MSFS download numbers

[abrams_tank 7,477]

1 minute ago, akita said:

Love it how you give grades to me while it's only your pure imagination driving you to comment of what *you* think I wrote.

I never talked about what a developer should do to maximize his profits or succeed simply about a potential market in Xplane.

I mean, look at how others are evaluating your comment. This is how rka evaluated your comment:

Quote

Making XP more like XP mobile "may yield potential market of millions"? I mean yeah, possibly, but this potential market has nothing in common with the market formed by people owning PCs (or Xboxes) to run flight sims on, so there's not much point in discussion that IMO.

Other people think your business analysis is really wonky and off the mark too, not just me.

[akita 429]

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I mean, look at how others are evaluating your comment. This is how rka evaluated your comment:

Other people think your business analysis is really wonky and off the mark too, not just me.

LMAO

[abrams_tank 7,477]

1 hour ago, Gulfstream said:

I feel for LR in this case, especially Austin, Ben and others are extremely talented developers and aviation geeks.

But when you look at this realistically, you have a small company with a lot of technical debt going against a company with infinite money and who was able to start "clean sheet".

Unless X-Plane goes completely back to the drawing board and rebuilds a modern graphics engine, it simply won't be able to compete in visuals.  And taking a step like that would require many years of work, with a very small team.  And it requires a lot of experts in cutting-edge computer graphics techniques, who all likely work for companies like Asobo or other AAA gaming companies.

Vulkan was a step, but that alone does not get you the graphics pipeline you need for something like MSFS2020.

At the end of the day, it looks like they have to look towards the numbers.  And that would be mobile, and whatever contracts/sales have coming in for official FAA simulator bases.  I am not sure if they can fight MSFS on graphics going forward.

I'm curious how much technical debt LR has incurred on X-Plane.  Because one thing X-Plane needs to do is match MSFS as best as possible in graphics.  Unfortunately, trying to make the graphics better and keeping the FPS the same is extremely hard.  But if there is a lot of technical debt in X-Plane, it won't be easy to keep the FPS the same (or improve the FPS), as LR tries to raise the level of graphics in X-Plane.  I assume that when X-Plane switched to Vulkan, some of that technical debt was cleared and new architecture was implemented, which may help LR as they try to raise the graphics but keep the FPS the same (or improve the FPS).

I was shell shocked when Asobo showed the video of possible FPS improvement in Sim Update 5.  The video Asobo showed was about a 65% increase in FPS or around there.  I am going to assume Seb cherry picked those settings to show the best case scenario of FPS improvement.  Thus, to err on the side of caution, I think it's reasonable to assume most MSFS users may see a 25% increase in FPS, rather than the 65% increase Seb showed, which I am skeptical of (but hey, if it is as good as Seb showed, I'm not going to complain, lol).  If most MSFS users get a 25% increase in FPS, that's some room for Asobo to improve the graphics yet again in MSFS, while keeping the FPS the same as before Sim Update 5.

And Asobo hasn't even looked into specific DirectX 12 optimizations that can be done on PC.  Imagine if MSFS is further optimized with specific DirectX 12 optimizations after it is converted to DirectX 12 for PC?  That will allow even further graphics improvements in MSFS, while keeping the FPS the same.

I am very curious to see how X-Plane 12 will match MSFS in graphics, while keeping the FPS high (ditto with P3D, I'm sure LM has incurred a lot of technical debt with P3D over the years).  Being able to start MSFS with a "clean sheet" in architecture is a huge advantage.

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by abrams_tank

[honanhal 1,427]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Works both ways.

To apparently enjoy more predicting a dire future for P3D or XP and demeaning their developers as retards  than telling about their flying the great sim that MFS is, is not exactly a vote of confidence in Asobo’s baby. Paranoia is shared by the groupies of both sides. 

And no, fanning tribalism is not healthy and doesn’t make the forum any better. 

I'm not sure I agree. Are there tribalists on both sides? Sure. But while both sides can certainly get overemotional, I don't think the delusion is equally portioned out on both sides.

Someone rubbing P3D's diminishing addon market in P3D users' faces may be showing poor taste, but they're not wrong. The folks on the other side who see P3D or XP unveiling global imagery streaming in short order are simply fooling themselves, IMHO. It's not really the same.

(And FWIW, this topic is in the MSFS forum. I usually find topics through "unread posts" rather than by forum, but worth mentioning for those who get worked up about these things.)

James

[rka 916]

53 minutes ago, akita said:

Not to look like mobile, but share a similar code base, i.e. using the same formats, the same flight model...

Fancy graphics features are mostly fancy shaders those can be stripped down for a mobile version.

The purposes of both platforms are so different that I don't see how that would be beneficial, except for reduced complexity of having only one code base of course.

There are obviously also huge differences between a $1 smartphone plane and a $70 desktop plane which hints about the huge differences between those markets as well as mentioned before.

