lwt1971

Vector could well do for Boeings what Fenix did for Airbuses in flight simulation: raise the bar with a standout product, backed by a fresh new dev house. Their initial announcement and release of info tidbits were interesting and got my attention, but this dev update definitely goes a long way in showing the level of depth they claimed initially. Looking forward to their future deep dives and release. What a time for MSFS and the 3rd party aircraft scene so healthy and active!, with great birds being released or in the pipeline.. and the variety of aircraft be they GA or heavies.

Re: the object culling, LOD curve topic (i.e. landing gears not showing on AI aircraft), there was still some investigation I believe @Kaiii3 and team were doing (per below). Anyone heard any updates since?

Oh, wasn't even referring to you or your posts, and didn't realize you were talking about consoles in them 🙂... my response was to other comments on this thread attributing any issues/degradations to intentional scaling back of the whole sim just for console users, which is a silly and tired talking point (i.e. from a previous comment on this thread: "MS/Asobo have further dumbed down MSFS2024 for console players in SU5", etc 🤷‍♂️

But, but, I've been reliably informed by the MSFS development expert and project manager cosplayers on avsim that any time I see a visual problem (or any problem) it must be due to MS/Asobo serving the "cOnSoLe KiDz" ??

Oh ok, I guess "gamification" is why they keep pushing out these AAU updates with high fidelity aircraft and avionics, bother with computation fluid dynamics in flight models and airflow modelling, and bother with improving the accuracy of ground effect for helicopters, bothering with all those other flight dynamics improvements from 2020->2024, etc etc 🙃

The weather engine itself is certainly capable of depicting/rendering varied weather and dense clouds etc, as seen when using manually configured weather. Not sure what limitations there would be to keep increasing this core weather engine in terms of visual capabilities. I don't buy this overused xbox argument since the sim caters to all kinds of hardware including PCs equivalent or lesser than xbox hardware even. The key is that sim visual fidelity settings are fixed and restricted for xbox (to match hardware) while for PC we're free to increase detail settings etc. The issue IMO is live weather and how they blend global and METAR weather data to then render in the weather engine. That's where improvements would be welcome, either in data source and/or the blending of global and METAR data (it's the latter that was introduced in MSFS 2020 SU7 and "regressed" live weather from prior to that). Re: storm turbulence, as some others have noted during the SU5 beta, and as stated by Seb in the last Q&A, I can definitely see improvements for the GA aircraft I usually fly when using manual weather and storms. Need to try in live weather when I next encounter such dangerous weather. Also as some have said, the aircraft turbulence in storms and dangerous weather sometimes doesn't work as well for larger aircraft vs smaller aircraft apparently (so could be a separate bug).

As already said above by Ryan, if you're into business jets the Citation Longitude alone is the worth the price difference for the Premium Deluxe edition. After Working Title gave it their AAU treatment it pretty much is a payware level biz jet IMO. Will say the same about the SR22. Those two combined make the Premium Deluxe more than worth it for me. Not sure how much they are if added individually to the standard edition in 2024, assuming that's possible. In general, if you're into any of the aircraft in the Deluxe or PD editions that have received the higher fidelity AAU enhancements, then maybe worth considering.

Well, the good is rather simple isn't it... weather radar with a tiltable 3D cone is always better than weather radar with a fixed 3D cone, period. Whatever Asobo can do to advance the ball to an eventual more complete solution is what we obviously want. The second aspect as you say is better aircraft reactions to dangerous weather, and actual dangerous consequences. Sounds like SU5 is shaping up to improve on that: The remaining situation to fix/improve is the live weather depiction of proper dense clouds, t-storms, cells and other dangerous weather (and also more varied clouds, etc). This all stems back to MSFS 2020 SU7 when they started doing METAR blending with global Meteoblue weather. That was a poor first implementation but it's also clear they've improved it a lot since then and in 2024 (but not enough to match pre SU7 live weather, albeit based purely on Meteoblue global data). As of now, either a) the Meteoblue data is not enough or not good as it was, or b) the METAR blending process is still not good enough and is causing the resulting live weather to lose out in terms of what it depicts (some times, or most the time). I have a feeling it's more a case of b) than a), since pre SU7 before METAR blending we had varied weather, and dangerous weather with dangerous consequences. There is also the turbulence settings they introduced in response to a large portion of the user base complaining about turbulence, so guess that has a part to play in all this too. Let's see... MSFS 2024's current core weather engine can depict varied weather, dangerous weather, and dangerous consequences to such weather. It's a matter of live weather being able to depict all what manually configured weather can (given the right data). But I'll take progress on whatever front they're able to make it happen. And in that sense, tiltable weather radar is most welcome, as are the turbulence and airflow modelling improvements in SU5.

