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Arthur42417

VERY Bad Reviews so far on Steam

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28 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

But here's the point... if you also showed me every other civilian sim that's available now, along with the current state of air combat sims, and maybe throw in a few AAA games for good measure, then I would no longer be looking at FSW in isolation. Which seems to be what a lot of folks are doing. :happy:

Exactly. A lot of simmers are wearing blinkers (if that is the right word): they aren't seeing what is happening around them and that FSX-based sims are outdated and a lot more is possible nowadays. They are far too easily pleased and their standards are way too low. They should strive for more.

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6 minutes ago, J van E said:

Exactly. A lot of simmers are wearing blinkers (if that is the right word): they aren't seeing what is happening around them and that FSX-based sims are outdated and a lot more is possible nowadays. They are far too easily pleased and their standards are way too low. They should strive for more.

A lot of us can't leave the FSX/ESP based sims because the alternatives do not have the features we need yet, hopefully Austin will wake up and realise his product while good in parts is actually lacking quite a few things.

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21 minutes ago, J van E said:

A lot of simmers are wearing blinkers (if that is the right word): they aren't seeing what is happening around them and that FSX-based sims are outdated and a lot more is possible nowadays.

Don't confuse what "is possible" with what "can be funded" ... GTA 5 cost $210 Million ... do you believe the "base" Flight Simulator market is large enough to recover that much money and more to provide "profit" and future investments to sustain development?  

Way back when FS9/FSX was in it's "hay day", I believe ACE's celebrated 1 Million sales (don't know if this was combined/history or just a single product).  1 Million sales is not enough to support GTA 5 level of graphical quality even if we assume end users could afford the CPU/GPUs and storage needs for the data to run GTA 5 like level of graphics covering the entire planet Earth.

I believe I calculated the required hard drive (M.2, U.2, SSD, etc.) space to house real world (single season) 1m resolution imagery, with same level of quality as GTA 5, to be around 1 PB (1024 TB or 1,000,000 GB).  I wouldn't even try to guess at how much RAM I would need to fill horizon view distance with GTA 5 level of graphics.  Hopefully soon I have the opportunity to demonstrate how 12GB VRAM can be consumed rather easily and that's NOT with GTA 5 level of graphics detail.

I've seen some very nice "world simulator" engines, but they are not flight simulators and their world is static, no traffic, no other aircraft, no boats, no ATC, no dynamic weather, etc. etc. ... sure one can get VERY good FPS when you REMOVE many performance consuming features of what makes a living Flight simulator world.  Add those features in and something is going to have to give or else you'll be at 1 FPS ... that give is a compromise.  It doesn't take much (just a single feature) to turn a fast world simulator engine into a slideshow.  Wish that were not the case, but don't confuse that "compromise" with being complacent.

It's not a matter of settling or being complacent, it's a matter of understanding real hardware limits and even more so, what people are willing to pay for the return.  GTA 5 lasted 5 - 25 hours on my HD ... how long has your simulator of choice lasted on your HD ... I'm gonna guess much longer than that.

Cheers, Rob.

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4 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Don't confuse what "is possible" with what "can be funded" ... GTA 5 cost $210 Million ... do you believe the "base" Flight Simulator market is large enough to recover that much money and more to provide "profit" and future investments to sustain development?  

Way back when FS9/FSX was in it's "hay day", I believe ACE's celebrated 1 Million sales (don't know if this was combined/history or just a single product).  1 Million sales is not enough to support GTA 5 level of graphical quality even if we assume end users could afford the CPU/GPUs and storage needs for the data to run GTA 5 like level of graphics covering the entire planet Earth.

I believe I calculated the required hard drive (M.2, U.2, SSD, etc.) space to house real world (single season) 1m resolution imagery, with same level of quality as GTA 5, to be around 1 PB (1024 TB or 1,000,000 GB).  I wouldn't even try to guess at how much RAM I would need to fill horizon view distance with GTA 5 level of graphics.  Hopefully soon I have the opportunity to demonstrate how 12GB VRAM can be consumed rather easily and that's NOT with GTA 5 level of graphics detail.

I've seen some very nice "world simulator" engines, but they are not flight simulators and their world is static, no traffic, no other aircraft, no boats, no ATC, no dynamic weather, etc. etc. ... sure one can get VERY good FPS when you REMOVE many performance consuming features of what makes a living Flight simulator world.  Add those features in and something is going to have to give or else you'll be at 1 FPS ... that give is a compromise.  It doesn't take much (just a single feature) to turn a fast world simulator engine into a slideshow.  Wish that were not the case, but don't confuse that "compromise" with being complacent.

It's not a matter of settling or being complacent, it's a matter of understanding real hardware limits and even more so, what people are willing to pay for the return.  GTA 5 lasted 5 - 25 hours on my HD ... how long has your simulator of choice lasted on your HD ... I'm gonna guess much longer than that.

Cheers, Rob.

Wow Rob

That was an excellent... and rather sobering post. Actually, it was also pretty depressing. I believe you are 100% correct in everything you are saying, and frankly.. the truth hurts! 

