10 minutes ago, cianpars said:

TBH from what I have seen, I expect MSFS2024 to be excellent in many ways but it's not really a new simulator at all really, just a revamp of the old one with a few improvements here and there which will undoubtedly come with a whole host of bugs that will need to be resolved in its first few months.  I'm not sure that the performance improvements we were promised will materialise either bearing in mind that Asobo say that they are achieving 30 fps in their testing.

Yes.  I dare say some of the usual Asobo fanatics we call me negative, but on performance and graphical fidelity improvements, my expectations are not high at all.
At least then, I won't be too disappointed, as I think a fair few might be.

There is only so much they can do with this old engine.  They aren't miracle workers, and a switch to something completely new I fear might break the add-on compatibility we currently have.

55 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Yep.  This is how things get confused.  They definitely talked about a new lighting and atmospheric engine, which helped them get rid of the horizon line for example, but completely new graphics engine?  No.  If they did say it (and I don't think they did in that context), it obviously isn't true, as we can see a lot (if not most) of the old 2020 issues.

You only have to look at the confusion around Jorgs "ten year" plan to see how people get completely the wrong idea, not to mention the number of times they give extremely vague answers in Q&As and have trouble explaining things in plain English as that then gets misconstrued by the community, which isn't their fault as English isn't their primary language.

Fact remains there's no way they could've totally written a "new" graphics engine in two years and get it to be release ready this quickly, I've seen people also mention a "new" weather engine which couldn't be further from the truth either!

Still, just a few weeks to go and we can we all have a go ourselves to see what's really been improved.

5 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

As much as I appreciate the better terrain and water rendering, in all the videos I am watching I can spot the old MSFS problems, such as stuttering*, black lines, terrain morphing

FYI, assuming the resolution keeps going up over time (ie. we went from 1080p, to 1440p, to 4K, and now there is talk of going to 8K), there will probably always be some type of terrain morphing. We simply don't have enough memory, CPU power, and bandwidth to render everything, 360 degrees around the plane, for some 200 KM in the distance, at Ultra at 4K resolution, with the current technology available.  So game companies need to take some shortcuts when they render graphics, because of the technology available. Now if the resolution stays at 4K resolution over the next 30 years, it's possible that technology will finally catch up, such that game developers don't need to take shortcuts anymore, and then you can have 4K resolution with no terrain morphing at all.  But over the next 30 years, I get the feeling we won't be staying at 4K, given that there is talk of 8K already.

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

4 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

As much as I appreciate the better terrain and water rendering, in all the videos I am watching I can spot the old MSFS problems, such as stuttering*, black lines, terrain morphing, shadow flickering, etc...

*Regarding the performance, didn't someone mention up to 5x faster than MSFS?

So much for a totally new graphics engine. I also don't believe that these issues will be fixed in the future, considering that they are present since 2020.

What's new/revamped is the atmospherics and lighting engine (which in addition to lighting/colors/etc also got rid of the horizon line bug). The overall graphics engine is improved obviously in the sense that the ground and terrain details increased 4000x, the use of tessellation, use of AI to convert 2D->3D (i.e. Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa), 3D trees/flora, etc etc. But it's not a completely new graphics engine overall.

And the 5x performance improvement mentioned in earlier FSExpo interviews was *not* about overall FPS (as that would be remarkable and unrealistic), but about core physics/avionics/other calculations due to the new and improved multi-threading model and better use of multiple CPU cores, etc.

In terms of the stuttering and morphing issues seen in the videos from that preview event, we'll have to see if they're present in the release (it was an older build the content creators were given, and the internet connection was not good per what most of them said, so not sure if these issues will be present in the release, can only wait and see).
 

5 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

 3D trees/flora, etc etc. But it's not a completely new graphics engine overall.

I just want to say, as somebody who enjoys low level flying, the increase in tree and vegetation variation is huge in MSFS 2024. It makes everything at ground level look so much better because in MSFS 2020, some of the trees get really repetitive. And then there are the small rocks, small boulders, etc, in MSFS 2024, that simply make the terrain look so much beter.

For me at least, the graphics at ground level is revolutionary and seems like a completely different graphics engine.  I would say, at ground level, MSFS 2024 looks maybe 7 years more graphically advanced than MSFS 2020.