Makes you think - Maybe now we will actually see XP take the turn to becoming a game due to focusing on the mobile market as it is still profitable. 

I believe MS/Asobo hinted at wanting to go mobile as well though, so that decision wouldn't be too smart either for LR, sadly.

[Gulfstream 416]

7 minutes ago, rka said:

Makes you think - Maybe now we will actually see XP take the turn to becoming a game due to focusing on the mobile market as it is still profitable. 

I believe MS/Asobo hinted at wanting to go mobile as well though, so that decision wouldn't be too smart either for LR, sadly.

At the end of the day, they are a business and they have to keep the lights on.  That means following the money, whether they want to or not.  Since we don't know the other revenue streams (such as from FAA-approved X-Plane professional setups), mobile is clearly paying the bills.

The difference between Microsoft's approach to mobile flight simulator, and X-Plane's, is that with Microsoft you are streaming the video of the simulator to the platform.  With X-Plane you are actually running the simulator on the device.

Unfortunately for X-Plane, this means that you can easily get a high-res, high-FPS version of MSFS on your phone as if it was running on an expensive desktop.  This is not the case for the native mobile X-Plane app.

[akita 429]

18 minutes ago, rka said:

The purposes of both platforms are so different that I don't see how that would be beneficial, except for reduced complexity of having only one code base of course.

The reduced complexity is my point though, so it does not make sense for LR to drop anything.

Not sure about what numbers MSFS can do for mobile since it is microsoft exclusive, unlike Vulkan/Metal which pretty much cover almost every possible device including tablets.

Edited July 19, 2021 by akita

[ricka47 615]

X-Plane has always been somewhat of niche sim with a devoted customer base. It seemed to go more main-stream with XP10 and especially XP11. I generally stuck with FSX or P3D but did switch to XP11 exclusively and loved it. But, now it simply is not in the same league with MSFS.

So, without the resources, LR may have to go back to being a niche sim for those who enjoy its flight model or just won't make the switch to MSFS

[Brandon01110 407]

On 7/15/2021 at 1:12 PM, RobJC said:

PC specs?

I get stutters from "manipulators" when in busy areas. Should I upgrade my hardware? I run absolute top end hardware and still get a lot of stutters.  Its just the nature of the current installment of MSFS. I will be happy if that all goes away soon with the upcoming update but sadly I feel skeptical based on their history.  Would LOVE to be wrong, trust me.

[akita 429]

16 minutes ago, Gulfstream said:

The difference between Microsoft's approach to mobile flight simulator, and X-Plane's, is that with Microsoft you are streaming the video of the simulator to the platform.  With X-Plane you are actually running the simulator on the device.

Unfortunately for X-Plane, this means that you can easily get a high-res, high-FPS version of MSFS on your phone as if it was running on an expensive desktop.  This is not the case for the native mobile X-Plane app.

What?

[Bobsk8 12,879]

2 minutes ago, akita said:

What?

I wonder if you could hook up a 30" 4K Oled display up to an android phone? 😉

[akita 429]

10 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I wonder if you could hook up a 30" 4K Oled display up to an android phone? 😉

Of course, but what does it have to do with rendering on high fps on a phone?

Are we talking virtual machine? If so, you can do that with..anything? You can rent a high-end computer and use what ever game you wish, not sure what so unique about MSFS mobile (which does not exist, so again not getting the point)

Edited July 19, 2021 by akita

[jarmstro 2,405]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

Its a good thing you are not a professor at a business school, because this sentence shows that your election into professorial status would have been a major fail. 😆 (Like most of your pseudo-economy-scientific claims here hint at, too).

The sentence

is completely correct. A 3rd party dev could charge 10.000.000 dollars for his airport or aircraft, if he choses so. There is no law or rule outlawing this. It might not make SENSE in the business sense, but it is certainly up to them.

Hence the statement is correct - and any professor failing a paper because of that sentence would be wrong.

 

Talking of developers and going by the more moderate tone of your posts lately I reckon we will soon see an announcement from IXEG. Just my guess..😂😂 I hope your hat tastes nice!

[rka 916]

28 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Talking of developers and going by the more moderate tone of your posts lately I reckon we will soon see an announcement from IXEG. Just my guess..😂😂 I hope your hat tastes nice!

From IMSEG possibly? 😅

[Gulfstream 416]

1 hour ago, akita said:

Of course, but what does it have to do with rendering on high fps on a phone?

Are we talking virtual machine? If so, you can do that with..anything? You can rent a high-end computer and use what ever game you wish, not sure what so unique about MSFS mobile (which does not exist, so again not getting the point)

The XBox Game Pass with the streaming service is exactly that.  Streaming.

The simulator itself runs in the cloud on Microsoft hardware.  The results are streamed back to your device (TV, phone, tablet, your web browser).  Interactions on your side are sent to the server.

That is how a phone can run MSFS2020.  Think of it like YouTube, but with interaction.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/cloud-gaming

This is for all XBox titles, not just flight simulator.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Gulfstream