I just feel a bit sad right now. Let's be honest, I have "apps" on my phone that look and run better than FSW. (sorry to be so negative) It just sucks that I have an SLI'd, water breathing, overclocked monster of a pc that can run all current AAA titles at over 100fps without breaking a sweat, but when I throw on any of the current flight sims, I have to be happy with 30fps, textures from 1989 and draw distances that make me not want to leave the ground!! 

Heck, I currently enjoying flying around the choppers in Ghost Recon Wildlands more than firing up my flight simulators. Not to mention, the exact simulators that got me into enthusiast pc's in the first place.

I guess its just that simple, money talks ....  But if I am being honest, I would genuinely spend upwards of $500 on a complete full world flight simulator that is actually current/next gen. I can't possibly be alone in saying that and maybe, just maybe, if there are enough silly people out there like me ....the economics will make sense. C'mon somebody, I'm terrible with my money and I love flight sims, make it happen!!

Ok, I'll show myself out ;)

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4790k / 16gb / 1080ti / lotsa ssd's / 1440p / TM Warthog & Tflight Pedals 

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5 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Don't confuse what "is possible" with what "can be funded" ... GTA 5 cost $210 Million ... do you believe the "base" Flight Simulator market is large enough to recover that much money and more to provide "profit" and future investments to sustain development?  

Way back when FS9/FSX was in it's "hay day", I believe ACE's celebrated 1 Million sales (don't know if this was combined/history or just a single product).  1 Million sales is not enough to support GTA 5 level of graphical quality even if we assume end users could afford the CPU/GPUs and storage needs for the data to run GTA 5 like level of graphics covering the entire planet Earth.

I believe I calculated the required hard drive (M.2, U.2, SSD, etc.) space to house real world (single season) 1m resolution imagery, with same level of quality as GTA 5, to be around 1 PB (1024 TB or 1,000,000 GB).  I wouldn't even try to guess at how much RAM I would need to fill horizon view distance with GTA 5 level of graphics.  Hopefully soon I have the opportunity to demonstrate how 12GB VRAM can be consumed rather easily and that's NOT with GTA 5 level of graphics detail.

I've seen some very nice "world simulator" engines, but they are not flight simulators and their world is static, no traffic, no other aircraft, no boats, no ATC, no dynamic weather, etc. etc. ... sure one can get VERY good FPS when you REMOVE many performance consuming features of what makes a living Flight simulator world.  Add those features in and something is going to have to give or else you'll be at 1 FPS ... that give is a compromise.  It doesn't take much (just a single feature) to turn a fast world simulator engine into a slideshow.  Wish that were not the case, but don't confuse that "compromise" with being complacent.

It's not a matter of settling or being complacent, it's a matter of understanding real hardware limits and even more so, what people are willing to pay for the return.  GTA 5 lasted 5 - 25 hours on my HD ... how long has your simulator of choice lasted on your HD ... I'm gonna guess much longer than that.

Cheers, Rob.

Satellite imagery is only a part of the puzzle. You're not going to achieve a GTA V-like world with that alone. GTA doesn't actually use satellite imagery. Much of the actual detail is done with re-usable low resolution textures combined with detail textures laid over - similar to how landclasses are done in MSFS and Flight.

There's more than one way to get authentic looking world scenery - it does not require imagery or the much outdated landclass concept. A significant amount of the world's buildings are mapped out through various sources. While you may not get GTA-quality scenery from this, with the right building models, you could get something much more believable than even P3D and X-Plane (heck, I believe there are already addon developers utilizing this data in XP). This combined with efficient LOD-ing, mip-mapping, and memory management could yield a much nicer set of world scenery than what we have today. DCS is a great example of this. Many of the commonly mentioned performance killing features don't need to be as demanding as they are (boats and other AI might as well just be some extra buildings if they are LOD'd properly). GTA V might not have as high of a draw distance as our simulators, but there are a TON of extremely high detail objects and textures in a very small radius.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying an entire world like GTA V is possible. There are way too many hand-placed and hand-crafted details in that world for any automated system to come any where close. However, there's definitely still room for improvement, regardless of the platform (P3D, XP, FSW).

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Brandon Filer

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5 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Don't confuse what "is possible" with what "can be funded" ... GTA 5 cost $210 Million ... do you believe the "base" Flight Simulator market is large enough to recover that much money and more to provide "profit" and future investments to sustain development?  

Way back when FS9/FSX was in it's "hay day", I believe ACE's celebrated 1 Million sales (don't know if this was combined/history or just a single product).  1 Million sales is not enough to support GTA 5 level of graphical quality even if we assume end users could afford the CPU/GPUs and storage needs for the data to run GTA 5 like level of graphics covering the entire planet Earth.

I believe I calculated the required hard drive (M.2, U.2, SSD, etc.) space to house real world (single season) 1m resolution imagery, with same level of quality as GTA 5, to be around 1 PB (1024 TB or 1,000,000 GB).  I wouldn't even try to guess at how much RAM I would need to fill horizon view distance with GTA 5 level of graphics.  Hopefully soon I have the opportunity to demonstrate how 12GB VRAM can be consumed rather easily and that's NOT with GTA 5 level of graphics detail.

