30 minutes ago, gdjak said:

Could you go into any more detail? The entire discussion about the state of the SDK is so incredibly vague that it become very hard to understand what the actual issues are supposed to be.

I am not qualified to discuss in detail what works and what doesn't in the current SDK beyond what is public knowledge: an example being there are no existing Terrain or Weather APIs. Meaning no weather radar or EGPWS  using the simulator's own data, for example. However, what I do know is that there are restrictions to what a developer can or cannot do because of the environment in MSFS where your add-on is supposed to run. For example, there are things you cannot do such as using certain Windows functionalities in your add-on (The Windows API). Reading a file outside of the folder where your add-on is located? No. Opening a TCP/IP connection to the outside world is not something you are allowed to do unless using the very limited (as of now) Simconnect API. The add-ons live in this restrictive (sandboxed) environment for multiple reasons, one being security and the other Xbox compatibility. There are far more skilled developers in this forum that will provide better answers I'm sure. But this is a "high" level overview. If I've said something wrong, I'm all for learning and will modify this post accordingly.

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by evaamo

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

 XP was doing very well as a sim before Hot Stat came along and raised a bar?

 

I'm curious of the sales of this product its not certainly for everyone. MS knows that. I know popular streamers of XP will not even touch it. Kind of "overkill" for home entertainment.

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by jbdbow1970

28 minutes ago, SubtotalGuide said:

 

Certainly, it's KJFK near fuel box parking 108, right at the end of the list.

Many of these airport assets have reduced textures since SU5 and yet performance on the ground is still worse than before.

The shimmering that people have been complaining about can also be observed there on the fences.

Hi. So I did some investigating.  I went to KJFK and all the fuel trucks seemed to have lower texture resolution, just as your picture showed.  And then I went to KLAX and the fuel trucks also had lower texture resolution.  So I think this is a bug with fuel trucks, in general.  But while I was at KLAX, I looked at the other normal trucks:

You can see the normal trucks at KLAX are all high resolution textures.

It doesn't make sense that the normal trucks are high resolution textures, but the fuel trucks are low resolution textures.  I can only guess that in one of the sim updates, there was a bug introduced for fuel trucks that lowered their resolution textures.  Perhaps we can file a Zendesk bug report about this.

I doubt that Microsoft/Asobo deliberately lowered the resolution of just the fuel trucks.  Because then all trucks should have low resolution textures.  But as you can see here, the normal trucks have high resolution textures. So I think it's some bug with a subset of vehicles.

Let's see if the beta build for Sim Update 8 fixes this bug. If it doesn't fix this bug, we can log a Zendesk bug report.

22 minutes ago, evaamo said:

I am not qualified to discuss in detail what works and what doesn't in the current SDK beyond what is public knowledge: an example being there are no existing Terrain or Weather APIs. Meaning no weather radar or EGPWS  using the simulator's own data, for example. However, what I do know is that there are restrictions to what a developer can or cannot do because of the environment in MSFS where your add-on is supposed to run. For example, there are things you cannot do such as using certain Windows functionalities in your add-on (The Windows API). Reading a file outside of the folder where your add-on is located? No. Opening a TCP/IP connection to the outside world is not something you are allowed to do unless using the very limited (as of now) Simconnect API. The add-ons live in this restrictive (sandboxed) environment for multiple reasons, one being security and the other Xbox compatibility. There are far more skilled developers in this forum that will provide better answers I'm sure. But this is a "high" level overview. If I've said something wrong, I'm all for learning and will modify this post accordingly.

Are you sure about this?  I ask this because I believe Fenix is running Prosim in an external process, for their Fenix A320.  The fact that Fenix can run Prosim in an external process tells me there is quite a lot of flexibility if the add-on is being developed for PC only.  Yes, XBox has a sandbox that limits what add-ons can do. But if the add-on is for PC only, like the Fenix A320, it appears an external process can be run, which is what Fenix is doing in order to run Prosim.

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Are you sure about this?  I ask this because I believe Fenix is running Prosim in an external process, for their Fenix A320.  The fact that Fenix can run Prosim in an external process tells me there is quite a lot of flexibility if the add-on is being developed for PC only.  Yes, XBox has a sandbox that limits what add-ons can do. But if the add-on is for PC only, like the Fenix A320, it appears an external process can be run, which is what Fenix is doing in order to run Prosim.

I have no idea how they are doing it. There are some possibilities such as the conversion of Prosim into a WASM module or even a wrapper to call certain functions exposed from a Prosim library ( ala C "extern"). What I do know though (and I'm basing my answer on publicly available sources such as the SDK documentations and discussions at fsdeveloper) is that "running" Prosim as an external process and then having the Fenix A320 "talk" to it using sockets or IPC wouldn't be allowed. It would be cool to know more, that's for sure.

21 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

You can see the normal trucks at KLAX are all high resolution textures.

Hmm, good catch! Maybe you're right. I just find it odd when these downgrades are proved with undeniable evidence it's blamed on a bug.

"Colour banding? Oops we made a typo and changed the whole rendering engine from 16 to 10bit!"

