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Aerofly FS 2: opinions changed already?

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I keep supporting AF2 with my wallet (as I have XP11 and P3D and DCS and FSW), have all their add-ons including Orbx.  It's still missing many features that WILL impact performance:

1.  no real weather engine with fog, cloud layers, winds (especially wind aloft which is critical to tube liners), visibility, etc.
2.  no AI traffic
3.  no road traffic
4.  no boat traffic
5.  no seasons
6.  no ground handling
7.  PR scenery has fixed shadows (especially mountains, but this is a common problem for PR based scenery).

As they've added more, AF2 performance has dropped over time and I suspect it will continue to drop as there is no magic when it comes to rendering pixels in virtual 3D space in a 2D coordinate system.

But I keep supporting them and will continue to do so, I've posted a few videos on AF2.  IMHO, there needs to be MUCH more "interactivity" and additional "purpose" in future flight sims as just the act of "flight" itself has a limited audience.  AirHauler 2, FS Captain, GSX, and more bring additional purpose and there currently is no reason why that can't be expanded even more now that many are in the land of 64bit with no fear of OOMs.  For many, flight is all they desire, but if the community wants to grow and expand, we need to capture a wider audience where flight is just "part" of simulation and shifts to being a Global simulator.

My 2 cents.

Cheers, Rob.

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The recent release of The free Dash 8 and the accompanying massive AP systems update, received relatively little notice or fanfare in most venues. Nonetheless, the changes to the sim and its increasing systems depth are significant, and to date, have shown little to no effect on framerates.

In fact, an initial drop in framerate brought on by changes to the shadow system was recovered by subsequent refinements, leaving the sim pretty much where it was as regards FPS at least for those of us with 1080's

Just as a heads up though, here are the changes J van E was speaking of, and why he wondered if these changes might cause some increased interest. https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/index.php?thread/8540-features-of-the-autopilot-update/&postID=42797#post42797

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Right now it's just a fun diversion, as vgbaron suggests.

Getting better, though, and I expect to use it more and more as it develops.

I'd like to see a lot more scenery areas coming out as DLC. Would probably buy them all.

 

 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

The recent release of The free Dash 8 and the accompanying massive AP systems update, received relatively little notice or fanfare in most venues. Nonetheless, the changes to the sim and its increasing systems depth are significant, and to date, have shown little to no effect on framerates.

I agree, I haven't noticed any negative impact on FPS whatsoever.

Cheers, Ed


Cheers, Ed

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I understand the 'nice and fun diversion' comments and even though the last update really made the sim more sim I can agree with this, but of course it all depends on what you like to do with a sim: I like to have 'nice and fun' flights at this moment in time (in VR) and so for me Aerofly FS 2 isn't a diversion: it is exactly what I like right now! :happy: The updated Airbus makes things even more 'fun'! It gives me enough of what I want and leaves out the things I don't care about too much (although I wouldn't mind if those things would be added in the future.) But I fully understand that for others it may be not more than a diversion. Or not even interesting enough for that! 

I didn't post all this expecting people to switch but I was curious if Aerofly FS 2 still is on the radar of people here and if they knew about the progress. I am happy to see a lot of you are at least following the sim and taking it seriously. More so than half a year ago, it seems to me. Which is a good thing.

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I bought it and installed it to try it out.  I wanted to support them in their development.  It was fun in VR for about 15 minutes.  The flight model of the Cessna was not good and down low the terrain looks bad.  I uninstalled it but I am going to keep an eye on it.  I hope they continue to develop it.

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11 minutes ago, J van E said:

But I fully understand that for others it may be not more than a diversion. Or not even interesting enough for that! 

You were in that camp yourself for a while!

I'm glad you looked deeper though, or we wouldn't have your tutorials! :gaul:


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20 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

You were in that camp yourself for a while!

I'm glad you looked deeper though, or we wouldn't have your tutorials! :gaul:

:biggrin:

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2 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

The recent release of The free Dash 8 and the accompanying massive AP systems update, received relatively little notice or fanfare in most venues.

