All about AZURE

[irrics 1,517]

2 minutes ago, gpbarth said:

Well, I won't be participating in the new FS. My own personal decision. I've already branched out, as it were, to other simulations which are multiplayer online situations, like DCS World. As I mentioned, I'm an old fart with set ways. I have 4 TB of storage with tons of FSX stuff, and a bunch of other sims. I think I'll stop right here!

You do you man - for sure...to each our own.

I'm ready and excited for a completely next gen take on Flight Sim, but I'm positive there are people that will stick with whatever they use now, no matter what MS does.  

Hell - there are apparently people that still use FSX!

(I have no idea how they do that and enjoy it anymore, but good on them)

Edited June 15, 2019 by irrics

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, gpbarth said:

Well, I won't be participating in the new FS. My own personal decision. I've already branched out, as it were, to other simulations which are multiplayer online situations, like DCS World. As I mentioned, I'm an old fart with set ways. I have 4 TB of storage with tons of FSX stuff, and a bunch of other sims. I think I'll stop right here!

Wait until you see it; that's my thinking. I'm either going to find it irresistible or decide it doesn't fit with my sim requirements!

My wallet will tag along with whatever my soul decides.

[simmerhead 885]

17 hours ago, gpbarth said:

Only problem is that monthly fee. Right now, you can't "own" a lot of software. MS Office is a good example. You can't own and install Office once. You have to pay a yearly fee or it stops working. I don't want to subscribe to Flight Sim. And that IS the way all this is going.

I know what you mean. Owning a physical copy with no online DRM check is preferable, and I can decide not to upgrade it. With subscription services you're hooked. 

I feel the same about music, but luckily I can still get all the music I want as physical media and don't have to rely on any external party to play it where I want, whenever I want. Software has sadly been lost in the cloud... 

Still, I move with the times and will give it a go, just because its Microsoft Flight Simulator. If it turns out that they have the whole world covered in stunning detail, physical copies might not be a viable solution anyway...

[bonchie 2,305]

3 hours ago, WarpD said:

You are assuming that a game subscription would include scenery updates, navdata updates, etc.  I don't recall reading that anywhere in any official Microsoft statements, etc.  I do not believe that a subscription based sim would be a long term financial success.

If there is any streaming of scenery data from Bing (and I'm struggling to see how it's at all possible to localize what they've shown so far), that data will logically be updated and expanded over time. Not for us as flight simmers, but for their overall system that we happen to be drawing from. Navdata? Who knows.

Edited June 15, 2019 by bonchie

[bonchie 2,305]

6 hours ago, KBUR said:

 

To me this is not future, it's like a step backwards into the past.

It's like a guy who is fully equipped with all fancy video editing stuff at home,where he not only can manage video editing but als watching them at the same time - where and when he wants and completely independent from outer sources (exempted power).  And with no subscription he has to be pay for, capable of watching his stuff on his fancy machine as he likes and independently - with a great feeling of freedom in his heart.

 

I think this is a little off base to what the reality of gaming is today. It's not nearly as doom and gloom as you paint it.

Flight Simulator will likely be a stand alone purchase you can play forever. But it's possible they will try to monetize it further with monthly subscriptions for additional content/updates or yearly "season passes." Those things are common in other genres of gaming.

You don't lose your game if you choose to not pay for a yearly pass. You just don't get the updated content. And I fail to see how that's any worse or immoral than 3rd party developers charging for improvements they add to simulators. I would expect MS to try to monetize any new sim over at least a 5 year period.

Edited June 15, 2019 by bonchie

[Lotharen 287]

To be perfectly honest where has MS said it was going to be subscription based ONLY? I haven't seen that. What I saw was that it would ALSO be available using the subscription service. I think a lot of you are freaking out for nothing. I don't think Flight Sims have the numbers in terms of users to justify a paid service, however, there are a LOT of gamers that might use the product if it was offered in the subscription package. 

As for cloud based stuff, sadly it seems to be the way things are going. Get some good internet security and be Net smart and you should be fine and dandy.

