Sugarcoating it won't change it. So let's be honest about this. 

Lockheed does not license a consumer product. Most of Lockheed's management would give you a strange look if you informed them that they develop and sell a flight simulator based on FSX. It just isn't a big deal to the company and they are not in the same market as MSFS at all. The product is meant for proper training only (that so many simmers currently violate the license to play it at home is meaningless since virtually all of them will move to MSFS within two years).

Leminar can only shrink its market share from here on out. They barely have the resources to attempt to fulfill the promises they still haven't kept regard v11 five years ago, let alone develop the massive weather and photomap system MSFS has. People who own it will stay with it until they get new aircraft in MSFS, and yes a few hundred diehards will stubbornly stay with it for years but spend most of their time badmouthing MSFS here and elsewhere, but that cannot sustain Leminar and they'd be foolish to spend the little remaining financial resources they have trying to replicate the next-generation MSFS, which they don't have the engineering staff to do in any case.

Yesterday we had our first aircraft developer say that they are not bringing new aircraft to X11. Expect more of the same. For decades Windows had 95% of the desktop market and Mac had 5%. That's what just happened here, though that 5% is split between P3D and X11. Competition is great, but MSFS doesn't really have any. It most likely never will. It hardly matters whether or not that is a good thing since it is reality regardless.

I have had ZERO stability issues with it, the engine is a big solid monster.

My biggest disappointment is that Asobo did not implement an automatic color tone mapping correction algorithm. As noted however, these algorithms are not as simple as you'd think, they are state of the art PHD-level stuff that is still being debated even at places like MIT. Now it doesn't mean all the algorithms to do it are PHD level math or anything (many are not all that bad), but it's just that trying to fit the algorithm is very hard. It is basically a very similar algorithm to the HDR tone mapping problem, but it has to transcend both the histogram distribution map and the color map in the case of correcting Orthoimagery. As noted, I was a bit surprised Asobo did not hire someone to do this that was an expert in it. IMO --- Microsoft should have contracted that part of it out to a different company.

Though here is the weird part, I swear some of it does look auto-corrected (around Colorado), maybe it is just the Bing imagery looked that good by default, though I've used Bing several times experimenting inside Ortho4XP.

Lockheed Martin is quite a different skillset than that of a gaming company, though of course they do have their programmers, but Asobo's skills are more Rockstarish like and LM's are more engineering based.

 

 

49 minutes ago, w6kd said:

  I'm seeing a *lot* of aberrant scenery,

 

 

Lionel’s World video, last Fall,  was exciting but the old simmer in me felt that they were rather ambitious for a 2020 release. The update screenshots with obvious flaws and hearing that they had also in mind a non-sensical 30 default aircraft was not to reassure me.

Biting more than one can chew is typical of some large projects. It could be civil works, a weapon system or a game... The issue is not the tech itself but more often how to size up the deliverables vs the time allowed.

So far the only tech issue I see is to have chosen the mediocre Bing portolio instead of constructing their own sat imagery portfolio. The feeling is that there is no genetic flaw just an unfinished work and average imagery.

BTW I wonder how they made Ketchikan two-level airport 😀.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by Dominique_K

2 minutes ago, SeanMo said:

Laminar can only shrink its market share from here on out. They barely have the resources to attempt to fulfill the promises they still haven't kept regard v11 five years ago, let alone develop the massive weather and photomap system MSFS has. People who own it will stay with it until they get new aircraft in MSFS, and yes a few hundred diehards will stubbornly stay with it for years but spend most of their time badmouthing MSFS here and elsewhere, but that cannot sustain Leminar and they'd be foolish to spend the little remaining financial resources they have trying to replicate the next-generation MSFS, which they don't have the engineering staff to do in any case.

It's not over, but as I noted Laminar has made missteps, it's not too late though. I do not think it is a resource issue, they have enough money to handle most of it, because they already have the product built. Of course, if they were starting from scratch building a new simulator like MSFS nearly did (almost from scratch), then I 100% agree with you. 

