2 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Which is pretty much about what one should expect, when comparing a sim still in early access at the time against sims with decades-old histories, versions in the double digits, and years of third party support. I

No argue on that! but that should also be reflected in the price, IPACS is basically charging almost the same on a still young wanna be flight simulator than the older experience competition(In P3D case the Academic Licence)

24 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Under the circumstances described, and the lack of reports of the same happening in the wild, I would be more likely to suspect corruption in your installation or a problem on your machine, and would have Steam verify your files.

Nah, I did all that, it just bombs when you try to start it. It doesn't bother me, I don't use it that much anyway. I'll sort it out at some point.

32 minutes ago, dmarques69 said:

No argue on that! but that should also be reflected in the price, IPACS is basically charging almost the same on a still young wanna be flight simulator than the older experience competition(In P3D case the Academic Licence)

I would agree at first blush, and actually I partially did, until I thought about it a bit after a few months and actually looked at the numbers by going to the Megascenery website and taking a glance at the prices being charged for those same ortho-scenery areas on other platforms.

So far we've received for free the States of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California, and now Switzerland and Northeastern USA (New York) are on sale for $4 each. With more free areas on the way.

Megasceneryearth charges $39 for Arizona alone, and the full complement would reach a couple of hundred dollars. 

Then there are at present 19 free aircraft, with a new one just announced to be on the way with more to follow. Beyond that are the unexpected additions, like the ability to create user generated orthos (and buildings) night lighting and other things that promise a significant expansion to the sims coverage. Ongoing is work on Atc, the imminent release of VR "hands" to flip switches within the sim, a logbook, and other things not yet announced that should raise some eyebrows.

And of course, Aerosoft has just officially begun promoting Aerofly and has suggested they will be dipping their toes in the water as well...... 

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/128612-aerofly-fs-2-–-the-next-generation-flight-simulator/&tab=comments#comment-852853

For me, so far, I think it's been a good investment in an interesting future. But others milage, of course, may vary.

14 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I would agree at first blush, and actually I partially did, until I thought about it a bit after a few months and actually looked at the numbers by going to the Megascenery website and taking a glance at the prices being charged for those same ortho-scenery areas on other platforms.

So far we've received for free the States of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California, and now Switzerland and Northeastern USA (New York) are on sale for $4 each. With more free areas on the way.

Megasceneryearth charges $39 for Arizona alone, and the full complement would reach a couple of hundred dollars. 

Then there are at present 19 free aircraft, with a new one just announced to be on the way with more to follow. Beyond that are the unexpected additions, like user generated orthos, (and buildings) night lighting and other things that promise a significant expansion to the sims coverage, Including Atc, which is still being worked on, VR "hands" to flip switches within the sim, a logbook, and other things not yet announced that should raise some eyebrows.

For me, so far, I think it's been a good investment in an interesting future. But others milage, of course, may vary.

I understand your point mate, and that could lead us to another new and exciting discussion :) for me for example it's not reasonable paying for a plane double the price of a full simulator, but for others is!

I think AFS2 can become a great simulator if IPACS doesn't drop the project and stay on the right path developing what it needs to be, and when that happens i will put my money on it again... but as someone said..."we will be together, but not yet!"

So there's no night lighting in AFS2 yet? I really hope they take their time and do night lighting properly. So far the best I've seen in terms of night lighting is X-Plane. If AFS2 can do better, then I'll definitely be interested. 

Now wit FSW, AFS2, and P3D, I'm not sure which will be the definitive one to choose. And I would like to stick to one, because this hobby is extremely expensive. If I was rich, I'd have every single flight sim. But since money doesn't grow on trees, I'll have to pick and choose wisely.

47 minutes ago, captain420 said:

So there's no night lighting in AFS2 yet? I really hope they take their time and do night lighting properly. So far the best I've seen in terms of night lighting is X-Plane. If AFS2 can do better, then I'll definitely be interested. 

Now wit FSW, AFS2, and P3D, I'm not sure which will be the definitive one to choose. And I would like to stick to one, because this hobby is extremely expensive. If I was rich, I'd have every single flight sim. But since money doesn't grow on trees, I'll have to pick and choose wisely.

