dtrjones

Flight will use REX but not the same REX you are using in FSX, you'll have to buy a new one (in the marketplace store), can you use REX FS9 with FSX or can you use REX FSX with FS9.... so why do you think you'll be able to use your REX FSX with Flight......put yourself in the REX owner's shoes...what will you do..you already have REX for FSX right so what's the problem? Now if you want to play with Flight ....well.....by the only REX compatible with Flight when available.How does it goes..."You "wanna" play you pay"......

It's too early to say if REX using its current methods will be suitable for Flight i.e. will they transition REX Flight, or start from scratch or not bother at all? Microsoft the developer reserve the right to change the way something is created - whats seen in these screenshots might not be whats in the final version. What happens if the weather was render using a particle system which didn't use any images... A bit far fetch but it demonstrates the point that maybe some products could carry over and maybe some others will not.Further more with the break to a new franchise who is to say any FSX product will not be obsolete. I'm sure a system can be put in place to upgrade to Flight's way of thinking for some products, however it remains to be seen if this will be commercially viable for a lot of products currently in use by FSX (let alone older versions). I can see a lot of pain in the area and the transition of some older products may not be as forthcoming as in past versions.For weather, my belief is that Microsoft have yet to show their hand as they would have shown us more weather focused images. Certainly by the way mist in rendered in the PC Pilot shots, I think we can expect a big improvement in this area...Cheers,Dave.

Tessellation on what? the aircraft already have too many polygons and everything else has too little to even benefit. What exactly would you apply it to?

You got to be kidding me in'it, tessellation used for terrain, you got be seenin the individual grass yeah, like the water close up movin around, what about the dynamic tess effect, movin in out with detail changin, do you get me, you got get it yeah, its freakin cool know what i mean, do you get me, you got to get me! TaajTaaj ManzoorRoving ground crew for FlyLo(ps currently on strike until the planes start flyin again...)

I don't doubt it could be. done... I just doubt it would look good afterwards to justify a 360 release :)

Maybe, but arn't we making too many assumptions about Flight performance...? - It could be well capable of 60fps on 360 related (PC inspired) hardware and still look great!More to the point though, on the PC market decline - it has done for years - market forces. However a demograhic exists on the PC that doesn't anywhere else, if you want to simulate a tractor where else can you do that other than the PC hehe! Todays consoles borrow so much from the PC's open architecture, on the software side first person perspective shoot'emups had its birth on the PC and now dominate console games... it would be impossible to just drop PC's from the mix of software sales. What platform do you think these games are developed on after all... The PC games suit a slightly more mature audiance, I'm very happy with my lot on the PC. Only ever really had a gripe with Rockstar for not making Red Dead Redemption for the PC, but other than that I'm ok with it's collection of titles.Cheers,Dave.

However, I believe Flight will evolve into supporting the next gen XBOX.

That's a bold statement Jeff, and I can understand your fear. I don't believe Microsoft will ever loose 30+ years of simulation by 'changing' Flight to work just wilth consoles. However producing a console only version along it's PC big brother might not be a bad idea (aka like X-Plane which you have already mentioned) and certainly Flight's approach seems to bring this much closer.The problem with an XBox version of Flight is that I can't ever see it working without it being dumbed down - the demographic and available hardware just don't fit - not even close. Flight as it stands is ideally suited to the PC platform and that's where it should stay. Cheers,Dave.

As Empeck says, it’s not a matter of whether the lights are dynamic or not.FS has had dynamic lights for ages.It’s a matter of dynamic ColorByVertex vs. per-pixel…lighting. That’s the technology that is creeping into games.BTW, as you’d expect, per-pixel is not lightMapping - a static lighting method FS uses most of the time.As processing power increases per-pixel lighting can be used in larger and more complex environments.The sacrifice is frame rate. I have no idea if FS (the worst case for lighting) has the overhead to practically make use of this.The ocean is a shader issue…maybe call it an engine; but it’s also misleading to use jargon like that.The biggest influence on the quality of the ocean is resolution.Obviously the more resources you set aside for rendering the ocean the better it will look.It’s not rocket science to make a good ocean shader (just visit siggraph).The issue is what resources do you allot to the ocean…what else does the game have to do?For what it’s worth…I suspect Flight will have an excellent ocean shader.It’s valuable to look at WingsOfPrey and Outerra.Point out what’s working well…things we’d like to see. That’s constructive.But we can't assume we could add all the other FS systems to these products and still have a workable game.Also don’t assume FS isn’t capable of these effects...often they just won’t fit into the performance budget.The efficiency of the engine is just one of a dozen factors that influence the performance budget.In the big picture it’s not even the most important factor.My point is not that FSX (an old game at this point) doesn’t have lot’s of room for improvement…it does.I think about it this way, users gave MS a mandate to increase performance and the indication seem to be MS is making this a priority.

