Future of p3d ?

[David Vega 348]

What would happen when, and if, there are "high-fidelity modern airliners" in MSFS? What would happen if LM's main clients (defense, etc.) stop buying P3D? Are these clients OK with the current P3D look and feel, or would they prefer the MSFS scenery look? Is LM developing P3D further, i.e., a new graphic engine? 

[Groovy_Kincaid 71]

3 hours ago, flycln said:

If MSFS sales go down significantly and development is discontinued, the servers will not stay up. It’s neither as cheap as he claims, nor will MS waste even little amounts of money. That is not how the sub-divisions work. 

That’s a pretty narrow-minded way of looking at things. 
 

Firstly, nobody knows what Microsoft’s or Asobo’s long term plans are. I believe they stated a 10 year plan or something like that. A lot can happen between now and then. Someone or a consortium could buy the software and related servers from them and continue to run it on a reduced capacity or reduced support. 

I recall 10 years or so ago, in this very same forum, people were having the exact same(ish) discussion about P3D. People hesitant about having to repurchase their aircraft or sceneries because at the time, they were skeptical of LM’s long term plans and if LM would cut off the simming community and leave people with worthless addons. Here we are, 5 versions later. 

10 years from now, there will most likely be something newer and shinier and this type of discussion will continue to be had.

[georgio1952 52]

Apart from some graphics that have msfs what else does it have that does not have P3D v5.3. Since we are talking about graphics msfs does not have  the graphics of the ocean and the waves as they are in World of Warships game..

 

Cheers, Georgio

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

2 minutes ago, georgio1952 said:

Apart from some graphics that have msfs what else does it have that does not have P3D v5.3. Since we are talking about graphics msfs does not have  the graphics of the ocean and the waves as they are in World of Warships game..

 

Cheers, Georgio

Forced updates and no historical weather (via 3rd party weather programs) are two that spring to mind. And no Boeing 737NGX either.

[neilhewitt 493]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:37 PM, flycln said:

If MSFS sales go down significantly and development is discontinued, the servers will not stay up. It’s neither as cheap as he claims, nor will MS waste even little amounts of money. That is not how the sub-divisions work.

Cheap is relative. I'm not suggesting it doesn't cost them significant amounts of money to run the infrastructure, just that it's cheaper for Microsoft to use the infrastructure it already owns and operates than it would be for a customer to build and operate the same cloud infrastructure on Azure.

If Microsoft decided to stop updating MSFS and stop selling it, and removed it from the Xbox Games platform altogether, that's a different matter. Then it would be effectively dead unless they provided an offline version, which would be missing the bells and whistles that the cloud provides. I was envisaging a model where they stop updating the sim but keep it on Xbox Games for people to buy and play and there is still a revenue stream, even if a diminished one. With fewer users, the back-end costs would be lower. Microsoft does spend money - and a lot of it - on things that don't make much or any money directly, Bing being a prime example; but they're not in the business of wasting money, no.

I want to be clear that what I say in this forum on these sorts of topics is my opinion, not a statement of fact (unless I claim it's a fact, and if I do I will be willing to back that up with sources). I don't work for Microsoft. I haven't seen the budget for MSFS's infrastructure. I am fairly close to Microsoft in my work, I have a direct relationship with product teams in multiple divisions, and my employer is a large-scale user of Azure. So I know a decent amount about Azure, and what it costs us, and from my professional background over 25 years I know a decent amount about internet hosting more generally. But for all I know @flycln could work for MS or a partner or another cloud vendor or internet infrastructure corp and have direct knowledge that I don't have, and I'm not going to suggest that anyone's flat-out wrong here when we're all just giving our opinions based on whatever knowledge and experience we have.

[neilhewitt 493]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:12 PM, kevinfirth said:

Yes but how exactly do you set it up Neil?

Does this need the Pro-plus version of P3D?

Now, here's something actually P3D related I can contribute to the thread 🙂

There are currently three options to set up a multi-channel sim using P3D: Wideview, Opus FSI or P3D's built-in multichannel mode. P3D multichannel does require the Pro Plus edition, yes, but the other two do not.

With P3D multichannel you must license the host machine - the one that will run the sim and connect to and coordinate the others - but you can have up to 99 client machines at no additional cost. So it's expensive but not *that* expensive. I licensed Pro Plus for a few years using the pay-monthly developer licence (because I'm building add-ons) which is $19 and for that you get two (or maybe even three now) Pro Plus licences, though of course they lapse if you stop the subscription. This allowed me to experiment with that set-up to see how well it worked. Long story short: it's the best option in terms of syncing the sim behaviour, but performance is a dog and some add-on aircraft don't work with it. Admittedly I haven't tried it in 5.x so maybe that's improved but there are specific technical reasons why it's slower that I can't fully explain here lest this become an essay-length answer. 

Wideview and Opus FSI are add-ons that both provide the capability to sync up multiple simulator instances over a network. This does mean that every sim instance has to be individually licensed. Wideview installs a plugin to the sim, whereas Opus FSI (I believe, it's been a while since I tried it) uses an external program via SimConnect. You install those on every machine in your setup, configure them appropriately, and bingo - It Just Works. Of course it's not quite so simple but it's nowhere near as difficult as you might think. Performance in this setup is as good as each individual machine can manage, so if they're all about the same spec then things are generally pretty smooth.  

You set up the display across multiple monitors - ideally using a ViewGroup to define the shape and angles of the display configuration - and apply this to all of the machines, and you get a perspective-corrected view across all the machines in the cluster - a rule of thumb is one view per machine for max performance, but you can do more; I had a single host which ran my console displays for instruments and one client running two outside views. 

