PMDG is coming to MSFS

[CFIJose 5,485]

8 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I don’t know how P3D and X-Plane are going to close this huge technological gap by their next version release.

They don't have to. Most users already have Ortho & layers of AG. XP12 will probably improve the weather depiction and the sim will continue to survive due to its strong user base that has been around for 30 years. 😀

Edited May 22, 2021 by DJJose

[abrams_tank 7,426]

9 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Hi, Rob.   You may not remember me.   I'm the guy you accused of "denying the obvious" and "painting an alternate reality" when I questioned whether you were seriously trying to make a point about the sim physics by posting an intentionally absurd video of people doing jumbo jet carrier landings.  You may recall that you suggested I "face reality" and come up with solutions and requests for fixing things, as you had.  Which was kinda funny, given that that was about three weeks after Microsoft had made a public announcement that my colleagues and I had signed a contract with them to become first-party development partners.

But that's OK, I'm happy to let bygones be bygones.

Because it seems you still have some particular frustrations regarding the state of the SDK, to the point where you felt the necessity to come into a thread about a highly respected developer releasing a video expressing their current very positive opinion of the development tools, in order to express your own contradictory opinion that even the "basic" things are broken and challenge anyone who shared the more positive perspective to prove their development credentials to you.

Without getting into you-know-what-waving contests, I'm sure you can understand that if folks like PMDG are willing to begin sinking huge development effort into products for MSFS, it's reasonable for people to believe -- whether they're developers or not -- that things are in at least a generally acceptable state.   They don't need to be developers themselves to put stock in the opinions of other developers they trust who have a long and verifiable track record of producing very high quality products.  That's how human beings work.  We can't all be experts on everything.

But no, things are not flawless, of course.   There are certainly still shortcomings.  Some of them it may be possible to do things about.  Others, not.

Jean-Luc of RXP, for one, has done a very good job in these forums of explaining the shortcomings he sees in the current dev tools, and what's keeping him from bringing his products to the sim.  In fact, number of us from WT even sat down with him to talk things over and see if we could at least start a productive discussion about it and maybe open the road to making potential changes to the SDK that would suit his needs.

Now, don't get me wrong -- there are some things simply are not likely to happen soon, if ever, due to legal restrictions or fundamental design decisions that were made at the start.   And we haven't promised anything to Jean-Luc other than giving him a chunk of our time and giving fair consideration to his thoughts, but we are having an open dialog about how we can work together to make things better.

But the other thing about Jean-Luc that's helpful is that he doesn't belittle the people he disagrees with, and he's mature enough to acknowledge that it's entirely possible both for him to have very particular needs that can't currently be met and for the SDK at the same time to support highly detailed models of complex planes.

I'd like to think that, as a name that some in the community rate highly, you'd be able to do the same.   So I'd like to offer you the opportunity to explain, in as much detail as you'd like, either why you think what PMDG is saying is BS, or what particular needs you have that could possibly be addressed to make things better for you and everyone.

Within, of course, the constraints that we're all given to operate in. 

I understand that you may have given some feedback to Asobo in the past, and that it was potentially misunderstood or misinterpreted.  I don't know, I wasn't involved in that.  But we're not Asobo, so maybe it's worth a second attempt.

Bygones, remember?

 

This is a great approach!  Honestly, there are some 3rd party dev products that I probably wouldn’t buy.  But we all want MSFS to be better and we want the SDK to address the needs of as many 3rd party devs as possible, even if we won’t buy their products.

I have upvoted some threads in the MSFS forum to help 3rd parties get what they need from the SDK, even if I’m not that interested in the product they are making.  The best way to go about this is to be constructive.  Let’s help the 3rd party devs out there if possible, but also recognize that some things won’t change because of design decisions (ie. Asobo is pretty dead set on using WASM, rather than allowing dll control from 3rd parties).

[CFIJose 5,485]

2 minutes ago, micstatic said:

until MSFS can do things like real and dependable wind/weather.  Better compatibility with home cockpit hardware/software.  Reliable model matching.  So I don't think p3d/xp need to actually close the gap.  Of course my statement is that state of the flight sim universe at the current time.  I also make my statement as a guy who flies airliners 95% of the time.  CRJ and A320 mod aren't bad.  But not nearly as good as what I currently fly and rotate thru in my hangar.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't get me wrong.  I think their is a decent chance in a few years I'm flying MSFS regularly.  But I also fail to accept that PMDG is so altruistic that they are just so wowed by MSFS they want to share it with all of us.  They realize they can't exactly sell their product anymore in p3d, because everybody (or many) have already bought it.  

The live weather is probably the most obvious one. How can a Pilot do what a Pilot does when the live weather feature in MSFS so unpredictable?

