2 minutes ago, Agrajag said:

X-Plane has the POTENTIAL to be better,

The odd thing is that even X-Plane in all it's glory looks like a cartoon from the 90s. But hey, as long as the ortho is 30 times more high res, we can pat ourselves on the back. 

Just now, LHookins said:

People actually DO this??  And it is considered superior?

Thanks but no thanks.  I'd prefer to fly.  At least MSFS doesn't make me jump through hoops.

EXACTLY. And yes. Just go to youtube and type in "Ortho4XP". Seriously. Go try it. I just did even though I knew the outcome. Pages of "How to" and very few, "Look at me flying in it" videos. Why do people do it? When you see the results (spotty as they will be), it's like the old joke of crossing the desert and then being offered a Ritz cracker. You'll swear it's the best cracker you've ever tasted. Compared to what was there before, it's an apt comparison -- what was essential a void is now more immersive. MS gives us this, and then some, included in the price. And it all will be be improved over time without you having to lift a finger. Hmm.

On 8/22/2020 at 11:53 AM, Adrian123 said:

IMO, MSFS graphics accomplished in 1yr what Xplane has been trying to accomplish in 20+yrs of development. The strong will adapt and survive. I feel bad for Blockbuster and the touch tone phone. 😉

MSFS didnt take 1 year to develop.... 

Its just that they announced it 1 year ago. 

Companies mostly dont announce projects for years under development.

41 minutes ago, Slides said:

Huh?

If you cant figure out the fundmental differences between weather visibility and object draw distance (the first, there is no such thing as draw distance in real life....), rest assured you and I have nothing to talk about. So back to ignoring you, but dont worry this is my last comment in this thread.

In all seriousness, hope y'all are having a blast with msfs , i tried it for a day and think it's a waste of time other than beautiful pics, i will wait for what a true NG simulator should be IMO, not rushing anywhere. Learn to accept other opinions and stop defendeing msfs like its your baby, yeah x-plane current default graphics looks like s**t i agree with that 100% ,and msfs has other huge stuff to catch up to, too.

Talking big behind pc about people that you dont know, in a pesonal manner, aint impressing anyone.

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by mtaxp

26 minutes ago, Agrajag said:

but to be frank, that tool nearly requires a PHD to get working

Now, you're simply exaggerating. It was actually quite easy when set up properly. The real advantage is MSFS stores the data for us. When they upgrade/update the tiles, it will only get better.

I left X-plane, not because it wasn't a good simulator but because I got tired of waiting for developments. I was given the opportunity to test MSFS 2020 and I was sold.

I've tried them all, this one (MSFS) has what I'm looking for.

 

 

2 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

this is my last comment in this thread.

i will wait for what a true NG simulator should be.

I think you've said the first thing like five times now.

As far as the second thing, awesome. See you in 2027. 

Most of the people posting here, including me, are not just defending MS blindly. I've posted dozens of critical posts already about the problems with this release. I would have loved to have been in the meeting when the powers that be told the head of QA that they were going to ship this. THAT is who I truly feel bad for. No way any QA pro gives this release the green light, or at least no good one. That said, your arguments are the type that force even the many of us who have been vocally concerned to take issue with your commentary. That should be telling you something.

You're clearly in the 1% of the 1%, which is fine. Those of us posting here are likely in the top 5% of the community. The world sees thing different from all of us, but at least we're able to see the benefit of what MS has created here and its potential, just as you see the potential for X-Plane. I've been watching and reading about Austin going back to the early 90s. I applaud his efforts, but I do not believe his path in any way is the path of least resistance or impression for the vast majority of the buying public.

2 minutes ago, airlinejets said:

Now, you're simply exaggerating. It was actually quite easy when set up properly.

I would suggest, kindly, that this is like saying "everything about this is simple, except installing it". The point is the part you just glossed over in that statement, "when set up properly". And again, even when set up properly you still have the myriad of issues I mentioned. You have to be careful of how much you download. You often end up with gigabytes of useless data that doesn't provide seams that match what's around it. Greens to sudden reds. Large black lines. Missing tiles -- all unrelated to any mistake by the user. It's a wonderful tool, but it's still a hack that Austin should be paying attention to, but isn't. 

53 minutes ago, Agrajag said:

It's also much more than the money. It's the time and effort. I've been flying X-Plane exclusively since MS left with FSX which means v9, v10 and v11. Ortho4XP is wonderful to have and the guy that did it, Oscar, is awesome, but to be frank, that tool nearly requires a PHD to get working. Countless reams of messages from users trying their best to get it going along with countless videos trying to explain its use and arcane settings. Then you downlad, slowly, the data and often find you need to do it in batches lest you not get your account banned by Google for misusing their servers. Speaking of that, it's understood that you're NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS. It's against the terms of those providers, but you do it anyway. Then you've got this data and you need to know how to overlay it and edit your settings in scenery.ini. Put one line in the wrong place and it doesn't work. Put it in another wrong place and you kill something else you spent money on. Then you find out it doesn't seam well and there's NOTHING you can do about it. This is Valhalla? I think not.

I agree.  It needs to be made as easy as the possible for the users to use.  I have read the horror stories of people installing this and that for X-Plane.  I used to do that back with other games and it's extremely annoying and time consuming.  In these days of Apple, stuff should be easy to install and use.  The user shouldn't have to run around in circles just to get something to work.  And I'm an IT person as well so tinkering with software is easier for me.  I feel really bad for people that don't understand computers well who have to tinker with their configuration and install this and that so that the flight sim looks good.

