3 minutes ago, turbomax said:

1) just because the Air Force is using old fashioned graphics means they set the standard for best trainers currently available? because scenery, mesh, GPS and graphics are ugly this is proof the flight model must be superior and professional grade?

2) I do care about AI squirrels, grass and building textures while I take off, taxi and land. most of my IFR flights start and end on the ground. I want to believe I am flying, not just staring at instrument needles & pins.

If you’re flying IFR, you SHOULD be staring at instrument needles & pins. 

And once you add in some global textures, sky and clouds, and so on, it’s really not that different. 
And some airline simulators look like FS98 at best. 
 

 

 

Just now, turbomax said:

1) just because the Air Force is using old fashioned graphics means they set the standard for best trainers currently available? because scenery, mesh, GPS and graphics are ugly this is proof the flight model must be superior and professional grade?

2) I do care about AI squirrels, grass and building textures while I take off, taxi and land. most of my IFR flights start and end on the ground. I want to believe I am flying, not just staring at instrument needles & pins.

No, the "proof" is the validation they have done on the flight models and avionics.  I've trained in multi-million dollar level-D simulators (pretty much all of them, in fact) that had worse graphics in terms of artistic appeal than what's possible in P3D--the point is that it is not relevant to training.  And I don't concede that P3D is ugly when augmented by add-ons...I can find you plenty of ugly in every platform I've used to date.  Having the runway environment appear at 1/2 mile when the vis is set to 1/2 mile is important.  Breaking out of the clouds at 500 feet when the ceiling is set to 500 feet is important.  Not sliding sideways off the runway in a transport-category jet in a 15 knot crosswind is important.  Puddles and squirrels and grass are far, far down the list.

If you're looking at the squirrels, you're sightseeing, not flying.

3 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

No, the "proof" is the validation they have done on the flight models and avionics.  I've trained in multi-million dollar level-D simulators (pretty much all of them, in fact) that had worse graphics in terms of artistic appeal than what's possible in P3D--the point is that it is not relevant to training.  And I don't concede that P3D is ugly when augmented by add-ons...I can find you plenty of ugly in every platform I've used to date.  Having the runway environment appear at 1/2 mile when the vis is set to 1/2 mile is important.  Breaking out of the clouds at 500 feet when the ceiling is set to 500 feet is important.  Not sliding sideways off the runway in a transport-category jet in a 15 knot crosswind is important.  Puddles and squirrels and grass are far, far down the list.

If you're looking at the squirrels, you're sightseeing, not flying.

Bob, with all due respect... We are talking about home flight simming which CAN be just as much about virtual tourism as practicing procedures. You don't have to have one or the other. P3D is obviously choosing one over the other, which is understandable considering who their most prominent customers are. 

1 minute ago, Bob Scott said:

I've trained in multi-million dollar level-D simulators

#metoo

forget the training aspect. apart from yourself and maybe a handful of forum members, no one around here is involved in actual flight training. and even if they were, why can it not be pretty and "Serious Flight Training" at the same time? why is photorealistic = unprofessional, ugly = perfect for IFR?

6 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

If you're looking at the squirrels, you're sightseeing, not flying

why does ATIS include warnings "caution, birds and coyote in the vicinity" if all we do is sightseeing.🤣

In the commercial/military use world P3D powers simulators like in the pic below.

Noting in the higher end versions of P3D separate image generators usage is supported where a completely different application would be used to generate scenery of however realistic your budget can afford. 

Cheers

Just now, BostonJeremy77 said:

Bob, with all due respect... We are talking about home flight simming which CAN be just as much about virtual tourism as practicing procedures. You don't have to have one or the other. P3D is obviously choosing one over the other, which is understandable considering who their most prominent customers are. 

It's prioritizing one over the other.  It isn't a mutually-exclusive choice of one or the other--those who want the artistic can augment the platform quite well in that respect while still keeping the fidelity and control of the flight modeling and environment.  What's ugly or not is in the eye of the beholder...personally I find flying over photoscenery that's heavily oversaturated on the green channel to be less than awe-inspiring.

 

36 minutes ago, Rogen said:

Personally after saving and repeating many historical weather events and all that comes with such use, how can you get by without historical weather?

Many of us thankfully can get by, have gotten by, and continue to get by without letting it stop us from simming with sims that don't have historic weather... go figure 🙂
 

39 minutes ago, Rogen said:

Such are great for testing your flying skills, plus there are areas where particular weather may only occur once or twice a year (if that).

Thankfully (again), for those of us needing to test our flying skills with particular weather, can employ a useful feature in such sims to manually configure *exactly* the said particular weather we want, to test our said flying skills... no need to even go back and hunt down a particular date where such particular weather happened IRL and then use historical weather to recreate it.  And this manual weather configuration is really rather useful especially for places where said particular weather rarely happens.
 

37 minutes ago, Rogen said:

It must be so limiting.

It's so not
 

37 minutes ago, Rogen said:

"Who'd have thought indeed!"

Indeed!

