31 minutes ago, Noel said:

Some sweet shots from MSFS:

Rain squalls near my home town of Arvada CO, from early MSFS:

Fussen, Bavaria, also from early on:

WDC, also from early on:

Coming in to KLAX--as I say the value of being this aligned to reality is IMO not well described as, 'eye candy':

The quality of default airports is very often stunning to say the least, and they're all over the world, and even pedestrian rural airports are quite remarkable quite often:

If it's true to say XP 12 is mostly a graphical upgrade, but w/o PG and Ortho, I'm not see the lure quite yet.

Hello, mr @Ray Proudfoot, do your post below also apply to the above post by @Noel?

Thanks for the clarification! 🙂 It's just that sometimes it's irritating that the XP forum is accused of having a toxic atmosphere, whereas it's usually fanssss from other sims who come here to disrupt things!

 

Edited December 13, 20214 yr by Murmur

1 minute ago, Murmur said:

Hello, mr @Ray Proudfoot, do your post below also apply to the above post by @Noel?

Goodness Murmer!  Was that really too threatening? Surely XP12 can compete with a few isolated screenshots, no?

4 minutes ago, Murmur said:

whereas it's usually fanssss from other sims who come here to disrupt things!

For the record - I am not disrupted or bothered by people posting MSFS screenshots...I would get worried if they posted proof that MSFS is catching up in the areas that I feel XP is still ahead, but nice pictures of scenery or aircraft taxiing around? Fine with me! 🙂

15 minutes ago, Janov said:

Hi Noel,

those are stunning screenshots! It is obvious that MSFS is capable of producing unrivaled visuals.

It will probably be forever a mystery to someone focused on visuals like you - but just like there are some people that still enjoy Minecraft over Battlefield 2042, there are quite a few that enjoy flying X-Plane 11 instead of MSFS.

There is no doubt that MSFS will in general look a ton better than X-Plane 11 (despite mSparks now posting some screenshots to prove the opposite in a minute or two 😉 ).

X-Plane 12 will close the gap, but I believe that MSFS will still come out ahead in the visual department when comparing it to XP12. So for everyone with a focus on the visual aspect of flying - MSFS will be the simulator of choice. If I read your interests and focus right - there is nothing to gain for you by browsing for XP12 news or screenshots. Fly MSFS and be a happy camper!

I understand Janov--having come from 30y of FS/FSX/P3D and enjoying the heck out of GSX & PMDG & especially FSCaptain!  My only peeve is reducing 'visuals' down to 'eye candy' which to me always sounds dismissive.  We're all hoping MSFS matures a bit more and there is evidence it will, but surely no guarantees for anything in our future.  XP users already have a stable mature platform and I'm very happy they will up their visuals game w/ volumetric clouds and other aspects of the rest of the sim besides the airplane.  I visited here just to learn a bit more about XP-12 which I've done now, to the extent it's known.

32 minutes ago, Janov said:

but just like there are some people that still enjoy Minecraft over Battlefield 2042, there are quite a few that enjoy flying X-Plane 11 instead of MSFS.

This is why XP11 users didn't suddenly switch over, its doesn't help which of the alternatives a P3D doubter would choose.

32 minutes ago, Janov said:

despite mSparks now posting some screenshots to prove the opposite in a minute or two 😉 )

I've pretty much given up trying to show what I mean with screenshots, I made a separate thread about it.

 

32 minutes ago, Janov said:

but I believe that MSFS will still come out ahead in the visual department when comparing it to XP12.

visually, people will be and are limited by their hardware, all things equal I do not see any reason XP12 on a GTX1070 won't be at least as good as any of the alternatives on a GTX1070.

This is another reason to completely disregard screenshots, if the hiqual screenshots were achievable in real time, on hardware people actually own, there would be evidence that those screenshots are achievable in real time, on hardware people actually own. Instead there is just forum thread after forum thread complaining nothing works as described, and a load more full of so many glitches I'd shut down my PC and go play Ace Combat 7 instead. (did that a lot during the XP11 Betas, expecting to do so again during the XP12 betas, although now I have move controllers it will probably be beat saber instead)

Edited December 13, 20214 yr by mSparks

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

Hello, mr @Ray Proudfoot, do your post below also apply to the above post by @Noel?

Thanks for the clarification! 🙂 It's just that sometimes it's irritating that the XP forum is accused of having a toxic atmosphere, whereas it's usually fanssss from other sims who come here to disrupt things!

Nothing wrong with a few screenshots of another sim if it’s to prove something or generate a healthy debate between that sim and XP. Constructive criticism is reasonable. Destructive criticism isn’t.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

My only peeve is reducing 'visuals' down to 'eye candy' which to me always sounds dismissive.

I think you will be hard pressed to find any flightsimulator user who actually objects to "great graphics". Once you start asking: "What should a flighsimulator dev focus on?" you will get varying answers, though...and a heated debate as well, probably 😉

If we can have it all - sure, we all love great graphics. And improving the visual aspect of X-Plane has been the focus of the last years for Laminar Research. The satellite/photogrammetry option is out of reach for Laminar for licensing cost reasons.

There has been a lot of work on other aspects of X-Plane for XP12 as well - you may roll your eyes at that, but one of the most important changes for me is the fact that the ISA deviation now will have an effect on true altitude...an important factor not only in IFR procedures when doing non-precision approaches that are based on a barometric reference, but also something that every IFR rated pilot should be aware about when determining minimum safe altitudes and temperature correcting MDAs and DHs. Shocking to think that this was not a factor in XP11! 😲

Bottom line is. XP11 was great, XP12 will be better in the departments which were overlooked in the past.

