Sim Update 15 Beta (1.37.16.0) - May 1, 2024

[Cpt_Piett 4,838]

On 5/2/2024 at 3:57 AM, bendead said:

The team behind the Duke, must be pretty word not allowed, all those cool marketing videos, released way too early

I was surprised yesterday that they went with this, as we don’t have a certain release date yet.

On 5/2/2024 at 4:01 AM, Maxis said:

I'm ok with waiting. Fix as many things as possible .. we aren't getting another service update for the rest of the year.

I had a major rant in the Duke thread about how the beta process has been dragging out. After someone pointed out what you mentioned above, I calmed down. 

The rant btw was based on my assumption that only the Neo is holding it back. Not sure if this is the case, but if it is, I strongly believe they should have handled the Neo in a separate beta.

Anyway, I’ve had no issues with the latest update.

By the way, can anyone explain the concept of WASM in an easy to understand way? Does it relate to compatibility with addon aircraft? Remember reading something about it in relation to PMDGs 737 back in the day. That it would take a long time to load into the first flight due to WASM being compiled IIRC.

Edited May 3 by Cpt_Piett

[NZ255 312]

2 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

By the way, can anyone explain the concept of WASM in an easy to understand way?

As I understand it, MSFS uses web technology to run their planes avionics and systems (I believe an actual web browser, or at least parts of it). Probably because modern glass cockpit avionics can be built and rendered like a web page. This might seem odd but web apps are generally the way to build software that is truly cross compatible now. Because of this there’s lots of people with web and JavaScript skills so is a good choice to encourage the 3rd party market… go where the people are.

So planes avionics and systems run on web technologies including JavaScript for logic. 
 

In FSX, P3D etc, one way to write these avionics and systems was in a language called C or C++. This is because the game is likely also written in C and C++ to get the best performance (lower level language, less overhead, good for real time rendering such as games). C++ is arguably more specialised, so less people use it now, so could be seen as a barrier to entry. It definitely has its place though and in many situations can’t be compared to JavaScript.
 

Anyway… PMDG and others have lots of code written in C/C++ that they’ve developed over years. Asobo had to give them a path to keep their huge investment and not force them to rewrite everything in JavaScript. They use a solution called WASM (WebAssembly) that allows C++ code to compile and run in a web browser, so in MSFS.

Edited May 3 by NZ255

[JRBarrett 3,129]

2 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

By the way, can anyone explain the concept of WASM in an easy to understand way? Does it relate to compatibility with addon aircraft? Remember reading something about it in relation to PMDGs 737 back in the day. That it would take a long time to load into the first flight due to WASM being compiled IIRC.

WASM is the framework that supports add-ons written in the C++ programming language. The default programming environment in MSFS is JavaScript, and all the default aircraft are written in JS. 

C++ has some advantages in speed of execution. All of PMDG’s previous products for FSX and P3D were written in C++, and keeping C++ for their MSFS offerings allowed them to use to use their huge legacy library of tested and optimized code for their various aircraft. If they had tried to move to JavaScript, they would have basically had to scrap 20+ years of proven and optimized code (for planes like the 737),  and start over from scratch.

C++ programs are normally compiled into stand-alone executable files and DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) which can be run directly. MSFS does not allow this for security reasons. Instead C++ code is compiled to an intermediate form by the developer, using a WASM plug-in for Visual Studio. (VS is Microsoft’s standard software creation framework). The WASM code is compiled into final form (DLL) by the sim itself the first time a WASM-enabled add-on is loaded into the sim.

[Cpt_Piett 4,838]

Thanks a lot @NZ255 and @JRBarrett!

[monica6211 188]

On 5/1/2024 at 5:39 PM, DD_Arthur said:

Yes and I’ve rebooted my pc and the game several times to see if it will help but…..

same