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Glynn

Some info from Mathijs Kok on flights demise.

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For whatever it's worth, Aerosoft was not the only indie-developer who was contacted by MSGS regarding the possibility of developing new aircraft content for Flight just a few weeks before the project was shut down.

 

I personally know of at least two others, one of whom for which I do contract work.

 

Although I do still fire up Flight at least once per day for a quick flight (my goal is to land at every air strip in Alaska), my interest is waning simply because the "Adventure of Discovery" is now fixed at a permanent end point.

 

Granted, it may be a year or more before that end is reached, but simply knowing that there is an end has removed a lot of the joy for me...

 

So, I spend most of my time in FSX and continue my development work, knowing that for the foreseeable future at least, the "Adventure" continues... :p0503:


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Well for me, I've been back into FSX a few times now, and the fact is, that after seeing Flight, it doesn't really satisfy me anymore, even with extensive addons. Orbx have done as much as anyone to enhance the sim with a more diverse and interesting world to fly through, but now, I just see the technological limitations they are forced to work within, and after Flight I see them much more clearly. I find I am much less excited by the never ending quest to throw more and more addons at a sim that I believe is in its twilight, and even if I were, I don't really think there is that much lipstick left to put on that particular animal.

 

The parts I disliked the most about Flight, were the parts that most closely resembled FSX! Yet flight Is now history, and FSX is still chugging along; old and clunky 2006 tech on enhanced life support. Tesselation? Never! Shadows? Nope, they just don't work...... all sorts of modern techniques are just a no-go, because the sim is just too darn old!

 

But what else is there? Flight development has ended, and all the promise of a modern future is bleeding slowly away. Many are returning to the same old, same old because that's really all that's left. Flight is now deader then FSX, and you might as well make the best of the situation. After all, FSX products are being made by the ton, and its not all that bad, is it?

 

Well........... for some of us gamer-types who know how far modern programs have come (leaving this niche far, far behind) yes, it kind of is. Thats why I'm not really counting myself in the ranks of active simmers right now. I can't really go back, and none of the supposed ways forward are appealing to me.


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
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It's very funny and odd to see how different people react to something! :wink: Specially if those people were all in the same boat just a few weeks ago. Some stay with Flight, others move to FSX, some so XP and other stop flying completely... (And some just can't make up their mind....)

 

The only big issue I have with FSX at this point is the autogen popping up right in front of me.

 

Funny you say that because I was surprised to see how less obvious autogen popups in FSX (at least in PNW) then it did in Flight... At first I read about Flight having autogen as far as the I can see. I quickly discovered this wasn't true. However, I was quite happy with it. But last week, after flying a lot in FSX, I went back to Flight for a short while and I was amazed at how awfully the autogen sticks out of the ground textures...! You can so clearly see where the circle of autogen ends! Also becasue the ground textures in the distance seem to lack anisotropic filtering (something I always found a bit of a problem with Flight btw). In FSX (PNW) I often can't even see where there is or isn't autogen (depending on the scenery though). I don't want to say one is absolutely better then the other but to ME Flight certainly doesn't win here.

 

Anyway, that's another example of how people look at things.

 

For a short while I also thought about giving up on flightsims altogether, but I am completely into FSX again and loving it too. The fact that P3D v2.0 might become something is nice too: that gives even more hope for the future. But even if it doesn't it is clear that FSX right now is the most supported addon.

 

Biggest problem is that FSX needs a lot of money because out of the box it sucks... All talk about having no time for tweaking is imho a bit odd and nonsese with for instance Word Not Allowed's guide: a few minutes of editing a cfg with Notepad shouldn't be too hard for someone.

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Funny you say that because I was surprised to see how less obvious autogen popups in FSX (at least in PNW) then it did in Flight... At first I read about Flight having autogen as far as the I can see. I quickly discovered this wasn't true. However, I was quite happy with it. But last week, after flying a lot in FSX, I went back to Flight for a short while and I was amazed at how awfully the autogen sticks out of the ground textures...! You can so clearly see where the circle of autogen ends! Also becasue the ground textures in the distance seem to lack anisotropic filtering (something I always found a bit of a problem with Flight btw). In FSX (PNW) I often can't even see where there is or isn't autogen (depending on the scenery though). I don't want to say one is absolutely better then the other but to ME Flight certainly doesn't win here.