3 hours ago, Janov said:

It will probably be forever a mystery to someone focused on visuals like you - but just like there are some people that still enjoy Minecraft over Battlefield 2042, there are quite a few that enjoy flying X-Plane 11 instead of MSFS.

Indeed ... The main purpose of a flight simulator is (as the name says - however, some people might be surprised and still won't believe it) to ... guess what ... simulate a flight. If it has nice graphics - I'll take it, too. Why not? But it's not THE most important factor.

In another genre (racing simulation) I would prefer Live for Speed from 2003 and even Grand Prix Legends from 1998 above e.g. Need for Speed 2020. WHAT???? Am I crazy? No. But I did (real) racing in my younger years, and I can judge, what is a good simulator and not a Potemkin Village. Same applies for flying.

And, even "worse": there are C64 games which are better than some modern PC games - not graphics wise, but the idea and implementation.

If for the ones, visuals is THE most important aspect, fine. For others it is not, they want at first simulation and then visuals, but not the other way round.

24 minutes ago, uwespeed said:

If for the ones, visuals is THE most important aspect,

But also.

It wasnt the most important factor for them either. They just said it was.

It wasnt until after they had spent $120 or signed up for that $14.99 a month subscription that they learnt the hard way that beauty is only skin deep, you cant judge a book by its cover etc etc.

Since someone touched on P3D and Ray kinda gave the go ahead - Id love to see some showcase shots of their trusky stuff, never found any that matched AC7 and since its windows only cant try it myself.

 

 

8 minutes ago, uwespeed said:

If for the ones, visuals is THE most important aspect, fine. For others it is not, they want at first simulation and then visuals, but not the other way round.

The way I see it the really hard part was doing what MS/Asobo has done already, and it becomes the base platform to further develop the simulation within.   Fortunately for those who are committed financially and learning-wise to the other sims, they still work well and continue to improve.  So if you're not able to have the patience and tolerance required for an evolving MSFS to get to a higher state of maturity, you always have those to meet your flight sim needs.  And MSFS is already very far along the path of the fully featured desktop flight simulator.  Very obviously this helps explain why there are very many veteran simmers using MSFS today, despite its deployment hiccoughs.  In fact, I fly far more today than I did for decades and used study level planes like the PMDG offerings, and Majestic's Dash 8.  You can't do this without have a lot of flight simulation already well implemented.

The combination of ortho scenery, photogrammetry, lighting, the full array of very well done airports, the already decent weather under further development now, and all of this at an astoundingly excellent performance level on a wide array of hardware was by far the massive challenge, and they met this goal exceedingly well.  Were they to skip this part and for example develop into the traditional landclass based environment so they could get the sim out the door on a similar time frame, there really would have been little incentive for simmers to migrate over because this model has already existed for decades.  If they waited to develop what you are thinking of as a complete simulation first, it could not have been released perhaps for another year or two, and few current users would have opted for that.  My sense is the other aspects of the fully featured desktop flight sim are far and away the easy part to get right, and I predict as I have all along, that this will come relatively quickly.  After all, it's been done before, exists today, and there is really nothing innovative in it.  This is also why the other sims often focus new material in new releases on graphics, volumetric clouds, etc.  While they're working on getting up to speed there, MS/A has already done all of this, and it's very good.  Debugging a bit more (the major focus of Sim Update 8 in Feb '22), enhancing the SDK, refining the flight model, etc are the other aspects I think we will see progress quite fast now.  MS/Asobo has stated separation of previously combined Sim and World updates, and as I say stability have become the current foci going forward.

 

15 minutes ago, Noel said:

the really hard part was

How are you judging that?

Like. It sounds like you are saying what Austin did was easy and what Faruk did was hard.

Are you just repeating what other people told you or have you actually given it some thought.

23 minutes ago, Noel said:

Very obviously this helps explain why there are very many veteran simmers using MSFS today, despite its deployment hiccoughs.

True, many veteran simmers are using MSFS! On the other hand, all those people (many of them veteran simmers!) boldly proclaiming "XP is deaaadd!!1! 🤪" have been proven terribly wrong... XP still kept many users, despite being an old product at the end of its life, and XP12 will have all of those plus many more users. So, there's market for different types of users.

23 minutes ago, Noel said:

Debugging a bit more (the major focus of Sim Update 8 in Feb '22), enhancing the SDK, refining the flight model, etc are the other aspects I think we will see progress quite fast now.

Some things are not as easy as they seem. E.g., XP flight model has been evolving for about two decades with ups and downs, and it became satisfactorily good (not yet perfect) only relatively recently.

Also, there seems to be a different philosophy between the two sims. XP seems to be a loooot more open in its structure, versus a much more closed environment for the other sim.

Edited December 13, 20214 yr by Murmur

One thing I think we can all agree on no matter what your CURRENT preferences are:  we really have come a long ways in the flight sim world--we have several excellent flight sims now which is a far cry from when I first ventured in.  If, FWER, MSFS dies a young death, I would absolutely look closer at XP.  I have less than zero interest in supporting P3D ever again--I gave them far more $$ than their base platform was worth, to me that is.

42 minutes ago, Noel said:

we really have come a long ways in the flight sim world

Kinda. As Murmur just hinted at, for a lot of its lifespan XP11 was worse in many aspects than XP10, only very recently it got "good" 

42 minutes ago, Noel said:

MSFS dies a young death

Lets not have that conversation again so soon.

42 minutes ago, Noel said:

, I would absolutely look closer at XP. 

seriously, its $30 on steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/269950/XPlane_11/

Thats like the price of one airport for MSFS and you get 16000+ of them.

I mean yeah, the clouds trees and lighting do need some work, but...

Edited December 13, 20214 yr by mSparks