Just now, F737MAX said:

• Additional details, e.g. cabin announcements, animations of events (wing condensation, brake smoke, windscreen wipers that work, etc.), ice / snow accumulation on wings and engine cowlings.
• Better use of the MSFS sound engine.
• Modern texturing techniques (the cockpit panels look flat/lacking in reflectivity)
• Higher quality animations (the engine wobble effect looks weird).
• Enhanced lighting effects, both of dynamic lights and reflections on glass surfaces.

• Proper full featured "UFT" tablet
• Visible 3D Copilot that can at least read checklists
• Full animations in cockpit
• More advanced and detailed 3d mesh
• Fix LNAV issues
• Compatibility with WT planner (soon)
• Optimization (FPS increase)

Just now, Greazer said:

• Proper full featured "UFT" tablet
• Visible 3D Copilot that can at least read checklists
• Full animations in cockpit
• More advanced and detailed 3d mesh
• Fix LNAV issues
• Compatibility with WT planner (soon)
• Optimization (FPS increase)

Pretty please for a method for using iPads to operate the FMC and EFB (à la Fenix) 🙏 

14 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

• Additional details, e.g. cabin announcements, animations of events (wing condensation, brake smoke, windscreen wipers that work, etc.), ice / snow accumulation on wings and engine cowlings.
• Better use of the MSFS sound engine.
• Modern texturing techniques (the cockpit panels look flat/lacking in reflectivity)
• Higher quality animations (the engine wobble effect looks weird).
• Enhanced lighting effects, both of dynamic lights and reflections on glass surfaces.

Does anyone know if PMDG considered any (or all) of these possibilities and made the hard engineering decision that the performance degradation associated with their implementation was not consistent with their goal of creating a truly study level add-on capable of emulating the system and performance characteristics of a real 777? These suggestions seem to emphasize cosmetic improvements that appear to fall into the "That would be nice" category, but not if they negatively impact system performance on a two-year-old computer.that cost me a couple thousand bucks. 

BTW, for those wanting to operate the CDU on their tablets, try Aviaserver by Aviaworx. Great product, and it only costs ten euros. And unlike the Fenix MCDU, there's no delay when you hit the keys.

26 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

 (the engine wobble effect looks weird).

Definitely agree with this one.  Can't understand how they approved that to go.  Its the same funky animation sequence as the early PMDG model

That´s why there are graphics setting and screen resolution settings in every game. To match a game or simulator to the computer´s performance.

22 minutes ago, Greazer said:

• Fix LNAV issues

Is the 777 LNAV no more behave like drunk gentleman on the way home (737)?

Edited July 3, 20241 yr by Vitold69

11 minutes ago, jrw4 said:

Does anyone know if PMDG considered any (or all) of these possibilities and made the hard engineering decision that the performance degradation

Without wanting to turn this into a dev vs dev word not allowed -fest, Fenix has managed to give better lighting, animations, feature set and set the bar at what many expect from an aircraft in 2024 with negligible performance impact compared to their v2 Block 1.

A lot of people would like to see a Boeing equivalent of Fenix-level details in their airliners. And as pointed out by @JetCat, keeping performance at a level an individual simmer prefers is what settings selections are for.

The 777 cockpit is of very good quality, the only detail I have noticed are a bit misaligned buttons on the FMC computers (especially visible in direct sunlight), but otherwise high polygon, no visual bugs, sharp textures, and a lot of interesting details going on in all these cabinets and storage shelves.

The layout of the cockpit is different than the 777 I was used to fly as young simmer, the carpet is now blue instead of beige, the backup gauges are not analog but small digital displays, and to the left and the right of the seats some kind of storage cabinets (or trashcans) seem to be missing.

28 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Without wanting to turn this into a dev vs dev word not allowed -fest, Fenix has managed to give better lighting, animations, feature set and set the bar at what many expect from an aircraft in 2024 with negligible performance impact compared to their v2 Block 1.

A lot of people would like to see a Boeing equivalent of Fenix-level details in their airliners. And as pointed out by @JetCat, keeping performance at a level an individual simmer prefers is what settings selections are for.

