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LHookins

Do you already have flights planned?

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To be honest, I would like to complete a "low and slow" flight around the world. I have never been able to even consider this because "low and slow" requires good quality terrain scenery for the entire journey. That is simply not possible in current simulators without going bankrupt in the process. If Microsoft could deliver the quality of graphics exhibited in the trailer for the entire globe, then the dream would have a chance. I would just need to make sure that I have detailed versions of every airport that I wanted to use for the journey.

Edited by Christopher Low
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Christopher Low

UK2000 Beta Tester

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1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

"low and slow" requires good quality terrain scenery for the entire journey.

I think once you plan such a flight you'll find that a lot of places aren't going to have good quality terrain scenery even in real life.

Regional landclasses are quite varied across the many countries you'll be flying over.  I thought there was a bug in the Cambodia scenery with odd light colored geometrical shapes but I found the same thing on Google Earth.  Most of these places you'll only ever see once, and when you first see them they'll be new and different.

The oddest thing I saw was in India where it looked like the same identical rural landclass tile repeated all the way to the horizon in every direction.  Less of a complaint, more of a "Well, this is interesting" observation.

Some places the scenery looks better than others. 🙂

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Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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Just to be sure everyone understands, the TOPIC under discussion isn't scenic flights, but how you intend to test the new flight sim when it is available.  I figure I already know about the flight model, so I'm wondering how the new terrain will look, and to test this I'll be doing specific flights.  I'll figure out the weather, lighting and other things as I go along.

Anyone with any ideas of something else that they want to test and how they'll go about it are welcome to post about it.

As far as I'm concerned this is Microsoft Flight with more aircraft and the entire world. One thing I'll be looking for is how close Hawaii is to the Flight version, and I'll be flying out the Aleutian island chain to see if they've fixed the "wedding cake/stair step" hills out there.  Besides, I want to visit Dutch Harbor.

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Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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15 minutes ago, Holdit said:

I'll fly over my house. :smile:

I forgot about that one!  You're absolutely right.  And visit the local airport (F00 Bonham) to see if it matches the real one better than FSX did. 🙂

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Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

To be honest, I would like to complete a "low and slow" flight around the world. I have never been able to even consider this because "low and slow" requires good quality terrain scenery for the entire journey. That is simply not possible in current simulators without going bankrupt in the process. If Microsoft could deliver the quality of graphics exhibited in the trailer for the entire globe, then the dream would have a chance. I would just need to make sure that I have detailed versions of every airport that I wanted to use for the journey.

I guess it depends on what you're willing to accept for good quality terrain. Maybe it's because I'm used to the HD mesh + landclass + OSM autogen approach with X-Plane, but I'm currently partway through what may end up as a round the world flight in the FSEconomy game, and it's looking good so far. The FSE game provides a good challenge because I need to find assignments heading in the right direction to pay for gas and maintenance fees. 

I'm flying a Pilatus PC-12 in the sim. Started in Washington state USA, flew up along the coast to Alaska, then over to Japan where the plane is currently located. All relatively short hops of 200-300 nm, except for a few long stretches across the northern coastal route to Japan where airports are few and far between. There is a free Japan Pro autogen package that increases the realism with typical blue and pink roof tiles on buildings, bullet trains, and a few landmarks. It goes back to generic autogen until I get down to maybe Australia where there is some good free scenery. It will be sparse from there, but still landclass that doesn't look too bad. And then scenery quality will pick up again when I reach Europe. That's if I continue on, and don't chicken out and head back to home base in Washington state. 😄

Anyway, bringing it back on topic, it will be interesting to see how well the new MSFS manages to fill in these scenery areas that aren't the most-popular flying areas. At least in XP11, I know there will be runways and an increasing number of user-made Gateway 3D airports along the way. So far, the entire trip has been default or free scenery. Unless MSFS has a way to auto-build 3D airports from satellite photos, it may take a while to fill the world with 3D airports.


X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator on Windows 10 
i7 6700 4.0 GHz, 32 GB RAM, GTX 1660 ti, 1920x1200 monitor

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18 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Maybe it's because I'm used to the HD mesh + landclass + OSM autogen approach with X-Plane,

That's a SUPER example of how exciting what MS *could* be doing here might be.

The whole XP world and all that's required to get it all collected and running and looking great (with things like you've described there) is such a huge barrier to entry for like 90%+ of users.

 

Just even understanding what one is talking bout with "mesh" and "land class" and "OSM Autogen"..

meh.

