67 replies to this topic

[CaptainG37]

Kaotika, on Sep 9 2011, 11:40 PM, said:

Seriously, a high-end system today will run FSX greatly. My current system wasn't even high-end in 2010 (specs in profile, no overclocking), and I run vanilla FSX with High/Ultra High settings and I get 35 FPS and above. Now imagine a Sandy Bridge system with tweaks.

FSX performance was horrible in 2006, but the developers said they aimed for the game to be maxed 5 years later. That makes it 2011. Still not maxed but acceptable performance for high settings. I'm sure Flight will do greatly on that aspect.

I swear to god, I'm not trying to re-ignite any kind of debate, but why did you mention in the post I quoted that you get 35fps and above with FSX on high/Ultra High settings, yet in this post...
http://www.flightsim...x...t&p=2436677
you mention you get down to single digits when you run into some clouds.  
That's one helluva drop in fps just from some weather.  The most I dropped is 9fps (from 31 down to 22) using ASX, flying through a thunderstorm with the Wilco Airbus.

Edited by CaptainG37, 11 September 2011 - 08:36 AM.

[ChaoticBeauty]

CaptainG37, on Sep 11 2011, 04:34 PM, said:

I swear to god, I'm not trying to re-ignite any kind of debate, but why did you mention in the post I quoted that you get 35fps and above with FSX on high/Ultra High settings, yet in this post...
http://www.flightsim...x...t&p=2436677
you mention you get down to single digits when you run into some clouds.  
That's one helluva drop in fps just from some weather.  The most I dropped is 9fps (from 31 down to 22) using ASX, flying through a thunderstorm with the Wilco Airbus.

Yes, somehow running into clouds drops my FPS, but with clear weather or my FPS is fine. Besides, replacing cloud textures fixes that problems.

[162db]

Kaotika, on Sep 11 2011, 07:45 AM, said:

Yes, somehow running into clouds drops my FPS, but with clear weather or my FPS is fine. Besides, replacing cloud textures fixes that problems.

According to your profile, you have a 5770. If that's the case, it's bottlenecking your cpu big time. And for you pro FSX people, a couple things. First off Microsoft did NOT develop it with future hardware in mind. That is impossible unless they had a crystal ball and could magically see what hardware would be available. Also, it was a time when quad core was just being introduced into the market. They didn't want to risk developing for the quad core so they developed in mind for at that time, the fastest dual core cpu and nvidia card available. Secondly, it was the time of shader 3.0 and instead they went with shader 2.0 which is why even with addon's, you still get stretched out mountains and flat textures regardless of the  mesh level.

Let's not forget, the original plans were to release it as DX-9 when DX-10 was available and they could have fully implemented DX-10 in a later patch but chose not to. Then let's not forget the engine which is OLD. The choices they made resulted in a busted product. Ever wonder why that replay feature doesn't work like it should? Ever wonder why you would sometimes run across anomalies like an 1100ft pit out in the middle of nowhere? Ever wonder why they abandoned support after sp2? For all the people who say FSX looks great even today...lol. It looked good for it's time but that's about it.

It's nice to compare what technologies and techniques are available now as compared to back then, but let's keep it at that. It does no good to compare actual sims at this point as neither XP-10 nor Flight have been released. In all honesty, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft didn't use current technology with Flight and it ended up as another ugly rehashed DX-9 product in a polished and pretty wrapper. I hope that's not the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. I'm all for XP-10 but they seriously need to do something to make it more intuitive for people not familiar with macs. And then there's the plug-in system. I have so many plug-ins that I have plug-ins for my plug-ins for    sake!

Edited by 162db, 11 September 2011 - 04:57 PM.

[Daube]

162db, on Sep 11 2011, 04:54 PM, said:

According to your profile, you have a 5770. If that's the case, it's bottlenecking your cpu big time. And for you pro FSX people, a couple things. First off Microsoft did NOT develop it with future hardware in mind. That is impossible unless they had a crystal ball and could magically see what hardware would be available. Also, it was a time when quad core was just being introduced into the market. They didn't want to risk developing for the quad core so they developed in mind for at that time, the fastest dual core cpu and nvidia card available. Secondly, it was the time of shader 3.0 and instead they went with shader 2.0 which is why even with addon's, you still get stretched out mountains and flat textures regardless of the  mesh level.

