That might be because the gamers are not posting here.

I got my pilots license in the late 70's and have about 600 hours+ is single engine aircraft. I have also been flying Flight Sims since the late 80's including the last 4 versions of MSFS. In addition I have some PIC time in the 767-400 Level D simulator at the Delta Training center in ATL, and have shot a bunch of approaches in that full motion sim.

 

I gave up PC flying with MSFS after many years of tweaking this and that trying to get a smooth flying experience. The herky jerky display when in dense areas like NYC, or certain airports or sceneries, used to drive me crazy. Upgrade Ram, processor, tweak this , reinstall that, etc.etc.etc, problem solving and bug chasing was never ending with MSFS. Every day flying it seemed like a gamble as to whether or not something would crash, or some new problem would develop.

 

After 5 years away from FS, I downloaded Flight a week or so ago and even on my 8 year old PC, it ran great. It was smooth, the flight motion was fluid and above all it handled like a REAL Plane. Well I'll be damned, a free sim , straight out of the box so to speak, and no crashes, no stuttering, no hesitations, no weirdness, it felt like flying again. So I decided to get a brand new Dell Desktop which arrived this past Friday, and after installing a bunch of stuff, I put Flight on it. It flies so much better than any FS9 or FS10 that I have flown, that there is no comparison. I spent about 2 hours this morning just shooting touch and goes and approaches and playing with some of the lessons. I had a blast, and was concentrating the same way that I do when I am in a C-172, trying to land on a 30 foot wide runway in South Florida. Does Flight have a 737 like the PMDG, or 767, no, but I have been there and done that, and I flew the heavy jets so much in FS9 , that my hand flying skills almost disappeared because of lack of use. I agree with the folks that talk about only flying on autopilot, and navigating by punching destinations and waypoints into the flight computer. You get to the point where you can't even figure out where you are using a VOR or fly an NDB approach. How about hand flying a missed approach?......

 

Anyway, the point that I am trying to make is that I feel that I have a fair amount of real flying experience both in small single engine aircraft and in military and commercial flight sims, one of which cost $20 million, and I find that Flight can challenge someone like me, and provide a realistic simulation of flying with none of the problems that I have experienced with previous PC sims I have flown. In addition, MSFS has been around for decades, and it still has issues, and yet I read posts on this forum with people complaining about Flight and why doesn't it have this and that and do this and that and why isn't it perfect..etc..etc.., and it's only been out a couple of months.. :Thinking: Then I read about Flight adding an area like Alaska, and folks posting that Alaska won't be enough to maintain anyones interest. I flew around Alaska in FS9 for almost 2 years, I had Misty Fjords scenery and aircraft, and all kinds of additional Alaska scenery, and that is some of the most difficult sim flying I have ever tried. All hand flying for the most part. I have also visited a couple of places in Alaska, and rented aircraft and flew around Anchorage and Ketchikan. The aircraft that are flown there like Beavers, Supercubs with Tundra Tires, Grumman Goose, etc...... the list goes on and on. In my opinion, one could fly there for years and still be challenged on every flight

That might be because the gamers are not posting here.

 

I think that assumption is far from accurate...

The short span gamers have moved on already. No point joining a forum if the game can't hold your interest. It's the 'hardcore' (I hate that term) and the new converts that are willing to stick with it.

@Bobsk8,

 

all I can say is that our minds at least regarding MS FLIGHT are in perfect sync :-)

@Bobsk8,

 

all I can say is that our minds at least regarding MS FLIGHT are in perfect sync :-)

 

And my axe!

And my axe!

 

?????

Sorry, just agreeing with you. Too obscure, I guess. Lord of the Rings movie reference.

 

:-) hehe, sounded strange .... We portuguese do have a few exclamations like that too :-)

@Bobsk8,

 

all I can say is that our minds at least regarding MS FLIGHT are in perfect sync :-)

 

Agreed. Sure, I have my complaints about Flight, but I think the Flight team is learning as they go. I'm looking forward to Alaska.

My major complaints about the controls will be resolved when toe-brakes and TrackIR are implemented. At that point, if there were a simple way to flip the Destination Marker and the HUD's Wind Indicator on and off in-game (preferably with a keypress), I'd be fairly satisfied with the core software.

