AVSIM Special Feature FS2002 Preview By Matt Johnson | |||||
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Earlier today, I went to Microsoft's London office to meet Darryl Saunders, Product Manager for the forthcoming Flight Simulator 2002, and see a late-alpha version of the software being demonstrated. I was fortunate enough to have an hour and a quarter looking at the software and discussing its features with Darryl.
FS2002 uses a reworked rendering engine based on that used in Combat Flight Simulator 2, providing significant gains in performance, and several new rendering features that were unavailable in FS2000. It would probably be fair to say that you can expect FS2002 to render frames at a similar speed to CFS2, and probably a little better. The minimum system requirements will be a 300MHz system, and a 3D card is now mandatory.
The machine used for the demonstration was a 900MHz Pentium III laptop, with 128Mb RAM and a GeForce2 "Go" card. The frame rates were very flyable with the graphical detail sliders all set at maximum, and are definitely better than FS2000 on the same machine—but they certainly weren't in the 50fps range. Many of the options for setting graphical detail are similar to those in CFS2 and FS2000, with the notable addition of a "Target Frame Rate" slider, allowing you to specify a preferred frame rate and have FS manage the detail levels for you.
Darryl was unsure whether hardware T&L – a feature provided on the newest generation of graphics cards such as the GeForce 3 – was going to be explicitly supported; but since FS2002 will use and require the DirectX8 API, cards which have hardware DirectX8 support will most probably provide improved performance over other cards.
I was told in no uncertain terms that "FS2002 will run better than FS2000 on your current machine." Darryl said that the development team had taken on board the criticism regarding the amount of processing power that was needed to run FS2000 at a reasonable level of graphical detail, and stated that FS2002 was "vastly improved [in this sense] ... performance is job one."
Another major impetus for the development team has been to fix as many bugs as possible of those found in FS2000. All the airports that suffered from either being "underground" – for example, several of the Hawaiian airports; or placed on "hollow" textures such as Catalina Island in the U.S. – have been fixed, as have the problems with taxiing and parking when winds were in use. Changing views within the cockpit has also been made instantaneous, rather than needing to wait several seconds for the view to load as in FS2000.
As part of this interface change, creating and selecting flights has completely changed from the method used in FS2000. Creating a flight is now a four stage process: selecting the aircraft, choosing your start location, setting the weather for the flight, and choosing the time and season in which to fly.
Selecting an aircraft is now much easier than in previous FS versions. In response to a long-standing wish by many simmers, aircraft are now organized hierarchically by manufacturer, model and variation, which in practice generally means livery. Add-on developers can add to this hierarchy easily, particularly with the inclusion in the Professional Version of FSedit, a dedicated aircraft, panel and sound design program for FS2002. At this stage, the tail number, call sign and flight number of your aircraft can be set, which will be used in ATC communications. Also, on aircraft that support it, the tail number will be textured onto the aircraft.
Choosing a start location is better too. The information displayed while selecting an airport is far more verbose, so you can clearly see whether you're choosing San Jose, Spain or San Jose, California. The starting locations on each airport are also significantly improved—all airports offer an extra two selections "Active Runway" and "Apron," and several major airports also offer starting locations at specific gates. Darryl said that new locations could be added to the menus by developers, without necessarily needing to build entirely new scenery files.
There is little to say about the weather support for FS2002, as it is very similar to that provided by FS2000, including the ability to download real weather from the Internet. A major addition however is that winds aloft are now realistically modeled and supported by the simulation.
Selecting a predefined flight has also been updated. No longer is there a monolithic list to choose from, but a set of categories, under which are lists of flights. The range of flights provided out-of-the-box has been greatly expanded—part of the development team's wish to get new pilots flying with FS2002, as has the amount of description relating to each flight. Situations new to FS2002 also have a "flight briefing" screen, which explains the skill set needed to fly the situation, and what is expected to happen in greater detail.
When we actually get to click the "Fly Now" button and start the simulator, the progress dialog displayed while the simulation is loading has also been made significantly more informative. It now displays exactly what is being loaded, such as scenery textures, texture mesh data and AI aircraft.
The AI aircraft (previously known as "dynamic scenery") have also been significantly improved. These aircraft can be heard on ATC and will do as ATC tells them, and the number of AI aircraft can be changed during the flight creation process. If you've ever wanted to fly around a busy class B on FS without being online, FS2002 will provide you with the chance.
The built-in ATC features look impressive. The interface is a tinted-transparent window, offering number-key based selections—as has become the norm in other simulators. The speech synthesis sounds realistic—especially given that the pilot's voice can be changed. It seems to be richly featured, with clearances, changes of flight rules, changes of frequency and vectoring all implemented, and no doubt also many other features that were not demonstrated today.
As a major part of the ATC system, FS2002 also provides Progressive Taxi support. For example, if ATC gives a complex taxi clearance: "Taxi to runway 27R by C E G B" – you (the pilot) can ask for a progressive taxi. The simulator then displays a dynamically updating purple line, indicating the taxi route to follow to the runway.
