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Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:17 pm

First impressions...

First thing to note is I had to scale down to medium setting without any custom setting configuration, I'll do some customizing in the settings after I get a feel for it.

It's fun and the eye candy is really nice. I've already seen some minor glitches. Seen a truck hogging the highway and forcing an oncoming car to leave the road. In the medium detailed level I can see some moire pattern in the water, I didn't expect that at all.
In the medium detailed level there are no shadows on the trees, i expected that. I don't know if at higher detail you get tree shadows? The buildings had nice shadows. The preset cloud or weather settings have a few I would have expected to see a change in lighting yet had no change. For example the live weather (today's live weather where I flew), clear skies and high layer clouds (don't remember the exact name) had no difference in lighting. All the rest change the lighting.

The local area I flew in was really well detailed as far as the vegetation and buildings. I was actually surprised that the areas I hunt around here were accurate enough to actually be able to scout for terrain features, as accurate as you would get using any good satellite data. Maybe even a bit more data for scouting purposes than straight sat info. I was impressed that timber stands and small water bodies were accurate. Some important landmarks were missing, Water towers, refinery structures, isolated wind generator. I haven't went over the wind farms around here yet. I didn't notice the hi voltage power lines close to our local airport. We have it in OSM data and the other objects I mentioned in terrasync.
Night time is spectacular. They missed the mark on the local highways. To make them stand out at night they added some street lighting that isn't actually there. I'll have to take a closer look at the difference between street, highway, freeway and our turnpike.
That's about it so far. My CPU crashing seems to have subsided for now. The video shows pretty much everything I talked about with the exception of night time and the moire patter on the water you have to look close, I don't know if the video rendering may have made that hard to see.
Any requests for detailed video of any aspect, just ask.

p.s. Lots of caching going on in the video, the pauses are the sim, has nothing to do with the recording. I get the same thing with FlightGear only not as much and it usually only does it at the first view changes.

Last edited by wlbragg on Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby StuartC » Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:56 pm

islandmonkey wrote in Tue Aug 18, 2020 6:43 pm:
StuartC wrote in Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:27 pm:FS2020, 9hrs to download and install the basic version................................


Crikey, how big is FS2020 and how slow is your connection?

Little off topic, but the largest single 'thing' I have ever downloaded is probably GTA V at 80GB. Took me 4hrs with download speeds up to 10MB/s.



I have 45mb down/ 6 up on my current connection.

Eventually completed, got it to run as far as setting your experience screns where it told me it didnt recognise my sticks and I couldnt configure them manually. It then promptly crashed out, and on restarting, it decided it wanted to download the whole 90gb again, with that stupid annoying background music all over again for another 9 hours. Nope, no thanks. I wish to retain my sanity.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby V12 » Tue Aug 18, 2020 8:24 pm

vlbragg :
Thank You for real video on the real computer, not NASA supermachine. Clouds are very similar with P3Dv5 Enhanced Atmosphere. Can You post some pictures with CB clouds ? In P3D, clouds are very flat, not towers or something similar.
Fly high, fly fast - fly Concorde !
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:18 pm

it decided it wanted to download the whole 90gb again, with that stupid annoying background music all over again for another 9 hours.

Wow, what a bummer. Good thing mine waited to crash for the first time until I actually got into the first flight.

It's running pretty stable now without much intervention. I think my connection is 1 or 2 times higher than yours.

I loaded a new random area in So. California, out in the backwoods (Warner Springs Glider Airport). I used to live out there. Flew all the way around and over Palomar Mountain just to see how detailed that "random" area might be compared to FG. It was fun but in all honesty the roads were not as accurate as what we do with OSM, they are simply based on whether or not the sat image picked up enough of it to know if it is a road or not. Lots of details missing. It's possible time spent in an area will improve the details. Had a tough time getting over Palomar, only had to climb a couple thousand feet. Forgot I had to change the mixture a bit. The aircraft really struggled. I was having a difficult time keeping it over 60 knots for awhile. I finally got it up to 90+ in a decent climb. Lots of the pausing while it loaded or downloaded more data.

Can You post some pictures with CB clouds ?

Sure, I'll try to do a video of some cloud settings and fly among them.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby Honu4 » Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:05 am

Aloha,
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:03 am

Atmospheric horizon lighting...
Annoying pauses caused by simulator.

Last edited by wlbragg on Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:05 am

Volumetric clouds...
Annoying pauses caused by simulator.

Last edited by wlbragg on Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:09 am

Interior glare and shadows...
Annoying pauses caused by simulator.

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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby montagdude » Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:49 am

On medium settings it looks good but not amazing. If I had a computer to run it already, I would probably buy it, but seeing these videos of people running on less than a top end system kind of makes me happier to just be content with FlightGear.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:57 am

Here's a fun one, Wind!

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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby frtps » Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:13 am

wlbragg wrote in Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:17 pm:
Any requests for detailed video of any aspect, just ask.



Dying to know how they've handled cliffs, including waterfalls e.g. Niagara Falls. If you'd like some cliff suggestions, there's the area around Katoomba (YKAT) or even just the coastline after taking off to the south from YSSY. So many sims assume you can just drape a satellite picture over a DEM terrain, but that approach cannot capture a vertical drop. That's why OSM cliffs are so useful. Not sure how WS3.0 will handle this either.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:05 am

Cliffs, OK, I'll go check it out here in a second.
I was trying to use windowed over 3 monitors. It's capable and was looking really cool, but my GPU can't handle the heat and keeps crashing. I even tried it with the lowest setting and still not going to happen. Guess it'll have to wait for a better card to find its way into my computer.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:41 am

MSFS Cliffs;;;
South of YSSY and then west along the coast.
Lets go look at Niagara Falls next.
HD version may take a bit before it's ready.

Last edited by wlbragg on Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby wlbragg » Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:01 am

MSFS Niagara Falls...
No I didn't hit the water. I'd say their collision is off a bit.



Edit: I made the same loop again and crashed in the same spot. It thinks I am hitting the water when I fly under the bridge. :(
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Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator returns to the skies

Postby erik » Wed Aug 19, 2020 8:02 am

My first impression: The water shader is great, the water reflection shader is unrealistic and the trees make the scenery.
The scenery textures are still mediocre so covering them with as many trees as possible hide that a bit.

All in all we're still doing okay with FligthGear.

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