1 hour ago, HiFlyer said:

All I see is the high probability that a lot of well known developers are about to die. Those that remain will be eating out of Microsoft's hand, which is something they fought tooth and nail against not all that long ago.

I can feel it!

How Can Other Sims Compete With MSFS?

The Final answer: they can't.

If MSFS2020 doesn't live up to all of the hype, heads are going to explode.☢️

8 minutes ago, mwilk said:

If MSFS2020 doesn't live up to all of the hype, heads are going to explode.☢️

Now I'm thinking of the movie: Scanners.

2 minutes ago, mwilk said:

If MSFS2020 doesn't live up to all of the hype, heads are going to explode.☢️

The competition will suddenly be 20 years behind in data and technology.  The Death Star is being rebuilt for one reason, to annihilate the rebels.

Likely been said already, but I did not take time to read this entire topic.  How Can Other Sims Compete With MSFS?  All depends on the reasonable system specs.  Since MSFS 2K the releases were all beyond comfortable use by average sim enthusiasts based on average system specs at the time of release.  Now on this new heralded version we have yet to see any meaningful mention of what this upcoming product will need system wise to depend on.  While the reasonable (note I did not say minimum) specs may not be pinpointed today, the minimum design specs should be public.  I am enthusiastic, but history tempers that enthusiasm.

MS certainly has a system spec in it's targeted "design criteria".  And to sound the trumpets and beat the drums without meaningful mention of such specs haunts me a bit!  This was the month I planned on a new build to handle P3Dv4, my last build at this time of the year in 2015 (specs in my footer).  I am holding off, and I pray that what is available to build a year from now is well past the reasonable average in MS design specs, not already behind them again!

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by fppilot

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm not taking this thread seriously, but I believe in one of the developer interviews indicated a nvidia GTX2080 (not Ti just the standard 2080) was used when making the teaser videos ... no idea what else on the hardware side was used.  BUT, I'm pretty certain Microsoft are aiming at 60 FPS 4K res for hardware that exists today as it would also need to translate over to the new XBOX hardware for 2020 ... again from one of their interviews.

Cheers, Rob.

Hope you are right Rob.  It would require a personality change, LOL!  but this appears to be a totally new team at work, so hope is in the air!

22 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Likely been said already, but I did not take time to read this entire topic.  How Can Other Sims Compete With MSFS?  All depends on the reasonable system specs

Not just the PC specs, but your Internet bandwidth and whether you have a bandwidth cap.

It seems that the one MAJOR thing they're promoting as a huge difference from what's gone before, is the scenery engine. That's what's getting all the hype here, right? And that scenery apparently will be streamed and buffered, with variable quality depending on your connection speed and whether your ISP plan is unlimited data per month. It's possible that we might be able to pre-load areas of interest, which would work for slow connections. That will still be affected by a bandwidth cap if you have one with your ISP.

There is just so much we don't know yet, about this side of the new MSFS. The "advantage" other sims might already have, is not requiring a fast Internet connection with unlimited data. P3D, XP, AFS2 and DCS don't care about what kind of Internet connection you have. 

16 hours ago, nickhod said:

This seems like a big sticking point for other sims. Google and MS aren't going to license their photogrammetry data.
Again, if other sims implemented a generic way to display photogrammetry meshes, maybe some enterprising individual could write 3rd party add-on to load in Google's data. This could effectively leap-frog MSFS as you'd have photogrammetry available for nearly every big, Western city.
Seems a long shot though and, as far as I can see, no one has figured out Google's photogrammetry data format.

Wouldn't this be an issue as well? I mean - I remember The TileProxy Project (amazing program, btw), which once had Google Maps as a available service. They ended up removing it, since Google didn't want their maps data to be used. 

Or is this not what you mean? 🙂

I do hope some users hopes are not dashed after released, I remember taking my kids to the toy shop they were lit up with excitement only to find it left in the toy box a few months later.

3 hours ago, Anders Bermann said:

Wouldn't this be an issue as well? I mean - I remember The TileProxy Project (amazing program, btw), which once had Google Maps as a available service. They ended up removing it, since Google didn't want their maps data to be used. 

Or is this not what you mean? 🙂

Lots of people download Google Maps data with Ortho4XP or my app AeroScenery for Aerofly.

Google seem to turn a blind eye to one time downloading but draw the line at streaming.

You could conceivably imagine a similar situation for photogrammtery meshes, but like I said, it seems along shot and there's no way of doing it currently.

Edit: Actually someone has reversed engineered Google's photogrammetry format fairly recently https://github.com/retroplasma/earth-reverse-engineering 

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by nickhod

What`s to stop Google getting a developer to use there data for a flight sim on stadia streaming in the future.

I take back my comment that "Google would never license their photogrammetry data".

https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/gaming/

Seems like they actively want to, but at a hefty price I would guess.

I highly doubt competing with MSFS is an option now. Unparalleled world data coupled with Azure AI, infinite budget and a team of 200+ people of which 60% are taking flying lessons, you just dont want to compete with that. Also there is this gigantic Xbox crowd that will generate them an insane amount of revenue on top of PC sales. Not to mention the state of the art Graphics engine able to simulate things like humidity and stuff and generate rainbows solely depending upon atmospheric conditions, that is truly nail in the coffin for other sims.

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by Baber20

1 hour ago, nickhod said:

I take back my comment that "Google would never license their photogrammetry data".

https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/gaming/

Seems like they actively want to, but at a hefty price I would guess.

I guess this will/could be the way forward to create Earth sceneries for other flightsims like XPLANE.

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by nas123