What Early Access ACTUALLY means!! ------ An incomplete game! (yes, that's what they call it!)

From Steam....
http://store.steampowered.com/app/389280/Flight_Sim_World/

Early Access Game
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development

Why Early Access?
“The current flight sim space is a fountain of experience and expertise, and Early Access is our way of drawing upon that knowledge to make Flight Sim World the best it can be. We will have a better, stronger simulation platform if we collaborate with you on the future of this project.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“We intend to roll out planned features over the next three to four months. This includes time to discuss and implement your valuable feedback. That being said, we're not setting any hard limits on how long we will be in this phase. When it’s ready, it’s ready!”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
“During Early Access, we plan to roll out additional features, some of which will have an immediate impact on gameplay while others will provide the necessary extensions for future plans. Ultimately, our criteria for leaving the Early Access program is for Flight Sim World to be a stable platform upon which you are able to build the flight experience you want.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“Flight Sim World is very much still in development. There are still more features and gameplay options which need to be implemented over the next few months which we are excited to share with you as they are made available.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“The Early Access version of Flight Sim World is priced lower than the full release. This reflects the amount of content that will be added over the coming months and also makes it a good time for you to get involved in the Early Access process.
Price will change during the Early Access period, however this is largely subject to incoming features.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
“We want to give you the chance to be part of a hobby you are passionate about, while harnessing your knowledge and expertise to make Flight Sim World the best that it can be. We will be releasing updates and interacting with you regularly to test ideas, resolve issues, and help guide us in the right direction.”

 

(Sorry, I did duplicate this post)

1 hour ago, Wobbie said:

From Steam....
http://store.steampowered.com/app/389280/Flight_Sim_World/

Early Access Game
Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.
Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development

That's Steam Jargon not ours, sadly they don't have an option for Early Access Simulator :( 

But, but.... aren't this all Games after all ?

I though I was playing a Game, when I seat at the desktop, with that fancy looking TIR in my phones... pretending I am a professional, bush, fighter or whatever... pilot ?

 

Hi Cryss,

Can you confirm that a GTX970 (4GB VRAM) is indeed the minimum requirement to run FSW?  If so, that's fine... but it seems like an awful lot of horsepower to run a base simulator.

52 minutes ago, MadDog said:

Hi Cryss,

Can you confirm that a GTX970 (4GB VRAM) is indeed the minimum requirement to run FSW?  If so, that's fine... but it seems like an awful lot of horsepower to run a base simulator.

Assuming that's the spec, it could mean the sim isn't very well optimized yet in Early Access, but they're planning to optimize before release. So this may change later on. Or, it could mean that it's optimized, and they're building in enough graphics that a card like this required. I'm hoping it's the latter case.

Also remember the GTX970 is a gimped card in the Nvidia series, with only 3.5 GB of useable (full speed) VRAM.

19 hours ago, Paraffin said:

Assuming that's the spec, it could mean the sim isn't very well optimized yet in Early Access, but they're planning to optimize before release. So this may change later on. Or, it could mean that it's optimized, and they're building in enough graphics that a card like this required. I'm hoping it's the latter case.

Also remember the GTX970 is a gimped card in the Nvidia series, with only 3.5 GB of useable (full speed) VRAM.

I do not see point with VRAM. We do not know how many VRAM is really needed for FSW, but I never see FSX or P3D, heavy loaded with addons to eat more than 3GB VRAM, typically around 2GB.

Just imagine that they listen to comunity which ask for better HW utilization, especially shift work from CPU which is permanently bottomneck to GPU. Maybe we get it in FSW. I heard from Jordan King that in FSX and P3D gauges are prerendered on CPU, but FSW move all that work to GPU. So it is just one small workload increase for GPU, if there is more small shifts it is very easy to uderstand why they ask for that kind of card, but honestly at current GPU market and performance GTX970 it is mostly low end card.

19 hours ago, Paraffin said:

Assuming that's the spec, it could mean the sim isn't very well optimized yet in Early Access, but they're planning to optimize before release. So this may change later on. Or, it could mean that it's optimized, and they're building in enough graphics that a card like this required. I'm hoping it's the latter case.

Also remember the GTX970 is a gimped card in the Nvidia series, with only 3.5 GB of useable (full speed) VRAM.