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

FYI, assuming the resolution keeps going up over time (ie. we went from 1080p, to 1440p, to 4K, and now we are going to 8K), there will probably always be some type of terrain morphing. We simply don't have enough memory, CPU power, and bandwidth to render everything, 360 degrees around the plane, for some 200 KM in the distance, at Ultra at 4K resolution, with the current technology available.  So game companies need to take some shortcuts when they render graphics, because of the technology available. Now if the resolution stays at 4K resolution over the next 30 years, it's possible that technology will finally catch up, such that game developers don't need to take shortcuts anymore, and then you can have 4K resolution with no terrain morphing at all.  But over the next 30 years, I get the feeling we won't be staying at 4K, given that some people in the entertainment industry are pushing for 8K already.

I think it has to do with the different LOD / polygon count of the 3D models rather than the textures. The transitions between low-poly to high-poly count as you approach the mountains and hills are not smooth and could be done way better. For example, X-Plane 12 doesn't have this issue AFAIK and neither ORBX add-ons in the corresponding areas. 

Same for the black lines that often appear in water and on the terrain at the junction between different elevations. Never seen them in X-Plane or FSX for what matters...

I am sure all this can be done better, it's just a matter of time and resources.

Deleted

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

And then there are the small rocks, small boulders, etc, in MSFS 2024, that simply make the terrain look so much beter.

Is there any video already available showing this OUTSIDE those scenarios that were defined by Asobo to be used in the tests? I still doubt that the whole world will have the details we have seen in some videos to be honest. Glad if I am wrong, but I only believe it when somebody shows me a random selected place and how the details are equally good over there...

6 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

Asobo said in an early interview that the release of a new sim instead of a sim update for MSFS was necessary because many things were not possible with the current graphics engine. They explicitly mentioned "new engine" on many occasions.

 

 

 

They certainty used the term "new graphics engine" on more than one occasion - thus giving the impression that this was a new umm graphics engine 

10 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

As much as I appreciate the better terrain and water rendering, in all the videos I am watching I can spot the old MSFS problems, such as stuttering*, black lines, terrain morphing, shadow flickering, etc...

Black lines still??  In MSFS2024?

This makes me wish MSFS has some competition. C'mon Google, Lockheed and X-plane...  get your act together and give MSFS some competition.  

After 40 long years of MFS and almost 4 years of MSFS I don't think these 'as real as it gets' expectations are unreasonable. Immersion killers all.  The four things that will really disappoint in MSFS2024... if MSFS still has:

1. Dark lines on the water.
   Black lines in the water - Bug Reporting Hub / Scenery and Airports - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
    
2. Suicidal ground personnel.
   Airport ground crew are they just stupid in MSFS2020? - Discussion Hub / General Discussion - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
   If Prepar3d can do it, you can do it too!
   Dancing Zombie in Prepar3D (youtube.com)
    
3. Non-functional windshield wipers (eg. rain on the default King Air).
   Functional windshield wipers - Official Microsoft Flight Simulator / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
   These guys did it 3 years ago. Hire them already!
   Assetto Corsa - Rain on windscreen (youtube.com)
    
4. No pilot-controlled lighting (PCL).
   Pilot-controlled lighting (PCL) - Official Microsoft Flight Simulator / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
   Real life PCL
   Playing with the pilot-controlled lighting at Paine Field (youtube.com)

 Not a dev, not a pilot, not hard-core. Just a long-time newbie user. 🙂

49 minutes ago, bofhlusr said:

Non-functional windshield wipers (eg. rain on the default King Air).

This one has been confirmed by the devs. 

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by Shack95

1 hour ago, bofhlusr said:

Non-functional windshield wipers (eg. rain on the default King Air).

They will be functional in 2024. There’s even a SDK page dedicated to it for third party devs to implement 

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

5 hours ago, AnkH said:

Is there any video already available showing this OUTSIDE those scenarios that were defined by Asobo to be used in the tests? I still doubt that the whole world will have the details we have seen in some videos to be honest. Glad if I am wrong, but I only believe it when somebody shows me a random selected place and how the details are equally good over there...

The stuff Asobo showed was not handcrafted. It’s all procedural.

Yes they probably took pictures in places that looked the best, but they weren’t touched up by any of their devs 

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

12 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

Black lines still??  In MSFS2024?

Yes, you can spot obvious morphing and black lines in this video

 

21 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

There is only so much they can do with this old engine

I'd rather have this enhanced 'old' graphics engine than what could have been, had we still been stuck with P3DVx.... or the other one.  I forget its name...

We'd have donated a body part just 5 years ago to have the sim we have today with MS and Asobo supporting it to the extent that they do.  Because it was never on the cards.

Edited October 11, 20241 yr by ErichB