The influence of wind on the scenery

[Guest cwright]

I just saw a new preview of the new Far Cry (Crysis) in PC Gamer (UK). One thing caught my attention. The new system is capable of dynamically loading new scenery as you move, presumably similar to FS and other flight simulators. It was already known that the maps in Crysis are much larger. Far Cry loads all the scenery in one go and this is a major restriction as far as very big maps is concerned. Best regards, Chris

[moggel 0]

Another reason it's difficult to compare this sim to most 'normal games' is its support for add ons. I think it was TDragger who claimed they would be able to do amazing things the day they decided to drop that support. That, however, would be devastating to the product and shorten its shelf life radically. I just played FarCry a few times (I think it was a demo) when it first came out so I don't know if there's any add on support for it. Is it?A third factor may be the 'behind the scenes': FS doesn't just render the world as we fly. There's also AI planes flying all over, there's ATC controlling the AI planes and there's wheather systems building more or less in real time. Add to that the more or less complex flight systems (fairly simple in the default planes and extremely complex if you load up add on products like PMDG's 747 for example). All of this consume CPU time that could be used for rendering and 'environmental physics'. While FSX seems to be moving closer to the 'game' genre by introducing a role playing, mission driven, aspect, it still aimes to be a simulator first. I might be underestimating FarCry's 'behind the scenes' factor but I can only assume it very simplified when compared to FS.Lastly, when compared with most other entertainment software, FS is very old. It's difficult to keep refactoring and optimising the same code base for ever while, at the same time, introducing new features that take advantage of newer technologies. At some point in time the software needs to be almost completely re-written to deal with the growing 'code rot'. I can only assume MS has done this a few times by now but, then again, there are indications (from TDragger's and Pixelpoke's posts) that there is still very old code floating around in the sim. It would be interesting to hear if legacy code is limiting the FS developers abilities to make advances.

[Guest tdragger]

Nice post. I will take issue with one thing, though. That has to do with the "age" our code.I think there are a lot of misconceptions about this. Yes, the game has been around for almost 25 years but certainly the code we're running now hasn't. I see a lot people claim, "If they just rewrote it from scratch all the problems would be solved." Those that make this claim simply do not understand how software development works, IMO. The fact is major chunks of our code get rewritten all the time. The weather system in FS2004 is completely new, for example. Even the part of it that makes simple clouds look like they did in FS2002 is brand new. I have yet to see anyone really explain how starting from scrath would solve all the problems they claim FS has. <>I don't know what sorts of advances you have in mind. You've seen the screenshots of FSX. Do you think we're being limited? Besides, it really has nothing to do with old code. It takes almost the same amount of time (if not more in many cases) to rewrite something than it does to get the same effect by building on what's there.If there is anything that "limits" us (although I don't consider it a negative) it's support for backward compatibility. And to be clear, I'm not talking strictly about the same code. I mean the ability to load the same content and get the same effect. The underlying code can and often does change "under the covers" without anyone even knowing. And this limits us only in the sense that it takes extra time to design and build systems that can both provide new functionality and cope with older content. This is time we could have spent building more "stuff" if we didn't have to support older add-ons.Now, there are many people who say (on this forum, in fact) we should break backward compatibility and use that extra time on new features. What I find intersting is that these are people who have invested lots of time and money in add-ons. Maybe they have money and time to burn and will jusy buy the updated versions of their favorite add-ons. But most people don't have this luxury and having to give up their favority airplane or scenery would be irritating. So, those of you complaining that we're being held back by our "old" code (and I'm not counting you, moggel--I know you weren't really complaining) and feel we should just throw it away should rest assured that you'll still have at least one thing to complain about for years to come! ;)

[badderjet 181]

>What I find interesting is... how small the FS team is at>Microsoft. I got that impression from watching one of those>videos where this guy went around the MS Flight Sim team>interviewing them.>>I would have thought, they could expand the team a bit and add>more functionality into the product.Ahhmmm... The team is about 60 people in size AFAIK, not just the few guys shown in that video. :)

[Guest PC509]

