38 minutes ago, WestAir said:

I wonder if PMDG would have been better off designing a custom external engine model like Fenix is doing; Because in the long run, they'll need it for the 777, 747, and all future aircraft.

They would have, but external processes aren't allowed on the marketplace and Xbox. I'm guessing they will have to build new engine models anyway for other aircraft since they all have different engines that behave differently.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by threegreen

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

I wonder if PMDG would have been better off designing a custom external engine model like Fenix is doing; Because in the long run, they'll need it for the 777, 747, and all future aircraft.

 

24 minutes ago, threegreen said:

They would have, but external processes aren't allowed on the marketplace and Xbox.

The aircraft devs who frequent this forum can definitely explain better, but I believe external systems code (including engine stuff) can be placed in WASM modules?, and WASM is supported on both the PC and XBox platforms. Maybe Fenix's externals system code from Prosim had some characteristics to it that made it hard/impossible to compile+run in WASM, and also WASM had some limitations especially on XBox which have now been lifted by MS.. even if Prosim could've been placed in WASM maybe Fenix only cared to support the PC platform (purely semi-educated guessing here :), Aamir obviously knows best and can explain if he cares to). Like RSR says there are many ways to attack a problem and they're trying their current ways for now which is making their heavy customizations and the platform play nice.
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

17 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

 

The aircraft devs who frequent this forum can definitely explain better, but I believe external systems code (including engine stuff) can be placed in WASM modules?, and WASM is supported on both the PC and XBox platforms. Maybe Fenix's externals system code from Prosim had some characteristics to it that made it hard/impossible to compile+run in WASM, and also WASM had some limitations especially on XBox which have now been lifted by MS.. even if Prosim could've been placed in WASM maybe Fenix only cared to support the PC platform (purely semi-educated guessing here :), Aamir obviously knows best and can explain if he cares to). Like RSR says there are many ways to attack a problem and they're trying their current ways for now which is making their heavy customizations and the platform play nice.
 

A developer can indeed create any number of WASM modules, and link them to an aircraft in the build process. The problem with Fenix is that their ProSim module is a an actual compiled executable file that runs separately from the aircraft project in its own process space. That is fine on the PC version of MSFS, where the file can be triggered to run with the aircraft by making an entry in EXE.xml, but external executables are not permitted on XBox.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by JRBarrett

In that case, if Aamir wants to make money hand over fist, maybe he could partner with PMDG to allow them to license the engine model his team has worked so hard on. Pennies on the dollar for every sale. Simmers get realistic engine models for the 737, 777, 747, etc, PMDG spends less resources finding solutions, and Fenix gets more money at no risk because it's a license. Everyone wins!

I realize I'm being completely ridiculous here, but sometimes it's fun to day-dream! 😂

18 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

A developer can indeed create any number of WASM modules, and link them to an aircraft in the build process. The problem with Fenix is that their ProSim module is a an actual compiled executable file that runs separately from the aircraft project in its own process space. That is fine on the PC version of MSFS, where the file can be triggered to run with the aircraft by making an entry in EXE.xml, but external executables are not permitted on XBox.

I was under the impression that ProSim was C/C++ code which Fenix have access to and also heavily modified (per what Aamir has said before) so it's not like they have to work with a precompiled executable only. But yes if as you say they only have the executable to work with (or are forced to only run their modified+recompiled ProSim as a standalone executable) then that's not possible on XBox.

Based on what Aamir said on this thread https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/635607-a2a-to-focus-on-msfs-for-entertainment-products/?do=findComment&comment=4983119 it sounds like they certainly had to do more than just running some precompiled executable from ProSim.. but guessing due to all the modifying of it they had to do to make it work with the sim, it'd have been that much harder to make all that code work in a WASM module too.

In any case, guess we're going off-topic here re: Fenix 🙂 
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

In the end, PMDG wants to have their planes available to XBox users, so they will continue to battle through to find workaround solutions for their engine logics, efb, etc. I don't think we will see them rely on any external exe at least for now.

3 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I was under the impression that ProSim was C/C++ code which Fenix have access to and also heavily modified (per what Aamir has said before) so it's not like they have to work with a precompiled executable only. But yes if as you say they only have the executable to work with then that's not possible on XBox.

Based on what Aamir said on this thread https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/635607-a2a-to-focus-on-msfs-for-entertainment-products/?do=findComment&comment=4983119 it sounds like they certainly had to do more than just running some precompiled executable from ProSim.. but guessing due to all the modifying of it they had to do to make it work with the sim, it'd have been that much harder to make all that code work in a WASM module too.

In any case, guess we're going off-topic here re: Fenix 🙂 
 

The file is”FenixBootstrapper.exe”

It may contain all (or part of) ProSim, or perhaps other functionality. In any case, as a stand-alone executable, it would not be permitted on XBox.

10 minutes ago, Kevin_28 said:

In the end, PMDG wants to have their planes available to XBox users, so they will continue to battle through to find workaround solutions for their engine logics, efb, etc. I don't think we will see them rely on any external exe at least for now.

That's fair, I guess all I'm saying is that PMDG aren't necessarily confined to executables for hosting external code, they could WASM as a container for external code too (like I'm sure they're already doing for other parts of their aircraft) since that's supported on both PC and XBox.
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

2 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

It may contain all (or part of) ProSim, or perhaps other functionality. In any case, as a stand-alone executable, it would not be permitted on XBox.

For sure, as a standalone executable it would not be permitted on XBox, but see my other response above.. I'm just curious if it'd have been possible to compile the ProSim code and then deliver it within WASM (but for however many reasons including WASM limitations at the time, Fenix chose not to, especially if they only ever cared to target the PC).
 

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

I wonder if PMDG would have been better off designing a custom external engine model like Fenix is doing; Because in the long run, they'll need it for the 777, 747, and all future aircraft.

However, if PMDG get engine modelling right internally to the sim, it saves a whole lot of grief for them w.r.t. external engine models and Xbox and Marketplace compatibility.
RSR likely sees PMDG as capable of getting it right themselves or with some limited external support. I don't see them buying in capability.

27 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

For sure, as a standalone executable it would not be permitted on XBox, but see my other response above.. I'm just curious if it'd have been possible to compile the ProSim code and then deliver it within WASM (but for however many reasons including WASM limitations at the time, Fenix chose not to, especially if they only ever cared to target the PC).
 

Fenix probably decided not to because it’d require re-structuring a lot of code to use the simconnect C++ api as opposed to a TCP connection that external apps use. Given they already had working code and only needed to modify for their needs it seemed like the more financially feasible choice. 
 

it’s just a guess though, but basically the structure between the two paradigms vary. Unless the code follows the visitor pattern where external or WASM doesn’t matter like FBW’s system code.

Like I've said before, bring on the 777 with EFB!

7 hours ago, sniper31 said:

I appreciate the information. Thank you for posting it here.

Believe it or not, there are dozens of us that like to read these posts 🙂

7 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

many don't even bother to go read what PMDG says before starting to snipe at them

Guilty 😔 

I wonder how long it will take before the bashers switch to Fenix and A2A?