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MorsAbAlto

How much more can FSX handle? (be warned, lots of opinion)

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@William Ezzell, You can try DCS World for free, the base game with the SU-25 is freely downloadable, then the modules are extra from there. Granted the stock SU-25 doesn't have the fidelity of the other modules such as the A-10C or MiG-21 but its a good intro to see if you can run it well, its a bit of a beast. They are pricey normally but frequently go on sale for as much as 70% off. I would recommend the standalone version over Steam, as the Steam version is slower on updates and availability of new modules. And as a bonus, modules bought through Steam sales can be activated on the Standalone install, but not the other way around.

 

One cool thing too, PilotEdge will soon be supporting DCS World with the A-10C I believe on the Nevada map.

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New chassis tended to come out every couple of years as well and, again, sooner or later you would have to keep up somewhere near the latest model to stay competitive.

 

See and the same is true for flight sims. You are in a race to keep your sim up to date and the experience fresh. The "thousands of hours" argument is very theoretical. I do have hundreds of hours in my FSX log, but on a variety of aircraft and routes. Who would ever want to fly the same aircraft between a token few destinations for their whole simming careeer? In reality, people buy newly released scenery and aircraft when they are released and never get "thousands of hours" out of them. So people are spending hundreds of dollars every year. This is not a stab at developers and their pricing, it is what it is for several reasons. 

 

Yes, there are way more expensive hobbies, still we are talking about a consumer grade simulation here and P3D is everything but that (officially). I am not going to discuss the content of the EULA, [MOD: original text then continued to discuss the content of the EULA. Removed.]

 

So in the end it is up to DTG to provide the next big thing and that is a bit worrying, considering their policy with other products. 

 

At some point, FSX will be left behind for the sake of technological improvement. I just want to know if this is happening sooner or later. PMDG are one of the few people that could comment on that, with all their insight of the market. The 747v3 is a must-have for me, but how long until we will see features omitted on the old platform?

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The 747v3 is a must-have for me, but how long until we will see features omitted on the old platform?

 

Not asking about the 747. I know Robert has said there are new and cool features with this product, but are those limited to P3D? I'm not asking PMDG or you, as I don't think there's been any detail in that regard and I'm well aware of PMDG's update policy.

 

What exactly does P3D offer? I understand the graphics are more appealing. However, as you can see with my post above, I question how much better. For example, when I look at the 747 screenshots posted a few days ago, I don't see much of a difference. With Inspector, REX, and Active Sky, mine looks pretty close. I intend to get DirectX Fixer to give me the shade effects. This isn't a knock on P3D - I genuinely ask - what are the things that I would notice immediately?

 

I have some performance issues from time to time. OOMs are rare (but I save progress for that or freezes). I sometimes have slow FPS at Taxi2Gate or FlightBeam airfields when my viewpoint includes the PMDG 777 displays and the scenery (like on a takeoff roll). But it's something I have learned to live with and doesn't bother me that much. 

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I genuinely ask - what are the things that I would notice immediately?

 

The visual differences are immediate and stunning.  DX11 is that big of deal and their HDR is pretty good,  plus they are using the GPU so now you can balance work between CPU and GPU.  That fake head movement effect is gone.  Performance has gotten steadily better and better and they continue to improve it.  They have a game controller interface that is Direct3D compliant and works well without the need for FSUIPC although Pete Dowson collaborates with LM and his latest versions are fully P3D compliant.  The list is pretty long. Check out their web site.

 

Basically you are comparing a 6+ yr old application with a current one.


Dan Downs KCRP

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NOTE: I'm watching. I woke up to a [stuff]storm of [stuff] that I had to remove this morning for delving into That Which Must Not Be Named. Seeing that I'm on vacation, the threshold for using my Førumner is rather low (for those who don't get that, it's a portmanteau: Mjølner is is Thor's hammer).

 

 

 

For those calling FSX dead, I will disagree with you there. Sure, the environment no longer being developed, but that's not something that's unique. In the past, as soon as a version was complete and a service pack or two was out, it was onto the next one. By the same definition, that would be "dead," but nobody brought it up in the same light. If Microsoft brought a bunch of innovations into the new release that broke backward compatibility for some of the more detailed add-ons, then that usually meant buying your entire fleet again. Sucked, but that was the reality. There were benefits to that: new innovations and so on; there were also drawbacks: the lifespan of a certain platform was about two years, though developers would usually release for N and N-1 (and occasionally N-2, depending on the complexities), and about every other cycle meant re-buying (or dropping) things due to the tech changes.

 

I doubt FSX will truly "die off" until there's some definitive entertainment-realm sim to replace it (then again, we still get chuckleheads asking if our stuff will be FS2004 compatible, so even that isn't completely dead). FSX:SE gave it a morphine shot in the leg and a few optimizations along with it. We have some interesting developments in X-Plane 11, and we also have the DTG Flight Sim up ahead of us.

