Again, I question the value of 64bit and dumping backwards compatibility. Commentary on LM's development of P3D toward 64bit is that they are going to fully optimize the 32bit code first and then recompile a 64bit version. It seem that from the post I've read in this regard that this approach is the Right way to do it! according those in the know. Funny then that DTG just go ahead recompile the un-optimized code? What you say they fully optimized the code first. Doesn't look that way to me. They clearly just shoehorned for want of a better term the un-optimized code into a 64 bit recompile for marketing reasons. That's why there is no visual or performance improvements. Regarding the P3D V2.4 video. Sure there are some stutters but they are just as smooth if not smoother than the Flight School videos, but get real the visual are far superior to Flight School. with exception of the textures of the default aircraft. I'll grant that. I challenge anyone with the beta or indeed the released version in few days to produce a flight school video in the same location (onroute CYVR to CYSE) that looks anything like as good. As far as flaws are concerned V-sync stutters are easiest to fix and I have long ago fixed those in P3D:

On the other hand the stutters in the Flight School videos look suspiciously like long frame stutters. It up to the developer to fix those and oops apparently better to do that before recompiling in 64bit.

Anyway these arguments that its a cheap intro to Flight Sim are BS. You can get a full refund on Prepar3D for 60 days after your purchase or you and a friend can get a developer copy of P3D V3 for a month for $5 each :-P More than adequate time to determine if you are interested in FS or not.

If an Ab Initio walked onto an air feild and asked my opinion I wouldn't knowingly give them a bum steer.

Frankly, Although I wish DTG good luck, its all smoke a mirrors and marketing. I suspect it will go the way of MSFight sooner rather than later. But either way it will never catch up with Prepar3D or X-Plane. even if DTG where in it for more than just the money :-P

Many of you will be happy to know that's the last you'll hear from me on the subject LOL!

What I find a little concerning is that many of these DTG potential user debates seem to be around money/cost ... DTG can't flourish if they have a community of users that don't want to spend money.

 

But equally newbies to the hobby could be put off if they feel they have to spend hundreds or thousands to get anywhere.

 

And I think you're still missing Sightseers point, in which I agree. Both P3D and, by the looks of it, DTG-FS have taken some steps back in terms of environment rendering and realism, and I mean a step back from FSX. You have to work/tweak hard to get some subtlety and realism back into the sim (P3D).... not everyone see's it, or cares, but some of us do.

64bit allows higher resolution LODs at further distances, but that does NOT improve performance, it increases system load and reduces performance - this applies to any 3D sim/game.  Again, 64bit will NOT speed anything up, all it will do is allow for better distance visuals at the cost of performance - meaning better hardware will be required.  Not sure why there was an XPlane reference?  Anyone running Xplane knows that 64bit didn't make it "faster".

 

Nobody claimed it made X-Plane "faster." I'm saying it wasn't even possible until after the sim moved to a 64-bit version. There isn't the kind of performance hit you're implying with reasonably fast hardware either. My system isn't exactly a monster (i7 4790 with a GTX 750Ti), and I can load extended DSF scenery with no impact on frame rates, because I have enough RAM (16 GB) and I don't run anything extreme like 4K resolution.

 

Frame rates are contingent on individual setups, so I'm not saying this will work for everyone. But I think this particular advantage of 64-bit software shouldn't be downplayed. Now that DTG is moving FSX code into 64-bit territory, I think people have every right to expect them to take full advantage of the possibilities.

But I think this particular advantage of 64-bit software shouldn't be downplayed.

 

It would not be downplayed if it was P3D we were talking about here. Then it would be all about the advantages it will bring, but hey-ho :/

 

And P3D is MY sim of choice, and that is not going to change. I'm trying/interested in FS out of curiosity and nothing more.

I am so looking forward to the reviews when DTG Flight School is released.

 

 

With regard to the upcoming DTG flight sim, why should anyone accept flaws like ugly clouds, blurred textures, and popping autogen when 1) there are other sims we can fly now that don't have that problem, and

 

I will happily accept this, if they are working in earnest to improve the product. For me it doesn't need to be a world leader on day one, so long as in the long run they listen to users and work to make it a better product. DTFS is the only MSFS derived sim in active development that will be available for entertainment purpose, so I definitely want to support them.

 

 

 

2) they're calling it a "next generation flight sim"?

 

I've never seen them call it a "next generation flight sim", can you post a link? Saying this is the next generation of the MSFS gaming genre is correct, and they have been clear all along this is built on the existing code base, so obviously this is not going to be some radical re-architecture or departure from what we've seen before.

 

I think some of the "hype" is coming from what people are reading into their statements, and also from wishful thinking and speculation.

 

 

As a side note, that page also says "Flight simulation has always been important in the world of gaming but it hasn’t kept up - the core experience hasn’t progressed since the launch of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X back in 2006." Kind of a knock on P3D and X-Plane there, eh? 

 

P3D isn't in the "world of gaming".

 

Take literally (and out of context) it does read as an unfair knock against X-Plane. I looked it up and it's statement from the CEO, not someone directly involved with the product, and he seems to be referring to FSX which of course has been in stagnation for 10 years.

 

In any case what company does not hype it's product at least a little?

 

 

I challenge anyone with the beta or indeed the released version in few days to produce a flight school video in the same location (onroute CYVR to CYSE) that looks anything like as good.

 

If you buy me a better computer, the FS Dreamteam scenery and all the other addons in that scenery (do have the T7 though), I can easily reproduce this in FSX:SE. Challenge accepted.

I've never seen them call it a "next generation flight sim", can you post a link?

 

 

From the early reports here on avsim: http://www.avsim.com/topic/467725-dovetail-games-vague-but-hopeful-details-on-the-next-flight-simulator/

 

Dovetail Games is currently recruiting for a Lead Artist to work as part of our Aviation team delivering the next generation of flight simulation.

