2 minutes ago, micstatic said:

i truly appreciate that the asobo team approached this simulator with a fresh perspective.  That's a good thing not a bad thing.  But sometimes I wonder if any of them were actually hardcore flight sim people.  The things that appear to not be thought of or just bypassed I can't see somebody who has been in this hobby for a long time doing.  But I give them the benefit of the doubt.  I'm sure they had their reasons. 

Asobo were a game company that made games for children IIRC.

48 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

The one key feature I needed (worked prior to SU5) they changed so it no longer works, currently no work around and probably will not be one.  M

Just out of curiosity, what is the key feature that worked prior to SU5 and no longer does?

12 minutes ago, simfan1983 said:

Asobo were a game company that made games for children IIRC.

I don't buy that as legitimate criticism.

While they may be a bit naïve in some of their development decisions and slow to bring in outside help from established flight sim players, the counter-argument is that they have pushed the flight sim genre far further forward with new ideas and greater ambition than we have seen in the hobby since the ACES studio was shut down.

*If* they can get key elements improved, such as an SDK that permits complex aircraft to be fully developed, live weather, thermals and downdrafts, ground effect and ground handling sensitivity, live AI aircraft, seasons and increased LOD, then it really will become the flight sim that beats the others.

3 minutes ago, F737NG said:

34 minutes ago, simfan1983 said:

Asobo were a game company that made games for children IIRC.

I don't buy that as legitimate criticism.

It wasn't a criticism, just a statement about Asobo's background. They made games such as Garfield 2, Sitting Ducks, Super Farm, Toy Story 5 and of course not to forget, Young Conker.

5 minutes ago, simfan1983 said:

Toy Story 5

Now hey. Just to be fair.....Just as the PMDG NGX, Buzz lightyear has wings!

Edited December 19, 20214 yr by Adrian123

24 minutes ago, F737NG said:

*If* they can get key elements improved, such as an SDK that permits complex aircraft to be fully developed, live weather, thermals and downdrafts, ground effect and ground handling sensitivity, live AI aircraft, seasons and increased LOD, then it really will become the flight sim that beats the others.

LOL...That IMHO may be the largest "IF" ever seen at least in the Flight Sim world!! Then again one could take the position that if LM gets improved scenery and more pretty pictures then it really will become the flight sim that beats the others. I am not sure either position will win out in the near future. ???

1 minute ago, shivers9 said:

LOL...That IMHO may be the largest "IF" ever seen at least in the Flight Sim world!! Then again one could take the position that if LM gets improved scenery and more pretty pictures then it really will become the flight sim that beats the others. I am not sure either position will win out in the near future. ???

We have options going forwards at least. 

2 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

We have options going forwards at least. 

Yep and usually that is a good thing for sure. Our problem is that the more options we have then the more our small little band of consumers get further split a part creating smaller market shares for each product. It is the old "too much of a good thing can be bad!"

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Prior to SU5, MSFS used to load vegetation data when you hit Fly from the main menu.  After SU5 it now loads vegetation data only at Sim start.  They also have no facilities in the SDK to do other tasks specific to my product needs that I'm not going into detail given there are now two competing products on market.  Why do you ask?

Rob

 

Just wondering what has regressed in the SDK, or the way that the sim operates. I don’t do aircraft development, but do airport modifications (mainly for my own use).

Edited December 19, 20214 yr by JRBarrett

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Speaking of accurate information apparently only in the MSFS forum, do you work for PMDG?  I'm curious how you know what their process is, do you have access to PMDG development team and their systems design/code?

Come on Rob. You know better than me that PMDG and Fenix are not going to tell us proprietary details about their architecture since that could be vital to their business!  

When I say that the PMDG 737 is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than Fenix is, it's based on the hints that both companies have given us.  Let's start with Aamir's quote about Fenix:

Quote

I feel the need for you all to be aware of the fact that PMDG and Fenix have vastly different development workflows; at Fenix we are mainly working with much more mature aspects of the MSFS SDK, whereas there are some areas of the SDK that have remained almost untouched in nearly a year, and certainly in need of significant improvement if its to be utilised fully. If those aspects of the SDK are central to PMDG's workflow it's absolutely understandable they'd be engaging with Asobo to see them improved.

Surely, does this not give you a hint that Fenix is less tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than PMDG is?  Aamir in this quote himself is more or less saying, PMDG's code is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than Fenix's code is!

Another clue is on Randazzo's interview on Fabio's stream, Randazzo explicitly says that PMDG is waiting for changes from Asobo in order to release the PMDG 737, which implies PMDG is waiting for SDK changes, which means PMDG's code is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK.

Finally, Fenix did state that after SU5 and SU7, Fenix did not experience as huge a setback like other 3rd party devs, most likely because of what Aamir disclosed in the quote above that "at Fenix we are mainly working with much more mature aspects of the MSFS SDK."  At the same time, PMDG seems to be having problems after the Sim Updates.  

You put all this evidence together Rob, and you still don't think that PMDG is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than Fenix is?  Are you serious?  Heck, even Aamir's quote above is heavily implying that PMDG is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than Fenix is!

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Saying don't rely on the SDK isn't giving me the warm and fuzzy 🙂 

Are you trying to put words in my mouth?  I never said this.

