OCTOBER 15TH, 2020 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM

Screenshot by simtom2

 

Earlier this week we released our 4th Update to the sim which contained a variety of bug fixes and quality of life improvements (See link below for full patch notes). Unfortunately due to an oversight on our end (yes we are human) we inadvertently posted the wrong date for the “Press Any Key To Continue” change on the previous weeks Feedback Snapshot. As such this change did not go live in this update but instead will go out with Update 5 as we had originally intended.

As always our goal is to maintain transparency and collaboration with our community as we continue to evolve the sim. With that said, the team would once again like to express their gratitude for the feedback and patience from those of you who encountered some turbulence with the previous patch. The team will continue to actively work through the Feedback snapshot and keep the community informed along the way.

– MSFS TEAM

 

RELEASE NOTES 

Check out the release notes from Tuesday’s release here.

 

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

 

SDK UPDATE

 The SDK team continues to improve many areas of the SDK based on input from the developer community. Recent work focused on:

• DevMode:
  • The DevMode team is working on improving the overall stability, giving a special focus to the Project Editor, the Scenery Editor, and the AircraftEditor.
  • We’re finishing the implementation of the new “Export Window” of the Project Editor. The underlying process will, among others, feature a validation step. This will ensure that packages built are valid and ready for later publication.
  • We’re also working on a Global rework of the Console and logging system, its ergonomics and features, especially to help the community find out faster what could be wrong during the package build process.
  • In the long-run, a dedicated team is still working hard on the forthcoming brand new Node-based Visual Effects System.
  • The community’s feedback continues to be very helpful in identifying & fixing bugs and thus making the tools better.
• WebAssembly:
  • The MSFS Platform Toolset linker now properly reports errors in the Visual Studio Output tab.
  • We added the “Generate Debug Info” linker option to the MSFS Platform Toolset. It allows users to strip all symbols from the Release version (which makes them much smaller in size).
  • We changed the way symbols are exported from WASM modules: only explicitly exported ones are now really exported (which reduces module size even further). No code change is required.
  • Continuous efforts to improve debugging and reduce iteration times.
  • The WASI layer has been fixed to enable the usage of opendir/readdir from within WASM modules.

 

3RD PARTY UPDATE

Nearly 60 partners have been approved to our Marketplace Partnership Program already and the amount of available content is accelerating! Last week we added another 5 airports to the marketplace and we are excited to see the progress aircraft developers are making. Some big launches ahead! Can’t wait to try the Long EZ!

 

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

Five new products have been added to the Marketplace today:

5 NEW PRODUCTS

 

TWITCH UPDATE

This Friday, we will be hosting a community fly-in guided tour over Moscow, Russia using one of the new 3rd party Marketplace Items, Moscow’s Landmarks from Drzewiecki Design. Our newest Community Manager, Alex, and his father Andrew, will be giving the tour. They are both originally from Moscow, Russia. Andrew was also one of the developers for Microsoft Flight Simulator decades ago. Come with questions, and all are welcome to fly along! More details can be found here.

 

MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM THE COMMUNITY

Screenshot by KerionZoldik

 

Screenshot by AviatorBenNZ

 

Screenshot by simtom2

 

Screenshot by KerionZoldik

 

Screenshot by simtom2

 

Screenshot by c0mmanderkiller

 

Screenshot by Torakmoonguy

 

Screenshot by Theduck38

 

Screenshot by Theduck38

 

Screenshot by gordongreig

 

NEXT UPDATE – 10.22

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by ChaoticBeauty

🌲🌲 on time.

Haha

Asobo is communicating, and being forthright... can’t complain. Individual item fixes will always be important to each pilot differently. What matters is that eventually they are comprehensive.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it will be 18 months until I can fly MSFS the way I’m used to- so in the meanwhile I’m going to fly it in new and different ways... and enjoy it.

Why on earth, not?

Ta Asobo- C

 

PS- love them puns 🙂

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by cavaricooper

Reduced surface wind no long bother anyone. Aosbo will fix it gradually, without mentioning it LOL

16 minutes ago, ryanbatcund said:

Haha

What’s so funny?

5 new airports, but one listed twice in the original post. Missing one is Mayor Buenaventura, Venezuela.

I noticed they already began work on implementing DX12, and it says TBA during Xbox Launch. When is that? Thanks Asobo for being transparent with the community and keeping us in the loop and thanks ChaoticBeauty for being consistent on sharing this info with the community here! MSFS is shaping up slowly, but nicely to be the sim I've always dreamt of!

I am glad, they added "Add beta version before releasing a patch" for Update 9, whenever this will be.

But obviously nothing on the VR alpha front. Just noted, but if they postponed this for bugfixing first, that would be ok with me.

Kind regards, Michael

12 minutes ago, captain420 said:

I noticed they already began work on implementing DX12, and it says TBA during Xbox Launch. When is that?

That caught my eye too. "TBA" is vague and I can't imagine it would be ready for the Xbox launch which is just around the corner. Exciting to see it's at least tied to Xbox in some way so gives them extra impetus to roll it out.

I'm most certainly sure that it's not going to be ready by the time Xbox launches but I am pretty sure that they will give us some insight as to when we can expect DX12 during it.

1 hour ago, 109Sqn said:

5 new airports, but one listed twice in the original post. Missing one is Mayor Buenaventura, Venezuela.

To me, looks like TDM is making a marketing mistake to sell their airports exclusively through the MSFS marketplace. They're wasting a considerable time (and money). If you look at the 5 airports (in fact, 4) all of them can be purchased in other platforms right now.

Cheers, Ed

Edited October 16, 20205 yr by edpatino

50 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

That caught my eye too. "TBA" is vague and I can't imagine it would be ready for the Xbox launch which is just around the corner. Exciting to see it's at least tied to Xbox in some way so gives them extra impetus to roll it out.

 

46 minutes ago, captain420 said:

I'm most certainly sure that it's not going to be ready by the time Xbox launches but I am pretty sure that they will give us some insight as to when we can expect DX12 during it.

Yes, I think the wording is very deliberate "To Be Announced with XBox launch", no mention of it being anywhere near ready for then. Leaves it very open for adjusting what they actually announce when the console launches. Could be "right around the corner" or "within a year from now".

Well, I am just gonna pause it now, and wait until update 6, 7 or 8

44 minutes ago, 109Sqn said:

 

Yes, I think the wording is very deliberate "To Be Announced with XBox launch", no mention of it being anywhere near ready for then. Leaves it very open for adjusting what they actually announce when the console launches. Could be "right around the corner" or "within a year from now".

The new Xbox uses DX12U, so my read on that is that the DX12 update is "TBA" because it's coming alongside the console port, and there's probably a ton of overlap in the work those two teams are doing right now.  Because there's no announced release date for the console port, there's no announced date for the DX12 update.

And there's a 0% chance of this being done for the XSX launch in like 4 weeks.  GIven the kinda thin state of the XSX launch lineup, if they thought MSFS was gonna hit that window, they'd be yelling it from the rooftops.

I expect the update in the first quarter of 2021.