X-Plane Technology Preview One

[mSparks 2,094]

3 hours ago, efis007 said:

but what is there to see ?? ... it's the usual XP11 ever!

Before you get pounced on some more, might I suggest you watch the video again on a phone or better an ipad. The only way I can conceive that you can't see the difference with the side by side is if you have some kind of colour depth issue with your display.

 

39 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

But that is the issue, relying on 3PD Devs to do things that should be there "stock" out of the box.

Why is it an issue? It creates choice, choice is good. Eventually they maybe come with something better (or not).

39 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

but clouds not reaching the horizon

The clouds do reach the horizon - unless of course visibility is not perfect such that you can't see the horizon, this is done pretty realistically imho, there's been tests done on the visibility and its basically correct to the meter - for flight sim this is way more important than the clouds tbh.

 

39 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

There are several things that LR could have improved over the years (stock) without having to rely on 3P addon (payware or freeware).

But then what would the community have had to do? Not everyone wants to build yet another 737 variant. I personally think they got the balance about right, leave "hard" things that are probably better done (at the time) to 3rd parties, make their lives easier providing the SDKs and datarefs they need to do it, do the best possible job they can with the skills they have in house.

So much of this is about skills and specialism, Ben Supnik, Sidney were not AAA games developers, nor were they hired as such (Although Sidney is now probably one of the highest ranked Vulkan developers globally), Laminar do not have access to EPICs talent pool - yet as a team they have produced a flight simulation engine that puts all others to shame, and quite a few AAA game engines to - for a price that makes it affordable to buy your grand kids as a birthday present.

This is the main reason I got so upset for MSFS - from initially excited to downright mad, internally they had exactly zero aviation experience, the CEO did his PPL for the project "OMFG"; equivalent of trying to get experience of building the golden gate bridge by the CEO of the construction company living rough under it for a few weeks.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by mSparks

[jarmstro 2,405]

43 minutes ago, mSparks said:

yet as a team they have produced a flight simulation engine that puts all others to shame,

Surely that's nonsense? It's so poorly optimised which is its downfall. Especially with regard to cloud draw distance, reflections and shadows. It's a very old and inefficient flight sim engine it seems to me?

[mSparks 2,094]

8 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

 It's so poorly optimised which is its downfall.

Really? name me one engine, game or otherwise, that can go from this:

All the way down to any runway in the world

never dropping below 120fps.

With remotely close to X-planes current graphics: let alone what they just previewed in the OP.

Edited June 3, 2021 by mSparks

[jarmstro 2,405]

8 minutes ago, mSparks said:

never dropping below 120fps.

Are you kidding me?  Not on my PC it won't with reflections on high, shadows on and on a cloudy day even though you will only see a small circle of cloud from any altitude let alone from space.

[mSparks 2,094]

24 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

 Not on my PC it won't with reflections on high, shadows on and on a cloudy day even though you will only see a small circle of cloud from any altitude let alone from space.

Protip, Laminar isn't going to buy you a new PC.

Xplane might tho, if you are up for the task:

Quote

X-Plane Related Employment Opportunity

Beta Technologies is searching for a Senior Simulation Software Engineer at the moment. This person would be responsible for further integrating X-Plane tools into the BETA VTOL design and testing process. In this role, you would have the opportunity to contribute daily to the next generation of aviation – developing an aircraft that requires neither gas nor runways. You can learn more about this job here!

I suspect you may need to brush up on at least

Quote

Knowledge of tradeoffs in graphics rendering performance, especially on Windows. 

however

Edited June 3, 2021 by mSparks

[FlyBaby 659]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Why is it an issue? It creates choice, choice is good. Eventually they maybe come with something better (or not).

No it doesn't, when one has to go searching for cloud replacement, water replacement etc., it creates an extra cost for the user. There is no mass appeal in looking for a fix for basic features...

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

The clouds do reach the horizon - unless of course visibility is not perfect such that you can't see the horizon

 

Only in your subjective view...in the stock sim...they don't. X-Enviro is the only addon to achieve this while looking decent....but again, there is the performance hit.

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

But then what would the community have had to do? Not everyone wants to build yet another 737 variant. I personally think they got the balance about right, leave "hard" things that are probably better done (at the time) to 3rd parties, make their lives easier providing the SDKs and datarefs they need to do it, do the best possible job they can with the skills they have in house.

This doesn't make sense, extended clouds and night lights were not simply left to the community to fix, they were just neglected by LR... Over the years, Austin had his priorities, and advancing XP desktop was not one of them.

XP11 stock does not represent the best of what a "dedicated" Dev could have come up with after 26 years. No way.

 

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

So much of this is about skills and specialism, Ben Supnik, Sidney were not AAA games developers, nor were they hired as such (Although Sidney is now probably one of the highest ranked Vulkan developers globally), Laminar do not have access to EPICs talent pool - yet as a team they have produced a flight simulation engine that puts all others to shame, and quite a few AAA game engines to - for a price that makes it affordable to buy your grand kids as a birthday present.

This is the main reason I got so upset for MSFS - from initially excited to downright mad, internally they had exactly zero aviation experience, the CEO did his PPL for the project "OMFG"; equivalent of trying to get experience of building the golden gate bridge by the CEO of the construction company living rough under it for a few weeks.

