New March screen shots.......!

[Gibbage 199]

also, this mumbo-jumbo about how performance is somehow being affected because Flight and the old FS series is "representing" the whole world is getting a little old to say the least. Flight/FS "Representing" the whole world - Yes. the "whole world being drawn" while making a flt. from "JFK to LAX" in Flight/FS - i don't think so.

I have got to call BS on this. Name me a few game engines that can allow you to fly from New York to London without a single loading screen? Most of today's game engines dont even let you cross the street without a loading screen! Even some of the bigger and heftier game engines like Crysis or GTA IV can only have something the size of a small island! There are many many reasons for that. First, all major game engines render the world as FLAT. Crysis, Unreal, all of them have flat worlds. That wont do. How the big FPS games get away with such good GFX is they brake things up into bite size chunks about the size of a city block. Taking off from JFK in the Unreal engine would take you through 5 loading screens alone. A "big" game engine like Crysis would be able to render about the small Island of Kauai, but not the bigger ones. Also, none of them have complex flight systems in to calculate basic things like drag, lift, gravity, weight and how they effect an aircraft, let alone complex things like engine management, fuel systems, and electrical systems. These systems would CRIPPLE even the most robust video game engines, but somehow FSX and its previous versions have been able to do it. Flight sim engines may not be able to compete visually with the likes of FPS engines, but the most modern FPS engines could never EVER do what FSX or even FS98 does. If you expect Crysis GFX with the complexity's of a flight model and all the other systems, with no load screens, your out of your mind. Why should you trust me? Because I have worked on many game engines. Unreal, Crysis, IL2, CFS, FSX, and many many more. The buity of FSX is not in what you see, but what goes on behind the screen. Outerra is visualy impressive, but we will see how it performs when you have more then 4 tiled textures, and a boat load of complex systems.

[Mike T 211]

I have to call BS on your calling BS. You are confusing "loading" with "rendering". FS "loads" everything that "can" be displayed only once which is why you can fly from N.Y. to Sydney non-stop without seeing a loading screen. However, once everything is loaded, NOT everything is displayed. The framerates you get while sitting at JFK has nothing to do with anything outside of your scenery area. You cannot blame too much AI traffic in Sydney as the reason you are getting poor frame rates in NYC! The mountains in Tibet are NOT affecting your frame rates as you pass over Hawaii during your trip! The number of AI aircraft in London don't have any effect on your frame rate as you approach Sydney.FS ingeniously swaps scenery in and out of the visible display area. This EXACTLY why AI trees "pop" into focus when you get close enough....they weren't rendered until you were close enough to see them and the scenery engine rendered them onscreen. This is also why you can get pauses when approaching photoreal areas or heavily customized airports which is the time it takes for the engine to render the objects but it is simply too much for the cpu, memory, hard drive and video card to keep up with.One of the biggest misconceptions AND stupidest excuses for poor performance in FSX is that it "loads the whole world." Yes, it loads the whole world, but it does NOT render the whole world at the same time. If that were the case, if you added a new high density airport with 100% AI traffic on the other side of the world, it would immediately affect your frame rates on the opposite side of the world...which, it does NOT.

[n4gix 4,955]

One of the biggest misconceptions AND stupidest excuses for poor performance in FSX is that it "loads the whole world." Yes, it loads the whole world, but it does NOT render the whole world at the same time. If that were the case, if you added a new high density airport with 100% AI traffic on the other side of the world, it would immediately affect your frame rates on the opposite side of the world...which, it does NOT.

Mike, while what you've stated might* be true, it's missing the point. Even if FS does "load the whole world" it couldn't possibly "load the whole world" with the same level of detail as any given FPS game......completely irrespective of the rendering system. :( *NOTE BENE: I say "might" only because none of us are privy to the actual source code or the internal process of FS. We are all forced to speculate based on retroductive reasoning, which -truth to tell- is very often just another way to be wrong with confidence! :(

[Gibbage 199]

One of the biggest misconceptions AND stupidest excuses for poor performance in FSX is that it "loads the whole world." Yes, it loads the whole world, but it does NOT render the whole world at the same time. If that were the case, if you added a new high density airport with 100% AI traffic on the other side of the world, it would immediately affect your frame rates on the opposite side of the world...which, it does NOT.

