Speculative: PMDG Update

[B777ER 2,486]

On 2/2/2021 at 8:24 AM, ErichB said:

Could it be that the MSFS 737 timeline has been moved forward significantly?

No amount of wishing will bring it any sooner than 2022.

[B777ER 2,486]

23 hours ago, omarsmak30 said:

Well I think PMDG is still has its own fan base so yeah maybe those are willing to invest. But I doubt for some or many even those who like PMDG would invest in an expensive add-one for P3D and MSFS is being around.

I would, not all of us are MSFS believers.

Edited February 3, 2021 by B777ER

[Ray Proudfoot 8,955]

12 minutes ago, amahran said:

Does it not bother you that you have to have gigabytes or terabytes of worldwide mesh data installed on your computer on older gen sims?

Considering, with MSFS, the mesh data is streamed. And the onus is on the data provider to improve mesh data locally, rather than us to store tons of redundant data locally on our machines. If the mesh sucks, I can raise a stink until it improves. (And that’s exactly what’s happening on public forums).

I just checked the requirements for FS Global and it’s 72Gb for the entire world. I can use that in both P3D v3 and v4 and even v5 if I had that sim.

Resolution is around 1 metre. What is it in MSFS? Do the data providers respond to requests for improved terrain resolution?

My points raised earlier remain valid reasons why it’s going to be a while before I buy MSFS.

[duckbilled 310]

3 hours ago, regis9 said:

I have spent countless hours cruising the flight levels in P3D with all the top notch terrain, textures etc addons.  In my view it simply doesn’t compare to the view from cruise in MSFS, not even close.  I actually find myself spending more time “in the cockpit” during cruise in MSFS because I actually want to watch the scenery go by.  In addition it can be very immersive watching the weather transition as you fly over cold fronts, to clear skies etc.

The feeling of flying over places in the world that are all unique in their own way is fantastic, as opposed to textures and vector data that while decent, are generic and are a far cry from feeling like you’re looking down at the real thing.

Approach and departure are a similar experience but magnified.  Case in point, I recently flew two flights into YYZ on the approach for 24L, an approach I’ve flown many times as a passenger.  In P3D I let out an involuntary (ugh) on final as I saw the poor autogen buildings and generic textures, vector roads that don’t line up well with ground textures etc.  Did the same flight in MSFS and it really felt like I was flying over the city I know so well, so much more immersive.  And while the P3D flight was in my favourite P3D aircraft, the FSL Airbus, my MSFS flight also featured an excellent aircraft, the FBW A320 mod.

So to each their own, but MSFS has significant benefits for tube liner pilots too. Sure many aircraft are yet to come, but on balance for me MSFS is still the better experience.  I should note I’m one of those “study level sim” pilots that flew all the hardcore aircraft addons in P3D and loved them all.

 

I'm in a similar boat. I've tried to go back, but it just doesn't compare. In a standard flight in MSFS, you will have a lot of wow moments sprinkled with a few puzzling situations. Right now, the thing that keeps getting me is messed up are approaches in the FBWA320 with Navigraph data. After reading through the Navigraph forums, I have come to the conclusion that issue is with MSFS and not Navigraph or NavBlue (same issue with both sets of nav data). With me, user error is always possible, because I almost never flew Airbus products in P3D, and I've always been a bit of a hack. Since everything is a WIP right now, it is tough to determine whether I'm doing something wrong or if the sim is doing something wrong. It is almost like you are better off not installing it if you are not ready to switch. MSFS is kind of the forbidden fruit right now. If you take a bite, there is no going back.

For example, I was flying from ORD to DCA a couple days ago. I imported the flightplan using the process outlined by the FBW team to import the flightplan into the MCDU from Simbiref. I also imported the Simbrief plan into Navigraph charts. This was the flightplan:

DCT MOBLE DCT ADIME DCT OTENS DCT ANEWA DCT JERRI DCT BUCKO FRDMM5

I selected the ILS01 approach. Instead of flying the what I saw in the ND and CDU (RLLL > VCTRY > HEROO > KATRN > BADDN...), the aircraft just flew from RLLL to RWY1 skipping VCTRY, HEROO, KATRN, BADDN. There should have been a 180 degree turn from HEROO to KATRN. It was displayed in the ND, but it was skipped altogether. The waypoints were also properly sequenced in the CDU.

An attempt to modify things in the CDU doesn't seem to work. It also seems like if I want to delete a waypoint, I need to select the next waypoint from the list rather than the one I want to modify. For example, if I want to delete VCTRY, I need to click the LSK for RLLL, or something like that. Not sure if this is user error and an Airbus thing, or if it is the sim. All I know is if I want to delete a waypoint in the NGX, I click delete and select the waypoint - easy peasy. If I want to overwrite a whole section in the plan, I click the waypoint I want to be next and I insert it in the plan. Everything adjusts as expected.

Another thing with the A320 that drives me bat s*** crazy is trying to switch between selected and managed. Getting the up/down arrow to appear while in motion can be really tricky. I have missed key moments in a flight just trying to get the plane into the right mode. Asobo just ignored the fact that a mouse has a right button. They should have used the right button to select managed mode like Aerosoft did with their bus. Not sure how FSL handles this, but I think the Aerosoft approach is much more user friendly. It is just little things like this that drive me crazy, but then you look out the window. For this flight, I ended up shutting down the sim while I was still in the air. There was no way I was getting to the right altitude for the approach, and since modifying things in the cdu in-flight is such a chore, I just gave up and went to be. 

It really is a love/hate situation for me

I'm also really interested to see how the sim performs with a PMDG products and full offline AI. Right now I'm getting a solid 30 FPS with most settings on Ultra. I found that dropping the volumetric clouds from Ultra to High added 10 FPS in heavy cloud cover without a major impact on visuals. I think the sim can handle more if I get a new video card and I drop a few more settings to high.

