54 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I question why they show this preview in its current condition. It's obvious that a lot of things are missing. I saw a lot of xplane 11 style component still in the video.

I would say, because sharing where you are it sometimes includes sharing you are not at where you would like to be. like that time MSFS shared their dev building a competitor to XPlanes gateway ghosted them.

Also, imho, because its no secret quite a few inside LR have never actually seen real snow, let alone done serious flying in it.

1 minute ago, Janov said:

I think your sentiment will be shared by many - I will (with rising desperation) say it again and again: XP12 will not equal or leapfrog MSFS in the visual department.

Another warning - don´t comfort yourself that this is "early alpha" and somehow the release will be looking a ton better.

If you are primarily into the visual aspect of flying aircraft - and I don´t mean this in a bad or derogatory way -  go fly MSFS. This will not change with XP12. Period.

There are about (going by metrics from Steam) 25% of users that still prefer the hopelessly dated XP11 over MSFS even these days! They will gladly take the visual enhancements that XP12 brings.

I 100% agree with you. It's not going the leapfrog people expect it to be.  I don't think LR has the budget and the know how to compete against MS/Asobo when it comes to rendering engine. I expect small QoL improvement and hopefully better performance.

7 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I don't think LR has the budget and the know how to compete against MS/Asobo when it comes to rendering engine.

Nah, in most respects they are already well ahead.

In others they still have work to do.

In yet others they have a lot of work to do to deliver the sim Austin demands.

Also, we are in the "snow and ice" thread, do MS even have winter trees yet?

Edited February 12, 20224 yr by mSparks

3 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I expect small QoL improvement and hopefully better performance.

That is probably aiming a bit too short - I mean it is obvious that the advancements in visuals, especially certain areas like lighting, water, trees, airport environment and clouds are significant (albeit not surpassing MSFS). Other areas will be left unchanged.

There are quite a few upgrades for "aviation nerds", and Philipp explains those very well in his part of the official video. Again, not small QoL, but rather significant, imho.

 

6 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I 100% agree with you. It's not going the leapfrog people expect it to be.  I don't think LR has the budget and the know how to compete against MS/Asobo when it comes to rendering engine. I expect small QoL improvement and hopefully better performance.

Different products focus on different aspects. One could as well say that MSFS did not leapfrog XP in other aspects of the simulation (just as you said, likely they didn't have the know how to compete against LR in those specific aspects).

2 minutes ago, Janov said:

but rather significant, imho.

imho, the chorus of terror focusing on things XP12 doesn't do better will be inversely proportional to the number of things XP12 doesn't do better. Its sad but true that when things are good/near perfect there just isn't that much to talk about, just look at the SR22 thread for a perfect example.

1 minute ago, Janov said:

That is probably aiming a bit too short - I mean it is obvious that the advancements in visuals, especially certain areas like lighting, water, trees, airport environment and clouds are significant (albeit not surpassing MSFS). Other areas will be left unchanged.

There are quite a few upgrades for "aviation nerds", and Philipp explains those very well in his part of the official video. Again, not small QoL, but rather significant, imho.

 

I am trying to keep an open mind but what I say in all 3 Austin video was :

- All clouds were sitting on a layer with flat bottom just like Enhanced Skyscapes plugins. It look ok from the top. awful when looking up

- I did see better lighting and shadow in the cloud

- Better reflections 

- Water texture shader is not very good imo. I hope they improved that. 

- Airport snow/icing runway looks good when you are on the ground but when you are flying away from the airport, the rest of the scenery didn't match the runway and it felt very disconnected from the rest of the world. Like it was a really bad texture

Of course, all of the things I've mention could just be pre-alpha not completed work and I am ok with that but as a customer, it felt really rough. When I say rough , I mean rougher that what we would expect for a product that is to be released in 2022. Of course things can change but this is what I saw. I am trying to keep a positive mindset that the final product will be better and worth the upgrade. They haven't convinced me yet.

2 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I am trying to keep an open mind but what I say in all 3 Austin video was :

- All clouds were sitting on a layer with flat bottom just like Enhanced Skyscapes plugins. It look ok from the top. awful when looking up

- I did see better lighting and shadow in the cloud

- Better reflections 

- Water texture shader is not very good imo. I hope they improved that. 

