8 minutes ago, Janov said:

What will happen? A large chunk of the userbase is going to get FS2020. That is not going to hurt Laminar right away, because everybody paid for XP11 already.

Hi Jan... this may be true, but it does have a major impact on third-parties. I feel this is simply being overlooked. Third-parties are what has kept FSX/P3D alive and popular over the years, and it's no different on X-Plane.. If those third-parties move to another platform, then I'd expect the popularity of the platform to take a fairly large nose-dive. I'd rather stay on X-Plane, I like the community and ease of development, but that can only take one so far.

One thing X-Plane still has is a healthy freeware community. They also have the Mac OS and Linux users (Although the recent Apple WWDC announcements make me question staying on Mac myself now). I don't think X-Plane will fade away whilst this community exists

19 minutes ago, Janov said:

Asobo has the benefit of hindsight, a clear vision of the final product and no legacy code (aircraft, scenery, plugins) to support.

This is simply not true regarding legacy support. I can't discuss this, but there is enough information (official and unofficial) out there to find that contradicts this.

23 minutes ago, Janov said:

But this is not a fair fight. It´s the might of Microsofts financial and data potential brought to bear! You expect LR to stand up to that? Take them head-on?

Of course it's not a fair fight, but I do think X-Plane 11 is looking stale now (Austin even says himself in the interview). I don't think anyone expects X-Plane to suddenly have world-wide photogrammetry scenery etc, however please work on the lighting and weather, and this will dramatically improve the sim and will keep users happy. As somebody already pointed out, Austin is a pilot, so it's amazing there is so little focus on this key part of a flight simulator.

 

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

I think they'll make far more money going for the gaming, casual simmer crowd. Think of the reach the xbox gaming store has and their current customer base. However, I wouldn't rule it out in the future, unless they have some sort of agreement with Lockheed Martin to not step on toes.

I dont think it will be a commercial failure for Microsoft.

I also dont think its going to be a particularly good game.

P3Dv5 is already a generation ahead (DX12)

Laminar have lots of their own problems, hypothetical competition at some time in the future is the least of theirs, and imho Microsoft have a much steeper hill to climb. 

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by mSparks

2 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I dont think it will be a commercial failure for Microsoft.

I also dont think its going to be a particularly good game.

P3Dv5 is already a generation ahead (DX12)

Laminar have lots of their own problems, hypothetical competition at some time in the future is the least of theirs, and imho Microsoft have a much steeper hill to climb. 

Yeah I was wondering about that, how come P3D went DX12 yet the new Sim is only DX11? Is vulkan on par/better than either of them?

I think Vulkan and DX12 are pretty much on par with each other

I'm not sure why MFS is DX11. It's could simply be that it wasn't out when they started working on the sim, or it could be because of compatibility with older hardware, etc..

3 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I think Vulkan and DX12 are pretty much on par with each other

I'm not sure why MFS is DX11. It's could simply be that it wasn't out when they started working on the sim, or it could be because of compatibility with older hardware, etc..

So, we are in a right mire at the minute then. 
We’ve got P3DV5, using DX12 on a legacy base sim. 
We’ve got a new simulator coming up but it’s using old DX11. 
We’ve got XP11, using vulkan, but with no decent weather cloud depiction and a weird set of opinions from its owner in that new video. 
One doesn’t know which horse to back now! 

16 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Yeah I was wondering about that, how come P3D went DX12 yet the new Sim is only DX11? Is vulkan on par/better than either of them?

“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty explains. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

____

Or to put it another way.

Asobo were required to support GPUs that do not have DX12 support.

7 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

We’ve got XP11, using vulkan

Not yet but nearly.

7 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

One doesn’t know which horse to back now! 

My money would be (is, I guess) on XP12.

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by mSparks

6 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

We’ve got a new simulator coming up but it’s using old DX11. 

Actually, I wouldn't knock DX11 games specifically. A modern well-written game can be very fast on DX11, just as a poorly written game could be horribly slow on Vulkan and DX12 

36 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

So, we are in a right mire at the minute then. 
We’ve got P3DV5, using DX12 on a legacy base sim. 
We’ve got a new simulator coming up but it’s using old DX11. 
We’ve got XP11, using vulkan, but with no decent weather cloud depiction and a weird set of opinions from its owner in that new video. 
One doesn’t know which horse to back now! 