"Blurry fuel trucks? Oops me accidentally reduced the resolution of certain vehicles!"

"Tree distance reduced? Oops we did it again!"

"Clouds pixelated and grainy? No that one we still believe is due to sharpening. Please check your settings and drivers."

56 minutes ago, evaamo said:

I am not qualified to discuss in detail what works and what doesn't in the current SDK beyond what is public knowledge: an example being there are no existing Terrain or Weather APIs. Meaning no weather radar or EGPWS  using the simulator's own data, for example. However, what I do know is that there are restrictions to what a developer can or cannot do because of the environment in MSFS where your add-on is supposed to run. For example, there are things you cannot do such as using certain Windows functionalities in your add-on (The Windows API). Reading a file outside of the folder where your add-on is located? No. Opening a TCP/IP connection to the outside world is not something you are allowed to do unless using the very limited (as of now) Simconnect API. The add-ons live in this restrictive (sandboxed) environment for multiple reasons, one being security and the other Xbox compatibility. There are far more skilled developers in this forum that will provide better answers I'm sure. But this is a "high" level overview. If I've said something wrong, I'm all for learning and will modify this post accordingly.

But the weather radar is the only feature here that is impossible* right now when it comes to building complex aircraft - and it's being worked on. If you wanted to do a realistic terrain display you can always ship your own elevation data and go from there. Extra work, but also more realistic since civilian planes don't carry a ground radar. For connectivity I'm just going by what the fbw devs have accomplished: they can create and read files (throttle config, FDR), pull navdata from simbrief servers, send and receive messages over hoppie etc. You can even pull up the mcdu on your phone and control the plane from your kitchen if you wanted.

Every development environment has its issues and if we want to discuss the SDK honestly we have to be precise in the problems that actually hamper development vs. things that just work differently than some people are used to.

*not actually impossible, just has a lot of drawbacks

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by gdjak

50 minutes ago, jbdbow1970 said:

I know popular streamers of XP will not even touch it. Kind of "overkill" for home entertainment.

Like PMDG et al for FSX and P3D, isn't it? 😉  Apart from that: wasn't there a discussion recently about "hardcore simmers" and it couldn't be hardcore enough (at least for some)? And now ... that one is too hardcore?

Ok, back to topic. I don't know whether it's (technically) related only to the SDK/API/whatever and I know ... I'm writing below what XP can do and FSX can't - as I owned the latter one and know it, but not any more MSFS 2020. So I'm also interested, what limitations there are for MSFS 2020.

1. Wake turbulences

2. Flaps get damaged at overspeed

3. Birdstrikes: in FSX (and maybe MSFS 2020?) birds may be depicted visually but not simulated.

4. Microbursts

5. Blackout through hypoxia

6. Blackout/redout through high g-load

7. Midair refueling

8. Knife-edge flying

9. Seasons and weather effects. It was since ever said, XP has no seasons, whereas the competitor has. Wrong. WHAT? Sure, it's true, that XP visually hadn't seasons (at least not by default), but on the other hand it was and is simulated.

   1. Examples: Accumulating ice on the wings in respective weather conditions.

   2.   Runways: in X-Plane at temperatures below 0° C and rain, you get an icy runway with very low friction, i.e. the braking distance is much longer. Same applies for rain at above 0° C, however the braking distance is shorter. FSX has indeed depicted wet runways visually, but ... had even below 0° C a braking distance of maybe 10% longer than on dry runway (as far as I remember, in FS9 it was even no difference at all).

There is even more, but I don't want to derail this thread or letting it "going south" 🙂 (funny term BTW) . So, I really also would like to know, what meanwhile is possible in MSFS 2020.

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by uwespeed

Hi all, just to clarify Eric's comments regarding the Challenger,

Eric was specifically reacting to the deep sim menu system that the Challenger creates in his answer (which he states but the synopsis missed). There is no current plan to allow devs to add a zillion of their own menus.

However, if all that stuff was on an EFB or a top panel popout, then that would be no problem. I do not see any SDK impediment to making an addon in MSFS as deep as the Challenger, except in one or two very narrow areas (such as present limits on the WXR or terrain rendering, if you're not bringing your own GPWS data).

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by MattNischan

11 hours ago, fakeflyer737 said:

Q: Can we expect the team to continue to expand the capabilities of the SDK and allow for add-ons like the Hot Start Challenger 650 in X-Plane?
A: We don't see the capabilities of this add-on being possible in MSFS for the foreseeable future, but it doesn't mean they will never be implemented.

 

This reply really bothers me if it means what I think it means. They've said over and over they're making a Simulator for Simmers. 

Agreed, not looking good…

9 minutes ago, Ridvan Celik said:

Agreed, not looking good…

You might have missed Matt's explanation right above your post.