However, Xplane 11 is already a polished product in many respects, it simply needs a few new graphical and weather engine improvements. It's not that they don't have the resources, it's complacency. I see it all the time with companies, they get comfortable and complacent doing things a certain way because it is what has always worked. As noted, they need to hire some "rockstars" so to speak.

I don't think is going to kill XP 11 though, not at all, maybe eventually (always some chance), but as noted by others XP 11 has plenty of a cult following and it runs on other platforms. It may shrink, but it won't be killed off, not in the near future anyhow.

 

It's over.

The cows have left the barn, the horses have bolted and the fat lady has sung her last song. In the same way it took some time for the Titanic to flood and nose dive, the damage is done.

Anyone that has flown from KSEA to CYVR in Flight Simulator 2020 knows there is no going back to what once was, but will soon be no more. P3D with all the pay-ware addons possible looks generations old. X-Plane never had a chance.

It's over. Let's move on or risk throwing good money after bad, and thereby being buried with them.

The Sky is Calling! Full throttles. Let's go!

Kindest regards,

Spirit Flyer 

Stephen

19 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

BTW I wonder how they made Ketchikan two-level airport 😀.

They didn't.

2 minutes ago, w6kd said:

They didn't.

Uh oh

Another doom and gloom thread.

Market forces will determine the fate of P3D and X-Plane. At the moment and near term they aren't going anywhere.

Right now MSFS2020 is basically an arcade game. The others are much closer to real simulation.

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Austin's got fingers in load of pies, so like LM, his sim work is not merely catering for Joe Blow. But even then, his more accessible stuff is a moneyspinner; his mobile phone version of Xplane alone, makes over 100,000 Dollars a month, so he's hardly on the breadline. Besides which, Austin's basically a bit crackers (but still a very nice bloke, a bit like your mad genius uncle or some such). His number one concern is Austin, but not because of ego, just because that's the way he is. Additionally, he's produced films and he's clearly got some political ambitions too. Which means one day he'll probably make his own crazy billionaire version of The Triumph of the Will or something. 🤣

That's hilarious and also true, had to repeat it! Austin and X-Plane aren't going anywhere as long as Austin is is breathing. He'd keep working on the multi-platform desktop version if there were only a dozen users. In addition to the mobile version of XP, his "fingers in other pies" include the FAA-certified Pro version for training, and side contracts with aerospace firms for custom flight model programming. He won't starve any time soon, or quit developing.

In terms of scenery... Austin has deprecated the ortho-based scenery approach in the past. It's not his thing, and Laminar doesn't have the resources for streaming to match MS. So I doubt he'd ever try to emulate what MSFS is doing with scenery. I think there is room for XP to move into a different scenery niche by expanding the current procedural approach into seasonal terrain changes, which Austin has mentioned before. Ortho-based terrain has problems representing the full range of seasonal changes in many areas, like ground cover change from green to brown in dry seasons. That's one of my gripes about Orbx TE Washington. 

It also wouldn't be impossible for Laminar to massively improve the weather representation and accuracy in XP either. It's been something of a blind spot for Austin, and maybe MSFS will be a kick in the butt to get that project moving for XP12.

Finally, it remains to be seen whether Asobo and 3rd party devs can step up and match or exceed what Laminar and DCS have done with helicopter modeling, as well as other unusual aircraft including canard designs, accurate drone modeling including new passenger-capable quadcopters and so on. I assume this will arrive in MSFS at some point but it will take a while, and it will inevitably be compared to DCS and XP for accuracy of the modeling.

It's interesting times for sure, and I'm glad MSFS is on the scene now to shake things up.

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by Paraffin

For anybody that thinks P3D and X-Plane are done and should close up shop, try flying from EDDS, Stuttgart, Germany to LEZG, Zaragoza, Spain in MSFS.

23 minutes ago, SpiritFlyer said:

It's over.

The cows have left the barn, the horses have bolted and the fat lady has sung her last song. In the same way it took some time for the Titanic to flood and nose dive, the damage is done.