[KBUR 178]

6 hours ago, irrics said:

I guess everyone is different, but I've seen some people comment about the literal 3,4,5 thousand dollars they've put into FS over the past 10-15 years, which I can totally understand on FSX/P3D with the huge amount of add-ons that are really needed for it to feel like a modern, feature complete and visually rich platform.

Even at "only" $3k across 15 years, that user has already been spending $16.60 per month.

I don't really even buy many add-ons and have been out of P3D for a while now, and I still have over $1000 of add-ons from the last 15 year period - which doesn't include all my X-Plane purchases.

I think your point is really a decent argument.  And I think this issue of running out of money and no dispositon of buying all the addons again will drive many simmers directly into this new online streaming world whatsoever.

But from the practical point of view I cannot imagine how this should happen 24/7. E.g. Germany (my homeland) is pretty far away from a stable and comprehensive Internet nationwide. 

Especially at certain times, lets say between 5.00 pm and 10.00 pm it can become really tough to get a solid and decent speed for downloads.  And not only Germany, but other countries in Europe too, like Italy and others....

[Woozie 732]

As Microsofts cloud computing service "Azure" appears to play a part in the new Flightsimulator, i figured it deserves a dedicated thread to discuss Azure and its potential for gaming/flightsim applications. Its actually quite amazing what can be achieved with cloud computing and machine learning.

Information is still sparse, so this is pure speculation (as all other MSFS related threads) and i don't claim that any of these features will ultimately find its way into MSFS.

But keep in mind that there are two, incredibly strong points in favour of cloud computing: Any module that's available in the cloud can be accessed by a cloud supported application, you simply connect to a certain node, feed it with data, and get the result back, usually within milliseconds. And with some computing intensive tasks outsourced to the cloud, we may have enough local CPU/GPU power available to run those glorious visuals in 4k/60fps 😉 The downside, of course, is the requirement of a permanent internet connection with sufficient bandwith and low latency. 

Now lets look at some Azure solutions that could help to improve our flight sim experience significantly:

Scenery: 

Microsoft has two mapping services, Bing Maps and Azure Maps. The former is a free service, available to everyone, while the latter is an enterprise platform offering map related data through API's, so customers can use Azure map data for their own applications. It appears that the total coverage of Azure Maps is larger than what we currently see in Bing Maps. As its Microsofts own service, i guess we can safely assume that MSFS will have access to Azure Maps rather than just Bing Maps

Here is a list of regions that are currently covered by Azure Maps, showing both, raster tiles (i.e. Satellite images) and vector tiles (roads, rivers, borders, etc). I didn't find any information about the satellite image resolution though, only thing i know is that raster tiles are 512x512 max size, but that doesn't tell much about actual image resolution (cm/m per pixel). Also i wasnt able to find any information about 3D imaginery/LIDAR data coverage difference between Bing and Azure Maps, not sure if this data is shared by both platforms.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/render-coverage

 

Physics:

Havok:

In 2015, Microsoft accuired Havok from Intel. Havok is a physics engine/middleware used in many games (you may remember the logo being shown during intros), they actually claim that its used in about 50% of all games (not just MS games) of the current generation. Dont wrinkle your nose yet, just because its "game physics" it doesnt mean its not realistic, you just need to feed it with correct numbers. Havok is now fully implemented in Azure and they even released a console title (Crackdown 3) that uses cloud assisted physics computation for destruction mechanics. Any building in the game world can be destroyed and crumbles physically correct. Now, I know that destruction physics are rather something for MS Combat Simulator, but the really interesting part is that the computing power Azure allocated per user was more than 12 times the power of an xbox console! Now to put all this into perspective, a hyper realistic Formula One simulator used by race teams to pre-test new parts uses one workstation per tyre (!) in order to achieve a sufficiently realistic simulation of tyre phyiscs. So thats 4 workstations for the tyre physics alone, and thats without aerodynamics and other physical aspects. It shows that even a beefy gaming PC simply doesnt have sufficient computing power for high frequency physics simulation which would be required for accurate simulation of aerodynamics like airflow, draft, drag and weather influence

