The Asobo KATL is solid except the red/orange on the concourses needs to be updated to black like the real airport is.  Other than that, it’s pretty good and I don’t really see the point of a 3rd party developer making ATL.  

1 hour ago, okupton said:

The Asobo KATL is solid except the red/orange on the concourses needs to be updated to black like the real airport is.  Other than that, it’s pretty good and I don’t really see the point of a 3rd party developer making ATL.  

That is what I heard also and I follow your sentiments.  I thought that recalled hearing recently about a freeware mod that changes the colors per your comment.

23 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Same here. While KIAH for P3D v4 was an old-looking product, the other two were fine.

KIAH came out in June 2014, that is 3 full years before P3D V4 came out and the year before P3D V3, so it was designed in the P3D 32-bit OOMs era, and it followed another scenery we made that had features never seen before ( dynamic shadows in FSX and P3D 2.x ) CYVR, which nowadays is seen as a simply good and easy on fps airport with no issues whatsoever, but when it came out, in the P3D 32 bit OOM era, when everybody already filled up RAM with PacNW and Vancouver+, CYVR being just being released, it was accused of "causing OOMs", when of course, as usual, the cause was simply the fact that, on 32 bit sims, you simply couldn't add, and add, and add stuff without reaching the breaking point.

Today, everybody knows that and we are all grateful the 32 bit era is behind us, and even other big airports released after CYVR were released after it and they were *all* risking OOMs, people started to be aware of the 32 bit limitations, so in time, especially after P3D V4 came out, nobody ever accused CYVR to be the cause of OOMs. 

However, since P3D V4 only came years later, we couldn't obviously stop making sceneries to wait for a 64 bit sim so, since we always take user reactions very seriously, for the NEXT scenery, which was incidentally an airport even bigger than CYVR, that is KIAH, we decided to just forget about the "never seen before" features, and work on 3 things: optimization, optimization and optimization, trying to say every last bit of memory we could, in order not be sure nobody would ever experienced an OOMs.

This PAID OFF in support: KIAH is BY FAR, the product which required less support, and not by a small margin, even if it might have not looked as good as it could have been, but we really didn't want to risk another OOMs urban legend. As I've said, KIAH came out in 2014, 3 full years before P3D4, 1 year before P3D3, which was still 32 bit, and even worse than P3D 2 from a memory point of view, since it has lots of new graphic features ( dynamic shadows, duh...), but with the same 32 bit limitations so, we really couldn't design KIAH anything different from 2013-2014, if we wanted a reliable product. And it *was* reliable. And it even outsold the better-looking CYVR so, we assumed users valued reliability, surely at that point in time, when it was a miracle if you managed to complete a flight without OOM-ing.

However, I don't think it's fair to say KIAH looked "older" than KDFW or KJFK, I think KIAH overall was better looking, but KDFW and especially KJFK are probably more interesting as airports in general, with better chances to appear to look good, even if they really aren't and they are way older than KIAH ( KJFK came out 2009 and was last updated in 2013, KDFW came out in 2010 ).

And yes, we have been really busy with GSX's release, because I hope everybody will understand that, it's more important to work on all possible issue of an already released product people pay money for, than switching on the next thing. At least this is what seems to be the general consensus, usually when people complains about a developer, they complain about moving the next product before fixing the issues with the previous one. And GSX is of course very different than a scenery: it needs constant support and evolution, while an airport can stay the same, as long its real world counterpart doesn't change much.

So KIAH had to be put in pause when it was almost completed, but we'll surely get back to it and, in fact, since we are planning to attend the next FsExpo in Houston, it would be nice to have the scenery ready in time for that. 

 

Quote

KORD in P3D using DX11 was fantastic, with lots of new and previously unseen features, such as user aircraft and neighbouring AI flight details (route, flight number and TOBT) displayed while on stand.

Sure it was but, if it wasn't for the MSFS version, we would have lost money on it, because the time it took to create those features, might have been spent to make a cople of new extra sceneries instead.

