I don't know if this question is possible to answer, but I'v seen a lot of high-skills Flyers on this great board. So I give it a try.

I'm curious how the best graphics of the environment looks like when flying with MSF? Especially the basis environment (like grass, water, mountain, roads etc.) are interesting. Should DX11 make a lot of difference?

Of course a better card will have a smoother performance on screen, a higher framerate etc., but for this post I like to focus on the maximum quality of the environment that could br archieved in MSFlight.

Maybe some members with high-end graphiccards will be so kind to show what the best results of the environment could be or ..?

This would make it easier to judge (for my own) if a better graphiccard would result in better graphics.

For example some pics on 100 m, 1000 m high and from a parkingplace of a landscape?

(Btw. I have a XFX HD Radeon 4890, with 1 MB memory in my computer; I5 with 4 MB)

Thanks in advance.

Um. It's hard to explain how it looks like. The detail is amazing, but the quality isn't as amazing. Quality I'm talking as in there's some tiling here, there, and some non-blending textures..

Looking at the specs you list for your rig, it's much better than mine so you should have no problem setting visuals at the higher end of the scale.

 

I think the visuals can vary, especially at different times of day with different lighting and different weather conditions. Here's a shot of mine, at dusk, using one of the thunderstorm weather settings. It's very 'hyperreal' rather than photoreal, but a great atmospheric environment to fly in.

 

Vox-tm,

 

Very surreal shot. Absolutely artistic and beautiful. Thanks for sharing that; where is it exactly?

 

Stan

Hi Stan,

 

Thanks for the comments, it was a beautiful flight and should be easy to recreate with Flight's limited set of conditions:

 

Eastern side of Maui (over/around the large valley/rift area), Dusk on April 4th, using 'Low and Threatening' weather conditions.

 

Have fun up there!

Thinking about this a little more... in principle, there is no actual upper limit currently set on the maximum quality achieveable in Flight. The landmass meshes and textures are surely of a quality to permit 'across the board' performance on a variety of PC's out there. But as the engine is fundamentally the same as FSX, in theory higher resolution textures and meshes are possible that would enhance the realism of the game further. However, this would only be achievable on the higher spec machines and therefore would narrow the wide user base that MS is obviously aiming for.

 

If you've ever seen any of the Everest photoreal textures available for Flight Simulator X, then you'll see what's theoretically possible...

 

First of all, you have to give credit to the team for creating such a good game/simulator in the amount of time they had. They not only have to create scenery, objects, buildings, textures, etc, they also had to take into consideration what their goal was. Creating that screenshot above is technically impossible. (For a team of 40-50 people in 1 1/2 years that have to create an ENGINE from SCRATCH)

Creating that screenshot above is technically impossible. (For a team of 40-50 people in 1 1/2 years that have to create an ENGINE from SCRATCH)

 

Why? I've just explained that Flight is based on the FSX engine, and that screenshot is from FSX. The default texture resolution in Flight has been upped to 4096 as standard, and the high resolution Everest textures shown above in FSX use that resolution. So, 'technically' it's possible in MS Flight right now.

Speaking of graphics settings, did anyone try and change parameters in Flight.cfg (ones related to the mesh quality, texture res, etc.)? If you did, please share.

 

 

Cheers

@Vox-tm

 

It is BASED on the FSX engine. It doesn't mean it is the FSX engine. Trust me, creating a BRAND NEW ENGINE from scratch is hard work. You can't expect the team to create Photoreal scenery throughout Hawaii. Take to the matter of fact that it is a 40-50 member team creating a new engine. Some work on the Engine itself, some work on Aircraft, some work on Scenery, Some work on Textures, Some work on Weather, etc, etc. Some even help with technical support.

 

Just because it is at texture resolution 4096 now doesn't mean they have the time and money to create such an amazing piece of art.

 

If that is a 3rd Party addon for FSX, then there are problems. If I'm right, that team is mainly for designing 3rd Party Scenery. That's like 50-over 100 people working on just scenery. that's how they make that amazing scenery addon for FSX. It's not 40-50 people working on a GAME/SIMULATOR and trying to make it as realistic as possible.

 

@Eevun

 

I don't think there's any need to do that. Flight itself has enough detail without any tweaks. I'm just too afraid that if I try, I will crash Flight.

First of all it is a fact that the Nvidia cards are better than the ATI ones when it comes to FSX or Flight.

Flight even uses some of Nvidia's technology. (see the credits in the game)

DX11 makes no difference either as Flight is entirely DX9.

 

Fred.

First of all it is a fact that the Nvidia cards are better than the ATI ones when it comes to FSX or Flight.

Flight even uses some of Nvidia's technology. (see the credits in the game)

DX11 makes no difference either as Flight is entirely DX9.

 

Fred.

 

Exactly.

@OMGBBQ32

 

I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not passing comment on how much work, or how much the team working on Flight have been able to achieve in the time they have had available, or whether they should even be producing anything like the quality of textures that are available from third parties for FSX.

 

What I'm saying is that I believe that Flight engine would support higher resolution and more detailed textures, and therefore the level of visual enhancement can be increased. HOWEVER, the trade off in cost would be lower fps for the average user, alongwith stutters and blurries for lower spec machines. What the Flight team have created is a level of detail and visuals that will work very happily across the majority. But as the general specification of the average PC increases, so the visuals with Flight could follow suit. What the Flight team have managed to avoid thus far is the same disappointment in the community that was felt over FSX during the past couple of years.

 

Without being able to play with the files due to meta file locking, we cannot prove the point by adding third party scenery, but I bet you it can handle it.

Thanks for all your replies. Please don't mistaken my question, I love FS and respect the work the producer does. Furtheron I'm quit satisfied with the quality of the game. I only was interested in the fact if a 'better/newer' hardware would result in a better look/graphics.

I made some pictures to show what I see on my screen.

Do you see on your computer the same results/quality or maybe 'better'? The pictures are all near the airport of Honolulu on Oahu, with all settings on maximum.

 

Mmm.., have to learn to add images, sorry for that.

They look almost the same to mine. Except it doesn't look like you're on max settings.

 

To me, everything seems maxed except autogen. Is that right?