Aerofly FS 2: opinions changed already?

[Guest]

First of all: I post this in Hangar Chat on purpose because the people I am mainly addressing probably don't visit the Aerofly FS 2 subforum and I would only get responses from people who already know all this and like Aerofly FS 2.  

A few months ago quite a few people were still dismissing Aerofly FS 2 because it wasn't really a sim and whenever more details would be added (scenery, systems) the stellar performance would surely to drop big time and become just like FSX/P3D/XP11.

In the meantime Orbx released Innsbruck and Meigs for AFS2. Specially Innsbruck offers an immense amount of detail. Turns out it doesn't hurt performance noticeably. Yes, of course you won't get the 600 fps you can get above empty Utah but above Innsbruck fps easily remains above 100.

Last week a major update has been released and it includes a Dash8 400, which, I would say, is payware quality. But then totally free.  The update mainly brings a lot more system depth to the sim. My favorite airliner (also in FSX/P3D), the Airbus 320, was an odd toy up to now but after the update this default aircraft is getting close to payware quality. I say 'close' because obviously (this IS a default plane) there still are things missing (MCDU, the overhead only has the lights working, no cold and dark, etc.) but the autopilot system works like a charm and the plane can be flown as in real life now. Maybe even better (in certain phases of flight) than for instance the Aerosoft one (imho). Anyway, turns out all these extra's still don't hurt performance...!

I was wondering if some of you are getting more interested in Aerofly FS 2 lately. Things are looking good: great updates, addons that don't hurt performance, more things coming our way (IPACS is working hard on ATC right now). Any die hard FSX/P3D/XP users here that notice all the bad predictions don't seem to come true? I also post this because some of you may not even know about the new AFS2 developments.  If these developments do nothing for you: what would you need before you would get really interested?

[nealmac 260]

Jeroen,

 

To be honest, I've been interested in Aerofly FS 2 since it was launched. And I still am. Right now P3dv4 is my weapon of choice. I had previously been using v3. I waited until all my main addons were updated v4 and then I moved over. And it's not having any of these addons in AF FS 2 that is stopping me from making the switch. Things like EZdok, Active Sky, PMDG, ProATC-X have become pretty much a necessity to me, and I would struggle without them. Also, the obvious lack of having the entire planet covered is a huge negative. Don't get me wrong, I haven't completely dismissed the sim, but I do think it's gonna be some time before I make the switch. Having said that, I've seen a lot of positives. The scenery that's available is probably the prettiest I've seen in any flight sim. The frame rates people are getting make me drool at the mouth.

 

But for now, I'll stay put. However, I will keep monitoring the Aerofly forum, and keep an eye on the latest news and updates.

[cimgrp501 30]

Jeroen...first my sincere appreciation for you keeping us up to date on FS 2, as I have developed strong interest and plan to buy in Sept. due primarily to following your updates.  I have been out of simming for about 5 years due to family and career, but will be in a position to be back in the game in about 6 weeks.

Given I love flying in the western US I frankly can't wait to do Vegas to SFO etc. w/o tweaking, a lot of addons, etc.  A bonus is that I love to do the old school analog style vs. programming fmc, so esp looking forward to the Lear 45.  Couldn't find any screens of that cockpit on the site, so if you have any experience with the 45 and care to comment on it would be interested.

Also curious if the flight dynamics are up to your standards with their current aircraft, esp the Lear or new Dash 8.  Thanks a lot for keeping us informed and breathing new life into my sim enthusiasm at just the right time.

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

I like it for VR, thats about it. Its just a much better version of Flight for me. Regional, limited, but nice to look at. I enjoy it. 

[jcomm 5,886]

The latest update has brought additional ( and well implemented ) functionality for the Airbus A320 and the Awesome Q-400, which is really nicely implemented, and brings a "proof of concept" that, IMO, emphasizes one of the strong points about AEFS2 - the flight and systems modelling capabilities.

The Q-400 3-stage turboprop engines have been implemented that way - no table-based lookup, but true thermodynamic simulation of a 3-stage turboprop engine !  This is UNIQUE among all flight simulations of turboprops available ( exclusion made to ELITE's B200 Kingair, with a similarly detailed turboprop model..., and the engine modelling in DCS World, including the turbines ... )

Having this modelled in the Q-400 also allowed me to give a try to the way AEFS2 models asymmetric thrust situations, by assigning separate controls to each "condition lever" and this way being able to "kill" an engine under different flight scenarios, and deal with the emergency... AEFS2's Q-400 proved to react to such a situation very plausibly !!!

AEFS2 is moving, not many stuff added but big stuff consistently added along the development cycle. It is more than worth supporting and, believing in a bright future for this simulator.

 

 

 

[lodestar 186]

i've purchased Aerofly FS2 to support it, but in my opinion it's not there yet. Keep in mind there is still no autogen(last time i checked), and not realy complex airliner. Without autogen, with default planes, i can easily get 100+ fps in FSX / P3D. Other then that, i like it

[HiFlyer 9,343]

15 minutes ago, lodestar said:

i've purchased Aerofly FS2 to support it, but in my opinion it's not there yet. Keep in mind there is still no autogen(last time i checked), and not realy complex airliner. Without autogen, with default planes, i can easily get 100+ fps in FSX / P3D. Other then that, i like it

Orbx/Aerofly FS 2 Innsbruck with lots of Autogen, 4K, 140+FPS and max settings. 

 

[dbw1 444]

My first exposure to Aerofly2 was at FlightSimCon, the ORBX booth flying their setup with Oculus Rift @ Innsbruk. I was blown away. When I got home I bought Aerofly2. It's not perfect by any means, it's in its infancy, but when I like to do something different from P3d I go to Aerofly2. i think this will evolve into something pretty good. It is worth supporting. I'm happy with my purchase.

