...

 

FSX may be a ten year old platform but the ingenuity of developers like PMDG, A2A, Majestic, ORBX and HiFi Technology keeps it moving forward.

 

They keep it from disappearing perhaps, but it is hard to justify a claim that it is moving forward. The limitations of the 32bit memory model were being felt within a year or two of FSX being released and the single threaded design hoping the processor core speeds would keep increasing was already known to have been the wrong horse to back even before release. PMDG's last 'breakthrough' design was the HUD which was near enough five years ago and while plenty of people are adding more detail, that just means hitting the limits sooner. With a lot of luck, P3D will find a way to introduce a partial 64bit model with multi-threading. My guess is that they will use multiple collaborative 32 bit virtual machines but they will still have some awesome problems to overcome.  

[Generic friendly reminder that AVSIM prohibits the discussion of the LM EULA here.]

[Generic friendly reminder that AVSIM prohibits the discussion of the LM EULA here.]

Hi Kyle,

For the unknowing amongst us, or me specifically,... what is a "LM EULA"?

Hi Kyle,

For the unknowing amongst us, or me specifically,... what is a "LM EULA"?

 

Lockheed Martin End User License Agreement

 

People's discussions of it usually bridge the line between legal information (me pointing someone to the LM license comparison page - i.e. me, putting the info out there) into legal advice (i.e. what I would be doing if I told you what you could, or could not, legally do). The latter can get people in trouble if they do not have a license to practice law (and AVSIM, for hosting it, in theory), so they prefer to not have people discuss it.

Yeah, ok..I can understand how some people may get a little carried away with advice during a discussion, crossing the line can be very easy in the heat of battle. The last thing we need to be doing is upset the keepers of the website.

In some respects I believe that abandonment of FS by Microsoft has been a blessing. If they were continuing to develop it, they would have the financial incentive to continue to make "new and better" iterations to FS that weren't backwards compatible, like EA Sports coming out with a new Madden or FIFA every year with only incremental changes. Would developers have been able or willing to create the spectacular add-ons that are now being made if the base platform was changing every two years? It may be argued that it would have been preferable if development had stopped with a 64 bit platform, but I think the stability of the platform has been beneficial from that standpoint.

In some respects I believe that abandonment of FS by Microsoft has been a blessing. If they were continuing to develop it, they would have the financial incentive to continue to make "new and better" iterations to FS that weren't backwards compatible, like EA Sports coming out with a new Madden or FIFA every year with only incremental changes. Would developers have been able or willing to create the spectacular add-ons that are now being made if the base platform was changing every two years? It may be argued that it would have been preferable if development had stopped with a 64 bit platform, but I think the stability of the platform has been beneficial from that standpoint.

My feelings exactly.

We cannot forget the CRJ from Aerosoft that it is looking very good. Just hope they could fix what it needs to be fix it very soon.

They keep it from disappearing perhaps, but it is hard to justify a claim that it is moving forward. The limitations of the 32bit memory model were being felt within a year or two of FSX being released and the single threaded design hoping the processor core speeds would keep increasing was already known to have been the wrong horse to back even before release. PMDG's last 'breakthrough' design was the HUD which was near enough five years ago and while plenty of people are adding more detail, that just means hitting the limits sooner. With a lot of luck, P3D will find a way to introduce a partial 64bit model with multi-threading. My guess is that they will use multiple collaborative 32 bit virtual machines but they will still have some awesome problems to overcome.

What you experience is not FSX as such, but the addons installed in it. FSX is just a platform. So if the addons are developing, as PMDG, A2A, ORBX and HiFi are, then the experience is improving. I'm not sure we would have had such greatly improved addons if new versions of MSFS had continued to be produced every two years, changing the environment for developers each time.

 

With FSX's memory problems overcome by FSX-SE and now P3Dv3 the limits of 32 bits are less pressing, especially if you use 64 bit Windows. Also LM may not be under any commercial pressure to move to 64 bits any time soon. What hobby users want is not significant.