[abrams_tank 7,426]

1 hour ago, micstatic said:

until MSFS can do things like real and dependable wind/weather.  Better compatibility with home cockpit hardware/software.  Reliable model matching.  So I don't think p3d/xp need to actually close the gap.  Of course my statement is that state of the flight sim universe at the current time.  I also make my statement as a guy who flies airliners 95% of the time.  CRJ and A320 mod aren't bad.  But not nearly as good as what I currently fly and rotate thru in my hangar.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't get me wrong.  I think their is a decent chance in a few years I'm flying MSFS regularly.  But I also fail to accept that PMDG is so altruistic that they are just so wowed by MSFS they want to share it with all of us.  They realize they can't exactly sell their product anymore in p3d, because everybody (or many) have already bought it.  p3d/xp still have some advantages over MSFS also. And not everybody like photogrammetry once the novelty has worn off.  Up close it looks weird

Aerosoft and other 3rd party devs have explicitly said P3D sales have dropped off a cliff.  Most 3rd party devs probably won’t even bother to say it but instead, just shift their resources away from P3D to MSFS when their P3D products stop selling.

To add more fuel to the fire, MSFS is coming out on X-Box, which will create a whole new market for many 3rd party devs.  3rd party devs follow the $$$ and the $$$ is in MSFS right now.

Edited May 22, 2021 by abrams_tank

[micstatic 4,329]

Just now, abrams_tank said:

Aerosoft and other 3rd party devs have explicitly said P3D sales have dropped off a cliff.  Most 3rd party devs probably won even bother to say it but instead, just shift their resources away from P3D to MSFS when their P3D products stop selling.

To add more fuel to the fire, MSFS is coining out on X-Box, which will create a whole new market for many 3rd party devs.  3rd party devs follow the $$$ and the $$$ is in MSFS right now.

Yeah of course aerosoft's P3D sales have dropped off a cliff.  So has their production of P3D products.  People don't buy things software they already have.  I do agree with you about the xbox.  But I'm not sure that's a good thing for our hobby.  Maybe it will be.  

[abrams_tank 7,426]

9 minutes ago, DJJose said:

They don't have to. Most users already have Ortho & layers of AG. XP12 will probably improve the weather depiction and the sim will continue to survive due to its strong user base that has been around for 30 years. 😀

To be honest, downloading GBs of ortho, then processing it, is so lame and an example of a 10 year old outdated practice. Not to mention you also have to buy a separate hard drive to store those GBs worth of ortho, which costs you even more money.

It’s a waste of time and money.  That’s why P3D and X-Plane are so backwards.  

I only have to store 100 GB or so worth of data on my hard drive for MSFS. Everything else in the world is streamed to MSFS when I play it.  And there is  no subscription fee too. And I don’t waste time downloading ortho and processing it,  Clean,elegant, cost effective, and a time saver.  That’s another reason why P3D and X-Plane are 10 years behind MSFS.

 

[Ixoye 1,827]

These tutorials are amazingly well made and instructive, I hope all other developers watch and learn.

[micstatic 4,329]

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

To be honest, downloading GBs of ortho, then processing it, is so lame and an example of a 10 year old outdated practice. Not to mention you also have to buy a separate hard drive to store those GBs worth of ortho, which costs you even more money.

It’s a waste of time and money.  That’s why P3D and X-Plane are so backwards.  

I only have to store 100 GB or so worth of data on my hard drive for MSFS. Everything else in the world is streamed to MSFS when I play it.  And there is  no subscription fee too. And I don’t waste time downloading ortho and processing it,  Clean,elegant, cost effective, and a time saver.  That’s another reason why P3D and X-Plane are 10 years behind MSFS.

 

what may be too expensive or complicated for you are not necessarily an issue for others.  MSFS is not without its limitations.  All sims are

[CFIJose 5,485]

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

To be honest, downloading GBs of ortho, then processing it, is so lame and an example of a 10 year old outdated practice. Not to mention you also have to buy a separate hard drive to store those GBs worth of ortho, which costs you even more money.

It’s a waste of time and money.  That’s why P3D and X-Plane are so backwards.  

I only have to store 100 GB or so worth of data on my hard drive for MSFS. Everything else in the world is streamed to MSFS when I play it.  And there is  no subscription fee too. And I don’t waste time downloading ortho and processing it,  Clean,elegant, cost effective, and a time saver.  That’s another reason why P3D and X-Plane are 10 years behind MSFS.

 

WOW only 100GB. I have over 700GB of add-ons both freeware and payware.

Most XP users have already gone through the trouble of downloading TE products or Ortho so that's not really an issue. However, the new user will say hell NO! Those who choose MSFS better have a good computer and a fast internet connection. They should also be prepared to deal with the trials and tribulations associated with a sim that is still a WIP.

