PC Hardware Enthusiast/Gaming Media Reaction to Flight Simulator

[TechguyMaxC 516]

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/67826/new-flight-simulator-footage-best-looking-game/index.html

Video game (or simulator) graphics are a big attraction for gamers.  They won't guarantee long-term financial success of a product or continued customer engagement, but with graphics like this you can bet a lot of non-simmers will at least be willing to give the sim a try.

[Superdelphinus 718]

It will start blowing up across the whole gaming community at some point it think. I was thinking earlier what comparable leaps there have been in genres between one game and the next. Closest I could arrive at was gta 2 to 3. I remember being completely blown away by gta 3 when it first came out. 

[Krakin 5,899]

bbb...but the cloud pop-in!

[Casualcas 830]

Lmao. Shush

[FlyerNYC 82]

26 minutes ago, Krakin said:

bbb...but the cloud pop-in!

unacceptable! 

[Greazer 1,354]

3 hours ago, FlyerNYC said:

unacceptable! 

Its shades of P3d scenery pop-ins (unacceptable).

The other thing, the FS engine has to scan the weather at far out stations, and blend the transitions. We don't need sudden redraws with atmosphere completely different. This is one thing XP does and it really bugs me. Please don't screw it up MS.

[Krakin 5,899]

48 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Its shades of P3d scenery pop-ins (unacceptable).

I still haven't seen the pop-in that guy was talking about.

 

[LHookins 3,117]

53 minutes ago, Greazer said:

The other thing, the FS engine has to scan the weather at far out stations, and blend the transitions. We don't need sudden redraws with atmosphere completely different. This is one thing XP does and it really bugs me. Please don't screw it up MS.

P3Dv4 with Active Sky (ASP4) has been pretty good about not doing this, properly blending clouds and weather, but after a recent configuration change I saw it happen several times.  I reverted the configuration change and haven't seen it since.  Still testing.  I've seen occasional oddities and have been considering reverting to the previous ASP4 update.

The time lapse cloud video makes me think they are doing things differently enough that you aren't likely to see sudden redraws.  It should be interesting.

Hook

[Dominique_K 10,152]

Graphics might help to sell a game  to the Walmart crowd, no doubt about it, but they don't "make" a game on the long run, gameplay does. Give me  anyday a good gameplay with mediocre graphics over a mediocre gameplay with beautiful graphics. For a sim, it means a convincing mix of geography (map and ground objects/vegetation, seasonal variations), weather system, aerodynamics and light rendition. And fluidity.

I appreciate the superb images/clips we have seen so far from the FS20 alpha because they hint of an accurate  rendition of the ground below, the depiction of the clouds (not the weather, the clouds) and a much better lighting. They hint. Not more, not less. 

 

 

[vortex681 806]

1 hour ago, domkle said:

Graphics might help to sell a game  to the Walmart crowd, no doubt about it, but they don't "make" a game on the long run, gameplay does.

But I think that even if they just added that graphics engine to FSX, it would sell like hot cakes (and not just to the "Walmart crowd")!

Edited September 28, 2019 by vortex681

[G-RFRY 1,741]

Reading the Project Scarlet XCLOUD testing starting next month the interesting thing talked about no single title will be dependent on sales, but the catalogue will be developed as a platform, I take from that the future development of MSFS will continue in the future.

[Murmur 3,976]

3 hours ago, vortex681 said:

But I think that even if they just added that graphics engine to FSX, it would sell like hot cakes (and not just to the "Walmart crowd")!

Same thought. And IMO, in a flight simulator visuals, especially nowadays, make indeed a significant _part_ of the gameplay (despite most simmers saying to themselves that visuals aren't the priority).

[Dominique_K 10,152]

38 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Same thought. And IMO, in a flight simulator visuals, especially nowadays, make indeed a significant _part_ of the gameplay (despite most simmers saying to themselves that visuals aren't the priority).

Of course it does but is enough in itself. FSXand its subsequent avatars (P3DvX) are good sims as a whole and adding the FS20 visuals (or rather what we know of them, big difference) would make them even better. Understating the importance of visuals would be the same mistake as overstating them. 

[MatthewS 761]

17 hours ago, Greazer said:

Its shades of P3d scenery pop-ins (unacceptable).

The other thing, the FS engine has to scan the weather at far out stations, and blend the transitions. We don't need sudden redraws with atmosphere completely different. This is one thing XP does and it really bugs me. Please don't screw it up MS.

It would be very disappointing if cloudscapes can't extend to the horizon and/or there is an abrupt shift of weather rendition when new weather is downloaded.

Ideally weather would be downloaded beyond the horizon and the cloudscape extend out to the horizon.  This would mean no abrupt shift in weather rendition because it's happening beyond the horizon and not visible from the cockpit.

The SFO sequence in the latest video shows that cloudscapes do NOT currently extend to the horizon (at least from FL60(?) that's depicted in the video). Maybe at FL30 the cloudscape will extend to the horizon (because at lower altitude the horizon will be closer).

Edited September 28, 2019 by MatthewS

[MatthewS 761]

20 hours ago, FlyerNYC said:

unacceptable! 

Well actually yes, if you want immersion then clouds "popping in" are deal breakers, IMO.

It's a "side effect" of the cloudscape not extending to the horizon.

Edited September 28, 2019 by MatthewS