FAQ

[azulkb 302]

I don't know if this topic is useful, but here it is: it brings together most of the questions that arise here, on a regular basis, and for which we have answers.

If this topic is useful, I suggest to feed it as we go along, but only with reliable information, confirmed information. i will edit, with information you can give.

 

Quality of the Flight Model :
takes into account the parameters of the plane, its surface, and also the pressure, the wind, the passage or not in disturbances.
One can for example have a different behaviour from the right wing to the left wing according to these parameters.

Can we go back to the default flight model of previous flight simulators? 
Yes, you can.

Aircraft confirmed:
Diamond DA-62 - A320Neo - Icon A5 - Robin DR400 - Bonanza G36 - X-Cub - Cessna 208 - Cessna 172 G1000 - TBM 930 - Cap10 - 747-800i - Cessna Citation CJ4

Weather:
New system based on physical parameters. Virtually all cloud types are handled, up to 65,000 feet in altitude.
For example, humidity and pressure are taken into account. Pollution can play a role in visibility. 32 cloud layers can be generated.
Based on real weather data or by user's choice through an interface.
Rain is in 3D, icing of the aircraft is possible. Rainbow generation, etc , depending on physical parameters.
visibility airliners : up to 600km

Light:
real physical parameters, be it shadow, light, reflections.

Water:
calculated as a cloud layer, wave movements influenced by the wind.

Peripherals:
all of the best used devices. In test also very successful systems like in simulation rooms.

Cockpit:
all elements are interactive, switch alarms, etc.

Instruments: I leave it to the specialist to fill in I don't know anything about them.

Check list:
interactive, visual

Difficulty:
3 game modes. Doesn't change anything in the behaviour of the plane but simply the simulator, like an virtual assistant that takes care of more or less things depending on the complexity of the chosen mode.

Traffic:
air & road. Aerial based on real data. They also talked about integrating train and boat traffic.

Multiplayer:
yes.

Animals:
yes.

World:
realistic sun and moon position, realistic day and night cycle.
Based on bing map + various datas, the whole compiled by an artificial intelligence (azure) and streamed to the players.
The procedural generates the finest details such as grass.
And Azure allowed to fill the world with houses and trees in respect of urban plans and cultural areas.
And in addition 400 photogrammetic zones.

Quality of world:
3 modes,
offline or the finest details will not be present nor the photogrammetic zones.
Online, where the maximum quality can be reached,
and downloading, which is the same but on areas predefined by the user.

Required connection:
4Mbits for medium quality, 10Mbits for maximum quality.

Required equipment:
a very recent and high performance machine for the maximum level of detail and in 4K.
But switching to HD or removing 1 or 2 of the 20 levels of detail allows it to run very smoothly on an average machine.
The frame rate does not play on the calculations related to the flight dynamics which are processed in a parallel process to guarantee a fluid control of the aircraft.

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by azulkb

[SamYeager 245]

Just a minor point; the checklist is optional.

[FDEdev 955]

Piper Cub on floats and C172 with 'classic' cockpit are missing.

Edited January 10, 2020 by FDEdev

[GlideBy 324]

4 hours ago, azulkb said:

Quality of the Flight Model :
takes into account the parameters of the plane, its surface, and also the pressure, the wind, the passage or not in disturbances.
One can for example have a different behaviour from the right wing to the left wing according to these parameters.

First of all, since this is a FAQ which is mostly read by new people, I am being a bit picky about it.  I am just offering suggestions only.

So, for the flight model, I suggest we mention the 1,000 points of information, as well as dynamic weather effects.  And link to the aerodynamics video.

 

4 hours ago, azulkb said:

Can we go back to the default flight model of previous flight simulators? 
Yes, you can.

This implies you can pick any previous flight sim, but as far as I know you can only go back to MS FS X.

 

4 hours ago, azulkb said:

Weather:

I suggest a link to the weather video.   

4 hours ago, azulkb said:

Peripherals:

For example: We know they are working on the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, Honeycomb, Saitek X-55 HOTAS, Realsimgear, and others.

4 hours ago, azulkb said:

Cockpit:
all elements are interactive, switch alarms, etc.

Do you have a source that says all switches work and they all do what they should do?  I wasn't aware they had stated that.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Difficulty:
3 game modes. Doesn't change anything in the behaviour of the plane but simply the simulator

I am confused here.  I thought you could choose a simpler flight model.  Which may or may not be the MSFS X model.  I tried to find where they talked about it, but couldn't.  So maybe I am misremembering.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Multiplayer:
yes.

