On his weblog, the Microsoft developer Mike Gilbert published some useful information for those of who who are still confused about what Windows Vista, DirectX 10 and Flight Simulator X have to offer. First of all, he explains that Windows Vista is the next major version of Windows, which will continue to be delivered like it is today. There are some great improvements in Vista such as a new user interface, better security and stability. Running games on Vista will be much better: you will have control over all your games, which makes it very easy to access and manage them!

Mr. Gilbert also explains that DirectX is a software that exploits the graphics, audio and other game/entertainment features of your PC. Windows Vista will include the next generation of DirectX --the DirectX 10--, but both DX9 and DX10 will be supported. DirectX 10 is a complete rewrite of DirectX, meaning that the stability and robustness of the graphics system will be much better than the previous versions. It also offers greater capabilities and performance to next generation gaming. The most important thing is that anyone with a fairly new system will be able to run Flight Simulator X -- because of the performance improvements, you won't need to buy a whole new system to run the upcoming version of Flight Simulator!