rhumbaflappy

Hi Rhys. What was the problem?

Hi all. I mapped my refresh button as CTRL+z as that combo is so easy to hit. 🙂

Wrong forum.

Wrong forum. This is for Flight, not FSX.

SBuilderX will work with Flight Simulator if the same format and names of the command line tools is the same. Likewise ADE will most likely then work as well. SBuilderX works with Flight School and with MS Flight, as well as P3d. Dick

Hi Martin. I would also not recommend in-simulator tools. Far better to just provide tools and info as the Lockheed-Martin P3D, and provide a bit more info as to file structures. We have plenty of tool makers. We just need the basics to build on. I'm guessing you're still using resample, shp2vec, bglcomp, the 3dsMax toolkit. Just pass those along as they were in FSX or P3D. As a group, we'd rather not spend time back-engineering. If you release tools and info over time, that's exactly what would happen. I think Raimondo Taburet has already done this with Flight School scenery, and is selling some addons... Share what tools and info you have and the developer community will quickly develop products (both commercial and freeware). And addons will drive more sales for the simulator. As far as mission-building goes, I believe you had Jim Keir on staff for Flight School, if so, you do have the expert. If he can get a comprehensive in-game mission builder going, it certainly would work. Dick

Yes. We need as complete and comprehensive SDK as possible. We need 'transparency' from DTG in that you should deliver file format information and as many tools as possible for content creation. Don't worry that some topic may be too complicated. We seriously have hundreds of geniuses developing scenery, and one or two will figure it out and deliver the info to the rest of the crowd. This is exactly how we have been discovering and disseminating development techniques since the earliest of Microsoft's FS series Also. To really invest in this topic on an SDK, we right now need to know how much of Flight Simulator will be based on FSX file formats, and exactly how much latitude and protection will developers have concerning ownership of their content creations. We also need to know how those content creations are to be included in the sim. For example are they to be submitted to Steam or Dovetail, or can we upload to libraries such as AVSIM? Can we sell our creations without the need for Dovetail approval or compensation to Dovetail? Without these answers, few serious developers will venture into the process. We want to know in what we are going to invest our time and money. Given enough 'transparency' from Dovetail, and assurances that it will be worth our while, an EARLY and comprehensive SDK will allow developers to quickly bring content to Flight Simulator. Addon content = user enthusiasim. This was the reason Microsoft's Flight failed. No addons = no enthusiasim. Dick

At a minimum, we need all the tools and functionality of FSX SDK. If the familiar tools of resample, shp2vec and bglcomp are used, then scenery can easily be created (perhaps SBuilderX could be altered to accept any new variables used by those apps). More transparency to file structures would be appreciated. Then we could develop better tools. Blender has been mentioned as an alternative to 3dsMax as a means to create models, and that would be an excellent idea. Again, more info on file structures would allow toolmakers to develop Blender plugins if Dovetail cannot. Concerning models, it would be great if we have conditional display used. This is absent from FSX scenery objects, but it's inclusion for all objects would be great for Flight Simulator. I understand this is not an SDK concern specifically, but a core principle of the display engine. Dick

Hi Martin. If you really want to see the scope of developers for FS9 and FSX (all of whom would be interested in Flight Simulator development) You need to visit fsdeveloper.com. Hundreds of developers of both freeware and commercial FS projects. It is the primary resource and community for FS9 and FSX developers. You should probably post there for insight into the community needs for Addon development. Dick

It will be interesting to see if Dovetail is active in preventing addons to Flight School, or if they turn a blind eye to it. Dick

Hi Steve. Does this mean we can have a slew mode for scenery builders? Dick

Any content relying on DLLs from FSX will not work in DFS as those are compiled as 32-bit. Anything dependent on SimConnect or FSUIPC will not work for the same reason. This eliminates most (if not all) aircraft. Some scenery could work (at least terrain), as it is unlikely Dovetail would go to the effort to change the BGL file format for terrain. However, that might obscure the scenery by using zip files or encryption. Scenery objects might work, but I have my doubts. Anything that is distributed with a 'console' to enable features of scenery will probably not work. Generally speaking, DFS will not be backwardly compatible. They definitely took the easiest path to release a new sim, and I predict it will be very profitable. Most simmers just want the series to continue. Dick

C++ gauges for FSX aircraft are 32-bit dlls. So unless some runtime conversion is used, there won't be backward compatibility for those aircraft. And runtime conversion would be CPU intensive. Dovetail did not buy the terrain from Microsoft, as Microsoft licensed it from 3rd party sources. They have bought the water, roads, mesh from Navtech or other 3rd party sources... so if it looks the same, that's because Navtech's data is the same. Not much Dovetail can do about that... they do not have the resources to create their own data. That would take years of man-hours. The shame about loosing Flight as a base is that it just was much more versatile, and more quickly rendered. 64-bit is not quicker than 32-bit... in fact it runs slower in my estimation. And good memory management would solve most (if not all) problems associated with memory exhaustion. We're getting 64-bit because so many forum posters are wanting it, as if it is a cure-all for rendering problems. I don't think it is... it's a marketing pitch. As far as Windows 10, I believe they are only guaranteeing the new sim to work for that OS, and not supporting any problems that may arise with other operating systems. DirectX11 is a nod to system owners that do not have a DirectX12 card... and perhaps Windows7 users will get a pleasant surprise to find Flight Simulator runs on their systems. All that said, I'm very much looking forward to DTG's new Flight Simulator. I'm glad the series continues. I'm glad 3rd Party developers will get a chance to bring their skills to the game. I think a lot of 3rd party FSX content will not work 'as is' in the new game, so I hope the 64-bit, Directx11 incarnation blows us away, rather than being a retread of FSX. Otherwise there is little incentive for large numbers of users to switch to the new sim, and invest in new content. Meanwhile, as this is the Flight forum, I think it's 'so long' to a great sim. Such a shame it is never going to see it's full realization. Thanks to Steve's efforts, we can still bring it on once in a while and even enjoy a bit of new content. Dick