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by abrams_tank

1 minute ago, Agrajag said:

I would suggest, kindly, that this is like saying "everything about this is simple, except installing it". The point is the part you just glossed over in that statement, "when set up properly". And again, even when set up properly you still have the myriad of issues I mentioned. You have to be careful of how much you download. You often end up with gigabytes of useless data that doesn't provide seams that match what's around it. Greens to sudden reds. Large black lines. Missing tiles -- all unrelated to any mistake by the user. It's a wonderful tool, but it's still a hack that Austin should be paying attention to, but isn't. 

It was actually quite simple, I never had a problem apart from storage. Anyways, the only resource that was usable was Bing, Google was not an option. I certainly remember bad tiles but most were good and usable.

 

1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

Really ignoring you in general but lets me shed some more knowledge for you please

 

You can start from 1:00. 

Now x-plane

 

Ultra msfs object draw distance=med-high x-plane object draw distance (since the guy from the video is using a dynamic lod plugin, you can watch the 2 slider on his upper left corner), and even at its highest, x-plane is appears smoother.

Oh btw nice video to show that x-plane's landclass is accurate, some here claimed it to be a fictional world. (Art aside)

You are welcome.

 

That video of xplane Vulcan is definitely not going to make anyone head to steam to buy it

I feel bad and sorry for those people who uninstalled their X-P or P3D just because the new sim was coming in. Now, back to work!.

Cheers, Ed

11 hours ago, Slides said:

Strange then that I remember you for your negative posts about MSFS prior to release.

You weren’t here since last year then. Before and even after entering in the alpha, I had high expectations and I was very pleased with the product. 

My negative post came when I saw that MS/AS were going to release an incomplete product as a full one. And sadly, as I read here and on the official forums, no magic build was released. 

I think no one expected a release on August, not even I being optimistic back in February. And I know most of the sims are released with missing features. But I think the features already added should be working fine, there wasn’t any need of rush the release (expect for marketing strategy by MS games studios). But at least they could have announced the release as a beta, and no as a full product.

That’s my point of view. But is my money and I know what to do with it. If others prefer to buy it and are pleased, good for them. But you can’t expect everyone to be satisfied. 

13 hours ago, SceneryFX said:

They just need a monthly option for $5 month or something and allow us to download 60cm at least. The only reason the ground isn't all "noisy looking" like some of the other lower res ortho is because NAIP has a very noisy look to it, and Bing downscaled all the imagery. When you downscale it from a higher res, it's not nearly as noisy looking. The reason is because you can process it with unsharp masks before you downres it, and then it comes out much cleaner like the Bing is.

Even though it's somewhat clean looking, it's really unexcusably low res and it really shows when there are no trees. Mountains are one of the best things about flying to me, and it ruins the immersion in many places.

 

I have never downloaded this ortho being discussed, so quite surprising Flight simulator is described as low res.  I have used P3D for a year and have all the Orbx UK True Earth and airfields.  FS ground scenery looks better to my eyes.

Considering P3D default textures are so bad, and FS gives us the whole world capable of vfr flight, I am somewhat confused as to the negativity so close to release. 

2 hours ago, Agrajag said:

Ortho4XP is wonderful to have and the guy that did it, Oscar, is awesome, but to be frank, that tool nearly requires a PHD to get working. Countless reams of messages from users trying their best to get it going along with countless videos trying to explain its use and arcane settings. Then you downlad, slowly, the data and often find you need to do it in batches lest you not get your account banned by Google for misusing their servers.

Really? Using Ortho4XP is that hard? I don’t know, I just kind of looked up the location of Phoenix Deer Valley AirPort in that comparison video. Started Ortho4XP and clicked on the tile, compared the available photo sources and found that USA2 had better images then Bing. Clicked on generate and made myself a sandwich. 20 minutes later I returned and the scenery was ready. Yes I had to open scenery_packs.ini and had to move the new entry from the top to the bottom of the list. Way hard to do (you never had to change scenery priority in FS9 or FS-X I guess). 
 

Re-Flying that circuit in FS2020 and X-Plane with Ortho4XP is nice. You can see the landmarks he uses and have a relaxing flight. 
 

Quote

Then you find out it doesn't seam well and there's NOTHING you can do about it.

Go ahead fly a bit around that wonderful circuit at Phoenix Deer Valley AirPort. It’s not that hard to spot an ugly seam. Lots of water in what should be dry creeks and To top it all off The Lone Cactus landfill. It’s to the right from where we takeoff in the video. The guy never mentions It and the camera never shows it. Talk about a good comparison.  (First picture is the Landfill, second picture the dry creek and a seem).

The thing is the only thing you can do in FS2020 is mention it tomtheir Zendesk but I am pretty sure seems and color differences in photo scenery will never get resolved. It’s inherent to the technique.

 

 

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by boshar
Clarification of the photos.

11 minutes ago, boshar said:

Really? Using Ortho4XP is that hard?

Yes. And you skipped over the finer points like actually getting it installed. Again, no one need take my word for it. Just go on youtube and search Ortho4XP. Gee, if it's so brain-dead simple then why are there literally countless videos to explain how to get it to work? I don't see a lot of videos on how to install a light bulb, or how to eat ice cream. Then there are the countless threads on x-plane.org of desperate users begging anyone to help them get it running. We can then discuss the countless threads of people discussing all the broken ortho they have and how to fix it, but because you've had an easy go of it, none of this actually happened or exists.

Also, I hate to break it to you, but this isn't FS9 or FSX. No one liked doing those things then and we still don't like doing it now. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by Agrajag