Let me say this as simply as possible. 

If you claim, after familiarizing yourself with the WT CJ4 and the FlyByWire A320Neo, that MSFS is a "game", you're making a factually inaccurate statement

I don't get it, so is this a game or sim now?

 

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

That's a bit harsh, to make it in the corporate world of cancel culture, you kind of have to be that way, cheerlead the product at all costs. It's just the way things are, I don't necessarily think its always the best approach, but it is the defacto standard of how most things work in corporate america. There is also a real fear culture in tech jobs as the turnover rates are often high, though much less so at giant companies like MS than some others. So people have to watch what they say, sometimes to a dizzying fault, and tech companies are particularly bad about PC culture. Perception being more important than reality is unfortunately a common thing in life.

I fully agree with your assessment. Very true. But I do not want to make it in the MS corporate world, and I am too old to don a miniskirt and agitate pompoms anyway 🤣.

And I think this approach is nefarious to the product in the long run. People are afraid that too much critics will kill the sim like Flight. I feel for them but I think they do not understand what really happened to Flight and overestimate the weight of this forum in MS corporate decision process 🤣. In a way Neuman plays his cards the exact opposite way of Joshua Howard then. Maybe there is a middle ground between being an unpleasant twerp and a what our friend Scottoest (not me !) called a BS artist. 

On another note, this forum would be anyway certainly more pleasant if people would stop calling names (you entitled hand-wringer of a whiner, you ! 😄) . Some of the opposing arguments are good even if do not find them convincing. I do not call the other guys gregarious sheep or cheerleaders . It would be wrong and it would be false.  

 

21 minutes ago, crimplene said:

Just for your info (I know that everone was asking): I play MSFS as a G-A-A-A-A-A-M-E, even if I fly the CRJ with carefully hand-crafted flightplan data.

Absolutely but this is not a thread about that. I love this sim because it is a game, and I love this game because it is a sim.

10 minutes ago, Juliett Alfa said:

For me always was a videogame.

The menus, the planes, the feeling...

And more video game will be when it hits the console.

Sorry, just my opinion.

Nothing wrong with that opinion. Of course it is a game. A game that is able to give the feeling to many people that they are serious virtual pilots. And exactly that is gaming: it is a form of escapism, giving us the possibility to distance us from the sometimes boring or stressfull everyday-life, playing a role we would like to play. The more serious a person things that a "real simmer" he/she is, the more he/she is a gamer. 🙂

Just now, Dominique_K said:

Absolutely but this is not a thread about that. I love this sim because it is a game, and I love this game because it is a sim.

I quote from the thread title:
"...that FS is just a videogame now"


At least it implied the idea that under some circumstances this is "only" a game and under other circumstances it is not. He was wrong.

14 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

If you claim, after familiarizing yourself with the WT CJ4 and the FlyByWire A320Neo, that MSFS is a "game", you're making a factually inaccurate statement

Same if you think, that MS has built the following just to build another videogame:

Flight Model Physics (flightsimulator.com)

Edited March 24, 20215 yr by mrueedi

Pretty cool that they are searching for programmers for the ATC. That at least implies that they want to enhance it and not just leave it as it is. 

The default atc with all it's flaws is stil the best in terms of UI. Every alternative sucks to say it mildly. So adding some missing features like emergencies and unable, fixing at least most of the bugs (it is impossible to get them all, even real controllers make mistakes) and maybe speech recognition like P2A has and this could be really good. I think this is perfectly doable. 

 

Edited March 24, 20215 yr by kakihara123

6 minutes ago, crimplene said:

I quote from the thread title:
"...that FS is just a videogame now"


At least it implied the idea that under some circumstances this is "only" a game and under other circumstances it is not. He was wrong.

There is a distinction between the old and wornout "game vs sim" theme and   "is this sim is going the wrong way and  become another videogame" ? The OP was neither right or wrong, he  expressed a worry that many share after a half-baked release short of the hype and 7 months of fumblings. 

For most of us MSFS, X-Plane and P3D are games. FAA calls it "serious gaming", even if it's used to practice real-world operations.

However, most of the people here use "game" as a derogatory term to imply it lacks realism. If that's the case, here's a question: How realistic is X-Plane or P3D out of the box? Here's a hint, not much more realistic than MSFS, if at all.

P3D out of the box has a much less realistic aircraft and a much less realistic flight dynamics engine. While X-Plane has an edge on default avionics like G1000, it still lacks a proper weather simulation (not visual depiction) out of the box, not even mentioning default airliners are overall less realistic than MSFS.

