Just bought FSDT KORD v2 and really disappointed to see that the gate numbers are wrong.

M21 comes up as M16...why is this so wrong on an updated airport??

48 minutes ago, BWBriscoe said:

Just bought FSDT KORD v2 and really disappointed to see that the gate numbers are wrong.

M21 comes up as M16...why is this so wrong on an updated airport??

If it was only the gates that are wrong.That’s a small issue and would be a fast fix. I was very surprised to find out that the taxiways have changed since the airport was created, but it has never been updated to include them. And they are not just a bit new, but completely different towards the mid section of the airport. It’s a nice rendition but this really needs to be updated. As well as the gates of course.

3 minutes ago, Balint Szarka said:

It’s a nice rendition but this really needs to be updated. As well as the gates of course.

FS Dreamteam seem to have collapsed into GSX and now pay little attention to their airports, many of which seem to have been ported from the P3D days with little updating. ORD is such an important hub I hope another developer comes along.

 FSDT KORD, just like every other airport for sale for p3d, MSFS etc regardless of who makes it is a snapshot in time. When KORD was released and it has been updated several times over the years, the gates have been correct, just the same as the runways and taxiways. The users need to pay more attention to when the product was released and/or updated before deciding to open up their wallet. Blame ORD in this case for being under non stop construction for the past 20+ years..

 Even if a new version came out based on Dec 2, 2024, someone would complain in January 2025 about how out of date it is. 

3 hours ago, Cognita said:

FS Dreamteam seem to have collapsed into GSX and now pay little attention to their airports, many of which seem to have been ported from the P3D days with little updating. ORD is such an important hub I hope another developer comes along.

Yep. There are flat out taxiways that are pitch black at night and he does not seem to care. I wish someone else refreshed ORD, but as Dave said, it's constantly under construction and will be for a long time now.

https://ord21.com/home/Pages/default.aspx

I’m really saddened with the state of FSDT airports. They used to be top tier back in P3D days but all the ones I have for MSFS seem really poor in comparison to today’s standard in terms of visuals, modelling techniques and optimisation. It’s a shame - it really looks like GSX is the priority and the airports are just orphaned now.

53 minutes ago, Speedbird 217 said:

They used to be top tier back in P3D days but all the ones I have for MSFS seem really poor in comparison to today’s standard in terms of visuals, modelling techniques and optimisation

We always indicated quite clearly that most of our big airports has been converted from P3D, and their prices reflects that, but I completely disagree with your statement about we supposedly lack in optimization, when the care for optimization we always had is the main reason why we couldn't release airports as quickly as other developers.

Optimization is like beta testing, if you don't do it, users will suffer from it, but it makes you more money more quickly, because you can release before any other.

No, not really. Optimization is even *bigger* than beta testing, because while bugs and fixes are usually easily solved after release, optimizing an airport seriously most of the time involves an almost complete redesign, because they scenery is likely performing bad because of the initial choices made, that is knowing where to stop adding stuff and, most importantly, you just can't buy objects on various 3d marketplaces and go crazy placed them to "add details", not only making an airport that is borderline unusable with complex airplanes, but it's even functionally annoying, because all that static details conflict with ground services and AIs.

So no, while I can accept a criticism about visual not being as best as they could be, I completely disagree about "optimization". It's because optimization is vastly ignored by many developers, that not only they can "look better", but more importantly, they can release it quicker, because if you spend 6 month modeling and 1 year "optimizing", you ARE going to lose money in the end. We could spend some extra time on optimization precisely because we had most of the modeling already done.

Now about KORD. This airport is unlike any other airport out there: not only it's huge (so making it good looking and performing is a challenge on itself), but it has been undergoing construction and big changes for years. You can't even begin to understand how crazy the situation is: there's a website used by rampers/atc which list all changes due to construction, and taxiways are sometimes changed even more than once per *month*, there's just no way to keep up with it until the situation gets more stable. Have you ever wondered why there are 3 different versions of EDDS (not including default), 3 different version of LFSB, 2 EBBR, 2 EDDF, 2 KSFO, 2 KDEN and I'm sure there are several other cases, but nobody even tried doing another KORD ? It's because it's difficult to even know what the scenery looks like this *week*, and while you gather the documentation, they airport already changed! 