Thanks for the laugh. Imagine how nice of a flight sim we'd have if we could combine all of the good features of each sim into one product!

You are right, Tony - 3rd party development will largely go where the crowd is.

The majority of 3rd party DLC is (I won´t say eye-candy!) visual fidelity enhancement. Nicer looking scenery, nicer weather, more traffic, different colours, etc.

X-Plane is right now fully suitable to "serious" flying, both IFR and VFR. If you focus on aspects that a pilot would focus, it does not matter if you can spot your house or if the clouds look wispy or if the sky is beautiful at sunset.

Every user places different importance on the visual aspect, even I think it is important...but probably less so than most other users. For me it is hard to bear that the true altitude in X-Plane does not change with temperature...yet I do not have a single scenery, weather, ATC or visual enhancement addon or plugin installed.

But I am not the typical user, and I am unhappy that a decline in income will also mean less money available to improve my simulator of choice. Yet I hope that the pressure to make X-Plane "more pretty" that rose in the last few years (with the eyecandy crowd) will give way to make X-Plane "more realistic" again - back to it´s roots, so to say.

And yes, I think that when Laminar realizes that they have lost the "pretty" game for good, they will focus on their core strength again.

Cheers, Jan

1 hour ago, Kopteeni said:

Thanks for the laugh. Imagine how nice of a flight sim we'd have if we could combine all of the good features of each sim into one product!

A dream I have all too often. I'd be quite happy to take True sky and the water outa P3DV5 and stick it in XP11. Then, sorted

 

Actually wait, edited to say, also FIX THE SHIMMERING! haha 🙂

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by Ianrivaldosmith

12 minutes ago, Janov said:

And yes, I think that when Laminar realizes that they have lost the "pretty" game for good

Adding Raytrace to Vulkan is a much lower bar to jump over than adding Vulkan to X-Plane.

in fact some people have already added it to opengl X-Plane themselves

2 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Adding Raytrace to Vulkan is a much lower bar to jump over than adding Vulkan to X-Plane.

in fact some people have already added it to opengl X-Plane themselves

Always seems the issue with XP though right? Always 'somebody' else adding it. And then when XP updates, it tends to break it. So frustrating.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Always seems the issue with XP though right? Always 'somebody' else adding it. And then when XP updates, it tends to break it. So frustrating.

 

 

You could see it as an issue.

Or you could see it as an opportunity for 3rd party developers to make money and those that dont care about pretty to not spend the extra money.

Laminar have been 100% clear on what they are willing to break in order not to impede progress as long as Ive paid attention.

Plus. Making the "do it badly once and profit for 10 years" crew unhappy should be an olympic sport (google would win every gold medal in that game tho).

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by mSparks

All very good posts in this thread.

What concerns me, is the difference in financial and human resources between MS/Asobo and LR. Back to FSX/XP9 era or even more.

Some alpha testers suggested that at Asobo have been very reactive in improving and adding features. So if this is true, and if this continues, will the two products be even remotely comparable a few years from now?

On the other hand, still many unknowns (for non alpha testers at least). What about smoothness? Performance? Scenery morphing? Pop-ups? Will VR be available 6 months after release, or will Asobo postpone it for a few years?

Maybe XP could have some advantages in these areas? Or maybe not? Well, alpha testers certainly already have more info than me. ☺️

15 minutes ago, Murmur said:

On the other hand, still many unknowns (for non alpha testers at least). What about smoothness? Performance? Scenery morphing? Pop-ups? Will VR be available 6 months after release, or will Asobo postpone it for a few years?

If the tech is in fact based on the engine used in the Forza franchise, all I can add is that I tried the latest Forza Horizon, and it's probably the most optimised engine there is - 4K 60FPS with everything on ultra on a 1080ti.

For VR I think it's pretty dim as it's not on Microsofts agenda (they tried to jump on the AR train and failed), however, if FS2020 is (as Forza) a 60FPS game ("by design"), it wouldn't be too hard. Any 60FPS game can easily be adapted for VR - unlike 30FPS games such as X-Plane.

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by Colonel X