Isn't there similar option in FSX too? Maybe they just left it there when they built Flight from parts of FSX.

 

The Drop Payload command was not present in Flight until the last Title Update. It is not a remnant.

Isn't there similar option in FSX too? Maybe they just left it there when they built Flight from parts of FSX.

 

 

ATC wouldn't eat much performance at all, and they could just add slider just like in FSX to limit AI performance hit on lower end machines.

 

Truly if they had wanted they could surely have easily implemented FSX ATC on Flight, but obviously that isn't what they think most of Flights audience wants. Like said AI and moving vehicles could have been added to Flight without too much rewriting, those who have lower end computers could then just disable or scale them down.

 

FSX isn't really heavy because of its features, but because its horribly unoptimized software that can't take full advantage from todays machines and has a lot of old code.

 

Precisely what I am getting at. I just hope this modular approach they are taking with Flight results in a well optimized and designed piece of software in ALL AREAS so that we, FSX users included, can all enjoy it with full functionality. Frankly I think it's good MS ditched their old approach of throwing out a new version of FS every 2 years. Just how well was that working? Did we ever get a well-engineered and robust version of FS at any point during those times? I actually think it did more harm to the hobby than anything else. How many left FS completely because of FSX and it's shortcomings? And how many people won't ever get involved because they don't want to spend years of frustration, expense and tweaking to get the thing working half-way acceptably?

 

I just wish they had cleaned up their mess with FSX a bit more before making an entry-level version, hence my original comment which was made in frustration.

Of course it's the same engine. It is ESP with a whole bunch of modifications and optimizations so I guess you could say it's an evolved version of the FSX engine but they would have started from the same code base.

 

It would be hard to imagine that Flight uses no FSX legacy code whatsoever. But there's enough of it that has obviously been rewritten that you can't say it's the same engine. I originaly thought the same as you, that it's basically a slight update from ESP. But some of it couldn't be improved the way it was without a total rewrite.

 

I once set out to enhance some FSX XML gauge code. I intended to make only minimum changes, keeping as much original code as possible. By the time I was finished, the only original code left was in some visibility tags, and most of the framework survived intact. But the new code was 2/3 the size of the old and had a lot more features. Was it the same gauge code? It's pretty much the same with Flight and FSX.

 

Hook

Precisely what I am getting at. I just hope this modular approach they are taking with Flight results in a well optimized and designed piece of software in ALL AREAS so that we, FSX users included, can all enjoy it with full functionality. Frankly I think it's good MS ditched their old approach of throwing out a new version of FS every 2 years. Just how well was that working? Did we ever get a well-engineered and robust version of FS at any point during those times? I actually think it did more harm to the hobby than anything else. How many left FS completely because of FSX and it's shortcomings? And how many people won't ever get involved because they don't want to spend years of frustration, expense and tweaking to get the thing working half-way acceptably?

 

I just wish they had cleaned up their mess with FSX a bit more before making an entry-level version, hence my original comment which was made in frustration.

 

I left flying PC sims, and threw all my FS stuff out, shortly after FSX came out. I distinctly remember the ranting and raving about how stupid Microsoft was to release a piece of garbage like FSX when they had a perfectly good FS9, that had tons of ad ons available and looked more realistic than FSX ever would. Why did they take a big step backwards, was a common question. This went on for months and months. ( There are still many people still flying FS9 today that feel exactly that way about FSX.) Then when folks figured out that FSX was also a bug infested beta, like FS9 was when it was released, that was enough for me.

 

If I went for FSX, I was faced with having to buy a new computer and many of the expensive add ons I had like Radar Contact which replaced the crappy ATC in FS, Active Weather which replaced the crappy weather and clouds, aircraft that were half way flyable, a program that had vehicles that could be placed around the airports ( can't even remember the name of that), all things that made FS9 look half way decent would have to be scrapped, or purchased again when new versions were written for FSX. One thing that FSX seemed to keep, was the poor frame rates, and scenery stutters. I wish Lockheed alot of luck trying to iron out all the issues with P3D.

If I went for FSX, I was faced with having to buy a new computer and many of the expensive add ons I had like Radar Contact which replaced the crappy ATC in FS, Active Weather which replaced the crappy weather and clouds, aircraft that were half way flyable, a program that had vehicles that could be placed around the airports ( can't even remember the name of that), all things that made FS9 look half way decent would have to be scrapped, or purchased again when new versions were written for FSX. One thing that FSX seemed to keep, was the poor frame rates, and scenery stutters. I wish Lockheed alot of luck trying to iron out all the issues with P3D.

 

I bought FSX ~3.5 years ago and only recently I decided to reinstall (thanks to Flight reawakening my inner flying sim) and give it another go because I finally have a decent enough computer that it could run it at an acceptable level even thought it still struggles at times and can be annoyingly stuttery. And this is software that came out what 5 or 6 years ago? On older hardware it was a struggle to find the sweetspot between an acceptable framerate and level of detail and still is to some extent with modern hardware. I loved the hell out of FSX when I first got it; the tutorials, lessons, and especially the missions but stock FSX looks pretty bland in comparison to Flight. Because FSX is so bland I have recently tried 3rd party enhancement software (REX, GEX, Accufeel) and think it actually looks quite good (esp. REX) but that's more $ than I've spent on Flight so far, and those are just enhancements but they did inject life back into FSX and I've forgotten the missions enough that doing them again is pretty fun.

 

It is fun having many planes, places to fly, a long list of missions, real-world weather, decent map, etc, which I'm sure will come with Fight in due time (at least I hope so) because I think it has a lot of potential.

