lwt1971

Thanks for all the tips/insights everyone! Until I get a color-accurate SRGB/DCI-P3 144+hz VRR gsync 2k/4k monitor, I'm going to try to make the most of my 1440p 60hz monitor. I guess the 13900K + 4090 setup will be underutilized most of the time with this (except for heavy add-ons loads maybe), but any suggestions for optimal settings for using a 4090 with a fixed-rate 60hz monitor to get a stutter-free 60fps experience? I guess VSYNC definitely on but is it better to do that in-game or via NVCP? If VSYNC on then no need to also enable in-game frames limiting right? Is it fair to say that as long as my system can keep pumping out >=60fps, then with vsync I should mostly have a smooth experience using a non-VRR 60hz monitor? And the added benefit of the 13900k and 4090 running cool? On searching around did run into this thread so will give that a good read too https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/632235-rtx-4090-no-g-sync-monitor-solution/

The turbulence certainly changed in a recent sim update where there is a setting for level of turbulence and by default it's set to "low" I believe (three options are low, medium, realistic). The previous turbulence level is what the new "realistic" setting now maps to, and that too went thru some fixes/enhancements in the recent sim update. But ya as others above say lighting has not changed and it's always been the same for a while (as far as I can see, and also nothing has been noted by MS/Asobo in the recent SUs). The overall lighting engine in MSFS far surpasses any other sim's IMO, considering all aspects like light bounce from surface to surface, diffusion, reflections, ambient and atmospheric lighting, etc. Some I guess feel XP's atmospheric lighting is better, and maybe they're talking about rendering tones/etc but even there I've seen its unrealistic colors when the sun is at certain positions in the sky, or daytime lighting at times being too blue or too dark, and the sun looking like a LED bulb when high and a nuclear blast when low, etc. At least for me the ambient/atmospheric lighting in MSFS is the best I've ever seen in a sim.

I don't think anyone here actually thinks proceeds from the MSFS AN-225 sales are going to constitute a significant portion of a potential IRL 255 new build cost 🙂 ... but it's pretty darn cool how a civilian flight simulator for home use is enabling MS/Asobo to send close to a million bucks based purely on the sales of an add-on after being on sale for just under 3 months. Interesting details from the various press this received: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/03/21/microsoft-flight-simulator-keeping-ukrainian-dream-alive/ https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/antonov-an-225-microsoft-flight-simulator/index.html https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/microsoft-flight-simulator-releases-dlc-to-help-rebuild-antonov-an-225-mriya https://aircosmosinternational.com/article/microsoft-flight-simulator-helps-build-the-second-an-225-3654 I've bolded the parts of excerpts from above articles which say how the proceeds from MS/Asobo are likely to be used: “It was delightful news for us, considering the high professional level of the Microsoft team and their high international reputation,” described Deputy General Director for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines Viktor Avdieiev, upon hearing the news that Microsoft was trying to bring the An-225 back in a flight simulator. “This aircraft occupied a special place in global aviation history; no such other plane exists… Thanks to this product, many people get to know this powerful bird and will love it as we do.” “We decided to give 100% of the gross receipts from the sale of the digital An-225 for one year after launch directly to Antonov Company so the money could be used to rebuild the An-225.” Jorg said. “If Antonov determines that rebuilding isn’t feasible, then the funds can alternatively be used to create a memorial to the plane.” Proceeds from the in-game DLC will go toward rebuilding the An-225 and currently this is the only method through which the sim and gaming community can contribute to this effort. Still, it’s a lofty goal and if it doesn’t come to fruition, there are plans to find other ways to honor the aircraft’s legacy. “We did not set a minimum donation but instead opted to give Antonov all the money we receive. We feel strongly that we want to help restore a national treasure to its former glory and highlight the resilience of Ukraine. So far, we’re thrilled with the reaction from the simmer community.” Profits go straight to Antonov to fund the reconstruction, as well as the rehousing of Antonov employees whose homes have been destroyed by the Russian invasion, and training for new Ukrainian pilots and aviation engineers.