That's the article i'm referring to: https://www.windowscentral.com/inside-crackdown-3s-azure-cloud-powered-destruction

And here is a short demo of Havok being used in a GA training simulator (using speedtrees btw 😉) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU0JEsUkXTo

CFD: 

Another interesting tech, also fully integrated into Azure, is CFD (computational fluid dynamics). Its an essential part of the design-workflow for companies like Airbus or Boeing, as it allows parts to be tested for aerodynamical characteristics before they even produce a prototype. I recall a statement from an airbus engineer saying that CFD computed values are within a 0.0X% margin of real world results obtained through wind tunnel tests and test flights. 

Combined with Havok and Azure's added computing power, CFD could potentially be used to compute flight dynamics that are significantly better than what we currently have in P3D and XP

AI:

Both, Azure and Havok have dedicated modules for artificial intelligence. AI tech is incredibely advanced already, and simulating autonomous air- and ground-traffic with situational and enviromental awarness shouldnt prove any challenge these days.

 

Weather:

If you want a 1k TFLOP super computer to beg for mercy, just ask it to simulate worldwide weather. Its the reason why one of Microsoft's not-so-secret major long term targets is to develop a "world simulator". Being able to accurately simulate everything that happens on our planet is literally a money printing license, analysts see potential for a trillion-dollar-market here. While its still in very early stages (i think they are still talking about decades), Microsoft already partners with major weather companies like Accuweather in order to utilize Azure for ultra precise weather prediction, Accuweather has recently migrated all their weather tech to Azure.

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/customer-stories/accuweather-partner-professional-services-azure?returnurl=/en-us/onedrive-for-business/customer-stories

 

So yeah, its all just speculation and crystal-ball gazing, but some may now understand why a few of us are pretty excited about the prospect of a sim in the cloud 🙂

[188AHC 2,138]

I merged this as we already have a 3 page topic about Azure.

 

[Superdelphinus 718]

I’ve seen a few people write in here about a potential solution where the basic framework of the game is installed locally on a pc/Xbox whatever and then scenery streamed in on the fly. This seems quite mind blowingly complex to me - are there any other examples of apps that do something similar that exist now? I suppose something like Netflix does this when you think about it, but there’s a huge difference to a file streaming in a linear way like a film or a song and something that would have to be quite reactive to whatever the user was doing with the game.

what was the technology that they talked about when this generation of Xbox was released, that was something to do with piping AI into games from the fly? Did that ever actually happen?

[Longranger 148]

30 minutes ago, Superdelphinus said:

 This seems quite mind blowingly complex to me -

It isn't as complex as it sounds. It is something that FSX did- You only talk about a different scales . You don't really download everything at its maximum LOD level.

[Greggy_D 935]

On 6/15/2019 at 4:02 PM, Lotharen said:

To be perfectly honest where has MS said it was going to be subscription based ONLY? I haven't seen that. What I saw was that it would ALSO be available using the subscription service.

 Link please from Microsoft which states a choice of either a one-time purchase or subscription.

[G-RFRY 1,710]

2 hours ago, Greggy_D said:

 Link please from Microsoft which states a choice of either a one-time purchase or subscription.

There is no link but to get into Game Pass you need to sign up and join and that's £1 at the moment per month, and MSFS will be available in pc Game Pass or XBOX later.

[Lotharen 287]

On 6/20/2019 at 5:11 PM, Greggy_D said:

 Link please from Microsoft which states a choice of either a one-time purchase or subscription.

I (or Microsoft) never said there was going to be a one-time purchase option. What I said is Microsoft never said there wouldn't be one and they didn't say it would be ONLY subscription based. Its to early to say it will be a sub only option.

[Greggy_D 935]

Here is what you said:

"What I saw was that it would ALSO be available using the subscription service."

"Also" implies a second purchase/licensing option.  What is the second option?

Edited June 26, 2019 by Greggy_D