 

I guess you aren't having the problem I have, where areas of the ground maybe a mile or two away will suddenly sprout houses, then another spot nearby sprouts houses, then the first area sprouts trees, then another area sprouts houses, then the second one sprouts trees, then the third one sprouts trees... non-stop, every few seconds, an area I'm about to fly over suddenly ripples with new autogen popping up.

 

Ugh, it's awful.

 

Distant autogen appearing doesn't bother me so much, but so close I'm going to lose sight of it in a few seconds as it passes under the wing or nose is just silly.

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@ J van E

 

Funny you should mention that. I took an experimental hop over PNW yesterday in FSX and I saw popup everywhere! (buildings)

 

Flight has popup, but it really depended on your settings, ranging from FSX-like at medium to nearly imperceptible at the highest setting.

 

At most I would call it a draw.

 

Edit: I saw the same thing RoboRay saw. Not a dealbreaker, but........ after Flight, it sort of jumped out and tackled me. (especially the buildings)

 

Changing focus slightly; for a good idea of what flight could have become with somebody like Orbx at the wheel, (complete with basic working streetlights) go to Alaska and take a look at Iditarod landing field. Land and walk around a bit. So much potential....... all gone. :(


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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I guess you aren't having the problem I have, where areas of the ground maybe a mile or two away will suddenly sprout houses, then another spot nearby sprouts houses, then the first area sprouts trees,

 

I see the same as well, one thing I was really pleased with Flight was regarding autogen and how at least it seemed to handle it better.

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Hello

What I don't get is, if Flight! is so great why are so many in this forum coming back to FSX.

They are both platforms abandoned by MS, so no difference there.

What have you to gain by moving to another platform ?

I keep hearing that the graphics are better in Flight!, that the Aircraft fly better in Flight! so why the need to move to another platform.

If I liked a Sim as much as some seem to like Flight! I would not need to look elsewhere.

 

Yes, both FSX and Flight have been abandoned by M$;

 

Yes, Flight is friendlier, the flight model and light system are superb, has better stock scenery (at least in Hawaii), has better frame rates and autogen (but of course it is not implementing AP, ATC, AI, GPS, flight plans, real weather, traffic, etc.)

 

Yes, FSX has several or many limitations, but with a propper PC, add-ons and some tweaks it is As Real as it Gets.

 

For me, Flight brought back the joy of flying, my abilities to hand fly approach and land without instruments, Flight got me back to GA aircraft and slow and low flying, and especially, it brought back the hope for a next generation Flight Simulator………. until its demise.

 

But, sadly for me, Flight is gone, so I went back to FSX, bought the RealAir Lancair, REX and a lot of other stuff (I could have gone shopping, but my better half would object).

 

Also, there is a huge difference between both games/sims.

 

The amount of add-ons available for FSX is humongous and seems to be growing at light speed; whereas the amount of DLC packages for Flight are 9, including the 5 cockpitless toys, and since they stopped development it will stay that way unless they decide to release whatever they have already done.

 

Sad, but true.

 

Cheers.

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I guess you aren't having the problem I have, where areas of the ground maybe a mile or two away will suddenly sprout houses, then another spot nearby sprouts houses, then the first area sprouts trees, then another area sprouts houses, then the second one sprouts trees, then the third one sprouts trees... non-stop, every few seconds, an area I'm about to fly over suddenly ripples with new autogen popping up.

 

Ugh, it's awful.

 

Distant autogen appearing doesn't bother me so much, but so close I'm going to lose sight of it in a few seconds as it passes under the wing or nose is just silly.

 

What is your LOD radius?

 

I found that going to LOD=5.5 gave me much better visuals than the standard 4.5 setting.

