7 hours ago, Beardyman said:

When I do my own ortho maps even not so big island can take a few gigabytes, entire world - I think not possible for any desktop computer.

The size also varies a lot depending on the sim.

I never checked in MSFS, but in XPlane an ortho scenery is much heavier than what it used to be in FSX or P3D for the same surface.

I think we might be able to get a reasonnable estimation by looking at the OrbX "TrueEarth HD" sceneries for P3D, see how much it weights for a surface like the one in Washington state addon, and extrapolate that measurement to the rest of the land surface of the  planet.

2 hours ago, sloppysmusic said:

Or.. That's why we need to stop being so ridiculously greedy and choose the areas we want to fly in instead of the whole wna world! In older 32 bit sims we had to manage our scenery well or expect OOM errors. Then 64 bit came along and we apparently don't need to care about memory management anymore. We now need to care about scenery storage instead. 

All we need imo is a sim that gives us generic acceptable worldwide scenery but in options we get to install hi res data for our favourite zones depending on our current storage. Much like the way a gps will let you download satellite imagery for your home town and favorite destinations. 

We don't need the whole world offline or online. That's just sales guff. 

 

Or you can accept that the modern world has moved on from terrible graphics because they don’t need to be a sacrifice for anything else.  
 

It’s precisely BECAUSE of streaming scenery that I fly all over the world now instead of tiny regions.  Default scenery in other sims is worlds ahead of other offerings, and I love the ability to fly high over Saudi Arabia and not have it look like one texture. 

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Fibre is not widespread. I live 10 miles from a major UK city and it’s still patchy. In rural US it’s even less common. Same for your country I imagine.

You are absolutely correct. However, it's spreading. In our country, they have even recently announced the soon-to-come (2025 it seems) end of the ADSL network (copper), and the operators are forced by law to bring the fiber everywhere they remove the ADSL

18 minutes ago, Daube said:

You are absolutely correct. However, it's spreading.

This is the P3D forum where presently no streaming simulation software is available. So this discussion is somewhat pointless.

Let’s wait until LM announce their intentions for v7 assuming there’ll be a v7.

28 minutes ago, ATRguy said:

Or you can accept that the modern world has moved on from terrible graphics because they don’t need to be a sacrifice for anything else.  
 

It’s precisely BECAUSE of streaming scenery that I fly all over the world now instead of tiny regions.  Default scenery in other sims is worlds ahead of other offerings, and I love the ability to fly high over Saudi Arabia and not have it look like one texture. 

I’m very happy for you. Probably best to post this in the MSFS forum. 😉

Like I've said before, if P3Dv7 doesn't have streaming satellite imagery then I will likely move on to another sim - you can guess which one.

I grow tired of the texture-based landclass which doesn't accurately represent the terrain, buildings, and vegetation.  It's high time we had better scenery for flightsims.

Either LM gets on board and moves with the times, or it gets left behind, at least in my case.

Dave

3 hours ago, Daube said:

You made a small typo so I fixed it 🙂

You might be confusing NEED with WANT :D

I'll be interested now to see your proof that ONE person in the whole world NEEDS the whole world offline or online.

A round the world flight plan is not enough. You'll need one for every DEGREE of latitude AND longitude.

You'll also need to provide proof that the person has set aside maybe ten years off work to actually do the flights.

Ask a pilot what's lacking in flight sims and to a man, "Flight model."
While terrain is nice, it should not be the primary reason for choosing one sim over another.

9 minutes ago, Zatoichi said:

Ask a pilot what's lacking in flight sims and to a man, "Flight model."
While terrain is nice, it should not be the primary reason for choosing one sim over another.

I've been flightsimming since 1984, and the FSX/P3D flight models are pretty darned good, so good, in fact, that the military uses it for training.

I'm not a real pilot so can't really say just how true-to-life the flight models are, but the fact is that we're talking about a *simulator* on a 2-D screen, so the realism can only go so far.

Dave

18 hours ago, Beardyman said:

I think not possible for any desktop computer.

For some it's viable, but most likely on a NAS not desktop with 10G-100G LAN.  I don't have 3.2 PT, but I do have about 0.5 PT on a NAS ($2400 to put together about 1/2 the cost of an nVidia 5090). We're at 34TB HDDs now with 40TB for 2026.

15 hours ago, sdirand said:

That's why having so much datas stored on everybodys local storage is something from the past.

I'll disagree sorta ... today maybe, but there are several significant technologies on the very near horizon that will make local storage the better option (more reliable, cheaper, more secure) as the "cloud" becomes less and less secure everyday and communications infrastructures become key targets of disruption (aka China cutting cables out to sea).  Technologies like:

1. HAMR (already here) 34TB to 40TB per drive and 100TB on the way for 2026
2. High Speed Laser Glass/Ceramic Disk (two optical dimensions and three spatial dimensions) where a single disk can store 10 PT
3. DNA Storage
4. Holographic Storage

HDDs and SSDs will become a thing of the past. 

