Xp 12 Update

[mrueedi 702]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

So my apologies for the overly generous 20-30% I mentioned earlier.

We talked about the OS not MSFS. And note, I did not mention MSFS so far in this thread at all.

You were proven wrong with your own screenshot, that the performance on Windows would not scale horizontally.

As the OS is fine, it is the job of the application devs to exploit this capability (and there are generally a lot of pitfalls and hurdles to get parallelization right). XPlane as well as early MSFS versions are/were not optimized well in that regard.

Also, it undermines your credibility, if you post links about MSFS that are more than 12 months old. MSFS today is much better optimized and enhanced compared with the launch version. Today (and mainly since SU5), I consider the accomplished graphics and performance vs. the amazingly low hardware usage simply astounding. CPU is no bottleneck anymore. The CPU cores are pretty evenly loaded.

Edited October 22, 2021 by mrueedi

[mSparks 2,086]

22 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

We talked about the OS not MSFS.

I definitely said windows software

23 hours ago, mSparks said:

Are you really saying you disagree with the statement that up until very recently windows software performance was predominately single core performance?

On 10/18/2021 at 11:53 PM, mSparks said:

virtually no software with multithread support (MS only added std:thread to their build tools/VC++ in 2018), and even those that do are crippled by the ancient thread scheduler in the windows kernel.

I also pointed out my benchmarks were for windows server, which has an improved thread scheduler over windows home and pro.

The usual retort is "doubling the cores doesn't double the performance", so I made sure we established that isn't true first. It can and should.

Edited October 22, 2021 by mSparks

[rka 916]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

It does require a supercomputer.

Fortunately, a recent half decent GPU from Nvidia, AMD or even Intel (their new Xe range, launched in Sept 2020) count as one.

Yes I get the sarcasm, but just in case you missed it, the issue that what was being discussed is why linux based applications:

Whilst stuff built with windows cruft

https://www.tomshardware.com/features/microsoft-flight-simulator-benchmarks-performance-system-requirements

So my apologies for the overly generous 20-30% I mentioned earlier.

My comment wasn't really directed at you, it was more generally speaking about some vocal parts of the XP crowd.

All those things that didn't even need fixing one year ago are now quickly evolving in exactly the way that the "haters" demanded for a long time. 

Isn't it great what a little competition can make happen? I definitely think it is. Now if I only had an idea what the reason for this competition was 😉

[mSparks 2,086]

1 minute ago, rka said:

about some vocal parts of the XP crowd.

Yeah, and to make matters worse, a lot of them have mod privileges, its made having this conversation anywhere near them until now pretty much impossible.

On the plus side, Laminar doesn't really listen to them (anymore).

[rka 916]

4 minutes ago, mSparks said:

On the plus side, Laminar doesn't really listen to them (anymore).

That would really be great if is true. I certainly hope so.

Edited October 22, 2021 by rka

[mSparks 2,086]

Just now, rka said:

That would really be great if true.

Its been for a while, firstly as LR says "we dont listen to users" - thats them they are talking about.

Secondly, not particularly quickly, what they are showing now has been a work in progress for at least 4 or 5 years afaict, what changed between then and now is they are at least highly confident they can deliver what they have shown (unlike certain other developers _cough cough_), and ""ready" is a dynamic term that can change based on market conditions"

pulled from when Ben actually blogged about that a while ago

http://hacksoflife.blogspot.com/2019/10/klingons-do-not-release-software.html 

[rka 916]

17 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Its been for a while, firstly as LR says "we dont listen to users" - thats them they are talking about.

Secondly, not particularly quickly, what they are showing now has been a work in progress for at least 4 or 5 years afaict, what changed between then and now is they are at least highly confident they can deliver what they have shown (unlike certain other developers _cough cough_), and ""ready" is a dynamic term that can change based on market conditions"

pulled from when Ben actually blogged about that a while ago

http://hacksoflife.blogspot.com/2019/10/klingons-do-not-release-software.html 

Yes, and the market conditions have changed dramatically, pushing back the "ready" point for XP 12 by A LOT.

So I do not think they were working on this 4-5 years. I do actually believe the stories told by the crowd that they worked on Vulkan during those years. It's been out for what, two years now?