 

For X-Plane, I'm honestly not quite sure what William is aiming at when he's calling it worthy of regurgitation. The aircraft may be a bit cartoony (currently), but the environment is pretty stellar. It's magnitudes better than FSX at altitude (for free), even when compared to the various (paid) add-ons to improve the FSX environment. It feels a little bit less "on rails" as well, which adds to the experience. Looking at the features of XPL 11, I think that they may end up converting a number of people as they've addressed a lot of the main complaints that people have raised over the years (no aircraft shine, interface issues, sound environment, and so on). XPL already has a 64 bit version too, which is nice.

 

For the upcoming DTG sim, those who have flown Flight School have probably gotten a preview of what you might see in the full sim coming out later. The community hasn't heard too much about it, though, so we shall see. Seeing the improvements in Flight School, I'm hopeful that the full sim will do well too. I believe it'll be 64 bit out of the gates (Flight School is), which will be nice as it gives people a buffer on the VAS limit.

 

 

 

 

In any case, I'm not really seeing a reason to be scared of what is ahead. The only difference between now and then is we haven't had to pay for a new sim version (and the occasional add-on) every two years since about 2006 (within the FSX ecosystem - P3D is ESP, and ESP was a separate ecosystem, unless you were running ESP when ESP was ESP). So, despite the lack of platform progress, we've had it pretty good regarding the typical costs of the hobby since FSX came out and nothing replaced it.

 

Also: getting into real world flying to stave off flight sim cravings is a losing battle. I wouldn't recommend it. If you really want to fly, then absolutely go for it, but if the reason is to save money, that ain't gonna happen...believe you me...that ain't gonna happen.

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Kyle Rodgers

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For X-Plane, I'm honestly not quite sure what William is aiming at when he's calling it worthy of regurgitation. The aircraft may be a bit cartoony (currently), but the environment is pretty stellar. It's magnitudes better than FSX at altitude (for free), even when compared to the various (paid) add-ons to improve the FSX environment. It feels a little bit less "on rails" as well, which adds to the experience. Looking at the features of XPL 11, I think that they may end up converting a number of people as they've addressed a lot of the main complaints that people have raised over the years (no aircraft shine, interface issues, sound environment, and so on). XPL already has a 64 bit version too, which is nice.

I'm glad you are talking positively about XP and I'm looking forward to PMDG's future development for it. I assume you can't say, but do you know if PMDG has worked with Laminar Research at all on anything related to XP11? If I remember correctly, you were in contact with Laminar Research to add a few features needed for the DC-6, so I was just interested. 

 

P.s sorry if this is slightly off topic

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One of the reasons that FSX was a failure was the reluctance of many FS2004 users to take the same pain upgrading to FSX meant it never returned its investment. Granted, the move from FSX to P3D or X-plane is not cheap, but it is a great deal cheaper then previous upgrades because your existing hardware is still good, and you have a reasonable chance (tough not a certainty) that your investment will be good for a few years at least.

 

In answer to your question on the future of FSX, FSX is dead!

For a failure FSX has done remarkably well. Still selling copies ten years on. I'd guess many more copies than FS9 sold. Did MSFS ever give Microsoft a return in any of its forms? I doubt it, it was something of a marketing tool.

 

My move to FSX wasn't that expensive because I chose not to try and set the sliders all the way to the right. Microsoft always intended FSX to be a sim that had potential to get better as hardware improved.

 

As Kyle said, FSX isn't dead. The products still being developed and launched for it prove that.


ki9cAAb.jpg

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For those calling FSX dead, I will disagree with you there. Sure, the environment no longer being developed, but that's not something that's unique. In the past, as soon as a version was complete and a service pack or two was out, it was onto the next one. By the same definition, that would be "dead," but nobody brought it up in the same light. If Microsoft brought a bunch of innovations into the new release that broke backward compatibility for some of the more detailed add-ons, then that usually meant buying your entire fleet again. Sucked, but that was the reality. There were benefits to that: new innovations and so on; there were also drawbacks: the lifespan of a certain platform was about two years, though developers would usually release for N and N-1 (and occasionally N-2, depending on the complexities), and about every other cycle meant re-buying (or dropping) things due to the tech changes.

I think we are saying much the same thing in different ways. A two year cycle to stay latest and a four year cycle to stay in contention, but beyond four years and you where just behind the times. Of course there would still be some new stuff for your platform on the market every now and again, and of course they would usually be better then what came before, (how long has it been since the MD-11?) but attempts to demand support and updates from suppliers would be met with chuckles if not derision. Had that cycle continued, FSX would be a dim and distant memory four or five versions behind the times. It would probably be described as 'good in its day' by its fans and 'over ambitious' by most others but nobody would seriously entertain the thought of actually still trying to use it anymore then people would load up a copy of FS2000 to fly the Concorde.

