Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight

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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight

Developers
	ACES Game Studio
Publishers
	Microsoft Game Studios
Release dates
Windows	July 29, 2003
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time, Relaxed
Perspectives	First-person, Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Simulation, Open world, Vehicle simulator
Vehicles	Flight
Art styles	Realistic
Series	Microsoft Flight Simulator

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person and third-person simulation, open world and vehicle simulator game in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series.

The in-game videos do not work on Windows Media Player 12 (see Playing in-game videos crashes the game).

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc 2 DRM. Released on 4 CDs.

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Monetization

Type	Notes
Expansion pack	The expansion pack includes new planes and flights.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Wings of Power: WWII Heavy Bombers and Jets
Wings of Power II: WWII Fighters

Essential improvements

Patches

Flight Simulator 2004 Update v9.1 updates the game to the latest version.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Microsoft\FS9\FS9.cfg

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Flight Simulator Files\

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Main menu is always 800x600 (larger resolutions letterbox the main menu). HUD is stretched.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD			UI does not scale with resolution and is extremely small in 4K.
Field of view (FOV)		Adjustable with the - and = keys.
Windowed		Toggle with Alt+↵ Enter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Framerate cap is fully configurable.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Engines, cockpit, environment, navigation, lessons/flights, and air traffic control.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Subtitles for air traffic control messages only.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Subtitles for air traffic control messages only.
English				Japanese release.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play		16
Online play		16	The official MSN Gaming Zone service was shut down on June 19, 2006.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues unresolved

Playing in-game videos crashes the game

Windows Media Player 12 does not support the in-game videos. These videos show a black screen and playing them will either instantly crash the game or only work for a second or two before the game crashes. FS2002 does not have this problem with its in-game videos playing without issue on WMP 12. Changing the default video player in the game files has no effect.

Issues fixed

"SCENERY.CFG file error" error on launch

"SCENERY.CFG file error. Local scenery directory (Addon Scenery\SCENERY) in scenery Area.038 not found" (or similar)

This can be caused by a missing or incorrectly installed addon.

Edit scenery.cfg[citation needed]
Try installing the addon again. If problems persist, continue with the steps below. Edit <path-to-game>\scenery.cfg Go to [Area.038] (or the named area). Change Active=TRUE to Active=FALSE Restart the game.

Black screen when starting a flight (Windows 10)

The plane preview area is black, and starting the flight shows a black screen.

Force windowed mode in FS9.cfg
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Edit FS9.cfg. Change FULL_SCREEN=1 to FULL_SCREEN=0 Run the game normally. The game will now run in windowed mode by default.

VR support

Devices	State	Notes
TrackIR		Supports: Yaw, Pitch, Roll, X, Y, Z.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Cutscenes	Windows Media Player
Multiplayer	MSN Gaming Zone

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	98, 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP, Vista
Processor (CPU)	450 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB (98/ME), 128 MB (2000/XP)
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.8 GB
Video card (GPU)	8 MB of VRAM