If they were a really big bucks outfit like MS, they could hire 'Meteoblue' to handle if for them.

45 minutes ago, olderndirt said:

If they were a really big bucks outfit like MS, they could hire 'Meteoblue' to handle if for them.

Reasonably sure its a business decision rather than a lack of resources.

Clouds and better weather by default are surely a key X-Plane 12 carrot. IMHO.

Edited June 17, 20205 yr by mSparks

47 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Reasonably sure its a business decision rather than a lack of resources.

Clouds and better weather by default are surely a key X-Plane 12 carrot. IMHO.

MS still makes my neck hair stand erect so here's hoping Laminar has something up their sleeve.

1 hour ago, olderndirt said:

MS still makes my neck hair stand erect so here's hoping Laminar has something up their sleeve.

Austin and Ben have both stated they have "next generation graphics" in the pipeline.

I'm 100% sure that is going to require a better graphics api than the 10 year old DX11 that is the minimum requirement for XP11 and that microsoft have only just pinned their hopes on.

In that sense it is more than just a business decision, they simply cannot increase the minimum requirements part way through a major version. It wouldn't be cricket.

That doesnt worry me in the slightest.

I'm mostly just hoping Laminar hit their "more powerful | made useable" slogan for XP11 this side of Christmas. Waiting has tried my patience beyond reason. (and right now everything is all so close it hurts)

5 hours ago, mSparks said:

Austin and Ben have both stated they have "next generation graphics" in the pipeline.

I'm 100% sure that is going to require a better graphics api than the 10 year old DX11 that is the minimum requirement for XP11 and that microsoft have only just pinned their hopes on.

In that sense it is more than just a business decision, they simply cannot increase the minimum requirements part way through a major version. It wouldn't be cricket.

That doesnt worry me in the slightest.

I'm mostly just hoping Laminar hit their "more powerful | made useable" slogan for XP11 this side of Christmas. Waiting has tried my patience beyond reason. (and right now everything is all so close it hurts)

XP11 doesn’t use DX11. 

27 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

XP11 doesn’t use DX11. 

xp11 minimum is a dx11 compatible gfx card.

technically its opengl 4 card, but thats not how manufacturers list them.

 

10 hours ago, olderndirt said:

If they were a really big bucks outfit like MS, they could hire 'Meteoblue' to handle if for them.

Well, X-Plane ostensibly made Austin a multi-millionaire. Yet he doesn't seem to have the slightest idea how graphical fidelity is a "tentpole feature" of flight simulation software. Soon enough, Laminar will be fighting a two fronts war, weather AND scenery (so basically everything else than flight model), with FS2020 taking the lead on both once released.

X-Plane will stay relevant for academic and commercial use I suppose, but for the consumer market, X-Plane might find itself back in the dark ages of X-Plane 8 or 9. It is the bosses vision for the product that ultimately shapes it, and I don't see that vision. If Austin is unwilling to invest more, either by hiring environmental artists and developers, or by licensing a weather engine (it can be done, and should have been done 5 years ago), well, it ain't looking too good.

As I stated above, while X-Plane had a great advantage in (standard) scenery (OSM data, Autogen) for the recent years, that advantage will all but melt away and look pretty funky compared to FS2020 (it does already). I always embraced the idea that X-Plane might still succeed as a IFR/tubeliner sim (where scenery is far below and not as important), with a focus on flight model, traffic and weather. But since he seems to be outright ignoring traffic and there is no info on when and how weather will improve (I still believe it's XP12), he might end up in a too little, too late situation.

Love how the wannabe WSJ analysts always spell XP's doom because of a multimillion dollar big budget title from the cold hands of a corporate machine.

Has anybody ever considered that Laminar just might not care as long as they can deliver a product that's approved for flight training and covers niches that are not served by any competitors (i.e. non-Windows operating systems)? There are no stakeholders to answer to and no risk of being axed by management for disapointing sales. The death of XP will be the day when Austin is cleared for an unrestricted climb heavenward. No earlier.

20 hours ago, Colonel X said:

Well, X-Plane ostensibly made Austin a multi-millionaire. Yet he doesn't seem to have the slightest idea how graphical fidelity is a "tentpole feature" of flight simulation software. Soon enough, Laminar will be fighting a two fronts war, weather AND scenery (so basically everything else than flight model), with FS2020 taking the lead on both once released.

X-Plane will stay relevant for academic and commercial use I suppose, but for the consumer market, X-Plane might find itself back in the dark ages of X-Plane 8 or 9. It is the bosses vision for the product that ultimately shapes it, and I don't see that vision. If Austin is unwilling to invest more, either by hiring environmental artists and developers, or by licensing a weather engine (it can be done, and should have been done 5 years ago), well, it ain't looking too good.

