November 4th 2021 - Development Update

[dtrjones 356]

8 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

All very strange, particularly as I had no detectable performance impact, and that was when running on an old 1080Ti at the time.

Most people that installed it loved it as it covered up the sometimes barren and muddy landscape in the middle to far distance.

Can I play devils advocate here 🙂 I'm with Seb on this. You can change the settings for trees, grass and bushes which affect the vegetation draw distance. My understanding from the Q&A was that Seb would consider pushing this out further.

I'm confused why you are confused 🙂 honestly am I missing something obvious here? There is an excellent article in the forums for optimising graphical settings in MSFS.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-su5-complete-retest-8-2-2021/132407

Edited November 5, 2021 by dtrjones

[March Hare 720]

36 minutes ago, dtrjones said:

My understanding from the Q&A was that Seb would consider pushing this out further.

Yes, the settings were already there, and his reaction seemed to be, well, okay, if you want a slider instead, I guess we'll do it, but that isn't what will make the difference... Whether it's a slider or toggle option on the surface, the underlying LOD levels they have already been tweaking anyway in terms of which ones the trees sit on, etc. If there is a perceivable difference in tree draw distance with the next update, it's because of the underlying adjustments they were already making to the LODs, not the user input method.

[109Sqn 1,564]

8 hours ago, Drumcode said:

The re-shuffling of the flight plan in the UI is finally fixed after all these months of promises, THANK YOU! Woohoo!

I'll wait till I actually see it...🤞

[bobcat999 8,483]

2 hours ago, dtrjones said:

Can I play devils advocate here 🙂 

I'm confused why you are confused 🙂 honestly am I missing something obvious here? There is an excellent article in the forums for optimising graphical settings in MSFS.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-su5-complete-retest-8-2-2021/132407

Thanks, yes. I have seen that thread.  The first version actually came out quite early not long after msfs was launched, and it has been updated here and there.  I love reading the tweaking articles like that as you will probably guess. 

With the vegitation distance thing, did you ever install one of the tree mod packs when they worked?  If not, you probably don't understand what I am going on about.

Some people said they didn't see much improvement, but I worked out it was people running at lower resolutions.  At 4k (which I run at) the difference was like night and day, and it was beautiful.  Many people liked it.

So I am confused why Seb doesn't understand what was being raised.  It is simple.  To have the option to get the tree draw distance back out to where it was with the tree mod packs. Simple as that.  For those not interested, that's fine, they can stick to high or ultra if they are happy.  No problem.

Edited November 5, 2021 by bobcat999

[March Hare 720]

36 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

So I am confused why Seb doesn't understand what was being raised.  It is simple.  To have the option to get the tree draw distance back out to where it was with the tree mod packs.

I would say because mods were not mentioned in the question that was posed to him. It was simply along the lines of: Can we have a slider to adjust the amount of trees/vegetation visible? That I recall, anyway. I don't remember mention of mods in the question. So, in the context of how it was put across to him, his answer was correct and I understand his confusion. Watching the Q&A when it was brought up, I was completely with Seb on that and wondered why a slider was being requested when the option was already in place.

[Matchstick 1,886]

2 hours ago, 109Sqn said:

I'll wait till I actually see it...🤞

Sensible move, how many times are they supposed to have fixed the Approach flyback bug now ?

[bobcat999 8,483]

9 hours ago, March Hare said:

I would say because mods were not mentioned in the question that was posed to him. It was simply along the lines of: Can we have a slider to adjust the amount of trees/vegetation visible? That I recall, anyway. I don't remember mention of mods in the question. So, in the context of how it was put across to him, his answer was correct and I understand his confusion. Watching the Q&A when it was brought up, I was completely with Seb on that and wondered why a slider was being requested when the option was already in place.

Right, I understand!  Maybe the reason really isn't clear to him then.

[March Hare 720]

19 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Right, I understand!  Maybe the reason really isn't clear to him then.

