Serious ground layering bug in 3.3

[vgbaron 3,627]

Potroh - 

 

Of course, you are correct. I was speaking generally. I agree this is an unexpected result of something they attempted. I expect a hotfix is imminent although the speed with which they acknowledge/fix the anomaly will be interesting to observe.

 

What comes to my mind though is just exactly how much responsibility does LM have to the "sim" community?  We are not and never have been their target market. Consider that the majority of changes in the last few releases have been made to SimDirector. How many of their commercial customers would be using these old sceneries? Not a complaint towards LM, just an observation of the reality - to which some posters seem quite oblivious.

 

Vic

[Potroh 14]

What comes to my mind though is just exactly how much responsibility does LM have to the "sim" community? We are not and never have been their target market. Consider that the majority of changes in the last few releases have been made to SimDirector. How many of their commercial customers would be using these old sceneries? Not a complaint towards LM, just an observation of the reality - to which some posters seem quite oblivious.

 

Vic,

 

You are right, not too many commercial users would care. But still there are quite a few out there. In my small country there are at least half a dozen of those, who use full cockpits and train pilots, so they do care, because their "base or home airport" suddenly becomes unusable and that means a lot to their daily routines.

 

It's not as simple as asking the company or another developer to do another "Mega Airport Scenery" for them during the weekend...

Some of those commercial users do "airport familiarization" courses at a given airport, where the default scenery wouldn't serve the purpose.

 

But even more importantly: just browse through the fixes that have been made - say just for the 3.x series so far, and we can see that regardless the continued higher priority of SimDirector, many small bugs were dealt with, typically important for the non-commercial user only.

So we can't really complain, though LM prioritizes the military oriented stuff, but actually cares for general aviation a lot.

 

And BTW, these are not necessarily "old" sceneries. Not at all. Sceneries that were compatible with both FS versions and the company didn't force the developer to make a separate P3D version, simply because one bgl version was compatible with both...

 

Potroh

[vgbaron 3,627]

Again, we are in agreement Potroh!   :smile:  From the very beginning, in my early dealings with LM, I felt that although their main focus was the commercial market, they DO have a feeling and care for the sim community. Yes, we have been a great source of experienced beta testers but I see that as a good thing. Personally, I am enjoying the ride with P3D for as long as it lasts.

 

I believe that if LM were to make any intentional move that would break compat, they WOULD notify the community one way or another.

 

 

It's a good time for the sim community, IMHO.

 

Vic

[Potroh 14]

 

 

Again, we are in agreement Potroh!

 

Vic,

 

Glad to hear that!

 

Potroh

[cowpatz 243]

 

 

What comes to my mind though is just exactly how much responsibility does LM have to the "sim" community? We are not and never have been their target market.

 

Whilst it is true that we may not be the ultimate target market we are, none the less, still their customers, their beta testers and probably considerably subsidising their development cost.

[mikeymike 360]

noticing this also

will there be another update for this by LM?

cheers

Mike

[vgbaron 3,627]

If it's a common problem that LM can duplicate, I would expect a quick fix. If it's just a specific scenery incompatibility - that would depend on a lot of things. If LM  say it's up to the developer  - however I doubt it will come to that.

 

 

Vic

[Guest]

 

 

And BTW, these are not necessarily "old" sceneries. Not at all. Sceneries that were compatible with both FS versions and the company didn't force the developer to make a separate P3D version, simply because one bgl version was compatible with both...

 

I'd recommend you post on LM's forum with video and/or screenshots of the issue - i did a quick scan and didn't see any comments from you but I could have missed them.  However, I would suggest you use an approach that isn't filled with assumptions and be positive ... odds of being heard are greater, just don't bring expectations.

 

Attacking BETA testers isn't productive especially when you don't know the cycle frequency and/or time frames nor what's involved or scope.  It would be very unrealistic to expect Beta testers to run through 40,000+ (going back to FS2002) 3rd party products in a matter of 1 week and re-test per weekly beta update release for about 5-6 weeks until released to public.

 

It seems very strange to me that 3rd party content providers would use SDK tools from 14 years ago on more recent airports just so that they can distribute 1 set of .BGL's -- but apparently that does happen.  I also know devs use other tools that aren't part of any SDK.  I'm assuming devs do this to save themselves time and deployment size, but as you can see, such a practice has consequences as P3D moves forward.  You could also ask the 3rd party devs if they are claiming a product is P3D V3.x compatible, then why aren't they using the P3D V3 SDK tools?

 

With that said, I did report some issues with UK2000 airports once I confirmed them this evening.  But if the issue is one of mutual exclusion - meaning LM fixed a bug that can only be fixed by removing compatibility with FS2002 SDK usage, then it's unlikely LM will keep supporting ALL SDK methods from 14 years ago (compatibility decision points are CPU cycles being used up - aka slower).  If LM respond, I'll report back.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

(...) LM fixed a bug that can only be fixed by removing compatibility with FS2002 SDK usage, then it's unlikely LM will keep supporting ALL SDK methods from 14 years ago (compatibility decision points are CPU cycles being used up - aka slower). (...)

 

Yeah we do need to move forward. It's very very odd that airports such as LTBA still use these old as hell SDKs... Oh well.

[jcomm 5,938]

I believe the latest update to P3D, which most users are complaining about having ruined their UK2000 and other older sceneries, is actually the result of yet another important move towards the future of that platform, including breaking apart from old scenery building methods that although are in my most remote memories - I actually helped Manfred programming the first version of SCASM, which was the first and most used BGL scenery compiler since fs5, by that time also with Enrico Schiratti !!!