The new rendering and scenery engine used in FS2002 is extremely obvious, and provides plenty for the virtual pilot to enjoy. As Darryl put it, "there's plenty of eye candy". The contrails produced by heavy aircraft at altitude are simply awesome, as are the other visual effects. The clouds have also been vastly improved, with better translucency effects at a negligible loss of frame rate. Another improvement is that FS2002 ships with a worldwide terrain mesh. The resolution of the mesh varies according to the data that the developers were able to obtain, but the results are visually stunning, especially in mountainous areas. The texturing in such areas is also partially dynamic—the texture engine examines the terrain mesh and applies a suitable texture depending on the gradient at that point. The upshot of this is no more green mountains—the texturing engine now knows to apply a rocky or snowy texture (as height or season befits) to steep areas of land.
The water rendering, moreover, is something to behold. With the addition of the Cessna Caravan amphibious aircraft to FS2002, water landings finally become possible. Darryl took us for a brief flight in the amphibious Caravan around the islands of Hawaii, and it quickly became clear that the water texturing and rendering was extremely impressive. Not only does water colour now vary according to the depth at that point, but waves now foam and break on the shoreline, and the water can be seen to move and wash! Landing the Caravan on water was also an impressive affair, with spray and wake being generated in the water around the aircraft and even water splashing on the cockpit windshield! Furthermore, while the Caravan is on water, it will bob around – as in real life.
Dynamic lighting is also significantly improved. Reflections off suitably textured buildings and aircraft are visible and realistic, while shadows and lighting effects have been completely overhauled. Dusk finally has an effect inside the cockpit and on the light cast onto the aircraft as seen from an external view—I can foresee many people enjoying twilight flights with FS2002! The look of the "normal" cockpit and virtual cockpit on the smaller aircraft is nearly identical, but the development team have used what appear to be slightly different (and less cluttered!) virtual cockpit layouts on the heavy iron. This is, from my point of view, a good move—it was still possible to fly a heavy and scan the instruments in the virtual view. Furthermore, the virtual cockpit does not cause a frame rate hit —indeed, using it seemed to make the simulation more fluid, but this may be an optical illusion. The only downside is that the instruments in virtual cockpit mode cannot be manipulated by the mouse. In both panels, any "analogue" gauge now provides its digital readout in a tooltip.
Pilots can now pushback realistically too. There will be a key binding (by default <Ctrl><P>) which places the aircraft into "pushback mode," where the direction of push can be controlled by mouse selection.
A new option on the Flight menu in-simulator is "End Flight," which terminates the flight and returns you to the menu—after having offered you the opportunity to view some analysis data of the flight. Flight analysis is now always-on, and has been enhanced to three dimensions—not only covering course tracking, but also altitude tracking.
In addition to the simulator proper, the Professional version also ships with two editing packages: FSedit for aircraft, and gMax to assist in the creation of scenery. gMax wasn't available for demonstration today, but I got to look at FSedit. Let me tell you now: FSedit will be the dream of aircraft repainters, panel designers and flight dynamics gurus everywhere! The editor provides a graphical interface to the panel design process, possibly including drag-and-drop gauge placement and import of backgrounds from various graphic formats. Liveries for new and existing aircraft can be added easily via FSedit, and aircraft can have their flight dynamics modified, and event sounds changed all via a hierarchical system.
The packaging will vary depending on where you buy it, but there will still be two "versions" – Standard and Professional. In the United States, you will find FS2002 in a normal "sierra" box, similar to that used with FS2000. However, in Europe and the UK, both editions of FS2002 will be shipped in a specially-manufactured DVD-factor box to hold 3 CDs. Steve McGill, the UK Marketing Manager responsible for Flight Simulator said that this was a necessity, since larger stockists here in the UK and Europe would simply refuse to stock software in the "sierra" boxes, and that the vast majority of new MS releases would be in DVD-factor cases.
However, no matter what box your FS2002 comes in, it will certainly be a deal lighter than FS2000. There will be no heavy printed manual in either version—only a quick start guide is to be provided in hard copy. All the manuals are to be available on the CD, or after installation on the hard disk, in PDF format, with the manuals accessible from within FS2002. In addition to the manuals, extensive "Additional Help" and several "Flight Articles" have been built into the product.
Darryl also said that as many add-ons as possible, particularly commercial add-ons, had been tested with FS2002 during the internal alpha phase, and that backward compatibility would be on a "best effort" basis—however, from Darryl's remarks, the signs are good that the vast majority of FS2000 add-ons will function with little or no modification under FS2002.
As far as release progress and the all-important dates are concerned, I was told that the beta release for FS2002 had been finalized yesterday and was going to press this weekend, with release to beta testers in the next two weeks. The release dates are tentatively set for 17th October in the United States, 26th October in the UK and around 3rd November in the rest of Europe—however, these dates are by no means guaranteed.
When asked about an SDK, Darryl expected a release around 60 days after the US product—so, given the above shipping dates, developers may well get an early Christmas present! The SDK is "brand new," with hooks added for the new FS2002 features; however, it is unclear whether the detail requested by some developers will be available. That said, the FS2002 SDK will expand upon the FS2000 SDK, and any features that were available in the FS2000 SDK will be available in the FS2002 SDK.
So, the question on everyone's lips is: "Will FS2002 be the ultimate flight simulator of 2001?" From what I've seen today, the answer is likely to be "yes." Given that we are just about to enter the beta phase, FS2002 appeared remarkably stable and appeared to be approaching the state of a polished product. I fear that the wild hopes of some that FS2002 would run like the wind on low-spec machines will prove a little over-optimistic, however, there is no question that the performance of FS2002 is streets ahead of that in FS2000, and that the additional features in the new product will certainly act as a great attraction for both new flight simulation pilots, and established pilots alike.
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