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by crimplene

6 minutes ago, gdjak said:

But the weather radar is the only feature that is impossible* right now when it comes to building complex aircraft - and it's being worked on. If you wanted to do a realistic terrain display you can always ship your own elevation data and go from there. Extra work, but also more realistic since civilian planes don't carry a ground radar. For connectivity I'm just going by what the fbw devs have accomplished: they can create and read files (throttle config, FDR), pull navdata from simbrief servers, send and receive messages over hoppie etc. You can even pull up the mcdu on your phone and control the plane from your kitchen if you wanted.

Every development environment has its issues and if we want to discuss the SDK honestly we have to be precise in the problems that actually hamper development vs. things that just work differently than some people are used to.

*not actually impossible, just has a lot of drawbacks

 Of course you can ship 2GB worth of SRTM if you wish, you asked me about current SDK limitations, not possible work-arounds.  The same with regards to FBW, I am not too familiar with their code base but from what I remember they are using websockets, something I believe is not restricted as opening a regular TCP/IP socket, which is what I meant. 

I don't know if using websockets is part of the SDK, so I'll refrain from calling it a workaround as well.

 

5 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Quote

We think the way users describe the weather system is a bit harsh.

So they think that the user is wrong. A good start 🤣.

Seriously, the weather engine is not bad at all IMHO  and I don’t think that opening to 3rd party is the solution, at this stage, but opening a true debate with the simmers might be. There are a few problems with the cloud light rendering (ashen clouds, transparent clouds), the cloud variety, the  lack of historical weather over even a day which if addressed would make this sim truly shine.
 

 

3 hours ago, MarcG said:

The response to the weather question concerns me, if people are upset as it currently is but that's deemed "a bit harsh" then they don't fully understand the problems players are having.

If it's a hot topic, and weather always is in many variations, then they need to take it seriously and not bat it off and play the victim.

 

I absolutely agree. This answer was most disappointing and made me eventually lose all hope we will get a serious weather system in MSFS anytime soon. Apparently they still don't really understand the importance of weather for a serious flightsim.

Leaving all other shortcomings out of account, how can a flightsim be considered a serious simulation of flight when it doesn't even simulate thermal up- and downdrafts, one and a half years after release? A most common phenomenon every pilot encounters on almost every flight?

Apart from the appealing visuals (even that is questionable now that we only have one cloud type in the sim) the whole weather system must be considered a massive step backwards from what we had with ActiveSky in P3D.

 

Obviously they were way too overambitious when they wanted to do the weather on their own from scratch.

Looking at the way they involved external expertise like from WorkingTitle I can't really believe they are this stubborn when it comes to weather. Presumably they have run into some kind of legal issues when it comes to opening up their weather system for external expertise.

 

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by RALF9636

47 minutes ago, uwespeed said:

Like PMDG et al for FSX and P3D, isn't it? 😉  Apart from that: wasn't there a discussion recently about "hardcore simmers" and it couldn't be hardcore enough (at least for some)? And now ... that one is too hardcore?

Ok, back to topic. I don't know whether it's (technically) related only to the SDK/API/whatever and I know ... I'm writing below what XP can do and FSX can't - as I owned the latter one and know it, but not any more MSFS 2020. So I'm also interested, what limitations there are for MSFS 2020.

1. Wake turbulences

2. Flaps get damaged at overspeed

3. Birdstrikes: in FSX (and maybe MSFS 2020?) birds may be depicted visually but not simulated.

4. Microbursts

5. Blackout through hypoxia

6. Blackout/redout through high g-load

7. Midair refueling

8. Knife-edge flying

9. Seasons and weather effects. It was since ever said, XP has no seasons, whereas the competitor has. Wrong. WHAT? Sure, it's true, that XP visually hadn't seasons (at least not by default), but on the other hand it was and is simulated.

   1. Examples: Accumulating ice on the wings in respective weather conditions.

   2.   Runways: in X-Plane at temperatures below 0° C and rain, you get an icy runway with very low friction, i.e. the braking distance is much longer. Same applies for rain at above 0° C, however the braking distance is shorter. FSX has indeed depicted wet runways visually, but ... had even below 0° C a braking distance of maybe 10% longer than on dry runway (as far as I remember, in FS9 it was even no difference at all).

There is even more, but I don't want to derail this thread or letting it "going south" 🙂 (funny term BTW) . So, I really also would like to know, what meanwhile is possible in MSFS 2020.

I think there are already blackout effects implemented with SU7.  For some of the other stuff you list, it's up to the 3rd party dev to implement it.  For example, hypoxia.  There is no reason the 3rd party dev cannot implement code to detect altitudes where hypoxia sets in and if that plane is not rated to go up to that altitude, the 3rd party dev can model hypoxia.  Same with flaps getting damaged at overspeed. Again, I believe the 3rd party dev can implement that, if they wanted to.

MSFS also simulates icing.  About the friction with the runway on landing depending on if it's raining or snowing, I think the 3rd party dev may have control over that as well.

 

Edited February 10, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

I was disappointed with the ground texture answer.  It's quite often that my airport scenery looks better on other sims from the same developer.  I've heard a developer refer to this as projected mesh in msfs.  For me having crisp ground textures is a massive part of the immersion.  Hopefully they change their mind on that later down the road.