I think the worldwide ground features is very impressive, but fairly simple really - "we have every rock and blade of grass in the world modelled" is an impressive statement, but I'm sure in development terms it's just a matter of introducing randomization/scattering of lumps, bumps, rocks etc placed along the elevation data

I like the fact it introduces jeopardy for bush/ga flying for sure, but surely this is impressive terrain rather than ground handling?

I think to fully understand whether the ground handling is better, it needs to be tested in lots of different scenarios

Xplane is in my experience (of just FS2020) far superior in this respect - there is a weight and a heaviness and a rolling inertia that I have not seen in 2020, it would be great to hear 2024 gets somewhere close to Xplane in this respect.

11 minutes ago, EGLD said:

I think the worldwide ground features is very impressive, but fairly simple really - "we have every rock and blade of grass in the world modelled" is an impressive statement, but I'm sure in development terms it's just a matter of introducing randomization/scattering of lumps, bumps, rocks etc placed along the elevation data

I like the fact it introduces jeopardy for bush/ga flying for sure, but surely this is impressive terrain rather than ground handling?

This is what makes the ground so much more realistic though in MSFS 2024, that the plane is actually running over rocks and boulders, and those rocks and boulders are affecting the plane.

IMO, it puts MSFS 2024 ground physics into a category of its own, because none of the other flight simulators have this - procedurally generated rocks around the entire world that affect the plane as it rolls over them.

The ground around the world becomes "real" to me in MSFS 2024, whereas the ground is just "fake" ground in the other flight simulators.

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by abrams_tank

My personal opinion is that historically more people fly Airliners because even in the old days of FSX etc the experience was pretty good given the technology of the time. GA /VFR was not really tenable because the ground detail was dreadful. 

In 2024 (and 2020) the ground is beautiful! I can see my house, I can navigate totally visually around the area where I live and it's just pleasing to watch the world go by. Throw in a bit of jeopardy like an approaching storm and it can get quite challenging very quickly.

I would suggest to those who think they only like tubeliners to jump in the default 152 and fly to their neighbourhood. You might find it's something you can really enjoy.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/os5s96Ak34ZrvkxS9

Jim

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by Domestos

On 2/10/2025 at 3:34 PM, Ricardo41 said:

 You didn't write "that matter TO ME in a flight sim."

Very strange reasoning....  Everything I post is of course my personal opinion.

Is English your native language? Mine it is not, so maybe that adds to the confusion.
 

3 hours ago, EGLD said:

but I'm sure in development terms it's just a matter of introducing randomization/scattering of lumps, bumps, rocks etc placed along the elevation data

Isn't the satellite imagery analysed by AI to decide what is there? The AI can decide if its a rock, stone, tree or a crop. Therefore the rocks are not randomized but placed exactly where they in the real world.

19 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

the rocks are not randomized but placed exactly where they in the real world.

I'm sure you don't mean that literally.....

Of course they will be randomized, within areas that are designated stone or whatever, and yes I agree this is likely via AI

16 minutes ago, EGLD said:

I'm sure you don't mean that literally.....

Of course they will be randomized, within areas that are designated stone or whatever, and yes I agree this is likely via AI

 

I don't know about the rocks, but for trees, they used AI to determine the location of every tree across the world when they developed MSFS 2020:

Quote

It's impossible to place trillions of trees across the earth accurately as a manual process, for example. Sebastian Wloch, Co-founder and CEO of Asobo Studio, describes the process that Asobo used to render trees as an intelligent algorithm—machine learning. "Instead of finding an algorithm that is going to find trees [in satellite imagery],…you just train it." Asobo developed tools that use examples of tree imagery to render trees in 3D within the Microsoft Flight Simulator environment. You might suspect that identifying trees across the entire world would require a lot of computing power. It does—but Azure Compute (including Azure Cloud Services) can scale as needed to process vast amounts of data. "It's basically able to paint by itself and, well, it's just another computing job." Albeit a big one. "Azure is taking hundreds or tens of thousands of jobs and dispatching them on many computers," Wloch says, "in order to not wait two years until you get your trees." Detecting trees on a worldwide scale may take days of computing time—but once detected, the tree metadata is stored in Azure Storage, ready to stream to any number of players as needed.

 

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by abrams_tank

14 minutes ago, EGLD said:

I'm sure you don't mean that literally.....

