1 hour ago, Bernard Ducret said:

We can't demand an "off" button for each of our numerous selfish desires: No turbulence, no GPS, no airport pizzeria, no night reflection on the lateral windows, no cabin, etc, etc. Is MSFS 2024 as real as it gets (yet) or not?

Since the beginning of this thread I'm better aware of the motivations of folks who enjoy details inside the building.

Sure I get your point regarding the "off" button, I think we need a balance otherwise, after the bedrooms, devs will end up modelizing the flush of the toilets as said by a mate earlier. For me personally the right balance is to represent and populate the boarding gate of an airport, no more.

14 hours ago, anilcougar said:

Removes all those eye candy from the sceneries and move them to a very secret location, so that GPU VRAM is preserved and FPS is gained. That's the whole goal. I don't wanna hijack this thread, we're about to release it and when it's released i will start a new thread

That would be very welcome for some heavy scenery airports

On 6/1/2026 at 11:06 AM, Simicro said:

Hi everyone,

I've ever wondered why scenery devs model pizza boxes, malls, bedrooms, etc. within the airport facilities... that is things that a pilot cannot see from the perspective of the cockpit.

I can understand that people might want to walk in the passengers cabin, or around the aircraft to simulate a pre-flight inspection. But shopping at the duty free within the terminal...? Maybe you do it once by curiosity and never come back? All those things end up in more development time and then have an impact on the price of an addon. And divert the focus of the dev from more important things.

Is it a demand from the customers or is it a demonstration of "strenght" by the devs?

As time passes, the simulation extends far beyond the cockpit...

here we go again... it sells thats why.

Umberto put that burger king girl in KORD some what ten years ago, and openly admitted that eye candy sells, then further on flytampa did the same, now Inibuilds have coined the same market.

Back in the day you would slap "hd" on a product or called it "professional, deluxe, extra" or someother buzzword to sell it. Now you must put a modelled bus station at EGLL and the kids will buy it. No different to Inibuilds calling it "enhanced" or v2. The kids love that stuff.

2 hours ago, Simicro said:

I think we need a balance otherwise, after the bedrooms, devs will end up modelizing the flush of the toilets as said by a mate earlier. For me personally the right balance is to represent and populate the boarding gate of an airport, no more.

OK, I'll bite. Who gets to decide what constitutes the perfect balance? See the problem? You have your balance, I have mine and others have still different ones. There is no objectively perfect balance here, only subjective and highly personal ones.

I'm still struggling to understand your concerns. Why, for example, would you care if someone does model a toilet flush (and BTW, it's already been done)? How does this harm you?

Bottom line? The marketplace (small m, not the MS one) is the ultimate decider. No, it ain't perfect and it'll never make everyone happy. But nothing will, so... don't sweat the little stuff. See (or hear 😆 ) something you personally view as silly? Laugh, shrug your shoulders, move on and remember that we don't all like the same things in the same way (and thank goodness for that). Easy peasey.

Scott

I remember the Pyreegue developer stating once that detailed internal modelling results in a very minimal hit on performance, and he should know. His internal modelling is both extensive and excellent. I guess object culling really is alive and well in 2026!

Thanks everyone for your contributions. Much appreciated. My question has been answered 🙂

8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I remember the Pyreegue developer stating once that detailed internal modelling results in a very minimal hit on performance, and he should know. His internal modelling is both extensive and excellent. I guess object culling really is alive and well in 2026!

Not with egph it isn't

On 6/1/2026 at 5:32 AM, Christopher Low said:

You have no idea how much more of a thrill I get rolling up to my parking spot at (for example) Pyreegue EGNX East Midlands, and getting a glimpse of the interior detail, with one or two animated passengers wandering around. It is probably impossible to explain that feeling to someone who does not care about such things, but it is literally the difference between night and day to me. The immersion that I feel at some of the payware airports that I have installed is breathtaking at times.

THAT is perfectly ok with me, because it's something you can see from the flight deck.

