What will be the future of flight-simming?

[aerdt 0]

I have to say that I am absolutely impressed with all the recent improvents. I still remember the times of FS 5.1 where flight-simming was nothing more than a pixel simultation with deserted airports and no ambiance whatsoever.And look where we are today! Photorealistic scenery, living and vibrant airports, ultra-realistic models and cockpits, close to real AI traffic, excellent ATC (online with VATSIM/IVAO or offline with RCv4), detailed clouds, excellent realistic procedures (if I may hail the Virtual Pilots Association, best move I have made in a long time), situational awareness (TrackIR) and so much more.I flew today from CYYZ to KLGA this the morning and the sunrise above the clouds was just stunning.What else is missing?Here is my list:- Improved online traffic, more participation on VATSIM/IVAO, although I personally find offline flights more challenging, because of the clost to real traffic -or- merging offline and online ATC (offline where no online ATC is available)- More ultra-realistic planes (which will surely be developed)- Better dynamic scenery (follow-me cars, shuttle busses, traffic on roads)- Improved airports (all major airports with jetways, pushback trucks)- Fully-functional virtual co-pilot (FSPassengers and FDC is a great start, FS2Crew is even better, but limited to specific planes)- Ability to act as FO, ability to have two players (PIC and FO) - started with FSNet- Improved offline ATC with intelligent voice recognition- Better ATC internationalization with different accents- Better airport weather effects (runways) - coming in FS10What do you think? What are the greatest shortcomings at this point? It surely isn't the graphics engine, because everything works just fine with on my mid-range workstation.

[Guest Ozark Dogfighter]

Well, seeing those screenshots of whatever-it-was-shown-at-San-Diego of the wet runway, reflections, bloom, cloud-cast shadows and sunlight streaking through the clouds, I'd say that graphics are indeed an emminent step in the FS series. I personally am looking forward to it. My computer, however, is not :-lol.Aside from that, I want NO MORE FLAT RUNWAYS, unless of course they are flat in real life. I want crowns and slopes and bumps, chugholes, softspots and cracks with fescue in them, occasional broken lights, drifting snow, frost heave :-lol, ICE, ICE, ICE, puddles, mud, roadkill, other occassionally interfering fauna, etc. I'll agree with everything else you said though. Don't forget realistic shear, icing, turbulence, etc, and I want ultra-real ATC. May be impossible to make it more human, but I DO want to hear "Cessna eight-juliet-alpha, position and hold runway two, prepare for immediate, wind zero-four-zero at five, caution wake turbulence"Sigh.....-Jeremy BurchThe Ozark Dogfighter http://forums.avsim.net/images/wedge.gifHappy Flying!Pilot-There is evidence of a leak on right main landing gear.Mechanic- Evidence removed.

[Guest bobsk8]

Ultra fluid and smooth frame rates all the time........ That is number one on my list.

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

I agree with Bob. We need much improved framerate performance! I suppose I could dump all my addons to get increased performance. But who in their right mind would want to do that? Lol. I think FS200X is just so CPU dependant that it's kind of a bummer. I use 1600x1200 resolution with 4x AA and 16x AF. What did I get with going from a Radeon 9700 Pro video card to a Radeon X800 XT PE? Nothing in the way of a framerate increase. I was able to turn on the bump mapped water enviroments that were made by Bill Lyons back in the day, and more recently done by addons such as FSWater and Flight Enviroment. The transitor count in todays video cards are as high, or higher, than CPU's. If you buy the latest and greatest one the moment they become available you pay almost as much as you do for a CPU. They have a lot of functionality that MSFS does not even touch, much less begin to take advantage of. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the ONLY change to FS2006 were to make it take advantage of modern day video card GPU's(for better fps) with no change to the look of the graphics or anything else in the sim, thereby having in 100% backward compatibilty. But that's a rediculous thought really as things have always naturally progressed in a number of areas in each new version and I'm sure the next version will be no different in that respect. Anyway, don't get me wrong or anything, I love MSFS, I am just like most other folks around here, I would love to see some improved performance in the next version, without having to wait for a computer system that's 3 years away in order to run it smoothly in all it's glory.I could probably list a number of advancements that I wouldn't mind seeing in the next version(since it is naturally going to progress). But I'll list just one for now. I would like to see a much more realistic lighting enviroment. If my Landing Lights are shining on a parked cold and dark aircraft it would be cool to have that aircraft lit up by my landing lights(in FS2004 they do not). If I'm not mistaken, right now mountains will shadow the area of the scenery, but your aircraft is still lit up as if the sun is shining right through the mountains. How about real points of light in scenery, like you get in Utlimate Terrain. In short, a realistic dynamic lighting engine, instead of the flat lighting as seen on scenery tiles.Cheers,OneTinSoldier