They didn't develop with future hardware 'type' in mind, more with future hardware 'computation power', more or less. Without guessing the future features, they tried to guess how powerfull the CPUs and GPUs would become. The only thing they forgot was to allow the user to modify the settings deeply enough through the game interface, instead of forcing us to use the FSX.Cfg tweaks :/

Also, what do you mean with "stretched out mountains and flat textures regardless of the mesh level" ? I don't get that ? And I don't see the relationship with the shaders :/

Quote

Let's not forget, the original plans were to release it as DX-9 when DX-10 was available and they could have fully implemented DX-10 in a later patch but chose not to. Then let's not forget the engine which is OLD. The choices they made resulted in a busted product. Ever wonder why that replay feature doesn't work like it should? Ever wonder why you would sometimes run across anomalies like an 1100ft pit out in the middle of nowhere?

Those anomalies are usually caused by incrorrect mesh data, as far as I know.

Quote

Ever wonder why they abandoned support after sp2? For all the people who say FSX looks great even today...lol. It looked good for it's time but that's about it.

So ? It DOES look good, even very good at times, that's a fact.
Other sims do looks better some SOME elements, but they don't offer the same experience at all. And the only other sim which is comparable at the moment, namely XPlane 9, is not looking good excepted for some elements (airports).

Quote

It's nice to compare what technologies and techniques are available now as compared to back then, but let's keep it at that. It does no good to compare actual sims at this point as neither XP-10 nor Flight have been released. In all honesty, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft didn't use current technology with Flight and it ended up as another ugly rehashed DX-9 product in a polished and pretty wrapper. I hope that's not the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. I'm all for XP-10 but they seriously need to do something to make it more intuitive for people not familiar with macs. And then there's the plug-in system. I have so many plug-ins that I have plug-ins for my plug-ins for    sake!

XP world in indeed not so easy for us guys who are used to FS. When I bought XP6, I tried it once and then I uninstalled it, packed it back in its box, and threw the box in the fire. When I first tried the XP9 demo, it was a very good surprise from the features point of view, it was almost acceptable from a visual point of view, but the... what is the english word... ergonomy ? I mean, it was so hard to control the sim. Views, plane controls etc.... all the commands were so different. Same for the menus, but that was a lesser problem. I wish Austin would provide some default presets that would configure the XP commands exactely like the FS commands, to ease our transition from FSX to XPlane10...

Edited by Daube, 12 September 2011 - 03:23 AM.

[CaptainG37]

Daube, on Sep 12 2011, 06:18 PM, said:

When I first tried the XP9 demo, it was a very good surprise from the features point of view, it was almost acceptable from a visual point of view, but the... what is the english word... ergonomy ? I mean, it was so hard to control the sim. Views, plane controls etc.... all the commands were so different. Same for the menus, but that was a lesser problem. I wish Austin would provide some default presets that would configure the XP commands exactely like the FS commands, to ease our transition from FSX to XPlane10...

This has always confused me when people say they're not used to the UI and they want it to be more like FSX.  Austin has been a MAC user since day 1.  Also, 100% of x planes controls are 100% customizable.  You can set the key presses to do whatever you want.  If you want an FSX configuration, you can easily set it up to be like FSX.

I am very active in many X Plane forums and I always help when I can.  If someone needs help in configuring X Planes keys and switches, I'm more than happy to help out.  Whenever I DO help out, the person I helped was completely surprised at how easy it was to customize the UI.

[Daube]

CaptainG37, on Sep 12 2011, 03:52 AM, said:

This has always confused me when people say they're not used to the UI and they want it to be more like FSX.  Austin has been a MAC user since day 1.  Also, 100% of x planes controls are 100% customizable.  You can set the key presses to do whatever you want.  If you want an FSX configuration, you can easily set it up to be like FSX.

I'm pretty sure you can, of course. But still, this requires the user to redefine quite a lot of commands, which takes time... and motivation :/
Concerning the UI, just because it has "Mac" written on it doesn't make it a good UI.
Now, I clearly remember the XP6 UI to be terrible, but the XP9 one, I cannot remember it very well, so I won't make any comments on it.

[ChaoticBeauty]

162db, on Sep 12 2011, 12:54 AM, said:

According to your profile, you have a 5770. If that's the case, it's bottlenecking your cpu big time.