But I do think the rest of it, if modelled, is fine too, but not necessary as far as I'm concerned. I am just interested in what I can see from the flight deck which is what you described. I don't need every coffee-maker-machine modelled at some kiosk inside the terminal.

9 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

Not with egph it isn't

The only "problem" that I have with Pyreegue EGPH v2 on my PC is that the "Archimedes drainage system" model is floating in the air when I land. However, that "snaps" back into position very quickly as I exit the runway, so it is only a minor issue.

This has been pointed out by others, but the fact is that, whether intentional or not, when real-world satellite-based scenery was introduced to flightsimming a few years ago, it effectively launched the age of real-world exploration. This new era we are in includes flight simulation but is not limited to it. The real-world scenery we see in MSFS 2020 and (especially) 2024 potentially encompasses everything (whether individual users want it or not) down to the finest detail attainable at any point in time, and this will continue to be the case.

I am not sure exactly what bothers people who don't want to see the insides of airports (or for some folks, anything that cannot be seen from planes in flight!), but they always have the option of simply ignoring those kinds of details. In any case, this "virtual world" is here to stay and to become better and better over time. This is because -- as great as flightsimming has become (and I have been a simmer since the days of FS2 decades ago) -- the even wider interest is in real-world exploration, and MSFS 2024 at the moment happens to be the best vehicle for doing this. What it may eventually involve into (a plane-train-ship simulator, perhaps?), who knows. But it's happening, and it's great to see.

On 6/2/2026 at 2:25 PM, fluffyflops said:

Umberto put that burger king girl in KORD some what ten years ago

At least somebody remembers what we did years ago (maybe 8, but still...), although 10 years ago we made a fully walkable control tower at KMEM, with walkable stairs, a working elevator (with elevator music) and the tower with full 3d interiors, 3d sound effects, etc.

However, and this says it all: the most groundbreaking feature, never seen before, and still as of today still never seen on any airport, at KORD, were the working monitors in the terminal showing the actual AI airplanes with Departure/Arrivals complete with the airline logos, dynamically updated with zero cost on fps.

This was an incredibly hard thing to do, since it used pure DirectX 11 c++ Render to Texture, only possible in P3D with an extremely advanced and ultra-fast rendering, which also had working panel info outside the gate. THIS was the true "10-years ahead" feature.

And yet, the only thing that got remembered, was the fast food girl.

Edited Wednesday at 08:48 PM2 days by virtuali

30 minutes ago, cobalt said:

This has been pointed out by others, but the fact is that, whether intentional or not, when real-world satellite-based scenery was introduced to flightsimming a few years ago, it effectively launched the age of real-world exploration. This new era we are in includes flight simulation but is not limited to it. The real-world scenery we see in MSFS 2020 and (especially) 2024 potentially encompasses everything (whether individual users want it or not) down to the finest detail attainable at any point in time, and this will continue to be the case.

I am not sure exactly what bothers people who don't want to see the insides of airports (or for some folks, anything that cannot be seen from planes in flight!), but they always have the option of simply ignoring those kinds of details. In any case, this "virtual world" is here to stay and to become better and better over time. This is because -- as great as flightsimming has become (and I have been a simmer since the days of FS2 decades ago) -- the even wider interest is in real-world exploration, and MSFS 2024 at the moment happens to be the best vehicle for doing this. What it may eventually involve into (a plane-train-ship simulator, perhaps?), who knows. But it's happening, and it's great to see.

Wut…?

Satellite imagery for flight sim has been around since at least the FSX days.

And nobody’s complaining about a high level of detail, per se.

The root questions are how that detail affects performance, stability, time to market, productivity, and cost.

Further, when airport devs are ALSO clearly ignoring or underserving airport aspects directly related to flight sim, then yeah, it’s a disservice to the primary customer use case.

Further, I do wonder what percentage of buyers are actually utilizing those features? I.e., is it really driving sales vs the counterpoint features mentioned here…? Somehow I kinda doubt it of all other things were equal.

