Just now, Pilot53 said:

Good thing ram is a cheap upgrade.   

Wait for 1 million simmers to buy 128 Gb for their new machine, price may go up

7 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

IMO 64GB has been a good idea for a while with any 64 bit sim, with xplane UHD mesh or p3d using the full suite of orbx addons I can easily use 40-60% of my 64 gigs. Good thing ram is a cheap upgrade.   

It wasn't that cheap just a few months ago though. Prices were around double the current ones one year ago. With SSD prices stabilised, it is likely we might see another price fixing incident next year.

1 hour ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

It wasn't that cheap just a few months ago though. Prices were around double the current ones one year ago. With SSD prices stabilised, it is likely we might see another price fixing incident next year.

Yeah, well I just meant "cheap" compared to buying an RTX 2080 or a new CPU lol

10 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

Yeah, well I just meant "cheap" compared to buying an RTX 2080 or a new CPU lol

One year ago 64GB of RAM would cost nearly as much as an RTX 2080 though, and with manufacturers reducing DRAM module production, we could be looking at the same prices when Microsoft Flight Simulator is released. Not looking good... Hopefully the Tech Alpha will shed some light on the RAM capacity sweet spot.

2 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

One year ago 64GB of RAM would cost nearly as much as an RTX 2080 though, and with manufacturers reducing DRAM module production, we could be looking at the same prices when Microsoft Flight Simulator is released. Not looking good... Hopefully the Tech Alpha will shed some light on the RAM capacity sweet spot.

Here's my take. They still have to have this run on most computers. 

With the ability to precache on your SSD, that may make RAM usage less vital and from what I've heard, how they do things is much more efficient than Ortho4XP, which is essentially a hack. 

If this sim requires 32-64GB of ram, it's going to shut out a lot of their market and I don't think they'd do that.

Edited October 3, 20196 yr by bonchie

2 minutes ago, bonchie said:

Here's my take. They still have to have this run on most computers. 

With the ability to precache on your SSD, that may make RAM usage less vital and from what I've heard, how they do things is much more efficient than Ortho4XP, which is essentially a hack. 

If this sim requires 32-64GB of ram, it's going to shut out a lot of their market and I don't think they'd do that.

The data still has to be loaded into the RAM though so that the CPU and GPU can process them. They will definitely have to make the simulator work with at least 8GB RAM, especially if they want it to run on the current-gen Xbox One, though I have the feeling that most of us will not be pleased with the visual result. It is said that this new satellite data will have a resolution that can go down to 3cm, which will require a hefty amount of RAM and VRAM if we want a decent draw distance, free of pop-in.

11 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

The data still has to be loaded into the RAM though so that the CPU and GPU can process them. They will definitely have to make the simulator work with at least 8GB RAM, especially if they want it to run on the current-gen Xbox One, though I have the feeling that most of us will not be pleased with the visual result. It is said that this new satellite data will have a resolution that can go down to 3cm, which will require a hefty amount of RAM and VRAM if we want a decent draw distance, free of pop-in.

I'm sure you'll need at least 16-32GB to get best usage, but if they are truly doing things more efficiently than Ortho4XP, then our impressions of what it takes may be skewed. 

For example, I'd almost guarantee that the resolution will scale on the fly with their streaming solution. You probably won't get ZL19 out to the horizon because it's not necessary. With Ortho4XP, you can't do that.

Edited October 3, 20196 yr by bonchie

3 minutes ago, bonchie said:

I'm sure you'll need at least 16-32GB to get best usage, but if they are truly doing things more efficiently than Ortho4XP, then our impressions of what it takes may be skewed. 

For example, I'd almost guarantee that the resolution will scale on the fly with their streaming solution. You probably won't get ZL19 out to the horizon because it's not necessary. With Ortho4XP, you can't do that.

I don't know much about Ortho4XP, is it a compression method? And would ZL19 be the equivalent of 3cm resolution?

