The Tide of Progress is Unstoppable

[Slides 1,552]

4 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

That is your thoughts, understandably.

It's not just me. It's everyone excited about MSFS that XP or P3D simply failed at capturing people's imaginations.

[Adrian123 1,015]

7 minutes ago, Slides said:

It's not just me. It's everyone excited about MSFS that XP or P3D simply failed at capturing people's imaginations.

Is there a report or some proof of this or alternative reality?

[Slides 1,552]

1 minute ago, Adrian123 said:

Is there a report or some proof of this or alternative reality?

Number of active users on Steam. Number of users as released by Microsoft. Just two to start with.

[tpete61 228]

1 hour ago, VFXSimmer said:

Saying this is sort of like saying that X-Plane and P3D are more like spreadsheets than something that imitates the sensation of flying.

Both statements are wrong and both are infused with unmerrited hyperbole.

MSFS has bugs in some of the systems but to claim its not a flight simulator is a little silly.

 

This overblown praise for the game is incredible.

I own, use it and like it. It's still a game. No I'm not a troll as someone else has tried to imply.

The G1000 is laughable! Weather is far from accurate. Flight planning is laughable. Select a couple of points on a map and let it make your plan. ATC hmm I would get lost trying to follow it. I could continue and list many other areas that this game is lacking in.

For GA/VFR it works for sightseeing that's about it.

 

[Adrian123 1,015]

But, it shoo is perty. 😉

[Novation 534]

This forum is getting (even more) pathetic. The loonies really are taking over the asylum 🥴

 

[Dillon 2,197]

1 hour ago, Bert Pieke said:

Why are you including P3D in this?

Launching P3D is like launching FSX...

🙂

P3D is like FSX before it where you have to authenticate with Lockheed to use it.  If they abandon it and you need to reinstall on a new computer your dead in the water validating your license.  I’ve lost many add-ons like that to companies that went under.  FS2020 is worse as you’re actively using Microsoft resources in order to fly.  FS9 and before you only needed a CD key, nothing being sent back to a Microsoft server.

[VFXSimmer 1,310]

28 minutes ago, tpete61 said:

 

This overblown praise for the game is incredible.

I own, use it and like it. It's still a game. No I'm not a troll as someone else has tried to imply.

The G1000 is laughable! Weather is far from accurate. Flight planning is laughable. Select a couple of points on a map and let it make your plan. ATC hmm I would get lost trying to follow it. I could continue and list many other areas that this game is lacking in.

For GA/VFR it works for sightseeing that's about it.

 

Well, no more so than the overblown negativity.

The other sims are also games - just a little less immersive.  Neither the user level X-Plane nor P3D are approved for FAA training without specifically approved hardware, so they are still games.  In real flight VFR is as much a factor as instrument procedures.  X-Plane & P3D are better at the later and MSFS is better at the former, but none have that complete package nailed yet.  I also think MSFS has an easier road to make up ground on the other two than vice versa. That's my opinion, obviously yours is different.

I have no problems setting up a flight plan and executing it with the current G1000.  There are some differences from reality at the moment (as many have said this is not study level), but it is FAR from non-functional.  If you have no patience to adjust to the current minor compromises, thats fine, the other sims are still available to you.  For me, flying a virtual plane around the world and having nothing but correctly functioning instruments to look at is .. well I did allude to spreadsheets...

All good that that works for some, the world does need accountants afterall.

[wthomas33065 994]

1 hour ago, Slides said:

t's not just me. It's everyone excited about MSFS that XP or P3D simply failed at capturing people's imaginations.

1 hour ago, Adrian123 said:

Is there a report or some proof of this or alternative reality?

 

Let's see. I would say AVSIM is a good cross reference of the flight sim community.

Xplane forum has 103,911 posts dating back to 12/2007.  Almost 13 years ago.

MSFS2020 has 115,000 posts dating back June 2019  Almost 15 MONTHS ago.  

P3d has 333,201 posts dating back to Sept  2011,  9 years ago.

So in 15 months MSFS has generated more interest and activity here than XPlane has generated in 13 years. 

It also has already gotten 1/3 of the traffic that it took P3D 9 years to generate.  

I'd say that's pretty powerful proof.  Even if a lot of the MSFS 2020 posts are from XP and P3D people coming on here stating how MSFS is all looks and no brains and they're all going back to their uglier but smarter girlfriends.

[Bob Scott 7,721]

3 hours ago, Dillon said:

The flight dynamics is the sim is the best yet seen in a desktop simulator.

Oh no, I can't let that one go unchallenged--that's absolutely not true.  Objectively (based on flight manual and other tech data) and subjectively (based on r/w flying experience), MSFS has a very long way to go still before it can claim to be at par with the flight dynamics fidelity in either P3D or XPlane, or for that matter FSX.  Just a few simple time-to-climb and fuel burn profiles will amply demonstrate what I mean.  Other metrics, like roll/pitch rate as a function of control surface deflection, are way off.  The default acft provided with the sim simply aren't even close.  Until someone produces an acft model for MSFS that *is* close, I'm not willing to cede acceptance of the flight dynamics advertising as anything but advertising puffery.

Right now, right where the rubber meets the road, MSFS falls far short in this important facet of flight simulation.  It's easily demonstrated if you care to look.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

1 hour ago, Slides said:

Number of active users on Steam. Number of users as released by Microsoft. Just two to start with.