Almost don't like the Fenix displays, PMDG is far ahead here local 😉 far more sharper... (I'm not talking about performance but QA)

I'm not talking about those weird font outlines (reminds me of editing gauges and fonts back then for transparency) I have disabled that option....

Edited July 3, 20241 yr by virtualstuff

17 minutes ago, JetCat said:

the backup gauges are not analog but small digital displays

You can still have those analog displays. You can change them in the settings in FMC. 

10 minutes ago, virtualstuff said:

Almost don't like the Fenix displays, PMDG is far ahead here local 😉 far more sharper... (I'm not talking about performance but QA)

I'm not talking about those weird font outlines (reminds me of editing gauges and fonts back then for transparency) I have disabled that option....

Fenix displays are difficult to read without having zoom in on the PFD. One of the main reasons I don't fly the Fenix much. 

I would agree that the sounds can be improved.

Working wipers currently require some hacks, because MSFS does not natively support that currently. I know a couple of developers have done so, but PMDG is generally reluctant to code outside of the MSFS SDK.

I have not looked at any landings from outside view so I do not know if there is tire smoke on touchdown or not. They do support the effects of  brake overheating, both system-wise and visually - as well as visible tire wear (which is cumulative).

I am curious which current add-ons support visible snow accumulation on wings? I can’t say that none do, but I would think that would primarily be a MSFS function, because the native weather system controls where snow “sticks” or does not. 

Visible moisture vortex streams would be nice, but they would have to be linked to current weather and moisture content of the atmosphere, because they only occur under certain conditions.

The engine wobble may look “weird” but it may be accurate to how it occurs on the real aircraft. I would have to see videos of it happening on a real 777 to make any judgement.

 

For those who think it's only the 'nice-to-have' features people are asking PMDG for, how about the things that make an aircraft feel more alive, namely:

• An engine model capable of simulating compressor stalls and weather effects on each individual engine.
• Circuit breakers and even greater variety of failures.
• Effects of getting something wrong, e.g. leaving a door or window open. (At the moment, only an error message is displayed in the PMDG).

These enhancements by Fenix are sometimes dismissed as gimmicks, whereas similar ones gained A2A a lot of praise for fidelity in their Comanche.

I wish PMDG would go a little further with their efforts or for another Boeing dev to come in with this level of detail.

Edited July 3, 20241 yr by F737MAX

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

Definitely agree with this one.  Can't understand how they approved that to go.  Its the same funky animation sequence as the early PMDG model

Yes, I also agree. I have only seen this in a YouTube video, but there is definitely something not right about it. Hopefully, they can correct that, even though I would hardly ever see it!

To get back to the original question, it seems that opinions differ on whether or not the PMDG 777 cockpit looks outdated. It looks fine to me on a 4K, HDR screen, so no complaints, but this aircraft also sounds fine to me on a $60 set of computer speakers I bought a few years ago. Others with better ears and better equipment might think differently, and PMDG said that it was taking another look (listen?) to see what might be done.

Comparisons to other aircraft made by other developers are always interesting, but sometimes they fail to take into account the markets being addressed. I love the Fenix just as I do the PMDG products, but I'm a PC user, and so have the opportunity to fly them both. The large community that accesses MSFS on Xbox has no way to fly the Fenix, nor do those who have for whatever reason decided to make all purchases through the Marketplace. That decision significantly limits the revenue potential for Fenix. PMDG makes all its aircraft accessible on all MSFS platforms. I don't know what the performance implications might be of that decision, but they surely exist. If anyone knows its market from decades of experience, PMDG does, and when they say, for example, that they're not going to model the zillion circuit breakers in their various products, they are presumably doing so because they know that this won't reduce their sales by an amount that would make it economically sensible to do so. They're in business to sell high quality add-ons, and it seems they do so very successfully.

Finally, we do understand that it's possible for users to dial back the global graphics quality to accommodate evermore demanding add-on complexity, but that's a personal trade-off that quickly runs out of runway, at least for me. Every flight sim add-on ever sold was created with engineering trade-offs in mind that defined the market for that product. Every developer has to say, "Stop" at some point, and make the tradeoff between market size and detail complexity. If someone wishes to second guess PMDG for what it has chosen not to include in its products, good luck to them.