MSFS2020 - A Year on in review

[Virtual-Chris 682]

6 hours ago, SmokeDiddy said:

I see this sim continuing to move forward with every release.  I have been a staunch critic of this sim from initial release, but the last two updates totally washed my criticism away.  This sim is the game changer we've looked for over the years and has set the benchmark for other sims of the future.

What in particular has changed your thinking?

[Christopher Low 5,332]

On 8/23/2021 at 8:34 PM, bean_sprout said:

Don't be so negative.  Take it as constructive criticism.

I don't like long posts and won't read them.

If you can give me a short, 1 paragraph synopsis I'll read that.

This is not the Library of Congress after all.

bs

It isn't kindergarten either.

[Matchstick 1,885]

19 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

It isn't kindergarten either.

Indeed, I guess even longtime posters can earn a place in my ignore bin.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Matchstick

[SmokeDiddy 262]

18 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

What in particular has changed your thinking?

Mostly stability and performance - meaning I do not get CTDs and I can actually utilize my dated system hardware on High settings and have a smooth flights.  The performance aspect was the real game changer for me.  I haven't flown another sim for at least two months.  I'm very happy with where the sim is at this point and yes, there are still some things that need to be tidied up, but overall my experience is good.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

9 hours ago, SmokeDiddy said:

Mostly stability and performance - meaning I do not get CTDs and I can actually utilize my dated system hardware on High settings and have a smooth flights.  The performance aspect was the real game changer for me.  I haven't flown another sim for at least two months.  I'm very happy with where the sim is at this point and yes, there are still some things that need to be tidied up, but overall my experience is good.

That makes sense. I built a new high-end system for MSFS so performance was never the biggest issue... and the deteriorating visuals in exchange for performance is not a welcome change.  

[cobalt 798]

17 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

That makes sense. I built a new high-end system for MSFS so performance was never the biggest issue... and the deteriorating visuals in exchange for performance is not a welcome change.  

I am sorry you are seeing deteriorating graphics. My experience has been the opposite: since SU5 I see much better graphics (50-60 FPS almost everywhere with nearly all settings on Ultra, even in large cities) with no detectable loss in quality. Since you have a high-end system, there must be a reason for this difference, other than computer systems. I wish I knew the answer!

Alienware Aurora R11, 32 GB ram, Intel i7-10700F, GeForce RTX 2080 Super

Edited August 27, 2021 by cobalt

[Dominique_K 10,133]

10 minutes ago, cobalt said:

I am sorry you are seeing deteriorating graphics. My experience has been the opposite: since SU5 I see much better graphics (50-60 FPS almost everywhere with nearly all settings on Ultra, even in large cities) with no detectable loss in quality. Since you have a high-end system, there must be a reason for this difference, other than computer systems. I wish I knew the answer!

Alienware Aurora R11, 32 GB ram, Intel i7-10700F, GeForce RTX 2080 Super

It really depends of what one means by graphics. Since SU5 like many I see a lot of shimmering and the light rendering is still overdone even after HF2. Now I agree that the FPS is somewhat better.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

2 hours ago, cobalt said:

I am sorry you are seeing deteriorating graphics. My experience has been the opposite: since SU5 I see much better graphics (50-60 FPS almost everywhere with nearly all settings on Ultra, even in large cities) with no detectable loss in quality. Since you have a high-end system, there must be a reason for this difference, other than computer systems. I wish I knew the answer!

Alienware Aurora R11, 32 GB ram, Intel i7-10700F, GeForce RTX 2080 Super

I’m referring to pop in, morphing, blurry or poor textures, shimmering, pixilization, lighting, draw distance - the visual quality. There’s been an obvious and conscious decision to trade visual quality for frame rate. This may benefit console and old PC players, but is not in any way a benefit from my perspective. 

[MattNischan 3,778]

On 8/24/2021 at 9:12 AM, EvidencePlz said:

From day one, the flight model is an absolute joke, every single aircraft, be it first or third party, Carenado or PMDG, is a twitchy, comedy and arcadey mess, avionics are completely wrong, and most of them don't even look like their real world counterparts, weather is completely wrong and missing many important features, aircraft flies back to departure airport once user activates the approach...countless...literally countless of issues that prevent a MSFS user from performing a realistic flight from point A to B. 

I hate to get into the middle of stuff like this, but it seems like I see this same poster with an axe to grind over and over and over on the FS forums as well.

Plenty of pilots will have plenty of opinions, but at the end of the day, a pilot's opinion is just an opinion. Ask any aircraft developer how many pilots will give you directly conflicting feedback when developing a flight model; it's all a matter of internal interpretation, how they might fly the real thing, how their controls are set up, how adaptable they are (so many pilots don't report a bug because they just instinctually work around an issue). Pilots are amazing people, but it's just the nature of being a human being. Perceptions are just perceptions.

