What Have You Done Asobo?

[MarcG 3,031]

16 minutes ago, Tva said:

Is the same iracing that you have to pay subscription every month and on top of that buy cars and circuits? Is it even comparable that with free updates?

Yes ok different monetary system but my point still remains about constantly supporting and improving the title over many years, the other Devs listed are more similar to MSFS regarding initial payment schemes if you're going to be picky 😉

[DD_Arthur 1,091]

11 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

The first time I flew in 2020 I was blown away with things, especially how crisp the ground textures were and how that awful morphing was no longer present on hills and mountains. Wow, what a difference now! For some time now all I can see is awful blurry ground textures. Even with both LODs set to 120 and all other 'heavy hitters' set to high rather than ultra.

Hello Howard.  Although you now seem to be public enemy number one and this thread has taken some weirdly hilarious turns into speculative nonsense; I have to say I broadly agree with you.

On release. I was absolutely knocked out by what the sim was capable of displaying - especially on my ancient pc that I'm still using - however, there is no doubt that things did change fundamentally when SU5 was introduced. We've obviously come a long way since then but I really don't think there's any doubt that compromises were made to shoe-horn this thing into the Xbox enviroment. For me the change in our original, crisp ground textures was the most noticeable thing;  along with the change to the overall lighting scheme that's given us the "nothing washes whiter than Daz" colour palette we have today.

Of course something was done to the clouds at the time too.   Obviously, these are not popular opinions but nevertheless, in my opinion, they're true. I for one can only hope that as development continues these things can be looked at again...

A couple of vids I made in August 2020; the first above Portsmouth and the second an evening flight from Henley around the Surrey hills. I think they both demonstrate what has gone missing.

Interesting frame rate counter for my i7 3930k rtx2070 ddr3 system....  

 

 

[ECONINO 15]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

Once awake, you will be amazed to see 13 World updates, 12 Simulation updates, 2 AAU, 2 City Updates and a couple of very decent freebies in less than 3 years ! 

Is everything perfect ?  If you were in my room, you would see smoke coming out of my ears because I am upset to see that the TBM variables still don't match the turboprop ones. Binding my Warthog is a nightmare. It shouldn't be. I have said several times how unhappy I am to see the offline textures too often because Bing had no sat imagery for some places etc. I am not in VR but I understand my fellow VR simmers who have their own complaints.

But, lets look at the big picture,  all in all, I've never seen such a commitment to a game ever. 

 

..... of course I am not a msfs 2020 hater (I do love it) ... of course I think msfs 2020 is the best sim ever ... of course msfs 2020 is the first flight sim in history offering constantly updates with not charge at all ...

... but that is not all, there are a lot of basic things which are not working properly or even worst than a first (I think this is the topic of this post), I do believe that last 6-8 months they have stopped working on it and leaving this job for next gen simulator (msfs 2024) .... 

...., I do not have any problem and I will buy next one also ... but please let me think that nothing new from last months (last word updates are poor, last months nothing interesting has been fixed, and half (may be more) of the updates are just fixing what they have broke .... due to it I think they are stopped in today's simulator (msfs 2020) ... after that I continue thinking that Asobo did the best simulator which I do enjoy ... so is a pity that we are not going to see exciting news or serious updates until msfs 2024  ....

Cheers !

Edited June 29, 2023 by ECONINO

[abrams_tank 7,459]

11 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Hello Howard.  Although you now seem to be public enemy number one and this thread has taken some weirdly hilarious turns into speculative nonsense; I have to say I broadly agree with you.

On release. I was absolutely knocked out by what the sim was capable of displaying - especially on my ancient pc that I'm still using - however, there is no doubt that things did change fundamentally when SU5 was introduced. We've obviously come a long way since then but I really don't think there's any doubt that compromises were made to shoe-horn this thing into the Xbox enviroment. For me the change in our original, crisp ground textures was the most noticeable thing;  along with the change to the overall lighting scheme that's given us the "nothing washes whiter than Daz" colour palette we have today.

Of course something was done to the clouds at the time too.   Obviously, these are not popular opinions but nevertheless, in my opinion, they're true. I for one can only hope that as development continues these things can be looked at again...

A couple of vids I made in August 2020; the first above Portsmouth and the second an evening flight from Henley around the Surrey hills. I think they both demonstrate what has gone missing.

Interesting frame rate counter for my i7 3930k rtx2070 ddr3 system.... 

I don't fly around the Portsmouth area. But I get comparable scenery and clouds right now in the latest version of MSFS, to what you are getting in your videos from 2020. I was here since 2020 on the release of MSFS too.

