, I may give it a try; and in the meantime, I gave Santa a hint about where to find FS2004. ;D I would be nice to have FSX to test fly with; and the FSx SDX. I just don't think the other members of the family would like it.

-James

[kbr]

On my current system, a single core 3ghz intel, FSX ran quite well with SP1, but when I installed SP2, fps was cut in half and I now get graphic corruption a lot.

I have heard a lot of people having great success with SP2 and a lot not, so I guess it depends on the system. IMHO, I would tend to recommend what rollerball suggests and get the original version of FSX deluxe so you can test the sim with both SP1 and SP2 so you can see which version runs best on your system.

As for FS2004, I think Amazon.com still carries it.

[reddog]

I'm running it on a AMD dualcore 4200, 4 gigs of ram and 8800gt512 card and it runs very good,just SP1 thou, most places I fly I can have the autogen at very dense to maxed out but have to bring it down around the heavy populated areas and tons of FS9 port overs that work just fine!