9 hours ago, rka said:

Let me put it like this: If they had known about MSFS, Vulkan would have come way faster (and the eastern european graphics artists as well). But there was no need for being quicker...

The people inside LR are just normal people that adore aviation and flightsim, they definitely don't need competition to put in insane hours to make the best flightsim, they are just as desperate for it as we are - perhaps even more so since they decided to dedicate pretty much their entire lives to it.

This is why their reaction when MSFS was announced was pretty much "meh, this changes nothing"

This aint no "10 year project" for LR, quite a few of them have already been doing it for twice that long already.

Austin pointed out in the OP, he's been waiting for these clouds for 25 years already, those who were asking for them for the last few should probably consider themselves lucky they haven't had to wait that long.

11 hours ago, RXP said:

maybe, but in any case, I believe there is a saying which says (at least in French) "all good things come to those who wait" 🙂

Hi RXP.  I respect you more than many of the other "yes men" in this forum because I think you have a more grounded viewpoint than them.

Just so you know a little about me, I have been critical of XP-11 in the past, and I still remain critical of XP-11.  I would not consider buying XP-11 in its current state.  Having said that, I also said I think XP-12 is a huge step forward from XP-11, and I am actually following XP-12 with a lot of interest, and XP-12 is something that I would consider buying.

IMO, @rka is right that Austin and LR were rather complacent for many years in improving the graphics of XP-12.  rka cites the ARMA engine. I'll cite something that is more relevant - another flight simulator.  So the particular example I will cite is the default trees in XP-11.  IMO, the default trees in XP-11 are worse than the default trees in Microsoft Flight from 2012:

Yes, Microsoft Flight was a failure.  But it doesn't change the fact that at least in my eyes, the default trees in Microsoft Flight are better than the default trees in XP-11.

Mind you, Microsoft Flight was from 2012.  So between Microsoft Flight in 2012 and MSFS in 2020, Austin/LR had 8 years to make the trees better.  Austin/LR did not make the trees better in that time period.  And IMO, I doubt that Vulkan is really needed to make better trees that can at least match the trees in Microsoft Flight, especially since Microsoft Flight was from 2012.

So yes, I agree with @rka that Austin/LR were complacent because their best competition was P3D over the last decade.  Ironically, the release of MSFS has changed all this; Austin/LR are no longer complacent and they recognize the threat of the new competition now.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

14 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Yes, Microsoft Flight was a failure.  But it doesn't change the fact that at least in my eyes, the default trees in Microsoft Flight are better than the default trees in XP-11.

What it demonstrates is that having good default trees doesn't make your slight sim sustainable long term.

It doesn't demonstrate that XP11 can't have good trees without paying extra.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mSparks

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

What it demonstrates is that having good default trees doesn't make your slight sim sustainable long term.

It doesn't demonstrate that XP11 can't have good trees without paying extra.

 

mSparks, no offense to you, but you are one of the "yes men" that I am referring to so anything you post, I am skeptical of.

The trees would have to cover every region of the world (I'm not sure if your example is only for a specific region).  And the tree add-on should not be pulling the FPS down by too much.

I suspect that Austin/LR is doing a lot of the graphics enhancements in XP12 in house, including the trees and vegetation, because he can get better FPS if it's done in house.

But even if the add-on you show have trees that cover every region of the world and has good FPS, I still wouldn't want to pay extra money to buy it because I think it should be built in as a part of the simulator.  Austin understands this and that's why he is incorporating all these graphics enhancements in XP-12, to give his customers a better experience and a more reasonable cost.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

MSFS has better graphics than XP? Let's wait until XP12 arrives. However, even if it remains this way, fine with me. So be it!
You know why? Because, there are games outside there, which have to shine through their graphics, but not through what they're offering in the background. You may read the wikipedia item about Potemkin villages . The ones, who are impressed by and like to be blended by facades, are free to do so and play with MSFS. So be it! The others, who aren't impressed this easy, but demand SIMULATION ... you get the point ...

BTW: wasn't there sometime during these repetetive, end- and fruitless discussions already an idiom about something with "village id..."? Now - I finally understood the correlation (see my Potemkin villages analogy).
 

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

but you are one of the "yes men" that I am referring to so anything you post, I am skeptical of.

Not really, I'm plenty critical of XP11 things.

ATC is completely useless - so bad I had to take time out of my days to make AutoATC, XP12 ATC is only going to be marginally better.

