High_Alpha

Animated waterfalls and river rapids, it would make bush flying much more exciting. And please add water skiing without immediately being told you've crashed...🙄

Thanks for all the testing and hardware spec information! Does anyone know how ram frequency and latency improves performance? I know there has been other in depth benchmarks done, but nobody has looked at this aspect of performance as far as I am aware. Since getting a nearly constant 60 frames at ultra might just barely be possible with an RTX 3090 I'd like to be able to get as many extra frames on average as possible, so is it worth getting 64GB of 4000 MHz ram?

Hopefully they will overhaul it, I don't see it happening any sooner than a year or longer from now though. Other stuff (like the autopilot and vectors) needs to get fixed sooner in my opinion. Until then the best option that would hypothetically work is something like VoiceAttack so you can talk to ATC rather than use a clunky menu that takes up a lot of screen real estate, I dread to think how you would use it practically in VR for instance...

If the mods think this is better suited to another forum section my apologies, please move it as as you see fit... I've got several questions regarding ram usage, the ideal spec recommends 32GB of ram. Are people seeing close to that in usage on max settings at 4k in places like New York? How will lots of mods affect ram usage? Once DX12 is supported will more than 32GB make a noticeable difference on a CPU like a 10900K? Do you think 64GB is a better choice long term, especially with VR use? Any input is much appreciated!

Oops... Thanks...

Fair enough, you've both changed my opinion. Personally I still don't see myself spending any time or money in the other platforms although your mileage may vary. I'd rather look at the long term potential (even with the uncertainty) than the short term usefulness of which simulator is best, but I understand that is quite vague at this point. I guess it all currently depends on use case.

Apples to oranges... How is comparing a simulator that is literally less than a month into sales and post release development to something that has been available for around 4 years and had plenty of time for third party add-ons to be refined an accurate comparison? Sure x-plane with mods is good, what do you think MSFS will look like in that same time frame? Also how does x-plane look when you fly out of the boundaries of pre-downloaded scenery? No MSFS isn't perfect regardless of where you fly, it will probably still be far better than what x-plane can offer after it has had equal time for developers to figure things out. If you have already invested time and money into another platform there's nothing wrong with using it until it actually becomes obsolete, but if you were to pick a sim to start building on now I don't think x-plane is the better choice, just my opinion of course.

Do we know for certain that the lift data that is being represented in the middle of the biplane is not the mean centre of lift as opposed to a singular “invisible wing”? I think this is just a misunderstanding of the graphics they’ve used to show the aero data. I’d like to know what the actual flight model is using to interpolate lift as opposed to the in game visualizer... Based on some of the other shortcomings in the stock aircraft I wouldn’t be too surprised if you’re correct, but I personally haven’t seen anything definitive about it yet...

I’d love to see a Turbine Legend with a Garrett TPE-311s

Ditto! I’m very excited to see how the bonanza will fly after the new flight model, it will probably be the first look we have into what a properly sorted flight model in the new sim will be like, since the high tier 3PD’s are hopefully starting completely from scratch in all aspects and will unfortunately be quite a while longer...

Well I’d be interested in knowing what issues the turboprops have... I’ve heard the startup isn’t accurate, but are there in flight problems? (it’s hard to understand the ones you’ve described with no cockpit video...). How do they model beta thrust on landing?

I do think it’s a problem worth solving if thrust levels are off by such an absurd margin in some of the planes... How do they expect you to accurately fly approaches by the numbers if the power settings aren’t accurate? I hope the “study level” 3PD’s take that into account, otherwise high performance aircraft are not going to be worthwhile in my opinion...

@hangar "You could fly a turbulent approach on MSFS without any roll inputs. This is definitely wrong." Does this mean crosswinds aren’t accurately modelled?

It’s my understanding usually takeoffs and landings are performed with free and correct controls, I wouldn’t really characterize those as extreme manoeuvres. But I do find fingertip flying much more precise in other stages of flight. Helicopter pilots (of which I have no experience) probably find the same thing applies more broadly speaking...

This is the correct way of fixing the problems that some people have with the flight model. That being said lowering the sensitivity in the flight model as opposed to on the end users settings might at least stop people complaining when they don’t set things up properly...

I agree, but I think they should be implementing a substitute for that lost feedback by altering the deflection curve in the flight models themselves. Either that or support the limited number of force feedback controllers in the game with presets without needing third party software profiles for different planes.

Just wondering if you could clarify, do you think the flight dynamics engine is flawed? Or are the parameters just being incorrectly set to create accurate flight models? I was very hesitant to make a concrete assessment about how the sim flies with the stock aircraft before the game was even released and the testers couldn’t share their opinions, but I do have to concur the stock aircraft are not great (but still better than in some older popular simulators), I am however still very optimistic 3PD’s can get things right...

Eager to see the review! Before it’s available though I figured I’d ask if the flight model seems less flawed in the ways some of the other forum members have critiqued? I haven't flown the sim yet but the standard planes do seem to be too reactive to control inputs... I’m really hoping the 3PD’s get it right to utilize the sim to its fullest potential...

Somewhat related to the original post, if you can alter the flight model of aircraft does that mean people doing the landing challenges can give their aircraft advantageous performance figures? How exactly does altering the parameters work in the multiplayer aspect of the sim?

With the HP Reverb G2 being the first VR headset being supported by the new sim I am eager to jump in and buy it, but I want to know if I am better off waiting for other headsets to be supported. What is the best no compromise (or least compromise) VR headset available? How does the Pimax 8KX compare?

I haven't seen any footage of the sim in completely "dead air" so I can't comment on that, but you are right it should be very smooth (on rails not really, P-factor and gyroscopic procession as examples...). With regards to the sim as a whole I definitely think it is still in what would be considered an early access stage, but I am very hopeful things will improve with time. Perhaps look at it this way, x-plane 9 came out in 2008 and it had some serious problems with the flight model in terms of realism, perhaps call them limitations. X-plane 11 came out in 2016 and was a massive improvement, that spans 8 years. Asobo has the Microsoft slush-fund to get things sorted out and has a much more comprehensive starting point when looking at all aspects of the simulator as whole when compared to x-plane (in my opinion). They've said they are looking at a 10 year road map. Things will get better with time, and since so many third party developers have signed on to adopt the new simulator (even exclusively with regards to new projects in some cases is my understanding?) I really doubt this sim will end up going the way of Microsoft flight... I think we just need to temper our short term expectations and give the developers both first and third party time to sort things out.

If you have a hotas, yoke, and throttle quadrant are you able to keep all of them plugged in and configure the same key maps to separate devices? I'm hoping I will be able to go from yoke and throttle quadrant to hotas without needing to plug stuff in and move things around every time. Does anyone have a setup like this that can provide any insight?

One of the primary things I'm initially excited for is the landing challenge leader boards, how long do you think it will take before people manage to achieve impossible scores? How will Asobo prevent cheaters from rendering the whole thing pointless?

If you have tried both do you think VoiceAttack is more practical than Ultraleap hand tracking? Could you theoretically use both? Also could you hypothetically use eye tracking to "target" buttons you want to interact with using actual buttons on your peripherals?

Very helpful thread, thanks everyone!