I really think that's all it is. Regarding drawing trees further out, though, they are still tweaking that on the underlying LOD tiers, for want of a better term. Also, part of the draw distance issue was a bug, which was fixed -- in most places, at least, so there might still be a bug affecting some locations. I just don't envy the development team. Having a sibling who's a senior games developer, I know the difficulties, and replicating and resolving bugs. The other day, he was working on a single bug all day and still couldn't resolve it. It didn't happen in his editor, but it occurred on another machine, exactly the same code. Programming is frustrating, often baffling. And, yes, he has worked on big games where he sees backlash on forums like this, from people who don't realise the work he and the team are doing in the background, the issues they are coming up against, the new bugs cropping up while attempting to fix current ones (which the users never see, because most are resolved, thankfully, before the build has to go out to the publisher to meet the set release schedule).

I guess that's why I post in here, trying to offer reasonable thoughts on what we see happening with the sim, to try to quash some of the disdain aimed at Asobo. Because I know what it's like on their side. Although I appreciate the frustrations from a user's viewpoint too.

[bobcat999 8,483]

30 minutes ago, March Hare said:

I really think that's all it is. Regarding drawing trees further out, though, they are still tweaking that on the underlying LOD tiers, for want of a better term. Also, part of the draw distance issue was a bug, which was fixed -- in most places, at least, so there might still be a bug affecting some locations. I just don't envy the development team. Having a sibling who's a senior games developer, I know the difficulties, and replicating and resolving bugs. The other day, he was working on a single bug all day and still couldn't resolve it. It didn't happen in his editor, but it occurred on another machine, exactly the same code. Programming is frustrating, often baffling. And, yes, he has worked on big games where he sees backlash on forums like this, from people who don't realise the work he and the team are doing in the background, the issues they are coming up against, the new bugs cropping up while attempting to fix current ones (which the users never see, because most are resolved, thankfully, before the build has to go out to the publisher to meet the set release schedule).

I guess that's why I post in here, trying to offer reasonable thoughts on what we see happening with the sim, to try to quash some of the disdain aimed at Asobo. Because I know what it's like on their side. Although I appreciate the frustrations from a user's viewpoint too.

I understand that.  It definitely isn't easy and can be frustrating. 

With the criticism thing - we are all human and have feelings, and most times there isn't enough respect.  At the same time, it is a paid job that many would like the opportunity to have - it isn't forced on anybody.  

There is no excuse for rudeness, but I am amazed at how many people on here jump to the defence of people on five, maybe six figure salaries, when people make complaints / suggestions for what is a paid product. 

I think sometimes the rudeness and lack of respect goes over the top though, and should always be quashed.  There should never be room for that.

Edited November 6, 2021 by bobcat999

[March Hare 720]

12 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I think sometimes the rudeness and lack of respect goes over the top though, and should always be quashed.  There should never be room for that.

And that there is the issue, rather than constructive criticism.

EDIT: And I have to add, I was one of the frustrated users with the release of SU5, with dancing reflections, CTDs for the first time in months, etc. But I wouldn't start throwing disdain, because believe me, they would have been aware of at least most those issues and already working on fixes, but Microsoft had already set their release date...

Edited November 6, 2021 by March Hare

[Tuskin38 6,507]

Regarding SU8 coming out in February instead of January.

My theory is that there will be no update in December, so we don't have to wait until they get back from Holiday vacation in January for any communications/hotfixes, like what happened last year. Or maybe they just want to take a months break.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Tuskin38

[marsman2020 1,310]

Everything keeps sliding to the right.

 

 

[Tuskin38 6,507]

11 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

Everything keeps sliding to the right.

 

 

Better worked on longer than rushed 

[March Hare 720]

23 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

Better worked on longer than rushed 

Exactly. And this is what I said recently: evidence that the publisher (Microsoft) is being more flexible with release dates. Always the better approach than rigidity and releasing with too many glaring bugs.