So, after a fairly extensive play around over the last couple of days, it is clear there is massive potential but also some issues, from minor to downright annoying.

Flight models - I have extensive experience of multiple aircraft types in the real world and on high fidelity research simulators, my initial thoughts on the flight modelling in 2020 are that the models feel fairly good, I had some issues initially which were down to my mis-understanding the control mapping somewhat, once I'd sorted that, everything is good. Light aircraft flying at lowish level are likely to be quite 'skittish' airliners are going to be 'sluggish' in comparison, the flight models seem at least as good as anything I've seen in any home sim and I've not seen anything at all to make me go 'yikes, that's not right' 

Performance - I have a fairly high end system, Ryzen 7 series, 2070 Super, 32 GB, I am running at 1440p as don't have a full 4K monitor, the system defaulted to 'high' which is where I started but I'm now running with most settings on ultra and not noticed any real slowdown/stutters or issues like that. 

Visuals - Initially perceived as very pretty, but on more detailed examination there are some issues. As a 'default' set of scenery of course it's amazing but there are issues beyond the 'generic' buildings of the A.I. non photogrammetry data. I'm not yet convinced there isn't some bug/issue that has crept into the release version as many seem to be reporting issues/problems they hadn't previously seen as alpha/beta testers or it may simply be down to the low base resolution of the bing data. Taking Brighton (it could be almost any UK city/town) as a case, the bing map data seems to be pretty good, the texture resolution in the sim is not, at anything approaching low level, the disjoint between the A.I. buildings and flat low res base texture is quite jarring, it, of course, looks better the higher you go.  The A.I. building/model population is off in places, there is a large Building in the middle of the Road on Brighton Seafront for instance (with the cartoon ants traffic making hilarious efforts to go around it) a little further along there is a building on a slope that is half buried in the terrain. 

<edit> I suspect there has been a downgrading of the visuals from earlier versions to up the frame rates on the sort of system most people are likely to have, if so then we may find things will improve again drastically in the future as system power increases </edit>

The texture resolution issue can be seen almost anywhere, take a look at the Himalayas, the texture resolution in the Sim seems to be far lower than that available on Bing, though what is on Bing isn't great n itself. 

There appears to be an issue with elevation data, 'hills', at least 'hills' below a certain height, just don't seem to exist, again Brighton is a good example, the 'cliffs' at the Marina are shown as flat textures on the ground, there is a hill of sorts but it is far lower than the terrain is in reality at that point. If you continue flying along the South Coast, where the terrain meets the sea is not a good join, Cliffs don't seem to exist, rather 'hills' slope down into the sea, roads and models are often placed at an angle on this slope and it all looks rather a mess, even on Ultra settings. 

Where photogrammetery is used, things look pretty good, at the right time of day, with the right weather and from the right height, things look far more stunning than anything we could of imagined - when I think back to the early days of Flight Sim CG visuals (we worked with Evans and Sutherland on visual development in the early 90s) of course, even where there are problems and issues, this thing looks incredible, back then a sim visual system would cost you millions and you got what you got in terms of what the tech of the day could provide. To have this level of fidelity at home is amazing.

Overall - yes there are problems, there are, no doubt, bugs that need sorting, in terms of the visuals, it was never going to be possible for the developer to check the whole globe in detail to ensure these sort of issues didn't exist, but they will hopefully be addressed.  Third party developers, as they get to grips with the engine and the SDK should be able to offer some incredible add-ons, I can't wait to have a tinker with the SDK myself, but the potential of this thing is truly incredible.

 

 

Edited August 20, 20205 yr by Stupot
additional info

Even though you have extensive real world experience. You are dead wrong about the flight model. It's flawed on a basic, fundamental level. Just ask all the best sim pilots on avsim. They will tell you!

Sarcasm for sure.....

Just now, ahsmatt7 said:

Even though you have extensive real world experience. You are dead wrong about the flight model. It's flawed on a basic, fundamental level. Just ask all the best sim pilots on avsim. They will tell you!

Sarcasm for sure.....

Lol 🙂

 

13 minutes ago, Stupot said:

Lol 🙂

 

I had too lol

I'm glad someone enjoys it. I haven't been able to get my hands on due to flying to much. I'm interested to see how it feels.

OK, so I've taken a look at apparently the only area of the UK to have photogrammetry data, Southampton, and it does look far far far better than anywhere else I've 'flown' over in the UK - this is more than acceptable

Though this is the 'cliff' issue with the needles - or lack of them 😉