The forum has been a little slow the past few days, so I thought I would pose a question to all the good people on this forum.I have heard many people on the forum state that the current screenshots/videos represent visuals that are "early in development". I remember the same being stated when FSX was in the development cycle, and pretty much everything that MS exposed to the user community that was in-game (not the magic screenshot, we all remember that) did not change compared to the production version. I am really curious to respectfully know what people who state "early in development" think will be different from the production version. Again, I just don't think MS will expose any visual of Flight that will contain elements that will not be in production. For instance, I don't think any autogen, landclass, buildings, sky colors, etc., etc., etc. will change from what has already been presented. Would love to hear people's comments on what they think might be different from currents visual depictions to production ready visuals. By the way, I do hope some of the things that have been presented would change, but am really looking forward to the release. Should be a good product. Thanks all.

I really think that since its really early in development, there will be other features added which will enhance the visuals even more... I'm pretty sure they have only just started. You can tell in the pictures that they are still using some FSX textures (and methods) while the new ones are in development. It makes perfect sense that they will just use FSX textures while the new ones are being made, because you wouldn't want missing textures everywhere until you have got a lot of them completed. That's just silly. For instance you can tell that they have the same cloud textures and sky textures from FSX being used at the moment, or at least fairly un-edited ones from FSX. It definitely will look a lot better when it is done, in my opinion. Otherwise, why don't they release it now? Or even just to payware developers? Jamie ♥

The Sky textures, terrain textures, tree textures, and water are actually brand new. The sky looks nothing like FSX, especially in the latest media. We should still continue to see slight improvements here and there or new features will be shown, etc. Some clouds appear to be old, (only visible in the very first screenshots) while others seem to be volumetric, like the fog in the latest shots, as well as the clouds behind the mountain in the 1st screenshot from january.

Hmm... I don't know about the sky textures, but we can only hope that it will look even better once its done

Hmm... I don't know about the sky textures, but we can only hope that it will look even better once its done

Believe me...I compared the sky textures, and....the sunsets especially, look nothing like FSX. (except screenshot 4 from janurary...that looked like fsx.) Just look at my fsx and flight comparison thread. the sky color difference should be pretty clear. :( (the more recent shots show the good sky. The very early screenshots of the day time sky dont look a lot different.)

Yeah I did notice the difference before, even before my post earlier too... I just thought that it may have been different times in the day... but considering I'm silly... I didn't think about, well... the sun its in pretty much the same place on your comparison , but maybe I was expecting... a bit too much Just one thing popped into my head though, what about the seasons? Maybe FLIGHT has support for different sky textures for different seasons... like milky for when its winter. So maybe they are using pretty much the same textures for say... summer, but they may have added more for the other seasons! **Did FSX already have support for this? I'm not sure since I mainly fly in summer, or foggy and windy conditions... So I'm probably not the one that can honestly say that, but I'm fairly confident its true in that FSX didn't support it. Jamie ♥

Yeah I did notice the difference before, even before my post earlier too... I just thought that it may have been different times in the day... but considering I'm silly... I didn't think about, well... the sun its in pretty much the same place on your comparison , but maybe I was expecting... a bit too much Just one thing popped into my head though, what about the seasons? Maybe FLIGHT has support for different sky textures for different seasons... like milky for when its winter. So maybe they are using pretty much the same textures for say... summer, but they may have added more for the other seasons! **Did FSX already have support for this? I'm not sure since I mainly fly in summer, or foggy and windy conditions... So I'm probably not the one that can honestly say that, but I'm fairly confident its true in that FSX didn't support it. Jamie ♥

That would be a really cool feature. FSX doesn't have that feature. It simply uses 140 very small textures...one for a specific time of day. (10 for each portion of day...late morning, noon, afternoon, presunset, etc.)

Referring to Flight as being in early development is misleading, imho. Flight will be 90-95% FSX code. This is measured by the lines of code that will be the very same compared to changed code and entirely new code. It also includes everything else, textures, planes etc. The real work is in the code though.So, parts of Flight, the new code, might be in early development, but the rest has been around for a decade.Companies that are a fraction of the size of MS have come up with an entirely new graphics engine in two years, yet we can clearly see genes of FSX in Flight. So, I don't think much of the "early development" is on this front.We have yet to see anything new. We have seen slight improvements, but nothing that should take MS 4+ years to come up with, especially that add-ons have already come very close to what MS is showing us now.Let's just hope that Flight is not going down the path of Test Drive Unlimited 2, whose developers thought that making a great driving game (TDU 1) into "Sims with cars online" was a good idea.

Were talking about a $50 maybe $60 Flight Simulator game here! As for myself I will take all the improvements I can get, whether it be improved textures, or improvements in the code. Better visuals is just icing on the cake!

I totally agree, and FLIGHT is gonna become what FSX should have been... but, I'm honestly really pleased so far :) It looks lovely. Jamie ♥

Referring to Flight as being in early development is misleading, imho. Flight will be 90-95% FSX code. This is measured by the lines of code that will be the very same compared to changed code and entirely new code. It also includes everything else, textures, planes etc. The real work is in the code though.So, parts of Flight, the new code, might be in early development, but the rest has been around for a decade.Companies that are a fraction of the size of MS have come up with an entirely new graphics engine in two years, yet we can clearly see genes of FSX in Flight. So, I don't think much of the "early development" is on this front.We have yet to see anything new. We have seen slight improvements, but nothing that should take MS 4+ years to come up with, especially that add-ons have already come very close to what MS is showing us now.Let's just hope that Flight is not going down the path of Test Drive Unlimited 2, whose developers thought that making a great driving game (TDU 1) into "Sims with cars online" was a good idea.