Of course they will be randomized, within areas that are designated stone or whatever, and yes I agree this is likely via AI

I understood AI will place a tree where it has detected a tree in the satellite data.  Using the increased ground resolution I thought the AI also detected other ground features and place whatever it has detected in the mesh.  

oh you were being serious, ok

12 hours ago, EGLD said:

Xplane is in my experience (of just FS2020) far superior in this respect - there is a weight and a heaviness and a rolling inertia that I have not seen in 2020, it would be great to hear 2024 gets somewhere close to Xplane in this respect.

The weight, heaviness, and rolling inertia when it comes to ground handling (and also in flight) is IMO a night and day difference between 2020 and 2024 when using aircraft that take advantage of the new physics and FM model features. A big part of that is because in 2020 wheels were modelled as single points, whereas in 2024 they are modelled as 3D objects having various characteristics. Given 2024's ground terrain modelling and how it also simulates collisions based on the 3D details of the terrain and how its 4000x increase detail simulation there also naturally leads to proper simulation of different types of runway conditions (i.e. wet vs dry) and surfaces.. given all this I'd agree with Abrams it's the best overall ground physics modelling in all civilian sims (and I used to always complain about 2020 in this department). This goes for both taxiing and the ground<->air transition modelling.

A lot of feedback about ground handling from the thread about that and flight dynamics in 2024: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/654326-msfs-2024-flight-dynamics-and-groundwater-handling-thread ... Some quotes from there, including a lot of IRL pilots (easy to see just how wide a consensus there is on 2024's ground and flight dynamics):

• "Ground handling is MUCH better, and as has been noted, the aircraft act with much more inertia/momentum than before."
• A330 Driver on the default A330: "I really like the taxiing model, feels pretty realistic"
• V1-Simulations on the default A320neo: "the taxiing with tiller feels great and realistic .. the ground friction with the braking feels much better and realistic"
• V1-Simulations in general about 2024: "flight modelling wise there is a substantial change to how aircraft behave on and around the ground, from 1000 feet down to touchdown and taxiing, the simulator is significantly different, without question better than 2020 .. the floating is less, the aircraft have more inertia, etc .. what's driving me to keep coming back to the sim is how the flying feels, how the airplanes are responding to control, especially from 1000 ft above to ground"
• V1-Simulations later did a detailed comparison of the 2024 version of the Fenix A320 vs XP's Toliss A320 here https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/654326-msfs-2024-flight-dynamics-and-groundwater-handling-thread/page/8/#findComment-5265248 ... on the topic of ground handling his scores were:
  • inertia on the ground: Toliss 7/10, Fenix 9/10
  • crosswind physics on the ground: Toliss 6/10, Fenix 9/10
  • crosswind physics on roll-out: Toliss 7/10, Fenix 9/10
• "wow. I think it was one of the WT GA Aircraft, and from ground handling, to stunning scenary, and no wild swaying as you touched down , unlike in 2020. I also felt like you could feel inertia."
• "Very good sense of inertia, still affected by the crosswind on final, and touchdown/rollout/ground handling seemed good."
• An IRL C172 pilot on the default C172: "The thing that really makes the immersion soo much better is the landings. Just did a landing in heavy crosswind and had the best representation of that in a sim yet. You real pilots know what i am talking about. Most of times on a final you don't think of the fact that the nose is 20% off to the right and you are constantly doing rather big corrections in all directions"
• Another IRL C172 pilot: "Every MS flight sim until now has had wheels built as 1 dimensional points. They couldn't flex, they couldn't bend. Now they have 3d volume and you can feel the difference. It's night and day to prior sims. The default aircraft needs tweaking, but once payware devs utilize the tools available you'll see those aircraft move an order of magnitude more realistically."
• "I am not sure what kind of magic Asobo has done to their CFD. But those tweaks along with the new ground physics (tire friction, contact points etc) are brilliant in some of the GA I am flying"
• "I’m a real world pilot with many many hours in 172s. I’ve never done what you do in the video, so I can’t comment on that. However, to me, the 172 in FS24 is more realistic, especially on the ground. The takeoff role is more accurate too, if I recall in FS2020 it would take forever to get airborne, whereas in 2024 you’re off by the thousand footers, which is accurate to real life"
• "The ground control is very good now. In 2020, I find myself dancing on the rudder during takeoff and landing. All the tweaking I had to do to get something acceptable. But, in 2024, I don't need FSUIPC anymore and the rudder behaves well during crosswind takeoffs and landings. I can set that rudder and track centerline smoothly"