The problem with fiber connectivity are many:

• Latency (a reason the melted buildings are a problem in MSFS when flying fast and low)
• Reliability (having a dependency on an external source, ISP)
• Maintenance of communications lines (expensive and the cost is passed onto the consumer)
• Shared resource (you and 1000's of others share bandwidth) so performance will vary throughout the day

But either way, if we have the option to set how much we want to store locally and it IS retained (and not flushed all the time), we can decide what is an isn't important for whatever our local capacity currently is capped at.

 

Edited February 7, 20251 yr by CO2Neutral

7 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I grow tired of the texture-based landclass which doesn't accurately represent the terrain, buildings, and vegetation.  It's high time we had better scenery for flightsims.

All objects in a flight sim are 99% likely to have some texture applied to the primitive geometry (everything).  I think procedure generation of scenery is a good alternative (especially for those that don't have storage or bandwidth).  I think where the landclass process failed is in:

• Not enough variants
• Placement on the terrain
• Blending with terrain

If those could be addressed, then I think procedure generation of terrain and objects would work and might even look better even if not 100% accurate to whatever Bing/Google snapshot in time presents.  What Bing/Google present are just snapshots from a specific moment in time (could be 10 years ago, could be 1 year ago).

But agree the landclass (procedural scenery) scenery presented in other sims (MSFS, P3D, XP) does leave much to be desired.

Some things that drive me nuts in P3D:

• Floating buildings (I know this is usually caused by CPU/GPU not able to write object batches fast enough)
• Morphing/Shift terrain (texture swapping from low res to high res as one approaches/departs)
• Roads that don't blend, don't curve, sharp edges
• Termination and arrangement of landclass tiles that made zero sense
• Huge waves in small rivers and lakes

So I'm not against procedural scenery (especially vegetation) so long as it done well.

3 hours ago, dave2013 said:

but the fact is that we're talking about a *simulator* on a 2-D screen, so the realism can only go so far.

Dave

This is alter call material. I think simmers might save themselves a lot of anxiety discontent not to mention money by coming to grips with this truth and might enjoy the hobby more. Reality is outside where life is happening. 

On 2/6/2025 at 5:35 AM, CO2Neutral said:

You need read back a few pages, we’ve already covered why MSFS can’t be FAA approved.  And how do you know someone/entity hasn’t tried to get MSFS FAA approved for training?

The “in and of itself” debate is ridiculous … sorta like saying the 1000HP Engine in itself can’t move, but if you put it in a Ferrari it will move.  Anyway, suggest you go back several pages and read the thread as to why P3D is approved and why MSFS doesn’t have the software features to be approved.

You've "covered" exactly nothing because you don't know what you're talking about. Your assertion was that "P3D is a certified flight simulator" which it is categorically is NOT, as has been pointed out to you several times. P3D is merely a COMPONENT in various certified flight simulators. 

I've skimmed (once again...) through the relative FAA simulator cert documents, and the requirements for simulator certification are rather generic and have VERY little to do with the simulator engine, and mostly to do with how well a particular aircraft is simulated (not to mention all the entirely NON-flight sim engine related requirements). But even then, what I'm seeing so far only requires basic representation for the specific activity being trained.

What makes P3D a common simulator for IRL US .mil training isn't what we consumers experience in our desktop sims. What Lockheed Martin have done is turn a formerly desktop game (Flight Simulator X) into a "Multi-Domain, Multi-User" networked training environment. There is nothing inherently superior about the base simulator engine as experienced in the vast majority of consumer systems to support your muddled assertions of why one flight simulator software is "certified" and another isn't.

Do you have any specific citations from the FAA or Lockheed Martin to which we could refer...? Because so far, I don't see anything that supports your mile-wide and inch-deep (mis)understanding.

Edited February 8, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

22 hours ago, sdirand said:

Most of us already have fiber connection with a bandwidth over 500 Mbps

Thank you for the biggest laugh of the year so far.

(Says he with LTE and a good day seeing 25-30Mbps)

On 2/6/2025 at 5:50 AM, CO2Neutral said:

Since this thread has been successfully diverted to once again being about MSFS (in a P3D forum no less), anyone interested in returning to speculation and thoughts on P3D V7?  What you want in V7?  What you don’t want?  Nice to have?  … and lets “Try” to do it without mentioning MSFS or XPlane … mission impossible?

I'm pretty sure YOU were a big part of the diversion, no...? Bragging (incorrectly) about P3D's inherent "certification" as a flight sim, etc.

And in terms of thoughts on P3D v7, perhaps YOU should go back and read because we've mostly covered what we'd like and what the challenges are for most of us to move forward from even v5(!), and have even covered the very little that LM have shared about P3D's current path - which doesn't look good for consumer users of the simulator.