Orbx P3D 4.4 and NO SEASONS!

[Christopher Low 5,354]

I generally only fly in Spring or Summer, so paying extra for seasonal textures that I would probably not use would be a waste of meagre resources

Edited January 1, 2019 by Christopher Low

[pracines 823]

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I generally only fly in Spring or Summer, so paying extra for seasonal textures that I would probably not use would be a waste of meagre resources

Good thing you and others have many other sims and possibilities that accommodate: 

FS3 & FS4 are some older ones, AeroFly 2 & XP are newer ones. And you can always set the season in FSX or P3D. You are all set.😁

Now, what about those who do want seasons, will you and others who don't care about seasons, just say "tough luck"? I don't think you and others would be so cruel and uncaring for our needs.🧐

Big (actually, gigantic-enormous) picture stuff.🙂

[Christopher Low 5,354]

I was simply stating my personal preferences, Paul. I have no need for seasonal variations, but I have no objection to anyone else wanting them.

[Stub 2]

I've been looking forward to TE UK hugely since its announcement but like others I'm very disappointed that the biggest USP (for me) - multi-seasons - will now not even not be an option. I have a big investment in Horizon / ES scenery for the UK & Ireland and would be willing to pay a similar amount (£hundreds) for a product that fully exploited current technical capabilities. I want to buy the best - I don't like the suggestion that I should be happy with something because someone else is, or what sort of flying I should like.

I appreciate the many commercial pressures that ORBX must be forced to consider when making decisions such as this, but intangibles like reputation and customer perception also hit financial bottom-lines so I hope a way will be found to smooth ruffled customer feathers. Rational explanations alone don't always scratch where it itches.

Yes, I will buy this one because it's my home patch, but it's not what I had expected to be buying and that disappointment may well affect my future buying decisions. Absolutely not a threat - I love other ORBX stuff - but the bubble has deflated somewhat.

Stuart

[fta2017 160]

I’ll have to dig around on the Orbx forums but I am pretty sure JV has been on record that GB would be summer only for about 9 months now, after it was brought up by customers following the TE Netherlands release. So this is not some sudden change of mind by him as people are perceiving.

FWIW I don’t need seasons since I only fly VFR in summer and I would actually prefer smaller produc download and disk sizes versus another 650GB of seasons baggage I don’t want/need.

I think the most salient comment in this whole topic is the one about Google. When Google Earth/Maps goes multi seasonal then we know the tech has matured to offer that to us simmers.

[pracines 823]

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I was simply stating my personal preferences, Paul. I have no need for seasonal variations, but I have no objection to anyone else wanting them.

This is what you said:

5 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

so paying extra for seasonal textures that I would probably not use would be a waste of meagre resources

...and you are commenting in a topic specific to P3D4.4 and a specific product for P3D4.4. If you call it a "waste" in P3D4.4 then this implies that I and others are calling for waste. That becomes more than just a personal preference to you, it becomes an announcement that what we want is wasteful. To prevent this, you should have originally said "a waste of YOUR meagre resources". But anybody could have surmised that you meant ours or Orbx resources. That's why I replied what I did. Of course you are free to have a personal preference, but its important that you make that clear, and I'm glad my response clarified the record.👍

For the record, I'm glad that you are fiscally responsible.

 

[DylanM 1,069]

At least the summer textures are looking pretty stunning:

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/165579-trueearth-gb-south-p3d44-coastal-wales/

And I thought the plan was to offer seasons in stages (mainly because of resourcing and business model constraints)… 

 

[Christopher Low 5,354]

Quote

For the record, I'm glad that you are fiscally responsible.

Thank you. I am already planning the bank robbery that will provide me with access to the necessary funds

[Amon1973 1,421]

19 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Technology is going to evolve, DX11/12 supports much better compression formats such as BC6H/BC7 with HDR support and significantly reduced file sizes AND accelerated support from DX11/12 capable hardware.  However, P3D "currently" does NOT support BC6H/BC7 compression, that will have to change in order to make seasonal PR more accessible to the average flight simmer.  Of course this means a recompile of scenery into this format and it's NOT backwards compatible with FSX (the ball and chain).

For example a JPG that is 1024 x 1024 and 2.4MB file size ... turn that into a .DDS with BC7 it's 630KB.  That's about 4X smaller file size and that' compared to a JPG ... so a 4/5 season package that would be 800GB with the "older" method of BGL generation could be 200GB without any loss of image quality AND the benefit of hardware acceleration on the GPU side.

I've pushed for LM to support BC6H/BC7 ... I do just about every Beta cycle, probably annoying them to no end, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens in the future.

Cheers, Rob.

Keep pushing LM Rob, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

[kevinfirth 1,396]

51 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Thank you. I am already planning the bank robbery that will provide me with access to the necessary funds

Chris PM me your address - I'll send that 7700K and Maximus IX mobo your way... ;)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I am already planning the bank robbery that will provide me with access to the necessary funds

Invest in an education or something that will get you to "access to the necessary funds", or invest in the stock market.  However, I would have zero input on what to invest in with the current market as it's extremely chaotic and volatile, I don't even wanna look at my Schwab accounts in this market (yo-yo) ... about the only recommendation I could make is don't invest in bitcoin or any of those other valueless electronic currencies (contrary to some predictions they are NOT going to make a big come back).  But the old adage that money and power doesn't bring happiness is very true, life is much like our PC hardware and simulators, find the balance. 🙂

Happy New year.

Cheers, Rob.

[jlohrenz 133]

3 hours ago, fta2017 said:

...I think the most salient comment in this whole topic is the one about Google. When Google Earth/Maps goes multi seasonal then we know the tech has matured to offer that to us simmers.

I'm not sure that is a legitimate statement.  The technology is there.  Why would Google do it?  It doesn't align with their business model for that service.  They could get satellite imagery of whatever season they want, it is a cost / benefit factor that they have decided does not make sense.  Whereas for ORBX, and what we do as simmers, I think it is part of a business model.  It's been stated several times that having seasons is something people desire.

It's unfortunate that they have decided to to this, and mask it behind a size for download reasoning.

[KBUR 178]

7 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

....... life is much like our PC hardware and simulators, find the balance. 🙂

Happy New year.

Cheers, Rob.

 ....o man, that is sooooooooo true, thank's for putting this out.

 

Wish you a happy new year, Rob, and beatific flightsim sessions 😉

[kevinfirth 1,396]

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/165729-to-season-or-not-to-season-that-is-the-community-question/?tab=comments#comment-1456502

OrbX re-evaluate TE seasons...

[Bigt 192]

1 hour ago, kevinfirth said:

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/165729-to-season-or-not-to-season-that-is-the-community-question/?tab=comments#comment-1456502

OrbX re-evaluate TE seasons...

Interesting. Nice to know they are listening.