And, when P3D V5 came out, which a DX12-only implementation that had lots of teething issues for a good whole year until it became stable, lots of that work got lost because the features we needed most ( True type Font rendering ), has been removed from DX12, or required an extremely complex hybrid rendering of DX11+DX12 which I don't even know is possible running under an host simulator, and even if it was, it was so complex that it would have been a nightmare supporting users if anything went wrong ( DXGI-crash-wrong... ). If Microsoft, which is supposed to be the strongest advocate of DX12, still hasn't removed DX11 support from MSFS, it tells something...

While we are fairly sure MSFS will never allow DirectX access, we might only hope that in the future, some kind of safer and easier to use Render-to-texture feature will eventually be offered in the SDK for something that is not an airplane gauge. We of course asked for it even before MSFS came out, but when lobbying for new features is concerned, it's always best to ask for the easiest things first, the ones that have the better chance to be added, in our case the Navdata API which came out in SU10 and the addition of Jetway data that will came out in SU12, and move on to the more exotic and complex requests later...

 

Edited December 26, 20223 yr by virtuali

8 hours ago, virtuali said:

I don't think it's fair to say KIAH looked "older" than KDFW or KJFK

It's my personal opinion. 🤷‍♂️

 

8 hours ago, virtuali said:

Sure it was but, if it wasn't for the MSFS version, we would have lost money on it

That was due to unfortunate timing. You released KORD v2 for P3D two months after the MSFS Announcement Trailer at E3 2019. The add-on market for legacy sims had collapsed at that point.

There's always the risk that the time taken developing a huge airport leaves you open to various factors, which can render your time and effort unprofitable. OTOH, getting it right is a gold mine for a developer.

With that last point in mind, KPHL, KOAK, KPIT, LFPG, EDDF, MMMX, and HECA are all either not done or not done well. Any of these from FSDT would be a compelling purchase.

 

13 hours ago, okupton said:

The Asobo KATL is solid except the red/orange on the concourses needs to be updated to black like the real airport is.  Other than that, it’s pretty good and I don’t really see the point of a 3rd party developer making ATL.  

It’s not that it’s bad. But those with an eye for detail know Atlanta could be drastically improved. Ground textures, terminal detailing, better handling of field elevation changes etc. 

13 hours ago, Mike S KPDX said:

That is what I heard also and I follow your sentiments.  I thought that recalled hearing recently about a freeware mod that changes the colors per your comment.

let me know if you find out where to get that mod.  I'd love to have that. 

31 minutes ago, micstatic said:

let me know if you find out where to get that mod.  I'd love to have that. 

Me too!   Back in my business travel days, I was a twice-a-week passenger at KATL and KDFW.  TBH, I was thrilled beyond description that the default KATL FINALLY had the correct(ish) elevation for the maintenance hangar row....it was so depressing to taxi past it in the sim (P3D days), and see all the planes parked there at the same level as the taxiway.  Now its lower than the taxiway as in real life, and while can use some tweaking and a little terraforming to make it perfect...its not bad!

Now we just have to get Asobo to fix the mirrored Delta text on plane depicted on the hangar, LOL

Hoping by the time Delta gets the Max in real life...we''ll be flying her in MSFS too (the -10 of course since that is what Delta ordered). 🙂

 

 

Indeed, I would love to see many other sceneries (KDFW, KDAL, KIAH, KHOU, and more) come to the Lone Star State. We'll see what happens this next year

On 12/26/2022 at 3:06 AM, micstatic said:

It’s not that it’s bad. But those with an eye for detail know Atlanta could be drastically improved. Ground textures, terminal detailing, better handling of field elevation changes etc. 

Every taxi to 26L is an offroading adventure. Thump thump thump the whole way down Twy E. 

I haven't seen anything announced or in progress for DFW or ATL. Just some freeware AFCAD tweaks essentially, color mod for ATL.

Would be nice to see someone take on a high quality rendition of either one. Optimization would be really important because the performance in ATL area at least is kinda awful.