What I am saying is that there are two ways to go about developing complex aircraft for MSFS: Fenix's way and PMDG's way (and many other 3rd party devs are going PMDG's ways as well, because they want to sell their products on X-Box), and there are pros and cons with each method.  Again, Fenix and PMDG won't tell us the exact details of their architecture, but you can make some reasonable assumptions with the clues they have given us. And I just mentioned a bunch of clues above!

There are both pros and cons to Fenix's way, and PMDG's way.  The main con with Fenix's way is that they can't sell the Fenix A320 on X-Box, but they have much more flexibility with systems emulation and their code is less tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK.  The other way is PMDG (and the way of many other 3rd party devs) where the code is more tightly coupled with the MSFS SDK, but the benefit is that these 3rd party devs can sell their product on X-Box, whereas the con is because their code is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK, they may suffer at the whims of each Sim Update.

Rob, I hope you can remove some of your bias in your writeup.  It seems you are heavily biased against MSFS in your writeup.  IMO, it's not very helpful in informing other users, especially here in the P3D forum where there is already a heavy bias against MSFS and poor information about MSFS.  I think it would be much better if you stick to the facts and remove some of your bias. Just my two cents, IMO.

Edited December 19, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

. The rate of progression is a big concern for me ... if this is somehow a 10 year development plan (which I don't believe for a second) we're already 50% thru that plan.

That’s another point as we circle back to the original post being related to PMDG; when PMDG sold their update 737 for Prepar3d with the enticement that doing so would entitle the purchaser to a credit against the purchase of the MSFS version, I guarantee that no one who did so thought that 16 months after release we would literally be no closer to the release of a PMDG 737 on MSFS than we were 16 months ago. And in this case “literally” isn’t hyperbole - the expectation wasn’t that in 16 months we might be looking at another year, or more, with potentially less functionality; that’s certainly not how it was sold. 

Does anybody know why they have locked out 3rd party weather and camera system control?  Serious question because I haven’t heard the reason 

3 minutes ago, IUBrian said:

That’s another point as we circle back to the original post being related to PMDG; when PMDG sold their update 737 for Prepar3d with the enticement that doing so would entitle the purchaser to a credit against the purchase of the MSFS version, I guarantee that no one who did so thought that 16 months after release we would literally be no closer to the release of a PMDG 737 on MSFS than we were 16 months ago. And in this case “literally” isn’t hyperbole - the expectation wasn’t that in 16 months we might be looking at another year, or more, with potentially less functionality; that’s certainly not how it was sold. 

Which quite honestly is completely bogus.  Prosim-AR, which is a significantly more advanced implementation of the 737 for cockpit builders has had a working version for MSFS for quite some time now.

1 hour ago, micstatic said:

Does anybody know why they have locked out 3rd party weather and camera system control?  Serious question because I haven’t heard the reason 

I think weather system in MSFS is too complex and tightly integrated with the system and they already openly stated they won’t open and instead they will continue on working on it and improve it further, actually now with the hotfix is already very good with some issues that Asobo is aware of. 
Camera system, I don’t think is about being locked or not, is just the SDK for that part is missing (the FSX stuff don’t work). I hope they will implement that sooner or later, this will allow great apps like FS Realistic to take advantage of that. 

Edited December 20, 20214 yr by omarsmak30

24 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Please demonstrate where I didn’t stick to facts?
 

Cheers, Rob.

You realize that I was trying to answer @Dreamflight767 original question about the limitations of MSFS, right?  And I was trying to say that based on the architecture used by the 3rd party developer, some of those limitations of the MSFS SDK can be overcome, such as how Fenix is doing it, but with the drawback that Fenix's way of doing it means their product cannot be released for X-Box. 

In effect, I was trying to help correct some of the misinformation about MSFS here in the P3D forum, and provide an answer as accurately as possible for @Dreamflight767.

Then in your reply to me, the first thing you say to me is, "Speaking of accurate information apparently only in the MSFS forum, do you work for PMDG?" 

How is this sentence productive at all?  Of course I don't work for PMDG.  That's just a silly thing to write, IMO.  And of course PMDG and Fenix won't disclose the details of their architecture.  You, as a 3rd party dev with a business that you want to protect yourself, know better than anyone else that they don't want to disclose the details of their architecture.

Like what was your point? Are you trying to say I am not giving accurate information?  I was trying to give the most accurate information that I could to @Dreamflight767.

But when I say that the PMDG 737 is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than the Fenix A320 is, am I giving inaccurate information?  Again, Aamir, from Fenix, himself heavily implies that the PMDG 737 is more tightly coupled to the MSFS SDK than the Fenix A320 is:

Quote

I feel the need for you all to be aware of the fact that PMDG and Fenix have vastly different development workflows; at Fenix we are mainly working with much more mature aspects of the MSFS SDK, whereas there are some areas of the SDK that have remained almost untouched in nearly a year, and certainly in need of significant improvement if its to be utilised fully. If those aspects of the SDK are central to PMDG's workflow it's absolutely understandable they'd be engaging with Asobo to see them improved.

Rob, I feel really disappointed that your writeup would start with accusing me of "Speaking of accurate information apparently only in the MSFS forum, do you work for PMDG?"  Your reply is just not constructive.  I'm trying my best to answer @Dreamflight767 and provide better information about MSFS, but that is the first thing your write in your reply to me.  SMH.

Edited December 20, 20214 yr by abrams_tank