Exactly!  not noticed ... That's why I believe they need to focus on those other items I listed before going into other areas of flight ... I'd fly a broomstick and enjoy it more than a complex aircraft IF those other elements I listed above were in place first.  I have my complex simulators and my complex aircraft ... it's a smaller audience that AF2 can "grow" into ... get the weather and interactive world happening first, that'll draw more "fanfare" than us systems-centric people that love to work with aircraft systems and do a ton of flight prep.

Don't get me wrong, I like aircraft complexity, but programming an Autopilot, doing the fuel calcs, DH, runway lengths, SIDs, STARs, Transition, Holding, etc. etc. is great, but once you hit the AP button, you'll have to bring about your imagination to consume the rest of your flight time ... without proper wind data and weather we're still missing a big chunk of being able to calculate all those factors including fuel burn, DH, go arounds, etc. etc.

AF2 will need complex aircraft system support to compete, but that's not gonna draw the "fanfare" initially.  Without weather/winds (especially winds aloft), aircraft physics can't be that accurate.  You want fanfare, simulate rain on the windshield/aircraft ... that single feature in FSW was echo'd frequently on LM's forums and elsewhere (as in please make it happen now) and appears to be a significant visual "big deal" for many.

Cheers, Rob.

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15 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Exactly!  not noticed ... That's why I believe they need to focus on those other items I listed before going into other areas of flight ... I'd fly a broomstick and enjoy it more than a complex aircraft IF those other elements I listed above were in place first.  I have my complex simulators and my complex aircraft ... it's a smaller audience that AF2 can "grow" into ... get the weather and interactive world happening first, that'll draw more "fanfare" than us systems-centric people that love to work with aircraft systems and do a ton of flight prep.

Don't get me wrong, I like aircraft complexity, but programming an Autopilot, doing the fuel calcs, DH, runway lengths, SIDs, STARs, Transition, Holding, etc. etc. is great, but once you hit the AP button, you'll have to bring about your immigration to consume the rest of your flight time ... without proper wind data and weather we're still missing a big chunk of being able to calculate all those factors including fuel burn, DH, go arounds, etc. etc.

AF2 will need complex aircraft system support to compete, but that's not gonna draw the "fanfare" initially.  Without weather/winds (especially winds aloft), aircraft physics can't be that accurate.  You want fanfare, simulate rain on the windshield/aircraft ... that single feature in FSW was echo'd frequent on LM's forums and elsewhere (as a please make happen now) and appears to be a significant visual "big deal" for many.

Cheers, Rob.

They did a poll and asked users what they wanted, and this was the priority given. In the end, what's most important seems to depend on who you are talking to. And maybe on phases of the moon. I could easily see them doing weather, and somebody asking about more systems depth. :unsure:

Plus I suspect more systems depth to work with might pull 3rd party aircraft makers in quicker, and that would be huge.


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Survey's can only go so far and in some cases can be completely misleading ... look at Windows 8, Microsoft spent a fortune on survey's and focus groups prior to releasing Windows 8 (5 years in the making) thinking they had the "perfect" OS ... it was a disaster OS, probably worse than Vista in terms of sales and end user acceptance.

"Visuals" (eye candy or whatever you want to call it) is always something you can rely on ... it's the one universal constant in all simulated worlds (from 3D shooters to Flight simulators) that draws in the "fanfare" and the sales.  Create the visuals, get the sales, improve the size of the development team, increase complexity, make more sales, etc. etc.  Third party will come if the SDK is good and IF the visual capabilities are good with FPS performance to match.

Good to know AF2 will continue with more updates, but I would warn of being to heavily reliant on survey's.  My company at one point in time went the survey route and even "paid" for input and even bought marketing research data  ... unfortunately it resulted in my dev team creating several features that many didn't want and/or didn't use and the few that did want it turned out to be a minority share.  Point being, it's best to use a survey in conjunction with other sources of information and even observation, and in some cases it just needs to be a "risk" you take and hope it hits the target ... kinda like the iPOD and the iPHONE.

Cheers, Rob.

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Time will tell how it all works out. 

This particular poll was on Steam, where those with a larger interest in Aerofly reside for now, so it was probably a good spot for it at least. I don't doubt that a poll at Avsim would have gotten a different reply, and one at Orbx something different yet again.

ATC got a pretty overwhelming majority, as did more scenery areas previously, even though I myself would have had other priorities, probably more towards eye-candy.