Also, Twitch also gives an indication of the popularity of the various simulators.

Here is the Twitch channel for MSFS: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Microsoft Flight Simulator

Here is the Twitch channel for X-Plane: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/X-Plane 11

Here is the Twitch channel for P3D: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Lockheed Martin%3A Prepar3D

There are a few streamers that stream X-Plane but they have hijacked the MSFS Twitch channel because the X-Plane Twitch channel is somewhat dead.  Anyways, the TLDR version of this is that MSFS usually has between 2K to 4K viewers during peak times, but X-Plane has maybe 300 viewers at peak times on Twitch (the P3D Twitch channel is very dead on Twitch).

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by abrams_tank

[eslader 1,787]

2 hours ago, tpete61 said:

The G1000 is laughable! Weather is far from accurate. Flight planning is laughable. Select a couple of points on a map and let it make your plan. ATC hmm I would get lost trying to follow it. I could continue and list many other areas that this game is lacking in.

Literally everything you listed is true of FSX/P3d. The only reason you might like p3d/FSX better is that they've been out for years and have aftermarket modifications that can make those things better. In my p3d install, the G1000 is good in the VertX DA-62. The weather is good with ActiveSky. Flight planning is good with Sim Brief. ATC only rises to the level of "fairly OK" with P2ATC. All of those things are abysmal in the stock sims. 

You're kinda pitching a fit because a game released just over a month ago isn't as fleshed out as a game released 14 years ago with hundreds of dollars worth of addons installed. That's just absurd.

 

[snglecoil 1,828]

3 hours ago, w6kd said:

MSFS falls far short in this important facet of flight simulation.  It's easily demonstrated if you care to look.

It does indeed. I do think the new modeling has promise, though.

Prepping for my upcoming CFI checkride, I was "practice teaching" stalls in in the sim with the C172 last night. I learned 2 things:

1. My wife and kids think I'm crazy talking to myself while I play my little flying game.
2. The C172 in sim seems to spin much more easily than real life.

#2 certainly doesn't seem to build a case for supporting this new flight model, but what I noticed is that the entry into the incipient spin was very predictable based on the pro-spin inputs held.  A departure stall with no right rudder dropped the left wing. The same stall with a just a touch too much right rudder dropped the right wing. Even better, correction with only opposite aileron deeped the stall/spin. It really did respond to the correct spin recovery inputs. I tried in the Carbon Cub and Bonanza and they reacted similarly. I really don't think this is a baked in effect. It really seems to me that it is part of this airflow modeling they have talked about in several interviews. I hope as people start to unlock the secrets of the model, we will see planes that excel in this new method.

I went back to both XP and P3D to try the same. Neither handled spins very well (be we knew that already) What was shocking to me is that my beloved A2A 172, as great as it is from a pure "flies by the numbers" perspective, felt absolutely lifeless. Now I get the grumbling about "flying on rails." XP's 172 wasn't any better. I had almost forgotten about that atrocious pitch up moment and excessive drag when you drop in any flaps.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by snglecoil

[HiFlyer 9,363]

7 hours ago, Huascar said:

Yes, the tide of progress is unstoppable, whether it is software (MSFS) or hardware (GPUs and CPUs). I am confident the while imperfect, MSFS is the start of a first class flight simulation. Hardware will make the experience all the better and the improvement are inevitable in terms of patching the imperfections of the game. All we need to do is be more patient, things will improve. 

I give you a thumbs-up just for having the courage to put up a post with such a huge target on its back!

Edited September 23, 2020 by HiFlyer

[Noel 4,507]

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

Oh no, I can't let that one go unchallenged--that's absolutely not true.  Objectively (based on flight manual and other tech data) and subjectively (based on r/w flying experience), MSFS has a very long way to go still before it can claim to be at par with the flight dynamics fidelity in either P3D or XPlane, or for that matter FSX.  Just a few simple time-to-climb and fuel burn profiles will amply demonstrate what I mean.  Other metrics, like roll/pitch rate as a function of control surface deflection, are way off.  The default acft provided with the sim simply aren't even close.  Until someone produces an acft model for MSFS that *is* close, I'm not willing to cede acceptance of the flight dynamics advertising as anything but advertising puffery.

Right now, right where the rubber meets the road, MSFS falls far short in this important facet of flight simulation.  It's easily demonstrated if you care to look.

Hey Bob, I may be very wrong in this assumption, but it would seem 'flight dynamics' to me would be largely controlled in a data table that mainly needs tweaked.  It's not like this is uncharted territory, creating a more plausible flight model.  My sense from day one is all of these inadequacies from flight modeling, to flight planning, etc are really the very easy part to get right especially because of our very long history w/ desktop simulation--the knowledge can't be all that hidden.  Adding the freedom in the initial simple flight planner to select various routes manually etc is just another relatively simple challenge to meet it would seem to me.  I've seen a few comments about turbulence effects on aircraft and I can't speak to it as a RW pilot because I'm not one, but I can say on no uncertain terms the TBM930 behaves in a very believable way as far as turbulence effects go.  I don't know why, but never in P3D have I experience any turbulence that felt/acted more plausible than what I'm seeing in the T930.  Maybe the direction of disturbance is way off, but truly it acts about like I would expect the real plane to act!  I guess we chalk that one up to La Belle Indifference!

Again, I think they wanted to get the show on the road in time for Xbox X and the holidays, and their release to Windows takes a slight second seat to that.