Dave

[ErichB 3,638]

Unfortunately, I can't get interested in anything which isn't a global sim.  Geographically limited sims don't do it for me.   Although I admire the leaps that AF2 has made, it won't see my investment of money/time.  There isn't enough of either.  P3Dv4 is expensive enough on both counts - and just too much fun to give up.

[mikealpha 266]

I usually do two types of flights. One are occasional after work flights just for relaxation. Fly around and enjoy scenery. For that Aerofly2 looks quite suitable.

The other flights are more serious Airliner Simulation using Addons with a lot of system depth like the FSLabs 320, allowing you fly close to real world procedures.  Or PMDG with FS2Crew crew coordination.

If you consider the long development times for this Addons, Aerofly2 can`t be even close to that. And probably no one expects it to be. P3D (or XPlane with the upcoming FlightFactor A320) took quite some time to get there.

So to change to it. No, not anytime soon. 

But I bought it already, just for supporting it. The development and the future of Aerofly2 certainly looks exciting. 

Mike

[Murmur 3,941]

2 hours ago, J van E said:

A few months ago quite a few people were still dismissing Aerofly FS 2 because it wasn't really a sim and whenever more details would be added (scenery, systems) the stellar performance would surely to drop big time and become just like FSX/P3D/XP11.

Any die hard FSX/P3D/XP users here that notice all the bad predictions don't seem to come true?

I never dismissed AFS2 performance, and always thought that it's the most efficient flight sim in terms of performance.

That being said, there are some considerations that could be done if we compare it to e.g. X-Plane (the product that I know best). AFS2 lacks some features like water noise (waves), water reflections, atmospheric scattering (this is very noticeable at high altitude, where X-Plane looks more realistic), a global lighting engine (AFS2 does not even have landing lights).

All of these features have each a certain performance impact, some more, some less. Even the weather in AFS2 is simplified (if I'm not mistaken, I think I've read that they had to use simplified weather visuals in order not to drag down performance too much).

Add to this the fact that the main focus of XP developers (again, the product I know best, so the one I can compare it to) for the near future is to switch to Vulkan and improve performance to make it VR ready.

So, in conclusion, I think that AFS2 is still the most performing engine, but I don't think the actual gap, in a feature-by-feature comparison, is gonna remain so wide, for the reasons I stated above.

 

[Guest]

Interesting comments! I agree that AFS2 isn't yet a full blown sim as for instance P3D or XP can be (with all kinds of addons). When it comes to default sims it's another story, I think, but I doubt if many simmers use default FSX/P3D/XP (if you do Aerofly FS 2 instantly becomes a lot more interesting ;) ). But yes, if you for instance want the entire globe Aerofly FS 2 isn't for you and probably won't be anytime soon. It all depends on how you use the sim. I myself have become a more casual flyer over time and for that AFS2 really rocks (specially in VR). I do however like the new autopilot in the Airbus and how it transforms it into a more serious plane that comes really close (or surpasses) to how I used the Aerosoft Airbus in the past: the things that are lacking right now I don't miss but I can understand it very well if people think otherwise. At least are going in the right direction imho!

I myself am very happy to see that addons like Innsbruck and more complex planes like the Dash don't hurt performance (considerably). I did expect a larger hit in performance, I have to say. 

As it is now I do think that a lot of people who don't own Aerofly FS 2 yet would enjoy it for the more relaxed short flights: specially in VR this sim is perfect for that. It's also clear that a lot (maybe most) simmers won't switch to Aerofly FS 2 completely. Very understandable. I made that switch but also, as I said, because my way of flying has changed. I am happy to see the progress though and to see the sim becoming more and more a real sim.

47 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Even the weather in AFS2 is simplified (if I'm not mistaken, I think I've read that they had to use simplified weather visuals in order not to drag down performance too much).

No, that wasn't the reason. The current clouds and 'weather' are a placeholder for something better but that will probably take a while. The current crappy clouds in fact hurt performance: they mainly added them because there had to be some kind of weather. The clouds also aren't their own either, if I understood it well, so they can't really work on them: the sim needs an entirely new weather system. I myself would prefer if IPACS gave this priority over ATC but apparenly most users want to see ATC first.

[lodestar 186]

4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Orbx/Aerofly FS 2 Innsbruck with lots of Autogen, 4K, 140+FPS and max settings. 

i would embrace this with any of PMDG/FSL/MJQ Airliners

[vgbaron 3,486]

I bought it to support the effort but at this point it's a nice diversion. I have no intention, at this time, to dump $$$ into addons, especially for a "local" sim. I see a great deal of potential but it has a far way to go to get even close to P3DV4, even if V4 stayed static for a while.

I wouldn't delete it from my system but I really don't spend too much time with it - limited as it is, it get quite boring. 

It will be interesting to see how the BASE sim develops - if it MUST HAVE all the addons to be decent - that is not good.

Vic

[edpatino 1,960]

Hi folks:

I bought Aerofly FS 2 back in April to install on my laptop, and I have to say that even if it is in in early stages, is very promissing and it's delivering in my opinion the best sim graphics and aircraft physics available, even compared to P3D. It complements very well my flights in P3Dv3/v4. I've been able to create my own photorealistic scenery and locations of several airports in my region, in a very easy way, following the excellent tutorials developed by the IPACS support staff. The fact that ORBX is developing sceneries for AFS2 is another high positive (LOWI and KCGX released already).

For now it's my second sim option, while it's being further developed. Very happy with it.

Cheers, Ed