Actually, night lighting was introduced with Orbx Innsbruck, and then expanded and enhanced with the recent Orbx Chicago expansion. Colorado now has night lighting, and due to "Cultivation" and the easy ability to add buildings and lighting where data is sufficiently available, I suspect Ipacs will backtrack to supply it to all released sceneries. (If the users don't beat them there beforehand)

In fact I believe they were going to do Chicago (city) night lighting, but a user got there early and offered his version first.

So is the ORBX Scenery for AFS2 on the same level as their FSX/P3D counterparts or is it better or worse?

Well, I purchased Innsbruck for both sims for comparison purposes, and I would have to say that the Aerofly version generally wins. Colors are richer, view distance is higher, mountains and the ground in the distance remain sharp, framerates are 100fps and above even at 4k with full shadows....

However, there's no dynamic lighting as yet, the area is limited to the immediate surroundings of Innsbruck, though again, with "cultivation" I suspect that will soon change....

Chicago is amazing now that the surrounding city has been added, and interestingly enough, framerates are almost completely unaffected by the addition of at least 5000,000 buildings. In fact, I'm told that with the move out of early access, Aerofly is actually now about 15% faster than before, if you can believe it.

But pictures are better than my words.

Again, I see a "young" sim with enormous potential, while others may simply see that it's not soup  yet.   

 

 

That's simply amazing, but I hope with the addition of study level aircraft, ATC, AI, weather, etc that it won't bring the performance down. Because I know AFS2 has awhile to go. As long as the developers can make the sim running at such high framerates and have those kind of add-ons will be something to look forward to! Thanks for the videos! :)

I have Aerofly FS 2 since April and I could say, having also P3Dv3 & 4 installed on my main computer, that AFS2 is so good and fluid that I actually expending twice the time flying in AFS2 than P3D.

Cheers, Ed

2 hours ago, captain420 said:

That's simply amazing, but I hope with the addition of study level aircraft, ATC, AI, weather, etc that it won't bring the performance down. Because I know AFS2 has awhile to go. As long as the developers can make the sim running at such high framerates and have those kind of add-ons will be something to look forward to! Thanks for the videos! :)

That's actually been an interesting journey. One thing people believed was that large amounts of buildings and extensive city scenery would certainly slow the sim down.... And actually FPS is now a bit higher over cities. Night lighting was also supposed to slow things down, but so far, no dice. Then it was complex aircraft that would show the sims limitations.....

But now we have the Q400, as sophisticated as many pay quality planes out there, given away for free.... and still no slowdown.......

The developers pretty much say don't hold your breath waiting for slowdowns to happen, but it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

By the way, in my previous post I meant to type 500,000 Buildings.

In the meantime......

 

I am sorry, but the Q400 on AFS2 is nowhere near sofisticated, at least not to the same degree as freeware aircraft available for other platforms (738 Zibo for XP11, for example).

Even though I really enjoy AFS2 and its amazing VR implementation, it desperatrely needs its first study-level GA aircraft.

1 hour ago, tgcbraun said:

I am sorry, but the Q400 on AFS2 is nowhere near sofisticated, at least not to the same degree as freeware aircraft available for other platforms (738 Zibo for XP11, for example).

X-plane is on its 11th iteration, after its first version in 1995 (22 Years!)

I suspect Aerofly will get "study level" aircrafts in significantly less time. 

But I also think that should be up to third parties, and Ipacs main responsibility is to create a good core for those third parties to work with, not to try and match PMDG.

For myself, I expect FSX equivalent base aircraft (which I think the Q400 exceeds by a wide margin) and a good base sim to build on.

And 22 years from now......... 

2 hours ago, tgcbraun said:

I am sorry, but the Q400 on AFS2 is nowhere near sofisticated,

Please don't forget that we are talking about stock aircraft . To be stock aircraft not only the Q400 is exceptional, but also the A320, the learjet and the beech 58, and I only mention the ones I fly the most. I also hope that advanced developers will come in and produce study-level aircraft in the very near future, now that AFS2 is officially released.

Cheers, Ed

7 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Night lighting was also supposed to slow things down, but so far, no dice.

AFAIK, AEFS2 night lighting is basically just point sprites, hardly comparable to the dynamic lighting of other flight sims. Not even working landing lights, for example. In addition to that, some other visual effects are missing, like ground self-shadowing, atmospheric scattering, and water effects (water is just a fixed texture).

I still think that it's the most efficient visual engine, and will probably keep an advantage even if they add all of these effects, but at the moment it's not a 100% fair comparison.