Skywatcher

Agree. Some of us have settled on FS for life for no other reason than we prefer it! Regarding the Ariane or even the PMDG 737, I think the iFly 737 is far superior to both. I wouldn't recommend a new sim for people but switching 737's to the iFly is very much worth the investment.

Only online weather is stopped which makes literally no difference. I'll use ASE for life.

I much prefer ASE. I have FSGRW but haven't used it for a long time. Can't really tell you about specific pros or cons as can't remember. ASE certainly had many more features. FSGRW was slow to load weather and sometimes the server plays up. For some users, they couldn't get it to download weather at all. Now, this was at least 3 or more years ago I'd say and certainly server issues may have since been resolved...or maybe not.

https://secure.simmarket.com/fs-global-real-weather-fs9-fsx-p3d.phtml

Many FS9 products no longer work nor can they be activated. REX killed their weather several years ago. The Microsoft built in weather stopped functioning many years ago. ASE had a long run and the developers unofficially supported it well beyond any period you could possibly expect. Heck, they even gave you the courtesy of a reply now. There are developers I think you can certainly complain about but HiFi isn't one. They even fixed ASE when it stopped functioning a few years ago. They were under no obligation to do so as the product was already old. They did fix it and gave us a few extra years to enjoy it. That even surprised me. Finally, it's not like it's dead. You just need to use historical weather which in many ways is better than downloaded weather anyhow. I'll be using ASE forever!

If people stop quoting my posts and asking further questions of me then I don't have to reply. I am "repeating" or "expanding" not "crying." If people keep coming back and asking me for a further response what can I do??? eg see below lol FS9 has cirrus clouds and FS9 clouds have definition. They are not perfect but they are better than what can be seen in MSFS. Did you look at the video I quoted earlier??? You only need eye balls to see the clouds are blurry as heck. How can they be better than any other sim? They are the worst clouds I have ever seen in any sim to be honest.

Look at the video in the OP's post below. 39 second mark is a good reference. It cannot be any more obvious how blurry, lacking total definition MSFS clouds are. On top of this there are no cirrus clouds it appears in this sim! What is realism to you? I keep trying to get across to people to look beyond the advertising. It's all there to see. The MSFS engine will create great clouds for the XBox kid to have armageddon-ish cloud conditions when he crashes his plane into his house. Myself, I want to use MSFS as a flight simulator and only ask for realistic, everyday clouds. MSFS clearly is not as capable of doing this as FS9. That's the truth from what we have seen so far and we have seen enough to make a definitive statement on it.

Completely true. What part of the below breaches anything? It was not posted. Professional? No. Where's Robin??? lol

Unfortunately I cannot reply to anything because unless I say "yes" or "fantastic" or "totally agree" the mods don't allow my post. lol

I've said it a million times, I use it because it's the best overall sim imo. If there was something better, I'd be using it. I still expect to be using it after MSFS release.

Correct. Still saying it, nothing has changed.

Took out the second part because I don't think it referenced me. If it did, it was wrong. I have interest in MSFS and I am still holding out hope to be surprised. I know it won't be perfect and I know there is still time to make change where change is possible or at least put more focus on areas users may find of concern. You can bury your head in the sand and just say everything is great but it's not. I'm a realist and prefer to plan for what is ahead not make bad decisions based on wishful thinking. End of the day, who says I know anything, may be wrong on everything, make up your own mind.

Would you feel better after you bought a new PC, the game, maybe spent up on the PMDG and then fired up your PC for the first time? I'll make some things up to change your mind again in future posts. Would you prefer that? I know I just want accurate information myself. People ask for explanations/examples and then jump on you for giving them. It may help make MSFS better. Saying nothing certainly won't.

I'll explain a little further. Matching satellite data is one thing, matching something that does not exist is another. If the shadows have no detail, that area needs to be made up. How is this done? The software would look at the surrounding area and fill the shadow area using this information. In the shadows I showed earlier for example, that area will likely be filled with a green texture, grass or something like that. In this scene, the blend should work reasonably well as the surrounding textures are not that detailed. Now, in saying this, in real life those shadows may have rock faces hiding behind them. The software has no way to know this because the black area has zero detail. You won't get rocks there as in real life, you will likely get green something or the other. The more complex and detailed the surrounding textures are, the harder it will be for the software to remove those shadows without leaving clear evidence of removal. In places that have high detail, it may look a complete mess after shadow removal and people will have to manually retouch those areas. Overall, when you consider we are talking about a huge proportion of shadow areas that would exist in these photos across the entire planet, there will be massive amounts of bad looking shadow fixes that will remain untouched.