 

Also, if you turn down traffic a bit - try just setting road traffic to zero, the CPU has more time

to draw scenery and it does not pop quite as badly.


Bert

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I guess you aren't having the problem I have, where areas of the ground maybe a mile or two away will suddenly sprout houses, then another spot nearby sprouts houses, then the first area sprouts trees, then another area sprouts houses, then the second one sprouts trees, then the third one sprouts trees... non-stop, every few seconds, an area I'm about to fly over suddenly ripples with new autogen popping up.

 

Ugh, it's awful.

 

Distant autogen appearing doesn't bother me so much, but so close I'm going to lose sight of it in a few seconds as it passes under the wing or nose is just silly.

 

Sorry Ray, Devon and Don, but I must disagree; on both my systems, autogen in Flight with full max/ custom settings has the same behavior you are stating for FSX, (Especially in some dense areas of Hawaii)

 

On the other hand, tweaked FSX plus frame rate friendly add-ons with almost all max scenery settings work fine for me. (My AI traffic settings are med to low)

 

 

Really, for a good idea of what flight could have become with somebody like Orbx at the wheel, (complete with basic working streetlights) go to Alaska and take a look at Iditarod landing field. Land and walk around a bit. So much potential....... all gone.

 

Totally agree.

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Sorry Ray, Devon and Don, but I must disagree; autogen in Flight with full max settings has the same behavior you are stating for FSX,

 

On the other hand FSX tweaked plus add-ons with almost max scenery settings work fine for me.

 

Perhaps, as with FSX, Flight is also quite different on every pc... :wink:

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Perhaps, as with FSX, Flight is also quite different on every pc... :wink:

 

That is soo true. The beta site was full of different perceptions.

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I respect Mathijs as a champion for our community and agree with his comments yet, I cannot escape the feeling that the bad blood between third party developers and Microsoft surely contributed to the demise of Flight.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

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Perhaps, as with FSX, Flight is also quite different on every pc... :wink:

 

Tweak, tweakidity tweak. I am sooooooooo tired of it. I am aware of LOD radius tweaks. But after a while, something breaks, (perhaps an unfriendly add on replaces something that unbalances the whole delicate deck of cards) and you end up cyclically removing it all (the old delete your CFG option) and starting over to find out what went wrong.

 

Over the years I had to do it again and again and again and again and.............

 

makefrustrationpayoff.jpg

 

I respect Mathijs as a champion for our community and agree with his comments yet, I cannot escape the feeling that the bad blood between third party developers and Microsoft surely contributed to the demise of Flight.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

 

Uhmmm........ DING!!!

 

Many developers made pretty darn clear how they felt about Flight and Microsoft, not necessarily in that order. I will always be grateful for the relatively safe haven people who actually enjoyed or were openly interested in the sim were allowed here.

 

On the other hand, money is money. I said in other threads that even if current developers balked, in time others would have risen to service Flight if it lasted long enough. Just too bad Microsoft has corporate ADHD.


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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Tweak, tweakidity tweak. I am sooooooooo tired of it. I am aware of LOD radius tweaks. But after a while, something breaks, (perhaps an unfriendly add on replaces something that unbalances the whole delicate deck of cards) and you end up cyclically removing it all (the old delete your CFG option) and starting over to find out what went wrong.

 

Over the years I had to do it again and again and again and again and.............

 

AGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

 

 

I know that feeling.

 

But nowadays before I add anything major on FSX I either do a System Backup or my own concoction: an FSX folders and registry backup and I run a small app I wrote that monitors all file changes. If something goes bad I rewind all changes.

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I respect Mathijs as a champion for our community and agree with his comments yet, I cannot escape the feeling that the bad blood between third party developers and Microsoft surely contributed to the demise of Flight.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

I think you are right and I wouldn't trust the man too much on this subject. Also I think it's rather unprofessional to be throwing mud like this, he is confirming a lot of the bad image MS has gotten but it's not necessarily the truth - Aerosoft is a publisher for FSX devs. What would have happened with them if MS succeeded in winning over developers to make all kinds of nice stuff for Flight...

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