Thanks @ca_metal, that's what I was thinking too.

3 hours ago, suncoastflyer said:

I should say it's pretty clear to see that ray-tracing of some form is implemented into the sim. Particularly in the image of the TBM looking directly at the prop. The reflection off the metallic spinner just gives it away I believe. Of course I could be wrong but I've never seen reflections like this until ray-tracing came round, visuals from battlefield V I'm referring to.

The way it clearly reflects each blade is just superb. It needs a special mention as well that it is reflecting the light that is reflecting off the exhaust. That's a double reflection. That's the kind of stuff only ray-tracing can pull off effectively.

Question is:   is this an image from within the simulation (session) itself, or an image from one of the selection menus (eg. intro image, aircraft selection, …?

Till now, the "ray-traced" MSFS images seem from selection menus. 

Any thoughts?

49 minutes ago, Noooch said:

Ok, so now you will have to explain it to me. And I am not an expert at all

Terrain data, Ortho, Overlays etc could potentially be streamed "on the fly" with fast internet.  Ray tracing happens directly on the GPU, nowhere else.

At this stage nobody knows! However, I would like to think those "ray traced" images (if they are ray traced) are actual in game screen shots. After all this will be released in 2020 so graphics like this are not in the realm of impossible!

 

19 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Terrain data, Ortho, Overlays etc could potentially be streamed "on the fly" with fast internet.  Ray tracing happens directly on the GPU, nowhere else.

Everything can be streamed, even graphics effects like RTX, depending on the way Microsoft wants it to be run. Stadia does that, you can run an AAA game with RTX effects in a budget laptop, because all the processes are done by the Google servers.

But I don't think Microsoft will design MSFS 2020 to be run completely on the cloud. Probably only features that need huge files (like the orthos) will be streamed to us.

16 minutes ago, rocketlaunch said:

At this stage nobody knows! However, I would like to think those "ray traced" images (if they are ray traced) are actual in game screen shots. After all this will be released in 2020 so graphics like this are not in the realm of impossible!

 

Nvidia has done some advertisement posts about the upcoming simulator and I believe the RTX implementation can be a huge factor for that.

Edited August 19, 20196 yr by ca_metal

Parked at gate looking out the cockpit window seeing the reflection of terminal building, lights and distant aircrafts in the water that is accumulated on the pavement after the thunderstorm that just passed. I will always have a reason to fly in rainy weather. Ray tracing can be revolutionary. Hope it can be implemented in some way.

Edited August 19, 20196 yr by Baber20

18 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

Parked at gate looking out the cockpit window seeing the reflection of terminal building, lights and distant aircrafts in the water that is accumulated on the pavement after the thunderstorm that just passed. I will always have a reason to fly in rainy weather lol. Ray tracing can be revolutionary. Hope it can be implemented in some way.

On the last AAA games released, the RTX tech is splitted in 3 categories: Reflections, Global Ilumination and Shadows. I think no game released until now has come with the 3 implemented (it would cost a lot on performance). 

My bet is MS will implement the RTX reflections on the first versions of the sim and in the future will use further the tech. 

Edited August 19, 20196 yr by ca_metal

4 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

On the last AAA games released, the RTX tech is splited in 3 categories: Reflections, Global Ilumination and Shadows. I think no game released until now has come with the 3 implemented (it would cost a lot on performance). 

My bet is MS will implement the RTX reflections on the first versions of the sim and in the future will use further the tech. 

I think is it just ray traced shadows and global illumination in Metro Exodus? Looks drop dead gorgeous with RT enabled. Battlefield V has just ray traced reflections iirc.

This is really encouraging

 

4 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I think is it just ray traced shadows and global illumination in Metro Exodus? Looks drop dead gorgeous with RT enabled. Battlefield V has just ray traced reflections iirc.

I think you are right. I was just pointing out that would be really demanding to implement ray tracing tech in all the features you cited at the same time. At least for now (with the current Nvidia RTX cards available).

As @rocketlaunch said, nobody knows, but having in mind that MSFS is been developed in 2019, the same year when RayTracing and Cloud Gaming are implemented worldwide, this can't be a coincidence.

I am almost certain all the processing will be handled in their datacenters if we have good internet. Then for people who don't, they will likely have an offline mode where the processing and/or the scenery will be handled locally (maybe via map downloads?), so the offline mode may require much more hardware power and storage than online mode.

That is just my opinion 🙂

4 minutes ago, Noooch said:

As @rocketlaunch said, nobody knows, but having in mind that MSFS is been developed in 2019, the same year when RayTracing and Cloud Gaming are implemented worldwide, this can't be a coincidence.

I am almost certain all the processing will be handled in their datacenters if we have good internet. Then for people who don't, they will likely have an offline mode where the processing and/or the scenery will be handled locally (maybe via map downloads?), so the offline mode may require much more hardware power and storage than online mode.

 That is just my opinion 🙂

I don't think it would be that simple. I mean, they can't design it to run in two different ways like that (from cloud or locally). 

But I'm sure the MSFS 2020 will be available to the users of project XCloud. If you want good performance but the have a good machine, you can run it throught their cloud service.

6 minutes ago, Noooch said:

I am almost certain all the processing will be handled in their datacenters if we have good internet. Then for people who don't, they will likely have an offline mode where the processing and/or the scenery will be handled locally (maybe via map downloads?), so the offline mode may require much more hardware power and storage than online mode.

That is just my opinion 🙂

While having both a “full streaming mode” and a “less so streaming mode” is possible, I think it’s highly unlikely.  The difference between the two is huge and they are essentially two different game engines.  MS won’t spend the time or resources to do that, they will likely instead choose one design path and focus on that. 

The question you have to ask is this: Which design uses less bandwidth, the total streaming FS2020 sending 60 1080p+ images per second, or the version which only streams the sat images and weather and multiplayer data?

The answer is the latter, by a wide margin.  This is why Google Stadia will likely fail, it’s a design which most of the world’s internet just can’t handle yet.  Maybe in ten years but not today, the bandwidth isn’t there for most of us.  Sure it’s promising tech but until faster internet becomes more widespread it just isn’t feasible for most people.

I’m pretty sure FS2020 will run mostly client side and do the majority of it’s processing on the player’s end, the most likely items which will stream will be the sat images, weather data, and multiplayer data.  So to get in game ray tracing a GPU which supports RT in hardware will likely be required, like an Nvidia RTX card.

Something to consider, is that it may not be possible to get performance good enough for ray-tracing *and* VR at the same time.

I know the ray-tracing is offloaded to a specialized chipset in the RTX cards, but there is twice the processing load for VR as flat screen. Has anyone here tried a game that supports both ray-tracing and VR yet? How well does that work?

P.S. as a side note, MS still isn't mentioning anything other than 4k and HDR on the feature list in the first xbox.com promotional page. You'd think they'd mention VR and ray-tracing if those are planned, but maybe that page isn't up to date.

I could care less about ray tracing, hopefully MS gets rid of the dreaded blurriness that plagued FSX and P3D, something I've gotten used to not see in XP