Thanks F737NG. So in other words photoscenery.

Really good discussion. This is all good banter and some insight deeper than some of us have the knowledge to absorb. In the end, we want 'realism' with seamless rendering and smooth frame rates. I still use the FS Altitude in P3Dv5 which hasn't been updated in years. Server based, streaming or local HDD storage will be driven by market demand. For me personally, I could support any of the aforementioned but my simming brethren with 'lighter pockets' still needs an economical solution to aggregate the vast amounts of data required to model the world.

It seems to me that MS has pushed the bounds regardless of their implementation and is begging the question: How do we still get there (to where we want to be)? I'd love to have insight what the folks from LM or Austin have in mind. This is a growing cottage industry that is maturing with real money to be made. MS is catching on, the others need to do so as well too. If nothing else, MSFS2020 is helping to push the industry forward and stretch the envelope for what's possible.

Howard 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by hrhett01

53 minutes ago, hrhett01 said:

It seems to me that MS has pushed the bounds regardless of their implementation and is begging the question: How do we still get there (to where we want to be)? 

Howard 

I think what's been done is astounding quite frankly.  As partly a function of the current state of hardware and the code running on it, it's just pptimized VFR flying--and to me it's good enough in that role to justify its existance, as a VFR simulator.   Will it morph towards the full depth simulator we have n P3D--I'm begining to believe it might not be possible.  And that is actually okay.  It's nice right now to explore the real world much more accurately in MSFS than in P3D--you really feel like you're in that world and I don't get that w/ P3D, though I love P3D for its maturity and depth, the PMDG planes and so forth.  So far, despite seeing some nice things in the atmosphere in MSFS, there is something about the cloud textures themselves that can look unnatural, much less real than legacy clouds out of REX or what have you.

I've been going back and forth comparing identical flightplans in MSFS and P3d5. On a sunny day hand flying VFR, there's no comparison. MSFS wins hands down. But in cloudy, windy and/or rainy weather, P3d5 is about piloting and MSFS is not. The weather never matches up against what I see with Active Sky. The MSFS autopilot goes bonkers when you least expect it. The clouds don't look as good as those in trueSky, even with the jarring EA transitions. The ATC is maddening in MSFS and the AI traffic is paltry. Of course I'm comparing those features to VOXATC combined with AIG traffic. 

All these comparisons are obviously unfair to MSFS which is like a newborn baby. But sadly that's the present status. MSFS is an unfinished product. Six months from now the situation will be different.

6 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

MSFS isn't doing so well in the reviews on Steam

To be fair, no new releases seem to fair well on Steam. You could offer solid gold bars for 50p and people would still find fault!! It must be all that 12 year old angst!

47 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

All these comparisons are obviously unfair to MSFS which is like a newborn baby. But sadly that's the present status. MSFS is an unfinished product. Six months from now the situation will be different.

And like the song says, I'll be there 😉

Lm will make more money selling professional plus to various militarys and flight schools. 

The money from us 'simmers' is peanuts to LM.  Peanuts. 

The military couldn't care less about fancy scenery.

What the public sector want to do its spend a fortune on LM each year.  The more money they spend in their budgets, the better chance they have to get more money in their budgets the following year. 

They want to be able to buy off a military contractor because its also easier for billing and purchasing. 

This is why in the UK the NHS and local authorities buy lightbulbs from huge contractors at £16 quid a lightbulb and not £3.50.  Governments love spending tax money incorrectly and LM is perfect for this. 

1 hour ago, SierraHotel said:

To be fair, no new releases seem to fair well on Steam. You could offer solid gold bars for 50p and people would still find fault!! It must be all that 12 year old angst!

That’s not true at all. I’ve got around 400 Steam games, and there’s plenty of new releases that get an “Overwhelmingly Positive” result.

MSFS is getting hammered on Steam firstly because they made a mess of the download and installation procedure, and secondly because the program has been released in an unfinished form lacking many of the features that gamers would expect in 2020.

This does remind me of TileProxy : the free program that streamed satellite data into FSX/P3D years ago.

Flyiing faster than 70-100 knots ( depending on the performance of your hardware and IN speed ) and blurries appeared.

MSFS has been rushed out after taking the time with the Alpha :

- very simple SDK, which prevents ac like PMDG or FsLabs to work at this moment

- the fisheye correction feature is there but does not work ( when using NVSURROUND)

- startup issues for multiple users

 

I do agree that MS has shaked up the Fs world in showing what is possible and that is a good thing. Others, like LM and LR also look at MSFS and perhaps “borrow” some ideas...

And I also agree that we need faster hardware for MSFS where I can fly very stable in P3Dv5 over detailed pr scenery + custom AG + POIs + bad weather..

 

9 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

if P3D allowed for Sat imagery for terrain and still use default AG if none provided, that would go a long way, especially if AO was implemented

Yeah, that would be a big step in the right direction. It's already being done on a smaller, maybe sometimes more experimental scale, but I'm sure it's possible. Even in a streaming fashion. Download sat image and AG, maybe even using BitTorrent or similar, and inject via SimConnect.