The reality is that within the features that MSFS supports, it has objectively, from a mathematical and implementation perspective, the highest resolution and most capable flight model of any home flight simulator, by an order of magnitude. And all the comparisons to Level D sims or FAA training approval, are downright silly. Level D sims use old school table lookups with single CoG point force application and absolutely zero air mass simulation, FS9 era mathematics. The dynamic 4D air mass simulation alone is totally a complete first in the simulation space. The _default_ 172 in MSFS flies so incredibly close to measured data that it's down to that last extra degree of adverse yaw here, that one or two knots of extra deceleration in a slip there. You can now do the most complex IFR approaches possible in real life with your own G1000 NXi equipped 172, approaches that even many historically super expensive third party aircraft implementations haven't gotten totally right. And for not a single penny extra out of your pocket. Any of the previous MS flight simulator iterations could have gotten FAA approved for training, if they had decided to throw down the cash for the process and thought it was at all relevant to their vision. It has very little to do with super accurate flight modeling, I'll tell you that much.

Is it the most advanced overall? That depends on if you need arbitrary flight surfaces and other non-standard plane design stuff. For 90% of fixed-wing aircraft designs, it is stunningly capable. For the other stuff, not so much yet.

I get people's frustrations, I really do, and do know that the team isn't flippant about regressions, they do take it very seriously. But it's a huge product with millions and millions of lines of code, and as we take it further and further out of the FS6-FSX era there will be teething issues but things will improve. But this flight model nonsense really needs to go.

That's all I'm going to say about it, so don't come in guns blazing expecting a protracted argument. Just posting for the sake of the reader. 🙂

-Matt

[DylanM 1,069]

On 8/23/2021 at 12:53 PM, Bert Pieke said:

Instead of adding new exciting things, I would encourage MS/Asobo to clean up the things that are not working right.. UI issues, multiplayer issues, avionics/flight planning issues, scenery mesh issues, etc.   Everyone has their favorite list..

The frustrating thing for many of us is many of these things were working at some point (including things like controls, UI, lighting, terrain, coastlines, etc.). The performance updates in SU5 were revolutionary, but so many little/big things were changed and broken in parallel that it took away from the brilliant work the core engine team did.

I fully understand the goal was to have a convergence of builds and functionality for the Xbox release - so now that's done, here's hoping processes can be put in place to prevent unnecessary foot-shooting in the future.  

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

The light rendering is better than ever on a HDR screen but still out on a SDR screen though the hotfix helped SDR  a bit .

Some of the issues introduced by SU5 can be offset by LOD 300 or above and higher render scaling.

The terrain pop in every time you turn your head (introduced to save memory in low end PCs) is not currently fixable.   One must assume whoever thought of that clever innovation sits in the cockpit and just looks straight ahead for days and never pans around or goes to external view.

 

Ongoing FM issues causing grief are the awful transition from the ground physics modelling to the flight model and the fact that propellers, turbo props and floats are not modelled at all and devs have to create workarounds.

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

11 minutes ago, MattNischan said:

I hate to get into the middle of stuff like this, but it seems like I see this same poster with an axe to grind over and over and over on the FS forums as well.

Just add him to your "ignore" list.. I have..  If you keep on doing that, the forums get quiet and informative after a while.. 🙂

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

2 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

One must assume whoever thought of that clever innovation sits in the cockpit and just looks straight ahead for days and never pans around or goes to external view.

Or, decided that performance was more important for most users... 😉

I am OK with it... but also understand that an FOV slider is planned, so you can have your views back..

[cobalt 798]

18 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I’m referring to pop in, morphing, blurry or poor textures, shimmering, pixilization, lighting, draw distance - the visual quality. There’s been an obvious and conscious decision to trade visual quality for frame rate. This may benefit console and old PC players, but is not in any way a benefit from my perspective. 

Again, our experiences differ. I see none of the things you mention. We almost seem to be describing different simulators. And I will note that the issue here is what has changed before and after SU5. For me (and I think many others, based on what I have read here), SU5 has produced an enormous improvement. It is a shame that you do not see this, but that does not change the fact that I do.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

3 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Or, decided that performance was more important for most users... 😉

I am OK with it... but also understand that an FOV slider is planned, so you can have your views back..

On the plus side the pop-ins reinforce to me why I paid for mesh because every time I turn my head I see the default lumpy mesh for half a second before the good stuff takes over.  😄

Edited August 27, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick