4 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

 

Live Weather or Preset? (picture removed no need to quote that!)

6 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

breaking our heads assuming this special build to be representative of the current state of the full sim and the main/stable code branch is.. rather foolish.

they know, and therefore explicitly didn't request any bug reporting, except for sim-breaking bugs.

9 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Live Weather or Preset? (picture removed no need to quote that!)

Live weather, flying over southern Mass towards Martha's Vinyard

Edited October 13, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

1 minute ago, Tuskin38 said:

Live weather, flying over southern Mass towards Martha's Vinyard

Nice thanks, maybe we're finally back to Pre-SU7 overcast conditions, looking forward to the full release.

I tried the Alpha for a day and then uninstalled it. I found the graphics to generally be an improvement, especially when looking at mountains far away, at a lower TLOD than 2020. I found performance to be worse (too much scenery popping in too close to the aircraft, buildings appearing/disappearing/reappearing again in a matter of seconds, stutters every 10-20 seconds, presumably as scenery streams in, etc) than 2020.

I did not bother to set up my controls and simply used the - completely different (why did they decide to change almost all of the default bindings???) - keyboard commands, and so didn't feel any more "weight" while flying, but generally feel that the new version will be a step up once it is more polished and bug-free (quite possibly by release, if this is an older alpha that they are only using to have people test the servers and connections).

On that note, the reason that I uninstalled it is that I got to the point where every time I tried to fly was a CTD. I had a total of maybe 5-7 flights and about 3x that of CTDs. The airports look about the same as the default airports in 2020, but I look forward to seeing what it's like on release.

29 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Sufficed to say, breaking our heads assuming this special build to be representative of the current state of the full sim and the main/stable code branch is.. rather foolish.
 

I wouldn't say that mentioning the state of the sim a month out is breaking our heads. Just an observation. But that and the initial reveal event are what we have to go on, plus we now know that the build used in the alpha is two weeks old, and not a year as some had hoped. Now what is foolish is ignoring what we can actually see and instead hoping for some mystery software that nobody has seen but magically works really well. I will choose my eyes and ears. And those saying that it is an alpha build, which also magically excuses all the issues people are seeing is very naive. That is real optimism! I will go with what I have seen so far, and the bottom line is the sim needs a lot of work. Of course Asobo/MS will sort it out eventually, and I have the utmost respect and confidence in them. This is going to be an amazing version, and 2020 is really good already. But we've had two good looks at this sim and I am very skeptical that it will be released without a very large number of major issues. Stating this is not slamming anyone. It is very complicated software these guys are building, and they are aiming very high. But I have seen a lot of software over my career, and this is going to be a rough launch. Expectations should be tempered. That is all I am saying. 

I for one will buy it day one, but I have read that the 2024 install hoses 2020 if you install it on the same drive. I will be paying close attention to where 2024 is installed, and I have no plans of uninstalling 2020 anytime soon. If I am wrong and it is super solid, that is awesome. Great job! But I live a reality-based life, and right now based on my experience over the past 4 years on this project, plus what I am seeing...yeah, going to be a rough few months for the new sim. Doesn't bother me at all, because I have a very solid 2020 to play with. And I have 5 trips scheduled for the remainder of the year, so time is not there regardless. But if they could get things sorted out by early 2025 that would be amazing! Please let the Twotter be in decent shape!  

Edited October 13, 20241 yr by RobJC

40 minutes ago, RobJC said:

And those saying that it is an alpha build, which also magically excuses all the issues people are seeing is very naive. That is real optimism!

some might call it realism and the ability to read, understand and accept what they said and what we have discussed here already ad infinitum:

""The technical Alpha is not intended to gather feedback on the overall design or features of Microsoft  Flight Simulator 2024 and the scope of what is available will be limited.

Free Flight and a limited amount of Career, Challenges and Discovery will be accessible during the Technical Alpha."

"I wouldn't say that mentioning the state of the sim a month out is breaking our heads. "

the Technical Alpha is in no way the state of the sim a month out ( a much more finished, nearly feature complete version was already demoed a few months ago at FSExpo), instead it it is a very limited pre-Beta with the sole purpose to test/analyze a very limited aspect of the whole application, i.e. telemetry/server issues.  but we all know that already. and therefore "people didn't make naive magical excuses." but people, with a few magic exceptions,  understand and accepted what was requested from us when we signed on to participate and gladly agreed to help them with the Technical Alpha.

Edited October 13, 20241 yr by turbomax

40 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Nice thanks, maybe we're finally back to Pre-SU7 overcast conditions, looking forward to the full release.

Here's some in northern England

23 minutes ago, RobJC said:

that the build used in the alpha is two weeks old, and not a year as some had hoped.

No. We know that the build used in the alpha was *compiled* and finalized on September 25 (which incidentally is more than two weeks ago, but I digress). 

Trying to sell the idea that this is representative of the state of the simulator two weeks ago is clear-cut misinformation and pretty much fake news. 

To have the technical alpha build ready by September 25 for final certification means that said build must have been branched out of the simulator much earlier. 

After the branch, the client had to be stripped of all the features not conducive to the specific tests, the telemetry code added, and all the work to make it fungible to the public had to be done, then it had to be tested, likely over multiple rounds. 

That's not work that does itself in 5 minutes. That's the work of several weeks if not months, so you may want to stop trying to sell the misinformative idea that that date indicates that the technical alpha si representative of a recent build. That date says exactly the opposite to anyone even remotely familiar with game development. 

35 minutes ago, RobJC said:

I wouldn't say that mentioning the state of the sim a month out is breaking our heads. Just an observation. But that and the initial reveal event are what we have to go on, plus we now know that the build used in the alpha is two weeks old, and not a year as some had hoped. Now what is foolish is ignoring what we can actually see and instead hoping for some mystery software that nobody has seen but magically works really well. I will choose my eyes and ears. And those saying that it is an alpha build, which also magically excuses all the issues people are seeing is very naive. That is real optimism! I will go with what I have seen so far, and the bottom line is the sim needs a lot of work.

This specific build and code branch is *not* representing the state of the sim as it currently stands, per all what they've clearly said (if one bothers to read). Assuming that it does and then breaking one's head is what I'm calling foolish. And no, the date of the build says nothing, as that's just the date the actual compilation/build/packaging of code was done.. the code itself is a different branch from the main branch at the very least due to all the telemetry code (and whatever other code they added/changes specifically for this stress test), and they could've actually branched off the main codebase weeks/months ago.

And yes it's also foolish to say it's all gonna be rosy on release. And yes it's also fair to say some of the functionality we're seeing is likely representative of the final release. Bottom line, we don't know (i.e. we don't know when they branched off the main codebase, what code changes they added/removed outside of the features they removed, etc).. so best to wait until the full release and it's in our hands, to start breaking our heads 🙂 Even then, I'd think rather than getting worked up those not able to handle major bugs (not talking about you) might want to wait a few months before transitioning over to 2024 from 2020, as is normal for any new sim platform on major new releases 🤷‍♂️
 

Edited October 13, 20241 yr by lwt1971

Well, I've definitely enjoyed this little preview of 2024 and will miss it when it's gone tomorrow - it's certainly whetted my appetite for the full version.

I just did a flight from KSBM to KFLD in the Cessna with real world weather and the landscape, brooding clouds, fall colors, etc. looked just like what's outside my window.

Just for fun, I did the exact same flight in XP12 and it, too, recreated the lighting and clouds and weather and fall trees perfectly.

Neither gave me a single stutter or problem, neither are bogged down at the moment by a bunch of add ons etc. - a minimalist approach I might attempt going forward (except for aircraft, of course).

Having started with FS98 back in 1997, it's amazing how far we've come (and I remember excitedly looking at the FS98 package, dreaming how I could fly a 737-400 that is itself now ancient and mostly gone! 🙂

 

 

 

40 minutes ago, mmcmah said:

I tried the Alpha for a day and then uninstalled it. I found the graphics to generally be an improvement, especially when looking at mountains far away, at a lower TLOD than 2020. I found performance to be worse (too much scenery popping in too close to the aircraft, buildings appearing/disappearing/reappearing again in a matter of seconds, stutters every 10-20 seconds, presumably as scenery streams in, etc) than 2020.

I see this issue when doing a new flight. But the problem almost goes away later if I refly the same flight, or stay in the flight for a few minutes. I think it is because the scenery isn't all loaded until then. After time as the flight continues, the scenery loads, and then almost no more popping the entire rest of the flight for a half hour long flight for me. I was flying down low at 300 AGL along the Thames for 20 minutes and never did the scenery jump in and out (after the first 2 minutes).

However, this issue may not have gone away when 2024 is released. They put out a firm release date so often that they probably think they must released on the advertised date.

@Tuskin38or anyone else in the alpha able to test live weather currently in CYUL? They're currently reporting overcast at 25000 which, in 2020 after their METAR based weather injection, never worked. It would just render blue sky. I'd appreciate and love to see a screenshot if possible. Tia

4 minutes ago, jer2929 said:

@Tuskin38or anyone else in the alpha able to test live weather currently in CYUL? They're currently reporting overcast at 25000 which, in 2020 after their METAR based weather injection, never worked. It would just render blue sky. I'd appreciate and love to see a screenshot if possible. Tia

Let's not dilly dally...  (his system is 4060 ti and his cpu is not an X3D, so not a high end system):