A rant from the heart

[Noel 4,499]

On 5/16/2021 at 11:25 AM, Brad27 said:

FS2020 is hands down a superior looking sim but once again for anyone reading through this thread the point i make more than anything else is i just dont see how a sim thats constantly being patched and updated to fix stuff that was broken but then breaks other stuff is meant to tempt a serious simmer in, all the while my favourite devs are throwing sceneries at it like Steph Curry shooting 3 pointers in an NBA Allstar game.

Its time will come im sure it but i just dont see why theres such a rush to build content for it at such an early stage when its still enduring a difficult birth.

Brad, put it in perspective else you miss the forest for the trees.  MSFS has been out all of 8 months or so now.  Despite various issues it continues to improve regularly sometimes in subtle yet practical ways, and sometimes w/ big scenery updates.  You have to appreciate what is very important to all users (simmers/gamers) is visual immersion which includes all of it--the scenery, the lighting, the ability to change time of day lighting w/ the clock slider, the default airports, the atmospherics, and yes the exceedingly detailed and accurate scenery is a huge immersion factor that is missing in P3D, even P3D tricked out.  The default airports are just plain decades old garbage by comparison.  And very largely the same holds true for default aircraft in P3D v MSFS.  You said it yourself:  spent $100's to $1000's trying to make P3D shine, and even then, it does not hold a candle to the full world of MSFS, already, just 8 lousy months post release.

MS/Asobo are working hard to make the port to Xbox, and I believe the DX-12 port might be needed for that as well.   Scenery and basics are the priorities for Xbox users, so this is where they spend the lion's share of resources.  Once again, those matter hugely to PC simmers as well which is why you spend gobs of $$ improving the fundamental weaknesses inherent in default P3D. 

The incomplete SDK is really the easy part.  Why?  Because it's been done ad nauseum for a very long time in the other sims!  It simply is not the main priority now is all.  The real innovation is already there:  streaming scenery/photogrammetry which performs shockingly well considering the complexity.  As long as you're going to support your sentiments w/ photos, enjoy some of these right out of stock MSFS:

Near my home, some rain squalls near Denver:

Low over Standley Lake near home in Arvada CO:

A lovely sunset landing in Nor Cal's KACV in the default Citation Longitude:

Guess where?  No guessing needed...

Beautiful Annecy FR:

Sarzana IT, near Cinque Terre:

These are stock locations and they're literally all over the world.  This is innovation and is massive.  The SDK will come in due time--it's the easy part by comparison to what is happening now, which once again needs to be done to support both Xbox and PC users.  I'm sure Xbox will become a launch pad segue for new PC more 'serious' simmers, like myself having been at it since FS1 and before.  P3D simply is fake by comparison, no matter how many airports you buy which are fine and dandy I have a bunch myself--but the rest is just fake, and there goes the immersion factor for me.

With onset of some issues w/ FPS drops a few World Updates back in MSFS I returned to P3D for about 2 weeks and enjoyed it once again.  The reality of P3D for me is by the time I load up the NGXu, fly into any decent sized terminal in Orbx NCA/SCA, I have to turn down autogen/vegetation so far to insure liquid smooth video it's pretty sad, and I have decent hardware.  In fact I disabled NCA/SCA it's just not possible to get good enough performance flying into KSAN-HD or KSFO-HD, and that is w/ vsync to 30Hz.  So I resorted to dusk thru dawn flights when visuals don't matter so much.  The truth is P3D and its predecessors have been around for a decades, and FS2020 about 8 months post release.  For this brief duration it's really already come a long ways and continues to improve in minor and major ways.   I will keep P3D for the next round of serious problems--and those really are gone now for me in MSFS, but I'm sure there will be more hiccoughs along the way the project is ginormous.   Immersion just is no longer there in P3D for me and I've not been back in it since the FPS drops problem was resolved in MSFS, and it has been.

Just another perspective from a seasoned 'simmer'.

 

[GSalden 4,656]

@Noel, Nice screenshots.

I guess it all comes down to what your priorities are. You write about the scenery immersion and being it the most important factor.

In the last couple of years, here at the P3D forum, it was almost only about aircraft with complex systems and the outside world was less important. Weather needed to be like outside and AI ac was the way to go.

Myself I am using pr scenery + custom AG + POIs for years and certainly 10 years ago I was one of the few finding the outside world important.