- Airport snow/icing runway looks good when you are on the ground but when you are flying away from the airport, the rest of the scenery didn't match the runway and it felt very disconnected from the rest of the world. Like it was a really bad texture

Of course, all of the things I've mention could just be pre-alpha not completed work and I am ok with that but as a customer, it felt really rough. When I say rough , I mean rougher that what we would expect for a product that is to be released in 2022. Of course things can change but this is what I saw. I am trying to keep a positive mindset that the final product will be better and worth the upgrade. They haven't convinced me yet.

yes

6 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Different products focus on different aspects. One could as well say that MSFS did not leapfrog XP in other aspects of the simulation (just as you said, likely they didn't have the know how to compete against LR in those specific aspects).

I agree but as the latest Q&A , they are trying to catch up on that and they are making significant process. Their new CFD simulation is really a leap forward in a simulator that really needed it. It will be difficult for LR to compete if their keep improving at the pace they are going while LR is not.  I want LR to do better as competition is an essential part of a healthy market. That way each companies pushes each other forwards.  

 Will everyone stop bitching already. XP12 is not even out yet and you would think it has been out for 2 yrs like MSFS has. No it's not as visual as MS. Most likely never will be. If you remember when XP11 came out, it was not what it is today. It took 2 yrs or so before they finished updates. If you like MS fly it. If you like XP fly it. Or fly both. XP12 will be better visually than 11. How much we don't really know yet. At least wait until. it is out before you start complaining about every thing you see.

Edited February 12, 20224 yr by flyer47
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21 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

I agree but as the latest Q&A , they are trying to catch up on that and they are making significant process. Their new CFD simulation is really a leap forward in a simulator that really needed it. It will be difficult for LR to compete if their keep improving at the pace they are going while LR is not.

Still unproven at the moment.

Meanwhile, XP is also constantly evolving in those aspects, it's not standing still (I have first hand proof of that, but can't say more so you'll have to take my word for it).

The nice thing is:  Once XP12 is in public beta everyone can download the demo (a limited area to fly around in with a limited time of joystick input per session) and see for themselves if it fits their needs. No gamepass, no limited time for a full refund. You just provide the harddisk space and download bandwidth.

3 hours ago, fogboundturtle said:

I don't think LR has the budget and the know how to compete against MS/Asobo when it comes to rendering engine. I expect small QoL improvement and hopefully better performance.

If you have watched the SR-22 video, I am at a loss how you can state 'Small QoL improvement'.

3 hours ago, fogboundturtle said:

I 100% agree with you. It's not going the leapfrog people expect it to be.  I don't think LR has the budget and the know how to compete against MS/Asobo when it comes to rendering engine. I expect small QoL improvement and hopefully better performance.

I really suspect you don’t know what laminar are capable of. They’ve been in business, competing against Microsoft for about 30 years. The rendering engine in MSFS is not licensed to asobo. It’s free to use for any company as long a percentage is paid. Personally, in my opinion, the over saturated Color’s and ambient occlusion in MSFS is quite the turn off. It’s not realistic at all. It looks cool. But way overdone. 
 

2 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

We are in a great time for flight simulation.  MSFS is coming along nicely - and so is XP12.  I still regularly use XP11 as PilotEdge still recommend it for IFR practice (Just today I discovered Enhanced Cloudscapes - amazing addon!).

The future is bright.  

This.

Every time I see a comment along the lines of "SIm Blah is best because..." my eyes roll heavenwards and glaze over. Each has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, just because Simmer A prefers Sim A, doesn't mean that Sim A is best across the board. It just means that Sim A ticks more of the boxes that Simmer A wants ticked.  When anyone declares Sim X to be their favourite Sim, that's all it amounts to. As for "relevance" (word not allowed). If it's for sale and people are buying it and flying it and producing add-ons for it, it's relevant. The "I am the World" fallacy rears its head a lot on flight sim forums: "I am no longer interested in Sim X, therefor nobody else must be either. Or there's something wrong with them."  It's mind boggling that grown-ups are actually capable of writing stuff like this.

You're absolutely right, It really is the fantastic time for simming. I'm loving XP11 (a recent...er...discovery), MSFS looks amazing and is showing signs of great promise, and P3D is still there with a backlog of planes on my To-Fly list. I don't plan on any of those sims leaving my hard disk anytime soon.