Well, then I suppose the Specs I sent to MS when I registered for the Alpha testing will exclude me from the pool of selected testers 🙂

I built my actual PC in 2011, few months after my son was born and I used back then to design scenery for FSX and I still use now to fly and create scenery for X-Plane 11:

It's an i7 2600K OC to 4.5 / ASUS P8P67 MoBo / 16 GB DDR3 RAM. I replaced the GPU 2 years ago with the GeForce 1070 8GB and added a 500 GB SSD for Simulators.

This PC is giving me a more than satisfying performance in XP11 with max visuals...

However, now that I hear about the Pre-Alpha machines they used in the preview, I think I have veeeeeeery tiny chances I will make it to the Public Alpha or Beta test groups.

4 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

I don't know much about Ortho4XP, is it a compression method? And would ZL19 be the equivalent of 3cm resolution?

Ortho4XP is a tool that gets orthos from a chosen source (Bing, Google, whatever) into XP11. You have to choose the resolution, the area covered, build the tiles, and place them in the sim's custom scenery folder. ZL19 is typically the highest resolution. ZL16 is a tiny fraction of the size and lower resolution. But if you are above a certain altitude or a few miles away from a tile, you can't tell the difference. 

With MS's system, there's no reason for them not to dynamically adjust the resolution of what you are streaming depending on need. ZL19 when you are low and slow, ZL16 at altitude and at the horizon, etc. This could dramatically save on RAM and data usage without any visual compromise. 

And if I've thought of it, you can bet they have. 

Edited October 3, 20196 yr by bonchie

14 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

It is said that this new satellite data will have a resolution that can go down to 3cm, which will require a hefty amount of RAM and VRAM if we want a decent draw distance, free of pop-in.

But that would only be necessary close to the ground where the draw distance would be very short.

2 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

And would ZL19 be the equivalent of 3cm resolution?

No, it's equivalent to about 30cm/pixel. See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/articles/understanding-scale-and-resolution. ZL 19 is still not enough for sharp graphics below a few hundred feet - https://simheaven.com/photo-sceneries/

3 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Well, then I suppose the Specs I sent to MS when I registered for the Alpha testing will exclude me from the pool of selected testers 🙂

I built my actual PC in 2011, few months after my son was born and I used back then to design scenery for FSX and I still use now to fly and create scenery for X-Plane 11:

It's an i7 2600K OC to 4.5 / ASUS P8P67 MoBo / 16 GB DDR3 RAM. I replaced the GPU 2 years ago with the GeForce 1070 8GB and added a 500 GB SSD for Simulators.

This PC is giving me a more than satisfying performance in XP11 with max visuals...

However, now that I hear about the Pre-Alpha machines they used in the preview, I think I have veeeeeeery tiny chances I will make it to the Public Alpha or Beta test groups.

I wouldn't worry if I were you. The Tech Alpha's purpose is to get the simulator tested on a wide range systems, and yours isn't too far from a budget high-end PC of today. The PCs used in the preview event were running the simulator at 4K.

Whatever the specs end up being, I'll be building a new PC to run the new MFS.  I'm already budgeting money aside for late next year to do so!!!

36 minutes ago, Mengy said:

Whatever the specs end up being, I'll be building a new PC to run the new MFS.  I'm already budgeting money aside for late next year to do so!!!

Same, I've had my system for nearly 10 years now as none of the newer simulators have compelled me to upgrade. Even if Microsoft Flight Simulator requires a monster computer at the top end, at least it will translate to gorgeous visuals, not fewer dips below 30 FPS.

45 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

I wouldn't worry if I were you. The Tech Alpha's purpose is to get the simulator tested on a wide range systems, and yours isn't too far from a budget high-end PC of today. The PCs used in the preview event were running the simulator at 4K.

Hopefully!  Now if my budget will allow it, and MSFS2020 will convince me that it's the simulator to use for the few years to come, I might as well get a brand new assembled machine in a year or so and give my actual PC to my son as they have both the same age. Knowing that my 8 years old PC is still a great machine with enough power for the majority of today's games (other than flight sims).