I bought FSX ~3.5 years ago and only recently I decided to reinstall (thanks to Flight reawakening my inner flying sim) and give it another go because I finally have a decent enough computer that it could run it at an acceptable level even thought it still struggles at times and can be annoyingly stuttery. And this is software that came out what 5 or 6 years ago? On older hardware it was a struggle to find the sweetspot between an acceptable framerate and level of detail and still is to some extent with modern hardware. I loved the hell out of FSX when I first got it; the tutorials, lessons, and especially the missions but stock FSX looks pretty bland in comparison to Flight. Because FSX is so bland I have recently tried 3rd party enhancement software (REX, GEX, Accufeel) and think it actually looks quite good (esp. REX) but that's more $ than I've spent on Flight so far, and those are just enhancements but they did inject life back into FSX and I've forgotten the missions enough that doing them again is pretty fun.

 

It is fun having many planes, places to fly, a long list of missions, real-world weather, decent map, etc, which I'm sure will come with Fight in due time (at least I hope so) because I think it has a lot of potential.

 

The thing that killed FS for me was the stuttering video and low frame rates. There is nothing, no scenery bug, no lack of AI, or big city airports, that ruins it for me like making an approach and seeing something that looks like it is being lit up with a strobe light effect. The real killer was like flying a 767 into BOS, down the ILS, and watching the video go to about 10 FPS second especially if the weather was bad, and hanging momentarily on some frames. And I bought a $2,000 desktop back in 2005 to run FS on. Now I run Flight on a $600 desktop and it's as smooth as silk.

Well since Flight and FSX use the same engine it should be feasible to make a patch to incorporate some of the performance optimizations and bug fixes from Flight into the FSX code. I think Flight could be great but as one person has said it needs some time to mature and I can't see it realizing it's full potential if MS don't open the floor to other developers. So far I've yet to see one aircraft they've released that I would pay for. An aircraft without a cockpit of any kind?? No thanks. Too bad because Alaska looks pretty cool. I simply refuse to play it like an arcade game and fly from spot view all the time.

It's a nice thought but they are not the same engine, one is old, the other has been updated - true it might still contain legacy code but you're talking thousands and thousands of lines of code which has been redeveloped or tweaked, the dna for Flight is just very different to FSX. Simple using what's been done in Flight and porting it over to FSX would be unreasonable given how big the Flight team is and the ROI such action would provide, so clearly the cost benefit just doesn't add up.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

I liked the interview. I thought it was informative. I do like the fact that he explicitly stated the weather engine is intended to support icing. :yahoo:

For me the interview was a final push towards believing in the future of MS FLIGHT. As you konow I've been a great supporter of the sim less when I get angry at some of the detail cuts in it, such as limited weather features, or problems with some more technical aspects of the simulation, but that interview showed me that there is indeed a team working hard behind MS FLIGHT.

 

I'm convinced that if they released it with a lot more of features, such as AI, ATC, etc... we wouldn't be so happy with the smoothness. Instead they decided to give as a version that performs smoothly on the average / low spec pc of this time, and great on better machines.

 

I look forward for some more functionality in future DLCs, but I can wait if I know these are at least a possibility. I understand the limited info the team is providing, but I think there should be more interviewws like this in the future ...

 

+1

 

Love to see how the developers are working hard on future aspects of MS Flight. I haven't bought Alaska yet but I'm still having a lot of fun with Hawaii. I have a lot of confidence in Flight and can't wait to see what will come in the future!

For how long we have to hear is going to be this and that ??

 

still waiting for planes with cockpits !!!

For how long we have to hear is going to be this and that ??

 

still waiting for planes with cockpits !!!

 

The next plane will have a cockpit.

 

I think they are collecting performance data while people are playing to tweak optimizations. They have said it would be two to three years before 3PDs will be able to produce for it. The Magic 8 Ball says… "Cannot predict now"

For how long we have to hear is going to be this and that ??

 

still waiting for planes with cockpits !!!

Flight team is very small, if you think that they would be ever able to create even 20% of content created by third party for FSX and FS9 then think again. Opening Flight for third party development would benefit them a lot during longer time, but maybe MS isn't going to make Flight that long lasting project, I don't know. I just can't see Flight being alive in 6 years from now without third party development unless they make their team 10x bigger.

Flight team is very small, if you think that they would be ever able to create even 20% of content created by third party for FSX and FS9 then think again. Opening Flight for third party development would benefit them a lot during longer time, but maybe MS isn't going to make Flight that long lasting project, I don't know. I just can't see Flight being alive in 6 years from now without third party development unless they make their team 10x bigger.

 

The biggest problem with 3rd party development, is that it tends to lock down what can be done with the programming in Flight, because if they decide to change something in Flight, and it is not compatible with the 3rd party programs, you can just imagine in the uproar from Flight owners. This way, if they make a change, they can see if it works with all the products they are releasing, and fix any problems before the release with updates.

It's also a little difficult to specify the content of an SDK before you even implement in the core code those functions that would need to be outlined in the SDK.

The biggest problem with 3rd party development, is that it tends to lock down what can be done with the programming in Flight, because if they decide to change something in Flight, and it is not compatible with the 3rd party programs, you can just imagine in the uproar from Flight owners. This way, if they make a change, they can see if it works with all the products they are releasing, and fix any problems before the release with updates.

True, but I really don't think that they are going to make any really big changes to anything in Flight, I mean changes that would dramatically alter way how Flight works and that way create compatibility problems. It seems that they just mostly keep adding new features instead of making much changes to old ones.