To be honest, i get the feeling people are focusing more on the future rather than on the here and now. As said previously, there is still a hell of a lot of potential in FSX that can be enjoyed before the next sim really starts to be needed.

To quote myself from above...

 

 

 

[...] Now back to enjoying what is available now [...]

:wink:

 

And yet - many add ons being installed into FSX require money, personal interest and enthusiasm - and time - and it is sad then, when all the time and money and most important of all - the personal flightsimmer's enthusiasm gets literally beaten in the face if - just to mention two examples - OOM's appear although all known precausions had been taken in advance to prevent them, or when getting into severe stutters at sceneries on final - sceneries which actually look brilliant and shine but often need to be reduced to a mere shadow of themselves due to FSX's aging engine - just to avoid those significant stutters.

Just two little examples, i know, but if comming back, getting repeated and being experienced several times it is really becomming annoying - and simply makes You ask or at least imagine:

What all this great stuff would be like if there just was an engine around which could handle it! I think it is natural to do so!

But - again and as always - only my two cents here.

Cheers, Christoph

To quote myself from above...

 

 

 

:wink:

 

And yet - many add ons being installed into FSX require money, personal interest and enthusiasm - and time - and it is sad then, when all the time and money and most important of all - the personal flightsimmer's enthusiasm gets literally beaten in the face if - just to mention two examples - OOM's appear although all known precausions had been taken in advance to prevent them, or when getting into severe stutters at sceneries on final - sceneries which actually look brilliant and shine but often need to be reduced to a mere shadow of themselves due to FSX's aging engine - just to avoid those significant stutters.

Just two little examples, i know, but if comming back, getting repeated and being experienced several times it is really becomming annoying - and simply makes You ask or at least imagine:

What all this great stuff would be like if there just was an engine around which could handle it! I think it is natural to do so!

But - again and as always - only my two cents here.

Cheers, Christoph

 

Very succinctly stated, Christoph.  It's true enough that BOTH platforms (FSX -and- XPlane) have ways where even the highest end PCs can be brought to their knees.  It's simply a matter of asking too many tasks to all occur simultaneously off ONE CPU and ONE GPU.  Both platforms fail to support SLI graphics cards, and both platforms don't use the newer technology graphics engines to the max.  XPlane has a little bit of an edge, but the texture overloads that can occur from Photo-realistic sceneries combined at the same time with complex airports (think KSAN) and a complex airplane (think FlightFactor B777-200LR) can bring the 5 second freezes that spoil the moment, particularly on final approach.

 

When I re-built my FSX setup I purposefully left ORBX high-end sceneries OUT, I only installed Orbx FTX Global, didn't touch their very nice PNW (Pacific Northwest).  My graphics are not as sharp as I'd like, and the anti-aliasing has some shimmers, particularly at night.  Why?  Because I had to compromise.

 

In my personal experience, the new PMDG 777 is a worthy addition to my hangar and my new girlfriend.  Like most, she can be demanding, but she cleans up real nice.  All of us have a personal idealized version of the perfect woman and most of us have a similar fantasy about the ideal flight sim experience.  Mine is a Level D full-motion sim in my home, complete with all the real Boeing guages, dials, buttons and switches.  The graphics on my Level D would be CGI quality, on a par with Outerra or better, closer to the graphics in current generation big-budget movies.  In other words, when flying in my dream sim, you couldn't tell the buildings are computer generated.  Right now, the REX clouds in high definition approach my ideal - they are insanely real looking at times.  The sunny haze over San Diego this morning was just as I recall when I lived there - totally realistic.

 

But still, under the hood, we are handcuffed.  Imagine a server farm with quad processors and quad Graphics cards, and multiple machines all coupled together (say as many as 10 Servers) all rendering for just ONE simulation cockpit.  Then you'd have all the horsepower in the world to manipulate the graphics at the highest level in real time with no stutters.  Plus, handle all the complex physics calcs to make the plane fly as it would in real life, also in real time.

