Anybody see RF9.5s yet?

[Rc51dude]

I still don't see the point or the need regardless if its free or not. There isn't much benefit in the upgrade logically, other than as I said (1) new airport and a few new airplanes. What's wrong with RF9.5 as it is now..? Its working fine for me, I can still download swap file aircraft. If my PC crashes I can install it again with my CD. I have all my extra airports and aircraft on USB stick so they don't get lost. All I'm saying there is no justification for "ME" to upgrade. I was expecting something new and fandango with this new release. I was let down again by HH. So that was my exit out from ever buying HH stuff again. It's been a long time coming for me. This was the push I needed.

Nothing is wrong with RF9.5, was there anything wrong with RF3.5? no, it worked great for me, so I could have stayed on that, but guess what RF kept evolving and adding more stuff that caught my eye till I just had to have it, I skipped a few generations and got RF8, then RF9, does that mean Knife Edge or now HH should stop evolving the brand because RF3.5 worked? I traded my physical key code for a digital code to redeem a new version of RF. I now own a digital copy of RF, instead of a hard copy. It will be forever linked to my Steam account, anytime I need it its right there. What happens a year from now after they take the free to us key code trade away, and those who have not moved to steam, you will get left in the dark, you will not get updates to the simulator, the next time they want to give out a couple planes and a flying site, none for you, the rest of us will get notification and download through Steam, those not on Steam, sorry bout yer luck (looks like Steam updates your stuff automatically too?). If my computer crashes, if I run it over with a bus, gets stolen, house burns down, I get new computer, and log back into my steam account and poof re install my digital copy of RF to my new computer.

My point is yes it works NOW, but I also want it to work 2 years from now too, with all the most up to date revisions that come along.

I can't help that HH probably wants to save money and stop paying to have all those DVDs printed.
I don't take this as them trying to shaft us, this is the way they want to distribute their software now, so what.
I feel this was a small token to a bigger prize in the works.

 

[DouglasFG]

That's fine. I understand totally. Truth be known, I'm moving on to the real SIMS very soon so I don't see me using RF9.5 much after that. Flying the larger models and cockpit view models in RF has stirred something in me and I don't fly the RC models (figuratively speaking), in RF much if at all. Funny as it sounds but I'm actually a RC Heli pilot and don't fly model planes for real. I only fly planes in the SIM, but don't fly Heli's in the SIM. Go figure. My addiction to larger airliners and bombers in the RF 9.5 sparked my real airplane SIM craving. So that said, is the main and real reason I can't see "ME" going with a digital RF upgrade. I'm deciding between Aerofly FS2 or Xplane12 at the present moment. Seems to be some good updates coming for both those SIMs, so I've read.

 

[1024kb]

Does anyone know if it's true,,, it said in download details,, if you download steam code (have to redeem your Realflight code), that you will no longer be able to use your old Realflight code.

I really don't like 9.5S, takes FAR too long to swap planes and airfields. I gave it a chance but has only annoyed me, no benefits whatsoever.

I wan't to go back to 9.5 but worried i will lose everything due to losing code through gaining steam 9.5S

Please don't say what you THINK will happen, this doesn't help.Please i am interested in people who have actually tried to go back to 9.5

I’m on a slow broadband, so slow loading would be a problem for me too. Is it slow every time you load an aircraft or only the first time you load it as it downloads the model from the internet?

 

[Harlem]

Guy's, it's NOTHING to do with my PC, unless that is the Steam variant uses more memory and processing demands? But i doubt that as i have lot's of free memory. I also did a test, i turned off all other tasks, chrome, files, made sure there was no up dates occurring and had ONLY the stimulator working.

For sure as the Earth is round, there is significant longer times to change planes and airfields. This i can't live with as my Daughter shares it with me and we are always swapping planes.

Will contact Cust support and report back here with result.

Thanks for the posts, but deffo not my PC

 

[Harlem]

I’m on a slow broadband, so slow loading would be a problem for me too. Is it slow every time you load an aircraft or only the first time you load it as it downloads the model from the internet?

