On 8/7/2021 at 4:22 PM, Dirk98 said:

Who knows, some principal developers may even return to Prepar3D after they've played enough with MSFS. Nothing tells us that LM is going to close the shop, so still they'll be a niche for their efforts here as well.

That's now how most 3rd party developers work though.  They go where the money is, and at the minimum, they need to make a profit.  After all, after they spend the time and money on a certain product, they need to make a profit.  In this very thread, Simbol explained it the best from the viewpoint of a 3rd party developer:

Quote

Now with the current market shift, it would be very hard to justify a project of such dimension and complexity since you would never see any return of investment.

The keywords here are "return of investment."  3rd party developers are businesses after all. And they got to pay the rent, they got to put food on the table.  Of course, all the trouble that Asobo causes with their updates, such as Sim Update 5, will require more time and money for some 3rd party developers to fix (but from my understanding, P3D updates can break 3rd party add-ons too, as well as X-Plane updates).  But all things considered, if 3rd party developers feel that despite all the trouble caused by Asobo's updates and the time/work needed to fix the add-ons afterwards, is compensated by the profit they get from selling their add-on for MSFS, they will continue to make add-ons for MSFS. 

Edited August 9, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

46 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

The money (I guess this needs to be quantified) is NOT in entertainment software, Military and Commercial contracts are considerably more lucrative (which is why MS created the ESP back in the FSX days).

But I honestly can't see LM replacing the entire globe with Sat imagery and provide it for public consumption ... they have CIGI support and DIS so the focus seems to be on 3rd party military/commercial companies providing their own integrated graphics global solutions while using the P3D core (SDK/PDK).  I can't think of any current 3rd party DLC provider large enough (cash) to support creating their own IG for P3D ... certainly possible since it's already been done, but much bigger budgets/funding.

Cheers, Rob.

Oh yeah, I definitely agree that some 3rd party devs are making more money on military and commercial contracts/products.  However, I'm not sure how that will reverse the consumer home flight simulation market for P3D and for those 3rd party devs that were developing products for the consumer home flight simulation market in P3D (technically, there probably shouldn't even be a consumer home flight simulation market for P3D as P3D is not meant for the home entertainment market).

I have commented before that LM probably has the satellite data for the entire world, and maybe they have some photogrammetry data as well, but of course, it's for military or commercial use, and it may also be classified.

Edited August 9, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

On 8/7/2021 at 9:06 PM, Gary1124 said:

If LM manages to take any town with a pop of 1000 or more and give it the correct footprint and street grid on the ground I would be real pleased. Orbx LC does that by and large but not 100% of course. Some of those grids are photo type and devoid of 3d mostly. Makes it look bombed out.

have you tried orbx vector?

42 minutes ago, micstatic said:

have you tried orbx vector?

I use UTX NA for road, track, stream, coastline, and geography. Does real good with our PA ridge, mountain, and valley terrain. A person from here can easily VFR. The Orbx land class even has the mine regions depicted well in the west and Northeast of the state.

Back to the original post and question posed, I wonder if the forthcoming Direct Storage especially given P3D is on DX12 will potentially help further improve performance and loading times?

My understanding is that some re-coding is involved in order to utilize the new storage API available in Windows 11 and also Windows 10.Hopefully this is something LM are aware of and are planning for.

 

 

On 8/9/2021 at 7:36 AM, abrams_tank said:

That's now how most 3rd party developers work though.  They go where the money is, and at the minimum, they need to make a profit.  After all, after they spend the time and money on a certain product, they need to make a profit.  In this very thread, Simbol explained it the best from the viewpoint of a 3rd party developer:

The keywords here are "return of investment."  3rd party developers are businesses after all. And they got to pay the rent, they got to put food on the table.  Of course, all the trouble that Asobo causes with their updates, such as Sim Update 5, will require more time and money for some 3rd party developers to fix (but from my understanding, P3D updates can break 3rd party add-ons too, as well as X-Plane updates).  But all things considered, if 3rd party developers feel that despite all the trouble caused by Asobo's updates and the time/work needed to fix the add-ons afterwards, is compensated by the profit they get from selling their add-on for MSFS, they will continue to make add-ons for MSFS. 

SimMarket 1,117 Add-ons for MSFS in one year, give a couple of more years and Devs will be stepping on each others toes with 2-3 versions of the same airport, and this is only one year 5 years 5-6,000 add-ons???.

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by G-RFRY

1 hour ago, G-RFRY said:

SimMarket 1,117 Add-ons for MSFS in one year, give a couple of more years and Devs will be stepping on each others toes with 2-3 versions of the same airport, and this is only one year 5 years 5-6,000 add-ons???.

I really don't want to veer into a detailed discussion about MSFS since this is the P3D forums and I respect the P3D forums.  But I will quickly answer your statement and hope we can move on from focusing on MSFS (otherwise, it will become simulator vs simulator war in this thread and I don't want to be the start of that).   It will definitely be a more crowded field for MSFS products as the years go past, but you also have to consider the size of the market.  If the market is big enough, it can support more products competing against each other, and 3rd party devs can still make a profit.  I suppose the easiest way to explain this is the economy of the US.  The US economy is so big, it can support millions of companies and all these millions of companies are making a profit.  Now let's find a very small economy, say Antigua and Barbuda.  I don't think the economy of Antigua and Barbuda can support millions of companies.

