September 26th Update - Feature Discovery Series Preview: World

[dtrjones 356]

16 hours ago, filou said:

There is nothing incredible ... it is simply an optimized engine.

Sounds dangerously like you are trivialising the state of the Flight Simulator engine performance.

None of us know how optimised it is and how that relates to todays PC's. I'm sure though Microsoft have endevoured to utilse DirectX 12 to the fullest and have made strides in thread and code performance to reduce draw calls, minimise on CPU cycles etc etc.

Microsoft are experienced enough to do there checks and balances so we can expect a decent turn of performance on modern PC h/w given the obvious visual cost. But to say it's an optimised engine is just leading people atray.

[Drumcode 1,907]

I have been virtually flying since the mid 90's and I am absolutely floored at what I'm seeing. Wow. 

[Shack95 2,665]

9 hours ago, Poppapete said:

So now I have:

Clip#1

Clip#2    SF Bay CA

Clip#3    Lake Powell UT

Clip#4

Clip#5

Clip#6

Clip#7    Phoenix AZ

Clip#8    Central Park NY

Clip#9

 

 

 

[ctalpas 113]

6 hours ago, Noooch said:

Maybe a reference to Terminator : "Are you Sarah Connor" but said and misspelled in french, it would have been : Es tu Connor

That's the only explanation I got

I think I figured it out who Connor is.  Over in the September 19th Update thread on page 3 in posting by carbonbasedlifeform he suggested a fictional employee Conner:

Microsoft Redmond offices:

"Connor, I'm going to need you to stay late to choose a beautiful screen capture for tomorrow's update. Pretty easy in this sim to find those." Connor's heart stops for a second when he hears what his boss is tasking him with. It's 4:00 am the next morning, release day. Connor is looking at the image in 4k pixel by pixel. He thinks he's covered them all, but he isn't sure anymore because his eyes keep closing. When he wakes up at his desk, he checks the image one more time and posts it. The next day after lunch, Connor finds his boss waiting for him. "I was reading AVSIM. You have to understand some of these guys are saying we have poor quality control and for fans not to their hopes up. Let's talk about this "clipping" error you let through and your future at the company..."

 

Chris

[Krakin 5,853]

5 minutes ago, ctalpas said:

Connor finds his boss waiting for him. "I was reading AVSIM. You have to understand some of these guys are saying we have poor quality control and for fans not to their hopes up. Let's talk about this "clipping" error you let through and your future at the company..."

 

Chris

Haha that's hilarious. I think the mystery is solved now lol.

[A330-300 88]

This is it. Everything is on hold now. I'm not spending another penny until this comes out, I'm all in on FS2020. 

[Greazer 1,350]

1 hour ago, Superdelphinus said:

I’m also starting to think seasons won’t make version 1.0, but how long into the development of fsx did they release screenshots of different seasons?

I suspect most of the Sim has been outsourced to partner companies who have teams of elite coders, maybe in other countries. So they file feature requests such as Seasons or Procedural Grass, stick a price tag of a million bucks or so, then Bam you got it in flight sim.

[reignman40 450]

10 hours ago, hatchna said:

Also, being a native Utahn, I love seeing Lake Powell on that video as well. Absolutely stunning.

Same here, I am from the St.George area. The first video and screenshots show Page, AZ along with the airport. I'm extremely excited considering I do most of my flying in the southwestern united states. I can't wait to see Las Vegas and San Diego. 

[pracines 823]

11 hours ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

Simply to give us a sneak peek of this unreleased simulator and to make us excited.

Thank you for your most excellent and respectful response, I agree to a degree. You don't speak for Microsoft, correct?

We don't know if the time is now or not. Nobody here can compel MS to post things from a year ago and none of us who are not on the MSFS employee payroll can say why they may be posting old material. There is room for speculation and critique on this, and that is what Matthew was doing (like others here)…leaving nothing to chance, just incase.

If MS is posting old material for the sake of getting more and more WOW responses later, then I say that is foolish, because time is slipping away. It is better to post the latest material so if there is something noticed NOW then it can be possibly remedied BEFORE the Alpha test, this way we can move on to the other million important things. The recollection of the FSX beta saga is a VERY important part of realizing that MS can make huge unnecessary blunders; they admit this themselves. I hope that the software engineer has more authority than the marketing department this time around, but that is unclear at this time. If the marketing department still has more authority, this production could yet be a blunder in the making. In other words the engineers need to listen to us more than the marketers or this product will fail, just like MS Flight and FSW. Also the budget (time & money) for the project needs to accommodate most/many of the reasonable requests or it may not be able to compete. To clarify what I mean:  *** looks are not everything in a sim - practical day to day use and realistic immersion is everything ***   The sunrise is beautiful in the video, but if the ATC/AI is less than realistic (which in turn limits 3PP add-ons!!!) the sunrise is useless! Don't be fooled by beauty alone! This is a flight simulator not a meditation platform!

