Do you already have flights planned?

[LHookins 3,103]

Uh, why is JvanE (if I remember right) now listed as "Guest"??

I just did a flight in Kansas, I think, at about 2000 AGL that had some gorgeous photo-quality tree terrain tiles without a hint of autogen.  It was pretty bad.  No, it was worse than that.  I'm going to guess that photoscenery would at least have better variety.

Another flight to check out MSFS.  

Windows 10, I typed MAPS in the search box and got the Microsoft version that allows viewing 3D buildings.  Houston looked like the trailer. 

Let's see what my house looks like.  Yeah, I'm expecting it to be flat.  First, go to Dallas then go north about 60 miles.  Only one problem:  Dallas wasn't there as a 3D city.  

Say wut?

Okaaaaay... the new sim is said to have more 3D cities than the app. 

Hopefully, if Dallas isn't one of the full detail cities at least they'll have the FSX buildings there, which are actually very nice.  Even better if the ground texture isn't generic city autogen but satellite images.

Somehow, P3Dv4 doesn't look as good as it used to. 🙂

Hook

[in2tech 588]

12 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The Biltmore Estate is in North Carolina. I visited the place in May 1994.

I stand corrected, and I visited it in the 1990's, and I should have know better. My bad. Went to Gatlinburg and drove over to Biltmore, and I'm saying that's why I was confused, but I ADMIT I was just wrong, sorry! I hope it is in the NEW sim, but kind of doubt it. Even if not, it will be fun trying to find out if it is or not. The Smoky Mountains are beautiful in real life and hope they are in the sim.

And the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii right @Christopher Low . I am checking with you from now on 🙂 

Please float plane for Alaska, Sitka and a ton of other places in Alaska.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Learjet777

[LHookins 3,103]

I was about to go flying just now, but found out there's a big storm coming.  Pretty much guaranteed loss of Internet.  Not a major problem in P3D with Active Sky as AS will simply revert to an offline mode.  I could go flying anyway, but a power loss is also likely at this point so I'll hold off.

A new sim couldn't handle a power loss, but how does it handle loss of Internet?  It could be anything from no effect beyond not updating the real time weather to losing connection to the sim entirely.  I can't predict at this point what might be likely.

Sure would be nice to have fiber optic connections. 🙂

Hook

[in2tech 588]

37 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I was about to go flying just now, but found out there's a big storm coming.  Pretty much guaranteed loss of Internet.  Not a major problem in P3D with Active Sky as AS will simply revert to an offline mode.  I could go flying anyway, but a power loss is also likely at this point so I'll hold off.

A new sim couldn't handle a power loss, but how does it handle loss of Internet?  It could be anything from no effect beyond not updating the real time weather to losing connection to the sim entirely.  I can't predict at this point what might be likely.

Sure would be nice to have fiber optic connections. 🙂

Hook

Don't remember the details but the Xbox ( remember it's PC and Xbox this time ), one year was gonna have to be connected often ( don't remember the details ) or once a day or something and people went crazy and Microsoft Xbox team changed it some how before release. Point being they should know a constant internet ON thing is bad, they should. Like I said I don't remember the details but if it was true or not, there was a story about military person saying they would NOT be able to use their Xbox on a Submarine, I think. People went nut's and hopefully they learned a lesson? We can ONLY hope! I think they know not to do something like that now. I would think! Doesn't Steam even have an Offline mode? 

BTW, not to make you feel bad, and I mean it. But Fiber Optic internet is awesome 🙂 And hope you can get it soon. We had to wait years in our area, even after they ran those famous big ORANGE fiber optic trunk lines in the area. Went from like 15 MPS down and 2-5 up, it was horrible but no choice at the time. To 100 MPS up and down. A family member on Fathers Day say's he has 1 gigabit Up and Down now. If that is the correct term. So fast I don't even know how to type it out correctly.

And to stay on topic,

We have to have aircraft carriers, oil rigs to land on. Which means helicopters and military aircraft.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Learjet777

[LHookins 3,103]

Always on:  I've got I think one Steam game that requires a connection to Steam to start.  Others do not.

fs-FlightControl requires a connection to start as it checks your license and gives you updates.  After that it does not.

Fiber:  I was at a doctor's office waiting on a procedure to be run and one of the techs invited me to use the Internet there.  First thing I checked was latency:  they had a 17 ms ping time.  I was so shocked that I forgot to do a speed test.  My dial-up at the time got 165 ms pings.

I'm several miles from the end of the cable coming from town.  I could have them extend it... for about the price of a new car.  That's about the same place DSL stops.

Helos:  I'm looking forward to seeing what they do.  It's not my primary push, but I know others prefer helicopters for exploring.  I'd have been a helo pilot in Viet Nam if I hadn't failed the pre-flight physical.  Think that shows sufficient interest? 🙂

Hook

[in2tech 588]

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

Always on:  I've got I think one Steam game that requires a connection to Steam to start.  Others do not.

fs-FlightControl requires a connection to start as it checks your license and gives you updates.  After that it does not.

Fiber:  I was at a doctor's office waiting on a procedure to be run and one of the techs invited me to use the Internet there.  First thing I checked was latency:  they had a 17 ms ping time.  I was so shocked that I forgot to do a speed test.  My dial-up at the time got 165 ms pings.

I'm several miles from the end of the cable coming from town.  I could have them extend it... for about the price of a new car.  That's about the same place DSL stops.

