The reality is that even if there is some amount of backward compatibility with existing add-ons, there will be changes and work required by add-on developers and you'll be paying again for new/updated versions of what you already own.

That being the case - why not go as "all new" as possible and pay the developers for that vs just making changes to old stuff to drag along into the future?

The only downside of that is some waiting perhaps...but if anything, FS users have shown a remarkable amount of patience and being "in it for the long haul" anyhow.

 

Go all new as much as possible MS!

Edited July 30, 20196 yr by irrics

23 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

Again. The MDL and BGL files we use for scenery are simply data. If they are available in the new sim, that data will be rendered by the new sim as 'new' scenery and aircraft. They will look different if the 'core' or engine of the new sim is different regarding behavior or rendering.

The resistance to being able to reuse favorite sceneries is totally wrong. Likely, the only thing needed to be updated would be assets that use a DLL, or FSUIPC or Simconnect. And Simconnect might even be available. Why toss out vectors, terrain, object geometry (or aircraft) if they function well in FSX or P3D? The core controls the rendering and behavior of the data. The data does not control the core.

You're ignoring the difference in rendering with a new simulator. This new sim is apparently aimed at a standard 4k monitor resolution. Texture resolution is not that high for a huge amount of the legacy FSX and P3D scenery and aircraft models. Polygon counts have to be higher too, or you get angular artifacts in what should be smooth curves, like a curved aircraft windscreen.

Even if you could import existing FSX scenery and aircraft models, they won't look good, compared to what is likely to be in the default MSFS. They'll have blurry textures and low polygon counts. This is why Carenado hasn't converted a few of the older FSX/P3D aircraft models for XP11. The textures are too low res, they don't look "contemporary," and they don't think it's worth re-doing the textures in higher resolution.

Microsoft will have an interest in controlling the visuals in this new sim so everything looks shiny and new. For that reason alone, I think it's unlikely to support legacy addons.

1 hour ago, rhumbaflappy said:

A new sim that totally rejects older addon content would severely limit the number of people buying the new sim.

I wouldn't. Quite the opposite, actually.

51 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

FSX still has the lion's share of new sales for both addons and for sales of the sim itself. Far better than P3D.

Could you please stop stating your own biased opinion as fact?! Besides, do you have any factual evidence for that claim?! I mean, besides your own opinion.

51 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

And P3D would not even be discussed here at AVSIM if it had no inclusion of content from FSX.

Huh?! Are you really suggesting, that the only reason, that people are using P3D, is because of a thin support for previous addons?! Again - since you're stating this in a way, that it sounds like factual verifiable truth, I would like to see some proof for that.

Numbers from P3D are not known but here is a comparison of FSXSE and the now so popular X-Plane11 from Steam in users playing at the same time for each sim. X-plane11 is still far behind FSXSE. Click on week for the latest numbers. https://steamdb.info/graph/?compare=269950,314160

 

Edited July 30, 20196 yr by Sagoland

32 minutes ago, Sagoland said:

Numbers from P3D are not known but here is a comparison of FSXSE and the now so popular X-Plane11 from Steam in users playing at the same time for each sim. X-plane11 is still far behind FSXSE. Click on week for the latest numbers. https://steamdb.info/graph/?compare=269950,314160

I'm sure FSX is ahead in total numbers, but the Steam user numbers for XP don't tell the whole story, or even a major part of it.

There are many XP users who buy direct from the Laminar Research site to support the devs (like I did), or from other retail outlets like the .org storefront. So the Steam numbers are not a complete picture. You can't get access to all the beta test versions on Steam either, usually it's just the release candidates. That's another reason some of the user base avoids the Steam version. 

17 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

I'm sure FSX is ahead in total numbers, but the Steam user numbers for XP don't tell the whole story, or even a major part of it.

There are many XP users who buy direct from the Laminar Research site to support the devs (like I did), or from other retail outlets like the .org storefront. So the Steam numbers are not a complete picture. You can't get access to all the beta test versions on Steam either, usually it's just the release candidates. That's another reason some of the user base avoids the Steam version. 

The steam users of FSX do not tell the whole story also most like myself purchased the disc version when released and they were still selling in stores for some years estimated over several million copies.  

In regards to rendering MDLs, I totally agree that in 4K resolution, older data may look blocky. In actuality, most endusers of the new sim will display in 1080p, whether on XBox or PC. So it will look not-blocky to most.

Even if the rendering is blocky to a 4k display owner, a new engine might still entice you to buy if the framerates are good, smoothness is good, ATC is much better, clouds and their shadows are nice... And you'll put up with the blockyness until a new Dos Equis version comes to the market.

And then you'll be lured to buy a new P51d from a vendor that can convert to a new model rather easily. Everybody wins (as long as the wife doesn't find out what your spending on your hobby).

 

19 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

.In actuality, most endusers of the new sim will display in 1080p, whether on XBox or PC.

I think you might be guessing wrong there.

6 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

In regards to rendering MDLs, I totally agree that in 4K resolution, older data may look blocky. In actuality, most endusers of the new sim will display in 1080p, whether on XBox or PC. So it will look not-blocky to most.