 

Again more excuses why XP is where it is after 26 years. Being honest, many people will admit that XP's development has been stagnant.

For the 3rd time...let's leave MSFS / Asobo out of the discussion. Asobo is just a few years in...not 26 years.

So no excuses, or distractions about other Devs. In 2021...we only have a "teaser" video about "new" lighting (some trace of modern graphics)....from a Dev that has been at this for 2 and half decades....

[jarmstro 2,405]

35 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Protip, Laminar isn't going to buy you a new PC.

Xplane might tho, if you are up for the task:

I suspect you may need to brush up on at least

however

I'll pass on the geek job. I'd die of boredom.

[mSparks 2,094]

15 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

when one has to go searching for cloud replacement, water replacement etc., it creates an extra cost for the user.

True that.

But when the next best alternative is some $100,000 for Unigine, and that doesn't even come with any aircraft or scenery as default, hardly that much of an issue.

Plus you don't have to go searching, no one is forcing you to do more than use it to help learn how to fly a C172 at your local airfield, and for that you never go anywhere near any clouds.

15 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Again more excuses why XP is where it is after 26 years.

excuse? Noooo, good grief no.

TBH I'm amazed and thankful its gotten to where it has in such a short time, Microsoft flight simulator has been going for pretty much just as long and still doesn't even have any kind of realistic helicopters or (most important for flight sim in 2021) usable VR yet..... and those things require much harder to find specialists than people who know how to calculate a volume.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by mSparks

[efis007 898]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Before you get pounced on some more, might I suggest you watch the video again on a phone or better an ipad. The only way I can conceive that you can't see the difference with the side by side is if you have some kind of colour depth issue with your display.

I have looked at it several times, I see no difference with my optimized XP11.
I don't know how much time you spent on XP11 graphics optimization.
I have been optimizing XP11 for 3 years, I have designed hundreds of sky textures and conducted all kinds of experiments on reshades, lua codes, colors, etc, to find the maximum realism from this simulator.

This image...

... is an insult to my intelligence because I have NEVER had an XP11 with such crappy graphics. 

What graphic is that?
Where did they get it from?
Who has ever seen it?
Where are the reflections?
Where is the HDR?
That video is ridiculous.

This is the real graphics of my XP11.

[mSparks 2,094]

10 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Where did they get it from?

default xplane.

10 minutes ago, efis007 said:

This is the real graphics of my XP11.

They are all twilight shots, the biggest difference in the preview video is full daylight.

Oh, and btw - the new lighting has no framerate impact (on midrange gpus from the last few years)

Edited June 3, 2021 by mSparks

[akita 429]

I do agree with @efis007 that, for an average user that tend to use addons + watch shots with lots of them too, it's hard to tell the difference for now based on this video.

But a new lighting system opens capabilities that can't be achieved with post processing like reshade, they moved to photo-metric lighting model means simulating light based on real units (lumen, candela), the full results will be shown once the other new features will be shown as they get to interact with the new lighting system.

The exiting thing about it for art assets (other than literally everything looks better) that it can be used based on real industrial profiles probably even creating some "indoor architectural lighting", this will make modern aircraft interiors look amazing especially at night.

[Pascal_LSGC 310]

1 hour ago, akita said:

But a new lighting system opens capabilities that can't be achieved with post processing like reshade, they moved to photo-metric lighting model means simulating light based on real units (lumen, candela), the full results will be shown once the other new features will be shown as they get to interact with the new lighting system.

The exiting thing about it for art assets (other than literally everything looks better) that it can be used based on real industrial profiles probably even creating some "indoor architectural lighting", this will make modern aircraft interiors look amazing especially at night.

Exactly this ^^

And the reflections will now be calculated with "ray marching". The water, for example, won't depend on a single mirrored rendering any more. Which means you won't see the sudden jumps of reflections on lakes and rivers, which plagues XP11 since it's inception.

Of course, that could bring new bugs 🙂

Pascal

Edited June 3, 2021 by Pascal_LSGC

[Pascal_LSGC 310]

1 hour ago, efis007 said:

I have looked at it several times, I see no difference with my optimized XP11.
I don't know how much time you spent on XP11 graphics optimization.
I have been optimizing XP11 for 3 years, I have designed hundreds of sky textures and conducted all kinds of experiments on reshades, lua codes, colors, etc, to find the maximum realism from this simulator.

This image...

... is an insult to my intelligence because I have NEVER had an XP11 with such crappy graphics. 

What graphic is that?
Where did they get it from?
Who has ever seen it?
Where are the reflections?
Where is the HDR?
That video is ridiculous.

This is the real graphics of my XP11.
 

So you spent 3 years fine tuning your X-Plane, and now you feel insulted because everyone will get it by default ?

Frankly, you should stop with your usual "I feel insulted" mantra. Your eventual point would be more interesting without it.

Pascal

[GoranM 3,788]

9 pages of debating....from 1 little itty bitty teaser video that runs for just over a minute.  

I love it.

 

 

[Janov 2,383]

6 hours ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

So you spent 3 years fine tuning your X-Plane, and now you feel insulted because everyone will get it by default ?

Thank you, Pascal.

efis, I don´t think that this video can insult your intelligence, really.🙄