 

 

 

[IanHarrison 522]

1 hour ago, amahran said:

Does it not bother you that you have to have gigabytes or terabytes of worldwide mesh data installed on your computer on older gen sims?

 

So how much data do you have to stream. Do you need an unlimited data plan?

[omarsmak30 4,068]

56 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I just checked the requirements for FS Global and it’s 72Gb for the entire world. I can use that in both P3D v3 and v4 and even v5 if I had that sim.

Resolution is around 1 metre. What is it in MSFS? Do the data providers respond to requests for improved terrain resolution?

My points raised earlier remain valid reasons why it’s going to be a while before I buy MSFS.

No way, my Ortho4xp for Europe (not even fully Europe) without UK is like 600gb with ZL16 (medium resolution)

[Ray Proudfoot 8,955]

3 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

No way, my Ortho4xp for Europe (not even fully Europe) without UK is like 600gb with ZL16 (medium resolution)

What platform? How does it compare to MSFS?

[omarsmak30 4,068]

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

What platform? How does it compare to MSFS?

X-Plane. Orthos4xp tool on XP allows you to download orthophoto based on Google Maps or Bing. These could be huge on size and you could easily reach terabytes with more zones in earth to download. MSFS does that with streaming which is a huge advantage that you don't need to download all these orthos beforehand.

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,955]

Just now, omarsmak30 said:

MSFS does that with streaming which is a huge advantage that you don't need to download all these orthos beforehand.

Ah yes but you have a decision to make. If you fly in lots of different areas and don’t save what you downloaded previously then you’re downloading the same data time and time again. And I believe if an area gets the photogrammetry treatment you could get CTDs if you use your cached scenery.

So whilst those Orthos area are large it’s probably kinder on the planet as you’re not repeatedly streaming the same data.

Oh, another bug bear. I really don’t like the Airbus instrument panel. Bland doesn’t begin to describe it.

[omarsmak30 4,068]

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

And I believe if an area gets the photogrammetry treatment you could get CTDs if you use your cached scenery.

Nope I don't think CTDs and the rolling cache in MSFS have a strong relation. Since the release I have my rolling cache enabled for about 32gb on NVMe and no problems that I can think of.

[sd_flyer 6,042]

9 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ah yes but you have a decision to make. If you fly in lots of different areas and don’t save what you downloaded previously then you’re downloading the same data time and time again. And I believe if an area gets the photogrammetry treatment you could get CTDs if you use your cached scenery.

 

No I don't get CTD due to cached scenery. Orbx and Ortho for XP11 still don't get close to photogrammetry. 

[F737MAX 5,604]

20 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

No way, my Ortho4xp for Europe (not even fully Europe) without UK is like 600gb with ZL16 (medium resolution)

That's because P3D uses the original .bgl scenery file compression method that is native to all MS flight sims.
X-Plane doesn't have a similar compression method, so ends up taking huge chunks of peoples' disk space.

Using the data heavy Orbx TrueEarth GB as an example:

P3D: 93.9 GB (45.8 + 22.1 + 26 GB for the three constituent products)

XP11: 346.3 GB (127 + 77.3 + 142 GB)

IIRC, the ortho detail level for both sims is ZL16 and yet there's more than 3.5x difference in size.

  

1 hour ago, amahran said:

Does it not bother you that you have to have gigabytes or terabytes of worldwide mesh data installed on your computer on older gen sims?

While the amount of data being streamed is a problem for those on limited internet data plans, the bigger bottleneck for a larger number of people is actually the speed at which MSFS can stream that data.

Personally, despite having fast internet, I would be ok with downloading parts of the World that I fly over frequently and storing them locally.
I've done it for P3D, so I already have the disk space capacity to do so. The problem is that, at the moment, MSFS falls over while using cache. It also doesn't use a UI friendly way to download those areas of interest.

[ca_metal 2,024]

25 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ah yes but you have a decision to make. If you fly in lots of different areas and don’t save what you downloaded previously then you’re downloading the same data time and time again. And I believe if an area gets the photogrammetry treatment you could get CTDs if you use your cached scenery.

So whilst those Orthos area are large it’s probably kinder on the planet as you’re not repeatedly streaming the same data.

Oh, another bug bear. I really don’t like the Airbus instrument panel. Bland doesn’t begin to describe it.

No ctds here. Cached scenery works well.

Also, having to store the files locally isn’t in any way kinder on the planet. I know people that have 4Hdds to store their sceneries. How having to buy new hardware is kinder on the planet compared to downloading, when needed, from the cloud? The files are stored once in one place, and people that need will take from, only when/if needed.

p.s.: I don’t get why we are discussing carbon footprint on a FSim forum, but ok.

Edited February 3, 2021 by ca_metal

[mpo910 2,112]

9 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Well, for one thing, you're not going to stay at 35,000 feet forever. 

Take a trip from, say, Paris to Dubai, then select a star that takes you over the city and then back to the airport. Compare and contrast P3D and MSFS. 

At initial climb and final approach You watch almost entirely you instruments and spawn the front. Hardly any sightseeing. 

I noticed this also in P3D where I ha e bought nice scenery at PHNL or NSTU or OMDB......you see hardly anything with big planes.....

And then performance comes........with P3D outstanding at the moment. 

[mpo910 2,112]

57 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

No way, my Ortho4xp for Europe (not even fully Europe) without UK is like 600gb with ZL16 (medium resolution)

Ortho is not equal mesh only. Ortho is photo included. 

Yes.....it's 72GB. 

Marcus