You need to see statements they made 2 hours ago and they still will count for nothing. Where the gaming market will be in one or two years time nobody knows. Just like many businesses in the world right now, their predicted future's are very different to what their predictions were last month. MSFS potential success is no different. The economics are all changing. Games will have to be viable to continue after the Coronavirus affects are felt. Any statements made before today, or tomorrow, or in 2 weeks from now are irrelevant. There are no guarantees anything will be viable to continue into the future as it was expected a month ago. Business models will have to see what the future will be and then determine what products are viable moving into the new times. MSFS may no longer be viable for MS by that point. We will lose airlines for example. It's a certainty.

Can't be done with realism. You can't replace what wasn't there in the first place, you have to make it up. To make things up for every shadow area across the planet, no method will have enough variety. The shadows areas will have to have some kind of generic look to them. Sometimes the match may be close to the surrounding textures and sometimes it may be way off. This part I am guessing as I don't know exactly how the shadow removal gets processed. I would imagine I am very close to correct. What may turn out to be a major issue for some users is if they have removed shadows from somewhere the user likes to fly regularly. If the user happens to notice an area that would've had a shadow and can see that it was removed, that area might bother them forever. Once you've seen it, you can't stop looking at it type of thing. If they don't like the look of the fix, even worse!

You beat me to quoting him! I sure hope you weren't hoarding himmelhorse??? One or two decent people here, one or two I haven't figured out, one or two that may have some grumpy moments! Mods did well, I thought this thread was going to vanish a few hours ago but we've actually had some good discussion with opportunity to put across some thoughts on the new sim. Times won't be good. Has to be some relief somewhere.

Thanks. Yes, I'm just trying to suggest MSFS will be expensive. How expensive people will accept for a game in one or two years time is anyone's guess. MS projected costings for MSFS add-ons may no longer apply in the future. People won't have money. People may not have jobs. High priced DLC's won't be an option for many. New PC's won't be an option for many to run the game, been posts here regarding this already. Projections for MSFS success a month ago likely won't apply at all in a year from now. Everything will likely have to be cheaper or it won't sell. Will the game still be viable enough and get enough sales? Past MS comments, statements are totally irrelevant from this point on.

I'll add one more real concern. This isn't 2004 or 2006. With current events, looks like the future era will be like no other. The MSFS business model may need to be completely revamped if they have even thought this far. If this happens, will MSFS even be viable? Will that new PC, those early investments in add-ons all come crashing down on me 12 months later when MS pull the pin on MSFS? Let's look at the link below and look at the DLC's. Expand the list and scroll down to total cost. Before Coronavirus this makes you open your eyes. In future times, it may literally make you fly off your chair and through your roof! https://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/Train_Simulator_2020/

If you look at the trees around the wheels, you will see the area where the trees a little beyond the wheels (moving up or right across the mountain) connect with the other trees. Completely different color and contrast from one photo to the other. To view something and see it accurately, you need to zoom to 100%. At 100% the bushes/trees look a mess to me. How they would look inside the cockpit at close range in flight, I would need MSFS on my machine. All the things I mentioned may result. Regarding shadows, it simply is not possible to remove and replace them with anything accurate across the entire global surface. To fix just that shadow area in the screenshot, someone would actually have to have a photo of that area to then composite it in. These sorts of things are not possible to fix in any realistic manner. Developers like Orbx could enhance areas like this with some fakey texture work but it will be time consuming, very little area will be covered due to time and they will charge a fortune for it. The clouds in general are absolutely without doubt blurry. They look horrendous imo and are probably the worst MSFS element for me. If for no other reason, the clouds alone will keep me from buying MSFS ignoring everything else.

I hope you saw my post above. Now here are a couple more concerns I can easily add. Your PC almost certainly won't be enough if you expect to run high quality settings and add-ons. You need to buy a better one. To maybe improve some areas of MSFS, if it will even be possible, you will need Orbx. More money.