Out of the box its to hard and takes to long to get decent for the average user - still true

non vulkan XP11 is generally an absolute unusable horror show, and I've said as much since XP11 was released - this is fixed by Vulkan, went final for 6 months ago or so.

The helo flight model was completely borken until 11.30, released several years after I first started with XP10.

and from this very thread

On 11/14/2021 at 7:22 PM, mSparks said:

Having ground my forehead through the initial XP11 beta and numerous betas since then, if history is anything to go by, the XP12 beta process is going to be about as fun as being on the wrong side of Marsellus Wallace, a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

Not sure you can put it any more obscenely here without tripping the word censors, I was a little worried it might even be a little too much for the more sensitive souls.

All that experience is the reason I was so sceptical of MSFS in the early days when everyone was promising the flight model was better than XP, every button would work just like the real thing and the graphics would be photo realistic by the time it released, absolutely no one who lived through those years wants to do them all again - but that's the only way MSFS can ever catch up.

But all that is water under the bridge. 

Flight model is sorted, vulkan is here, EC, ES, AutoATC, Ortho and OrbX are mature now on XP11.

VR is in a mostly usable state, even on Linux, and absolutely breath taking.

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

The trees would have to cover every region of the world (I'm not sure if you example is only for a specific region).  And the tree add-on should not be pulling the FPS down by too much

Sure, take your pick

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/41570-hd-forests/

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/47111-hd-trees-for-x-plane/

https://orbxdirect.com/category/europe/xp11

The problem is exactly FPS, even default trees get to much for XP11 minimum hardware - nothing to do with any optimisation, just there are lots of them in dense forests, XP12 will do it differently now because a GTX1070 is an old low end card now rather than almost the best money could buy back when XP11 was first released.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mSparks

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

mSparks, no offense to you, but you are one of the "yes men" that I am referring to so anything you post, I am skeptical of.

Liking xplane does not make one a yes man does it,..?? But I admit he is over the top at times.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mjrhealth

7 minutes ago, mSparks said:

The problem is exactly FPS, even default trees get to much for XP11 minimum hardware - nothing to do with any optimisation, just there are lots of them in dense forests, XP12 will do it differently now because a GTX1070 is an old low end card now rather than almost the best money could buy back when XP11 was first released.

So you are saying these 3rd party tree pacakages will drag down the FPS in XP-11, correct?  I'm sure this is why Austin/LR is doing all these graphic enhancements (including trees & vegetation) in house for XP-12 - because the best way to ensure the user gets good FPS with all these graphics enhancements, it needs to be done in house now and it needs to be a part of the base simulator.

Having said that, Microsoft Flight demonstrated from 2012 that you could have better looking trees with reasonable FPS.  

Anyways, MSFS has lit a fire under Austin so that's a good thing for flight simulation as a whole.  Flight sim enthusiasts will benefit from the competition between XP and MSFS.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

2 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

So you are saying these 3rd party tree pacakages will drag down the FPS in XP-11, correct?

full forests in XP11 requires max world objects, you need a very recent high end CPU - and mods to default settings to use max world objects successfully.

 

Just now, mSparks said:

full forests in XP11 requires max world objects, you need a very recent high end CPU - and mods to default settings to use max world objects successfully.

 

Thanks, I thought so.

This is probably why Austin/LR is doing these graphics enhancements in house for XP-12.  Done correctly, XP-12 can give good FPS with all the graphics enhancements (including better trees) and hopefully, the user doesn't need a high end CPU for it.

18 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Thanks, I thought so.

This is probably why Austin/LR is doing these graphics enhancements in house for XP-12.  Done correctly, XP-12 can give good FPS with all the graphics enhancements (including better trees) and hopefully, the user doesn't need a high end CPU for it.

exactly, - but they will need half a decentish, recent (non basic intel) GPU to use them at all, I'm expecting Pascal/RDNA/Xe to pretty much be the minimum hardware spec for XP12, that wasn't feasible for software released in 2016, even now it may prove problematic (because 80% of windows machines and a good portion of Macs are basic Intel GPUs - fortunately only 9% of steam users).

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mSparks

5 hours ago, mtaxp said:

You claimed that vulkan took more time because there was no competetion and I gave other actual valid reasons, MSFS was an example of how even for bigger teams low profile API is hard. Are you going to, as usual, not confront them rather ignore? A way to run away from your own claims.