Interesting discussion. As a recent buyer of A2A products and PMDG 777 I am amazed at what these devs have been able to do with the platform. I spent some time yesterday in the flight deck of the 777 just reading through the FCOM and pushing various switches (even the ones I was told not to press....haha).

 

My experience wasn't exactly with FSX but rather PMDG. Of course the 777 is not possible without the FSX background and I am very glad that FS had so many great years of development. I guess everybody has different requirements but the level of detail in the latest models from the likes of A2A, PMDG and Aerosoft had kept me very satisfied. It amazes me how well people understand FSX now and, as mentioned above, this body of knowledge, coupled with a stable platform (from a development POV) has led to the kinds of things that Microsoft would most likely never have intended to model anyway.

 

Tom Marius

FSX is doing just fine. I'm looking forward to more addons from developers in the future.

FSX is indeed doing well.

Not sure what the the OP really wanted to say/express, but fact is that developing a decent add-on such as the mentioned QW 787 promises to be for instance, simply takes time - and the same goes out to all the most fantastic planes from PMDG, A2A and so on.

Other aircrafts by the way, which may not offer that much fidelity systemwise, such as those from Carenado for instance, are being released on an almost monthly base.

I really don't see any slow-down here.

And if it is not for airplanes, then there is a lot of development going on for sceneries lately, with lots of grand new stuff being released here on an almost daily base at the moment.

 

Sure, the day will certainly come when FSX as we currently know it will vanish and other flghtsimming-platforms will follow instead. However, currently this day seems to be quite some time ahead in the future as by now and today developments for FSX are very, very much vital and alive.

:smile:

We cannot forget the CRJ from Aerosoft that it is looking very good. Just hope they could fix what it needs to be fix it very soon.

Oh, I think we can. The CRJ doesn't look any better today then it did five years ago when it was only a few months from completion.

What you experience is not FSX as such, but the addons installed in it. FSX is just a platform. So if the addons are developing, as PMDG, A2A, ORBX and HiFi are, then the experience is improving. I'm not sure we would have had such greatly improved addons if new versions of MSFS had continued to be produced every two years, changing the environment for developers each time.

 

With FSX's memory problems overcome by FSX-SE and now P3Dv3 the limits of 32 bits are less pressing, especially if you use 64 bit Windows. Also LM may not be under any commercial pressure to move to 64 bits any time soon. What hobby users want is not significant.

The platform can only put so many dots of colour on the screen and can only track so many moving objects at a time. Ten years ago, that was enough to make for an excellent simulation. Five years ago it was good enough but to get what we wanted most of the time it was quite normal to have REX, ASX, GTX, and UTX before we loaded an aircraft or scenery and already we were having to make choices about what not to load. Finally, it doesn't say much for the platform when it can takes so many years to produce a half decent model of anything of even minor complexity.

 

FSX:SE and P3D are real improvements over FSX, but after almost ten years, have then improved enough? Would your teenage kids give it a second look? And if not, what it the future for our hobby?

To say "it doesn't say much for the platform when it takes so many years to produce a half decent model of anything of even minor complexity" begs the question; compared to what? How long should it take? Look at the "Call of Duty" series - the game is released every year, but by alternating studios, Treyarch and Infinity Ward for example, so that a developer is on at least a 2 year development cycle, with a game that earns numbers exceeding Hollywood blockbusters, and studies that can afford to employ a development team proportionately. Flight Simming inevitably will be more of a niche market - it's awesome for us, but more many people it's boring. It's never going to have the degree of popularity of the big console games, nor will the revenue justify the type of development teams that big budget games from Bethesda, EA, etc. can justify. And even those studios can be years between major releases. Frankly, given the return on investment I think the add-ons released for FSX, even in terms of development time, are remarkable. My point being, I think the relatively small user base is the reason for "limited" development, not the other way around.