There are issues that are likely totally beyond improving as they are now part of the engine. It is what it is unless they went back and virtually started from scratch. I'll explain and give examples of literally maybe 3% of my concerns below. Here is why I hate using photo anything. It has flaws, always will, there is no way around it with current technology. A photo can give you more detail at a huge cost. People want to fly over their house and recognize it. Yes, photo will allow many to do this. I couldn't care less if my house is recognizable if it means to get this detail I have to put up with a bunch of visual flaws in so many other areas. I'd rather have a uniform, lower quality representation of the world as it is in FS9. The cons faaaar outweigh the pros in MSFS. Right now people are only seeing the pros. MS are of course deliberately trying to show MSFS in this way. It's inevevitable the more they show, the more that is going to slip through to show the flaws. People are not seeing the cons of MSFS. Let me give a couple of examples. If I look at this screenshot below, it looks terrible to me. No way do I want to fly looking at this scenery over what I have in FS9. What is wrong with the pic? It looks like an amateur's composite of 3 to 4 different photos very badly composited together. The clouds on the left don't match the clouds on the right. They look like 2 completely different clouds taken from 2 completely different photos and composited into what we have here. The clouds to the left, the color balance and contrast is way off compared to the clouds on the right. The contrast/color balance of the clouds to the left is just completely off full stop to be honest. Then we see the landscape. The area of trees under the aircraft wheels is where the photo is composited to the other photo. You can see it clearly with the trees. For the critical eye, you can also see the area to the left and the area to the right, the lighting does not match. The scene is a disaster. I could not fly in a world like this. Here is literally a very rough, 2 minute improvement of the scene to make it more believable and much closer to how it should look. Much more editing work needs to be done as this is still way off anything realistic but hope it gives you an idea. Things in this shot are a little better balanced and believable they may be part of the same scene. Then there are things like this. Yeah, wow, looks fantastic when they show you from the perfect distance. I read someone wrote he will be so happy to not have to look at the stretched textures on cliffs any longer in the new MSFS. This guy will be getting a severe surprise. You will get to see more stretched textures in the new MSFS world than ever before. Let's go in closer: What you see here is a complete mismatch of visuals. This is what your photo sim will give you. We have semi adequate resolution at the top, stretched textures across the cliff faces, I'm guessing those blobs below are trees and finally, the one and only sharp element in the scene, the water. Can it get worse? Yes it can! Put yourself in the cockpit of the aircraft to the right. Imagine if you looked out the right window at this point. What would you see? You will see likely very blurry trees. I can't be certain but they may be sharp at close range. They may also only be sharp with an incredibly fast PC. They could also be a blurry mess at speed regardless of PC power. Are there any more bad points? Yes there are! As you look right out your window, you are looking at a photo remember? A photo that was taken around midday by the look of the shadows. All detail has been lost in the shadow area under the cliff face. It's just a bunch of black pixels! If you were to look right in the cockpit, you'll just see black in this scene, no detail in that shadow area at all because it doesn't exist. Hope you are getting some idea of what MSFS will look like outside of MS promotion and how it will look in actual use? Those shadow areas in real life you would see all the detail of what is there with the eye. In FS9 in such an area I will still see complete detail as well. Just a couple of examples I have provided. Hope people see some of my concerns and why I really don't like just the visual side of MSFS. There is far more I don't like about MSFS, much more than just visual elements. I'm really not expecting to buy it or to see anything after release to sway me into buying it.

It was and totally intentional. You don't think his was? He added nothing to the thread, no comment, no reasoning, two words to signify he wasn't interested so the thread should be shut in his opinion. Maybe do like I would do, just use the back button on your browser. The thread is not discussing who got rid of their sim. I mentioned that part as an example to show the great anticipation for MSFS. The question was what might you do if it falls short of expectation? From the first 13 screenshots on the MSFS site atm, 6 of them make me go eeek. No chance I will use a sim like that over FS9. I don't think anyone would say the same as what I just did as they are not seeing what I am seeing. I think they will finally see these issues when they have MSFS on their system. It prompted me starting this thread. What then? I have a sense of humor, don't misunderstand. I am also not ever annoyed by replies. I give a response in return that is fitting. In the end, everyone here is nothing more than text on my screen. If text on my screen was to annoy me, I have some issues! I'm happy to discuss anything, openly and without getting upset about it.

1. They already have deleted their sims, there is a thread full of them 2. From what I have seen, I really have no interest in MSFS. My situation is the opposite to yours. I'm hoping it will be great. I use a flight sim so of course I would have nothing against a new one but I'm not expecting it to be anything worthwhile to replace my old one. To answer my own question, it will be what I expected it to be.

Yeah, get the lock out. I post a few other places and have no issues.