FWIW, being WRONG in every predection since 2 years yet still claiming you were somehow right makes almost this entire section mostly look at you as a laughing matter ;D

Too late, rka, indeed, too late to change them.

Would you please be so kind to link some of the things I'm ignoring and some of those where I was wrong since two years? Thank you.

10 hours ago, DeltaWho said:

Does that mean Laminar are oblivious to what people want and how to progress the sim in a constructive way? No. Not only is their current work now shining through for XP12, but alot of their design choices are why people still prefer X-Plane to this day. Despite visually superior products, it's still a versatile and adaptable simulator.

We know people have been clamoring for certain graphical upgrades that have been shot down repeatedly, usually under the "we're building a simulator we can't focus on 'eye candy'" category, year after year.

This has been going on for so long, legions of defenders are quick to throw suggestions into the "we don't need eye candy".

And then MSFS 2020 comes out, and it raises the bar graphical bar 10-fold.  X-Plane forums were once again full of "that's a game" and "who needs eye candy?".

Now all of a sudden we have proper atmospheric lighting, forests of trees and 3D clouds coming in XP12. 

This didn't happen because they finally got around to it.

Yes, this required Vulkan, and with a small team that takes time.  I'd be curious when they were aware Microsoft was working on an new simulator.

There was some resting on laurels.

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by Gulfstream

 

59 minutes ago, Gulfstream said:

This didn't happen because they finally got around to it.

Yes, it did.

 All those features were announced to be worked on after Vulkan and Metal, no matter how many times you claim this, there are interviews, QAs and many blog posts. 

They wanted to change lighting immediately after x-plane 11 shipped, introduce new water, shader based seasons mentioned in 2017 etc... all in the blog, way before MSFS was ever announced. The last straw for the decision to move to Vulkan/Metal first came in the beginning of all of this and due to OpenGL limitations so everything was put down.

You should listen to this one: (mainly 23:50 and beyond)

1 hour ago, rka said:

Would you please be so kind to link some of the things I'm ignoring and some of those where I was wrong since two years? Thank you.

You are right and I apologize, you are here since May. But then you came with the same nonsense claims as above and are proven wrong every time you/others claim them.

Every time you/others came here claiming x-plane can't compete the immediate answers were they will work on graphics post vulkan, constant badgering does not change reality. The same words have been said for the last 2 years and somehow the WRONG ones try to twist it in their favor as if they were right. 

No one here is stupid, we have a very long memory span and all of this was mentioned way before MSFS came out. MSFS though, probably set the new bar as how competition works, the only thing it means is that LR have to make better features of the already long time planned features. i.e. if they planned volumetric clouds, then now they have a bar to meet of how they should look like and what they can do better.

 

Most of your claims now are "this should come sooner" rather than "x-plane can't compete and will die", time to move on from this childish mental state. And don't worry, you will be wrong about those 20 fps in Austin's video and I still remember you challenging me about that, although you will hesitate when it comes I'm 100% sure as you backed down from previous claims in very recent discussions with me (so no, not 2 years for you, but you still made the impression with the same nonsense).

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mtaxp

9 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

 

Yes, it did.

 All those features were announced to be worked on after Vulkan and Metal, no matter how many times you claim this, there are interviews, QAs and many blog posts. 

They wanted to change lighting immediately after x-plane 11 shipped, introduce new water, shader based seasons mentioned in 2017 etc... all in the blog, way before MSFS was ever announced. The last straw for the decision to move to Vulkan/Metal first came in the beginning of all of this and due to OpenGL limitations so everything was put down.

You are right and I apologize, you are here since May. But then you came with the same nonsense claims as above and are proven wrong every time you/others claim them.

Every time you/others came here claiming x-plane can't compete the immediate answers were they will work on graphics post vulkan, constant badgering does not change reality. The same words have been said for the last 2 years and somehow the WRONG ones try to twist it in their favor as if they were right. 

No one here is stupid, we have a very long memory span and all of this was mentioned way before MSFS came out. MSFS though, probably set the new bar as how competition works, the only thing it means is that LR have to make better features of the already long time planned features. i.e. if they planned volumetric clouds, then now they have a bar to meet of how they should look like and what they can do better.

 

Most of your claims now are "this should come sooner" rather than "x-plane can't compete and will die", time to move on from this childish mental state. And don't worry, you will be wrong about those 20 fps in Austin's video and I still remember you challenging me about that.

Apology accepted, I actually choose to ignore the childish attacks on me that follow.