Gulfstream

From the Polygon article ... this is a concern of mine (but might not often be relevant), the "sides" of things. Yes, they do buildings in cities because they are aerial photogs captured at angles from aircraft ... but the sides of cliffs, where planes haven't mapped and satellites can't see .... well ... Maybe this is where 3rd parties step in to clean up specific areas of interest. OR, it just automatically improves itself as the Azure data/algos improve.

Apologies, I actually didn't mean to post this article, but another one ... but that has now been posted in the main thread. This is a great article, but as you mentioned, it needs a sub. Never noticed that as I have one. I tried to delete the post but I guess that is restricted to mods on AVSIM.

I don't know but that video blew ME away and I was the one on the forums talking about trueSKY and modern graphic engines. Holy moly ... they are on the bleeding edge here and that is a seriously impressive feat!

Exploring the vast Earth Microsoft has created for Flight Simulator 2020

I was an approach controller at N90, I'm also a commercial pilot. And a software engineer. (seriously too many hats ... exhausting life I've had) You want the Canarsie approach in demo videos for new flight simulator? Seriously?

It's amusing that so many people are finding flaws in the alpha. Let's say there are flaws. This is 2019, so you know what that means? It means we get patches, likely more than 1 patch. This isn't like FSX where a "patch" is some gigantic release that happens after 5 years or so. Almost every time I play and of my modern games on Steam they are patching this or that thing. This is a GOOD thing, it means its a fluid environment and can constantly be made better.

I can guarantee you this isn't anything done by human intervention ("painted by an artist"). You will have grass in the most remote corner of Africa, for example. There are satellites that create global vegetation maps, satellites that pick up humidity, satellites that track urban development, etc. Plenty of data out there. It just depends on how it is all put to use.

If that's the case then why haven't they just licensed something like trueSKY and blown clouds and weather out of the water already? They seem to be going to Vulkan to try to push more frames with the existing engine and developer APIs, which can only get you so far. Anyway, this is neither here nor there, as the topic is MSFS.

X-Plane is going to have to do what Microsoft did. They have to be able to separate the old graphics engine from the aerodynamic portion of the engine so they it can be essentially "hot-swapped". Vulcan can only do so much here. You can not get anything like procedural textured grass just because you move your code closer to the metal. If they do not overhaul the graphics engine and pull it away from the flight dynamics, I do not think X-Plane will be again competing with MS after this new sim.

My comment might have been sarcasm. I thought that little sweating smiling emoji would have done that, but perhaps I should have gone with the old /s.

Water clipping through house! This simulator is obviously going to be a disaster! 😅

The scenery is almost certainly going to be streamed in and cached locally, that would only make sense. I don't think this will be streamed in fully remote like Stadia ... I am betting we still have a local simulator engine and all aerodynamic effects, ground scenary, etc are local. It wouldn't make sense with an ecosystem of 3rd party developers to have a server-side engine. You couldn't effectively add a new jetway or taxiway sign in an add-on, that's not how those services work.

You all are thinking of how these engines were written literally DECADES ago. We have simulators these days that simulate spaceships everywhere from orbit, through the atmosphere, and then down to the planet's surface where you can walk around (see: Star Citizen). Loading a complex 747 into a earth-based Flight Simulator in 2019 should not be an issue if it is written to today's standards. It doesn't matter how complex your flap system is, or your FMS, or your HUD, or what the texture resolution is. Everyone is thinking about old flight simulators, maybe that's because we've been stuck there for so long. My laptop's graphics card is capable of 1.69 trillion floating point operations per second. And it's not a top of the line card at this point. My CPU can do 354 billion per second. We'll be ok, as long as this is coded with a new engine targeting 2019 and beyond.

I am curious how they are doing this also. The software engineer part of my brain thinks this can only be done if given digital city data where the buildings are laid out (think how Google Maps and others can show 3D building outlines even in regular map view ... that data). If they have that data, then they have the walls and height information, and can just put appropriate "walls" on the building. Some people may claim this is done with aerial photogrammetry but that doesn't get you all sides of the building (much if it will be obscured in many cases, think interior courtyards).

Yes and to get the others out of the way ... it also doesn't have very accurate flight dynamics, it doesn't have global coverage, it doesn't have real-world earth, it doesn't have an FMS ... it also doesn't have those "DO NOT TOUCH SCREENS" stickers come to think of it. 😅 But hopefully you get the idea!

If anyone hasn't seen what the trueSKY engine is capable in regards to clouds, see as a reference how it is used in NAMCO's Ace Combat 7. And before anyone jumps in to say "that is a shooter game!" or anything along those lines, I know but it shows how far we've come these days. The clouds in the new MSFS look very similar to these and I am guessing they are also using the trueSKY engine for atmosphere. This is an example of what modern volumetric clouds are like, and this runs at 120 FPS on my GTX1060, a budget video card. This should also put to rest concerns about "2D rotating billboard" clouds ... we are way beyond that in 2019.

I don't understand how X-Plane, which touts itself as the proper aerodynamics sim compared to the "game" sims like MSFS, doesn't have proper stall behavior. It's only been around since 1995. It takes Microsoft to come around with a new simulator to get X-Plane to simulate stalls correctly? shrug

It does look odd, it stands out too much. But it's likely due to the fact the airport "environment" is driven separately and then overlaid on the terrain, so that it can be re-used for every airport. Always a tricky area to "blend" properly, especially with photo terrain. I realize the trees, houses and everything else are also overlaid on the terrain, but the runways, taxiways, and aprons are always tricky.

WoohoohoohoooHOO boy. That stall/spin video!!

I'm a commercial pilot and have flown my share of IFR in different aircraft. I've never seen anything like the strange reflection in this video, and it caught my eye immediately (not in a good way). The rain is also never pronounced like it is here, but that one I'll let slide. Everything else is amazing so far.

Impressive, the lighting/PBR/rain etc is all on par with modern graphics engines. The sky must be trueSKY because it seems identical to other simulators that use it, although that cumulus in the distance was different (and quite nice). The only two things that seemed odd to me were that strange reflection that moved up the canopy .. was that supposed to be simulating coming out of the cloud layer? It just looked odd. And the cars, but I'll let those slide as a WIP like everything else. At least they exist.

Beautiful stuff ... the video and the responses to the community. I was in Flight beta so I hope I get into the Insider builds. I'm a Commercial Pilot and these days, a Senior Software Engineer. Whoever is writing this simulator, are you hiring? 😁

I remember using the first version of Flight Simulator in the early 1980s ... which had a role in me later becoming a commercial pilot. I have high hopes for this next version, the graphics are absolutely unbelievable. But I know graphics alone don't make the simulator, at best they make a decent game. I hope Microsoft is keeping us "hard core" PC simulator enthusiasts in mind here, but here's to hoping! San Francisco