Many of the ‘complex’ aircraft / accurate live weather / AI ac users switched to MSFS and suddenly stated that it was all about scenery ....

MSFS shows good performance in general, but what happens when 5-10m mesh is added ( stutters, pauses : see the thread at the MSFS forum). What will happen when lots of AI ac will be added based on ac type / airline.And adding photogrammetry objects have an impact on performance.

Then MSFS might be not that different regarding performance compared to XP/P3D.

Don’t get me wrong : I like how MSFS is making the outside world look and at since 2 months  I fly MSFS only with my Prosim 737-800. 
But I miss all these Live ac / accurate weather and shader mods.

Hopefully MS will indeed keep MSFS alive and also don’t focus solely on the X Box version.

Regarding P3D I am waiting for V5.2 :  improved EA is needed. And a complete overhaul of the AG system.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Ray Proudfoot
Large quoted post removed.

[omarsmak30 4,068]

3 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Many of the ‘complex’ aircraft / accurate live weather / AI ac users switched to MSFS and suddenly stated that it was all about scenery ....

Don't forget MSFS was released in times where real life traveling is becoming very difficult due to the pandemic. MSFS for many of us, was sort of rescue to let us visit places that we couldn't travel to or being locked down in the house just have some sort of virtual escape in MSFS, especially in VR.

 

[simbol 5,819]

None one is denying it looks pretty, but that is not the point raised by @Brad27 neither it disqualify the feeling a lots of users have with MSFS.

Now if only the blasted SDK was done...

S.

Edited May 20, 2021 by simbol

[micstatic 4,319]

By the numbers I figure I'm in the minority for not switching to MSFS.  It's probably my future in the medium term.  But I just can't get used to that camera system.  It feels light years behind what I have with chase plane and xbox controller combo.  The other huge negative is lack of accurate model matching.  I only fly on vatsim pretty much these days.  Some may complain about P3D's performance.  But I have fantastic smooth 4k performance locked at 30hz.  The performance is significantly better than I've been able to get with MSFS.  I'm still into the hardcore airliner stuff and MSFS can't really do that well right now.  Atleast in my opinion.  

[DrumsArt 270]

1 hour ago, micstatic said:

By the numbers I figure I'm in the minority for not switching to MSFS.  It's probably my future in the medium term.  But I just can't get used to that camera system.  It feels light years behind what I have with chase plane and xbox controller combo.  The other huge negative is lack of accurate model matching.  I only fly on vatsim pretty much these days.  Some may complain about P3D's performance.  But I have fantastic smooth 4k performance locked at 30hz.  The performance is significantly better than I've been able to get with MSFS.  I'm still into the hardcore airliner stuff and MSFS can't really do that well right now.  Atleast in my opinion.  

My opinion equals yours! 😎

On another note, I wonder how well MSFS will perform with "monsters" like FsLabs, PMDG, Maddog and so. Probably, by the time these aircraft are made, the processors will have evolved...but... nonetheless...

Richard.

Edited May 20, 2021 by DrumsArt

[shivers9 1,174]

7 hours ago, Noel said:

The incomplete SDK is really the easy part.  Why?  Because it's been done ad nauseum for a very long time in the other sims!

I guess one thing that holds me back is that if it is so easy to do then why has it not already been done? Is it a matter of having the time and resources or is it a matter of MS just does not want to give up that data and by extension the income potential that MS may hope to gain in the future. Once a bit more time has passed and folks get used to the pretty pictures that are produced by the MS thingy, there will be more attention paid to things like AI Traffic, deeper systems, and a dozen other things that are also important to many of us. I think we can all agree that when it come to pictures then MS wins on that feature. We still have to wait to see what the future holds.

[Noel 4,499]

6 hours ago, GSalden said:

MSFS shows good performance in general, but what happens when 5-10m mesh is added ( stutters, pauses : see the thread at the MSFS forum). What will happen when lots of AI ac will be added based on ac type / airline.And adding photogrammetry objects have an impact on performance.

Then MSFS might be not that different regarding performance compared to XP/P3D.