[yellow5 0]

The future of flight simming will become flight reality. We will all be taking advantage of the thousands of airports world wide, and be flying hybrid airplanes to work, the grocery store, and everywhere.... My guess is by the year 2050, or maybe sooner or later.... :DKevin

[Guest Shalomar]

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!I think the biggest thing missing is the ability to switch back and forth from AI to human controllers.I am about to try a little experiment with C4TO and FLY II.Since it and Squawkbox read FLY II's flight planner, if there is no controller available I'll proceed with C4TO. If I am passing thru controlled airspace, I may get nagged a bit. If there is definitely a controller at my destination, I can end the C4TO session. If there is a controller, I will adjust my flight plan to match my clearance before initiating C4TO. If the controller logs off, or I pass into uncontrolled airspace, C4TO does the job.C4TO is an addon module for ATC. It has great vectoring logic, though some features are not yet implemented like multiple runway support (it does assign according to wind direction, and need for an ILS or not) or the ability to file a flight plan in midair. But just try switching back and forth from Vatsim to many other ATC programs...Best Regards, Donny:-wave

[Guest]

> I am just like most other folks around here, I would love to see > some improved performance in the next version, without having to > wait for a computer system that's 3 years away in order to run it > smoothly in all it's glory.Yea it would be great if they could fix that. This stupid engine is drawing everything. While you taxi to the runway the engine will be drawing everything on the other side of the terminal, that you can't even see. Add a visibility routine to draw only what you can see, and frame rates will at least double.Online play, its going to be better is theres a single network. More people will log on if that can be created. Also why not allow VOIP and features to copilot or just be a passenger and chat to other passengers...John.

[michal 44]

In my opinion the biggest annoying thing is how the weather still acts. Sudden transitions in visibility really cut the realism. One second you are in clear next second you are inside clouds. Also if you use real weather there are constant issues with sudden jumps in pressure, wind speed, temperature. So at the end it all boils down to a single request: we need SMOOTH weather transitions.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_beta_member.jpg

[Guest]

> we need SMOOTH weather transitions.Hey good point. Is that something a third party weather generation program (like ASV) could potentially fix though ?John.

[JSkorna 137]

Hi John,MJ knows because he is on our beta team, but there are some hard coded things in FS that even WE cannot fix or work around. The visibility jump is one of these.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

[Guest beana51]

www.virtusphere.net/index.htm Hi ,You may not have to wait that long! Their getting close! Then again this stuff will be long obsolete by 2050! VIN :-laugh1

[Guest koorby]

I want deeper immersion in the actual FS world. This could be achieved easily in FS10 by adding a "first person walk mode". For example, when we've landed at our your designated home airport we could have our entire (or a selection of) virtual "hangar" of our freeware or payware aircraft sitting on the parking area, including vehicles and cars. When we taxi and then park our C182 instance, we can open the door, get out, tie down the plane and then walk over to the terminal, grab a cuppa, and then hop into a car and drive around town. That to me, would be a superb extension of FS which would spawn a whole new addon segment - virtual towns!

[kiwimail 1]

My biggest problem with FS is the way textures are loaded. I hate to bring this up again but it's the one thing that really puts a damper on my simming. I hope something can be done in the next FS so that what ever visibilty is set at we can see textures without blurries or turning into soup. Surely with graphics card today or in the future this shouldn't be a problem at all. When looking out the window flying in the real world,I don't see any blurred ground textures. This would make a big diffrence for me.

[Krister 51]

What I would like to see most of all is what fsnet is trying to do - enable you to share a cockpit with another person over the Internet. Then somehow hooking it all up to VATSIM! :)

[Guest seev_39]

The future of home flight simulation will be a gradual closing of the performance gap between the $10 million plus professional simulators of today and what we poor guys will be able to buy in the future (5 years? 10 years? who knows). Judging by the hardware (computers and add-on instruments) already available now, we can expect in the near future items such as;- Ultra speed PC