So, why is MSFS an "inaccurate game", while X-Plane and P3D are "serious flight simulators"? Add-ons? This does not make any sense, because add-ons do not change the base games at all. They are still the same games, with the same default flight dynamics engines, weather engines and default airliners. If an add-on increases realism of a game, this is an accomplishment of the add-on, not the game itself.

Edited March 24, 20215 yr by BiologicalNanobot

23 hours ago, ErichB said:

Everyone these days is an expert.  Your co-worker is apparently therefore an expert on Asobo's in-house skillset and capability - which I'm sure he is not.  I'm pretty sure Microsoft's due diligence on Asobo was much more thorough than a whim.

Microsoft has a track record as well.....Windows 10 finally getting stable after 8 years

37 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

Same if you think, that MS has built the following just to build another videogame:

Flight Model Physics (flightsimulator.com)

I have been experimenting with MSFS’s FDM using a more mathematical approach and I’ve noticed a few things - MSFS flight model might not be bad at all and it gets so much unnecessary hate.

Reading the SDK documentation, this is how I think MSFS flight model works:

FSX and other table-based simulators use data tables for global aerodynamic coefficients (Cl vs AoA, Cd vs AoA, Cm vs AoA), which determines the behavior of an entire aircraft. As these coefficients are empirically accurate, the aircraft’s flight performance can be accurately reproduced. However, local aerodynamic effects like induced yaw, induced roll due to rudder input, stalls etc. can not be reproduced accurately, as they depend on geometrical properties of an aircraft.

MSFS works by dividing aircraft into several surface elements, giving each surface element its own set of local aerodynamic coefficients, then integrating element forces to determine aircraft behavior. But how exactly are these local aerodynamic coefficients determined, given that they don’t have empirical data unlike global aerodynamic coefficients? This is where MSFS normalization algorithm comes into play.

MSFS normalization algorithm has a single task - finding the correct set of local aerodynamic coefficients which will match global aerodynamic coefficients in all flight conditions. In order to accomplish this, MSFS starts by distributing global aerodynamic coefficients to surface elements proportional to their surface area. After that, an iterative optimization algorithm will further tune local aerodynamic coefficients so that when all element forces are integrated (when a “zero-order” solution is reached) resulting global aerodynamic coefficients will match the global aerodynamic coefficients entered in tables. I am not sure why they try to estimate local aerodynamic coefficients for wings though, as they are already available in the form of airfoils. I assume this is for backwards compatibility purposes, so that FSX tables still can be used the same way as before.

I did lots of experiments and it looks like MSFS almost perfectly matches Cl vs AoA and Cd vs AoA tables for almost all flight conditions. However, Cm vs AoA tables and other moment & stability related data seem to be rather off - maybe this is the reason MSFS aircraft feels twitchy / inertialess: Unlike other local aerodynamic coefficients, Cm and other moment related coefficients have a worse fit. I hope Asobo addresses this and allows for a more complex fit with more data points.

A few days ago I've noticed someone else reporting the exact same thing - local Cl and Cd fitting aircraft really well while Cm having a worse fit, so I think this is reproducible.

Edited March 24, 20215 yr by BiologicalNanobot

21 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I’m still not sure how the Xbox is going to run msfs adequately, when 10900k and 3090’s struggle with it. I just don’t get it.......

I still don't understand why MSFS2020 runs smoother, faster  than FSX does on my ancient i7 980 and middle-aged GTX 780. Also with add-on aircraft like the justflight piper arrow or aerosoft CRJ. 

It's not only about the hardware. Perhaps it is a matter of clever coding and optimization/ compatibility between the internal parts.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Juliett Alfa said:

For me always was a videogame.

The menus, the planes, the feeling...

And more video game will be when it hits the console.

Sorry, just my opinion.

Agreed!

I'm getting bored of these people who whinge about everything.

If you don't like it don't play it all sims are inherently games they are not real life what do you think P3D is a real life situation its a sim which is basically a game.

If the graphics or gameplay don't make you happy move on why put yourself through the pain.

A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool.^[1] Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for achievement or reward as well. They can be played alone, in teams, or online; by amateurs or by professionals. The players may have an audience of non-players, such as when people are entertained by watching a chess championship. On the other hand, players in a game may constitute their own audience as they take their turn to play. Often, part of the entertainment for children playing a game is deciding who is part of their audience and who is a player.

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

 

Get over it or get a real pilots licence and do it for real if you haven't already.

Edited March 24, 20215 yr by bhx22