to patch or not to patch,,,that is the question

[TeiscoDelRay]

Got back into Fs9 after a couple years off and it is running great..I am afraid to patch because we know how that can go sometimes. I need some input from those that have,,does it make it worse or better,,,does it make is slower or faster,,,are you sorry you did?

Also what should I save and what will be over written?

[Desert Rat]

I always patch. I've never had any problems, but wait to see if others have before deciding.

Jamie

[SteveB]

Nope no probs with the fs9 patch here either and i have installed it on three different machines with different operating systems so far.

Steve

[papab]

Nope no probs with the fs9 patch here either and i have installed it on three different machines with different operating systems so far.

Steve

Worked great here- I did not have a lot of addons when I patched FS2004
Rick

[Wing_Z]

Patch, and patch early!
Quite a few addons assume you have...

[OBIO]

I have always installed the patch right after installing FS9....install the sim, patch the sim, then begin modifying the sim..which usually leads to messing things up and having to do fresh reinstalls and patching...it's a vicious cycle.

Never had a problem with the patch....

OBIO

[cheezyflier]

be like nike, and just do it

[bull494]

I have always patched after the initial install of FS9. I then install all addons that I want to put in at that time. This has not given me any problems to date.

James

[modelr]

As mentioned, install fresh, then run patch, then do add-ons. The patch fixes/changes enough things that it will make some add-ons do weird things if patched after they are installed. A lot of add-ons require the patch be pre-installed.

I've never had any problem with the patch.

[Dangerousdave26]

That is the Question and

and here is part of the answer...

Overview of Changes


Fixed Autogen performance degradation –
Flying out of an area then back to the same area may cause lower frame rates. The problem was due to a memory leak and how Flight Simulator handled autogen objects. Depending on the specific configuration and scenario, some users observed significantly lower frame rates. The update fully addresses this issue and users should have full functionality of all autogen objects without adverse performance problems.


Fixed Seasonal Crash to Desktop –
Going to specific airports during certain seasons would cause Flight Simulator to crash. In previous versions of Flight Simulator we assumed there would be 16 or fewer land classes within a 1km patch of terrain. That assumption was no longer valid for Flight Simulator 9.0. This could cause Flight Simulator to crash when loading areas with a large number of land class seasonal and vector data variations. This issue has been fully addressed and Flight Simulator will no longer crash when loading these land class seasonal and vector data variations.


Improved Digital Elevation Mesh Support –
The Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight (update) increases the level of digital elevation mesh (DEM) support from 38 meters to 19 meters.


Replaced Missing Landmark Bridges –
In Flight Simulator 9.0 we replaced many old bridge models with new bridge models. During this process many bridges that were in previous versions of Flight Simulator were inadvertently omitted and the new bridge model was never placed. We replaced approximately 160 missing bridge models that were omitted from Flight Simulator 9.0.


See the Appendix: List of Replaced Bridges for a listing of the replaced bridges.


Note: Set the Scenery Density setting to Normal or higher to see the new bridge models.


Added Autogen Objects to KJFK Satellite Photo –
With the exception of KJFK airport, all High Detail airports in Flight Simulator 9.0 were annotated with autogen objects. We have now added Autogen objects to the area in and surrounding KJFK airport.


Fixed Multiple Sporadic Crashes -
We have identified and repaired several areas in the Flight Simulator code to improve stability for very specific conditions involving ATC, AI aircraft, aircraft loading, facilities, weather, and multiplayer.


Fixed the Incorrect Check Ride Certificate –
When completing the Solo Checkride, you’ll now receive the Solo Certificate, not the Private Pilot Certificate.


Improved Support for Matrox Parhelia Cards –
Rendered fog now displays correctly in the Virtual Cockpit on Matrox Parhelia video cards.


Water rendering and the Japanese language –
Water effects now render correctly in the Japanese language version.


Fixed multiplayer support –
In certain scenarios, a failed DirectX installation caused Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight to stop functioning when multiplayer sessions were initialized. This problem is fixed in the update.

Those are reasosns to update the default FS9 to FS9.1 but if you already started adding add ons then some of those add ons change default files that might or will cause the update the fail.

The only fix is to install FS9 again patch to 9.1 then start building your world.

All of the fixes listed above are good enough reasons for me to upgrade if I needed to do it.

[TeiscoDelRay]

Thanks I patched but not sure I like it...about re-installing Fs9 that might not work because it took me three hours to instal from the cd's. My cd player did not like the old disc and I had to bang on it constantly to wake it up to keep adding files.

[Lionheart]

Eeeeks! Sounds like the disc is in really bad shape, or your CD reader is on the way out. Mine have done that before. It was always the CD reader in my case. I had thought each time it was the CD.

There are shops these days that have CD polishers now. I think movie CD rental shops offer CD restoration now for a small fee. (If the CD has some excessive scrathes).

Did you know, a CD is like 95 or 98% plastic polycarbonate? Yep... buried between two sheets of plastic discs is a super thin layer of foil which has the data burned onto it by laser.

Two test this, shatter apart a disc and note that the foil layer. Just remember to wear safety goggles when shattering one (breaking in half) as the pieces fly pretty fast. Another trick is the microwave oven. Wild electrical show, but super bad for your microwave oven.. (very bad actually).

So dont worry about polishing it too much, its got a long way to go before getting to that super thin center layer.


Bill