 

Find out more http://www.dovetailg.../15/lead-artist

 

The Aviation team are now ramping up to deliver the next generation of flight simulation in order to create an immersive experience for the PC flight hobbyist.

What I find a little concerning is that many of these DTG potential user debates seem to be around money/cost ... DTG can't flourish if they have a community of users that don't want to spend money.

 

Well, for many users, myself included, money is de facto a limiting factor when it comes to enhancing one's flightsim experience. I think it's a reasonable approach to make flight simming more affordable for users (especially young users will benefit from that). Having a larger customer base for addon purchases might get prices down and not having to have a supercomputer to run it smoothly would also be appreciated. All those people who produce those shiny state-of-the-art 4K maxed-out flight sim videos with all tons of addons at 30fps usually own computers worth 3-4000€ or even more. I'd say our community has a problem if that's the requirement to enter it.

(And I did see people asking in these forums whether they should get a GTX960 (EDIT: 760 I meant) with 2 or 4 GB memory only to be met with the answer they should at least get a GTX 780 or 780ti...)

 

 

Best regards,

Dom

domae001 -

I can easily reproduce this in FSX:SE. Challenge accepted.

 

Oooh careful. FSX can be a good looking sim, but it lacks P3D's better water and cloud shadows.

 

Slightly OT but on the subject of cloud shadows, if I was looking to move FSX into the modern era, the first thing on my mind would have been cloud shadows. Martin mentioned a few weeks back that they're hoping to get them in for the main sim. It's such a big thing to me I would have pushed for them in Flight School. My thinking is "What do we need? Cloud shadows, When do we need them? 10 years ago".

 

 

From the early reports here on avsim: http://www.avsim.com...ight-simulator/

 

So DTG is accused of "hype" based on what they said in a job posting? I'm sorry but I think that's really stretching the notion of "hype".

 

Also at the risk of Clintonesque sentence parsing, but the word "of" makes a difference.

 

"Next generation of flight simulation": DTFS is indeed the next generation of the MSFS flight simulation family for gaming.

 

"Next generation flight simulator": A significant departure from existing sims in term of architecture, design, technologies used etc. For example what this project intends to do: http://nexgenflightsim.com/. I've never heard DTG claim this is what DTFS will be.

 

 

Oooh careful. FSX can be a good looking sim, but it lacks P3D's better water and cloud shadows.

 

Didn't see much water in that video. Clouds are obviously an issue, but I could get very close to P3D looks if I had the means to do it. 

 

 

Both P3D and, by the looks of it, DTG-FS have taken some steps back in terms of environment rendering and realism, and I mean a step back from FSX. Y

 

Can you be specific?  I'm not aware of a single step back in P3D relative to FSX?  I don't work hard to make my P3D the best it can be?  I know a lot of other folks do all kinds of tweaking, I don't and it works very well at extreme graphics setting at 4K.

 

Agree with you on cost, that's why this market is so much smaller than the console market.  It's never will be for the financially timid, but with that said, there is NOTHING to stop one from just turning those sliders down and make the best out of what they have and/or enjoy some freeware.

 

 

 

I don't run anything extreme like 4K resolution.

 

I've gone thru all the adjustments in Xplane 10.4x along with configuring add-ons and I can't run HDR at 4K and have to run very low settings relative to other simulators I use - my goals are a modest 30 FPS.  There is no multi-GPU support in XP and apparently never will be any.  Spent many days reading thru Xplane threads on various forums trying to get better performance ... I've tried everything and performance is NOT Xplane's strong point on my system ... agree I did all this at 2K and 4K res but I'm not sure why Xplane has such a hard time scaling well with resolution increases?   If you have any secret tips to extract more performance out of Xplane, please share and I'll check I haven't already tried it.  I'm hoping that changes with 10.50 will improve XP performance, but 64bit has allowed for better visuals, but has done nothing to help me with performance.

 

Aerofly FS 2 is visually nice and performs well, but it is missing a lot ... I think Aerofly FS 2 is probably more inline with competing against DTG Flight School ... certainly at the new user level.  But I'm a patient guy, have to be if one uses Xplane, so I can wait and see how Aerofly evolve, and how DTG evolve, while the more "serious" sims like Xplane and P3D continue forward with P3D moving forward the fastest.

 

What is interesting is this market (flight sim) it's a pretty small market (best case 300,000 to 500,000 users - very optimistic) yet we have several competing products ... something is drawing these NEW (ish) FS dev shops in?  My guess is the lure of recurring DLC.  Anyway, some interesting times ahead, but my point was don't expect those pre-rendered scenes of DTG to come to your PC any time soon, hardware has a long way to go to catch up.

 

Cheers, Rob

So DTG is accused of "hype" based on what they said in a job posting? I'm sorry but I think that's really stretching the notion of "hype".

 

The company's own description of its upcoming products isn't good enough?

 

Okay, how do you parse a page title on their web site that says "Dovetail Games Presents the Flight Simulators of the Future" http://www.dovetailgames.com/news/2016/feb/11/dovetail-games-presents-the-flight-simulators-of-the-future

 

Trying to pretend this is "only" an extension of FSX and we should thereby cut it some slack, isn't going to fly, I predict. People are expecting more than that, if they're going to move off their current platforms and buy add-ons for a new one. DTG also has a strong incentive to brand their product as something new and connected with their name, not Microsoft's or the term FSX. Hence the description of the products as next generation and "the flight simulators of the future." If they're going to describe it like that, it has to look and fly like that. 

lots of smoke and little roast - usually !! -  in UK is all about making money as quick as possible; it is not about quality but is about quantity.