Both really, buut i can live with any first initial extra wait. What i can't live with is the extra long wait everytime i swap a model. Supposssed to be an improvement but for me is a big step backwards. As said in other post, NOTHING to do with my PC or internet. It's just the way the Steam program is configured i guess?

 

[Harlem]

If you are happy with you current RF9.5 version there is no reason to change imho. The main advantage for me with my current download version is that, like all Steam apps, it's easier to use with other pc's. Not at the same time of course.

Couldn't hit the like button fast enough.
That's a great point, if you divide your sim time between different places, perhaps at work or different houses (different PC's). Then the Steam would be accessibile from any PC.

But for anyone doing a search to check if Steam is good before they go for it. I write clearly so a search will pick it up:-

Steam 9.5S Problems Trouble Slow

 

[technoid]

Couldn't hit the like button fast enough.
That's a great point, if you divide your sim time between different places, perhaps at work or different houses (different PC's). Then the Steam would be accessibile from any PC.

But for anyone doing a search to check if Steam is good before they go for it. I write clearly so a search will pick it up:-

Steam 9.5S Problems Trouble Slow

They should have kept the download option from their website (HH and TH) that way the program would have stayed exactly the same and they would have kept the money Steam charges for themselves, they're a small profit venture (not selling tons of copies). I don't understand why they gave up money to go with Steam. I've used Steam since 2004 and it works fine but I prefer a download option so I'm not bottle fed by someone.

On another note I'm wondering if they'll be any more updates to RF 9.5 they need to move to a newer version of DirectX fast so all graphics cards will work with RealFlight. Right now they're destroying their product image by selling copies of RF that won't work with graphics cards that cost more than a thousand dollars.

 

[Ryan Douglas]

I updated the simulator to version 9.5S today and the sim stopped starting.

Well that's unfortunate. Can you please provide some information about what's happening?

• Exactly what happens when you click the Play button? Please walk us step-by-step through everything you do and see until the button turns back into a "Play" button.
• Do you get any error messages? If so, what is the EXACT and COMPLETE text of those messages?
• It sounds like the Steam version of 9.5 was previously running as expected for you, is that correct?

 

[Ryan Douglas]

I can confirm the startup time for RealFlight increased a little between 9.5 and 9.5S. That is unexpected, and frankly we hadn't noticed. Thank you for reporting it! We are looking into it and will hopefully be able to improve it.

On my system the load time from starting the sim to an airplane sitting on the runway at Eli Field ready to fly went from about 14 seconds to about 22 seconds. That's not a desirable change, and I would expect that for someone with a slower computer than me both those times would be larger. For perspective, though, it's also not the end of the world. It takes a few extra seconds to start up, and then... that's it. You're in RealFlight.

Load times for vehicles and airports are very fast on my system. I didn't compare times between 9.5 and 9.5S for this one because for most of them they're too fast to even time with my stopwatch. Vehicle changes are nearly instant. Apocalypse, a pretty "heavy" airport (big 3D terrain, lots of objects) loads in 2 seconds flat. Is anyone else seeing slower load times when switching content after the sim has already started?

To be clear, none of this has anything to do with Steam.

I think there is some confusion in general about what Steam does or how it works. You get the software from Steam and install it locally on your machine. It's a complete software installation, nearly identical to the old non-Steam version. When you run RealFlight, it runs locally on your machine.

I think some people are under the impression that when you change aircraft it goes and downloads the new one from Steam, or that the software itself is running on a remote Steam server somewhere. That is not how it works.

 

[Ryan Douglas]

And I screwed up, I didnt think about all the Add-ons 1-5, and expansion packs 1-8 before I unistalled 9.5. How/where do I put the add-on files after I re download them, I stuck them in the data folder like before but they dont show up in once I get back into RF9.5s

NEVERMIND I FIGURED IT OUT, I was dropping them in the wrong data folder, steam is all new to me.