8 minutes ago, turbomax said:

#metoo

forget the training aspect. apart from yourself and maybe a handful of forum members, no one around here is involved in actual flight training. and even if they were, why can it not be pretty and "Serious Flight Training" at the same time? why is photorealistic = unprofessional, ugly = perfect for IFR?

A lot of AVSIM members have pilot ratings, not just a handful as you suggest.  Regardless, P3D is first and foremost a flight training product that we've adapted to our own uses.  The quality of the scenery is a red herring in this discussion--it has little to do with a sim's usefulness as a training tool, and that's why LM haven't put a bunch of resources into dolling it up.  They have, however, put the foundation in place for others to do that for those that find that important.

 

7 minutes ago, turbomax said:

why does ATIS include warnings "caution, birds and coyote in the vicinity" if all we do is sightseeing.🤣

As a CYA, that's why.  You're always supposed to be looking for things in your flight path.  If ATIS reports birds or a coyote in the vicinity, do you divert?  No, you keep an eye out, as you should be doing already.  Now if you could get the animated critters to run out onto the runway in the simulation, there'd be some training value in that.

 

 

12 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Thankfully (again), for those of us needing to test our flying skills with particular weather, can employ a useful feature in such sims to manually configure *exactly* the said particular weather we want, to test our said flying skills... no need to even go back and hunt down a particular date where such particular weather happened IRL and then use historical weather to recreate it.  And this manual weather configuration is really rather useful especially for places where said particular weather rarely happens.

Just sounds like excuses and workarounds for lack of functionality to me...

Of course those with available historical weather can also manually configure weather, but there is nothing like setting a date/time and letting the software do it's job.

Please, if you want to extol the so called advantanges of the MSFS package there is the MSFS forum...

Cheers

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by Rogen

2 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

As a CYA, that's why.  You're always supposed to be looking for things in your flight path.  If ATIS reports birds or a coyote in the vicinity, do you divert?  No, you keep an eye out, as you should be doing already.  Now if you could get the animated critters to run out onto the runway in the simulation, there'd be some training value in that.

Hey yeah, Orbx have a nice little airport (11S) where deer wander out onto the runway, many a time I manage to not! miss them 🙂

Cheers

7 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

A lot of AVSIM members have pilot ratings, not just a handful as you suggest.

Navigraph survey 2022:

"Only 6% state that they use the flight simulator for training toward a pilot license. The majority, 49%, or nearly half, say that they use the simulator out of curiosity or just a general interest in aviation."

1 hour ago, Bob Scott said:

Don't sell P3D short--the Air Force is using it for a whole lot more than just some rudimentary preflight introduction to flying--it's being used as a training tool throughout the SUPT programs for contact and advanced instrument flying training.  When you're drilling yourself on instrument procedures, you don't care about AI squirrels, grass and building textures, or the comparative puffiness of the clouds.  Lack of those kinds of things doesn't make it outdated w/r/t its function as a training tool.

Fair points. One would hope those drilling themselves on instrument procedures really wouldn't care about AI squirrels or lack thereof in a sim.. yes, very fair point that.
 

1 hour ago, Bob Scott said:

As to the interest in this community--sure, it's clear that its popularity has been taking a hit, but I do still know a nontrivial number of folks that haven't replaced it with a prettier but less functional alternative just yet. The good news is that P3D's deep-pocketed primary user base pays the bulk of the bills, so for those of us still interested in availing ourselves of its capabilities, absence of glitter notwithstanding, any waning consumer market popularity isn't likely going to have the same effect that it does for other software products when growth plateaus and they lose their popularity in the gaming space, as they all eventually do.

This "prettier but less functional alternative" is a canard that's getting more stale by the day. Those who use the alternative can easily say P3D is less functional in various ways too.

And generally my take on the whole v6 situation and the discussions on the forum: ya I don't believe many here are saying LM is going to be impacted by the waning popularity amongst home civilian sim user base and 3rd party devs, since LM's primary user base has always been the professional/military class. So they are continuing to do what they always meant to do. It just so happened that many civilian home flight sim users *re-purposed* P3D for their use during the past years (and LM might've also willingly or unwillingly gone along with that), especially when 3rd party devs at that time also catered to the civilian home sim users on P3D. The civilian home sim landscape is very different now in 2023, and 3rd party devs have shifted their focus. Those who were repurposing P3D for home use and whose needs are *only* served currently by P3D can easily either: a) continue with P3D 5.x, and/or b) use P3D 6.x without 3rd party add-ons, or c) use 6.x with some of those add-ons in an unsupported manner with some hacks.
 

7 minutes ago, turbomax said:

Navigraph survey 2022:

"Only 6% state that they use the flight simulator for training toward a pilot license. The majority, 49%, or nearly half, say that they use the simulator out of curiosity or just a general interest in aviation."

Not sure in what universe 49% is a majority, but even 6% of the respondents is more than a "handful."

With that, P3Dv6 is now here...much more to follow on the particulars, I am sure. And there endeth the announcement thread.