I have not noticed major degredations to MSFS in terms of graphics, except for maybe the cloud variation for live weather was not as good as it was, during the peak cloud variation period of MSFS. However, the cloud variation is still pretty good right now with live weather, and it works with METAR and all that (for the VATSIM folk), so I'm not complaining at all, because this is a huge overall step forward for MSFS, getting it to work with METAR so that it works on VATSIM and the other ATC networks, while trying to get as much cloud variation in live weather.

Edited June 29, 2023 by abrams_tank

[andy1252 3,964]

5 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

A couple of vids I made in August 2020;

Interesting. Subjectively speaking, I feel that MSFS has lost some of it's original sparkle in terms of clarity, and particulary visual acuity over distance, with reductions in LOD etc. That has to remain subjective though, I guess. I also have plenty of images, and a couple of small videos, from the early days, but I've upgraded and replaced my graphics card and monitor (HDR now) so I can't really look at my own historical stuff and make valid comparisons.

But I certainly remember what felt like a noticeable degradation around maybe SU5 or thereabouts.

Still think it looks amazing, and looking forward to 2024 though.

[Soulflight 97]

52 minutes ago, Abriael said:

Imagine being so absolutely out of touch with any sort of reality that one really thinks what I quoted.

Here's a reality check. Software that "upsets" basically everyone at release flops and never recovers. And it doesn't get sequels.

It doesn't become the most successful flight simulator of all time, which MSFS objectively is, and by a massive margin. 

Those who were "upset" were and are a massively outnumbered but vocal minority while the overwhelming majority was and is having a lot of fun.

Not only is MSFS the most successful flight simulator of all time, but also the most adopted by third party developers, by far. 

It's funny that once in a while we get someone who engages in historical revisionism trying to allege that the chronic malcontents are or ever were more than an insufferable but tiny part of the community. 

"The most successful flight simulator of all time" indicates a very well working PR machine at Asobos side. Not more, not less. it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the product from a simulation perspective itself. Imagine announcing "This is the new microsoft flight simulator" after the last serious installment in this series was 14 years ago. Of course its being sold well.
I have 500 hours of flight time according to my user profile. From a gaming market perspective, this is an absolute win. Most full priced games end up with something between 50 to 100h of play time. However, the way I use MSFS and the way I played f.e. Skyrim are completely different. I dont consider myself a "hardcore simmer" in every aspect, but I know what I had before and with flight simming, I look for the right, realistic "feel" of things. MSFS delivered, to some degree, in visuals, but lacked in other aspects.

"but also the most adopted by third party developers, by far." Again, quantity isnt quality. I cannot count how often some support agent told me "this is a known problem at asobos side", or I read news that a release "is delayed because of something asobo is not providing something", or, the classic, "we are not opening the weather engine to 3rd party devs". At the same time, I get new good looking, but strangely behaving aircraft with rudimentary systems and flight model on almost on a daily basis. Or MSFS gets new default planes where someone skilled is releasing a "realism mod" later. Again, I dont mind all that, but my subjective impression is that 3rd party devs hit walls in the moment they want to create more in-depth realism, making overall addon quality stall.

You are free to call my POV subjective but dont confuse quantity with "reality" here. You are referring to numbers, both in sales and 3rd party devs. Neither has to do anything with the quality they deliver otherwise we could all just play Call of Duty and thats it. Because CoD is good, seriously, because it sold well. But then again, why am i even argueing with someone who has a manga avatar.....

[Franz007 505]

29 minutes ago, ECONINO said:

of course msfs 2020 is the first flight sim in history offering constantly updates with not charge at all ..

I guess you were being ironic? XP offers many free updates over a whole main-iteration period, meaning around 5 years.

[Swe_Richard 1,175]

Well.. I think maybe something might be down to the fact one simply gets accustomed to the rather good visuals MSFS provides. In the first video posted by @DD_Arthur one can clearly, at times, see LOD borders. Sure, it loots splendid at close range, but there is a definite discernible circle around the aircraft. I would like to see a comparison done exactly the same but with the sim in its current state. 

I have somewhat concluded that MSFS looks absolutely splendid when really close up to the aircraft. Did a landing last night in Spain. Up on altitude I got quite mushy textures below me at 38k feet. Descending to my destination details swam into view and got really good; orders of magnitude ahead of the competition, but still; up in the air I find myself staring at the PFD to not break the immersion. 

[Lucky38i 1,106]

51 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

We've obviously come a long way since then but I really don't think there's any doubt that compromises were made to shoe-horn this thing into the Xbox enviroment.

Just to remind people. The Xbox Series X and S are x86 machines, like your PC, running a "gateified" version of Windows. It's running on a custom Zen 2 CPU, think AMD 2600X with GPU power close to a RX 590 or GTX 1660. For all intents and purposes, it is a PC running components similiar to what you can buy today off the shelf.