I didn't know a GPU can bottleneck a CPU. The CPU sends power to the GPU, but this doesn't happen the other way.

Besides, my CPU's performance is equal to a Core i7-860, FSX hardly uses the GPU and it doesn't use all 6 cores. I did say in the same thread though that my old laptop which had 1/4 performance of my current desktop could render clouds fine. And I guess that's because it had an Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU (which FSX prefers).

Microsoft Flight will come out next year though, so I won't make any upgrades for FSX right now.

[CaptainG37]

Daube, on Sep 12 2011, 09:48 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure you can, of course. But still, this requires the user to redefine quite a lot of commands, which takes time... and motivation :/
Concerning the UI, just because it has "Mac" written on it doesn't make it a good UI.
Now, I clearly remember the XP6 UI to be terrible, but the XP9 one, I cannot remember it very well, so I won't make any comments on it.

I think you missed my point.
I never said Mac had good UI's.  I'm saying that you, as an FSX user, are used to the FSX UI.  Austin has been using Mac's for at least 16 years.  To HIM, it's the better UI because he is far more accustomed to it than, say, you are.  To expect him to make one based on Windows, or even FSX, after using Mac's for 16 or 17 years, is asking for a bit much.  Both UI's have their pro's and cons.  It just depends on which one is more suited to the end user...and whether that user is willing to learn a new UI to get a different experience that MIGHT be better.
Not to mention the many hundreds of thousands of people that already have X Plane and have gotten used to it's interface.  To expect THEM to change, just to accommodate some FSX users expansion to x plane is not really fair and shouldn't be expected.
Just my thoughts and please don't read anything as hostile in my post.

[MikeMann]

Why should Austin make the X-Plane UI more comfortable for FSX users?

Normally I would say that he shouldn't except for one small detail; on his site is a link labeled "Switching from Microsoft Flight Simulator". If he is reaching out so obviously to MFS users then he should try to make this move a comfortable one. If, as someone above pointed out, it is so easy to adjust the X-Plane controls 100% to match MFS then why hasn't Austin provided a profile to do this?

Regards, Mike Mann

[CaptainG37]

MikeMann, on Sep 12 2011, 11:09 PM, said:

Why should Austin make the X-Plane UI more comfortable for FSX users?

Normally I would say that he shouldn't except for one small detail; on his site is a link labeled "Switching from Microsoft Flight Simulator". If he is reaching out so obviously to MFS users then he should try to make this move a comfortable one. If, as someone above pointed out, it is so easy to adjust the X-Plane controls 100% to match MFS then why hasn't Austin provided a profile to do this?

Regards, Mike Mann

Why hasn't Steve Jobs provided a Windows UI for Mac users?  Just in case they want to use a Mac but still have a Windows UI.
Why doesn't Microsoft provide a UI for X Plane users if they want to move to FSX?
It's not as cut and dry as one would believe.  There are so many options for key presses and button presses, that it would take the better part of an hour or two to completely customize x plane to be exactly like FSX.  Not because it's hard.  But because there are so many options.
Austin isn't begging FSX users to come over.  He's trying to accommodate the ones that choose to come over, as best he can.
Also, whatever happened to originality?  The UI is what it is.  Many people from FSX hate it.  The majority of X Plane users love it.  But do the FSX users really give it a go or do they just hate it because it isn't FSX?    I've said it many times before.  I was a very hardcore MSFS user up until 2 years ago.  When I tried X Plane, the UI was a complete maze to me.  An hour into it, I didn't understand what was so hard.  It's actually heaps more intuitive than the FSX UI.  Went back to FSX just yesterday and didn't understand the settings screen one bit.  Took me about 10 minutes just to get a small handhold on what was involved.  
Sorry to say, I also got an OOM error while setting up the PMDG 747 for a quick trip.

[ChaoticBeauty]

CaptainG37, on Sep 12 2011, 04:46 PM, said:

Why doesn't Microsoft provide a UI for X Plane users if they want to move to FSX?

Because they're not trying to switch X-Plane costumers to Flight Simulator consumers. Laminar Research does that.

[CaptainG37]

Kaotika, on Sep 13 2011, 12:16 AM, said:

Because they're not trying to switch X-Plane costumers to Flight Simulator consumers. Laminar Research does that.

No one's trying to switch anyone.  
My point is, what's good for one, is good for the other.