I've seen some very nice "world simulator" engines, but they are not flight simulators and their world is static, no traffic, no other aircraft, no boats, no ATC, no dynamic weather, etc. etc. ... sure one can get VERY good FPS when you REMOVE many performance consuming features of what makes a living Flight simulator world.  Add those features in and something is going to have to give or else you'll be at 1 FPS ... that give is a compromise.  It doesn't take much (just a single feature) to turn a fast world simulator engine into a slideshow.  Wish that were not the case, but don't confuse that "compromise" with being complacent.

It's not a matter of settling or being complacent, it's a matter of understanding real hardware limits and even more so, what people are willing to pay for the return.  GTA 5 lasted 5 - 25 hours on my HD ... how long has your simulator of choice lasted on your HD ... I'm gonna guess much longer than that.

Cheers, Rob.

No, it absolutely is a matter of being complacent. We've been trained to accept mediocre as fantastic. Poorly optimized code can bring even the most powerful of systems to a halt. Nobody ever said you'd have 1m resolution imagery for the entire world - you use repeating textures setup in a way to blend naturally, maybe with some additional maps to help it determine proportionate temperature, etc. to blend as it moves across the country and world. Again, the possibilities are endless as soon as you start thinking outside of the box.

That said, a GTA V level world for a simulator is INSANE and not a reasonable goal, of course. There are things like Unreal Engine 4, which has been used to create large scale flight games, that are capable of immense things at 60 FPS.

Yes, you're correct, one bad feature can ruin it - this is why we should expect developers to understand this and properly optimize their code (which very little do). Even my own code can use improvements - the second you assume it's somebody else's fault or that that's all you get, you stop growing and we end up with an 11 year old platform being dragged forward.

This is all from my 6 years as a professional programmer, including experience with Direct3D and HLSL, I'm not making things up.

It's time to start thinking outside the box and stop accepting mediocre. That goes for both sims.

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Collin Biedenkapp
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TFDi Design (Invernyx) | Website

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Interesting points being made here... 


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7 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

GTA 5 cost $210 Million

Just to clarify like big budget movies more than half of that was marketing costs. Still quite the budget lol.

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I still play GTA V now and then and I'm always amazed at the incredible attention to detail in almost every aspect of the game. Things like wet foot prints on sand when coming out of water and incredible detail and textures on areas that are hidden away, e.g. The roof of an outhouse building. If you take a walk around the fictional airports in GTA V, it even beats most addons I have in my flight sims for quality, and that does make me sad. It's an awful flight sim though :biggrin:

 

 

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Interesting points here, I have to agree on that. But er... talking about blinkers :biggrin: why does everyone keep on thinking in the FSX way of does no things? You are all holding on to ideas from the past. Things can be done differently.

Most obvious example: why the heck does a new flight sim have to cover the entire world? I myself would be happy with one medium sized country already. During the last 8 years or so I spend YEARS in regions the size of PNW. Or Norway, which is big enough already to enjoy airliners in it. Getting one region in next gen quality is possible nowadays.

I know there are people who are more into flying long range flights but even then you don't need the entire world in GTA quality. Imagine a sim with a very detailed part of the US West Coast, Western-Europe and some of Asia. That would be far more than I would ever need but well, okay, for those 777 flyers that should do the trick too. Who ever visited Nicaragua or Afghanistan or Nigeria? Who ever visited all 24.000 airports that FSX offers? Who NEEDS 24.000 airports?!?! Seriously, having the entire world in a flight sim is not mandatory.

But well, maybe that's just my opinion. :happy: I would be extremely happy already with one detailed region the size of FTX PNW or Norway. Or what Aerofly FS 2 is offering right now: that's room enough for me already. I intend to spend a LOT of time around Orbx's LOWI for Aerofly FS 2 soon. I certainly do not need the entire world.

Anyway, I think that to really progress we have to let go of some of the things we have gotten used to but which aren't mandatory. Think out of the box a little, everyone!

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Pardon a few of the typos I made on my iPad in the above post: why the heck can't we edit posts over here?!

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The "edit" bug has been around for a few days. It's intermittent and apparently affects not only this forum. The moderators are aware of it and the tech team at AVSIM is working on it.


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Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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With regard to a sim covering the entire globe, the fact that it does is one of the major plus points for me personally. I'm a big fan of Air Hauler for that very reason, it gets me trying aircraft suitable for certain new routes and destinations, I have to think about what fuel is available, what nav aids and runway lengths and surfaces there are. These are things I could never do in real life, which is why I love flight sims that allow me to do that. I can fly a real aeroplane over my own country with completely realistic visuals (obviously, since it is real life). A sim which can offer me the world and all kinds of different aircraft is what really appeals to me.


Alan Bradbury

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I wish DoveTail well but

For the first time ever  I've  requested a refund from Steam and have uninstalled the software.

A combination of very long loading times and poor frame rates led me to conclude that it wasn't worth more effort until the software is beyond the Beta stage.

Even maxed out , the Graphics couldn't match FSX ; so I guess that I need a top of the range Graphics Card now and a new processor.

What happened to 64 bit improvements?

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