M$ flight simulator
- Thread starter greenie
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bazzar
Charter Member 2018
Why is it that whenever something new and exciting pokes up over the horizon, people go running for cover? Microsoft is a very large, experienced, professional organisation that doesn't do things lightly. Yes they made mistakes with Flight but they obviously have the confidence in the market and community to forge on with this next generation game.
I really do not think that MS will be ignoring the greater percentage of developers and community support who have assisted greatly in maintaining the FS franchise for decades. Why would they do that? They have already shown us that they intend to have some level of compatibility with existing assets and that an off-line version will be made available in which these assets can be used.
To suggest that developers will "die" is ridiculous. Most good developers will adjust, adopt and adapt. Just like they have done for years with all the other platforms that were never going to fly.
So will people keep buying product for the other platforms? Of course they will - for two very good reasons that have nothing to do with logic or common sense - "ooh new shiny thing!" and good old curiosity. Those who are going to 'stick" with their existing platforms will still want new stuff or are we all going to stop here and not upgrade anything? Come on. People are still making things for FS8 and 9 for heaven's sake.
There will be a requirement for devs to learn new tricks but that's nothing new. We already have the material and equipment to do this - Microsoft have already said so. My guess is that we will be working with adapting existing work for the fastest response and redeveloping other subjects to match quality expectations. So what's new or difficult about that?
At AH, we are embracing this bold, new world. We can't afford not to. But that isn't the real reason. It's because this is the best thing we've seen in this hobby for a very long time. Do I want to be part of that?
You bet.
I really do not think that MS will be ignoring the greater percentage of developers and community support who have assisted greatly in maintaining the FS franchise for decades. Why would they do that? They have already shown us that they intend to have some level of compatibility with existing assets and that an off-line version will be made available in which these assets can be used.
To suggest that developers will "die" is ridiculous. Most good developers will adjust, adopt and adapt. Just like they have done for years with all the other platforms that were never going to fly.
So will people keep buying product for the other platforms? Of course they will - for two very good reasons that have nothing to do with logic or common sense - "ooh new shiny thing!" and good old curiosity. Those who are going to 'stick" with their existing platforms will still want new stuff or are we all going to stop here and not upgrade anything? Come on. People are still making things for FS8 and 9 for heaven's sake.
There will be a requirement for devs to learn new tricks but that's nothing new. We already have the material and equipment to do this - Microsoft have already said so. My guess is that we will be working with adapting existing work for the fastest response and redeveloping other subjects to match quality expectations. So what's new or difficult about that?
At AH, we are embracing this bold, new world. We can't afford not to. But that isn't the real reason. It's because this is the best thing we've seen in this hobby for a very long time. Do I want to be part of that?
You bet.
BendyFlyer
Charter Member
I can only agree Bazzar. I am signed up to the FlightSim 2020 Insiders and have been not looking at the lovely but listening to various discussions by the development team. It is clear to me that they are or have addressing all the issues that made FSX and Steam so difficult. i.e Direct X and 32 bit and the base O/S environment. Ignoring the hype about Petabytes of this and that it is clear they have taken a completly different approach to the world model and build up a simulator environment based on a very wide spectrum of real world data. They are also incorporating a lot of new software via third parties and partnerships with those firms to rebuild the very model engine and the dynamics of the new environment vis a vis cloud, weather generation, wave generation etc etc. They are clearly exploiting the considerable capabilitie of the latest graphical capacity via DX11 etc. They seemed sincere when they said or hinted that MS had dropped the ball on Flight Sim ( that means they suddenly realised they got rid of about 20 million customers - ooops!)
The aim as I understand it is essentially ONLINE but they are also have recognised the variable band and internet speeds so are employing a cache system so even if you want to go use it offline a basic cache will provide the basics and the basics are pretty good from the videos I have seen.
Memory and Internet Bandwith are the key issues for all of us. The offline cache is about 68GB as the team said in a discussion there is no point in downloading the whole world (The Petabyte thing) but the bit your flying in or to and from which makes it a whole more manageable. The specs for the PC being used or demonstrated on are nothing super just a high quality modern multicore processor and reasonable RAM etc nothing more than is required for P3D.
They are being cagey about the sim models either as default or add on flight models and I guess my reasoning is the new sim engine will not run say an FSX model without some serious rebuiding and work because the new engine takes into account a large number of dynamic variables aerodynamically, not that there not known but just they are keeping the real world approach they have taken to the scenery to the sim model behaviour in it. They have said nothing about AI or the Living World aspect (ships, animals cars ground vehicles etc. ) so no idea what they have in mind there. That being said the current default list is basically similar to FSX, a couple of jets, a couple of lighties, a glider and an old piston (the DC3).