5 hours ago, virtuali said:

We always indicated quite clearly that most of our big airports has been converted from P3D, and their prices reflects that, but I completely disagree with your statement about we supposedly lack in optimization, when the care for optimization we always had is the main reason why we couldn't release airports as quickly as other developers.

Optimization is like beta testing, if you don't do it, users will suffer from it, but it makes you more money more quickly, because you can release before any other.

No, not really. Optimization is even *bigger* than beta testing, because while bugs and fixes are usually easily solved after release, optimizing an airport seriously most of the time involves an almost complete redesign, because they scenery is likely performing bad because of the initial choices made, that is knowing where to stop adding stuff and, most importantly, you just can't buy objects on various 3d marketplaces and go crazy placed them to "add details", not only making an airport that is borderline unusable with complex airplanes, but it's even functionally annoying, because all that static details conflict with ground services and AIs.

So no, while I can accept a criticism about visual not being as best as they could be, I completely disagree about "optimization". It's because optimization is vastly ignored by many developers, that not only they can "look better", but more importantly, they can release it quicker, because if you spend 6 month modeling and 1 year "optimizing", you ARE going to lose money in the end. We could spend some extra time on optimization precisely because we had most of the modeling already done.

Now about KORD. This airport is unlike any other airport out there: not only it's huge (so making it good looking and performing is a challenge on itself), but it has been undergoing construction and big changes for years. You can't even begin to understand how crazy the situation is: there's a website used by rampers/atc which list all changes due to construction, and taxiways are sometimes changed even more than once per *month*, there's just no way to keep up with it until the situation gets more stable. Have you ever wondered why there are 3 different versions of EDDS (not including default), 3 different version of LFSB, 2 EBBR, 2 EDDF, 2 KSFO, 2 KDEN and I'm sure there are several other cases, but nobody even tried doing another KORD ? It's because it's difficult to even know what the scenery looks like this *week*, and while you gather the documentation, they airport already changed! 

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all you did and do with sceneries and GSX and love using the latter on all my flights.
It’s just a shame to see the once great airports feel so greatly outdated these days. And when I compare what the FSDT airports look like visually to a cutting edge hub airport then no, they don’t feel particularly optimised any longer as I can get similar performance at a similar sized airport that look worlds better than an FSDT one. I fully agree that some airports are not optimised at all - we have everything from bad looking & badly optimised to stunning visuals and well optimised. FSDT used to be in that category for me some time ago but it isn’t any longer. And when I talk about optimisation, I also include ground layout for AI traffic movements. I use BATC and when I recently flew into KCLT it was one of the worst experiences with BATC AI stuck everywhere on taxiways and runways.
They’re very clear that they just use what’s provided by the scenery. I can run it at other hub airports without any issues, no AI getting stuck anywhere and blocking me, so as I only have their information to go on - that BATC AI will only behave well when the airport is coded well - it led me to believe that it isn’t because I had traffic stuck everywhere when I don’t have that issue in other airports. I’m not the only one that has issues with KCLT and AI on their Discord either.

Just landed here and attempted to use Navigraph maps to navigate the airport...WHOAH! It's nothing like the Navigraph plates at all. I ended up taxiing over grass, over now non-existent runways.

It's super out of date. I was slightly confused by the sell of 'KORD for MSFS2020/2024' and (wrongly) assumed it would be up to date for use with 2024. It's like a different airport.

Am I better off using the KORD MSFS Premium version?