As I stated above, while X-Plane had a great advantage in (standard) scenery (OSM data, Autogen) for the recent years, that advantage will all but melt away and look pretty funky compared to FS2020 (it does already). I always embraced the idea that X-Plane might still succeed as a IFR/tubeliner sim (where scenery is far below and not as important), with a focus on flight model, traffic and weather. But since he seems to be outright ignoring traffic and there is no info on when and how weather will improve (I still believe it's XP12), he might end up in a too little, too late situation.

Well said.

Picked up this bit by Ben on the dev blog comments...

"We do realize that the clouds are pigs – we’re working now on something different, but it’s not going to be part of 11.50."

 

10 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Has anybody ever considered that Laminar just might not care as long as they can deliver a product that's approved for flight training and covers niches that are not served by any competitors (i.e. non-Windows operating systems)? There are no stakeholders to answer to and no risk of being axed by management for disapointing sales. The death of XP will be the day when Austin is cleared for an unrestricted climb heavenward. No earlier.

I don't think any company is happy serving a "niche". I am not saying X-Plane is dying. But considering cost and effort to build a good looking sim, it may become very hard to acquire new consumer users ("recreational simmers" or "gamers") when the other sim is a single $50 install... 

22 hours ago, Colonel X said:

But since he seems to be outright ignoring traffic

well, i just assumed it was the microsoft crowd giving this unit test the thumbs down. after they got mad I dared to say an alpha isnt a finished product.

what traffic do you consider to be ignored?

Edited June 18, 20205 yr by mSparks

6 hours ago, Colonel X said:

I don't think any company is happy serving a "niche". I am not saying X-Plane is dying. But considering cost and effort to build a good looking sim, it may become very hard to acquire new consumer users ("recreational simmers" or "gamers") when the other sim is a single $50 install... 

Why would you want Laminar to take on the elephant in the room when it would spell certain financial doom for them? Too many people are already sold on FS20 anyway, making the endeavor plain foolish.

Laminar knows about the common complaints with XP, but they're simply electing to tackle them in the long run. If somebody doesn't like it, there's always other sims to pass the time with.

Well they took on the (albeit sleeping) elephant very successfully in the past 10 years. Now they're sort of caught cold, and that is, in my opinion, revealing the management mistakes Austin is responsible for. He ignored weather, traffic and to some extent scenery (whether you believe in procedural scenery or not). Remember there is one single guy who almost solved traffic for X-Plane (Greg from WT), however it never became real for the inexperienced user, and while I don't know how many employees X-Enviro has, that is also something he should've brought in-house. It comes down to a handful of hires he should've made when X-Plane took off. Of course that's looking from the outside, but I think Laminar could have afforded that. If X-Plane had a modern weather engine and traffic out of the box, official UHD mesh download via the installer (or even licensed orthos), I know that's a lot of if's, but then the release of FS2020 would leave a lot us folks here on the forum pretty cold.

6 minutes ago, Colonel X said:

Well they took on the (albeit sleeping) elephant very successfully in the past 10 years. Now they're sort of caught cold, and that is, in my opinion, revealing the management mistakes Austin is responsible for. He ignored weather, traffic and to some extent scenery (whether you believe in procedural scenery or not). Remember there is one single guy who almost solved traffic for X-Plane (Greg from WT), however it never became real for the inexperienced user, and while I don't know how many employees X-Enviro has, that is also something he should've brought in-house. It comes down to a handful of hires he should've made when X-Plane took off. Of course that's looking from the outside, but I think Laminar could have afforded that. If X-Plane had a modern weather engine and traffic out of the box, official UHD mesh download via the installer (or even licensed orthos), I know that's a lot of if's, but then the release of FS2020 would leave a lot us folks here on the forum pretty cold.

Traffic global works pretty well and the new upcoming release looks even better. 
But yeah, always seems to be something dragging xplane back. For me it’s the shimmering taxi lines like ants crawling. 

9 hours ago, Colonel X said:

and while I don't know how many employees X-Enviro has, that is also something he should've brought in-house.

Firstly,

Basically 1. Magnus, of Threshold fame.

And secondly, why should it have been brought in house? Not even Microsoft chose that option for anything but their usual marketing garbage. Plus the graphics engine needed completely rewriting for any weather engine to have acceptable performance on modern hardware and that task still isn't finished yet.

Imagine what would have happened if they built a fantastic weather graphics engine on the pre dx12/vulkan graphics api with the half second stutters whenever loading new textures after you have flown 5 miles.... If you find that hard to imagine I expect you could probably just sign up for a certain alpha to experience it first hand..

Edited June 19, 20205 yr by mSparks