This constant idea that Xbox somehow gimped MSFS, despite MSFS on PC containing much more features and capabilities than it's Xbox counterpart, has no actual basis of truth solely looking to blame a console for someone's own poor graphical fidelity within the sim due to external factors like poor single CPU core performance, poor internet (your internet speed may be beyond 50mbps, hell you could have 1GBs but that won't matter if the TCP connection to Azure is bad), bad cache and so on.

For reference I run a 6600k, 1070, 16GB of RAM and run MSFS at 20-30fps and it looking amazing regarding LOD and Clouds. The only issue I have is terrible stutters caused by my "ancient" CPU.

[Dominique_K 10,152]

13 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

  For the first time since using 2020 I have had thoughts about reinstalling P3D! That is a last resort, as 2020 has such a lot going for it. Please Asobo, sort this out, as it is a real game spoiler.

I sympathise with you Howard. Thats the solution. Instead of finding why you have this blurry mess nobody else has after the update, going back to P3D is the good way to handle it. Look at the v6 trailer. Now, doesn't it look like it is a really nice improvement over FS9 ?

[lwt1971 7,456]

4 hours ago, Soulflight said:

MSFS delivered, to some degree, in visuals, but lacked in other aspects.
...
Again, quantity isnt quality
...
my subjective impression is that 3rd party devs hit walls in the moment they want to create more in-depth realism, making overall addon quality stall.
...
You are free to call my POV subjective but dont confuse quantity with "reality" here.

Nobody is equating quantity to quality... yes given the huge popularity of MSFS there are bound to be subpar add-ons and a lot of them, including some of the ones MS/Asobo tend to throw in for free or a fee (mostly done by 3rd party devs too). But it's also the case that aircraft with stellar realism have been released for free in the default sim by MS/Asobo (Citation, CJ4, iniBuilds A310, 787, etc). And there are various high fidelity payware offerings like the PMDG 737, Fenix, FSW C414, Milviz C310, the coming A2A Comanche, and on and on. And no, these 3rd party devs are not "hitting walls" to create more in-depth realism because they umm already actually created these 🙂, and continue to increase the realism depth (i.e. Fenix V2, A2A, iniBuilds A300, etc).

Some devs like A2A would not even be releasing their aircraft if they are hitting walls, because they always ensure that full realism to their standards is possible on a flight sim platform (in fact, their MSFS AccuSim framework per what they are repeatedly saying is the most realistic it's ever been, compared to previous incarnations for other sims).. another example is FSL that's now focusing and developing for MSFS, they also wouldn't be doing that if the MSFS platform had shortcomings.

So nope, overall addon quality is not "stalled" and quite frankly that's a farcical statement flying in the face of what's really out there.
 

Edited June 29, 2023 by lwt1971

[Noel 4,563]

6 hours ago, Franz007 said:

although we had them in P3D/FSX with ActiveSky since years

Of course, because they didn't do squat for scenery and default planes were garbage.  EA weather in P3D is worse than what we have here now and on day 1 and many like Ray and others don't even use it.   FSX was 27 years under essentially the same dev or a few discreet devs, and when P3D took it over for the next 14 years the pace of improvement was absolutely dismal, and unless you were willing to misrepresent your qualifications for an academic license were charged $200 a pop.  Go back and see just how dreadfully weak the improvements were from P3D v1 to v2 to v3 and finally 64 bit, ANOTHER TWO YEARS LATER, for another $200.  Yes, I would enjoy a couple of those trinkets we enjoyed back then, but in the grand scheme of things, they qualify as trinkets.  Asobo could introduce them with little development time.   Stand back and look at the Forest.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Noel

[Noel 4,563]

Howard, if you would like some optimization to get you up to where you want to be PM me.  We have similar systems.  Do you have a Gsync monitor?

[AviatorMan 253]

13 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Here we go again! Check your internet speed, ping server, install windows updates, restart your computer, empty your shaders, delete rolling rolling cache. I mean try to do something before complaining here LOL

Thanks, this does help. I was having severe stutter problems over Angers (one of the recently announced photogrammetric cities in France) and I tried sd_flyer's suggestions, and it did provide a noticeable improbement. But I am still having slight stuttering which I suspect is due to my slow broadband speed,( ~70 mb/sec from Sky here in UK). So I also reduced several settings from ULTRA to HIGH. Also helped some, but I don't think will ever do really better on Sky. Sky "promised" around 150 mb/sec!

[Rocky_53 1,594]

14 hours ago, Stoopy said:

You did make sure that your online functionality didn't inadvertently get disabled, right?

No stoopy, if it had, then the terrain would look like an obvious mess, with really bad textures. The textures I am experiencing don't make the sim unflyable, they are simply lower resolution than previously. This is only a guess, but it looks to me, almost  like the texture resolution has been decreased to maybe help the load on performance elsewhere. Just a guess it may have found it's way in one of the more recent updates.