2 hours ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

This goes back to when 2020 was first released, with all the attention to graphics, in particular the clouds update... will naturally bring some back, maybe even some first timers. So it should be no surprise now that the eye candy in XP has had a major update.

Yes - I was using XP12 for the first six months after release but went back to MSFS - 2024 is looking good.  Over the last couple of years I have kept up to date with XP12 developments, and the latest XP12 betas have shown promise, so I have installed and configured XP12 again.  I'll run XP12 alongside 2024 and see how it goes.

Yes, both sims are worth the use.

Yet, their dev teams are so different, starting with #... I don't really know how many times bigger the MSFS team is, not counting on all of the support it gets from other MS teams like the cloud chaps, from Nvidia and other hardware houses, etc...  It's night & day, and yet, at the end of the day, there's no doubt for me about which simulator has progressed more rapidly towards providing me with a set of features that recreate reality, feel of flight and of the World as it looks when seen from where those who fly for real focus their attention - Xp12!

 

Edited May 23, 20251 yr by jcomm

did they fix the issue with the error messages coming up in UK / France with the missing navdata ?  

thanks 

9 hours ago, jcomm said:

Yes, both sims are worth the use.

Yet, their dev teams are so different, starting with #... I don't really know how many times bigger the MSFS team is, not counting on all of the support it gets from other MS teams like the cloud chaps, from Nvidia and other hardware houses, etc...  It's night & day, and yet, at the end of the day, there's no doubt for me about which simulator has progressed more rapidly towards providing me with a set of features that recreate reality, feel of flight and of the World as it looks when seen from where those who fly for real focus their attention - Xp12!

 

Hi,

Bigger doesn't always mean better! I think the big difference between the two are as follows, we have bean counters on one side and the love of aviation on the other side. Looking at 2020/2024 what did Asobo bring to the table over the previous versions that warranted a new purchase? Their big jump in 2020 were the new maps and some amazing looking clouds, the maps were already in existence created by another company, they just created the sim-connect interface. In 2024 we have 3D down to the ground, okay.

That's not much since leaving the flight sim community high and dry some time ago.

Don't get me wrong I use both platforms, 2020 mostly to see areas I'll never see in the real world, outside of that 2020 has been found wanting in many aviation areas. Most of their airports look like they're from the 90s with no ground markings, no gates, taxi lighting all over the place.

If Laminar wanted to and had the ability to work out a deal for the same type of satellite imagery/photogrammetry, how many would be still be on 2020/2024? Just the savings in not having to purchase numerous airports to get them to look decent would be worth the switch in-and-of-itself.

Photogrammetry has A LOT of issues, wall bridges, wall freeway overpasses, rock like trees, building that look like brown/gray blobs even when only 2-3 miles out.

There needs to be A LOT more server side processing to correct these issues before streamed to a user.

LOD Radius in XP and MSFS is still way to short.  It can be larger but it’s artificial capped to prevent VRAM and FPS issues.  I’d prefer if they would allow us to decide acceptable FPS and VRAM usage … we’re adults, we can handle it 😉

i just want them to fix that a330s mcdu.  not hard is it 

2 hours ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

If Laminar wanted to and had the ability to work out a deal for the same type of satellite imagery/photogrammetry, how many would be still be on 2020/2024?

I would switch immediately. 

There is no doubt, the houses, terrain and much more looks far better in MSFS.  For me though, SimHeaven and Global forests are good enough because XP12 does some things better than MSFS.  As long as I can pick out ground features for GA flying I'm happy.  The Map enhancement Tool has been a great addition since I last used XP12 two years ago.

4 hours ago, CO2Neutral said:

Photogrammetry has A LOT of issues, wall bridges, wall freeway overpasses, rock like trees, building that look like brown/gray blobs even when only 2-3 miles out.

I agree. I think there has been a discussion about that a few weeks ago and some wish PG in X-Plane. But I really hope they won’t spend any developpment time on that. Better ground scenery, absolutely yes and they are already working on it. I have tried PG in MSFS and ended up switching it off, because first: it didn’t add to the immersion when flying airliners and most of airports being outside of big cities anyways. And second: because of the troubles you mentioned. In my opinion it is really only worth if you fly very slow over a big city (helicopter?), otherwise pretty useless. That’s my opinion but I know that some have a different opinion.

5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I would switch immediately. 

There is no doubt, the houses, terrain and much more looks far better in MSFS.  For me though, SimHeaven and Global forests are good enough because XP12 does some things better than MSFS.  As long as I can pick out ground features for GA flying I'm happy.  The Map enhancement Tool has been a great addition since I last used XP12 two years ago.

I believe if we had an update to Sim-Haven's buildings where they look closer to real life and not so much cookie cutter, XP12 would be even better without much effort above the base package.

1 hour ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

I believe if we had an update to Sim-Haven's buildings where they look closer to real life and not so much cookie cutter, XP12 would be even better without much effort above the base package.

I agree - the lack of shadows with those buildings would also be a good thing (shadows only visible really close).  Saying that though, with the more realistic haze effects the buildings look very good when flying.

5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I agree - the lack of shadows with those buildings would also be a good thing (shadows only visible really close).  Saying that though, with the more realistic haze effects the buildings look very good when flying.

I’m sure there is a way to extend the shadow draw distance from what I remember 

If I could bet on it, I would say that with MisterX in the laminar template we will have OSM data and first class buildings in the not so distant future.

Edited May 24, 20251 yr by Aglos77

45 minutes ago, Aglos77 said:

If I could bet on it, I would say that with MisterX in the laminar template we will have OSM data and first class buildings in the not so distant future.

That should work pretty good with map enhancement sat images!

Didn't Laminar state that their plan was not to use orthophotographs but to enhance the "plausible world" with better quality assets and much more data seeded from orthophotographs? 

So essentially they'd be rebuilding the 3D world rather than superimposing photographs over it. That way they wouldn't have artefacts like clouds and shadows showing or things like static vehicles etc on the roads so the world would look "alive" without needing to stream ortho like Asobo/MS do.

I'm looking forward to the results, although I may well be dead by the time it comes to fruition 😅

48 minutes ago, FPVSteve said:

Didn't Laminar state that their plan was not to use orthophotographs but to enhance the "plausible world" with better quality assets and much more data seeded from orthophotographs? 

So essentially they'd be rebuilding the 3D world rather than superimposing photographs over it. That way they wouldn't have artefacts like clouds and shadows showing or things like static vehicles etc on the roads so the world would look "alive" without needing to stream ortho like Asobo/MS do.

I'm looking forward to the results, although I may well be dead by the time it comes to fruition 😅

Austin is not a fan of ortho scenery.  But he has said that if people want it, he's not opposed to a 3rd party making a plugin for it.  That's where autoortho came in.

Austin/Laminar cannot use Google maps or Bing scenery to generate in sim scenery due to licensing.  I think it's something like $20 000 per scenery tile.  His only, in house solution, is "plausible" scenery.  But, as I said, if someone made a free plugin, to stream that scenery, with no profit in any way, it's not illegal.

Edited May 24, 20251 yr by GoranM