Your point about hardware is a good one, but keep in mind that this new sim needs to be a success and it does have some pretty stiff competition (all the add-ons simmers have acquired over all this time). If it gets released with irritating blatant flaws because of current limitations it may not be able to overcome the backlash. In other words, we already have pop-ins, why pay for more? And if the photogrammetry looks ugly (melting) close up, this is simply not going to be acceptable. To me personally, I understand hardware and software limitations, but this community can either contribute to, or help eliminate/solve these issues by either our acceptance of them, or our call for a remedy of them. We have a lot of very smart people in this community with wonderful ideas. We have overcome so many seemingly impossible feats, but we still have a long way to go. No time or use to just accept we have reached a limit in any aspect of the sim or cease a call for the hardware to accommodate the sim (realism) software requirements. The time is now - to wait is...why wait? 

Concerning respect, I did not see any response from you or anyone in authority concerning the total lack of respect for Matthew...if there is proof he is wrong, then a respectful factual response is all I ask for. This same kind of thing has happened to me more times than I care to remember, and yet most of the time I was right. I'm glad to admit when I'm wrong and I think Matthew would do the same. The mob-like pouncing has to stop...the look of cowardice is sickening and unbecoming for this community.

Thank you for your understanding.

Edited September 27, 2019 by n4gix
REMOVED EXCESSIVE QUOTE!!! Please stop quoting the entire post you are replying to!

[JRBarrett 3,128]

The previews have all been extremely impressive.

I do have one concern. Some users have made comparisons showing that the terrain in the FS2020 screenshots compares very closely to current Bing satellite and aerial imagery for the locations where the screenshots were taken.

This is fine, as it has been made clear that that such real-world imagery is going to be the basis of the new sim. However, in my local area, the current images (based on aerial photography) are at least 4 years old. My home airport has undergone major renovations since then, with a new and much larger terminal, and a complete re-routing of all airport taxiways. The current Bing aerial photos show the airport as it was in the summer of 2015.

Satellite imagery can be updated quickly on an ongoing basis, but high resolution aerial photos are re-done less often in any given area. Google is a bit newer, and Apple maps is the most recent, but still 18 months old, when the taxiway reconstruction was still underway.

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

2 hours ago, bonchie said:

But if you tell me I can have what's in these videos visually or a low-res generic white texture to fly over, I'll just enjoy perpetual summer. 

Agreed.

[Ted Striker 338]

14 hours ago, Greazer said:

failing.

Why failing? They are certainly keeping the hype alive with minimal new information.

[n4gix 4,961]

6 hours ago, aleex said:

Anyone knows what “Feedback Pipeline overview deliverable” is? 

I suspect that their "deliverable" is what will be tested during the Alpha stage. It will contain only those features to be tested, with very specific things to be tested.

IOW, it won't be a complete simulator, but only have enough included to enable testing.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

@pracines The thing is, it appears that they are very busy preparing the Tech Alpha right now, so there is not much time to capture new footage (at 4K60 it's not a trivial task). Personally I am thankful they are posting whatever they do, because if all we had till now was just the E3 trailer I'd be dying to see and learn more about the simulator, and because I know my current system and connection speed are likely to be rejected for the Tech Alpha. Just look at many people in this and other threads getting excited over the footage, dreaming about potential flight plans and making plans for new hardware and VR and so on. I think it's a great privilege that we're getting all this footage at a constant rate, even if it is just something to get excited over. Soon the Tech Alpha will commence, and we will be able to report our findings via the Feedback Pipeline by actually testing the simulator, and not relying on screenshots and videos. The time will come, we just have to be patient.

Of course the visuals will not make a simulator alone, but if we want that simulator to be made, it has to sell well, and only with the visuals alone could this E3 trailer generate interest for anyone outside our community. So it's natural that the earlier sneak peeks would focus on the visuals. The Feature Discovery series will touch on deeper simulation aspects, but once again, we have to be patient and wait until those episodes are ready to be released.

Regarding the hardware, Flight Simulator X and Crysis were two games designed with future hardware in mind, let alone that both of them were not as optimised as they could be. Not being able to turn up the graphics settings to the max with available hardware at the time created a very negative response from many players, and I don't think they'll want a repeat of that. If Microsoft Flight Simulator ends up being an evolving platform instead of the first instalment in a rebooted series, we could see more visual enhancements down the line, well after its general release.

As for MatthewS, there is a post by Flamingpie which puts it nicely. He is not wrong, but the tone of his posts seems to be excessively negative for not much of a reason. I believe he was also the one that made an extremely rude and insulting post when it took a few minutes after the development update for the Insider Home to be updated with the first batch of screenshots and videos, highlighting Microsoft's incompetency or something like that. Offering constructive feedback is more than fine, over-the-top negativity and demands for longer and very specific videos is disrespectful towards the developers and this is why he was targeted. At least you are being civil in your posts, and hopefully the forum in general will remain like that. I remember some excessively rude posts following the simulator's announcement and first development updates, and it's good to see those have been reduced to a significant degree.

[Paraffin 2,197]

9 hours ago, domkle said:

And their mp4 delivery is still awful, at my end at least, after almost three months. Could my Azure server be in a backward antipode ?

It's not distance lag from their servers. I live 45 miles from Redmond WA as the crow flies, and I still get awful delay and stutter in the live MP4 feed from the Insider page. I had to download it to view it smoothly. I don't have that problem with YouTube videos, which buffer and start playing almost immediately.

Are you on a fast or slow connection? I'm on a lowly 10 Mbps connection (which I may or may not upgrade soon), so I suspect their MP4 player just isn't optimized for slow connections.