What level of PC hardware do Developers actually use?

[JLSeagull 191]

Ok - Probably the most answered question of all time (and probably the dumbest one of 2016 to date on Avsim), but I can't find many references to it.

 

As an early flight-simmer I used to struggle along on my Amiga Commodore in my B17- Flying Fortress from Microprose and used to dream about owning the sort of 'mega-hardware' that those early FS programs were written for. As the years progressed (and I upgraded), it always seemed that the developers were forever one step ahead of me - inasmuch as they were able to introduce bigger and better effects and graphics that were always, tantalizingly, just beyond the medium/max sliders abilities of my existing Rig without bringing it to a BSOD halt.

 

Several decades later - and - equipped with the type of hardware that NASA would have coveted just a few years ago... I find that I am still struggling to find that 'sweet spot' whereby I can run my Sim at Gas Mark 10?

 

 

The question is this;-

 

What sort of PC systems do Developers actually use? Are they some sort of 'State of the Art' machines that us mere mortals will never own or, when Coding their own particular module, do the programmers never have to worry about the great VAS God looking over their shoulder?

 

What sort of systems are they running and testing P3D on?  Can anyone shed a bit more light on this subject?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Developers are "mere mortals" too, with bills to pay..

 

It is us, the customers, who pile addon upon addon, crank up the settings, and expect perfection.. :wink:

[JLSeagull 191]

I agree Bert - but - when 3PD's write the sort of code that gives us, potentially, all the graphical  'bells and whistles' that they produce (and we, as Consumers, demand), then surely they must use PC's that can support that level of testing with the native Sim that they are writing for without reducing it to single digit fps and ooms?  Or is this extreme naivety on my part?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I would not draw that conclusion.. many developers warn about cranking the settings too high - but we do it anyway 

[magnetite 38]

I doubt each studio has top of the line systems for every employee. Probably somewhere in the middle.

[JLSeagull 191]

Sorry Bert - perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here. What I was trying to say was that - in order to test the reliability and efficacy of their coding at 'high to ultra settings' - then 3rd Party Devs's must have to use PC's that are capable of running their graphically-intensive programs at the levels claimed (on the targeted Sim) without incurring the blurries or Oooms that are experienced by the majority of normal users when attempting to emulate those same levels of clarity. If they are able to do that successfully on their own development machines then that would suggest to me that they must be using a level of equipment that is still beyond the scope of the average user?

I  would not draw that conclusion.. many developers warn about cranking the settings too high - but we do it anyway 

Ok. Point taken - but - that is like buying a state of the art BMW (other car manufacturers are available) that the makers claim will do '0 - 160mph in ten seconds' but add the addendum in the handbook that they won't be held responsible if the contents of your gearbox and sump are left all over the road if you exceed 100mph?

[simmerhead 885]

There is no need to test anything in "ultra" mode. As a developer you don't need anything more than an average system - which is the system most customers own. Each simmer have unique setups and it is impossible to test for everything. OOMs are rarely caused by a single addon, they are caused by the combination of several. And since there are an infinite possible combination of addons installed on customers computers, it is impossible to do any useful tests. Most developers will test their addons on a clean install of the sim, and maybe add a few popular addons in the beta testing to check for compatibility etc.

[Jim Young 2,356]

I would suspect a software developer, say HiFi (ASN), would develop their product to work efficiently with FSX/FSX-SE/P3D w/o additional addons.  It seems to me HiFi and PMDG and REX and GEX and FTX/Orbx developers work to get their 'individual product' to work with the flight simulator it is being developed for and not necessarily for other addons that one might purchase to also use with a simulator.  I suspect they think you will just buy their addon and that will be it.  However, it is usually a combination of all of these addons that cause problems and not necessarily one individual addon.  Now I see that the P3D simulator also has Carenado and Milviz addons included with their product so I would assume those would be okay.  The developer tests with the simulator and not with a bunch of addons.  They made their product for one product and not for many current and future addons.  So, when you crank up your hardware to run P3D, ASN, Orbx/FTX products, a PMDG aircraft like the 777 or the iFly 747, then your computer might have some difficulties running all of them together with high settings, or sometimes even in moderate settings depending on the length of the flight.  Because the longer the flight, the more addons installed, the more likely you will have difficulties landing at a commercial addon airport 3 or 4 hours later no matter how powerful your computer.  That's the facts.

 

I remember when FSX first came out many upgraded to the latest and greatest hardware at the time and also upgraded to Vista.  They found they had to lower their settings or else get a crash.  Then someone discovered the /3GB switch where we could get another GB of VAS when employing the switch and we had fewer crashes and more addons were produced and installed and things started going downhill again.  Then came the "tweaks"....  (I won't discuss those as that's another long story but it got ugly...).

 

Best regards,