My gut feeling is it will ship as a base operating system with sim-internet connectivity and file architecture that will give some stuff but not a lot enough for the data transfer to then fill in the gaps so to speak. Whether that will be via a license or pay as you go process they are not saying.
My major concern is not new hardwared my rig is due for replacement anyway but internet connectivity and for a lot of folk all over the planet that is a major issue either you cannot get the bandwith or you cannot get the speeds needed. I guess if you live in Silicon Valley it will be great but rural Australia for example, forget it it will never work the internet is too flaky and too slow to do it.
I think listening to the Development Team talk they have had carte blanche to make this thing work and work in the 21st Century and I like their approach and what they have done but when all is said and done if you want that level of realism which they will deliver then you need Petabytes of data stored somewhere because the world is a very big place indeed. Getting it in chunks as you need it is fine by me.
Yes I am impressed and yes I will stick with FSX for the foreseeable future and I actually lookfoward to getting the world and its environments in one package after all with al the scenery addons I have bought or sourced my FSX world is pretty close to half a terrabyte anyway so the numbers they quote are fine.
Price? Who knows it won't be cheap but it won't be expensive either probably about current X-Box rates I would say after the initial base software package purchase.
The aim as I understand it is essentially ONLINE but they are also have recognised the variable band and internet speeds so are employing a cache system so even if you want to go use it offline a basic cache will provide the basics and the basics are pretty good from the videos I have seen.
Memory and Internet Bandwith are the key issues for all of us. The offline cache is about 68GB as the team said in a discussion there is no point in downloading the whole world (The Petabyte thing) but the bit your flying in or to and from which makes it a whole more manageable. The specs for the PC being used or demonstrated on are nothing super just a high quality modern multicore processor and reasonable RAM etc nothing more than is required for P3D.
They are being cagey about the sim models either as default or add on flight models and I guess my reasoning is the new sim engine will not run say an FSX model without some serious rebuiding and work because the new engine takes into account a large number of dynamic variables aerodynamically, not that there not known but just they are keeping the real world approach they have taken to the scenery to the sim model behaviour in it. They have said nothing about AI or the Living World aspect (ships, animals cars ground vehicles etc. ) so no idea what they have in mind there. That being said the current default list is basically similar to FSX, a couple of jets, a couple of lighties, a glider and an old piston (the DC3).
My gut feeling is it will ship as a base operating system with sim-internet connectivity and file architecture that will give some stuff but not a lot enough for the data transfer to then fill in the gaps so to speak. Whether that will be via a license or pay as you go process they are not saying.
My major concern is not new hardwared my rig is due for replacement anyway but internet connectivity and for a lot of folk all over the planet that is a major issue either you cannot get the bandwith or you cannot get the speeds needed. I guess if you live in Silicon Valley it will be great but rural Australia for example, forget it it will never work the internet is too flaky and too slow to do it.
I think listening to the Development Team talk they have had carte blanche to make this thing work and work in the 21st Century and I like their approach and what they have done but when all is said and done if you want that level of realism which they will deliver then you need Petabytes of data stored somewhere because the world is a very big place indeed. Getting it in chunks as you need it is fine by me.
Yes I am impressed and yes I will stick with FSX for the foreseeable future and I actually lookfoward to getting the world and its environments in one package after all with al the scenery addons I have bought or sourced my FSX world is pretty close to half a terrabyte anyway so the numbers they quote are fine.
Price? Who knows it won't be cheap but it won't be expensive either probably about current X-Box rates I would say after the initial base software package purchase.
It amuses me when people regard backward compatibility as a criteria in getting Microsoft Flight Simulator, as well as those who feel it important to tell the community that they will no longer buy any more add-ons for their sims for the next year or so.
Seriously guys, we dont actually care if you stop your purchases.
Backward compatibility?? I'm sure you are aware that FSX aircraft's flight characteristics are using a single contact reference point as compared to the 1000 per surface that the MSFS's aircraft will have? Consider the new sim as being a totally new sim!
Also, the comment that MSFS will kill P3D... I'm sure that all are aware that P3D is a commercial product, used for training, & not for entertainment? Yes, LM does allow that do not qualify to purchase, whereas MSFS, as per the T's & C's, is NOT for commercial use, therefoe is an entertainment product? Therefore 2x sims for 2 different markets?
Bazzar tells it like it is, Good words there!
