Microsoft Flight Simulator Preview - 30th September

[David Mills 4,731]

6 hours ago, Hal Bryan said:

After mostly lurking here for at least 20 years or so, I thought I'd share my thoughts from the preview event.

http://inspire.eaa.org/2019/09/30/an-inside-look-at-microsofts-newest-flight-simulator/

tl;dr - it's good. 

You're right: it's good, it's very good. In fact, your article is the best single summary I've seen detailing the forthcoming sim. Thank you!

[Jim Young 2,356]

8 hours ago, bonchie said:

Reposting this so people don't miss it. Not seeing a lot of people comment on it. READ THIS.

But, but, this topic is about the MSFS Preview released on 30 September.  Plus there is another topic just about this at this link -

 

[EGLD 436]

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

P3D V5, XP12 ... there is still much up in the air between now and Nov 2020.

 

Unless LM tear up the ESP engine and start again, or Laminar sign a deal with Google for scenery, I fear neither will get anywhere near what we are seeing from MS

[threexgreen 3,135]

Froogle said in his video that MS are talking right now with 3rd party developers and are already getting them on board. Understandably, he didn't mention any names but he did say that it's all the developers you would think they would be talking to. This bodes well for 3rd party aircraft and airports to appear soon after release if not at release.

[threexgreen 3,135]

18 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I don't, still so much missing and unknown ... visually stunning will be the lure, but the hook, bait, and sinker is the SDK and that is apparently coming "AFTER" initial release (which I'm hoping is NOT accurate).  MS already admitted they're using some of FSX code base because it was "that good" ... read the articles/discussions but the PR engine kicked in to downplay that fact because people want to hear "new".  Anyway, doesn't matter to me, I'm not hung up on old or new code so long as the results are good.

Have you watched Froogle's video? I can't remember for certain but I think it has been said an SDK will be there from the start. Like I said above, they are also talking to 3rd party developers already so you would think there was some kind of SDK already for them to work with.

[Wobbie 938]

2 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

So far, everything covered sounds absolutely awesome but.....

• No helicopters for now, will come later; fine.
• No tubeliners shown or mentioned at the event. Later also?
• Frame rates were good according to articles BUT no solid answer on AI, traffic(cars, boats, ship, etc)  or ATC?!. We know how badly they affect our current sims. <sic>
• Subscription not decided on but I'd bet money this game will be.
• Poor or no internet connection; while somewhat explained they didn't go into detail on exactly how the experience is compromised?

You not seen moving cars on the roads in the videos? 

[Wobbie 938]

Reading with interest with regard to backward compatibility, as one of the devs said, the new aircraft will have 1000 'contact' areas per surface compared to FSX planes having 1 per plane.. 

Imagine how the FSX planes Wil compare with stalls, ground effect, and so on. 

No, a new sim, for me, has no place for older planes that are not optimized for it. 

[Arthur42417 193]

3 hours ago, ricka47 said:

Wow - almost 70 years old here and simming for a long time.  But, we're reaching a level that I didn't think I'd see in my lifetime.  I really have to wonder how anyone could stay with any of the competition if what we see here ends up being offered to us in 2020!

CREDIT CARD is on hold for me, no more spending$$$$ on Pee3D or ExPlain11😂👍

Edited September 30, 2019 by Arthur42417

[Gulfstream 416]

From the Polygon article ... this is a concern of mine (but might not often be relevant), the "sides" of things.  Yes, they do buildings in cities because they are aerial photogs captured at angles from aircraft ... but the sides of cliffs, where planes haven't mapped and satellites can't see .... well ...

Maybe this is where 3rd parties step in to clean up specific areas of interest.  OR, it just automatically improves itself as the Azure data/algos improve.

Quote

Later, I dropped in over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, doing my best impersonation of Will Smith in Independence Day. Under the direct sunlight of a blue sky the turbulence was astonishing. So too was the scenery. But as I banked left and drew up alongside a near-vertical cliff face the textures turned to mush. Captured from orbit, Bing’s satellite images simply don’t have any visual information for certain sections of that landscape. The result is a weird, banded smear along a rock face hundreds of feet tall.

[EGLD 436]

I'm hoping Microsoft are building their "sides", in part at least, from their Bird's eye view data, which is more of a side-on, isometric view of the world

I believe this view was captured from low flying aircraft, not satellites, so the coverage would be more limited

My hope here is that's where the Azure AI comes in - it takes in a lot of accurate data, and then looks for similar patterns of top-down imagery in less covered parts of the world and guesses what the sides look like

All pure speculation on my part

The other thing to bear in mind is - X-Plane has this problem, but it still provides an overall fantastic experience

It won't be perfect, nothing is. I think you can see in some videos that some buildings are not completely box shaped, but a bit wobbly where they have been built from elevation data with stray points. Nothing's perfect

Edited September 30, 2019 by EGLD

[DaWu 779]

In case you guys didnt get it from the Gamestar video

- Real World Live AI Traffic (not yet included as objects in game though)

- Real World Ship traffic collected by transponder signals (its planned)

Thats amazing!

 

[threexgreen 3,135]

3 minutes ago, DaWu said:

In case you guys didnt get it from the Gamestar video

- Real World Live AI Traffic (not yet included as objects in game though)

- Real World Ship traffic collected by transponder signals (its planned)

Can you post the link please? I can't seem to find it.

[dal330200 216]

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

These last couple of years I've completely switched to X-Plane - I can no longer fly a sim that doesn't present a real world view out of the window.

Flying over generic textures, however they are arranged, just seems such a dated concept now - I want to travel the world

However, that means I am in that limbo place of almost no "proper" airliners and missing all the great high quality airport addons P3D has. GSX would be nice too.

But this has the potential to completely blow X-Plane and Ortho out of the water - it's as big of a jump forward as X-Plane ortho was to P3D scenery, in fact it makes Ortho4xp generated scenery look very poor now in comparison, which is quite incredible

My personal opinion is that MS just threw the futures of Orbx and Laminar into serious doubt - I'd go back to P3D with it's 747, 787, 777 and soon A330 in a heartbeat if I could also have proper scenery

The clouds, atmospherics, flight model improvements are just the icing on that delicious cake

HYPE

Re: seasons - let's give them some time - what's the alternative? we ask them to deliver generic textures so we can have snow? no thanks! gimme what you got and we can figure out snow later! 😄

I made the switch a few months ago for the same reasons, leaving behind more than a thousand dollars in addons for P3D that have since been deleted and forgotten.  X-plane blew me out of the water because of orthos, consistent dynamic lighting and a development team that was fun to watch.  However, X-plane has failed to deliver just as P3D has in terms of decent weather, environment and realism, and consequently, have ignored the desires of the community for years about these issues.  On the other hand, developers have been slow to bring bug-free, realistic and fully-functional alternatives to the table too.  So, believe me, as long as this has the main features I want out of the box, I will be ditching both sims in a heartbeat.  Of course, there's still time for them to catch up and produce something good, but it's doubtful.  

[irrics 1,517]

1 minute ago, dal330200 said:

However, X-plane has failed to deliver just as P3D has in terms of decent weather, environment and realism, and consequently, have ignored the desires of the community for years about these issues. 

And I don't believe XP ever will, simply due to the head of the snake there.

[Shack95 2,658]

mind-boggling stuff! I‘m speechless!