Good post dmaher. I'm interested in the tesselation wars at the moment and to see if Microsoft can be brave enough this time to see the potential in the use of tesselation. Dynamic tesselation used in some games has a measurable performance effect when rendering scenery at varing degrees of distances, imagine the levels of detail you could get in land and water when on the ground, but not scraffice any realism or performance when in the air - tesselation is the answer and a big part of the DirectX 11's kit bag. I hope its not too late and Microsoft embrace this technology for Flight, only time will tell of course....

what I did want to say is: since Microsoft has developed DirectX and owns the copyright and sources, they could and should have made better use of it in FSX than they actually did. Instead they mislead the public into believing that DX10 was required for great stunning graphics effects in FSX, which as we know now, was total BS. All just to lure us into the VISTA desert.But thanks to Microsoft's DirectX setting the defacto standard, there is now only one major graphics API left in the game market. I don't even want to think of the chaos had Rendermorphics, 3dfx's "GLIDE" and many other now "defunct" API's survived - somewhat. The game market and graphics cards power would never have grown at the same pace.Now they have a 2nd chance with FLIGHT. If it turns out still to be no major breakthrough, there is always xplane. And yes before we get into the next debate, xplane does not use DirectX and yes, you can cross all the channels in the world and fly from Japan nonstop to anywhere you like in xplane. 2011 will be the most interesting year since 2006 for fans of GA flight simulators, with 2 new versions of the only 2 remaining GA simulators that "survived" the erosion of the flight sim market. both will provide major improvements. time will tell if xplane can close the gap by finally attracting more 3rd party developers, or any at all for that matter. Austin Meyers ignored the importance of 3rd party developers way too long, though the writing was clearly on the wall and he is now paying a hefty price of virtually no 3rd party support. that's more than any supposedly more realistic flight model and what have you, can ever compensate for.Our Microsoft in Redmond, give us this day our directx11-feature packed FLIGHT.you shall lead us not again into temptation, but deliver us from evil frame rates. on earth as it is in heaven.

I think you've made a lot of reasonable points! I've always thought ACES seamed behind the curve when it has come to the graphics rendering and just felt that they were updating a pig. It feels different with Flight though, I think the performance benefits the team are addressing plus a different perspective and vision a (mostly) new team brings will make Flight more attractive, immersive and performant. It also can't go on unnoticed the good work Austin Meyers and his team are producing with X-Plane 10 to Microsoft either and so a little competition could bring out the best in both developers. I'm not sure I entirely agree with you on X-Planes 3PD support. I've been on the Aerosoft forums and talked to some other developers. X-Plane commercially simply doesn't have the same clout that the Microsoft product can boast and therefore has always been less viable to the commercial markets. If a developers has to put there eggs in one basket its really a no brainer. But the products produced for X-Plane have been reasonable so the tools and capabilities are there, but you need some garentee of a return as well.Cheers,Dave.

But anyone noticed the micro freezing during the video???I hope they are only due to recoprding and not inside the game!!!!

Yes I did notice the micro freezing, I couldn't tell you even if that was down to the performance of the SIM, I really don't think that is anything to worry about this far from release. It's not an answer but the hardware tech is also likely to change a fair bit (with ATI and NVidia gearing up for some big releases just round the corner) before the release of Flight anyway. I and don't think Flight will be released with anything other than a solid DirectX 11 implementation and decent performance.

We are just calling a duck a duck when we see one, that's all.

have you actually SEEN the duck or have you just seen pictures of it :( it does seem a long way away... call me quackers but from here its beginning looks like a swan...

But, I guess they are saving money reusing the same old bloated technology, again.

Part of a Microsoft quote from PC Pilot on key differences talks about addressing performance and optimizing the code. They say after 30 years FS has become fat, time to hit the gym... Microsoft also talk about shortening the development cycle so the changes they are doing appear to allow much quicker turnaround of possibly patches and future versions.Seems pretty convicing to me and should ease your concerns regarding the existing bloated code base.Cheers,Dave.

Were the pics in the article featuring anything new ?

