Member of the Happy Few Group

[RichUK 474]

11 hours ago, Noel said:

They're human.  

I think everyone knows this is an alpha build. We come to accept that because they did produce an outstanding product and that takes the edge off that fact a little. Flight simmers have forever been the subject of alpha/beta builds. I don't think that is right, but that is the way it has always been.

However, to say they are human as an excuse - that is an excuse for negligence I can't agree with. We are talking about MS/Asobo here, not a one man developer. They broke their software by introducing untested code. They do not beta test updates. That is why folk are mad - and rightly so. What kind of stupidity is that? You have something that works (almost) perfectly, and now (in some cases) pretty much doesn't work at all. 

I know they will fix it, but we shouldn't just be OK with it either. This degradation of the core sim over time is getting a little wearing. As is folk here calling people 'whiny' because they can't use their favorite sim right now. Folk have spent a lot of time, money and effort to get their FS fix. These days, for some, that is more important now than ever.

[crimplene 634]

12 minutes ago, RICHUK said:

This degradation of the core sim over time...

Strange perception, in my opinion. Yes, there is a fps drop bug right now but they acknowledged it and are going to fix it. But else? Performance is much, much better than in August. You remember the annoying freeze after changing time of day during flight? Doesn't happen anymore. And so on. This simulator is evolving at a fast pace. There is no "degradation".

[RaptyrOne 1,447]

14 minutes ago, crimplene said:

There is no "degradation".

But there is! On launch day we had decent Level of Detail (LOD) with trees rendered out to somewhere near the horizon. Then they cut it right back in the next update. Modders got in and tried somewhat successfully to fix it. Now again in Update 3 they cut it back even further and even the modders are unable to fix it this time. That is one definitive example of degradation. Ongoing degradation I might add.

If they continue along this route, the ongoing degradation will mean that there are no trees at all in Sim Update 4!

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by RaptyrOne

[crimplene 634]

3 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

But there is! On launch day we had decent Level of Detail (LOD) with trees rendered out to somewhere near the horizon. Then they cut it right back in the next update. Modders got in and tried somewhat successfully to fix it. Now again in Update 3 they cut it back even further and even the modders are unable to fix it this time. That is one definitive example of degradation. Ongoing degradation I might add.

 

 

I don't think you remember that correctly. In the Alpha, tree distance was higher, at launch it was clearly reduced. Since then they might have reduced it a little, but the people complaining are those who can't use the mod anymore - which is sad, I admit. But this is not "degradation" or maybe only on a very low scale. Try to name other areas of degradation, please! We could count dozens of areas where the sim clearly got much better since launch.

I never could fly with 60fps at high settings before december or january. The updates clearly boosted performance. Just for the sake of it I recorded a little video, showing fps, settings and a flight over Pembrokeshire in Wales. Resolution is 1440p (Youtube is still processing).
 

 

[RaptyrOne 1,447]

4 minutes ago, crimplene said:

I don't think you remember that correctly. In the Alpha, tree distance was higher, at launch it was clearly reduced.

I was not in the Alpha team but I do recall that LOD on launch day was significantly better than in subsequent updates. Call a spade a shovel but LOD had degraded over successive sim updates.

6 minutes ago, crimplene said:

Try to name other areas of degradation, please!

Well for starters, FPS was pretty good out the box and now we have a slideshow of stutters after Update 3. Then I think of all the mesh issues. Out the box we did not have water climbing shorelines. Sure they tried to fix it but brought on some other issues on shorelines in some places. Oh and don't get me started on aircraft flight models and and flaps in particular - that was so degraded that they actually brought out a hotfix. And silly stuff like the issue of controller sensitivities been left out of the setting menu. Or Fauna being forgotten in the menu. These are things that were working and then they were not working. Now Asobo has to fix stuff they broke, rather than focus on new developments. That is certainly not a definition for progression (opposite of regression).

15 minutes ago, crimplene said:

We could count dozens of areas where the sim clearly got much better since launch.

Not disputing that although the tangible improvements are sometimes rather subtle, possibly even placebo or hard to see. I have yet to quantify a single progressive step in Sim Update 3. It was a terrible thing. Contrails are fugly and don't work properly, Garmin's still don't work as well as the Working Title teams mods. There was nothing good about it at all.

But I know it will get better, eventually.

[RichUK 474]

51 minutes ago, crimplene said:

Strange perception, in my opinion. Yes, there is a fps drop bug right now but they acknowledged it and are going to fix it. But else? Performance is much, much better than in August. You remember the annoying freeze after changing time of day during flight? Doesn't happen anymore. And so on. This simulator is evolving at a fast pace. There is no "degradation".

LOD for one. That is a big issue for sure, Pretty sure there has been other issues if I think hard about it.

I do understand they are fixing the FPS issue. I do appreciate that they produced an outstanding sim and I do appreciate they are making it better. That is why I (and many others) are a little upset right now. We love what we had and now we don't quite have that anymore - degradation over time it is. Just the time period is very short.

[Ricardo41 5,958]

To be honest, I'm just not willing to invest all that emotional energy into what is essentially a game, stuff to entertain you and kill a few hours of your time. Yeah, a lot of things don't work, but, so what? It'll be fixed in due time, or it won't. Is the world going to end?

It must be terribly exhausting to be constantly triggered by this sim. 

As Marie Kondo says, if something doesn't spark joy, just walk away from it. 

 

[crimplene 634]

54 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

Well for starters, FPS was pretty good out the box and now we have a slideshow of stutters after Update 3. Then I think of all the mesh issues. Out the box we did not have water climbing shorelines. Sure they tried to fix it but brought on some other issues on shorelines in some places. Oh and don't get me started on aircraft flight models and and flaps in particular - that was so degraded that they actually brought out a hotfix. And silly stuff like the issue of controller sensitivities been left out of the setting menu. Or Fauna being forgotten in the menu. These are things that were working and then they were not working. Now Asobo has to fix stuff they broke, rather than focus on new developments. That is certainly not a definition for progression (opposite of regression).