 

So it's a balancing act.  The happiest pilots I've read about in FSX seem to fly with default scenery, and focus on the flight model.  If you're one of those, you likely COULD push all your PMDG settings through the roof and still be "OK".  It's when you toss in high definition on the GROUND and at the airport, especially the very fine FSDreamteam or FlightBeam Studios sceneries that you get into conflicts between the demands of the software and the real-time abilities of even the highest-end systems.

Very succinctly stated, Christoph.  It's true enough that BOTH platforms (FSX -and- XPlane) have ways where even the highest end PCs can be brought to their knees.  It's simply a matter of asking too many tasks to all occur simultaneously off ONE CPU and ONE GPU.  Both platforms fail to support SLI graphics cards, and both platforms don't use the newer technology graphics engines to the max.  XPlane has a little bit of an edge, but the texture overloads that can occur from Photo-realistic sceneries combined at the same time with complex airports (think KSAN) and a complex airplane (think FlightFactor B777-200LR) can bring the 5 second freezes that spoil the moment, particularly on final approach.

 

When I re-built my FSX setup I purposefully left ORBX high-end sceneries OUT, I only installed Orbx FTX Global, didn't touch their very nice PNW (Pacific Northwest).  My graphics are not as sharp as I'd like, and the anti-aliasing has some shimmers, particularly at night.  Why?  Because I had to compromise.

 

In my personal experience, the new PMDG 777 is a worthy addition to my hangar and my new girlfriend.  Like most, she can be demanding, but she cleans up real nice.  All of us have a personal idealized version of the perfect woman and most of us have a similar fantasy about the ideal flight sim experience.  Mine is a Level D full-motion sim in my home, complete with all the real Boeing guages, dials, buttons and switches.  The graphics on my Level D would be CGI quality, on a par with Outerra or better, closer to the graphics in current generation big-budget movies.  In other words, when flying in my dream sim, you couldn't tell the buildings are computer generated.  Right now, the REX clouds in high definition approach my ideal - they are insanely real looking at times.  The sunny haze over San Diego this morning was just as I recall when I lived there - totally realistic.

 

But still, under the hood, we are handcuffed.  Imagine a server farm with quad processors and quad Graphics cards, and multiple machines all coupled together (say as many as 10 Servers) all rendering for just ONE simulation cockpit.  Then you'd have all the horsepower in the world to manipulate the graphics at the highest level in real time with no stutters.  Plus, handle all the complex physics calcs to make the plane fly as it would in real life, also in real time.

 

So it's a balancing act.  The happiest pilots I've read about in FSX seem to fly with default scenery, and focus on the flight model.  If you're one of those, you likely COULD push all your PMDG settings through the roof and still be "OK".  It's when you toss in high definition on the GROUND and at the airport, especially the very fine FSDreamteam or FlightBeam Studios sceneries that you get into conflicts between the demands of the software and the real-time abilities of even the highest-end systems.

 

A very intersting to read post here Robert!

And i totally agree - every platform can be brought to its knees if streched too far settings-wise.

What concerns me most - as many of us -  is, what You have perfectly described as beeing "handcuffed" under the hood and therefore being forced to make so much compromises in regards to settings, which, at the end of the day sometimes even make You ask:

Why not staying with stock FSX anyways ... okay i exagerrate here, but it is just so sad sometimes.

I have learnt to set up my FSX in a balanced way and i am really happy with it now, but the more great sceneries and add-ons appear the more compromises are required and i'd just be most happy if there was a platform around which would at least handle what is available now for FSX in a propper way.

And besides P3D version 2 maybe, there is only XPlane around which has the potential to at least possibly handle it all more properly - not perfect either, but sure better than FSX - at least in regards to the aspect of "under the hood".

And sure:

An engine of the kind of Outerra or so would be the absolute deal, but sadly it is still quite uncertain where Outerra will head to in the future and there is lots of silence around it nowadays regarding its potential as a future flightsim-platform.

So for now it is - maybe - P3D, Version 2 and XPlane which are the ones obviously needed to be focused on (though i remain open for any positive surprises and alternatives platformwise so to speak).

Well:

Let's wait (hopefully not to long though) and see which one will be the platform of choice for PMDG and other developers in a future - hopefully not to far away!

Cheers, Christoph