Thanks jcomm! That's great to hear. Would you say when using similar manual preset weather with similar conditions and CBs in SU4 vs SU5 there is a discernible difference in SU5? Sounds like it 🙂 So as long as live weather is able to depict the right conditions we should be able to see more realistic impacts now. That, with weather radar tilt, and overall airflow and CFD physics improvements make SU5 a solid update.

For those using SU5 beta, how are the cloud turbulence improvements mentioned by Seb below, especially in live weather dangerous/stormy conditions? Video timestamped to when he started talking about overall airflow simulation improvements: https://youtu.be/UPHlS1Iu6ys?t=1228

In addition to Seb's update on the CFD and physics improvements in the core sim this was by far the most exciting part of the Dev Q&A! Looks to be incredible depth of simulation of systems and dynamics down to the core, loved Matt nerding out on all the technical details and equations 🙂 Given their track record so far, totally expecting this one to deliver. "How can we set a new standard not just in MSFS but flight simulation" is the kind of mantra I love to hear from a flight sim development team.

Yes there are differences between live weather and manual/preset obviously, everyone knows that... what some of us are saying is that when using default live weather (and for me with no other weather/atmospheric related add-ons), some aircraft (i.e. lighter/smaller ones) do get impacted when flying thru storm clouds and dangerous weather. Not sure if this is a base sim bug or forced behaviour in that why then not larger aircraft also get impacted?, or if it comes down to aircraft model/FM/sim config, etc. What is your global MSFS turbulence level set to? FWIW I have mine set at "medium" and sometimes use "realistic", I know Fenix recommends "low" for their aircraft (and also iniBuilds I believe for their aircraft as they feel that's best for FMs using CFD), so might need to set to different levels depending on aircraft. @Tuskin38 what about you? Also FWIW, came across this https://flightsimulator.blog/microsoft-flight-simulator-live-weather/ which I haven't seen before explaining more about Meteoblue and METAR in MSFS, not sure if it's an old article updated to mention MSFS 2024 or if it's the latest info from a knowledgeable source.

You misunderstood me in the first point... my point there was that I find it unreasonable/silly that Asobo would intentionally go out of their way to tone down dangerous weather in order to cater to the "casual player" (as some seem to always suggest), regardless of GA or airliners. And secondary to that, some of us *are* seeing storm clouds having impact on smaller/GA aircraft, more so than on larger aircraft (i.e. airliners). So given this, the theory that Asobo is intentionally toning down bad weather does not make sense.

IRL airbus pilots rave about the Fenix too 🙂 I think it's safe to say with the likes of Fenix, FSL, PMDG, Toliss, etc one can't really go wrong with realism and fidelity. Luckily for MSFS users, they can choose from all of them.

If your assertion is that because of "casual players" Asobo is intentionally not making the weather scary then that'd be incorrect... if that was were truly the case then why are smaller/GA aircraft experiencing bad weather realistically? Of course simmers value a lot of different things (as would be common given such a huge user base for MSFS), but it'd be safe to say a majority of us simmers and Asobo obviously value weather and physics as main components of simulation... hence the considerable improvements to physics and flight/ground dynamics in 2024 over 2020, and avionics, and a bunch of other things. You know, the things the "casual player" wouldn't really care about. Just because they haven't improved weather as much as they could *yet*, doesn't therefore mean these silly tropes are true. Especially since they've already said live weather is due for re-work later in 2024.

I imagine it might not be feasible to implement, but would be nice if they give the option to METAR blend or not. Ya this has puzzled me and I wonder if it's some deep rooted bug when it comes to larger aircraft (and/or their FM config and/or the sim's weather interaction with them, etc). If smaller aircraft are reacting as expected in storm turbulence then one would think it should scale to larger aircraft.