If you go further and into the realm of blended projector displays then you need something like FlyElise-NG whose software will allow you to warp the displays so that they fit correctly onto your screen shape and blend properly where they overlap to create the impression of one seamless view, which is perspective-corrected so that straight lines look straight even on the curved screen.

I went with Wideview in the end because it was the best solution for me. Wideview 2020, the latest version, allows for the host to be P3D but the clients to be MSFS, so you could achieve the hybrid setup @GSalden describes, but FlyElise does not yet work with MSFS as you can't control the view frustums in the way it needs, so you can only practically do multi-monitor solutions this way, not projector-based ones. Which is why I didn't run MSFS at all for a long time. 

(At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, you can find content around these topics on my YouTube channel. This video is a good intro if you're interested in digging deeper (warning, it's over an hour long): https://youtu.be/Ktv70mdizpw.)

 

 

[omarsmak30 4,068]

On 12/17/2021 at 1:37 PM, flycln said:

If MSFS sales go down significantly and development is discontinued, the servers will not stay up. It’s neither as cheap as he claims, nor will MS waste even little amounts of money. That is not how the sub-divisions work. 

And even if they shut down the servers (which they won't for sure unless there is MSFS 2.0 version), you will find community solutions popping up. In fact there is already a mod that stream Google maps into the sim instead of bing. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by omarsmak30

[micstatic 4,319]

at this point they need to fix the sdk/weather/forced update issues before we even get wound up about what would happen if they shut down the server.  Oh and some good airliners!

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 537]

For me maybe 5.x will be my last version of Prepar3D. Then I switch to X-Plane 12 or 13.

[G-RFRY 1,712]

MS Developed MSFS for Game Pass game console, Just last month they allowed Game Pass users to stream from the cloud severs for the first time something they could not do till now, this allows game pass users to run a title without having to download it, how this will affect streaming for the future we don`t know but you will have millions using the cloud streaming in the future. MS see game pass as the future for developing game titles it brings in the Cash needed for this.    

[Multisim 116]

Have we really come this far when it comes to bashing MSFS? You guys are already planning for MS to stop selling MSFS and that arguing it would be bad if the servers are shutdown? I remember seing the exact same argument when FS9/FSX got online multiplayer support.

The "what if the servers are shutdown" argument is true for pretty much every game/sim for the last 10 years. There is a reason why most games are made this way these days, some things are simply not possible without doing this, like storing the entire world on your local harddrive. Should we stop keeping up with development just because that technology might someday be unavailable?

"I want it to be just as terrible as it has always been, because then I can continue to enjoy my terrible graphics even if the servers would shutdown some day in the future".

That's a strange argument to me. It's interesting that on one hand you all say that the graphics is totally irrelevant as you all fly the heavies under IFR. On the other hand you bash MSFS as its scenery streaming would be affected if it wasn't online.

Finally, if you compare the lever of online dependency between P3D and all its addons, to MSFS and all its addons, this argument is as dead as it can be. The myth that evertying will go black if MSFS can't use the scenery streaming simply never dies.

If I cut the internet connection to my P3D installation, about 20 of my most important addons would stop functioning or just go bananas. The sim would be totally unusable. My MSFS would only be slightly degraded, as most scenery is already cached. And, there is absolutely nothing that prevents 3rd party developers from developing local scenery addons for MSFS just as for P3D. It's just that we've moved on from this, and let the computing power automate the majority of the scenery and let the 3rd party developers do other things where their skills are needed more.

 

[micstatic 4,319]

@Multisimi dump thousands into this hobby. Buying new addons and hardware. I’d love nothing more than to have the newest and freshest sim my go to sim. I value graphics. But msfs without streaming loses the majority of its appeal. I am also reliant on online addons for p3d.  Such as active sky. But I’m not reliant on 20 like you. Just because people like me don’t think msfs is ready to be our daily driver doesn’t mean we are somehow stuck in the past. 

[Tim_Capps 474]

Standing tough under stars and stripes
We can tell
This dream's in sight
You've got to admit it
At this point in time that it's clear
The future looks bright.

(Name that tune.)

[micstatic 4,319]

these threads are always super weird.  Because there is always a handful of people who clearly do not use p3d anymore.  Who want to point out how great microsoft fs is.  I can't imagine hanging around a forum for a product I didn't even use or plan to use. 

Like I said earlier.  I got my alpha test invite over 2 years ago and still waiting for the big changes that enable me to switch.  Forgive me for being pessimistic.  And now the developers have been showing increasing signs of such also.  (Not including scenery devs).  

[Multisim 116]

On 12/17/2021 at 1:37 PM, flycln said:

You have no idea which company I work for and what I do for a living. That’s all I’m saying. 
 

If MSFS sales go down significantly and development is discontinued, the servers will not stay up. It’s neither as cheap as he claims, nor will MS waste even little amounts of money. That is not how the sub-divisions work. 

That's true for all online-dependant software. It's just the way it is if you want to enjoy the good parts of being online.The alternative would be to continue forever to pay 3rd party developers thousands of dollars just to improve the default scenery to get from terrble to ok. I mean, people pay actual money just to get slightly better looking trees, or slightly better looking AI lights. This needs to stop. You already paid lots of money to get all that stuff builtin to the sim.

If you want the software to live on after the company dies, the key to success is an open platform that the community can take fordward even when the company doesn't.  In your opinition, if you rate the big 3 (MSFS, P3D, X-plane) from "we really care about our community" to "we really don't care, as you are not our target audience", how would your list look and how do you think that affects building an open, community-friendly platform?