I'm glad you figured it out! For others who may come later, the default installation directory for RealFlight 9.5S is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight 9

 

[Ryan Douglas]

I should have mentioned in my last post that you can always get to the installed files through the Steam client.

1. In the library, right-click on RealFlight 9.5S in the list of titles on the left
2. Select Manage
3. Select Browse local files

This will open a Windows Explorer window right to your installation, wherever you may have it.

 

[Harlem]

Wen't to use Realfight 9.5s for the second time, installed yesterday, worked fine albiet slow at swapping new planes.

Today won't work, tried everything, PC restart, turned program off and rebooted as requested, did not auto fix as claimed.

Not sure about some corrupt file info. See pic attached

Phoned Horizon to see if i can get a code to go back (lost my initial code through steam process). Weren't very helpful.

 

[Ryan Douglas]

Harlem, please go to C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\RealFlight 9\Cache and delete everything in there. Don't worry, the only things in there are files that get generated by RealFlight at runtime and will be generated again the next time you run. (Just make sure you only delete the stuff in \Cache!)

I'm not sure what happened to cause the above error, but I would expect this step to make it go away.

There is also a chance, albeit small, that this will do something about the slower load times you are reporting. However, please note that the immediate effect will be to make loads slower, because RealFlight will have to regenerate some data for everything that gets loaded. But that is a one-time slowdown. So the first time you load a particular vehicle after the deletion, it will happen for that model. And the first time you load a particular airport, it will happen for all the airport objects in that airport. Those things should load at normal speed thereafter.

 

[Harlem]

Ryan, thank you so much, that worked. Much appreciated.

 

[Bill Stuntz]

I just came across this:

Serious security vulnerability affects Minecraft, iCloud, Steam and pretty much the whole of the internet

Notice that Steam is included in the list of vulnerable software. And RF9.5S requires Steam. I think I might be glad I'm still running RF8. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Is this being dealt with by HH and/or Steam?

 

[technoid]

I just came across this:

Serious security vulnerability affects Minecraft, iCloud, Steam and pretty much the whole of the internet

Notice that Steam is included in the list of vulnerable software. And RF9.5S requires Steam. I think I might be glad I'm still running RF8. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Is this being dealt with by HH and/or Steam?

That will be fixed by Steam HH won't have any of their code so they couldn't fix it. The KE guys at HH now will just interface with the Steam installer so that type of stuff will be fixed by Steam.

 

[kf0s]

I think there is some confusion in general about what Steam does or how it works. You get the software from Steam and install it locally on your machine. It's a complete software installation, nearly identical to the old non-Steam version. When you run RealFlight, it runs locally on your machine.

I think some people are under the impression that when you change aircraft it goes and downloads the new one from Steam, or that the software itself is running on a remote Steam server somewhere. That is not how it works.

Ryan thanks for the information on how 9.5s uses Steam. I was concerned that the program was actually using Steam and not a program nearly identical to the old version. I was concerned that I would run into a bunch of issues with Steam. Note that I do run on several machines, but one is in a Parallels VM on a Mac.

 

[space boy]

It seems that, based on what's being said in this thread, I could create my Steam account, exchange my serial number, download the 9.5S installer on this mobile device that I use to access the internet, and then use a USB flash drive to install it on my RealFlight computer which is not on the internet.

If I then attempt to run 9.5S on that computer that's not on the internet, would it work? In other words, does a Steam-installed application need access to the internet in order to work correctly?

 

[technoid]

It seems that, based on what's being said in this thread, I could create my Steam account, exchange my serial number, download the 9.5S installer on this mobile device that I use to access the internet, and then use a USB flash drive to install it on my RealFlight computer which is not on the internet.

If I then attempt to run 9.5S on that computer that's not on the internet, would it work?

I've never seen an off-line game installer for Steam you just select your game and choose to install it and Steam downloads and installs it, and does the updates after that if it needs any.

 

[space boy]

I've never seen an off-line game installer for Steam you just select your game and choose to install it and Steam downloads and installs it, and does the updates after that if it needs any.

that gives me some more insight, technoid. thank you.