There is a big differance between pre-loading the world, and the ability to stream the world. What FSX has done is called streaming. It means it loads small bits of the world as you approach them. It even pre-calculates what it needs to stream based on your direction, altitude, and speed. This streaming is not possible in all games and is a very advanced tech. Thats why most other games have load area's. They simply cant stream the data fast enough! Games like Unreal and Crysis must pre-load the world, so they are limited to small area's at a time that can fit into your RAM, or the RAM of a console (about 512mb). The only game that I have seen do some type of streaming was Just Cause 2, and it only had an area about the size of Hawaii, and its aircraft FM was crap. BTW, Yes, FSX does indeed load the entire world. Its a very low resolution world, but its there. If you slew fast enough, you can fly around the world faster then it can load as proof that. How much game development in differant game engines do you have BTW? Just wondering what your basing your statement on.

[hisuleiman 0]

I have got to call BS on this. Name me a few game engines that can allow you to fly from New York to London without a single loading screen? Most of today's game engines dont even let you cross the street without a loading screen! Even some of the bigger and heftier game engines like Crysis or GTA IV can only have something the size of a small island! There are many many reasons for that. First, all major game engines render the world as FLAT. Crysis, Unreal, all of them have flat worlds. That wont do. How the big FPS games get away with such good GFX is they brake things up into bite size chunks about the size of a city block. Taking off from JFK in the Unreal engine would take you through 5 loading screens alone. A "big" game engine like Crysis would be able to render about the small Island of Kauai, but not the bigger ones. Also, none of them have complex flight systems in to calculate basic things like drag, lift, gravity, weight and how they effect an aircraft, let alone complex things like engine management, fuel systems, and electrical systems. These systems would CRIPPLE even the most robust video game engines, but somehow FSX and its previous versions have been able to do it. Flight sim engines may not be able to compete visually with the likes of FPS engines, but the most modern FPS engines could never EVER do what FSX or even FS98 does. If you expect Crysis GFX with the complexity's of a flight model and all the other systems, with no load screens, your out of your mind. Why should you trust me? Because I have worked on many game engines. Unreal, Crysis, IL2, CFS, FSX, and many many more. The buity of FSX is not in what you see, but what goes on behind the screen. Outerra is visualy impressive, but we will see how it performs when you have more then 4 tiled textures, and a boat load of complex systems.

My god man! No one is saying MS Flight should be Crysis! Ultra high settings on Crysis and the game could hardly break playable frame-rates on the greatest of PCs; it's as extreme of an example as you can get. Games of the like focus on the most minuscule of details which would be utterly and completely unnecessary in a large-scale environment such as flight simulator. Why does it have to be either MS Flight or Crysis in your mind? If you can't recognize how low quality (/disappointing) a lot of the game aspects are, the potential it has/its need for more improvements, and that these more improvements won't turn your fps into Metro 2033 on very high settings, than nothing in the world can convince you otherwise. Basically, the terrain, effects, textures, etc. we see in MS Flight will be as good as they can offer. Really?

[Gibbage 199]

My god man! No one is saying MS Flight should be Crysis! Ultra high settings on Crysis and the game could hardly break playable frame-rates on the greatest of PCs; it's as extreme of an example as you can get. Games of the like focus on the most minuscule of details which would be utterly and completely unnecessary in a large-scale environment such as flight simulator. Why does it have to be either MS Flight or Crysis in your mind? If you can't recognize how low quality (/disappointing) a lot of the game aspects are, the potential it has/its need for more improvements, and that these more improvements won't turn your fps into Metro 2033 on very high settings, than nothing in the world can convince you otherwise. Basically, the terrain, effects, textures, etc. we see in MS Flight will be as good as they can offer. Really?

