New Unreal Weather engine.

 

Gaming engines continue to do what flight simulation developers mostly refuse to do, which is incorporate the internal features of modern graphics cards.

I remember asking about this several years ago regarding Nvidia an AMD smoke effects, particle, physx and other capabilities, and was told that developers did not wish to lock themselves into proprietary formats.

At the time, I remember thinking that this was a perfect mirror of the general community's own conservatism and resistance to change.

Lately, as I've seen more about Microsoft's new flight simulator, I've come to suspect that many of the features that are attracting people are at least partially the result of a sim finally stepping into the modern era with its use of graphics and the capabilities of graphics cards.

I don't think the community is conservative nor resistant to change, even if it may seem so. Having a flight sim that uses a modern and performing engine would be enthusiastically received, as the reactions to the new MFS show (with all the unknowns still). I think it's been the flight sim developers (MS until FSX, LR, LM, DTG) who have been conservative and/or lacking the resources for a modern engine and/or both.

No good in flight sim with realistic ATC " Golf Romeo Foxtrot request taxi IFR to LAX" ATC " All Traffic Grounded Due Weather Numb Nuts" 😂.  

2 hours ago, Murmur said:

I don't think the community is conservative nor resistant to change, even if it may seem so.

Believe me, over time, i've thought about it quite a bit, especially in the times when a "new " sim is in the offing.

To me, we really are in a rut

*New sim developer"* (Microsoft flight) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! In every detail! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/ etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (Lockheed Martin) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (DTG) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (MS2020) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

Honestly, at this point, it's pretty much as predictable as gravity. Mention almost anything that differs from those same old basics (only better!) and you are almost guaranteed to cause an uproar.

MS returned at almost the perfect time, when the barely acknowledged frustration and boredom with a nearly stagnant situation was reaching the boiling point, and people were migrating from the ESP engine in something just short of desperation.

Hopefully Asobo, coming from the outside, with a different perspective, will actually feel free to stray a bit from the same old, same old.

I get that here in my day job. It requires too much thought to write down actual details describing the "better" 

Hmmm I don't know... I think it's reasonable that for most flight simmers AI, ATC, weather and a global world are among the most important features to look for. Or at least they think so, because as we see MFS could be lacking 1.5 out of those 4 features on launch, and still the feedback is very positive.

If past devs failed, IMO is not the community to be blamed, but themselves: always using inadequate old engines.

8 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Believe me, over time, i've thought about it quite a bit, especially in the times when a "new " sim is in the offing.

To me, we really are in a rut

*New sim developer"* (Microsoft flight) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! In every detail! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/ etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (Lockheed Martin) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (DTG) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

*New sim developer"* (MS2020) "What do you want?"

Community "FSX! Again! Only better!" (Ai/atc/worldwide coverage/weather etc, etc)

Honestly, at this point, it's pretty much as predictable as gravity. Mention almost anything that differs from those same old basics (only better!) and you are almost guaranteed to cause an uproar.

MS returned at almost the perfect time, when the barely acknowledged frustration and boredom with a nearly stagnant situation was reaching the boiling point, and people were migrating from the ESP engine in something just short of desperation.

Hopefully Asobo, coming from the outside, with a different perspective, will actually feel free to stray a bit from the same old, same old.

As long as any new sim is tied to backward compatibility we're never going to see a giant leap into the future.

12 minutes ago, mwilk said:

As long as any new sim is tied to backward compatibility we're never going to see a giant leap into the future.

Yet even as this brand new sim heaves into view, many are already speculating on shoehorning old stuff in there, just as was done with P3D, DTG sim, and even Ms FLIGHT.

Here we go again.

I hope not. I hope we get forced, blinking and rubbing our eyes, straight out into the light of real progress, not predicated on simply replicating an increasingly stale past.

28 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Yet even as this brand new sim heaves into view, many are already speculating on shoehorning old stuff in there, just as was done with P3D, DTG sim, and even Ms FLIGHT.

Here we go again.

I hope not. I hope we get forced, blinking and rubbing our eyes, straight out into the light of real progress, not predicated on simply replicating an increasingly stale past.

We all have a lot of money tied up in addons for either P3D or FSX but we're never going to be able to take advantage of everything that the new hardware offers if we remain tied to the past. The beauty is, if you don't want to move on to the new sim, you don't have to.

For this reason in a sense I hope that the new sim will be extremely focused on VFR, so that the "old" IFR crowd will remain with P3D.

22 hours ago, mwilk said:

As long as any new sim is tied to backward compatibility we're never going to see a giant leap into the future.

Fortunately, ASOBO are astute enough to make "backwards compatibility" a separate process that will never need to be invoked by the sim unless a user deliberately installs a FSX/P3D old school aircraft.

The sim will default to using the entirely new FDE engine for all included aircraft.

Don't believe that is a 'weather engine', merely just a beautifully crafted scene to mimic a storm, not some dynamic implemented effect.