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FSX is FSX...so

Major_Spittle said:
Obviously I have never looked at their code, I am just commenting on what they were able to accomplish with what overhead when it comes to hardware. For what they touted FSX to be I expected "scaling for future hardware" to mean more than being able to have more trees drawn and suck up bandwidth.

I have seen what other programmers have accomplished with the same hardware. Graphics are poor and don't scale well at all with newer Video cards. Clouds/smoke/particle rendition is bad at best. Flight physics doesn't include basic stall characteristics and planes drop out of the sky with little reguard to how the plane is balanced or airflow effects from falling, it is almost like they are in a vaccuum.

I will just leave it at we disagree. :ernae:
Click to expand...

Major, like Brett said, when you are looking at coding for most other games they are coded in much smaller area then compiled with other parts-and you can add much more detail, that of course doesn't apply to every game. I like water in Far Cry better than the water in FSX, though you can change the water in FSX with addon texturing.

If you look at the coding in FSX it is rather unique-limited a bit in places you wouldn't expect which why I agree with Brett-a B- is appropriate. It looks somewhat rushed. It could have been truly awesome, but you know how corporations work. They want a return on their money(labor and materials) spent as quickly as possible.

To accomplish something like A2A has accomplished you have go beyond the scope of the SDK and do your own programming, but the unique part is that you can and you can make FSX accept it-WOW! Anyway, like you said, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Ted
 
There are many parts with FSX which is just plain sloppy and poor and that is how it handles autogen. The truth is that while FSX is great when you get it working its just extremely poorly optimized and wastes more system resources than it has to.
 
I would think that I'm someone thought they could do better job at coding maybe they should apply for a job with the FSX team..........? Just a thought. Perfection is easier said than done.
 
If I can weigh in here -

FSX developement - like all other flight sims - is designed as if being pulled in three directions at once...

One - is always the eye candy - for some reason that always gets first priority in flight sims...probably because flight is a heavily visual sensation / experience...ok

Two - is 'realism' - which means different things to different people - or many things to different people depending on who you ask....for instance - to me realism means accurate flight dynamics, accurate ATC communications, accurate and dynamic weather forces and depiction, accurate aircraft models with realistic and varied damage models etc... to you it is likely different and in different order.

Three - is what the developers themselves want to code into it...lets face it this kind of programming contains a certain artistry and all artists want to express themselves in some ways - also - in the case of FSX there was a high corporate priority or rather the necesssity to start with the whole virtual world and that has to take alot of resources right off the top...but for ACES it was a precondition as it is the foundation of M/S's other virtual world sims like TrainSim and their commercial application which I don't remember the name of just now...

I like some of the things FSX does and others not so much...

It is fairly bloated though and not as efficient maybe as it might have been - I think all of M/S software suffers from the compartmentalisaton of their developements in this regard - Phil Taylor alluded to it many times before he left ACES...

But for what FSX does well - it is a great diversion and I love to fly within its friendly confines...but confined it is, that fact is undeniable.
I think the compromises they made for gameplay are acceptable based on what the program costs as others have said, but I would have prioritised certain things differently - I think its safe to say we all have our own ideas on what they could have done better (or worse) and I also think it is safe to say that there will always be for the forseeable future anyways.
 
I'm glad we are able to change most things to our liking. It seems they missed a lot of the simple things though that can add greatly to your simming experience.
 
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