Helos:  I'm looking forward to seeing what they do.  It's not my primary push, but I know others prefer helicopters for exploring.  I'd have been a helo pilot in Viet Nam if I hadn't failed the pre-flight physical.  Think that shows sufficient interest? 🙂

Hook

Let me be clear. i DO NOT think Microsoft Flight Simulator will be always on, only my opinion. I have No idea how it will work, as I don't work for Microsoft. We are talking speculation here and maybe for the next several months.

And thank you for your service, and anyone serving our country in the military! I like the simple helicopters in flight simulators although I suck at flying them. And I have trouble flying them with a joystick and throttle, no pedals as I am not that serious a simmer. But wonder if they have them in the both PC and Xbox, how easy are hard they will be to fly? IF they even have them.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

7 hours ago, LHookins said:

Hopefully, if Dallas isn't one of the full detail cities at least they'll have the FSX buildings there, which are actually very nice.  Even better if the ground texture isn't generic city autogen but satellite images.

Hook

Yeah, I’m hoping Dallas and Ft Worth are included as high detail cities. I assume they would be since they showed Houston in the trailer. I’ve been hoping for a descent modeling of KDAL and the downtown for a while now. I do use the product by the UT USA guys that has a high detailed south/southeastern section modeled with un-tickable cities that actually adds all the building in the metroplex as well as AT&T stadium in Arlington. It’s pretty good but not like in the video. I think they have pulled it from the market but not sure.

[LHookins 3,103]

1 hour ago, Learjet777 said:

Let me be clear. i DO NOT think Microsoft Flight Simulator will be always on, only my opinion.

I don't know how they might work whatever streaming they intend to do. 

A client/server model with the flight sim running on the server and your computer only displaying the results gives them the most flexibility, and with all processing done on the server you can have *incredible* detail at all times with whatever resolution and frame rate your connection can support.  No option to include content outside what is available from Microsoft though.

Having the flight sim on your computer with scenery data streamed will result in less bandwidth being used and will rely somewhat more on the processing power of your computer.  If you file a flight plan, the scenery data can be pre-fetched from the server allowing a more or less seamless experience.  This allows outside third party aircraft, scenery and other options.

There is simply too much data to have the entire world at the detail we're seeing.  Two petabytes was used to create it, the final product would be smaller.  FSX already loads regional landclasses as needed and even that can cause OOMs if you get too many of them loaded at the same time and your LOD_RADIUS is too high.  Thank goodness for 64 bit P3Dv4.

A good balance is the second option above, where scenery data is loaded as needed, with whatever process is needed to clear your disk cache of unneeded scenery data.  If you fly to an area and can't get the super high scenery data, you get whatever default data comes with the sim.  This is the option I think will be the most likely.  Otherwise, why need DX12? 🙂

 

1 hour ago, Learjet777 said:

And thank you for your service, and anyone serving our country in the military!

And thank you for your support.  I didn't go into helicopters, I went into tanks later, and eventually ended up programming computers in the Pentagon in 1976.

 

1 hour ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Yeah, I’m hoping Dallas and Ft Worth are included as high detail cities.

Well, Ft Worth is included.  Plenty of interesting things to see there:  Tandy Center and the Water Gardens, for example.  I wonder if the decision of which city to include was influenced by the rivalry between the two cities?  All I can say is, Ft Worth does have one thing Dallas doesn't:  a major city within 100 miles. 😄😄

Hook

[LHookins 3,103]

I should mention a third option:  That only a small part of the world is in the detail we're seeing, and we'll get it all right out of the box and no need for any kind of streaming.  The areas between the super high definition ones would be landclass and autogen.  I think this is doable.  New and updated areas can be streamed live or requested as needed.

I don't have any experience with photoreal scenery so I can't predict how much drive space it will take.  Is the above situation practical?

Hook

[Deleted 250]

Seattle - Los Angeles - Denver

My first day with the A320 in MSFS

[Deleted 250]

On 6/18/2019 at 11:59 PM, LHookins said:

Which is why I made a list of the things I intend to test. 

To take one example, the flight from Innsbruck to Neuschanstein castle is interesting in any case, and I want to see if the castle is there and if so what it looks like.  If it's not there, nothing is lost and I'll fly back to Innsbruck.  In other words, it doesn't matter if it's there or not.  It's not there in FSX or P3D.  There are versions available elsewhere for download.

A test plan is not premature.  These are not just scenic flights.  

Hook

You remember? How do you think about this now?

 

[LHookins 3,103]

Interesting:

https://www.airpano.com/360video/vr-neuschwanstein/

[AflyingDoge 27]

I'm planning a cross-country flight in the Bonanza G36. It'll just be from my local airport in Michigan to California, making a bunch of scenic stops along the way. On the way back I want to skim through the south, fly over NYC, since it looks very detailed, and probably land at an outlying airport there, before heading back to the origin airport.

[RudyB24 296]

How about all the places listed here:

https://flightloc.com/locations

The site was set up with the new MFS2020 in mind.

Edited June 15, 2020 by RudyB24

[orchestra_nl 931]

Currently I am making a trip in a Cessna from Alaska to Southern California, just to get the hang of flightsimming again. I want to make the same trip in the new sim to compare the experience.
Especially looking forward to landing at Catalina (if it undulated/sloped). I might even extend that trip to go around the world over the poles, just to see wether that is feasible (perhaps not in that Cessna)

After that , recreating Earhart's final flight around the world, preferably in a Lockheed E10) might be interesting.