I dont see the low quality your speaking of. I can only comment on the few screen shots and promo video's, and they dont show much, but what they do show, is vastly improved over FSX. Yes, you can get close to that quality with about $200 worth of 3rd party add-on's (GEX, ORBX and on and on and on) in FSX, but I think thats quite a complament. If I can get that level of quality out of the box, then sign me up for TWO copies! Also just think how much FURTHER 3rd party's can take it! Also, Flight sims differ VASTLY from FPS in 1 main area. In a FPS, everything happens in front of the screen. Its all eye candy, with no real function. They dont even calculate bullet drop! In Flight sims, everything happens BEHIND the screen, on your CPU. Calculating the complex dynamics of even the most basic aircraft is very hardware taxing. Then you have to calculate things in the world, like weather and gravity. Fuel systems, gauges, GPS, Radar, all of this eats of a lot of processing power! This is all stuff that "games" dont need to deal with. This stuff is what turns a "Game" into a "SIMULATION". Without that simulation stuff, they can put in more effort into visuals. Im sure you could have a lot more visual detail, but are you really willing to accept less simulation for more GFX? Its all a balancing act, and you cant have it both ways. There is only so much you can do within the constraints of time, money, and hardware. Yes, 3rd party's have done wonders with FSX and visuals, but NOT without massive frame rate hits.

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Before I begin, I'd like to thank all of you for your opinions and keeping this debate civilized. It's pretty shocking, and awesome, that I haven't been raged out of the forums yet (guess I've been on Rivals for too long). I honestly and sincerely hope that MS Flight turns out to be a fantastic game. I would still have FSX installed if it weren't for the inefficiency and the numerous bugs/crashes. Ended up spending more time searching, installing, and uninstalling programs than I did actually flying. But based on what I've seen of Flight, and my own experience following video games, the revamp that we were hoping for doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not the type to convince myself to like something that clearly lacks appeal. Assuming they're there, why is this so significant? Why do we keep dwelling on these soft shadows? It's like marketing a new smartphone for its internet capability. Soft shadows should be a given. Good on you for being appreciative of this but as a potential customer willing to drop $50 on their product, I expect more than peanuts. Yes, as I've mentioned earlier, the game is early in its development and still has room for improvement. But I wouldn't say it's far from definitive. Usually public screenshots like these are a pretty accurate representation of the final product. Or else, why would they release them to the public? Why would the developers release material that could possibly alienate its audience or at best stir doubt? They are trying to impress you! Actually, it may be misleading in the opposite respect. Plus, I've never seen a game that looked drastically more impressive than its early, in-game screenshots released to the public. As for your third paragraph, I couldn't have said it better than FlyinMisfit; that this argument has no bearing on what the graphics could look like.You would be right in stating that there are improvements in every aspect (MS Flight default vs. FSX default). No one, myself included, was ever really disagreeing with you there. I don't think you quite get it though. After witnessing massive graphical improvements and countless brilliant ideas shared around the community since 2006, many of us were foaming at the mouth in anticipation for this game. The game was also marketed in a way that played into our hopes and expectations--a new, revamped flying experience. MS Flight is not any of that; for lack of a better phrase, this was not the change we can believe in. This is more of the same with some peanuts.I'm actually getting a little tired hearing the excuse: it's better than FSX default. I sure as hell hope it is! FSX was made five years ago! I'll reiterate: this ocean does not impress me. If you want a decent ocean model look at Silent Hunter V (2010) (first to come to mind--could be better ones out there). Of course it does not need to be as intense.This couldn't be improved with a simple add-on on FSX?I believe, because you've been accustomed to the add-on business, you forgot the purpose of add-ons. Add-ons provide subtle improvements to the game (e.g. diverse ATC voices, not revamped ground textures cause the default ones are horrid). I shouldn't have to rely on them for a fulfilling flying experience. FYI a "wider audience" most definitely includes the gamers, who frowned upon FSX due to its terrible graphics. Improvements can certainly be made without resulting in another FSX fiasco. I've repeated this several times: we don't need to be as crazy. Anyway, users would have the option to edit the video settings.Is it acceptable that the graphics suffer greatly because they're representing the entire world? Actually, in some ways, yes. You obviously cannot create a planet-sized Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3 environment. But the graphics are simply not up to par with its possible potential. It was pretty obvious to me at first glance.