There was a picture of the Stearman biplane (not the one below!) parked outside the control tower (control tower seen in earlier screenshots) at the disused Luke airfield in Hawaii. Have to say though the stearman in the mag runs this picture below very very close. The only way I can tell the one below isn't real is that the tail draggers back wheel is sitting nicely on the tarmac :( I think apart from the rendering which would have been created from the modelling application, It almost looks as if the model used in Flight could well be the same as below it's that good.Other affects are nice use of glass transparency on the Control tower buildings which is easier to see than the published screenshots in January, also the lighting in general off the buildings looks sublime. Very accurate and lifelike. Two other screenshots were included which were exclusive to the mag, both show the Maule over mountainous regions, one was an internal VC shot again showing subtle lighting and shade on the dash and some very nice mist affects on the ground below. The other was an external shot which again had mist but also included some reflections on the exterior model. It does seem very apparent that Microsoft are providing a much more complete rendering experiance, especially with the use of dynamic lighting covering all aspects of terrain and planes, gone it appears are the tricks of yesteryear like sprites for trees which affect the overall rendering. With this in mind I can see the weather system being completely updated to also make proper use of dynamic lighting too which could mean volumetric clouds and ground shadows... If this is the case, then REX could be a thing of the past...Cheers,Dave.

1. Water is about the same as you have with FSX and REX installed

I'd be very surprised if the water modelling was finished. They've changed the textures to suit the ambiance of the day night cycle, shadows seem better portrayed on water too. I believe they have still to work on the water modelling and textures so we'll just have to wait and see what they come up with.

The question will be will the evolution be enough for me to spend thousands of dollars buying all of my FSX addon's again? Will it be evolutionary enough for me to spend hundreds of hours customizing my envionment from scratch again? Will it be evolutionary enough to wait years and years for developers to re-release new versions of FSX aircraft and scenery?

I think Flight will be slightly different, I can see many people running Flight along side a heavily customised FSX, why not. This was a consideration with FS9 and FSX, but I can see Flight bringing in a few different angles and I think even the hardcore FSX'er would want to run Flight side by side just to see, the bottom line is its peanuts to pay for relatively speaking so why not have both.

Personally, I don't want to see any more shots of Hawaii because it is obviously a "detailed area", what I want to see is Po'Dunk Idaho and that will really reveal what the rest of the FSX world looks like.

Hawaii has a good veriety of scenery so Microsoft are using this place as a base for creating new technologies. I'm not sure you get what Microsoft have demonstrated so far. Hawaii might well be a detailed area, but most of the tech demos we've seen are based on default scenery, that's whats so pleasing - the tech will then be used all over the world, obviously with some regional variation of autogen and textures. The only custom scenery really has been the night time shot, but that appeared to include some FSX building autogen which I'm pretty confident will be updated anyway. We did also see some custom airport buildings as well and they looked amazing.However the 'detail' and custom scenery really has yet to arrive, I can't wait to see what Microsoft cook up!Cheers, Dave.

Mixed feelings...It looks like more densely packed autogen with some water effects that REX/ASX/FEX cannot give us in FSX.I also noticed a brief shadow moving across the wind during the flight... perhaps cloud or terrain shadowing?Still I have my hopes up for something yummy!

Mixed feelings maybe but its early days, I think the latest video is pretty cool. You can clearly see the trees are more like 3d models, thats going to make a huge difference, they are animated much better as a model, can reflect light - see the shadow cast between the valley - some light reaching the forrest floor, nice effect. It also looks like they've got reflections plugged in, which is going to add a nice touch to the next set of screenshots when they come out. I love the way the tree shadows move in the wind, its a very neat effect when looking at the silluette of the tree shadows on the ground. Good spot on the shadow moving accross the plane, pretty sure thats from the surrounding scenery however wouldn't that suggest the sun is setting / rising which doesn't appear likely in the video...All very promising and a lot of new stuff coming out from Microsoft this early in the development cycle. For others out there - getting a little tired of people saying its like FSX or using the FSX engine, please please please be patient, stay stum for a little while longer and give the developers a chance to work there magic, if its like FSX in 12 months time then fine, I won't be meeting you in the hanger at boeing fields but I'll wish you all the best anyway....Cheers,Dave.

+ 10I have followed Outerra for a long time now and let me tell you something....the day will come when somebody will make a Flight simulator using Outerra engine and starting that day they will be laughing their heads off all the way to the bank, don't care how good Flight will look.The main dev. looking at it right now are in the flight simulation business , NDA........Flight is not out yet and we don't know when it will be out but looking at the vid. it's easy to see that they are working on the old FSX to make it Flight, I'm welling to wait for Outerra BIG time, until then I'll use FSX.....with 3rd party scenery FSX ain't that bad after all.