Hi all. Dovetail games will release Flight School in April. Flight Simulator will be released later in 2016. Both are based on FSX technology, rather than on the more advanced Flight technology. Flight Simulator will allow 3rd party addons, while Flight School is more basic and will have no 3rd party content. Our hopes that Flight would continue under Dovetail's direction is gone. Dick

My Windows 10 Home upgrade works OK with my Visual Studio Pro 2013. No big surprises. Dick

How I take it is this: My PC will need a major hardware upgrade in the future. I will probably just buy a new PC and trash my old PC. And this will happen in 2-4 years, as the analyst suggests (the life of the device expires). When I scrap my old PC, I'll need a new version of Windows 10, either supplied OEM by the store-bought computer manufacturer, or by buying a new copy of Windows 10 for a home-built computer. Probably a mountain out of a molehill. People need to write about something. Dick

Dovetail bought not just the engine, but most of the tools as well, I would guess. Excepting, perhaps the modeling tools for objects. That was licensed to Microsoft as the granny 3d system from Rad Game Tools, although Dovetail could license from them as well. Probably all the familiar terrain tools would be used as those were developed by Microsoft ( resample, shp2vec, bglcomp). If Dovetail could add in the missing FSX elements to the existing flight code (to which they have code access), and use DirectX11 (or DX12) to allow the GPU to shoulder some of the burden off the CPU, you'd have a pretty good sim. 64-bit compilation might help with some memory issues. FSX:SE re-compilation shows they have the coding skills. Microsoft has done the hard work with the coding already. Licensing issues for the data and models might be a problem. Dick

+1 Dick

Of course they would have added it. Many elements were already in the game and disabled... with the intent to enable as needed for the DLC. Flight is setup to be very modular and flexible. Don't mistake the game elements and marketing for the capability of the engine. It is a next-generation FS engine, and most probably will be the basis for further Dovetail Games flight sims (and train sims... and perhaps other simulations as well). And, of course Dovetail is going to use the 'technology" they bought from Microsoft. What they bought was Flight. They are only re-distributing FSX:SE, with enough minor fixes to keep the money coming in until they release the next flying game. They cannot overhaul FSX according to their contract with Microsoft. And who would want to, when Flight's technology is far better than FSX? Dick

Have you trimmed the resample BGL output to the QMID 4 bounds as did Microsoft? You might consider that for the next version. Dick

As far as the game/simulation argument goes: who really cares? If Dovetail Games can disguise a simulator as a game with mission elements, goals and "social interaction", so much the better, if it helps them sell more copies of an application that has more serious elements. The FS series did this very thing. And Flight most probably would also have done this, but the incremental approach of selling a few functional bits at a time, combined with a corporate shift in games development killed it. Most of the functionality of FSX is in Flight, but had been disabled because it was not needed for the DLC available. The plan of Flight was to release more content and abilities for the game as time went on. Over a few years, we'd probably would have had a full-fledged sim. The parts were there or could be added. And MS would have made big$ releasing the game in this manner. We all would have hated this approach, but most of us would have paid. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Flight died. And I hope the technology of the game survives in DTG's flight games. Hopefully they'll give us a whole world sim hidden beneath the spectacular crashes. :rolleyes: Dick

This means you cannot call MS on the phone to straighten out a problem with your installation of the non-genuine Windows 10, or rely on other services Microsoft may offer as support. This does not mean it will not be updated (or auto-updated), as that is the whole point of the mass upgrade to Windows 10... to eliminate the spread of viruses and malware, while lessening the burden on Microsoft supporting older versions of the OS. They state they will not support, but do not say they will prevent security updates of pirated copies, or updates of .Net or DirectX, or bug fixes to the OS, or new versions of internet browsers... My guess is for 99% of pirated users, their interaction with MS will be identical to genuine users. Microsoft is not playing the pirate-hunting game, or the endless cycle of defeating non-genuine copies. They are trying to cut their investment in maintaining the operating system. And this is a very smart move. Dick

Not just valid copies. Free to pirated copies as well. Dick

Landclasses in Flight use a 16-bit system. So there are 65536 possible texture assignments, and of course 26 regions, and 5 seasons. And each addon can have it's own lclookup, and fallback dependencies for texture assignments. And each addon can have it's own seasons and regions defined. That pretty much gives 100% ground texturing ability, dependant on file storage capacity. Dovetail could implement a tiling at 250 meters, rather than the 1000 meters FS has uses since FS2000. I tried to get MS to do this for FSX, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. It would really allow for more detailed landclassing... but perhaps at that level, you'd need to consider photoreal. Dick

Absolutely. I think they are asking our opinion out of politeness. After all, if they really want to know what to put in the sim, all they have to do is send me a personal message. Dick