But you know all this info. 😀

Back to the topic. The videos are well done and I wish PMDG the best.

[micstatic 4,329]

I never took much interest in the DC6.  But I think I will watch the videos and ultimately give it a shot.  

[Bob Scott 7,724]

19 minutes ago, Jean-Claude said:

With respect, this is absolutely and blatantly false!

Where on earth (literally) did you fly with your sim? I have flown close to 300 hours in two months and a half only on light aircraft, I am presently on a trip around Africa, I experienced turbulences exactly where they were supposed to exist given the winds, the clouds, the temperatures, the terrain (and the SIGMET!).

If MSFS is so bad, why would one of the two best aircraft developers for simulators (whose CEO happens to be a former airline Captain too) risk a statement promising the delivery of their entire line of products within a year? Why is there so much urge to continue spreading negativity?!

As I said upthread, I'm going to try testing for wind-terrain effects again.  There does seem to be a body of evidence that I got the wind effects wrong (or that they have been changed/fixed since I last tested it), and if that's the case, I'll say so.

As to why RSR is jumping onto the train, I can't claim to be in his head.  I can guess...maybe he sees an opportunity to quickly capitalize on a big expanding market that may well quickly peak and then diminish just as rapidly as the casual gamer crowd comes through and then moves on.  His product line in P3D--and the P3D platform itself--is already pretty mature...maybe it's just a good time to put those products into maintenance mode for a while and dig into some unplowed ground.  Or maybe seeing a bunch of people actually spending good money on something as patently ludicrous as a 777 with a default 747 panel convinced him that people are so utterly desperate for an MSFS airliner that they'll literally buy virtually *anything* and by golly he needs to belly-up to the bar with something, anything, right now to tap that market on the upswing.  All good business reasons, but none of them negate the fact that the underlying platform is still an unstable WIP and it's pretty unlikely PMDG's add-ons are going to be immune from those knock-on effects.

What you interpret as me "spreading negativity" I intend to be a frank, no-rose-colored-glasses look at what the announcement might mean to us.  The collective "us"--I am an MSFS user as well.  MSFS has been nothing short of a chocolate mess for me since I bought it on release day last August, and I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't been.  So having a top-tier add-on developer like PMDG announce a product for a platform still very much in the throes of a pretty rocky beta phase is worthy of some less-than-gleeful contemplation. 

[abrams_tank 7,426]

8 minutes ago, micstatic said:

what may be too expensive or complicated for you are not necessarily an issue for others.  MSFS is not without its limitations.  All sims are

And stuff like this is exactly why the IPhone overtook Blackberry and Nokia. Because you could do stuff easier and faster with the IPhone versus Blackberry and Nokia.  And if P3D and X-Plane don’t adjust, they will follow the path of Blackberry and Nokia.

Edited May 22, 2021 by abrams_tank

[abrams_tank 7,426]

6 minutes ago, DJJose said:

WOW only 100GB. I have over 700GB of add-ons both freeware and payware.

Most XP users have already gone through the trouble of downloading TE products or Ortho so that's not really an issue. However, the new user will say hell NO! Those who choose MSFS better have a good computer and a fast internet connection. They should also be prepared to deal with the trials and tribulations associated with a sim that is still a WIP.

But you know all this info. 😀

Back to the topic. The videos are well done and I wish PMDG the best.

You’re actually bragging that your preferred flight sim unnecessarily takes up more space, time, and money to use? And you consider this to be a nice “feature” of your flight sim? lololololol 

[nirgal76 100]

16 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I only have to store 100 GB or so worth of data on my hard drive for MSFS. Everything else in the world is streamed to MSFS when I play it.  And there is  no subscription fee too. And I don’t waste time downloading ortho and processing it,  Clean,elegant, cost effective, and a time saver.  That’s another reason why P3D and X-Plane are 10 years behind MSFS.

 

About this subject, i'm asking what will happen in 10 years, at the end of the announced support if MS decide to stop the adventure (they already did ) ? is the streaming will be closed and we will have a empty box ?

[Noel 4,518]

7 minutes ago, w6kd said:

MSFS has been nothing short of a chocolate mess for me since I bought it on release day last August, and I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't been.

With all due respect and I mean that, what happened?  I've not had any kind of real mess until the infamous FPS drops happened a few updates back which was improved largely in a few weeks time.  Oh sure, some annoyances I've discovered work arounds for but it's been enough to get me up without FSCaptain very frequently as in a 6am daily and later in the day too!  I wonder why you've had such grief w/ your install?  This definitely points to how experience influences attitude, and then opinion right after that.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Noel