So, please, We are not really interested if you are going to stop buying add-ons, or if you are not going to buy the new sim because of streaming issues, if it will only work on Windows 10, if there's no VR on release, etc.. Guys, we getting a new sim in about a years time....
Seriously guys, we dont actually care if you stop your purchases.
Backward compatibility?? I'm sure you are aware that FSX aircraft's flight characteristics are using a single contact reference point as compared to the 1000 per surface that the MSFS's aircraft will have? Consider the new sim as being a totally new sim!
Also, the comment that MSFS will kill P3D... I'm sure that all are aware that P3D is a commercial product, used for training, & not for entertainment? Yes, LM does allow that do not qualify to purchase, whereas MSFS, as per the T's & C's, is NOT for commercial use, therefoe is an entertainment product? Therefore 2x sims for 2 different markets?
Bazzar tells it like it is, Good words there!
So, please, We are not really interested if you are going to stop buying add-ons, or if you are not going to buy the new sim because of streaming issues, if it will only work on Windows 10, if there's no VR on release, etc.. Guys, we getting a new sim in about a years time....
Hopefully helicopters will come along at some point, the world environment being shown would be very good for helicopter flying.
As far as P3D goes, I was involved in a particular Corsair project, not sure how many Corsair pilots we are training?
That the emphasis is on scenery and no one seems to have commented on flight dynamics I am not holding my breath. FSX etc were OK and we learned to deal with them and certainly we learned how to make many work arounds to deal with weak points. In theory one could say that an airplane basically acts around a point, the CG, but this did lead to some limitations, especially in tail draggers. With some luck items such as multi stage supercharging, jet engine thrust, EPR, ground friction, lateral friction and braking will be much improved.
I hope that they don't go subscription model. It's the surest way to loose customers, giving them a constant reminder that they can evaluate and opt out.
As far as P3D goes, I was involved in a particular Corsair project, not sure how many Corsair pilots we are training?
That the emphasis is on scenery and no one seems to have commented on flight dynamics I am not holding my breath. FSX etc were OK and we learned to deal with them and certainly we learned how to make many work arounds to deal with weak points. In theory one could say that an airplane basically acts around a point, the CG, but this did lead to some limitations, especially in tail draggers. With some luck items such as multi stage supercharging, jet engine thrust, EPR, ground friction, lateral friction and braking will be much improved.
I hope that they don't go subscription model. It's the surest way to loose customers, giving them a constant reminder that they can evaluate and opt out.
J.Case
Members +
I've got no clue what you're talkin' about
- or to put more plainly: that's exactly what I thought....I wouldn't put too much into the lack of fde comments though: how many guys with PPL/ATP have flown the new sim up to now ?And all 2 of them seemed fairly convinced about the touch and feel....
I do see a lot of oportunities on the other side of the cockpit door/the black curtain though......
Espacially for 3rd party developers: I'm still frozen in awe about the B-26 of Shupe Industries and one can only dream of what this would do to a B-24 or Halifax or Shakleton or Orion or.... Interiors that would either be redicously simplyfied due to vector constrains or slow the fps to a crawl with all those VCs. There are ways around that - just not out of the box.
Flying straight and level would then only be the choice of airline pilots - great!
Btw: Do we know anything about the roadmap for p3d ? V5 is about due!?
You won't need 2 petabytes of local storage. They have it all stored in the Azure Cloud. It will be streamed on-demand as you fly along, as long as you are on-line.
For off-line use, simply pre-cache your departure airport and your destination airport. Allow the sim to use the default off-line scenery in between the two. At anything over 5k feet, there will be enough detail to use.
paiken
SOH-CM-2023
I'm all in. Been virtually flying Microsoft Flight Simulators since the 1980's on my trusty old Apple IIc (I still have that computer. Sadly the floppy disk died some time back in the early 90's. I have a version around here somewhere that I can run on a virtual machine). I'm just gonna sit back and watch people go thru the usual bickering and moaning about how Microsoft this and Microsoft that and just enjoy a chuckle to myself about how completely awesome that first Flight Simulator was in its day. Don't even ask about the frame rates!