[Murmur 3,941]

16 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Secondly, not particularly quickly, what they are showing now has been a work in progress for at least 4 or 5 years afaict

Exactly, I can't but laugh when uninformed people say: "Competition from MFS is the reason XP will be having all those new features!" 🤣 🤣 🤣

When the more informed people, know well that all those features have been in the works for years, just postponed because they had to be done AFTER the Vulkan port. Also, LR steadily increased the number of developers in the last few years, so it's obvious that the results of that expansion would have been visible only after a few years, in the first major new release (i.e. XP12).

New 3D water, procedural seasons, new photometric lighting, all those features have been talked about by Ben Supnik well before MFS was even announced...

 

[rka 916]

3 minutes ago, Murmur said:

When the more informed people, know well that all those features have been in the works for years, just postponed because they had to be done AFTER the Vulkan port.

The informed people™ seem to have found a way to work and to not work on a feature at the same time 😉

[Murmur 3,941]

3 minutes ago, rka said:

The informed people™ seem to have found a way to work and to not work on a feature at the same time 😉

Of course not, maybe you were not knowledgeable about that, but of course LR had been working on those features for a lot of time, but actually implementing those in a final product would not have made sense before porting it to Vulkan. 😉

Edited October 22, 2021 by Murmur

[mSparks 2,086]

14 minutes ago, rka said:

So I do not think they were working on this 4-5 years.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X-Plane-Vulkan-2018

 6 June 2018 

Quote

Since X-Plane began working on virtual reality (VR) support for their flight simulator, they have talked of making use of Vulkan on Windows/Linux/Android while also pursuing Metal API support for macOS. The company has previously confirmed they are going with Vulkan on supported platforms including Windows, rather than pursuing DirectX 12. It looks like their Vulkan support is getting squared away as the company has tweeted this weekend they will be talking about Vulkan integration this weekend at the Flight Sim Expo in Las Vegas.

Vulkan was a prerequisit to getting any new features working, as was (probably most importantly) consumer hardware being generally available capable of it, Ben last showed off water wave progress in 2016

https://developer.x-plane.com/2016/10/developer-blooper-reel-water-world/

 

11.55r2 (the end of XP11 development) was compiled on Jun 22 2021 17:21:17 - 4 months ago. Prior to that XP11 development was happening simultaneously to XP12.

Edited October 22, 2021 by mSparks

[rka 916]

 

10 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Of course not, maybe you were not knowledgeable about that, but of course LR had been working on those features for a lot of time, but actually implementing those in a final product would not have made sense before porting it to Vulkan. 😉

Now I'm really wondering what they were doing "working on those features for a long time", but not "actually implementing them". You mean like doing meetings or what? 😄

Edited October 22, 2021 by rka

[jarmstro 2,402]

1 hour ago, mrueedi said:

Also, it undermines your credibility, if you post links about MSFS that are more than 12 months old. MSFS today is much better optimized and enhanced compared with the launch version. Today (and mainly since SU5), I consider the accomplished graphics and performance vs. the amazingly low hardware usage simply astounding. CPU is no bottleneck anymore. The CPU cores are pretty evenly loaded.

I have to say, without wishing to introduce any controversy, that I agree. The astonishing graphics quality and performance I get with MSFS is something I would not think I would ever see. I truly hope LR will match it. But at last it would seem that now every one now agrees that XP11 is outdated and that the visuals are important.

Edited October 22, 2021 by jarmstro

[Murmur 3,941]

10 minutes ago, rka said:

Now I'm really wondering what they were doing "working on those features for a long time", but not "actually implementing them". You mean like doing meetings or what? 😄

Probably internal testing, as shown by the above video as an example. You don't know a lot about software development, do you? 😄

[mSparks 2,086]

13 minutes ago, rka said:

"working on those features for a long time"

Computers are crazy, seemingly the simpliest feature can take years to get bug free, whilst seemingly complex impossible tasks can be finished in an afternoon and loved for years

1 hour ago, mrueedi said:

Also, it undermines your credibility, if you post links about MSFS that are more than 12 months old. 

You are the one who said you disagreed with

On 10/21/2021 at 2:17 PM, mSparks said:

Are you really saying you disagree with the statement that up until very recently windows software performance was predominately single core performance?

So far you haven't really made a credible disagreement tbh

1 hour ago, mrueedi said:

MSFS today is much better optimized and enhanced compared with the launch version.

So more or less than 20-30% perf increase when doubling CPU cores now then?

Edited October 22, 2021 by mSparks