Any update or timeline for GSX?

[dsmbell 36]

This is not aimed at you Virtuali.

[WestAir 2,533]

A month ago I wrote "putting another user on your ignore list is a sign of poor communication skills."

Looks like the old me is about to be really disappointed in present me, because I have no interest in hearing that guy communicate ever again. /ignore.

[RALF9636 2,043]

I will never understand why a single person is able to ruin an interesting thread. Why do other users keep responding to him? All would be fine if he would just be ignored. You don't even need the ignore function of Avsim, just use the ignore function of your brain.

So, can we get back to the interesting question: Any update or timeline for GSX?

[charliearon 3,137]

Hope you children are done!  Keep it on topic or further, more drastic actions will take place! 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,118]

Our friend has been given a week off. Normal civilised discussion can continue.

[captain420 3,109]

Justice has just been served!

[Ray Proudfoot 9,118]

29 minutes ago, dsmbell said:

How has this and gone the same way as so many other topics on here - people just ranting for no real purpose.

Don’t be put off posting perfectly legitimate questions because some people can’t help themselves and want to turn it into a scrap. The mods get notified of this type of behaviour and sort it out pretty quickly. 👍

[Drumcode 1,961]

19 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

MSFS SDK does need to evolve to support everything GSX can do, hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

I have a good, but short 🙂 memory. Do you remember what was the usual turnaround on SDK for the FSX and prior versions? I realize that it's unfair to expect a fast turnaround on a brand new platform, but is the speed in which Asobo are adding features to SDK an expected one, or do you think they're dragging their feet?  

[captain420 3,109]

I'm not sure, but there are others mods I'm anxiously waiting for that so desperately depend on the SDK being mature, such as AIG OCI.

[virtuali 4,568]

29 minutes ago, Drumcode said:

Do you remember what was the usual turnaround on SDK for the FSX and prior versions?

FSX only had 3 major releases:

- RTM which came with an SDK in October 2006
- SP1, which came with an updated SDK in May 2007
- Acceleration Pack, which came with an updated SDK in October 2007

SP2, funnily enough, came a few months after X-Pack, with no changes to the SDK.

Right now, from a programming point of view ( Simconnect, which lots of the more advanced add-ons rely on) in the MSFS SDK hasn't yet reached feature-parity with FSX ( let alone P3D, which has 3x the number of functions ). It does much more in other areas, but Simconnect is not yet complete.

The things which we are missing the most are:

- The ability to temporarily take an event ( key or joystick button ) from the sim, and use it without being transmitted back to the sim. This is used mostly in the various GSX editors ( airplane, airport and custom pushback ). We might have to pressure Asobo to add this, because they didn't seem to keen to add it. FSX supported it just fine, and it was an officially documented procedure.

- The Simconnect menu, which is how you interact with GSX the most. We are waiting to see how Asobo will decide to support it, either using the (officially undocumented as of today ) new HTML/JS menu system, or by opening the Scenery Editor UI to 3rd parties. They seemed to have hinted the latter approach but, in the meantime many add-ons started to use the HTML/JS menu system which, being undocumented, usually results in issues at every update ( SU5 changed the location for custom toolbar icons, for example ). Our code can be easily changed to support any kind of menu and, right now, while Asobo decides what to do, we are doing our internal tests of GSX in MSFS using a custom menu, which can be replaced in minutes to go back to a more "official" method. 

Other than that, GSX is basically working in MSFS but, before we might discuss release dates, there are still a tons of things to do, mostly modeling new vehicles and new animations, to keep the level of quality on par with the rest of the MSFS planes and airports.

And while we add those, we are also adding new features which might eventually appear in P3D first.

An example is the recent addition of reading custom .BGL files from the %APPDATA%\Virtuali\GSX folder, which has been added mainly to sort out the issue of GSX not being able to read files for airports bought on the MS Marketplace, because they are encrypted. This fixes the issue, provided the scenery developer would give users access to an unencrypted version of just the airport file, which doesn't even have to be complete, since GSX only needs data about parking spots, taxiway paths and runways. So, we added it to P3D first.

Same for multi-liveries: we'll need them in MSFS, because DirectX rendering is not available (and I'm sure it never will), so we added multi-liveries to P3D V5 now, since they will be used similarly in MSFS.

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by virtuali

[WestAir 2,533]

5 minutes ago, virtuali said:

-snip-

Hey Umberto, I know you don't (usually) do requests, but if your animations / modeling team ever runs out of stuff to do or has free time, one feature I'd love to see added is season-dependent attire. (Coats in winter, t-shirts in summer). I dunno how that would work with the hemispheres but I figured the worst you could say is no. Thanks for the info update and have a great day!

[dsmbell 36]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Don’t be put off posting perfectly legitimate questions because some people can’t help themselves and want to turn it into a scrap. The mods get notified of this type of behaviour and sort it out pretty quickly. 👍

Thanks for the comments. This one seems back on track now. A good update from Virtuali, shame an idea on release date can't be provided but understand why he doesn't want to do this.

Just looking forward to a few months time when hopefully we will have something from Fenix, PMDG and hopefully GSX.

[Drumcode 1,961]

34 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Other than that, GSX is basically working in MSFS but, before we might discuss release dates, there are still a tons of things to do, mostly modeling new vehicles and new animations, to keep the level of quality on par with the rest of the MSFS planes and airports.

This sounds a bit promising. I personally (and I think others too) would be totally onboard with using a custom menu. Unless of course you feel the product would lack some fundamental features, otherwise I'd say, we're ready! Bring it on! 🙂

[Carts85 1,203]

Is there an open topic that we can vote for that will push Asobo into making the changes needed to get GSX out there already?

[captain420 3,109]

1 hour ago, Carts85 said:

Is there an open topic that we can vote for that will push Asobo into making the changes needed to get GSX out there already?

That would be to prioritize SDK development so that we can get offline traffic AI such as GSX and AIG OCI working. I believe there is already a topic you can vote regarding the SDK. I really hope they prioritize this so developers aren't stuck at where they are with getting their addons out.