 

I made together with my great long time friend Carlos Coimbra  a couple of sceneries for Madeira and Azores islands, including the first Madeira airport for MSFS, with the rw seating on top of a plateau...

 

I guess LM may be moving towards bringing 3d airports ( runways and taxiways like in X-plane ) to P3D, and that will be a very welcomed feature....

 

They're moving in the right direction. Just imagine the impact it'll have the day they announce next version is going to be 64 bit .....

[Cargostorm 151]

imagine the impact it'll have the day they announce next version is going to be 64 bit .....

Yes , but 3.3 is a step within version 3, and still 32bit. An update should not break basic functionality or compatibility.

[Potroh 14]

 

 

I'd recommend you post on LM's forum with video and/or screenshots of the issue - i did a quick scan and didn't see any comments from you but I could have missed them. However, I would suggest you use an approach that isn't filled with assumptions and be positive ... odds of being heard are greater, just don't bring expectations.

Attacking BETA testers isn't productive especially when you don't know the cycle frequency and/or time frames nor what's involved or scope. It would be very unrealistic to expect Beta testers to run through 40,000+ (going back to FS2002) 3rd party products in a matter of 1 week and re-test per weekly beta update release for about 5-6 weeks until released to public.

It seems very strange to me that 3rd party content providers would use SDK tools from 14 years ago on more recent airports just so that they can distribute 1 set of .BGL's -- but apparently that does happen. I also know devs use other tools that aren't part of any SDK. I'm assuming devs do this to save themselves time and deployment size, but as you can see, such a practice has consequences as P3D moves forward. You could also ask the 3rd party devs if they are claiming a product is P3D V3.x compatible, then why aren't they using the P3D V3 SDK tools?

With that said, I did report some issues with UK2000 airports once I confirmed them this evening. But if the issue is one of mutual exclusion - meaning LM fixed a bug that can only be fixed by removing compatibility with FS2002 SDK usage, then it's unlikely LM will keep supporting ALL SDK methods from 14 years ago (compatibility decision points are CPU cycles being used up - aka slower). If LM respond, I'll report back.

 

Sorry Rob but I personally will neither post videos nor screenshots about the problem. The reason is simple, it's already been mentioned by many people here, in the LM forum and elsewhere. There's no need to enter a "prove your assumptions" game - once again.

Last time I participated in - an intellectually rather weak - debate like that, was back when the "rotating clouds" issue was new and came on the table.

The scenario was similar, hundreds (if not thousands) of users experienced the problem, they wrote about it here and elsewhere, while yourself and some others of course tried to deny the existence of the problem, until it became obvious that it exists and LM did its best to solve it, and did that almost instantly.

 

We also had been through the "attacking beta testers" thing with you here, alas, you seem to repeat that truly unnecessary notion of yours.

Needless to mention that nobody has "ATTACKED" any beta-testers, and I myself simply mentioned my doubt by saying that "none of the beta testers could notice" this almost global problem with many airports, which is anything but an "attack" - even if you repeatedly seem to place a rather mildly expressed critical sentence like this into the "alert basket".

 

Needless to say that a proper beta testing does NOT mean testing 40.000+ sceneries, perhaps three of them, five in the worst case, specially that it was known to the testers that something will be changed regarding the layering system. A good tester (with the help of the developers) in this case takes a few well known sceneries (even if made by older methods), and looks for potential problems. As simple as that.

As I mentioned earlier, it simply should have been checked how the change affected the majority of sceneries out there, regardless the method they were made by.
Of course this is valid only if LM did not intentionally want to brake compatibility by the small fix, which I seriously doubt they wished to accomplish.

 

But with your contradictious ex cathedra comments about the move towards the future, you try to paint the picture as if the change was intentional by LM, which IMHO was definitely not. They are wise enough to at least notify or warn the majority of users about a drastic change like that, braking compatibility with hundreds of airport sceneries, regardless the if old methods were being used.

 

Potroh

[Potroh 14]

 

 

I actually helped Manfred programming the first version of SCASM, which was the first and most used BGL scenery compiler since fs5, by that time also with Enrico Schiratti !!!

I made together with my great long time friend Carlos Coimbra a couple of sceneries for Madeira and Azores islands, including the first Madeira airport for MSFS, with the rw seating on top of a plateau...

I guess LM may be moving towards bringing 3d airports ( runways and taxiways like in X-plane ) to P3D, and that will be a very welcomed feature....
They're moving in the right direction.

 

Well, yes good memories and I was the one who made the very first commercial scenery by Scam (brought out by Lago)...

But Enrico has never really dealt with Scasm, his sole scenery venture (Schiratti Commander) had already used a different scenery compiler made by Maurizio Gavioli.

 

Anyway I do agree with your comment, and LM needs to go forward, nevertheless it has nothing to do with this tiny bug which most probably unintentionally affected older sceneries.

They will brake compatibility when 64 bit will be the immediate target, but not at 3.3 and not without telling anyone...

 

Potroh

[mikeymike 360]

If it's a common problem that LM can duplicate, I would expect a quick fix. If it's just a specific scenery incompatibility - that would depend on a lot of things. LM  say it's up to the developer  - however I doubt it will come to that.

 

 

Vic

G'day mate

It's all of my payware airports fsdt to flytampa etc

 

Sitting on runway and panning left to right runway marking disappear and reappear

 

No HDR tweaks or rsp etc

I guess a few of us are having this issue?

 

Cheers

Mike

[Akila 39]

can someone please post a full description of the issue?

reading through all those posts in this thread I couldn't figure out exactly what the problem is, only what products "a problem" potentially exists.

 

Picture or a Video would be helpful ...