Either way, it would mean it really does take advantage of faster GPUs. Otherwise it would only require a beefy CPU, while working fine on any old DX11 card.

Of course, it's also possible they just arbitrarily decided on the minimum specs to give themselves some room to maneuver, if they do decide do implement more rendering features at a later time. The system requirements will likely get revised before the full release.

The GTX 970 was/is a fine card in spite of the RAM limitation. I didn't have any problems in games like GTA 5 or Fallout 4 using the high resolution add-on. The drivers are very intelligent about which 500 MB to keep in the slower RAM so it doesn't affect the frame rate noticeably even in low VRAM situations.

2 hours ago, Jiri Kocman said:

I do not see point with VRAM. We do not know how many VRAM is really needed for FSW, but I never see FSX or P3D, heavy loaded with addons to eat more than 3GB VRAM, typically around 

You don't see them use anymore because it is technically not possible, those are 32bit programs and cannot use more than 4gb. I ran x plane 11 and it uses all 8gb of VRAM on gTX 1080

On 18. 5. 2017 at 3:33 PM, bgpearce01 said:

You don't see them use anymore because it is technically not possible, those are 32bit programs and cannot use more than 4gb. I ran x plane 11 and it uses all 8gb of VRAM on gTX 1080

VRAM is not RAM. You can push textures into GPU and do not need keep them in RAM, GPU not just keep textures, but working data, frame buffers so GOU uses more VRAM than just for textures and just some antialiasing or shadows can increase GPU memory.

But now, we know... VRAM usage during FSW flight is about 4,5GB with maxed settings, take in account that I running 4K resolution and secondary display with FHD. It uses up to 6GB RAM. So do not see problem with GTX970 and 8GB RAM as minimum requirements as you propably do not run more displays and do not use higher resolutions when you run on or under minimum specs.

On 5/19/2017 at 11:07 AM, Jiri Kocman said:

VRAM is not RAM. You can push textures into GPU and do not need keep them in RAM, GPU not just keep textures, but working data, frame buffers so GOU uses more VRAM than just for textures and just some antialiasing or shadows can increase GPU memory.

But now, we know... VRAM usage during FSW flight is about 4,5GB with maxed settings, take in account that I running 4K resolution and secondary display with FHD. It uses up to 6GB RAM. So do not see problem with GTX970 and 8GB RAM as minimum requirements as you propably do not run more displays and do not use higher resolutions when you run on or under minimum specs.

I know vram is not RAM, I am a computer engineer after all and am familiar with how it all works.  The stated minimum requirement for FSW is gtx970 which has ~3.5 gb of usable vram.  Yes this is adequate for now but when you start doing add-ons you will blow past this limit.  And you do not want your video card waiting for the I/O to transfer in data because you have the minimum for it to function.

FSW works the GPU hard - much more so than P3D, and even harder than 64-bit X-Plane. I have a GTX-970, and monitoring the GPU in NVidia inspector, I have seen the power consumption hit over 180 watts at 85% load when running FSW, and temperatures climbing higher than I have ever seen running when P3D.

DTG said one of their goals in creating FSW was to put much more of the processing load on the GPU, and it appears they have done just that.

Time for an upgrade to an 8 GB GTX-1080...

 

It will be interesting to see how things change if DTG actually manages to shoehorn TrueSKY in there. Might leave REX a bit in the cold, though.

20 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

It will be interesting to see how things change if DTG actually manages to shoehorn TrueSKY in there. Might leave REX a bit in the cold, though.

I was wondering what TrueSKY is when I saw an empty TrueSKY folder.

35 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

It will be interesting to see how things change if DTG actually manages to shoehorn TrueSKY in there. Might leave REX a bit in the cold, though.

They are going to do that? Souce? I totally missed it.
Well, that would be quite a thing. Something truly original and unrelated to the old FSX engine.

3 minutes ago, france89 said:

They are going to do that? Souce? I totally missed it.
Well, that would be quite a thing. Something truly original and unrelated to the old FSX engine.

Well the folder is there, so it's certainly provocative.

Will it happen? Who the heck knows? I just immediately recognized the name from when I was asking around a few years ago about Laminar possibly using something like Sundog or TrueSky.