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In answer to your question on the future of FSX, FSX is dead! It still exists because it provides an excellent and cheap introduction to flight simming but it is locked down by limits that seemed reasonable over a decade ago, and that means it has no future.

 

Hah! There are still a few years in FSX. http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/115546-annual-poll-on-platform/ suggests that with Aerosoft customers, currently P3D and FSX are level. As not so many are switching over 30% of the community will use FSX next year. In lands other than Europe and US, many people are not even into FSX but are using FS9.

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So, despite the lack of platform progress, we've had it pretty good regarding the typical costs of the hobby since FSX came out and nothing replaced it.

 

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NOTE: I'm watching. I woke up to a [stuff]storm of [stuff] that I had to remove this morning for delving into That Which Must Not Be Named. Seeing that I'm on vacation, the threshold for using my Førumner is rather low (for those who don't get that, it's a portmanteau: Mjølner is is Thor's hammer).

 

 

 

For those calling FSX dead, I will disagree with you there. Sure, the environment no longer being developed, but that's not something that's unique. In the past, as soon as a version was complete and a service pack or two was out, it was onto the next one. By the same definition, that would be "dead," but nobody brought it up in the same light. If Microsoft brought a bunch of innovations into the new release that broke backward compatibility for some of the more detailed add-ons, then that usually meant buying your entire fleet again. Sucked, but that was the reality. There were benefits to that: new innovations and so on; there were also drawbacks: the lifespan of a certain platform was about two years, though developers would usually release for N and N-1 (and occasionally N-2, depending on the complexities), and about every other cycle meant re-buying (or dropping) things due to the tech changes.

 

I doubt FSX will truly "die off" until there's some definitive entertainment-realm sim to replace it (then again, we still get chuckleheads asking if our stuff will be FS2004 compatible, so even that isn't completely dead). FSX:SE gave it a morphine shot in the leg and a few optimizations along with it. We have some interesting developments in X-Plane 11, and we also have the DTG Flight Sim up ahead of us.

 

For X-Plane, I'm honestly not quite sure what William is aiming at when he's calling it worthy of regurgitation. The aircraft may be a bit cartoony (currently), but the environment is pretty stellar. It's magnitudes better than FSX at altitude (for free), even when compared to the various (paid) add-ons to improve the FSX environment. It feels a little bit less "on rails" as well, which adds to the experience. Looking at the features of XPL 11, I think that they may end up converting a number of people as they've addressed a lot of the main complaints that people have raised over the years (no aircraft shine, interface issues, sound environment, and so on). XPL already has a 64 bit version too, which is nice.

 

For the upcoming DTG sim, those who have flown Flight School have probably gotten a preview of what you might see in the full sim coming out later. The community hasn't heard too much about it, though, so we shall see. Seeing the improvements in Flight School, I'm hopeful that the full sim will do well too. I believe it'll be 64 bit out of the gates (Flight School is), which will be nice as it gives people a buffer on the VAS limit.

 

 

 

 

In any case, I'm not really seeing a reason to be scared of what is ahead. The only difference between now and then is we haven't had to pay for a new sim version (and the occasional add-on) every two years since about 2006 (within the FSX ecosystem - P3D is ESP, and ESP was a separate ecosystem, unless you were running ESP when ESP was ESP). So, despite the lack of platform progress, we've had it pretty good regarding the typical costs of the hobby since FSX came out and nothing replaced it.

 

Also: getting into real world flying to stave off flight sim cravings is a losing battle. I wouldn't recommend it. If you really want to fly, then absolutely go for it, but if the reason is to save money, that ain't gonna happen...believe you me...that ain't gonna happen.

Well said - all of it!   A few years ago, still at university and trying to get started earning some money, I had lots of opportunities to fly with friends, but seriously, trying to get into doing a license was just not practical.   Nine years on and only NOW I am starting to reach the point where I can seriously start to look at starting training and getting into it for real.

 

All that time, I was flying the Queen and other less intricate things around in FS9.   I only switched to FSX because I wanted the NGX, and today obviously with better hardware etc, I am glad I did, HOWEVER, I only made the switch in 2012.   I have had FSX since it's release but the problems with hardware catching up meant that I did not get into as soon as the earlier platforms.

 

I am also hopeful for the future - but for the moment I am flying the crap out of FSX with that hardware now that can actually make it perform!   I don't try to run all the latest and greatest sceneries.   Updated AFCAD's are usually enough for me.  I have never had OOM issues - ever, not once!   Unfortunately it has it's limits and shows it's age.   But dead?   Nope, disagree with that, maybe in a few years, but not yet :-)

 

Regards

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Hello,

 

I believe the original poster makes some interesting comments, the most interesting of which (to me) happens to be just how much farther the Microsoft based Flight Simulators can carry us.