I think your doing Microsoft a huge disservice - ok outerra has slopped runways, dense trees and clear, scalable computer scenery. Outerra can look pretty, but others would say its pretty mundane. All the examples I've seen make it look like very old fasion CGI graphics, Tron of the FS world (and not the new version either) not a world I wouldn't want to explore it at all. Also simmerhead, i like your posts and I know you do recognise the work Microsoft are doing - but I do remember you saying Flight looked cartoonish.... You can't get any more disney than outerra LOL. Please don't get me wrong, outerra's ok but its far from anything real regards SIM'ing is concerned - its modelling in the vids is very basic, and based on graphics its still no DCS A-10C Warthog.Cheers,Dave.

My private opinion though? Microsoft is like a woman: she has the absolute right to change her mind at any time, for any or no reason whatever! It comes as default behavior with the twin, forward-looking radar housings! :(

The experiance of a married man hey Bill? respect to you sir, and you may have solved my problem with women too, i'm too small, i need to put on more weight then maybe the twin forward looking radar housings might actually target ME for once.... Cheers,Dave.

1. It will use the Unreal 3 engine.2. It will be ported to XBox, the ground detail will be stunning, as in any modern FPS, but it won't contain the world, just 1 or two states of very high detail.3. Additional scenery will be in the XBox Live Marketplace.4. It will be simple, it will not be compatible with FSX, and it will be more a game than a simulator.5.Microsoft will not allow third-party developers.

Hi FlyingWild,I think you have some interesting ideas. Some likely, some not so likely. I like the perception of the way Microsoft can and do behave in the commercial world and you do infact know a bit about Microsoft ambitions with some other projects. You may or may not realise that the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise bucks the trend of todays instant action games in providing a landscape to create, play and develop ones interest in the simulation of flight. The inverably means that this dedicated audiance has a great understanding of flight simulation many of which can add real flying experiance as well, but it's a tough sell for a newbie.Ironically as Microsoft appears to add elements to make the experiance more focused for new players, it appears other developers are now choosing to embrace the sandbox philosophy, although all of these so called sandbox games usually build in a strong campaign to hold a game together. Going back to your suggestions, ok Unreal is unreal and not going to happen, Microsoft are probably evolving, updating and replacing the original 25 years of development on the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, we already know Microsoft respect this base and are unlikely to start again. People may scoff at porting to Xbox, but how many of you would have though X-Plane would run on a Palm OS! oh its all gone quiet lol... wait a minute I've got cotton buds stuck in my ears... seriously stanger things have happened, but this one won't.The use of the Xbox Marketplace, well now it does get interesting. It really depends on what Microsoft have in store (pun intended) with regards to the work on the gaming side of Flight. I can see some genuine interest in taking up expansion packs for missions, planes and scenery. Microsoft have played with this before, offering Pro and Standard versions of FS and providing the FSX Acceleration Pack, is it too much to think they could do the same again...I think saying it will be simple is a total misconception of the idea of dropping Simulator from the title. Microsoft have already burried this one. As much as they will add more gaming aspect to Flight to aid a new audiance, the Simulation aspects will at the very least remain the same. I also can't believe there will not be some compatibility with FSX either, but as wiser people than me has already stated, if Microsoft remain commited to supporting third party developers, they will find a way of porting some of the more established titles and we have no reason not to think this wouldn't be the case, wow too many double negatives, hope I didn't make any sense for none of you lol!Happy flying.Cheers,Dave.

From what I'm seeing, this thread is quite pointless. OHN, you gave your opinion/rant based on 10 screenshots and one video taken in a flight simulator in early development. What is the point of that? Complain to Microsoft if you are unhappy. Complaining here is useless.In a way, FSX was not so great. In other ways, it's the best PC flight simulator we can afford.

Hi Brandon, I agree. Microsoft are reaching out to us as early as they 'ever have in the course of a Flight Simulation based development but for some of us to complain about a product which isn't even in beta yet, it's a bit unfair.I think what Microsoft have shown us so far has been a wonderful progression and if you read between the lines from the various press releases you can see a platform developing which will provide genuine excitement and features to cover all levels of flying experiance for a wide range of hardware. You simply can't reach out to a wider audiance without making the simulation competant enough to run on todays and tomorrows hardware solutions. So all is looking good I believe.Cheers,Dave.