I'm finally moving on from my ancient system to an intel 13900K + nvidia 4090 setup and am struggling to settle on a monitor. I really need accurate color representation such as a full 100% SRGB mode (which has all display settings unlocked), good DCI-P3/ARGB coverage, etc for non-MSFS stuff that I do, and it seems like VRR/gsync monitors that have these features are far and few between (am eyeing the Asus PG279QM however). So as an interim solution planning to stick it out with my 1440p 60hz monitor for now. Given that, some questions and would love opinions from you all: 1) The new cpu/gpu is overkill for 1440p 60hz I guess, but that said I guess this also means I can crank up all the visual settings to ultra and beyond, turn on vsync set at 60hz, and can hopefully have a mostly smooth stutter-free 60 fps experience? except for the cases where due to cpu bottle-necking or other reasons like heavy add-ons load MSFS dips below 60 fps. 2) I have never used a variable refresh rate (i.e. gsync) monitor before, and from all what I keep reading those who've experienced 144+hz can never go back to 60hz. But for applications like MSFS, is there an appreciable improvement in going above 60hz? I guess that's probably subjective. 3) For those with VRR monitors do you find they help (vs a fixed 60hz rate monitor) when MSFS dips below 60 fps since the monitor refresh rate is always attempting to match the GPU? 4) With my new system (see sig), should I still be looking to lock vsync and or fps (in-game and/or via NVCP) at 30 rather than 60 for a stutter-free experience?

Another nail in the coffin for the "But but XBox is for arcade-y gamers!!" talking point given the number of people on XBox who've wanted this and are now using it... absolutely fantastic to see the WASM XBox support put in place by the MS/Xbox team and for high fidelity aircraft based on the WASM framework to finally make their way to the marketplace. To be fair, WASM is a framework that's there for aircraft devs wanting to use C++ (and other legacy codebases) to make their aircraft for both PC and XBox versions of MSFS. Aircraft developed in the more "native" ways for MSFS without needing to run some components external to the sim can and have resulted in high fidelity aircraft already for the marketplace and XBox, i.e. the iniBuilds A310. In any case, it's clear the simmer crowd has expanded via XBox, and not all of them are for casual flying only. Future and more powerful versions of the XBox hardware will only keep expanding this userbase, and let's not forget XBox cloud... there's something to be said about being able to fly fidelity aircraft from a browser on any device 🙂

Well I meant just the avsim crowd... but given that the wishlist item is #4 on the all-time list https://www.flightsimulator.com/feedback-snapshot/ (actual request: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/open-up-the-weather-system-write-access-to-3rd-party-devs/266706, 1159 votes) it certainly is popular outside of avsim, and given what Jorg mentioned on the recent Q&A hopefully it changes from "Not planned" to something more tangible soon. The fact that it has been in "Not planned" looks likely not due to lack of popularity, so they must've had other reasons some of which Jorg alluded to in the call.

This debate will probably keep raging on, and multiple things can be true at once: 1) MS/Asobo can and should keep improving the default weather, and properly make use of all the data they have available via Meteoblue and other sources, and keep fixing the SU7 METAR integration issues and/or also provide pre-SU7 global weather modelling via user selectable options if that's at all feasible, etc 2) Regardless of 1), it also goodness to open up API/SDK access to much of the weather (and other) internals as possible, since whatever extra value/features a 3rd party add-on could bring would be there for whichever users to buy. That said, personally I wouldn't want 2) at the expense of 1), since like many others I'd prefer to have weather simulation nailed down to fairly acceptable or better levels in the core sim. Someone above said that "weather is an afterthought to Asobo" ... Now this is just my personal opinion: that is a most ridiculous statement given what we've gotten in the sim. And re:some forum members not wanting to have to install/maintain 3rd party add-ons in the sim to get realistic weather since they'd rather have it in the core sim, that is also a valid wish surely. Those sorts of opinions, and even others' who might be against 3rd party add-ons for whatever reasons, are not the reasons I think MS/Asobo haven't opened up weather to 3rd party devs yet... to think avsim forum members' opinions are somehow influencing their dev prioritization is a bit much IMO, and so is expecting us to lobby MS/Asobo to open up access. I realize a lot of long time simmers are of the mindset that only add-ons can make the sim experience complete, but MS/Asobo have shown otherwise with MSFS in the last 2+ years. But they can't do it all speedily so yes, definitely there is a case to be made for opening up 3rd party access, as they themselves are now coming around to thinking.