We're definitely all dealing w/ the limitation of hardware as it's very easy to add complexity on the software side to take down even the most potent machines no mysteries there.  One of the aspects of MSFS that I really appreciate is the fact that MS/A has managed to produce an exceedingly well-balanced experience.  I shutter to think about doing the fly over Washington DC of that level of quality and detail in P3D in even a default plane.   I recently bought Roman Designs' CYOW--a real piece of art, but very hard on performance.  What I learned was dialing back sliders, some quite drastically hardly impacted visuals, which I did not expect, as I was accustomed to setting most sliders on Ultra.   All of this is coming from a less than fully potent GPU in my case.  I'm pretty confident if I had a 3090 I would be able to set sliders and leave them there for any one flight plan, and right now I sometimes have to stop and change Volumetric Clouds from Ultra to High, or the LOD sliders back a bit while on the ground and then shortly after TO back up to 200/200.  

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/600289-runtime-performance-optimizer-app-id-happily-pay-for-it/?do=findComment&comment=4533057

When I consider something like the Citation L I'm struck by how complex and capable it already is in many ways.  No issues w/ ILS/RNAV approaches just using the default G3000.  What's remarkable and unexpected for me is I'm hand-flying so much more than I ever did in the other sims.  It's really a cool plane I'm flying it right now from PHLI to PHKO thru a gorgeous sunrise.  That is major immersion for me!  I understand Majestic puts its flight model computations outside of P3D/FSX' main thread somehow which helps make the Dash 8 perform like a default 172 so perhaps there are strategies like that to help PMDG come into MSFS.  Actually, when I look at the Dash 8 which has always gleaned accolades it's more complex, but not all that much more than the Citation CJ4 or Longitude--it's mainly different.  And really, it felt rather clunky last time up in P3D.

 

 

[Noel 4,499]

19 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

I guess one thing that holds me back is that if it is so easy to do then why has it not already been done? Is it a matter of having the time and resources or is it a matter of MS just does not want to give up that data and by extension the income potential that MS may hope to gain in the future. Once a bit more time has passed and folks get used to the pretty pictures that are produced by the MS thingy, there will be more attention paid to things like AI Traffic, deeper systems, and a dozen other things that are also important to many of us. I think we can all agree that when it come to pictures then MS wins on that feature. We still have to wait to see what the future holds.

I've given a plausible explanation Shivers--read the second short paragraph in my post above I really believe this is what's happening and it makes perfect sense in the context of the XBox port.  I think people are perplexed by the fact MS/A is not starting out w/ what the others sims do, which is cater to a more complete technical sim, while leaving out the full world environment and atmospherics.  What they've done here is vastly more complex than what seasoned simmers were looking for so I appreciate the disappointment.  They've said the project is a 10y project, and have also said they won't leave the more hard core behind. I see no reason not to take them at their word.  IOW, I think they're right on track at this very early point in time, and relative to the other sims, this is indeed very early.  

Moreover, the 'pretty pictures' you're referring to are what FSX/P3D users spend $100's to $1000's to duplicate, and yet even that won't do it.   This is why this piece, the visuals, are really the first priority.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Noel

[micstatic 4,319]

16 minutes ago, Noel said:

We're definitely all dealing w/ the limitation of hardware as it's very easy to add complexity on the software side to take down even the most potent machines no mysteries there.  One of the aspects of MSFS that I really appreciate is the fact that MS/A has managed to produce an exceedingly well-balanced experience.  I shutter to think about doing the fly over Washington DC of that level of quality and detail in P3D in even a default plane.   I recently bought Roman Designs' CYOW--a real piece of art, but very hard on performance.  What I learned was dialing back sliders, some quite drastically hardly impacted visuals, which I did not expect, as I was accustomed to setting most sliders on Ultra.   All of this is coming from a less than fully potent GPU in my case.  I'm pretty confident if I had a 3090 I would be able to set sliders and leave them there for any one flight plan, and right now I sometimes have to stop and change Volumetric Clouds from Ultra to High, or the LOD sliders back a bit while on the ground and then shortly after TO back up to 200/200.  