Again, not "post SU5" but post SU7, when METAR blending was introduced. Before that live weather was purely global and purely based on Meteoblue global weather data. And yes they have been since asked about it many times and they have commented on it many times (Dev Q&As, interviews, etc). As already mentioned, they have improved it a lot since the 2020 SU7 regression especially in 2024, but still not as good as it was pre SU7 in 2020. As Krakin said, Seb has also mentioned they will be doing overhauling later for MSFS 2024. I imagine after the bug fixing and stabilizing SUs are done with. Not sure what Halo has to do with this 🤷‍♂️

@Krakin totally agreed about performance or XBox *not* being the blocker here. It was SU7 and the introduction of METAR blending for live weather that degraded clouds depiction in 2020 rather than SU5 (Xbox support and performance focused SU). Now that said they've improved live weather a lot since that SU7 update and especially in 2024, but it's still not as good/amazing as the early 2020 days. The weather rendering engine itself in MSFS is certainly capable of great and varied clouds depiction as can be seen in manually configured weather. They just need to fix or overhaul the code that processes live weather data (and/or get better or more data), METAR blending, etc. Yup, waiting for a weather improvement or overhaul focused SU once they get past the bugs fixing and stabilization phase.

Yup agreed... iniBuilds went all-in and exclusive on MSFS of course, and I'd venture to say Toliss by all what they've said/done so far appear to be more than dipping their toes. For example they've stated the new external FM is meant to make it easier for them to cater to both MSFS and XP with a mostly common codebase, etc. That sounds to me like they're definitely intending to develop more aircraft for MSFS, and with the success and reception of the A340 why wouldn't they, especially when visuals are being taken care of by Aerosoft. I'd say Toliss have entered the MSFS market with both feet 😉 With the 2024 platform and its capabilities + SDK as they currently stand, any high fidelity dev who wants to cash in on the MSFS market can do so, especially if it's an aircraft not already available (i.e. not another A32x hehe)

We are mega spoilt for choice and it only seems to be getting better and better day by day 🙂 Once a good A330 and B747 arrive then I feel the son has a good airliner base to further build on. The likes of iniBuilds do seem to be improving their aircraft as they iterate thru fixpacks and also new aircraft. Their upcoming A380 might be their best Airbus yet. As for Boeings, good to see PMDG making recent improvements like the 777's handling, etc. Hopefully their 747 will be a showcase of all what they've learned on the MSFS platform so far. Also hoping that new devs like Vector will do for Boeings what Fenix did for Airbuses.

Loved this question 🙂 which is a follow-up to a previous question of why Vector is only targeting MSFS 2024: https://youtu.be/vvZrPcYl5jc?t=836 Q: "I believe many don't understand how much innovation MSFS 2024 brought to the table. I still hear people who naively believe this could have been an expansion or a DLC" A: She agreed and goes on to say how it's a completely different flight engine and CFD flight model (given 2024's more detailed aircraft geometry definition for the CFD computations to run over), system depth, visual fidelity and its modular development system, etc ("it's a new simulator and massive jump from 2020 to 2024") Thankfully looks like they're making full use of 2024's FDE and CFD capabilities along of course with all the other improvements, rather than being hampered by lowest common denominator type functionality in order to serve both 2020 and 2024.

In terms of aircraft decks being pristine or worn, I guess it could also be tied to the IRL aircraft they have available to scan in 3D and do whatever other digitization processes? I'm far from an expert in 3D modelling/visualization, but is it fair to say that the higher level of visual detail they they aim for, then the harder it becomes to stray away from the actual IRL aircraft (and its level of newness or worn state) that they are using to model the sim one?

It's linked from their site https://www.vector-sim.com/ (Discord: https://discord.gg/Vb9vTyVYgP) Looking forward to these deeper dives!

As already stated multiple times, the 2024 ground handling enhancements are *opt-in*. I get why they would make it opt-in so as to not break aircraft that's already developed and tuned for the MSFS 2020 FDE and whatever workarounds and tweaks the aircraft dev did. Unfortunately, for the default fleet only the C172 and a couple of other aircraft have the full 2024 capabilities (wish Asobo would treat all their default fleet to the latest/greatest). Out of curiosity, have you evaluated the ground handling of the C172 (G1000 version) in 2024? Evaluating that would be the true evaluation I think of MSFS 2024's core ground handling capabilities, or lack thereof (at least for GA aircraft). In terms of 3rd party aircraft, it's difficult to know what if any of the core 2024 features they are using vs custom, etc.

Likely comes down to the aircraft and if they're taking advantage of 2024's ground handling features in their FM config (since it's opt-in), and also how well and what customizations have been done. The only two aircraft in the default fleet AFAIK that fully (or mostly) use the 2024 FDE and ground handling features are the C172 (G1000 version) and another one I forget now. What aircraft do you fly? How do you find the C172's ground handling in 2024 vs 2020 for example?