2 hours ago, Speedbird 217 said:

And when I compare what the FSDT airports look like visually to a cutting edge hub airport then no, they don’t feel particularly optimised any longer as I can get similar performance at a similar sized airport that look worlds better than an FSDT one

It's always wrong to compare different airports because they are of "similar size", you should compare at really equal conditions, meaning possibly the same airport, and it's also wrong saying "an FSDT airport", as if they were all equal, when they are clearly not, they are not even made by the same people and each one is really very different.

Performances are not easy to measure, for many reasons, for once, they are not linear.

Until you have enough VRAM that everything fits in it, performance going down due to bad optimization quite gently, but as soon you exceed your available VRAM, the drop is dramatic. As in if you have 16GB of VRAM and everything requires 15GB, you are still fine and might run a nice steady 30 fps example, but then you cross over 16.1GB, and your fps collapses to 15 immediately. And why you got there ? Or, to say it better, how easy would be crashing into that limit: with an airport that takes 4GB or with one that takes 8GB ? That what "not optimized" really mean, the airport you said "looks bad" won't obviously increase your performance, if your system is capable to handle more, but it's giving you more HEADROOM to run other things like AI traffic or complex airplanes, compared to the one that looks "words better", but might in turn force you to turn *down* some settings to run with the rest of the stuff.

Performances are not just fps in fact, it's more like resource utilization and always keeping in mind the fact you have other things running. 

And even if you "just" look at fps, you can be easily mislead if you (correctly) run with locked fps, which is of course better for normal use, but if you want to test if an airport it's optimized or not, you should probably use a default airplane, with zero AI and unlocked fps. And by keeping an eye on the various diagnostics, to see if there's more impact on the main thread, or the gpu, how much ram is used, how much vram, etc. That's not your job, it might be the job for a (boring) review, but it's really a developer job, so believe me when I said that, if an airport (for example) has jetways with no LODs (or maybe 1-2, most of them are like this), you might think it's fine, but you are going to end up in trouble.

Funny thing is, this is more and more strict with MSFS 2024, because the simulator is even more *dramatic* in the difference between "fits in VRAM" and "doesn't fit in VRAM" than MSFS 2020 ever was, that's why MS has enforced LOD levels if you want to release a native scenery, and has completely revamped the way airports can be optimized, so there will be a lot of remakes offered in the future.

 

2 hours ago, Speedbird 217 said:

FSDT used to be in that category for me some time ago but it isn’t any longer. And when I talk about optimisation, I also include ground layout for AI traffic movements. I use BATC and when I recently flew into KCLT it was one of the worst experiences with BATC AI stuck everywhere on taxiways and runways.

I'll surely verify that, because I HIGHLY value a proper taxiways layout and in fact, bugged airport layouts are precisely the main issues we found in those airports that looks "words better": we know how many bugs they have because all the code we need to add in GSX to defend itself against those mistakes, and all the work the community of GSX profile creators must to trying their best to overcome these problems, so this issue with KCLT really strikes me as news, but it has been a few years since the scenery came out, so I'll need to check.

Do you have KIAH for example ? That's way more recent and I personally made the airport layout, so I'm fairly sure is as good as it can possibly be.

3 hours ago, BWBriscoe said:

over now non-existent runways.

3 hours ago, BWBriscoe said:

It's like a different airport.

Really ? Don't you you think you went a bit too far with the hyperbole ?

Let's check the facts: here's a screenshot of FSDT KORD, with the latest chart currently in effect since Oct 31st superimposed on it:
 

Yes, of course there are differences, and I even highlighted them for you, the group of taxiways west of Concourse C is the one undergoing most of the recent construction, and we don't have the eastern part of the international terminal modeled with the associated parking spots.

Yes, the scenery surely needs an update but "non existent runways" and "like a different airport" ? No.

 

Edited December 3, 20241 yr by virtuali

1 hour ago, virtuali said:

It's always wrong to compare different airports because they are of "similar size", you should compare at really equal conditions, meaning possibly the same airport, and it's also wrong saying "an FSDT airport", as if they were all equal, when they are clearly not, they are not even made by the same people and each one is really very different.