 

I know about it all and have gone way down the rabbit hole, but there is a big opportunity here for MS to bring those amazing types of visuals to the masses.

Edited by irrics

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At first, I always check performance of a new flight sim w/o any addons, at KLGA runway 22 with absolute max settings, overcast rainy skies, using the most complex default aircraft available. IF I can get 10 FPS and its stable and smooth, flight commences to KJFK KEWR, KPHL, KBWI, and finally to KDCA - If its stable and smooth through that corridor, I will be satisfied. If I'm not satisfied I buy a new PC from Jetline Systems.

Then for the round the world trip (unlimited fuel setting) from SEQM (if available) to PKU VOR (near WSSS) to SEQM, non stop, max settings, real weather (if available).

Then I check other busy corridors like SFO/LAX/SAN - RJAA/VHHH/WSSS - SBGL/SBGR - SCEL/SAEZ - CYQB/CYUL/CYOW/CYYZ - NZAA/NZWN/NZCH - YBBN/YSSY/YSCB/YMML/YPAD

Then I check performance at other major airports from KATL to ZBAA.  

I then reevaluate if I will buy a new PC.🤑 As great as P3D4 has been performing I have not needed to buy a new PC.👍

After getting the new PC the above process is repeated and performance assessed.

-my normal operating procedure😀

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@pracines

Wouldn't it be nice to not have to do an analysis and performance vetting of every add-on that gets strapped on to the base program?

I know some will disagree, and perhaps "enjoy" the nerdiness of it - but I would imagine many of us (perhaps silent or not here at all and/or totally out of simming right now) are excited at the prospect of just flying without some of the tedium of the old ways.

Edited by irrics
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@pracines Thanks, Paul.  That is the kind of information I was looking for.  I only fly smaller aircraft out of smaller airports, so I'll be looking at those, and the kinds of scenery you see while flying those planes.  I was wondering how the airliner people would be looking at it.

@irrics  I won't be buying a new computer for a flight sim myself.  I already have the best I could afford.  As for performance, it's incidental, and whatever I get is what I get.  If performance is suffering, I turn down some options, just like in 2007.  These days I have to turn down fewer options. 🙂

Contrast this with P3Dv2.5 running on the new computer with options turned way up.  I started getting OOM errors.  So I did a LOT of testing to see what options needed to be lowered to avoid them.  Maximum nerdiness but it eliminated OOMs.  It was worth it, right up until I got P3Dv4, where only one option had to be lowered to reduce stutters.

I'm more interested in flying and tweaking aircraft than testing sim settings.

Hook


Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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1 minute ago, LHookins said:

I'm more interested in flying and tweaking aircraft than testing sim settings.

Me too!  

That's why I'm excited for an all new ground up effort here to bring the baseline up to modern standards.

 

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3 minutes ago, irrics said:

That's why I'm excited for an all new ground up effort here to bring the baseline up to modern standards.

That was something I liked about Flight.  Even over the incredible scenery in Hawaii I was getting about 60 fps, against 20 in stock FSX on the same computer.

Depending on how much of the new sim is streamed we may be more concerned with how to optimize our bandwidth than anything else.

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Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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I think we may be way over our skis on the streaming stuff.

I really doubt the scenery will be realtime streaming right around the area you're flying.

I could it see it "pre-fetching" and caching to a point where it's a non-issue, or perhaps it just means you can download locally specified areas, etc -- It could mean so many things and MS has said almost nothing about it yet, so I'm not even thinking about this angle yet.  No need to worry until we know more anyhow.

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@irrics

I have to think about it.  I'm on a 12 Mbps connection with a bandwidth limit of 25 gig, and the rest of the family leaves me about 8 gig per month.  If they're streaming anything but DLC it becomes a concern.

It was raining yesterday and my connection was up and down all day.  Sometimes it's up and down even when the weather is beautiful.

I'm still reasonably optimistic as I can think of several ways to make things work on a limited connection, but the very word "streaming" is a red flag.

Hook


Larry Hookins

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

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9 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I'm still reasonably optimistic as I can think of several ways to make things work on a limited connection, but the very word "streaming" is a red flag.

We don’t even know what their plan is.

For all we know they could just be planning on digital delivery of scenery content and your access to it, even stored locally, will expire if your subscription expires. 

 

MS aren’t idiots here. I very much trust they are thinking of all the myriad concerns and planning accordingly. 

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