While I’ve no issue with MSFS as a Sandbox to play in however one chooses, and I CERTAINLY agree that MSFS will gradually expand beyond flight sim, I’d rather have more interesting places to explore in detail than an indoor retail mall.

59 minutes ago, cobalt said:

I am not sure exactly what bothers people who don't want to see the insides of airports

Do you think flight sim people object to more detail? No. Nothing "bothers" anyone about the insides of airports, if it can be done with 1) little to no perf penalty, and 2) the OUTSIDES of the airport are not neglected

#1 seems to be increasingly a reality, happily so
However, all too often, #2 suffers...busted pathings, bad taxi signs, and worse

And yet, we have perfectly-modelled kommodes in an obscure back corner of Concourse B. I think that is the heart of what people don't like.

13 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Wut…?

Satellite imagery for flight sim has been around since at least the FSX days.

And nobody’s complaining about a high level of detail, per se.

The root questions are how that detail affects performance, stability, time to market, productivity, and cost.

Further, when airport devs are ALSO clearly ignoring or underserving airport aspects directly related to flight sim, then yeah, it’s a disservice to the primary customer use case.

Further, I do wonder what percentage of buyers are actually utilizing those features? I.e., is it really driving sales vs the counterpoint features mentioned here…? Somehow I kinda doubt it of all other things were equal.

While I’ve no issue with MSFS as a Sandbox to play in however one chooses, and I CERTAINLY agree that MSFS will gradually expand beyond flight sim, I’d rather have more interesting places to explore in detail than an indoor retail mall.

The old satellite imagery of the FSX era was 2-dimensional, consisted of photographic files available for only selected regions purchased separately, and flying over it was like flying over a map --- the closer you were to the ground, the flatter it became! Interesting at the time as a novelty, but in no way comparable to what we have now.

To your other points, I'm not aware of any evidence that development of satellite imagery, including photogrammetry, has in any way impeded the parallel development of MSFS or other sims. Agreed that there are far more interesting places to explore than retail malls (they are not all that interesting even in real life!), and I suggest that the latest iterations of flghtsimming in MSFS 2020 and 2024 open up the entire world in ways it never was before.

My main point was that MSFS is being used by many largely for exploration, which understandably annoys flight purists who are far more interested in flight itself and less in detailed scenery. Nevertheless, it IS being used for such purposes, and since this only serves to enlarge the user base of MSFS that should make everyone happy!

40 minutes ago, cobalt said:

The old satellite imagery of the FSX era was 2-dimensional, consisted of photographic files available for only selected regions purchased separately, and flying over it was like flying over a map --- the closer you were to the ground, the flatter it became! Interesting at the time as a novelty, but in no way comparable to what we have now.

To your other points, I'm not aware of any evidence that development of satellite imagery, including photogrammetry, has in any way impeded the parallel development of MSFS or other sims. Agreed that there are far more interesting places to explore than retail malls (they are not all that interesting even in real life!), and I suggest that the latest iterations of flghtsimming in MSFS 2020 and 2024 open up the entire world in ways it never was before.

My main point was that MSFS is being used by many largely for exploration, which understandably annoys flight purists who are far more interested in flight itself and less in detailed scenery. Nevertheless, it IS being used for such purposes, and since this only serves to enlarge the user base of MSFS that should make everyone happy!

Yes, I can agree with this in general. 👍

As a frequent helo pilot, I do love getting around and enjoying the unprecedented detail in this sim, and of course, enhancements such as Cli4D, etc.

And I do find the alternate vehicles like the various cars and watercraft interesting, too. But since I don’t have any aircraft of my own, I don’t make use of the them yet!

So, my criticisms are really focused specifically towards the hyper detailed yet boring airport public areas themselves.

Like @virtuali’s example above, off limits areas like a functional control tower, fire station, etc, would be far more interesting to explore. 🤙