Bomber_12th
SOH-CM-2023
I'm already feeling quite anxious for its release, even though it hasn't even reached the alpha stage yet, let alone beta. I've watched this video already probably a dozen times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmoG8jgdQvQ and listening to Froogle discuss his experiences with using the sim last month has me ever more interested and confident that it is going to be a fantastic program (and I'm glad that a bit of information about the specs of the computers that Microsoft are using to run the sim were leaked, as I can begin gauging my next computer purchase). Even from these early glimpses it is visually just so far and above any other flying sim out there, and I don't see any of the other sims heading in a direction that would approach the level it is at already - the very complex lighting and atmospherics, all interconnected/working together, perhaps impresses me the most, but also impressive is the incredible draw distance of the scenery and clouds, the 3d trees and accurate density of trees, the satellite-produced real scenery the world over (in incredibly high resolution in some regions), with proper buildings and trees drawn from that satellite imagery, the authentic look of water, sky and clouds, etc. Other than assuming it will require a subscription to run in online mode, its checking all my boxes (even with a subscription cost, I'm sure many of us will still be saving money by not buying scenery/weather/sky/cloud addons since it won't need those). I'm really looking forward to seeing what the complete list is of the 400 cities that are covered by photogrammetry.
rhumbaflappy
Charter Member
I think the new sim will get a lot of grins when we get the release version. Very much looking forward to it.
I seem to remember, back in those days, frame rates weren't invented yet ??....
My first ever Flight Sim was called 'Night Flight' on a Sinclair 48K Spectrum. Very good naming choice because 'the scenery' consisted of 2 rows of 12 white dots (may have been even 16..) representing the runway, rest was pitch black. A couple rudimentary instruments including ADF to help find the runway. I was in extacy finding it for the first time because i knew diddly squat about aerial navigation. Loved it to death ! I pinch myself everyday to check i'm not dreaming about Microsoft picking up its once beloved Flight Simulator franchise where it was abandoned years ago in such unbelievable gobsmacking way. ( it does seem to be too good to be true, doesn't it...)
bazzar
Charter Member 2018
Spitfire 40 was my first flight sim. Played on a tape drive Amstrad. Couldn't wait for the tape to stop graunching away and I could see the pea green screen with a flock of tiny dots coming my way. A straight single line for a runway. Hitting the dots gave a surprising amount of satisfaction...
This also was my first sim along with a program I think was called “Air Mail” or something like that. You had to fly three different places to deliver mail. Wire frames, black backround and a frame rate of .02 on my trusty Atari 800.I seem to remember, back in those days, frame rates weren't invented yet ??....
My first ever Flight Sim was called 'Night Flight' on a Sinclair 48K Spectrum. Very good naming choice because 'the scenery' consisted of 2 rows of 12 white dots (may have been even 16..) representing the runway, rest was pitch black. A couple rudimentary instruments including ADF to help find the runway. I was in extacy finding it for the first time because i knew diddly squat about aerial navigation. Loved it to death ! I pinch myself everyday to check i'm not dreaming about Microsoft picking up its once beloved Flight Simulator franchise where it was abandoned years ago in such unbelievable gobsmacking way. ( it does seem to be too good to be true, doesn't it...)
Thanks, DR ! A wonderful trip down 48K memory lane !!
(someone i met in the pub lent me his Commodore64 including a tape of Sublogic Flight Simulator II. Didn't mean anything to him. I was deeply in love. That was the end of my beloved Spectrum. I bought the, by then, brandnew Atari ST.
)
This was my first, came with my 48k
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001797
This is the one I remember playing most,
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002183
This was the most impressive,
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001752
How about getting one of these?
https://www.specnext.com
I remember giving my 128k+2 fully boxed with mouse, joysticks and hundreds of games away to a friend, what an idiot I was.
PS. for Baz, https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004763
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001797
This is the one I remember playing most,
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002183
This was the most impressive,
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001752
How about getting one of these?
https://www.specnext.com
I remember giving my 128k+2 fully boxed with mouse, joysticks and hundreds of games away to a friend, what an idiot I was.
PS. for Baz, https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004763
wombat666
Administrator
I really feel like a noob!
My first sim was IL2 Pacific Fighters, purchased primarily as a gesture of support to the developer as I read where some 'Corporate-Bloody-Lawyers' employed by one of the major manufacturers were attempting to sue the devs for using the name of a long obsolete aircraft built by defunct company.
That lead me to CFS2 - CFS3 - FS2002 and so it continued.
I never really got that enthused about IL2 but I made a small point.
My first sim was IL2 Pacific Fighters, purchased primarily as a gesture of support to the developer as I read where some 'Corporate-Bloody-Lawyers' employed by one of the major manufacturers were attempting to sue the devs for using the name of a long obsolete aircraft built by defunct company.
That lead me to CFS2 - CFS3 - FS2002 and so it continued.
I never really got that enthused about IL2 but I made a small point.