ccaughie

Looks nice to me, my only concern is that it looks kind of jerky, in much the same way that FSX videos tend to look jerky.Obviously this could be to do with the way the video was captured, but if the sim were smooth I'm sure Microsoft could figure out how to make the video smooth.Early days of course, but I do hope they work on this. Silky smooth motion would make a massive difference to the sim even if nothing else changed from FSX.Colin

Overcast layer from above. Preferably with no land showing through.

I have to disagree about the water - I think the REX one looks fake. Way too luminous compared to the sky and land. The Flight version looks more like what you'd actually see IMO.Colin

Awesome. Very silly, but very funny. :( Colin

Don't you mean Aerosoft? Or are Flight1 working on one as well?I've been following the Aerosoft forum for their fledgeling project, but there hasn't been any actual news for a while. Last I heard they seemed to be trying to make the numbers add up. Here's hoping they do.Colin

Just to bring you up to speed on the two promising developments I'm aware of, here are some links:Aerosoft FS 2012 (working title)http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showforum=278Cascade Game Foundryhttp://www.cascadegamefoundry.com/So far there's no evidence that the latter group (which is made up of ex-ACES folk) is working on a flight simulator, but if not I still look forward to seeing what they do come up with.Colin

Only if you take that sentence out of context. Allow me to insert the whole paragraph:"We want stuff to be simple enough that my mom can use it," he says -- and yet it's important to offer the opportunity for a player to grow into the high level of detail traditional sim fans have always desired. "We still want to give the ability to grow into that level of caring, but not eclipse any gameplay opportunities that may exist downstream from there... those complexities can't be a barrier to [other players] enjoying the experience."If you read the whole thing it suddenly doesn't look so bad. They then go on to talk about "sliders on reality". What I'm reading into this is that they plan to develop sims that are as complex as you like if you want all the detail, but easily accessible to novices who don't. I don't see anything sinister there.Colin

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25919Still not being drawn on what their first project is, or whether it'll have anything to do with flying.Colin

Clearly all commercial planes should be fitted with a "pause at top of descent" feature. :(Colin

They're not very good at spelling, are they?Colin

I'm surprised to see so many negative posts here. Together with Aerosoft's new planned venture I think this is fantastic news. Let's look at the reasons to be optimistic:1. From the snippets on their web site and press release, it appears that Cascade want to simulate an entire world in which you can do pretty much anything. Any world simulation that can cope with not only flight and trains but also scuba diving and hiking has got to be pretty detailed.2. A detailed world simulation is a necessary starting point, and arguably the hardest part, of a good flight simulation. Assuming it includes weather and airflow simulation (as it would have to in order to be a generally useful world simulation), adding flight dynamics on top of that seems like a much smaller problem. So even if Cascade don't do it themselves, someone else almost certainly will. You could even take the FlightGear flight modelling code and port it to the Cascade platform, assuming the APIs are sufficiently comprehensive. Add to that a few quality planes from third party developers and you have a pretty strong flight simulator.3. Since FSX was released people have been calling for the ACES team to throw away the entire simulation engine and start a new one from scratch. Well guess what they're doing now! Sure they've got their work cut out for them, but assuming they've figured out how to fund the project, the end result seems likely to be a lot better than one that inherits a lot of legacy code that was never designed with the needs of a modern simulation in mind.4. The fact that there are (potentially) two teams working on a next generation simulation platform and not just one, and one of them (Aerosoft) most definitely focusing on flight, makes it seem highly likely that we'll have a kick-&@($* flight simulator to play with in a few years. They may collaborate, e.g. with Cascade doing the world simulation part and Aerosoft doing the flight part, or they may compete, which would raise the bar for both of them. Either way we win.Anyway I'll stop idly speculating until we have more news, I just wanted to inject a little optimism into this thread. :( Colin

I also got this, and sent it to the usual receptacle for unsolicited advertising email. I'd also be interested to know how they got my email address. I also wonder whether PMDG know anything about this?Colin

My best, long ago as it was, was Fife, Scotland, from 9500ft in a glider. It was the only time in my relatively short gliding career that I ever got properly established in wave.I know you powered folk see that kind of view all the time, but try to imagine it with absolutely no noise except the wind rushing past (at only 30kts, I was flying a K-8!).Colin

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why is this not just another TrackIR? Yes it's a good demo but I don't see it doing anything a TrackIR couldn't do (although if your figure of 50 bucks is accurate it's definitely cheaper).Colin

I guess it would get a bit more interesting if it was the CFI who jumped out.Do I get to join the sick puppy club? :( Colin