Then find a new sim, such as X-Plane, as Flight surely won't impress some of you.

[A380 0]

Then find a new sim, such as X-Plane, as Flight surely won't impress some of you.

My god, you are really coming across as an FS Flight a really excited user even before it's been released. :( Surely you must have some criticism of this next gen sim?No one can be as adamant about the pros of this product unless they are part of it! (unless they are trying to be part of it) :(

[Attila 2]

The discussion about FSX's ability to render large areas of the world in high detail seems to be losing sight of a few major points:1. FSX is highly CPU bound. Your high-end video cards are barely used even when you get very high frame rates.2. Shooter type games (FPS) are highly GPU bound. Your high frame rates can chew up a lower-end card very easily.Ergo, the level of detail in FPS games in far higher than in FSX, however the game logic itself is far more demandingin FSX. There is plenty of head-room on our GPUs to display higher quality images, without lowering the frame rate at all.Being able to render a flight seamlessly is not such a big deal. All data is organized as a database for easy search and access. With the relatively slow movement of an AC over terrain it is relatively simple to pre-load the data that will be needed in the near future. FSX could have, but did not offload this job to another CPU core until one of the Service Packs. FSX certainly does not load the WHOLE world at any time, even at low resolution. You can see this if you sit at an airport and change the airport. You now have to wait while FSX loads that part of the world. Slewing demonstrates this as well - FSX is only able to load the scenery at lower resolution as you move faster over terrain. On low-end systems, even turning at a high rate results in lower resolution (blurry) terrain. This is because FSX loads data at low Level Of Detail (LOD) first, and then as it has time, it loads successively higher LOD data.3. There are no visible differences in the simulation between FS9 and FSX, except in the quality of the displayed image. IE: The weather engine seems to be the same, the AI does the same dumb things, flight dynamics are not improved, no new AC systems are simulated, nothing is simulated in higher detail, except the terrain.Having established that we have plenty of GPU power to display high quality frames and established that FS9 and FSX should use roughly the same amount of CPU for the simulation, one has to ask why FSX uses so much more CPU time than FS9.The answer must lie in the fact that FSX does not take advantage of the power of the modern GPUs to render the higher quality images that we are seeing in modern games. It is certainly understandable that a game takes time to load the initial data it needs. In the case of FSX, this would be the data around the AC. After this, however, nothing really changes in FSX from frame to frame in level flight. There should be a huge boost to frame rates as everything should be rendered from GPU RAM by the GPU, with very little input by the CPU.In fact, if you park at an airport, with the engines off, why don't we see significantly higher frame rates? Because the display pipeline is horribly inefficient, that's why. It seems that the FS9 pipeline did not scale well for moving larger amounts of data to the graphics card.The bottom line is that this should be fixable in Flight. There is no reason why a modern graphics card with 1+GB ram and 10x more processing power than cards in 2004 should not render 1600x1200 well in excess of 30 fps. Unless, of course, the Flight development team does not dare to touch the legacy code that has been around since FS2000 or so.Just as an aside, GTA IV has a lot of stuff going on in a scene. The detail over FSX is quite visible everywhere you look. Sure there is no weather and no flight dynamics and four engines, but there are many cars, moving, colliding, helicopters flying, people walking, talking (hit by cars), bullets flying, etc, etc and the game runs very well on my 3 year old system.

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Honestly, some people, (not necessarily anyone in this thread) sit here and complain...and complain...and complain about what Flight looks like while it's in...EARLY DEVELOPMENT.My point is that, to say there is really no improvement or that it doesn't look good is really an unfair statement at this point in Flight's development. If some don't think Flight will be any good, X-Plane 10 will be here soon, I'm sure.I, for one, am really counting on Flight to succeed, as I don't know how much longer I'll want to deal with the flaws of FSX. I want the change from FSX to Flight to be an easy one, which is why I will never switch to X-Plane. Besides, the FS series has a huge amount of add-on developers, like me, who don't want to relearn the same things, but in a different way.