This needs more details.  Like can you share a cockpit, right now no, but might be added later.  ATC/ max players, unknown.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Quality of world:

You mention Offline, Online, and Downloading.  This is confusing, as if you are downloading, aren't you online?  And if you have precached an area and are offline, then you can have the best scenery.  I would suggest you get rid of this, as it is not really a question.  And move the information, rewritten of course, into the Required connection section.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Required connection:

As mentioned, this is where it should mention the offline info from above.  And it should also mention that they have 20 levels of details, so it will the best it can with your connection if you are streaming the data as you go.  And if you want the best scenery, you can preload it before your flight, so you don't even need internet during your flight.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Required equipment:
a very recent and high performance machine for the maximum level of detail and in 4K.
But switching to HD or removing 1 or 2 of the 20 levels of detail allows it to run very smoothly on an average machine.

I don't think they have mention specs yet.  Do you have a source for this other than TA rumors?  And the 20 levels of detail was for bandwidth, not PC specs, unless you have a different source.  "It will have twenty different levels of realism, depending on the available bandwidth."  I would simply say specs have not been released, but they are working hard to make it playable on most modern computers.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

Check list:
interactive, visual

Shows a onscreen checklist, as well as high lighting the switch or knob that needs to be adjusted.  

------

Helicopters - Not currently, they want to get the core game working right first.

Do I need a subscription - No, you do not need a subscription.  The scenery is available without a subscription.

[Bottle 663]

Globe is divided into 64 meter cubes stacked one on top of the other up to 65,000 feet. Atmospheric conditions (including wind direction, etc.) are then calculated within each cube.

This came from one of the German magazine interviews if I recall correctly (or at least from one of the non-English interviews). It’s one of the more impressive features of the sim if you ask me.

[GlideBy 324]

26 minutes ago, Bottle said:

This came from one of the German magazine interviews

From golem.de, full translated quote - 

Golem.de: The weather comes in real time from a weather service. Is every pixel reproduced in a storm, a cloud or a hurricane, or do you have a kind of wind shader?

Neumann: We divided the world into squares with a side length of 64 meters each, up to a height of 65,000 feet. For each of these cubes there are values for air humidity, air pressure, which particles are floating around and other sensor data. This also means that the air is traveling in the correct wind direction and strength.

The clouds in the flight simulator consist of voxels and are represented with the help of raymarching - a kind of ray tracing. The clouds are also generated dynamically. When it rains and gets warmer, it creates buoyancy.

[Bottle 663]

Brilliant. Thank you @GlideBy

 

BTW, though it will be quite a task, I think this FAQ is an excellent idea, but didn’t we have a thread early on called something like “what we know so far”?

[azulkb 302]

1 hour ago, Bottle said:

Brilliant. Thank you @GlideBy

 

BTW, though it will be quite a task, I think this FAQ is an excellent idea, but didn’t we have a thread early on called something like “what we know so far”?

yes but need read all post.

but, i have a second difficulty i cannot edit my first post again. if someone with moderator acces can edit, and add information given by @GlideBy and @SamYeager and FDEdev

all switches => many switches

3 hours ago, GlideBy said:

I don't think they have mention specs yet.  Do you have a source for this other than TA rumors?  And the 20 levels of detail was for bandwidth, not PC specs, unless you have a different source.  "It will have twenty different levels of realism, depending on the available bandwidth."  I would simply say specs have not been released, but they are working hard to make it playable on most modern computers.

interview from boss asobo i try to refind the link. (he talk about personal test with a 1060)

edit the link a 7:04  (-https://youtu.be/T_dVZ0DPHkc?t=434)

60 frames by second with a old graphic card but at hd resolution 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by azulkb

[GlideBy 324]

azilkb, thanks for the link, I have not seen that one before.  🙂  At around 8:54 doesn't he talk about very limited computers?  I don't speak french, so I am using a translator.  Either way, if it is 60fps with a 1060, that isn't bad assuming max settings.  And I presume they will try to optimize it further.

As for CPU they have said "In our performance analyzes, calculations for the entire climate system and the flight model are not going to need more than 5% of the capacity of a processor core, and today the processors have several cores. "

I guess my concern is that people will shy away from this if they don't have a "high end" system.

 

 

[azulkb 302]

Yes very limited system can run the simulator with upscale Or hd, and with 1 or 2 less lvl detail. They have actually 20 lvl of detail and only remove one increase much the performance. And the game support very well upscale.

[mSparks 2,104]

18 hours ago, azulkb said:

They have actually 20 lvl of detail

as far as I know this refers to the standard 20 slippy map levels, such as

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Zoom_levels

which both go (google ortho) and bi (bing images) works very similar to if not the same.

