Christopher Low

I have never spent stupid money on graphics cards, and I never will

Thank you, Dominique. Your friendship is greatly appreciated 🇬🇧🇫🇷

I am not obsessed with MSFS. I do not even own it. I use P3Dv4.5HF2. As far as I was aware, MSFS streams flat 2D Bing photoscenery, and adds a mesh and autogen on top of that. If that is not the case, then please let me know how it is different. I am genuinely curious.

I would think that it is more likely to be the iFly version.

I fly the PMDG 737NGX (not the "NGXu") and the 777F (a version before the ground handling was switched to an external simulation). I do also have the 747, but there are one or two quirks with it that annoy me. One is the "bounce" when engine power is reduced (like at the top of a climb), and the other is the external ground handling model. It feels OK, but I preferred the old handling based on the default physics. It also does not work properly with the default push back (the plane suddenly starts moving forward when push back is deactivated). The rest is great, but my OCD nature picks up on stuff like that! To be fair, the 737-600 that I fly a lot also has an annoying quirk (it starts to pitch up and down a bit in level flight when autopilot is engaged), but it seems that this can be averted if there is a waypoint (or turn) in the flightplan just after T/C. At least, that is what seems to happen based on hundreds of flights.

The news that I have received is not encouraging, so I would not get your hopes up for this year

I do not see that at all. All I see are former P3D users who are genuinely impressed by MSFS2020, and have moved on. There is nothing wrong with that. We have all done it multiple times since the dawn of the flight simulation age on home computers.

This is the way that MSFS does it, so I am not sure what your point is Granted, they have much better looking autogen than P3D, but even just adding trees makes a massive difference to the realism of photoscenery (which is what I used to do with the Horizon UK VFR Photographic Scenery and Earth Simulations TreeScapes).

Quoting VRAM numbers is very impressive, but they are virtually worthless without also knowing the screen resolution at which the game/simulation is being displayed.

I wonder how far the backward compatibility will extend? Since I use v4.5HF2, I am not certain that upgrading to an evolutionary v6 would be a sensible proposition for me.

I am not sure what the significance of the nature reserve is in this debate. Cape Canaveral is surrounded by the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

What are these photogrammetry buildings like at close range? ORBx tried a bit of photogrammetry in P3D with the TrueEarth GB South rendition of the Canary Wharf buildings in London, and they looked horrible (very grainy low resolution textures, which is not good when you pass very close to them on arrival or departure from London City airport). Thank God that I was able to replace them with the much better looking Aerosoft VFR London X version of the Canary Wharf buildings.

It may have been a stupid thing to do, but I feel for him. It must be horrible to have extensive burns all over your body.

I have never checked (or been bothered about) my landing rate in the 12 years that I have been flying the PMDG 737NGX.

Rune-EHND last visited this site in March 2022, so this little project has probably been relegated to the scrap heap. Fantastic avatar though, and the Beechjet 400A was easily my favourite aircraft in Flight Unlimited 3 (and I used that simulator exclusively for 8 years). Wonderful memories.....

Then PMDG are clearly trying to do something else over and above that. Unless of course, you guys are just so super talented, and the PMDG team are a bunch of idiots?

It was meant to be a light hearted comment, Pavlin. I apologise if it offended you. Like ywg256 indicated, I use P3Dv4.5HF2 exclusively.

That just means that you can corner the market, which will increase the chances that all seven remaining P3D users will buy your product

I do not remember how much vibration I felt when I watched the launch of STS-73 Columbia from the KSC Complex in October 1995, but the sound was cool As far as vibrations go, Concorde performing a touch and go at the 1978 Farnborough Air Show is top of my own personal list.

How easy would it be to create seasonal variations with procedurally generated landscapes that are based on real world images? I would not be surprised if Unreal Engine 5 is capable of that.

Based on past experience, I doubt that Lockheed Martin are all that bothered about what the other players in the flight simulation industry are doing.

Why on Earth is this "IniManager" not available with the retail store versions of the product??

To be honest, I would prefer to see a next generation version of P3D running on Unreal Engine 5 that procedurally generates realistic terrain scenery based on real world images, rather than direct streaming of photo images from the internet. I have absolutely no idea if this could work (or if today's computers could handle the task), but maybe this could potentially eliminate problems like inconsistent colouration and resolution of textures across the globe? There is nothing worse than flying over beautiful terrain scenery, and then spotting a line across the landscape where two regions of vastly different colour and quality meet, or (even worse) last generation generic textures in some locations where there is no photographic data at all.

I agree. Those 27 Merlin engines deliver as much launch thrust as the Space Shuttle (two thirds that of the Saturn V), so it is most definitely one of the big boys.

A very interesting ending.....