Good to also note what Matt Nischan just said elsewhere: 
"Pre-MSFS sims (FSX, FS9, etc) had a hardcoded function where crosswind speed effect on the airplane was reduced to 0 based on altitude and/or groundspeed. This was carried over into MSFS 2020 to maintain backwards compatibility. However, for about a year and a half (or could be more) the crosswind reduction effect can be reduced or disabled completely in the flight_model.cfg file, under the [FLIGHT_TUNING] section.
In addition to those specific parameters, there are also new ground handling parameters to further allow a totally new ground handling model to be used which utilize a much more complex model of dynamic friction of the tire surface. These parameters, like many of the new parameters, are opt-in. If you do not add these parameters, you will not get the new behavior.
It is up to aircraft developers to add and tune these parameters if they want to enable their aircraft blowing across the airport in incredibly unrealistic and absurd wind scenarios that would result in closed airports. The sim will happily simulate such conditions, though."
 

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by lwt1971

I hope you get paid for this 😄

but thanks 👍

Another bit of good insight from Matt Nischan:

According to my understanding of Seb during various talks and Q&As, the biggest improvement is in model resolution. There's more ground and tire model resolution, so more samples to integrate into the physics solution to make important phases more accurate, like the feel of the tire contact patch decreasing slowly as the weight comes off the tires, leading to that natural and smooth changeover from nosewheel steering to rudder operation without the on/off switch from steering to weathervaning.

I, for one, have found when the aircraft has the new ground contact model enabled that 2024 gives quite lovely results.
 

7 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I understood AI will place a tree where it has detected a tree in the satellite data.  Using the increased ground resolution I thought the AI also detected other ground features and place whatever it has detected in the mesh.  

Sure ... only one example amongst many: El Hierro.

In MSFS 2024 it's a 'jungle':

 

In Google Earth ...

 

BTW, while starting in GCHI (El Hierro) I found out that the tower is on the wrong side of the runway, namely on the 'land side' - in reality it's on the other side. And if you look close enough: in the background there are trees so close to the runway like I have never seen in reality. And that's not the only airport where I have seen such inaccuracies.

 

3 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

.... leads to proper simulation of different types of runway conditions (i.e. wet vs dry) and surfaces.. given all this I'd agree with Abrams it's the best overall ground physics modelling in all civilian sims (and I used to always complain about 2020 in this department).

Still to be determined.

Seriously? You complained about 2020?? 😃

On 2/12/2025 at 8:04 PM, kiek said:

Very strange reasoning....  Everything I post is of course my personal opinion.

Is English your native language? Mine it is not, so maybe that adds to the confusion.
 

Well, Matt Nischan from Working Title said that MSFS 2024 has improved ground physics for airliners as well, as per what lwt1971 posted:

16 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Another bit of good insight from Matt Nischan:

According to my understanding of Seb during various talks and Q&As, the biggest improvement is in model resolution. There's more ground and tire model resolution, so more samples to integrate into the physics solution to make important phases more accurate, like the feel of the tire contact patch decreasing slowly as the weight comes off the tires, leading to that natural and smooth changeover from nosewheel steering to rudder operation without the on/off switch from steering to weathervaning.

I, for one, have found when the aircraft has the new ground contact model enabled that 2024 gives quite lovely results.
 

Here is the link to Matt's original comment:

So they did make improvements to the ground physics for airliners.  But again, the exact text is, "when the aircraft has the new ground contact model enabled that 2024 gives quite lovely results."  So the aircraft developer has to enable the new ground contact model for the user to see this new improvement.

 

Edited February 13, 20251 yr by abrams_tank

I think the best examples of aircraft fully or mostly utilizing the new ground handling capabilities of 2024 are the default C172, default A330, Fenix A320, ini A300, and likely some more 2024 versions of payware aircraft already released (i.e. COWS DA-40).

And ya I'll keep maintaining when fully utilized, 2024's overall ground handling physics and systems is the best I've experienced in a sim and a big leap up from 2020 (especially pre-SU15 before part of the new ground handling of 2024 got backported to 2020). Add to that a very detailed terrain visual model that provides for actual 3D/physics interaction with the aircraft (from the micro to the macro level) and then it truly shines.
 

Edited February 13, 20251 yr by lwt1971