Such is life. I bow to the majority. I had other priorities when DTG was doing its suggestion threads as well! :ha:

 


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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3 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

It's still missing many features that WILL impact performance:

1.  no real weather engine with fog, cloud layers, winds (especially wind aloft which is critical to tube liners), visibility, etc.
2.  no AI traffic
3.  no road traffic
4.  no boat traffic
5.  no seasons
6.  no ground handling
7.  PR scenery has fixed shadows (especially mountains, but this is a common problem for PR based scenery).

As they've added more, AF2 performance has dropped over time and I suspect it will continue to drop as there is no magic when it comes to rendering pixels in virtual 3D space in a 2D coordinate system.

Not sure I can agree here. I am getting stable 120 FPS over NYC and LOWI at Ultra resolution with a medium rated machine. I think there is plenty of room to drop before we'll reach a level which compromises the user experience. Most of predictions about AF2 dramatic loss of performance once a lot of still missing features and addons will be added are based more on ESP-based evaluations or speculation than on actual data. In fact, poeple who actually worked on AF2, like Jarrad Marshall, tend to rule out this possibility.

While it is true that it still lacks several basic features, it appears to me as the only sim out there that has currently the potential to fully support VR. Of course, only time will tell who is right or wrong.

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I draw predictions on the CPU/GPU capabilities of today ... I forgot to add to my list:

8.  3D volumetric water (it's all static right now)
9.  Shadow processing quality
10. Night lighting is limited
11. Static Trees that don't blend well with terrain

Anyway, I'm sounding negative and I'm really NOT trying to be negative as I'd like to see AF2 continue to progress ... I have cautious optimism for it and my Target FPS at 30 with all that eye candy I listed ... I honestly don't need 120 FPS, nice to have, but I'm very happy at 30FPS on a 30Hz monitor.  It's good AF2 has VR support although it's not something I'm interested in, but their does seem to be a good VR fan base which should elevate it's support.

It's impressive features are:

A.  View distances, very impressive especially for PR
B.  Day lighting is top notch
C.  VC is very clear/crips
D.  Performance is excellent
E.  Base selection of aircraft is outstanding, many to choose from
F.  Good VR support
G. DLC is growing

If they can get a nice weather engine and water going, that would certainly go a long way in my desire to use AF2 more frequently as it would add a degree of variability to the flight experience.

Cheers, Rob.

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7 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

If they can get a nice weather engine and water going, that would certainly go a long way in my desire to use AF2 more frequently as it would add a degree of variability to the flight experience.

Hear, hear! I've been pushing the importance of a weather engine on the IPACS forum lately because imho also this is needed more than for instance ATC. Imho weather is what brings a flight sim to live, not ATC. Weather has an impact on really everything you do and see, not ATC. But well, IPACS chose to do ATC first and I can't really blame them for not dropping work on that instantly because one or two people think weather would be better. :happy: I am still amazed that a poll on Steam gave ATC as the most wanted feature though... although we all know that people who are new to flightsims usually want to fly the big Boeings and not the smaller planes... and those newbies probably also don't know what for instance weather means to a sim, so if you give them a list of things to add they probably choose things that are related to airliner flights... In all honesty I doubt if it was a good idea to prioritize certain things based on a poll on Steam. But indeed, time will tell.

The lack of a good weather engine wouldn't be that bad if Aerofly at least has some proper weather options you can set manually but it doesn't. In fact, the small circle of clouds look horrible imho and I always fly with clouds disabled (I only use some cirrus and play with the visibility a lot (which btw you can change on the fly, just like the time of day, which is great)).

But er... other than that I love Aerofly FS 2 hahaha!

BTW Concerning VR support: I was forced to write the Airbus 320 tutorial with Aerofly FS 2 running in 2D: it was the first time after getting my Rift that I flew in 2D again. I was sooooooooo happy when I was able to get back to the VR world! In fact, I seriously enjoyed taking the time to for instance look down at the pedestal again and to see all those knobs and things from various sides in 'real life' right in front of me! Or to see all those life size mountains pass along in all their majestic beauty. Yesterday I took off with my Airbus from Orbx LOWI and boy........... what can I say... I just love it. It is hard for me to understand why people would NOT want to use VR LOL but to each his own: it's great to have the options! :happy:

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