IMO, blurry textures are much more evident when you switch to external views, or try to zoom in too much. The simple answer? Stick to VC mode, and don't zoom in.

So far at this early stage, I'm quite impressed with what I see, despite current limitations.

 

Does anybody know if the vendor has listed anywhere what they intend to add or fix before the official release?

 

One thing that spun me out big time, in a couple of those videos, when people are landing, the aircraft shadows and the visual sense of speed. In fact, I could probably overlook most of it's faults just because of those couple of things. So nice not to have scenery popping up around you.

 

Cheers,

AJ.

Another couple of short videos. Dont know about better physics than xp. it feels like X-plane flying but not there yet. maybe with better aircraft like airfoillabs and of course IXEG...

 

 

They have said they looked into OSM but the data for the US is poor. As for buildings killing performance they do hurt it but they hurt it way more in FSX then they do in Xplane. Personally I think we need to step away from the FSX engine it's 10 years old and still doesn't perform well even on top systems with planes that arent that complex systems wise (Carenado for example) there is somthing wrong at its core that makes it run that way. I'm tired of having to deal blurry ground textures just a couple of miles from the plane because FSX or P3D cant handle loading more of the full res textures due to OOMs.

 

A fresh start is absolutely needed. We just need to be sure to replace it with something that is scalable and future proof, and pure photoreal isn't it due to the storage requirements, licensing costs etc.

 

Maybe they've secretly built in support for actual autogen (not hand-placed objects), vector data, a full landclass interpreter and all the other complex things FSX/XP do behind the scenes to build up the final scene... But so far we haven't even seen water masks, and its less than 6 months from full release. It's not bad for a small independent team of developers, but it's not a complete FSX/XP/P3D replacement.

They've got a good engine. The lighting is impressive in it's coloring. 

 

But like Jimmi says, the problem that will hold them back is being based on photo scenery. 

IMO, the "future" looks like Outerra (not necessarily Outerra, just that quality) with vector and a hybrid landclass/OSM system to populate the world (where OSM buildings override land class autogen where available). You just can't count on photo scenery being viable on a large scale because of it's size, the lack of source material, and how bad it looks down low. 

IMO, blurry textures are much more evident when you switch to external views, or try to zoom in too much. The simple answer? Stick to VC mode, and don't zoom in.

We shouldn't have to do that though

Landclass scenery can also look "butt ugly" down low, and high resolution photoscenery can actually look rather good. Anyone who thinks that the ORBx FTX Global landclass scenery looks "good" is just kidding themselves.

We shouldn't have to do that though

 

 

You don't have to. P3D works fine in all views unless you select a tower view miles away and it has to reload local textures. 

Landclass scenery can also look "butt ugly" down low, and high resolution photoscenery can actually look rather good. Anyone who thinks that the ORBx FTX Global landclass scenery looks "good" is just kidding themselves.

 

Which land class scenery? FTX Global is just textures and with stock land class data doesn't look that good. But is that what you are discussing (i.e. what DTG Flight School has)?

 

If you mean the coming OpenLC that annotates things much better to the base textures, it looks a hell of lot better then flat blurry photo scenery down low. 

 

Yeah, high resolution photo scenery can look good. That wasn't the point though. The point is you can't get high resolution photo scenery for much of the US, much less the world. And even if you could, you couldn't afford enough hard drives to put it on. It's not a viable path forward outside of a localized, simple simulator where high altitude flying is the premium. 

 

X-plane is already on the right path by forgoing base generic textures (with buildings and crap painted on them, i.e. FSX's approach) and choosing to build their world via a layered, lego brick type approach starting with a base terrain layer. It needs much more work, but if they get it right, it's going to look very good and already does in many respects (with good OSM data especially). Same for Outerra if someone ever takes that engine and does something similar with a land class and/or OSM system. 

 

Yeah your're right

My take is that in reality I only fly in certain areas that have interest to me. The rest of the world pretty much sits there, utterly unused, and I suspect that probably applies to a large number of people here.

 

If good scenery is available for the areas I'm interested in, then I really don't need the rest of the world. (except for the nebulous comfort of knowing its there if I ever want it. Which over the course several years, I never have.)

My take is that in reality I only fly in certain areas that have interest to me. The rest of the world pretty much sits there, utterly unused, and I suspect that probably applies to a large number of people here.

 

If good scenery is available for the areas I'm interested in, then I really don't need the rest of the world. (except for the nebulous comfort of knowing its there if I ever want it. Which over the course several years, I never have.)

 

My two cents. Going global would be a very bad idea for Aerofly. I can't find any single reason for doing such a move.

The main reason to go global is because its already done...They said that it will be as a optional download, so no big deal there.

They just need to provide us with tools too to edit/create airports and liveries (ttx format).

The main reason to go global is because its already done...They said that it will be as a optional download, so no big deal there.

They just need to provide us with tools too to edit/create airports and liveries (ttx format).

 

Thank you for this information. I was honestly completely unaware of this.

 

Yet, I maintain that going global is a dubious move for Aerofly. First, this would put them in direct competition to FSX, FSX-SE, P3D, X-Plane, DTG Flight Simulator and possibly NextGen, although the plans of the last are so far obscure. While they have a clearly superior graphical engine showing a huge potential towards all competitors, the complete lack of support by third party developers would be fatal. Given the enormous addon offer for the competitors after years of development and the very well-known psychological resistance to changes in our community, I am afraid they will be easily squeezed.

 

Second, which is the point in having one more worldwide simulator, when we know that we can't have this and a high resolution photoscenery, unless we assume downloading several terabytes of data? Yes, they could follow the standard approach with some solid partnership, as FSX, P3D and DTG made with Orbx, but I think it would much more appealing to optimize the current areas and maybe add some more, fill the gaps, optimize the hangar with more in-depth systems, add some basic features simmers can't live without and release a high quality product that can clearly stand out and compete. Limited areas but with very high resolution, a limited stock of solid aircraft, all the rest open to 3rd party integration.

 

In other words, I think Aerofly may have a future as a niche. Less quantity, more quality. This might be the right approach, in my view.

 

 

We have learnt over the years that publishing a new flight simulator in the PC market is a difficult thing, to say the least 

We have those people that are happy with our approach and think its a fresh start in the flight simulator business, on the other hand there are existing FSX and X-Plane users that are rather skeptical. The main problem is that our potential customers are ranging from casual users that just want to make a quick flight up to demanding users that want to simulate every aspect of flying.

Comparison to other simulators is something we cannot stop, but FSX is in the market for many many years and has grown especially due to the huge amount of 3rd party AddOns. This is something a new simulator can never achieve right from the start. But it is our long term intention to offer an open Flight Simulator as well where other users can add content to it.

Developing a Flight Simulator takes time and the internals of Aerofly evolved over many years, but we now have a solid base that we can built on. That's why we think is the best time to enter the Early Access program. We will listen to your Feedback and we will try to implement as many wishes as possible, but it takes time, so please be patient with us.

 

I live in Europe and will certainly NOT mind if they omit the entire globe and focus on the SoCal and NoCal area plus Hawaii. Add a good (in depth) system for navigation and a good Autopilot and you have a satisfying simulator.

 

Ideally you would be able to update Airac cycles from Navigraph. The point in keeping the sim in this restricted area is that development of a good ATC system will be much easier. After that, make AI aircraft that move around and fill the sky. Then focus on Multiplayer environments like IVAO, PilotEdge and VatSim.