When Matt first mentioned the G5000 comparison it got me curious so I searched around on google, and came across this article I posted on another thread, FWIW (how GA/bizjet avionics are more complex and feature-rich than tubeliners): https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2022-09-23/bizjets-fly-better-modern-integrated-avionics And again FWIW, more comments from Matt and another WT member on this topic from their discord: Matt (nishmaster) [Z-5] To be honest, I think a lot of folks have inflated senses of what airliner avionics are: really the latest GA avionics are a good deal more complex Matt (nishmaster) [Z-5] — Yesterday at 09:27 What's in the 787 is way closer to a proline 21 with some additional screen pane stuff than a G3000 or Fusion K20017 [Z-4] — Yesterday at 09:28 Airliner avionics are cavemen era compared to a G5000 capability. I guess more automation, ease-of-use, and features in modern avionics like the G5000 actually means more complex tech behind the scenes running everything which is maybe what Matt and team are alluding to.

I believe Matt was talking about just the avionics in the 787 compared to something like the G5000, not all the systems in the 787.

Thanks for the updates Martyn.. as for the WXR SDK limitations, w.r.t Matt Nischan's recent post on this below, are the limitations functionality like manual tilt?

A weird insecurity I guess... especially when it comes to flight dynamics/realism where a certain few are under the delusion that only their "precious" does it well, and that MSFS is only for visuals 🙂 (repeating that talking point to others and to themselves is comforting to them seems like 🤷‍♂️). I find it more amusing than anything else these days, especially given where and what MSFS is at present.

Too many places to mention with a diversity of beauty! Obviously focusing on the various areas treated by world updates so far is also best. In any case, pasting some links which are useful to discover locales: https://worldtour.flights/ - has various flight plans browsable by world regions, environment types, etc https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-10-best-locations-to-visit-in-microsoft-flight-simulator https://www.thegamer.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-2020-beautiful-places-fly/ https://www.pcinvasion.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-best-locations-guide/ https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/08/microsoft-flight-simulator-worlds-most-iconic-locations/ https://www.prepressure.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/fly-short-scenic-trips-flight-simulator-2020

This is an update from PMDG yesterday Bob.. but before all the sniping at PMDG starts (probably around the EFB and lack of real news), I'll just get in first by musing how it's hard to tell their recent dev updates apart I guess 🙂 I see RSR even mentions the last two parts about the 777/etc are a copy/paste from previous updates hehe. He does lay out a refresher on the technical reasons why the EFB has taken so long, but I suspect that's not going to make much of a difference for the posts to come 🙂

Well, it's very probably due to them having already put in the work for the P3D version that it's coming out for that sim first. Given the kind of attention-to-details devs they are, I highly doubt they would've even started development on the MSFS version if there were any blockers in the core sim. Note the discussion in https://forums.flightsimlabs.com/topic/32755-concorde-may-update/ and when they respond to a question about 2D panels: Hi Pablo, We've moved away from including 2D panels - especially as MSFS has no support for them. For our P3D Concorde title, we do include various 2D pop out panels, one for each INS CDU, the two weather radars and, something else This tells me the MSFS version is already in development and might not be necessarily very far behind the P3D version. I believe they might've alluded to this beforehand too. In any case, they are a glacial place development house so who knows when we'll see the MSFS Concorde.. but hey, they might surprise us and it might just be a matter of months after the P3D release and not years 🙂 In any case, outside of the Concorde, I hope they're focusing on the A330 for MSFS rather than the A320.

@Aamir firstly a very happy birthday to the team and muchos thanks for your "little text" update on what appears to be a very big v2 update coming. Was very interesting to read your bits about how V2 will work around and compensate for the inherent ground handling and ground<->air transition issues in the sim to fix the crosswind landings/takeoffs. Are you planning (if not already) to pass on feedback to MS/Asobo re: this aspect of the sim? It appears they have planned major rework in this area and nothing like expert advice/feedback from the likes of Fenix. I presume the current modelling in MSFS of wheels as points (even when combined with the SU10 parameters for ground handling) is nothing compared to modelling of wheel physics in their full form.