Anyone that has flown from KSEA to CYVR in Flight Simulator 2020 knows there is no going back to what once was, but will soon be no more. P3D with all the pay-ware addons possible looks generations old. X-Plane never had a chance.

It's because Asobo has more advanced rendering skills than Orbx, but IMO Orbx was behind even some third-party developers when it comes to rendering anyhow (FS Dream Team, Flight Beam). 

Those areas where MSFS has greatly beaten all others though, you have to see that it's simply mostly in the rendering of a few things, like detail texture overlay and trees. It's certainly not inherent deep into the graphics engine, so the difference may seem monumental but it's really just a few minor graphical changes XP 11 needs to make. Xplane needs to change some things, but it's certainly not over, this is the beginning of a war, the question is will Xplane fire back or not, we'll see...

2 minutes ago, johncott said:

For anybody that thinks P3D and X-Plane are done and should close up shop, try flying from EDDS, Stuttgart, Germany to LEZG, Zaragoza, Spain in MSFS.

Or St George Utah to Cedar City (yuck), and there are plenty others. The entire state of Utah is pretty poor looking to be honest, and much of Arizona isn't much better.

Of course MSFS looks far superior where there is a heavy tree coverage, that is why I have been working on my own XP 11 trees, but the problem is XP 11 uses the old-school flat -|- tree system instead of true 3D trees, that's the fist thing I'd change.

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

1 hour ago, ShawnG said:

None of this is about flight simulators...  and I agree that Austin probably wouldn’t go for it, unless it was Apple doing the bidding, which would be bad news for us. (Say hello to your new Mac-only X-plane!). 

That costs $900, oh don't forget to throw out that honeycomb yoke and those goofy pedals under your desk, they wont work anymore... Here is a shiny white, exclusive, iYoke for $1,699. 

39 minutes ago, SpiritFlyer said:

It's over.

The cows have left the barn, the horses have bolted and the fat lady has sung her last song. In the same way it took some time for the Titanic to flood and nose dive, the damage is done.

Anyone that has flown from KSEA to CYVR in Flight Simulator 2020 knows there is no going back to what once was, but will soon be no more. P3D with all the pay-ware addons possible looks generations old. X-Plane never had a chance.

It's over. Let's move on or risk throwing good money after bad, and thereby being buried with them.

The Sky is Calling! Full throttles. Let's go!

I keep hearing that..."ït's over."   No, not just yet. 

So far the flight model has really not proven itself to be anything special, they have not opened up an interface into the weather system, precluding any 3rd party weather enhancements to their very limited weather capabilities (no historic wx, no enroute wx data, no forecasting capability etc), and just like other photoscenery solutions before it, it shines when viewed at the right places, from the right altitude and in the right conditions, but not so much in others.  Puffy cumulus clouds in the stratosphere and Gumbi houses all stretched out and distorted at low altitude aren't giving me warm fuzzies thus far.  Simconnect was hard-broke at release, so every external 3PD program is dead in the water right out of the chocks.  I'm waiting to see how this is handled in the weeks to come.

IMHO it's way too early to declare victory here.  People keep insisting that MSFS will get past all these problems, and I don't count that out, but after the Microsoft Flight debacle I can't just assume that it will.  Microsoft could just as easily cut and run before this matures, just as they have before. Flight was a different developer, sure, but the same corporate masters were/are pulling on the strings.  In any case, after the way ACES was summarily axed and the sad MS Flight saga, if nothing else I still don't feel comfortable putting all of our eggs into the Microsoft basket.

 

7 minutes ago, SceneryFX said:

Or St George Utah to Cedar City (yuck), and there are plenty others. The entire state of Utah is pretty poor looking to be honest, and much of Arizona isn't much better.

Of course MSFS looks far superior where there is a heavy tree coverage, that is why I have been working on my own XP 11 trees, but the problem is XP 11 uses the old-school flat -|- tree system instead of true 3D trees, that's the fist thing I'd change.

Are you from southwest Utah?? I grew up in St George and now live in Hurricane.