As I've said before, in order for the complete rewrite idea to work they would also have had to invent a time machine in order to complete the project before they really ran out of money.From the snippits of information I've heard about what they were doing before the team got axed, their plan was to rewrite only what they needed to to make it work better (and look better) on modern, multi-core machines and graphics cards, which is about as good a plan as I can think of.I'm not going to speculate on what they're doing now with the people they kept and the ones they're hiring back as I have a feeling there are people on this very board who know a lot more than I do about it (and probably can't share).Colin

Nice video. It's hard to tell though whether he was actually initiating a takeoff roll, or if he was hastily responding to ATC telling him to get the h*ll off the runway.Either way I reckon the Swissair plane would have had time for a go-around if the BA plane hadn't made it off in time. Probably not without violating the noise restrictions at the airport though. :)Colin

Alternatively the DVD could contain world scenery up to a certain LOD, giving FSX-like visuals, while higher detail (and scenery updates) could be downloaded in real time for the places you're flying over.That would mean that people with slow network connections (which there will certainly be for many years yet) can get a reasonable experience, while people with faster connections can still feel smugly superior. :( Colin

This is strange indeed. If they wanted to keep developing FS immediately you'd think they'd have kept a few more of the original team rather than get rid of almost all of them and then hire more. "Potentially" the entire planet? FSX already renders the entire planet. Are they even talking about the same technology??Colin

I disagree. Although FSX is very good I don't think it's anywhere near what's possible on today's hardware.I tried the latest X-Plane demo recently and was impressed, with some reservations. Whatever your take on the flight model, control input handling etc. it is very smooth and gets good frame rates at high settings. Overall I would say it's less pretty than FSX, but I get the feeling that's more to do with the quality of the content (by which I mean the scenery, airplane models, etc.) than with the quality of the engine or the hardware we have available to run it.I reckon a great deal of the effort that went into FSX and its predecessors was involved in creating high quality content; the X-Plane development team is a lot smaller, and probably focuses more on the engine, therefore it is less "developed" in this regard. I'm guessing (hoping in fact) that it wouldn't take long for them to catch up, especially if third party developers start switching over.Colin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7859807.stmFor this to be caused by wind surely he must have been landing with a tailwind?When this happens to me in a taildragger in FSX it's usually because I've applied too much brake...Colin

I'm very interested in the idea of an open source flight sim. Since the demise of ACES I've been thinking that the most frustrating part of the whole thing is that the MSFS source code is now sitting there under lock and key with nobody working on it, and nobody outside of Microsoft could pick up the project even if they wanted to. This couldn't happen with open source.Flight Gear is impressive as far as it goes, but it strikes me it has a very long way to go before anyone would be persuaded to switch from FSX.I think the main difficulty with such a project is not so much programming but content. Flight Gear seems to me to be the result of some very dedicated and capable programmers, but with a dearth of capable graphic designers, UI designers and aviation experts to help them turn a functional simulator into something that is easy to use, looks great and gives a really convincing impression of being in a plane.With the Microsoft simulators this hasn't been a problem because a. the ACES team had plenty of resource in all the required disciplines, and b. there are a wealth of third party developers who concentrate on certain specialist areas (e.g. highly detailed planes or great looking clouds) to complete the picture for those of us keen enough to fork out the extra cash.For an open source flight sim to be successful, I think it would have to be developed and licensed in such a way that while the core components (graphics and terrain engine, basic flight dynamics engine etc.) are free and open source, commercial developers could still develop quality payware add-ons as they do now. (I don't think this would be possible with Flight Gear as it is GPLed, but I could be wrong).Of course these developers could, and probably would, contribute to the core components as well; in many cases this would make their lives easier as they wouldn't have to constantly work around limited interfaces over which they have no control. This is kind of similar to the Linux model; the core of it is open source but plenty of companies develop commercial software that runs on it, and some of those companies also contribute to the kernel, either to make their products work better on it or to make it generally more attractive to their customers.There is definitely a chicken and egg situation here though; MSFS had to become extremely popular before third party developers could hope to run a sustainable business; it would be the same with this.So, anyone got any ideas on where to start? :(Colin

You don't have CH pedals do you? I recently had a problem with my CH pedals where they wouldn't center properly, even after many attempts at calibration. Eventually I took them apart, fiddled around a bit, put them back together again and they've been fine ever since. (I'd like to be able to report in better detail how I fixed them, but to be honest I've no idea.)Next time it happens, go to the fixed spot plane view, center the view, zoom in as necessary and make sure the rudder and ailerons are perfectly centered. If they're not you could be having the same problem I had.Colin

I've also noticed this in the PMDG 747 and LevelD 767, and those guys have taken great care to make everything as accurate as possible. I guess that's just the way they fly. Odd, as I can't say I've ever noticed that I'm walking on a slope when going to the bathroom on an airplane.Colin

How can you tell it's uncompressed just by looking at it? Any image, including a photoreal texture, can be compressed pretty small without any noticeable loss of quality.What's important is getting high quality source images; that's what appears to set these guys apart.Colin