StarDestroyer.Net BBS

It is on Microsoft's site, but I accessed it thru a link at Flightsim.com

It's a set of missions to fly around Princess Juliana Int'l, in the Dutch Antilles (Carribbean). There's 4 different airplanes that can be flown, a deHavilland Beaver floatplane, a Bombardier CRJ700, a Piper Aztec, and an Ultralight. Graphically, it's beautiful...microsoft improved on the original by leaps and bounds! Water, terrain, and building details are awesome. Only problem is that either the demo is buggy (a possibility), or the game is such a resource hog that it's making my 6-week-old Alienware run slow and obsolete...already. If it's a resource hog, and it's (supposedly) optimised to run under Vista when that ships...wow I wonder how that will bog things down.

Anyway, if you're a flight simmer, check it out. I guess the big game ships in September.

FSX is meant to be DX10 only when it ships. Which might account for a lot.

DX10 only? Are you sure of that?

I'm pretty sure it has a DX9 and DX10 mode. Why would they code a DX9 mode just for the demo and then take it out?

The retail version of it is supposed to be DX9, and MS will offer a DX10 patch when vista ships. Source: Extreme Tech interview

In fact all the screenshots that have been released so far are DX9, except that one DX10 target render in the interview linked above.

It looks amazingly sweet whatever it runs. I only ever got the '97 version of this simulator, so I can certainly enjoy the advances we've made since then.