MSFS has actually pulled some people back into flight simulation and I believe MSFS has widened the size of the flight sim market.  Having said that, I think the peak of the MSFS market was the X-Box release on July 27th.  I assume that some holdouts will switch over from P3D and X-Plane to MSFS over the years as more higher fidelity planes come out for MSFS. But if any future holdouts switch over to MSFS, it won't be enough to compensate the casual players that quit playing MSFS.  July 27th was probably the peak for MSFS and the MSFS market will gradually shrink over time, as some casual flight simmers stop using/playing MSFS (but it may still be a big enough market for some 3rd party devs to make new products on and make a profit, but yes, you are right, the market is getting more crowded and harder for 3rd party devs to make a profit in MSFS over time).

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

One thing I haven't seen in this thread (and forgive me, I haven't been reading every post) is ORBX OpenLC Asia. 

I am very concerned that it may never come out simply because it seemed ORBX were reluctant to develop it in the first place. And now with so many efforts being placed on MSFS, I hope we will still see the project reach it's end. 

Especially because the region I am most excited about is the Far East (Japan, China, SE Asia). And I believe the release plan showed that this region was set to release last (Russia first, the Middle East second) though I'm going off memory here. Though one could argue that if v6 is planning some kind of Earth-maps feature to rival MSFS (one could hope...) then it would eliminate the need for it. 

That's really the only add-on I am waiting for at this point. And other than regular updates to aircraft and maybe updates to the scenery I already have for new terminals, etc.

I can't see a need to want anything else. I'm perfectly content with where things are and in terms of scenery/aircraft. Moreso interested in where things develop with core simulator features (further development of EA, ATC upgrades (hopefully), performance gains. 

I absolutely second that. The OpenLCs for Asia are a very important thing missing from the P3D world. Planes, airports, tools I have more than enough as is. And there's more available or in the pipeline.

4 hours ago, DChockey08 said:

One thing I haven't seen in this thread (and forgive me, I haven't been reading every post) is ORBX OpenLC Asia. 

I am very concerned that it may never come out simply because it seemed ORBX were reluctant to develop it in the first place. And now with so many efforts being placed on MSFS, I hope we will still see the project reach it's end. 

Especially because the region I am most excited about is the Far East (Japan, China, SE Asia). And I believe the release plan showed that this region was set to release last (Russia first, the Middle East second) though I'm going off memory here. Though one could argue that if v6 is planning some kind of Earth-maps feature to rival MSFS (one could hope...) then it would eliminate the need for it. 

That's really the only add-on I am waiting for at this point. And other than regular updates to aircraft and maybe updates to the scenery I already have for new terminals, etc.

I can't see a need to want anything else. I'm perfectly content with where things are and in terms of scenery/aircraft. Moreso interested in where things develop with core simulator features (further development of EA, ATC upgrades (hopefully), performance gains. 

I did mention it on Page 3 of this forum post 😉but I fully agree with your comments.I still have my fingers crossed that the AP region will still emerge. 👍

Another "wish" I have is for a more up-to-date version of Haneda for P3D. I have the Technobrain version but that version is a bit long-in-the-tooth IMHO and is one of the sceneries that is most demanding on my sim config. 🤞

 

 

8 hours ago, DChockey08 said:

One thing I haven't seen in this thread (and forgive me, I haven't been reading every post) is ORBX OpenLC Asia.

I was already trying to get an answer regarding the status of the project here. https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/209195-progress-in-world-asia/

No answer yet, maybe you guys could just continue to ask 🙂

Mike

Edited August 19, 20214 yr by mikealpha

6 minutes ago, mikealpha said:

I was already trying to get an answer regarding the status of the project here. https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/209195-progress-in-world-asia/

No answer yet, maybe you guys could just continue to ask 🙂

Mike

Hi Mike,

Orbx havent responded for quite a while. There last "official" response was from Nick Cooper in this thread and he stated development continues". That was on July 15th.

https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/202172-development-update-on-openlc-asia/page/5/"

 

cheers

Mark

Edited August 19, 20214 yr by 787flyer
typo

55 minutes ago, 787flyer said:

There last "official" response was from Nick Cooper in this thread and he stated development continues". 

"as soon as it's ready for release, it will be released". 

Now, that's a statement 😂

Anyway, thanks for info! 

Mike

10 hours ago, mikealpha said:

"as soon as it's ready for release, it will be released". 

Now, that's a statement 😂

Anyway, thanks for info! 

Mike

Yes, reminds me of another vendor that makes similar statements I believe whose name starts with "P" and ends in "MG"! 🤫

I keep my fingers crossed that Orbx will deliver. I know its been quiet but as everyone knows they have been busy pushing out a whole suite of MSFS sceneries lately, so I am not surprised we 're not hearing so much on the OpenLC Asia dev front.

Back to the original topic I think LM might face a dilemma, with almost all Addon developers moved away from P3D. 

If they would do any scenery changes in P3Dv6 that would require Addon Airports updates, that would be a killer, because chances for updates would be very low. 

With roughly 200 Addon Airports I would certainly not move to a P3Dv6 then. 

I hope LM is aware of this. 

Mike

Edited August 20, 20214 yr by mikealpha