GOOGLE MAP FOR MFS2020

[MOD_FLYER 8]

20 hours ago, mikensherri328 said:

Post a comment the flightsim.to page for his mod. he is pretty good at getting back to people on there

Thank you for your reply.

[MarcG 2,974]

It was only a matter of time...

 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/add-ons-friendly-reminder/470558

[MrBitstFlyer 3,873]

9 hours ago, GCBraun said:

As an active Ortho4XP user, generally, I have better results with Bing. While there definitely more clouds in the imagery, the color discrepancy between tiles is much better than Google Maps.

In any case, what MS/Asobo is doing behind the scenes cannot be disregarded. The quality of MSFS´s satellite terrain is much better when compared with X-Plane´s Bing tiles for the same locations

What do Orbx use?  I guess Orbx do some colour correcting for their satellite products for XPlane - virtually no difference between Xplane Orbx and MSFS.  I flew over San Diego area yesterday in MSFS.  Bing textures in this area are superb.  In the Santa Barbara area heading north, Google textures and colours are far better.  I agree there is more colour discrepancy between tiles, but there are no green roads either!  

Those people reporting their MSFS is broken after using the Google map tool are either not shutting down the tool properly, or haven't read to check their hosts file if the tool did not delete two lines.

[goates 576]

On 11/12/2021 at 1:33 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Curiosity. Just to see the difference. And if Google can access the satellite data why can’t Bing?

The difference is that Google has been fully committed to their Maps and Earth products from the start, whereas Microsoft has only half-heartedly been plugging away at Bing Maps. Hopefully MSFS really does push Microsoft into permanently committing more resources and effort into their mapping offerings.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

4 hours ago, goates said:

The difference is that Google has been fully committed to their Maps and Earth products from the start, whereas Microsoft has only half-heartedly been plugging away at Bing Maps. Hopefully MSFS really does push Microsoft into permanently committing more resources and effort into their mapping offerings.

It will be interesting to know how Microsoft will react to users having access to the Google maps which are clearly superior to those of Bing. Should that connection be stopped and users have to revert to Bing I can’t imagine it will go down well.

[Tektolnes 184]

99% of users will have no idea it's even possible and won't know or care as a result. 

[MarcG 2,974]

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It will be interesting to know how Microsoft will react to users having access to the Google maps which are clearly superior to those of Bing. Should that connection be stopped and users have to revert to Bing I can’t imagine it will go down well.

As I've posted above they're onto it now, they know it's happening and I firmly believe they will try and block it (perhaps in a code change in SU7). Of course this is something that was kinda obvious was gonna happen one day, so I'd like to think they had planned ahead to stop this...!

Personally for that reason above I'm not bothering with this mod, whilst it does sound good I don't want to get used to better textures and then have them blocked and therefore back to standard bing again, that could ruin it for me especially as I mainly fly low & slow.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

4 minutes ago, MarcG said:

As I've posted above they're onto it now, they know it's happening and I firmly believe they will try and block it (perhaps in a code change in SU7).

I’m sure if that happens there will be a reaction on their forums. It should put the pressure on them to up their game. Once people have tasted champagne they’re unlikely to be happy with a ten quid bottle of plonk. Not entirely accurate but you get my drift. 😉

And of course with forced updates you cannot stay with the current version. Pity.

[MarcG 2,974]

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m sure if that happens there will be a reaction on their forums. It should put the pressure on them to up their game. Once people have tasted champagne they’re unlikely to be happy with a ten quid bottle of plonk. Not entirely accurate but you get my drift. 😉

And of course with forced updates you cannot stay with the current version. Pity.

They're already closing these threads immediately and won't care what the "reaction" is, this is their Sim using their data direct from bing so they won't give a rat's behind what a few forum posters might think.

Essentially people are injecting a competitors program into MSFS, I'm sure if you looked closely at the EULA there'll be something in there stating that this is not allowed.

Will it up their game? I'm not so sure, the Devs have already said on the Q&As that they're forever getting better data (hence the USA Part Two update Jorg once hinted at), so as long as that better data is coming through then Asobo will eventually get around to adding into the Sim overtime via the World Updates program.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

2 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Essentially people are injecting a competitors program into MSFS, I'm sure if you looked closely at the EULA there'll be something in there stating that this is not allowed.

No different to adding 3rd party airports surely? P3D had packages from Orbx et al that enhanced the base product. It’s always gone on. Developments will be interesting.

[MarcG 2,974]

8 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No different to adding 3rd party airports surely? P3D had packages from Orbx et al that enhanced the base product. It’s always gone on. Developments will be interesting.

Nah airports are a different kettle of fish altogether and something they obviously embrace, injecting a rivals base imagery via streaming injection is completely different, hence the post I linked too above which clearly shows its not allowed to be even talked about on the official forums.

If it's in the EULA it's the sort of thing MS will ask to be pulled from flightsim.to before "legal action is taken", I've seen lots of similar events happen in the racing sim world over the years.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

16 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No different to adding 3rd party airports surely?

Very different. I concur with Marc in everything he said.

First, MSFS has been built and promoted as an assemblage of the Asobo work and two MS services, Bing and Azure, which have their own logic of profitability. There is no way that MS as a corporate entity can accept a cuckoo laying eggs in their own nest. Bing needs MSFS as much as MSFS needs Bing.

Then, as far the product itself is concerned, they have shown a great reluctance to open the weather and flight simulation cores to external developers. Remember that P3D needs 3rd party because they gave up themselves on live weather and revamping the flight modeling and a decent terrain. The MSFS is entirely on another paradigm of development. 
 

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Dominique_K

[RobF2 150]

Quite surprised its Google that hasn't put a stop to this - especially after the polite but very firm rebuff Christian from Tileproxy received some years ago.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

7 minutes ago, RobF2 said:

Quite surprised its Google that hasn't put a stop to this - especially after the polite but very firm rebuff Christian from Tileproxy received some years ago.

It is not all bad for Google, far from it. They loose bandwidth but gain a great commercial argument against its main competitor on the map market 😁. Thats why MS cannot tolerate it.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Dominique_K

[apollon01 28]

Google maps look better in pleces but definitely on a large scale they've got issues (e.g. inconsistency in colour balance - a show stopper actually).

If MSFS decided to stream Bing maps in higher detail down to zoom level 18 / 19 (now limited to 16 while the mod streams zoom level 20 when flying low), it would be a different story. 

I see what that would mean on bandwith requirements but if they offered hi res Bing tiles as a payware extension (even as a subscription) , I would grab it in a split second. 

We are discussing here relation Google = better because the mod provides hi res tiles for Google. Bing has them often too. Only these hi res Bing tiles are not streamed to MSFS (again: the Bing tiles are limited to zoom level 16 even though in many places zoom level 19 is available).

Edited November 14, 2021 by apollon01