PTaylor's WebLog
Flight Sim discussions; mostly on the core platform ( graphics and terrain, platform team, sim engine, geo tools and geo data, international, internal tools, technical art ) plus news on releases and updates, and the occasional tweaks and tips.
Guess who's back?
In an excellent piece of good news, Adam Szofran, late Terrain Dev lead of Aces, has returned to the...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 04/17/2008
“Holy Grail or Fools’ Errand”, Indeed!
There is a lot of discussion and buzz around Intel, Larrabee, and ray tracing on the GPU. So I...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 03/19/2008
Vista SP1 review and rollout timeframe
https://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_sp1.asp is an excellent and informative article. I hear...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 03/17/2008
Updated:Issues that may affect 3rd party content for FSX and that will not be fixed in SP1
I forgot the name of the #define for handing the VS2005 SP1 redist dependency and accidentally...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 02/04/2008
Interview up at SimPilot
Mike McCarthy of FS Open Components fame ( amongst other things ) takes his time as a raconteur to...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 02/01/2008
GPU variants, performance envelopes, and being an informed consumer
Overall, performance is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. So if you skimp on the GPU...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/29/2008
Last Post was 100th Blog post
I thought it was noteworthy of mention that my last post on FSX version identifiers was my 100th...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/24/2008
FSX Release Identifiers, so users can verify what they have installed
RTM: 10.0.60905 SP1: 10.0.61355 (Russian: 10.0.61357) SP2: 10.0.61472 XPack: 10.0.61637 You can...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/24/2008
Manual for F/A-18 VC in Acceleration
For the F18 cockpit manual, go herehttps://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/board,4.0.html
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/24/2008
Partial fix for the "w-key" cockpit view issue
Sidewinder on avsim.com came up with a decent partial fix for this issue, see the thread here.
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/23/2008
Aces Studio Organization:Yesterday and Today
Now that I am starting a new series of posts, let’s talk about where the Studio is from an...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/16/2008
Great jobs available in Aces
We have openings in both Dev and PM in the graphics org, see these postings on the MS job site: PM,...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/15/2008
New Year, new role, new series of posts
So now that I am back and just about dug out from the holidays and some intense management training...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/15/2008
Four points about FSX and Blurries
First and before I forget - Happy New Year! Next, this post is not meant to minimize, marginalize,...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/04/2008
Why your 4G of RAM Windows 32-bit system may not report all of the 4G (even though it is in use )
The best explanation of this I have yet found is here; with this article as a supplement. This...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 01/03/2008
Registry repair tool if you have installed more than 1 time and have troubles
If you have installed before, and especially if you have installed add-ons - its entirely possible...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/31/2007
How to upgrade the propellers in FS9 aircraft for FSX-SP2
From Stoopy at avsim.com in this thread, the following instructions should allow you to upgrade the...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/31/2007
DXDiag, DX versions, and what your computer can do
DXDiag is this great diagnostic for your gaming hardware. It was created during my time as DX SDK PM...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/28/2007
Help for SP2 Menu Crash?
some users are reporting the menu crashes with SP2 are related to FRAPS and do not happen without...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/27/2007
Christmas Eve Holiday Wishes!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! And enjoy your flying, no matter if it be in-game or...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/24/2007
FSX-SP2 SDK is available for download
it just went live!, find it here...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/17/2007
Trying to help with FSX-SP2 install issues
“Bob “The Setup Guy” Arnson makes a post to try to help SP2 users figure out why their install is...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/17/2007
FSX-SP2 is available for download!
With a week to spare before the Winter Solstice and fall is over! A lot of people worked hard to get...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/14/2007
For real this time, Vista SP1 RC available for public download
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9de6260e-4275-482d-9524-de850c4dd91c&Di...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/13/2007
True FSX Planes
In another excellent thread on sim-outhouse.com, DennyA has collected a list of planes along with...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/12/2007
FS9 Planes that work in Acceleration ( and by implication the "to be released" freely downloadable SP2 )
In an excellent thread on sim-outhouse.com, Jim ( JimJones ) has collected a list of planes along...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/04/2007
FSX Perf Benchmark
Gary ( Reset MCP Alt ) at AVSim has an excellent FSX benchmark and from that has deduced some quite...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/04/2007
4 HW reviews of interest to the FS community, and 1 comparo
New nVidia part, 8800GT New NV 8800 GT, slightly cut down GTX...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 12/04/2007
More reasons to not worry about DX10.1
Extremetech has a thorough review of the new ATI chip the RV670, in its R3870 form here. And it...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/26/2007
More on FSX-SP2(DX10) delay factors
I will try one more time to explain why SP2 is taking longer, since there are persistent doubts as...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/21/2007
ESP Part III
Let's start with the details in my last post "ESP is a separately versioned, side-by-side...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/16/2007
FSX-SP2 Beta posted
To the beta tester group. Size is approximately 166M. This is an important milestone in the drive to...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/16/2007
More on ESP
I see some people talking about ESP already, which is good. But I see the discussings blurring ( pun...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/15/2007
FSX-DX10 Info, Part III
Sebby makes a nice post about the DX10 Water feature with a video, here This is his 3rd about DX10...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/14/2007
FSX-DX10 Info, Part II
Sebby makes a nice post about the DX10 HDR feature with a video, here This is his 2nd about DX10...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/14/2007
Microsoft ESP announced
Starting Jan 1, 2008, the FS technology will be available for commercial purposes as a platform for...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/14/2007
AVSim FanCon news
AMD showed this unannounced system at FanConhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3jpG3rv4zIit will be...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/13/2007
Great Tool for AI carriers when using Acceleration
https://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=111605 This package, aicarriers2.zip, uses the same...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 11/06/2007
Game Engine Design, Design Goals, and Choices
There was a recent thread about game engines trying to compare them on avsim.com. And I thought I...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/28/2007
3 Transparency Fixes for older content with issues in Acceleration/SP2
Fix 1: Replace wonky texture with a modified grayscale alpha from "Stoopy" in this thread:...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/26/2007
Maybe old news, but Windows Vista SP1 Beta is available for download
see...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/23/2007
DevCon Topics
DevCon is fast approaching us. And yes, I am speaking as well as attending. So if you want 1-1 time,...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/18/2007
FSX-SP2(DX10) delay factors
This has come up multiple times, including in the comments of the SP2 post, so I want to cover why...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/10/2007
FSX-DX10 Info
Sebby makes a nice post about the DX10 VC shadow feature with a video, here
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/09/2007
Acceleration and SP2
Overview Acceleration has RTM’ed. Acceleration Pack contains the SP2 fixes; including both DX9 and...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 10/03/2007
FSX-SP2 Details post should be
next Monday or Tuesday. just to set expectations. I was hoping for this Friday, but that is not...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 09/27/2007
FSX-SP2 details post is delayed
We are still hard at work trying to get things finished, and I need to wait until the dust settles...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 09/11/2007
Vista OOM fix:Must have update from the mother-ship
Aug 28th a fix became available for Vista from the Windows team. The bits will be made generally...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 08/13/2007
FSX-DX10:3rd progress report - just another Wednesday
It is time to update everyone on the progress we have made on the FSX-SP2(DX10) release. First, we...
Author: Phil Taylor Date: 08/08/2007