Performances are not easy to measure, for many reasons, for once, they are not linear.

Until you have enough VRAM that everything fits in it, performance going down due to bad optimization quite gently, but as soon you exceed your available VRAM, the drop is dramatic. As in if you have 16GB of VRAM and everything requires 15GB, you are still fine and might run a nice steady 30 fps example, but then you cross over 16.1GB, and your fps collapses to 15 immediately. And why you got there ? Or, to say it better, how easy would be crashing into that limit: with an airport that takes 4GB or with one that takes 8GB ? That what "not optimized" really mean, the airport you said "looks bad" won't obviously increase your performance, if your system is capable to handle more, but it's giving you more HEADROOM to run other things like AI traffic or complex airplanes, compared to the one that looks "words better", but might in turn force you to turn *down* some settings to run with the rest of the stuff.

Performances are not just fps in fact, it's more like resource utilization and always keeping in mind the fact you have other things running. 

And even if you "just" look at fps, you can be easily mislead if you (correctly) run with locked fps, which is of course better for normal use, but if you want to test if an airport it's optimized or not, you should probably use a default airplane, with zero AI and unlocked fps. And by keeping an eye on the various diagnostics, to see if there's more impact on the main thread, or the gpu, how much ram is used, how much vram, etc. That's not your job, it might be the job for a (boring) review, but it's really a developer job, so believe me when I said that, if an airport (for example) has jetways with no LODs (or maybe 1-2, most of them are like this), you might think it's fine, but you are going to end up in trouble.

Funny thing is, this is more and more strict with MSFS 2024, because the simulator is even more *dramatic* in the difference between "fits in VRAM" and "doesn't fit in VRAM" than MSFS 2020 ever was, that's why MS has enforced LOD levels if you want to release a native scenery, and has completely revamped the way airports can be optimized, so there will be a lot of remakes offered in the future.

 

I'll surely verify that, because I HIGHLY value a proper taxiways layout and in fact, bugged airport layouts are precisely the main issues we found in those airports that looks "words better": we know how many bugs they have because all the code we need to add in GSX to defend itself against those mistakes, and all the work the community of GSX profile creators must to trying their best to overcome these problems, so this issue with KCLT really strikes me as news, but it has been a few years since the scenery came out, so I'll need to check.

Do you have KIAH for example ? That's way more recent and I personally made the airport layout, so I'm fairly sure is as good as it can possibly be.

Good debate, thanks. I have KIAH but I haven’t tested it since BATC have implemented traffic. KCLT stood out to me as I had an aircraft stuck on 36R when landing and then various other aircraft stuck on taxiways both on arrival and departure.

Are there any plans to redevelop some of your airports with the latest techniques? Would be amazing to see what that could look like. As I said, it’s really just the age and the visuals showing now and they feel a bit “lifeless” and “old” compared to some of the other good sceneries available these days.

2 hours ago, virtuali said:

Really ? Don't you you think you went a bit too far with the hyperbole ?

Let's check the facts: here's a screenshot of FSDT KORD, with the latest chart currently in effect since Oct 31st superimposed on it:
 

Yes, of course there are differences, and I even highlighted them for you, the group of taxiways west of Concourse C is the one undergoing most of the recent construction, and we don't have the eastern part of the international terminal modeled with the associated parking spots.

Yes, the scenery surely needs an update but "non existent runways" and "like a different airport" ? No.

 

I exited 28C onto P1, then planned on taxiing DD, B, V, V4 to gate M21 (which doesn't exist). I can tell you, it's like a totally different airport.

(sorry M21 does exist...it's just in the wrong place)

Edited December 3, 20241 yr by BWBriscoe

I’m an ORD based pilot. The airport has been under active construction for a long time and will continue to be for the next 2 decades at the rate they are going. Taxiways are constantly being changed and renamed as the airport is being reconfigured to support construction of a new terminal soon(tm). It would be a very big task to try and keep everything current for a developer.