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/600289-runtime-performance-optimizer-app-id-happily-pay-for-it/?do=findComment&comment=4533057

When I consider something like the Citation L I'm struck by how complex and capable it already is in many ways.  No issues w/ ILS/RNAV approaches just using the default G3000.  What's remarkable and unexpected for me is I'm hand-flying so much more than I ever did in the other sims.  It's really a cool plane I'm flying it right now from PHLI to PHKO thru a gorgeous sunrise.  That is major immersion for me!  I understand Majestic puts its flight model computations outside of P3D/FSX' main thread somehow which helps make the Dash 8 perform like a default 172 so perhaps there are strategies like that to help PMDG come into MSFS.  Actually, when I look at the Dash 8 which has always gleaned accolades it's more complex, but not all that much more than the Citation CJ4 or Longitude--it's mainly different.  And really, it felt rather clunky last time up in P3D.  There is also nothing unique in the fact that high settings in MSFS can bring a state of the art computer to its knees.  The same can happen in p3d with maxed out settings.  I have the 3090.  I was expecting more from MSFS.  Granted I only fly the new sim here and there and possibly haven't learned much about settings as you guys have.  But I don't really enjoy VFR flying as much as some of you guys.  So not as much for me to enjoy with it. 

 

 

I have to be honest.  How can you find the majestic dash 8 clunky?  Maybe it's just your choice of the word clunky that is throwing me off.  Because it's hands down the best performing "study level" airplane in any flight simulator.  Now if you mean it's showing it's age in looks, I would agree.  We need the PBR update.  I've flown the CJ4 and Longitude in MSFS.  Are you really suggesting you think they are on the same level in terms of systems?

[Noel 4,499]

1 hour ago, micstatic said:

Are you really suggesting you think they are on the same level in terms of systems?

No, really didn't suggest that sorry you misconstrued what I wrote.  Yes, it's very dated and showing its age as you say just about like all of P3D is including myriad garbage airports circa 2006, 3rd party addons withstanding of course, and I never said the CJ4/L are on the same level--but they're quite complex in their own right, especially for being DEFAULT planes which I'm sure you'll agree.   Quite frankly, the systems implemented in the Citation jets are substantial, while incomplete and not necessarily authentic to their real counterparts as the Dash 8 is purported to be, of course.  

I just landed the Longitude at PHLI, and it takes its own level of skill to do well, just as the 'Crash 8' does, only different.  

Edited May 20, 2021 by Noel

[GSalden 4,656]

Noël : ”They'vesaid the project is a 10y project, and have also said theywon't leave the more hard core behind. I see no reason not to take them at their word.  “

FSX was cancelled from one day to the other. Flight was cancelled from one day to the other.

First seeing, then beleaving....
 

 

[Noel 4,499]

Just now, GSalden said:

Noël : ”They'vesaid the project is a 10y project, and have also said theywon't leave the more hard core behind. I see no reason not to take them at their word.  “

FSX was cancelled from one day to the other. Flight was cancelled from one day to the other.

First seeing, then beleaving....
 

 

Yes for sure, uncertainty is the rule!  I won't hold my breath either, but from all I see happening my guess is they're largely a very good part of the way there.  I really see expanding the SDK to accommodate 3PD as somewhat minor as they absolutely have the roadmap thru working w/ 3PD's, as I say when it's time to do so.  Hopefully the Xbox port will be considerable enough to help them stay alive and at the same time usher in more 'serious' simmers.  I really like a 10y plan this is what is called for in something like this, and being upfront with stating this is very important for 3PDs.  I also enjoy PC golf and tried my darnedest to encourage HBStudios to think that far out for their The Golf Club series because if you're planning something like this for a 10y service life you build it to work this way and support/maintenance costs go down.  I can see the mechanics of MSFS in terms of their scenery engine working as satellite data improves, as hardware improves, and not have to do a lot to continue to support it, versus coming out w/ a whole new platform more frequently.  I sense this is exactly how they see it.

And as well, it's entirely possible LM/LR may bow out at some point.  Perhaps a key person will pass away and leave those projects scantily staffed who knows.   Or bean counters at LM will say enough is enough, who knows.  For now we have lots of stuff to enjoy in all the sims.

[micstatic 4,319]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

Noël : ”They'vesaid the project is a 10y project, and have also said theywon't leave the more hard core behind. I see no reason not to take them at their word.  “

FSX was cancelled from one day to the other. Flight was cancelled from one day to the other.

First seeing, then beleaving....
 

 

Yep! Shutting down MSFS would be way more terrible than fsx.  Because if the server goes down the simulator goes down.  I mean technically MSFS can be used offline, but who would want to.  I admire the 10 year commitment asobo indicated.  But corporations don't really make 10 year commitments.  A 10 year commitment really is a guess.  

[Bob Scott 7,720]

OK, folks, this thread has long ago departed from any relevance to P3D, so it's about time to see it off into the sunset.

Locked.