9 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm not sure about "advantage" (per Gerard's comment buy where you fly not the entire planet), but MSFS isn't doing so well in the reviews on Steam (mixed at 66%) and MS Store 2.5 stars (nothing to do with AVSIMers being negative) ... so if MS/Asobo can't do streaming at acceptable LOD/quality/FPS of "moment in time" data, why do you think LM would want to try that same failed process?  Conceptually great, but we just don't have what's needed to implementation to a consumer market.

Although I'm sure LM have access to highly detailed sat imagery/ortho data given their military connections and the fact they actually help build/deploy the Satellites that capture the data, but consumer hardware limits, LM server costs, and the user market control the viability of such an undertaking.  How do you "fix" hardware limits?  You compromise.

Cheers, Rob. 

Those negative reviews are "my download took ages" or "it keeps crashing".

Frankly I am gobsmacked by a few in the community including yourself saying this "experiment has failed" and "they haven't done a very good job". That is not what I am seeing, as a developer myself I am seeing an incredibly brilliant piece of software that is only in its first release! This is the default sim, release 1! Give them a chance, remember P3D 3? 

After years of wrestling with P3D and suggesting improvements on their forums, I'm now seeing all of those things implemented on a remarkable scale and quality, is it perfect on day 1, no it is not, is it light years ahead in terms of scale, fidelity and sheer artistic brilliance, a hundred times yes!

And no LM do not have access to this kind of satellite data nor do they have the cloud infrastructure or expertise to purchase or handle it, never mind integrate and distribute it in a creaking simulator like P3D.

And to answer the OP, sorry, it is a nice dream but I suggest you forget it, there is no way LM can keep this platform and come anywhere near FS, it needs a complete rewrite from the ground up, UI, flight model, weather model, graphics engine. That will not happen and Petabyte hard disks, lol, am I reading this right!?! LM is not a software company with a huge free cloud architecture behind them. I just provisioned an Azure Virtual machine and it costs us about 20k per year, 1 machine! Microsoft have 1000s of them supporting this platform. 

P3D will not be uninstalled yet but bit by bit all the things it does really well as mentioned will be superseded as 3rd parties move over and the sim is improved.

LM will shift focus to their military and training contacts and the user base will shrink along with 3rd party support.    

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by DellyPilot

If LM really only implemented DX12 and PBR because some random old dude told them to, then I'll have even less confidence in their development ambitions than I had before. Glad I never spend a single dime on P3D now that it will inevitably fall into obscurity.

Currently FSX has a very positive rating on Steam. Does anyone really think that vanilla FSX is better than MSFS? Of course not...

Most of massive mulitplayer online games (basically what MSFS is) are generally hammered on Steam following release precisely because of the installation and server-side issues. If the game has potential and the developers are serious, things can change rather quickly.

As for P3D, well, if all we can expect is for LM to match what is being offered by MSFS, something they would hardly do, perhaps the only future of the platform is precisely what it was meant to be in the first place: an outdated professional and military training tool.

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by GCBraun

as a GA flyer IRL and mostly flying big iron in P3D, I will keep both sims for a long time. 

MSFS is absolutely perfect for dress rehearsal of a cross country nav. You can find the VRP:s spot on from the VFR charts, rivers, lakes (especially small islands within a lake is a golden visual reference, and in MSFS it's all there). I have some issues with the flight model of the SEP:s, so while it is not adequate tool to refresh your muscle memory IMHO,  it is leaps ahead of default PD3 for acquanting yourself with unfamiliar airports/areas, just fantastic.

Was MSFS rushed? Yes it is quite evident. But so was V5 where users had CTD from left to right, addon devs refused to release uppdates due to wrong betas being tested and RTM was just not stable....It was a wild period. And many of us are waiting for 5,1 and better implementation of Truesky and PBR.

In my crystal ball the odds are favouribly towards MSFS going forward. The PMDG737 will probably generate the first big exodus of airliner simmers from P3D (and Xplane).

None of the big three will vanish, LM has the defense contracts, LR makes tons of money from the smartphone version of Xplane, and MSFS will cater for the PC/Xbox consumer market.

 

3 hours ago, DellyPilot said:

Frankly I am gobsmacked by a few in the community including yourself saying this "experiment has failed" and "they haven't done a very good job".

Absolutely. I'm going to try and remember this thread, where undying P3D loyalist Rob A. said on day 4 of MSFS' release that it had failed, and offered a Steam review of 66% positive as proof.

I seriously don't know why you guys listen to him. He's really not doing you any favors by saying 'don't worry, nothing to see with MSFS, P3D can carry on at its own pace'. Even if you think P3D has the advantage of in-depth addons at the moment, which do you think is going to be more difficult; a) for MSFS to up its add-on game, or b) for P3D to find a way to compete with MSFS scenery and atmosphere rendering? Rob's attempts to diss the scenery by saying 'if you fly low at speed it's not that good' are sooooo weak.

It's the same on the XP forums, devs desperately trying to fling mud at what is clearly a hugely promising platform, while failing to treat it with the competitive respect it deserves, and bring a sense of urgency to the competition. Even though I'm very happy with MSFS so far, I wouldn't want them to be the only game in town at all.