Even when building from scratch, you'd be re-doing libraries with near identical code anyway. There would be little to no improvements with a lot of it. Sure, you'd probably find a few new ways of doing things, but in the long run, you'd spend countless hours and money with minimal improvement. Similar to basic C coding, most programs will use the standard libraries for I/O, sound, etc.. If you re-coded them, you wouldn't be gaining anything. It's going to be the same functionality either way. The libraries you do work on are actually needed to be optimized; graphics engine (which probably doesn't need to be completely re-writen, just changed a bit), terrain, etc. And what gets changed really makes a huge difference. Visually and in the immersion factor. Some small things are always going to bug some people. It's never going to be perfect. Add-on's help, the next version will be better. But, there is always going to be something else to fix. Always. If you hold out on buying the new version, because it's not perfect, when will you upgrade? Next version will still have a few things missing; and the next; But with each new version, it's leaps and bounds better than the last. FS95 doesn't have anything compared to FS2004. Improvements in hardware, OS, and programming standards help move everything along. New cars usually are built using similar parts, only the body style is changed. The engine is still a combustion engine with FI, intake, exhaust. Why redesign the whole thing, and still ending up with a very similar engine, chassis, electrical. It's not really needed. Of course, AFAIK, the compilers still aren't very optimized for multi-threading, multi-cores. It's still up to the programmer to take care of a lot of that.

[Murmur 3,941]

>I think there are a lot of misconceptions about this. Yes, the>game has been around for almost 25 years but certainly the>code we're running now hasn't. I see a lot people claim, "If>they just rewrote it from scratch all the problems would be>solved."What about the main graphic engine? How come it's the only flight sim engine that often suffers from blurries, where texture are often reloaded when switching views, and where the lag while they're loading is visible?This (along with some aspects of the Flight Model) is my main gripe about MSFS. Any chance to improve it?Marco

[Guest tdragger]

I was going to answer but then I saw your sig and figured I didn't need to. ;)

[Murmur 3,941]

>I was going to answer but then I saw your sig and figured I>didn't need to. ;)Well, it says "I play with MSFS" (and ASV), no "I don't play with" :(Really, I'm not one-way minded or a a really excited user:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=302967&page=I would be very interested in your response, but I understand if you decide not to. :)Marco

[michal 44]

> It is realy unrealistic if your aircrafts is parking in>front of a tree whileAnd I will tell you it is even 10 times less realistic to have stutters while taxiing. Lets get rid off all stutters and we can have moving blades of grass and possibly grsshoppers too. No, I don't believe for a second such a thing would be performance neutral.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

[Guest tdragger]

Oh, alright. ;)<The same applies to the graphics engine. We're re-writing it constantly. As for things like "the blurries" and texture loading issues, these have been discussed at length here and on our blogs.

[KERNEL32 499]

>What I find intersting is that these are people>who have invested lots of time and money in add-ons. Maybe>they have money and time to burn and will jusy buy the updated>versions of their favorite add-ons. But most people don't have>this luxury and having to give up their favority airplane or>scenery would be irritating. They wouldn't need to give anything up, in fact since one might not be able to afford an add-on, how could that same one afford to upgrade to FSX, possibly a new Windows platform and maybe even a new computer system? Just keep using FS2004 and let the one's who can afford it enjoy the *new* sleek code.

[GusRodrigues 1]

more effects on terrain when you don

[Mace 1,902]

Amen michael!Rhett

[moggel 0]

While I'm one the guys who'd like to see more of the 'behind the scenes' stuff (mainly ATC and additional wather affects such as icy surfaces/windows etc) being developed I can appreciate that pretty graphics and the 'explore your world' aspects are getting prioritised in order to appeal to new customers. Heck, I have to admit that I too enjoy being on finals alot more when the world looks real. :( As long as most new featurea are fully configurable I really don't mind them being added because I can always opt out to drag those sliders left-wise, spending my CPU budget on more 'hard core' facets of the sim whenever I choose to.What concerns me more is how the dev team spend their time... :-smooch

[Guest IlyaPro]

>I don't know what sorts of advances you have in mind. You've>seen the screenshots of FSX. Hi,I apologise for a slight off-topic, but I would like to ask about one. I don't really know the proper name of this thing in English so let's call it "self-shading" (it would be a literal translate of a russian term). I mean, it's when one part of an object drops a shadow on the other part, e.g. shadow of the wing on the fuselage. I mean a dynamic shadow, not one drawn in texture bitmaps.The point is that there is a hot discussion in our Russian flightsimming community at www.avsim.ru/forum about that. People are really concerned about this "self-shading" is being presented on no screenshots. Will it be implemented it FSX graphics engine? AFAIK it's not so resource demanding nowadays, but it would increase the realism a whole new step.To my own humble (really humble) oppinion, the reason we don't see it on the screenshots, is the lack of DirectX 10 compatible hardware, or maybe not all things are still implemented in FSX at this Beta (or better to say alpha) stage. So it would be there in final version.Who is right?I appreciate your comments on this.P.S. I apologise for my English if the case.P.P.S. Here is a direct link to that discussion.Doubt if it helps, it's in Russian, but everyone is still welcomehttp://www.avsim.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=24346&hl=FSX