 

I don't deny that they brake stuff and have to repair it afterwards. That actually doesn't bother me much.

Your claim that "FPS was pretty good out the box and now we have a slideshow of stutters after Update 3" is simply rubbish. Look at the 60fps "slideshow" at 1440p above, please.

There are areas with fps drops and stutter, but that is to be repaired in the near future. Overall performance is much, much better than at launch. Those fps drops are a bug in specific scenery areas. 99.9% of the globe has a much more consistent performance than at launch.

Edited March 17, 2021 by crimplene

[Bosco19 198]

On 3/15/2021 at 8:38 AM, Will Fly For Cheese said:

A rare shot of the back of Will-Fly-For-Cheese's head. I'm over the Solent in this pic at 1100' or so and those gentle hills in the distance are well over 10 miles away.

My mate in the back seat is not showing off his camera skills very well but at that height things are remarkably clear on the horizon. All depends on weather, time of year, etc. This was one of those relatively lovely clear days in late August I think.

Aircraft is a PA-28 Warrior II

 

If there was a rooftop on the side of that mountain - unless the sunlight bounced off of it - you wouldn’t know it was there. Yes you can see the mountain but not any meaningful detail. IMO, as long as I can see that mountain or that lake or that small cluster of structures 5 miles out, that identifies a known road intersection, I’m good. My point is that meaningful detail becomes indistinguishable from a surprisingly short distance (UNLESS you’re Chuck Yeager)

[crimplene 634]

This foto remembers me of a flight from Milano Malpensa I made on Monday in MSFS. Looking west to the alps (about 100 kilometers in the distance) was a huge, scary weather front. Above me the sky was blue. Flying towards the alps wind got stronger and near the Monte Rosa it got dangerous with snow and low visibility so I turned around back to Milan. This kind of thing, showing weather changes, storm fronts etc. from the distance is one of the most stunning parts of MSFS.

This flight really made me feel like a "Member of the Happy Few Group". 🙂

[RaptyrOne 1,447]

17 minutes ago, crimplene said:

Your claim that "FPS was pretty good out the box and now we have a slideshow of stutters after Update 3" is simply rubbish. Look at the 60fps "slideshow" at 1440p above, please.

LOL. Seriously? Asobo have openly admitted that this is so and are looking into the problem. I can get 60FPS too. Does not mean it ain’t broke. But I’m too tired to debate... you have yourself a wonderful evening. 

[crimplene 634]

 

2 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

LOL. Seriously? Asobo have openly admitted that this is so and are looking into the problem. I can get 60FPS too. Does not mean it ain’t broke. But I’m too tired to debate... you have yourself a wonderful evening. 

Did you even read my answer? I'll quote it for you: "There are areas with fps drops and stutter, but that is to be repaired in the near future. Overall performance is much, much better than at launch. Those fps drops are a bug in specific scenery areas. 99.9% of the globe has a much more consistent performance than at launch."

You just can't claim that "the game is a slideshow" when it clearly isn't. This kind of generalization is so wrong, that's it actually a falsehood - or at least a super-inflated hyperbole.

Edited March 17, 2021 by crimplene

[Noel 4,518]

One thing we can all agree on:  flight simmers apparently really enjoy expressing their opinions digitally.   It's a good thing politics and religion are off limits here as threads would hardly make it past 10 comments before they are summarily closed to further comment 🙄

[Bobsk8 12,777]

40 minutes ago, crimplene said:

 

Did you even read my answer? I'll quote it for you: "There are areas with fps drops and stutter, but that is to be repaired in the near future. Overall performance is much, much better than at launch. Those fps drops are a bug in specific scenery areas. 99.9% of the globe has a much more consistent performance than at launch."

You just can't claim that "the game is a slideshow" when it clearly isn't. This kind of generalization is so wrong, that's it actually a falsehood - or at least a super-inflated hyperbole.

First of all,, give us your definition of "Near Future" so we can all write it down on our calendars..

If you don't call 4-5 FPS a slide show, what do you call it? 

Would like an answer to both my questions...

[kerosene31 349]

One thing I notice with this sim, is that things are not consistent from person to person.  I've seen many people having issues that I've yet to experience, but this one has finally hit me.  However I don't seem to be getting it as badly as others.  I've barely noticed performance from past patches (I fly with the FPS counter off for this reason), but this latest one is very noticeable.  There's no denying something is very different now since last patch on my system. 

I think it is important to realize that we're not all even seeing the same things, so there's obviously not going to be agreement on "how bad something is".  So, just because you aren't experiencing something, doesn't mean it isn't hitting someone else very hard. 

I've been quite positive on this sim overall, but yet I would never, ever tell someone that the issue they are seeing isn't valid.  We've already seen issues that happen in certain circumstances, like the AI traffic shutting down avionics.  I never fly with AI on, therefore I never saw the issue. Doesn't mean that it isn't a serious issue that needed to be addressed. 

Maybe something to think about before you post something in a bug thread that you aren't having.  This sim got me sort of out of flight sim retirement.  I had given up on FSX ever being smooth.  I dabbled in X-Plane for fun (enjoyed that quite a bit), but this sim is just on another level, especially for general aviation flyers like myself.  That doesn't mean there aren't serious issues that need to be addressed, and patches that go backwards are frustrating. 

As a long time member from way back who sort of returned recently, I'm a little shocked at some of the attitudes here now.  I've made several comments to moderators but it seems to be the new "normal" here. 

Edited March 17, 2021 by kerosene31