FSX and Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta)

[DEDHead]

Since I plan on getting a SSD tomorrow and rebuild my main sim rig in the process, I figured I'd give a shot to upgrading the existing install from Win7x64 to Win8x64 since I had nothing to lose.  After about an hour, the upgrade completed and I logged in.  My existing desktop was exactly the way it was under Win7, including the sidebar widgets.  All of my existing software (minus Security Essentials which is now part of Win8 and PlayReady) was still installed and working (I've tried Office Visual Studio 2010, Quicken, Zune and my own current SilverLight work projects), only ones that aren't working are CorelDraw & PhotoPaint but they are vintage 2003 and may just need to be re-installed. The upgrade process did wipe the nVidia drivers and loaded generic ones so I just had to re-install the latest 295.75 that are Win8 compatible.

So, after being encouraged by the above, it was time to check out FSX. I decided to just fire it up and see what happens, leaving all my previous fsx.cfg settings.  The only thing I did do was delete the shader cache. On first load it locked up with the Task Manager reporting not responding - DARN.  So try again, this time I get two error dialogs, one for FSUIPC and one for BGLManx (FSDreamTeam), see the attached below. I told FSX to not load either and into the normal FSX start screen I went YAY!  So I closed FSX and then ran REX, UTX, GEX, ORBX and iFly 737 configurators to see if they'd run, they did.  With them configured for ORBX, I reloaded FSX (got same two errors) and loaded into KPDX where I am running the modded FlyTampa FS9 KPDX scenery - it WORKED! 

Now in plane, I do a quick pre-flight from cold-and-dark and pushback and start taxing to the runway.  First thing I notice - smooth!.  Smoother than it had been running on Win7 (which may be a fluke since I think something got hosed on my Win7 install while overclocking it, but that's another story).  So line up on the runway and takeoff, still smooth as silk, fps bouncing around b/w 20-30 (i7 920 @ 4ghz, 6gb RAM, GTX 570), see below pic of climbout.  Take it up to 15K now getting 40+fps in heavy clouds, still smooth with no micro stutters or visual anomalies and point myself to KSEA.  After quick transit, load in arrival for ILS rwy 34R and shoot the approach.  Still silky smooth and no issues whatsoever.  Once on ground and taxing ran in mid 20's FPS.

So suffice it to say, it looks promising that Win8 and FSX will play nice with each other.  I will be sending the error to Pete to see if it figure out what the FSUIPC problem is.  And since this was an in-place upgrade of a dubious Win7 install, I have to guess that a clean install of Win8 would yield even better results.  Also included shot of my converted desktop, in the lower right you'll see the Windows 8 Consumer Preview watermark under the FSX icon.

Don