March Hare

You took the words right out of my fingers. I think the more they move to the cloud, especially texture streaming, the more likely simmers will have a varied experience; on low bandwidth and connection speed it will likely download the lower quality versions of textures, to prevent severe performance issues. Could be wrong, but it seems logical.

With the fact MSFS 2024 will utilise my hardware better, with multi-threading, and more done on server side, I still have confidence in my GTX1070 and core i7 system to run it well. I run the current version on full ultra settings, albeit in 1080p at a capped 30FPS, but it looks great and is smooth.

I wouldn't doubt it. I know of a game in development right now that has over 400 full-time developers working on it.

Obviously we will have to wait and see exactly what the plan is, but I did wonder whether the new flight simulator might be focused on the missions demonstrated in the trailer, so it will be more focused, whereas the existing version will still be developed for general simulation. But then again, I guess it wouldn't be called Flight Simulator 2024, if that were the case, it would probably have a different subtitle... 🤔

While those images are too compressed to see properly, this "pixelation" we see is visibility of the voxels making up the volumetric clouds. The extent to which voxels become noticeable will vary according to the lighting conditions and, I believe (and demonstrated, a long time ago), the complexity and performance impact of the current rendering scenario; the voxels are larger, therefore more noticeable, when more is happening on screen as part of an adaptive process to limit negative impact on performance.

Was I imagining it, or haven't they now put historical weather under investigation on the roadmap? Which would, I believe, mean they are now actively looking at development and implementation methods.

People often misunderstand how this industry works, so this should really be reworded as follows: "it seems like the most logical place would be on issues Microsoft doesn't want Asobo to work on, rather than ones they do want Asobo to work on." The reality is that the publisher (Microsoft here) has total control. The development team (Asobo) does what the publisher demands; their focus is directed by the publisher at every step. Asobo don't decide whether or not to develop an API further.

I don't. DLSS isn't available on a GTX card 😉

It definitely depends on Nvidia. When DX12 memory optimisation was removed from the bets for Nvidia GPUs only, and folk were concerned, I said don't worry, they will be working on a private build, liaising with Nvidia support to fix the bugs, then they will reinstate it. In the latest stream, they said they are working with Nvidia to fix the bugs then they will reinstate it.

You will absolutely need the latest Nvidia driver for the DX12 memory optimization when it's reinstated, as the bugs in it were an Nvidia issue, to be patched by them in a driver as much as any necessary changes in Asobo's implementation. Latest GPU drivers can include code libraries with unique functions/commands that the code is calling, so if you don't update you wouldn't, for example, have access to DLSS if you have an RTX card. Obviously it's not going to be so much of an issue if you have an older GPU that can't utilise things that are specific to later ones, such as DLSS, but you still might be missing out on other new code that comes with the latest driver to get the best out of DX12.

Yes, and this is exactly how Asobo said they were approaching its development over the coming months or years, when discussing weather in several live streams (not ignoring any discussion of weather at all; I mean, the layer improvements are mentioned in the SU10 beta notes, so I don't see how they can be accused of ignoring discussions of weather).

I can almost guarantee Asobo would like a big chunk of time to do just that. Sadly it all depends on Microsoft allowing them to. And I can understand why Microsoft wouldn't want them to switch over to only bug fixing at the expense of new features for a significant period of time.

Indeed. Much of the weather depiction is dependent on the data modeling being streamed into the engine, not only the rendering engine itself, hence REX supposedly looks better despite the fact it's using Asobo's cloud rendering technology (although as well I think preset engine and live engine must be different, with the former being easier to control depiction, which is what REX is tapping into). So, yes, Asobo can improve live weather server-side (no code update required) as well as by tweaking the engine itself (does require an update).

There's the weather system too. Always data being streamed and crunched in some way 😉

Also to consider: even if you enable DLSS in settings, it won't actually activate itself in reality unless certain frame timing conditions are met, as explained by the guy who helped to create the technology. In other words, it will work if it thinks your setup warrants it. I guess that's AI for you 😉