 

The shortcoming then becomes simply content... more planes (preferably with more advanced, complex systems) and more places to fly them becomes the major complaint, at least to me.

 

Well, I would like to see some surface-traffic implemented, at least. Cars and trucks on the roads, or at least the major highways, along with boats along the coast and a few ships further offshore.

 

Air-traffic would be more difficult, especially in a multiplayer environment. It would have to wait for a robust ATC capable of dealing with multiple players as well as AI aircraft. The real challenge would be keeping it all synchronized across all clients, which may not work well in Microsoft's client-hosted games.

 

But if MS truly wants to leave out AI aircraft, relying on other players to provide the other air traffic, client-hosting isn't sufficient either. A 16-player session can't provide enough traffic over a small area like Hawaii. In an area the size of Alaska, you're unlikely to even encounter anyone else in your session. I think a dedicated-server, running the ATC, the AI air traffic, and handling all data-transfers between a couple of hundred clients would be a fantastic solution, though. But I just don't see Microsoft running any persistent large-scale dedicated servers, nor releasing dedicated-server software to the public.

 

I can live without it, but I feel that a lot of people currently hyper-critical of Flight would find that to be nirvana.

My major complaints about the controls will be resolved when toe-brakes and TrackIR are implemented. At that point, if there were a simple way to flip the Destination Marker and the HUD's Wind Indicator on and off in-game (preferably with a keypress), I'd be fairly satisfied with the core software.

 

The shortcoming then becomes simply content... more planes (preferably with more advanced, complex systems) and more places to fly them becomes the major complaint, at least to me.

 

Well, I would like to see some surface-traffic implemented, at least. Cars and trucks on the roads, or at least the major highways, along with boats along the coast and a few ships further offshore.

 

Air-traffic would be more difficult, especially in a multiplayer environment. It would have to wait for a robust ATC capable of dealing with multiple players as well as AI aircraft. The real challenge would be keeping it all synchronized across all clients, which may not work well in Microsoft's client-hosted games.

 

But if MS truly wants to leave out AI aircraft, relying on other players to provide the other air traffic, client-hosting isn't sufficient either. A 16-player session can't provide enough traffic over a small area like Hawaii. In an area the size of Alaska, you're unlikely to even encounter anyone else in your session. I think a dedicated-server, running the ATC, the AI air traffic, and handling all data-transfers between clients would be a fantastic solution, though. But I just don't see Microsoft running any persistent large-scale dedicated servers, nor releasing dedicated-server software to the public.

 

I can live without it, but I feel that a lot of people currently hyper-critical of Flight would find that to be nirvana.

 

 

And when they get all that stuff added in, we will probably be back to a stuttering sim at 3 frames a second. :Just Kidding:

And when they get all that stuff added in, we will probably be back to a stuttering sim at 3 frames a second. :Just Kidding:

 

It's all in how it's implemented. FS9/FSX, for all their capabilities, simply do not take advantage of modern multicore CPU/GPU architectures. You would get much better performance if they did.

 

But in such a dedicated-server configuration, your client wouldn't need to devote time and resources to calculating what all the traffic is doing at all... it would be simply tracking the locations reported by the server and rendering them appropriately. That is a much easier job.

It's all in how it's implemented. FS9/FSX, for all their capabilities, simply do not take advantage of modern multicore CPU/GPU architectures. You would get much better performance if they did.

 

But in such a dedicated-server configuration, your client wouldn't need to devote time and resources to calculating what all the traffic is doing at all... it would be simply tracking the locations reported by the server and rendering them appropriately. That is a much easier job.

 

The problem is twofold.

 

1) I don't think they are wiling to expend the resources to do it. (at least not now)

 

2) I don't think they will let anyone else do it.

The problem is twofold.

 

1) I don't think they are wiling to expend the resources to do it. (at least not now)

 

2) I don't think they will let anyone else do it.

 

You are most likely correct, on both counts.

 

Unfortunately.

 

Which leaves me in a situation I can live with, with little traffic and no ATC.

 

Which is actually fairly typical in Alaska, from what I understand, other than for large planes on scheduled routes.

 

I feel ATC and AI air traffic can wait. But many will disagree.