Well, "most" won't include people who buy the new "Scarlett" Xbox which is targeted at 4k resolution (with 120 fps, no less).

It's unknown whether 3rd party scenery or aircraft would make it into the new console, but regardless, this will set a standard for how the new MSFS should look... sexy and sharp on a big screen.

I suspect many PC users will want to match that look with equivalent monitor resolution by late 2020 when the new console is released and the new MSFS (along with Halo) will be a showcase for that platform. After all, we can't let those stinky consoles get ahead, right?
😉

 

Quote

Even if the rendering is blocky to a 4k display owner, a new engine might still entice you to buy if the framerates are good, smoothness is good, ATC is much better, clouds and their shadows are nice... And you'll put up with the blockyness until a new Dos Equis version comes to the market.

Possibly, but if I were Microsoft, I would want to control how the new MSFS looks when users start posting YouTube clips and streams. It's not exactly a selling point for the new sim if aircraft and scenery look like they did in FSX. 

1 hour ago, rhumbaflappy said:

In regards to rendering MDLs, I totally agree that in 4K resolution, older data may look blocky. In actuality, most endusers of the new sim will display in 1080p, whether on XBox or PC. So it will look not-blocky to most. 

Even if the rendering is blocky to a 4k display owner...

I would hope that MSFS is about a new beginning in the Flight Sim space with modern and performant technology that points to the future with crisp textures and amazing visuals in 4K and beyond. and underlying all of this is solid 4K performance.

That hopefully means that third party add-ons available for sale Microsof'ts MSFS storefront will be required to meet minimum standards that are aligned to a new beginning in the Flight Sim space with modern and performant technology that points to the future with crisp textures and amazing visuals.

Let's leave blocky flat textures that only aspire to 1080p, and all of the tech debt-ridden nostalgia that comes with it in FSX, which served us well since 2006. For 2020, we need a new horizon.

As long as there's an open and flexible SDK for this new platform, which allows existing and new developers to create addons and improvements, then I'd say good riddance to the old legacy addons, iMO.

Just a thought... If Microsoft will be streaming & rendering 4k scenery for their new sim... would there still be a place for 3rd party scenery developers?

16 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I just don't understand the hostility when we are talking about a new flight simulator coming onto the market. This isn't being billed as an FSX update, after all.

I don't know the situation with P3D, maybe there was price-gouging there, but sometimes consumers have unrealistic expectations too.

This is exactly why you do not understand the hostility: A2A, FSL, PMDG and CaptainSim's FSX aircraft generally ported to P3D with none or minimal changes (certainly until v4 x64 required some more significant code adjustments and recompiling). These developers deliberately stopped people doing porting themselves through the EULA and software updates/DRM to force existing customers to repurchase these products at a greater price than the FSX version. As an example PMDG's 777-200LR is $90 for FSX and $135 for P3D - there's no discount for existing FSX owners and there's no dual licencing option. Instructions were posted on Avsim on how users could port PMDG's 737NGX to earlier versions of P3D and PMDG kicked up a legal stink to get these removed.

15 hours ago, domkle said:

It is not only the cost of the conversion or profit. LM releases several updates for each of its products. The developers have to do their own updates to follow suit which can be delicate for overtweaked aircraft like A2A, PMDG etc. and disrupt the workflow on ongoing projects.  They have to factor the cost in. 

Then there is an inexorable trend toward higher prices in any case. We, the market, demand more and more sophistication, aircraft or sceneries cannot be done but by teams of several specialists (in-house or often subcontracted). There are exceptions to the rule of course but less and less.  And these specialists don't work for free.

I consider that on-going cost of updates part of the conversion costs I spoke about, as a P3D user I understand it's an evolving thing. But aside from the major step change to P3D v3 to V4 it's generally been very minor revisions that developers have sorted in a few days, whilst there have recently been new features like dynamic lighting and PBR adding that functionality is not essential (especially as the current PBR implementation has bugs). Many customers understandably feel they've been milked as a cash cow when the developer charges more than original purchase price to get a port of something they already bought. Personally I'd rather pay a small fee to get a port to each major P3D version, rather a huge wadge of cash for an indeterminate period of updates, as I don't trust developers to not pull the plug if the P3D userbase shrinks.

Edited July 31, 20196 yr by ckyliu

2 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Just a thought... If Microsoft will be streaming & rendering 4k scenery for their new sim... would there still be a place for 3rd party scenery developers?

Their latest announcement was all about SDK and third party development roadmaps.

6 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Just a thought... If Microsoft will be streaming & rendering 4k scenery for their new sim... would there still be a place for 3rd party scenery developers?

Airport sceneries will still be needed because I can't imagine MS doing the plethora of addon airports which are currently available for FSX/P3D/XP on their own, even with a big dev team, at least not in reasonable development time. I'd also be very happy to see the likes of Flightbeam, FlyTampa etc. do their magic in a brand new sim that looks so good.

I do hope addons like FTX Global and all the regions and other Earth texture products will be a thing of the past. I thoroughly enjoy what Orbx etc. offer for P3D, but this is something that definitely needs to come with the base sim. And it will, judging from what we have seen. I'd think the Azure AI will develop areas that lack that high quality photo scenery and over time, more areas will be available.