[Gibbage 199]

Surely you must have some criticism of this next gen sim?

Its kinda hard to criticise something this early in development from a few screenshots and some weak video, dont you agree? There isent even a feature list or release date! People are being overly critical based off of very VERY limited data. I would hope people would wait till a demo or at least more solid info is out before making up there minds, but it seems that many people have already condemmed a product based purely on rampant speculation.

[JSkorna 137]

I wonder if Phil read some of this do do in this thread when he was here today? Bet he was sitting there laughing his a@@ off, thanking the powers that be that he is gone and doesn't need to put up with some of this crap anymore!Yes, I have talked to him face to face so I have a pretty good idea what he thought!!

[ViperPilot 81]

Its kinda hard to criticise something this early in development from a few screenshots and some weak video, dont you agree? There isent even a feature list or release date! People are being overly critical based off of very VERY limited data. I would hope people would wait till a demo or at least more solid info is out before making up there minds, but it seems that many people have already condemmed a product based purely on rampant speculation.

People all over the FS community are going on about "Flight needs this, or Flight is going to look so much like that...!" MVGibbage brings up a very good point; all we've seen from Microsoft are some screen shots and a couple of videos. And, based on this limited release of information, everyone automatically assumes (yes, ASSUMES) that Flight is going to incorporate all of these improvements... AI flight attendants giving out free passes to the Mile High Club, AI ground handlers, AI ground vehicles with the gas pusher getting out of the truck, grabbing the fuel hose and climbing onto the wing of the plane, etc.What's going to happen to all of the people who, because of this "rampant speculation", expect that Flight is going to be the Holy Grail of Flight Simulation only to find that when Flight is finally released, their expectations were premature and it isn't the Flight Simulator they were wanting or expecting?Personally, I think you're setting yourselves up for a fall... no matter how Flight turns out in the end. So, Flight is released, and it ends up not being the Flight Sim everyone was looking for. Then what? Burn your computers in effigy and protest? Call for a moratorium on all Flight Simulator products and accessories? Become mentally irregular and start screaming at the top of your lungs down in your simpit while your wife, significant other and/ or kids cower in fear at your irrational behavior?Take a big step back. Go out and fly. Don't worry about things that ultimately you can't change. Enjoy the Springtime; get out in the outdoors with your family and enjoy life... before one of you out there has a myocardial infarction worrying over how much autogen Flight is going to have at FL310 and 140nm sight distance!Alan :(

[hisuleiman 0]

I wonder if Phil read some of this do do in this thread when he was here today? Bet he was sitting there laughing his a@@ off, thanking the powers that be that he is gone and doesn't need to put up with some of this crap anymore!Yes, I have talked to him face to face so I have a pretty good idea what he thought!!

Thank you for ridiculing an honest discussion. I'm also glad you found this debate amusing. Sometimes people just don't mature with age..Anyways, there are decent, respectable points on both sides. Guess we can just hope for the best, eh?

[PingPong 60]

Honestly, some people, (not necessarily anyone in this thread) sit here and complain...and complain...and complain about what Flight looks like while it's in...EARLY DEVELOPMENT.My point is that, to say there is really no improvement or that it doesn't look good is really an unfair statement at this point in Flight's development. If some don't think Flight will be any good, X-Plane 10 will be here soon, I'm sure.I, for one, am really counting on Flight to succeed, as I don't know how much longer I'll want to deal with the flaws of FSX. I want the change from FSX to Flight to be an easy one, which is why I will never switch to X-Plane. Besides, the FS series has a huge amount of add-on developers, like me, who don't want to relearn the same things, but in a different way.

Quoted for truth, the rampant speculation is getting out of hand we are all debating a product that isn't even close to being on shelves yet.