This is about the space/bandwidth required rather than performance.

lvl20 requires a massive amount of vram and hard disk space. but once you have the data in memory performance is basically identical (that inverted typhoon shot I took was lvl17, is 15GB of data for 1x2arc degrees lat/long and was running at 120fps on a gtx1070, the msfs2020 promo shot was more like lvl15)

if this is the case "offline"  will be global lvl13 or 14 (which is a few hundred gb for the entire world), with lvl20 points of interest. full lvl20 maps require silly numbers of terabytes even with very aggressive compression and will definitely be streaming only.

Edited January 12, 2020 by mSparks

[Scottoest 1,561]

I believe Froogle mentioned after the September event, that Asobo told him the default level of ortho detail was ZL 19.

The "20 levels of detail" refers to stuff like temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, etc.  In addition, it also processes 60 layers of cloud data.

[mSparks 2,104]

1 hour ago, Scottoest said:

default level of ortho detail was ZL 19.

including ZL0 that would be 20.

1 hour ago, Scottoest said:

temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, etc.  In addition, it also processes 60 layers of cloud data.

I would be very surprised if they turned any of that off, non of the other sims do. its only to 64m / lvl11 detail anyway, which is already lower than the competition.

Edited January 12, 2020 by mSparks

[azulkb 302]

Please respect idea with the FAQ

only confirmed information not speculation. Thinks I say about lvl detail come from French interview. No need to argue about that.

french version

Quote

alors, la configuration précise n'est pas encore communiqué tout simplement par ce qu'on optimise encore.
c'est a dire qu'il y a d'un coté la mémoire et la puissance de calcul, il y a la carte graphique, la connexion internet, tout cela c'est encore flottant...
ici les gens jouent en 4k natif sur une machine qui existe dans le commerce, c'est pas une machine incroyable qui n'existe pas, mais flight simulator a toujours été extrêmement configurable, on ajoute nous de plus en plus d'options, moi au bureau je règle beaucoup , beaucoup l'aerodynamique de vol et donc j'ai besoin d'un framerate tres élévé, et j'ai le même rendu. Par contre je ne joue pas en 4K mais en 2500 pixels et j'ai une carte graphique qui a déja plusieurs années accessible a tres bon marché et ca tourne tres bien. Parce qu'on peu avec des options, pa exemple la il n'y a pas de upscale, c'est du natif mais l'upscale marche tres tres bien, ca dégrade tres peu, et par exemple moi je peut mettre de l'upscale ca va me doubler mon framerate si j'ai vraiment besoin de 60 images par seconde ce ne va pas etre un probleme.
Grace au cloud on a 20 lod pour chaque endroit du monde, donc on peut supprimer 1 lod pour une différence imperceptible, et cela va prendre 4 fois moins de mémoire et tout va 4 fois plus vite.

english deepL traduction (but french version is 100% accurate)

Quote

 

then the precise configuration is not yet communicated simply by what is still being optimized.
that is to say that there is on one side the memory and the computing power, there is the graphic card, the internet connection, all this is still floating...
here people play in 4k native on a machine that exists in the trade, it's not an incredible machine that doesn't exist, but flight simulator has always been extremely configurable, we add more and more options, I at the office I set a lot, a lot of the aerodynamics of flight and so I need a very high framerate, and I have the same rendering. On the other hand I don't play in 4K but in 2500 pixels and I have a graphic card that has already several years at a very cheap price and it works very well. Because you can use a lot of options, for example there is no upscale, it's native but the upscale works very well, it degrades very little, and for example I can put upscale it will double my framerate if I really need 60 frames per second it's not going to be a problem.

Thanks to the cloud we have 20 lod for each place in the world, so we can delete 1 lod for an imperceptible difference, and it will take 4 times less memory and everything goes 4 times faster.

 

 

.... useless talk about the evolution of machines ....

and then he then talks about the offline version, where everything is already very precise, but with less photogrammetic data ...

So in  FAQ , confirmed information is 20 lvl of detail for lod.

ZL0-ZL19 or zL2-zL21 or zL3-zL22 is speculation, or put real source from asobo or microsoft.

and second objective in this FAQ is to find fast respons for new people come here. Not to compare with concurence.

Edited January 12, 2020 by azulkb

[mSparks 2,104]

this is the definition of a slippy map.

5 hours ago, azulkb said:

so we can delete 1 lod for an imperceptible difference, and it will take 4 times less memory and everything goes 4 times 

->every increase in level of detail breaks the map into new 4 tiles.

when the say "the cloud" they don't mean clouds you see in the simulator. They mean Azure.

No speculation. just basic definition of terms.