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Original von Juergen_LOWW
Komisch, wieso denke ich da jetzt an eine Vorabreleaseversion eines bekannten Flugsimulators ?

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Captains-

I thought you all might be interested to know that the PMDG MD-11 for FSX went into BETA testing overnight!

Over the next few days, we will share with you some of the feedback and trend information that we are getting from the testing team. We have a few larger "cleanup" and "polish" items left to accomplish on the airplane, but from a development standpoint the project is nearly completed.

For those who are interested, the PMDG MD-11 is (in my opinion) in a better overall product quality state than any product we have yet produced. This is due in large part to the care and attention the product has received during development.

In the past, our BETA testing process has taken anywhere from two to nine months. I anticipate that this will not be a lengthy BETA period, as this product was subjected to extensive ALPHA testing throughout the course of it's development.

To answer a couple of anticipated questions:

When will we release?: We will not project at this point, as we want to focus on product completion without setting artificial timelines for development.

How is the FS9 version going?: The FS9 version is behind the FSX version. This is due in part to the inferior capabilities of FS9, and the need to build new, or in some cases, re-engineer aspects of the product that will be specific to FS9. (In effect, this is really like building 1.75 products because the versions are so different.) Our goal currently is that the FS9 version should be released within sixty days of the FSX version barring any technical hurdles that we haven't yet cracked our kneecaps on. If we don't hit any further hurdles, we are hoping to keep the FS9 release as close to the FSX release as possible- as in: within weeks. (No promises)

What will pricing be?: We anticipate pricing will be in line with our current product offerings. No surprises here. We will be treating the FSX and FS9 versions as two different products, but we will offer a SIGNIFICANT price break for anyone who wants to own versions in both FSX and FS9. (Details to be announced...)

Will you be able to obtain the manuals prior to release: Yes.

Will we allow the beta testers to post images and notes here in the forum for you to read: Most likely, yes.

Do we need any more beta testers?: No, but thank you for offering.

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Captains- It is Friday night- so I thought I'd give you a quick update on how things are progressing with the PMDG MD-11 for FSX beta test. BETA 3 went out to the beta team on Friday morning. This update serves primarily as a stability update, as this has been the main focus for the development team during the past two weeks. I've spent some time with this BETA- and it is significantly more stable than BETA 2, which was in turn an improvement over BETA 1- so the trend is in the right direction! We have been experiencing some strange behaviors that are intermittent and EXTREMELY hard to track with a standard beta tester error report. As you guys have learned from reading our posts during the past few years- the key to problem solving is the ability to duplicate the fault, so Michael spent some time developing an innovating fault logging process that collects data from our beta testers as they fly. This allows him to narrow in on areas where problems may occur within certain functions of the simulation. We've only just started to collect data, but given that this tool will help to direct attention immediately into some trouble spots- it is sure to save us quite a bit of time! We expect to issue BETA 4 mid way through next week- and we are anticipating that BETA 4 will be a good stable platform and then we'll be shifting focus almost entirely to fixing "various simple errors" the beta testers are reporting. So- overall it would seem that things are progressing nicely for the FSX version. I have no new updates on the FS9 version- other than to say that we need to lock down many of the major stability issues in FSX before we can even consider commencing testing in FS9. I saw some posts in the previous threads where a few folks were disappointed that the FS9 version was coming out later than the FSX version. It seems that maybe my comments weren't quite clear enough (or they were ignored in favor of the guesses a few folks posted in the thread?) but suffice to say that our goal is to bring these products out as closely together as we reasonably can. They won't release at the same time- and FS9 is a massively inferior platform that will require a number of capability reductions in the MD-11 and indeed FS9 might throw up some hurdles that we haven't anticipated yet... So while I can't predict how closely together we can get the release dates- but our preference would be to have that time split as narrow as possible. There was some discussion regarding performance under FSX- and generally speaking our beta testers are finding significantly better performance with the MD-11 in FSX than they have experienced with the 747-400. This is an overall good news trend, in our opinion. Possibly after BETA 4 we'll turn the beta team loose to begin sharing images and thoughts regarding this airplane. I'll also have more news regarding manuals and other essential materials for those of you looking forward to Initial Qualification on the PMDG MD-11! Robert S. Randazzo

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Original von Private-Cowboy
Naja, mal abwarten. Wir können ja solange wetten, was eher kommt. MD-11 oder Airsimmer.

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Captains-

I thought you all might like an update on progress with the MD-11 in beta testing:

We are preparing to issue another beta version to the testing team- and with this version we anticipate having a marvelously stable platform. Michael and Vangelis have been spending LONG hours chasing down items that might cause CTDs and we are now confident that with this new version, those problems will be resolved!

We will be following up with another new beta in the middle of next week- and this one should include fixes for the vast majority of the open items reported to us by the testing team.

If all goes according to plan, we may begin testing Release Candidates within two weeks.

I anticipate that beginning shortly after 15SEP, we'll begin providing you with quite a bit more information on the PMDG MD-11, including liveries, manuals, and lots of posts outlining the details of this new simulation!

To accompany the PMDG MD-11, we are going to be offering a number of new products to help enhance your simming experience with the PMDG MD-11:

-> Full color cockpit posters showing all panels in the PMDG MD-11. These posters will come in three different sizes, and you will be able to have them laminated prior to delivery if you wish. More details will be available on these posters on (approximately) Monday!

-> Airline style, printed manuals: We have contracted with one of the worlds most recognized aviation technical publishers to produce a full set of flight-case sized airline-style manuals for the PMDG MD-11. These manuals are more than 1400 pages long, and are in three volumes broken up just like real airline pilot manuals. They are bound in hard resin binders with the PMDG logo and the MD-11 in color on the cover- and come fully tab-indexed with color tabs, a spiral bound Quick Reference Handbook and a laminated normal checklist. We'll make more information available on this new product at the same time we unveil the new cockpit posters. If you like your simming to be "as real as possible" you will definitely want to get your hands on a set of these manuals!

-> Download liveries will become available in the near future as well. As always- when we release the manuals, you know we are close!

-> Download copies of the manuals: We are working on some licensing issues to make these available. Once we have that resolved, I'll let you know.

Okay- this is all the information I have for you tonight- but the most important message for you is: We're nearly there!

Robert S. Randazzo
Precision Manuals Development Group

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Currently the FSX version is in the very late stages of beta testing. We have just given another beta version to the team, and we are preparing to give them one more on late monday or tuesday.

Provided that nothing unusual comes up with this next version, we are anticipating shifting from beta testing to testing Release Candidates by late next week.

This being the case, there is a realistic possibility that you will have access to the PMDG MD-11X within the next two weeks.

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The FS9 version will begin making progress again once the FSX version is released. We feel that the FS9 version is advanced enough that it won't take long to wrap up, however there are still a large number of unknowns when it comes to making the advanced functionality of the MD-11X work within the confines of FS9.

While our goal is to have the FS9 version out as soon as possible following the FSX version, I don't want to rule out the possibility that the FS9 version could still hit SIGNIFICANT snags as we attempt to make the airplane work on that older platform...

To be more blunt: We'd like to see the FS9 version out within 30 days. But for all we know- it might take quite a bit longer than that... we just don't have a feel, yet.)