Wow so Microsoft have been updating 10% of FSX for the last 4 years, do you recken they are 30% through that 10% or may be 40% through, either way I guess if it's before 50% then it's still Early Development haha.... :( Ok so I'm being cheeky! And you're right FSX is in there for sure. Microsoft have themselves admitted as much when they acknowlegded comparisons with FSX from Webisode 2, but at the same time they were pleased with the comparison given how early this is in the development process. Microsoft also stated I think due to the unique circumstances of bringing back a Flight Simulation after closing ACES that they made the anouncement for Flight and it's subsiquient updates way before they would usually start pushing this into the public domain. So we should really be thankful for this as it's given so many of us hope to see a performant sim using a fresh approach.If you read the PC Pilot magazine, it's apparent that Microsoft are working really hard on the development of Flight to allow product turnarounds to be quicker. Previous versions of MS took 3 years to update, which has meant the code being FAT, for Flight they have a big emphisis on performance and gameplay so this alone will result in a lot rework to the engine and content. Making Flight more streamline and maintainable (an evolving software cycle anyway) will demand MS to visit the majority of the code and I would say upwards of 80% (may be more) could be updated when Flight is released. This doesn't mean that they will change the behaviour, but it will be looked at none the less.You mention companies the fraction the size of MS can turn around graphics engines in two years, well this could be the most misleading of all your misleading comments. MS team for FSX (i.e. ACES in the past) has never been big anyway. To turn around a modern engine in two years could not be done without using an older engine to base it on. Frostbyte 2.0 engine for example took three years (2007+) but 1.0 and 1.5 where in production for the previous 4+, similarly for CryEngine, this engine has been around for the last 6-7 years all told. Creating a new engine from scratch would take MS at least 3 years IMHO, when you add the SIM'ing element and development services (scenery support, SDK, tools etc) you could end up with a period of 5/6/7 years before you see any game at all which clearly wouldn't be acceptable (to quantify what you said earlier I don't think MS has been working on Flight for 4 years, maybe 12 months at the most before it was anounced). So a new engine for Flight would be difficult, maybe with the changes made to the Flight code, this could be something which could be revisited for version 2.0 but changes are happening all the time anyway with Flight.Be interesting to see what you guys and girls opinions are on the development cycle, could MS have been working secretly on Flight for the last 1/2/4 years, does there own admission of being early in the development process (DEC 8th News) imply that we could be another 18 months off a release given that it takes ~3 years to release a new version of Flight and that they could have been worling on it 6-12 months prior to the anouncment?Cheers,Dave.

Let's just hope that Flight is not going down the path of Test Drive Unlimited 2, whose developers thought that making a great driving game (TDU 1) into "Sims with cars online" was a good idea.

It's interesting you mentioned TDU2. I think one of the criticisms of TDU2 was the lack of a percieved change to the graphics. Actually a lot changed, the day night cycle and weather effects were terrific and a lot more car detail. But the game world would have been a time consuming development process which would have resulted in a lot of assets to manage when the game was being 'updated'. I think because of this content requirement, it limited Eden Games to what they could change in practical terms for the release to go ahead within a reasonable time period, even then the release was still delayed by 6 months I think.I see the same issues with Flight. Crytek were able to offer a new game world for Crysis 2, so did't have the historical bindings with content and procedures they could start afresh. It's a lot more difficult if the process has that much more hooks into the content and gameplay which a Simulation would enevitable bring and starting from afresh is always going to be so much more difficult.Cheers,Dave.

I really think that they have probably been working on FLIGHT for like a year... not much more than that though. And maybe ACES had already begun the planning stage of FLIGHT, or even started working on the engine its self! So maybe, MS just picked up where ACES left off? We don't know to be honest, but that is my best guess. Jamie ♥

TDU2 is an example of what not to do. Make wholesale changes and silly additions whose end result is worse than the previous game. Even though TDU2 has new game elements and more visual detail, the game suffers from badly designed missions, badly handling cars and silly Sim-like interactions and the clear intent on making money with DLCs.If MS is going down this road with Flight, it will have the very same reception.@dtrjonesFrom what we have seen, MS must be working on what we have not seen yet as the slight improvements to the visuals could have been done far faster than even the shortest development time you are willing to concede.The question is, how much of the old code will truly be improved, ie: features we already know FSX had, and how much is new development, some or all of which may make no difference to many of us.Just for the record, considering that not all Aces employees have been let go or some were soon rehired, I think that work on the next FS has started even before the release of FSX. Probably not many people were involved and most of the work was not new development and that is what we are seeing in the videos and screenshots now.We have yet to see anything that would make Flight a new game as opposed to being an expansion pack for FSX.

Remember the DX10 for FSX screenshot/video? I would not put 2 cents into these marketing produced materials. My biggest question would be how will I protect the thousands I spent on FSX Add-on, I don't care too much about scenery stuffs, it those very good aircraft packages that I care about. MS should just create a SP3 to FSX fixed all of its problems and I will be happy. My suspicion is that Flight will be even more resource hog than FSX, then you will get ey candies flying at 5-6 fps. LOL