 

For instance-

 

Fidelity:

 

By Fidelity, I mean how accurately the simulation can be controlled.  Even with all my controls set to minimum sensitivity I cannot match the incredibly fine adjustments the autopilot is able to input when performing an Autoland.  Another example - ever try to ease up behind an AI aircraft in-flight as if you were going to refuel from a KC-135 or KC-10?   It's nearly impossible to hold a close following position, which is why I suspect there are no refueling scenarios in MSFS based products (none that I've seen, anyhow).  It seems the fine control fidelity just isn't there.   Someday I'd like to see a degree of control that allows tight formation flying - Thunderbirds, Blue Angles stuff.

 

Physics Modeling:

 

I'd love to see a flight sim based on an all new flight model that allows an enhanced physics based approach for modeling the flight allowing accurate spins, stalls, and behaviors experienced outside the normal operating envelope.

 

Also would love to see a little more physics realism with regard to crash login - as it stands now it is mostly an all or nothing process.   While I do understand the events of 9/11 have pushed developers to politically shy away from any such depictions, I'd still like to see more modeling that gives us something in-between the current "stop the sim and display the text CRASH" vs. "Bouncing to a stop".

 

World Detail:

 

It would be nice to see the world represented with an internal software design model that allowed a level of detail not currently experienced and had enough headroom to allow for things not yet developed - such as a rocket plane that could fly to the moon.   These things can be pulled off using a variety of mathematical sleight of hand algorithms, but these sort of inconvenient internal structures add complexity when developing add-ons since they usually need to reverse engineer the base simulation internals.

 

There are other areas such as 64-bit virtual memory address space that could be mentioned here also, but that topic has been beaten to death. 

 

And since everyone is weighing in on the cost of our hobby, I'll simply say that compared to flying radio controlled airplanes we're getting off easy financially.   Crashing in the sim doesn't cost a thing...

 

Mark Trainer

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...

Crashing in the sim doesn't cost a thing...

Mark Trainer

To those who say there is still life in FSX, I think Mark has nailed it. His are all features we would reasonably have expected to have been delivered in the FS2008 or FS2010 versions, and would have been disappointed if they weren't all there by FS2012. At the turn of the century, lookup table based behavior was a good compromise between desirable accuracy and computational availability, but even by the time of FSX, it was showing its limitations and it wasn't unreasonable to anticipate the early switch to a physics model instead. From 2004, 64bit multi-core and multi processor CPU's were becoming mainstream and were clearly the future, and even today, there are very few use cases better suited to multi-processor based solutions then interactive simulations such as a flight sim. 2006 saw the rise of the physics processor unit (PPU) as a viable add-on along side the GPU and more and more GPUs included embedded PPU's with good integration and standardization of the programming interfaces. With an army of loyal fans with a history of spending good money on their hobby, there should have been a huge market for innovation and add-ons. But it didn't happen. My personal opinions on the failure of the franchise were that a fifty-fifty call went the wrong way; The developers expected clock speeds to continue to increase and did not anticipate the multi-cored future. The result was less than expected performance and graphics improvements on new hardware, which slowed down uptake by existing users, which meant disappointing return on investment, which didn't leave enough money to fix the problem,  resulting in death by strangulation. But that is just my opinion.

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It isn't dead as long as quality developers like PMDG continue to develop for it. If MSFS had continued in 2 yearly updates, the lack of stability would have prevented the likes of PMDG investing so much time in addon development and we might never have had the NGX and 777X in the high fidelity they are. By the time the MD-11 came out there would have been FS-XI to learn about. The platform stability we had has been a huge benefit.

 

If you invest in ORBX scenery and a weather engine like AS16/ASCA you can still get an extremely good simulation experience from FSX, far removed from what could be achieved originally.


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High fidelity in relation to the original 2006 release of FSX, indeed.

 

Though by now PMDG do most of their simulation magic outside of FSXs code base, as do some other top-end developers, so I am not sure if platform stability is that much of a benefactor. Sure, most developers in the business know FSX inside out, as a platform, but are they not mostly dressing up an old lady for the prom, so to speak? 

 

What has been achieved with FSX is pretty incredible. It's been a success story. Though you have to wonder what ORBX and others would be able to create without the limits of the MSFS render engine, 64 bit support, DirectX 12/Vulkan support (keyword being GPU calculating physics in real time) etc.. There is a trend towards platform independent development for a reason. 

 

FSX is not dead yet. Not by some margin. Though I am wondering, when we will start to see features missing in FSX releases, functional ones and not just graphical. I hope we are not at this point yet. So far there has not been a response in regards to the 747v3 to address this. 

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