Digital Foundry Asobo interview. August 1st

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

We tuned the distances, the draw distances, of objects and the way the LOD’s are being used in order to minimise the number of meshes and textures in memory at the same time.”

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

In other words, if you’re using a high end system, it’s wasted. 

[Sphynnx 91]

Still people out there who says, everything is like before the update SU5? 

[colklink14 24]

This gives your a much better understanding of what they have done. It is from Digital Foundry, the same people who have the intense analysis on performance of msfs 2020 when it first came out.

This video is all about the X box series, but a nice viewpoint 

Microsoft Flight Simulator on Xbox Series X|S - An Excellent Port Of An Ultra-Spec PC Experience - YouTube

 

[SierraDelta 1,342]

29 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

We tuned the distances, the draw distances, of objects and the way the LOD’s are being used in order to minimise the number of meshes and textures in memory at the same time.”

So this is at least the 4th time this has been posted. Not really blaming you Ian, but more the complete and utter mess this forum has been the last few days ...

 

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

12 minutes ago, SierraDelta said:

So this is at least the 4th time this has been posted. Not really blaming you Ian, but more the complete and utter mess this forum has been the last few days ...

I probably missed it, seems like a minefield in here at the minute plus I was away for 4 days on holiday, so didn’t login. 

[bobcat999 8,477]

Sorry, but this simply can't be true Ian. 

They said there would be no visual degradation, and even though I can see the visual degradation quite obviously with my own eyes, I still feel forced to believe the narrative, because some people on here say we are making it up, or even if we aren't, it shouldn't be a problem.  And they are allowed to tell us what we think should be a problem aren't they?  Because they come on here with clever comebacks and tell us we are whining over nothing if we disagree.

I am really looking forward to the next Q&A...  Or am I?  If we can't get correct statements out of them, there may be no point listening. 
I could accept this more if they had been straight with us during that New York video, but at the moment, I can't help feeling like I have lost a bit of trust.

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

1 minute ago, bobcat999 said:

I am really looking forward to the next Q&A...  Or am I?

I don’t watch them anymore, I just wait for the summaries. At first it was exciting, now it’s just tedious. 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

I've posted a written summary of that interview in here for anyone who can't watch the video.

14 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I could accept this more if they had been straight with us during that New York video, but at the moment, I can't help feeling like I have lost a bit of trust.

There are three possible explanations, they straight up lied to us (which I really don't want to believe and it's probably extremely unlikely), there was not supposed to be a degradation so what we're seeing is a genuine bug, or they thought the degradations are so minor that nobody would notice them. Can't really blame them if it's the last one, some people seem to just not notice any sort of visual regressions and there are still many others denying the terrain morphing exists.

That last Q&A was very exciting but seeing what we got instead has greatly diminished its value in my eyes, and I'm starting to wonder how genuine the previous ones with some grand promises were in the first place. I don't have any doubts anymore that they'll greatly improve the core simulation and aircraft systems over time, but the general lack of response to the visual regressions is starting to get frustrating. I'm still looking forward to the next one because I think some communication is really needed at this time, but I'm going to take their statements with a grain of salt.

[DeCampos 40]

Does this in anyway explain...

"Asobo indicated that they turned off a particular rendering channel because it needed more time in development to solve a few problems, and it just happens that the DC-6 benefits significantly from this particular channel- hence we saw the loss of performance in the release build. The good news, however, is that they were able to resolve the issues they were experiencing, and this channel is expected to be reactivated in a subsequent update from Asobo" - Robert Randazzo

[bobcat999 8,477]

20 minutes ago, DeCampos said:

Does this in anyway explain...

"Asobo indicated that they turned off a particular rendering channel because it needed more time in development to solve a few problems, and it just happens that the DC-6 benefits significantly from this particular channel- hence we saw the loss of performance in the release build. The good news, however, is that they were able to resolve the issues they were experiencing, and this channel is expected to be reactivated in a subsequent update from Asobo" - Robert Randazzo

Some maybe, not all.  But they could have told us somehow.  They say they are proud of their communication with the community, so what happened here - were they embarrassed to say?

It might have stopped a lot of the disquiet if they explained to us there was a temporary problem that they were going to fix. 
I am sure that everyone (apart from the 1% fruitcakes you get) would have accepted that.
It also causes fallout on these forums between us simmers, with all of the 'yes it is / no it isn't' arguing.

Edited August 2, 2021 by bobcat999

[ckyliu 1,749]

11 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

It also causes fallout on these forums between us simmers, with all of the 'yes it is / no it isn't' arguing.

We missed out on panto this Christmas, getting our fix now. They're behind you!

And I didn't even know the septics did panto (or anyone else for that matter)

Edited August 2, 2021 by ckyliu

[bobcat999 8,477]

1 minute ago, ckyliu said:

We missed out on panto this Christmas, getting our fix now. They're behind you!

😀  Great!  I can't help feeling we all need to try to lighten this up a little. 

[torium 207]

12 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

They say they are proud of their communication with the community, so what happened here - were they embarrassed to say?

From Randazzo (PMDG) July 28, quote:

Quote

Amazingly in spite of our late addition to their test process, Asobo took our reports and was able to work in fixes for the issues we reported back to them on Friday morning.  The spirit of cooperation from Asobo to act on these reports so very late in their development cycle is worth calling out with an ovation. We tend not to communicate with them often, but it speaks volumes of them that they are universally responsive and helpful- so I want to thank them for that publicly.

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

36 minutes ago, DeCampos said:

Asobo indicated that they turned off a particular rendering channel because it needed more time in development to solve a few problems, and it just happens that the DC-6 benefits significantly from this particular channel-

That explanation is rather vague, and it points towards a performance (not visual) improvement that might be specific to (third-party?) aircraft. But I guess it means there is still work that needs to be done on the new optimisations. Thanks for posting!

Either way, "rendering channel" sounds like something for a Sim Update, not a hotfix, neither a World Update. Now that they've got the Xbox version out of the way and merged all the relevant branches, hopefully Sim Update 6 will spell the end of major regressions.