[wynthorpe]

All i know is, is i'll be ordering XP10 the second its released, and im sure i'll enjoy it!

[ChaoticBeauty]

CaptainG37, on Sep 12 2011, 05:28 PM, said:

No one's trying to switch anyone.

http://www.x-plane.c..._Switching.html  

[CaptainG37]

Kaotika, on Sep 13 2011, 04:08 AM, said:

http://www.x-plane.c..._Switching.html  

I don't see anyone asking people to come over.
In big, bold letters, it asks the question...
"Want to convert? We can help..."

That's offering help to those that want to try x plane.  That's not the actions of someone begging FSX users to switch to x plane.

Are you sure you're not reading too much into it?

[162db]

Daube, on Sep 12 2011, 12:18 AM, said:

They didn't develop with future hardware 'type' in mind, more with future hardware 'computation power', more or less. Without guessing the future features, they tried to guess how powerfull the CPUs and GPUs would become. The only thing they forgot was to allow the user to modify the settings deeply enough through the game interface, instead of forcing us to use the FSX.Cfg tweaks :/

Again, impossible. You can't develop for future hardware nor can you develop just guessing what features would be available or how powerful future hardware might be. It was inefficient coding plain and simple. They only used that excuse because they didn't want to admit their poor coding. It just so happens that today's hardware runs the sim much better. What would have happened if today's hardware used a completely different architecture and methods than it did back then? We would have poor performance. Look at what happened with ati. They changed how their cards handle shaders and because of that, there is a performance decrease when flying through clouds in FSX.

Daube, on Sep 12 2011, 12:18 AM, said:

Also, what do you mean with "stretched out mountains and flat textures regardless of the mesh level" ? I don't get that ? And I don't see the relationship with the shaders :/

Take a look at the ground texture. It's completely flat. There is no depth.  Roads are just flat on top of the ground. Sidewalks, parking lots, etc...No 3d whatsoever there. Look at the mountains, specifically the flat and blurry areas. Notice how mountains do not have well defined ridges. Regardless of detail level and data, it will still be flat in certain areas. It is a limitation of shader 2.0, only so much detail can be allowed. Look at the comparison screenshots of Flight and FSX and you should immediately notice the difference in shaders.  

Daube, on Sep 12 2011, 12:18 AM, said:

Those anomalies are usually caused by incrorrect mesh data, as far as I know.
So ? It DOES look good, even very good at times, that's a fact.

It is only your opinion and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is most certainly not a fact. The technology used in FSX is outdated. There is no full utilization of hdr lighting. No AA in DX-10 preview mode. No SSAO and no tessellation. Now of course there won't be any of those advanced technologies in FSX, but I'm only backing up my argument of why FSX is outdated. Take a look at Rise of Flight or Tom Clancy's Hawx 2 to see how current flying games make use of some today's available technology.

Edited by 162db, 12 September 2011 - 05:40 PM.

[Daube]

162db, on Sep 12 2011, 05:25 PM, said:

Again, impossible. You can't develop for future hardware nor can you develop just guessing what features would be available or how powerful future hardware might be. It was inefficient coding plain and simple. They only used that excuse because they didn't want to admit their poor coding. It just so happens that today's hardware runs the sim much better. What would have happened if today's hardware used a completely different architecture and methods than it did back then? We would have poor performance.

Impossible ? How impossible is that to guess that the CPUs in 3 years will compute faster than the CPUs today ?
The architecture is one thing, but the change of architecture between a Pentium IV and a Dual core has not prevented the new CPUs to get faster than the old ones.
And I'm not denying the fact that FS coding is outdated, I was just commenting on "future hardware in mind" and what it means.

Quote

Take a look at the ground texture. It's completely flat. There is no depth.  Roads are just flat on top of the ground. Sidewalks, parking lots, etc...No 3d whatsoever there.

Yes, it's called a 'texture'.
You can add some bumpmaps to it if you want the painted stuff to look more 3D but that's pretty much it.
What would the new shaders provide in that case ?

Quote

Look at the mountains, specifically the flat and blurry areas. Notice how mountains do not have well defined ridges.

Yes, it's called "level of details - LOD", like MIPMAPs for textures. The further away, the lesser detailled, to save performance. Of course you can push that limit by editing the LOD radius in the CFG.

Quote

Regardless of detail level and data, it will still be flat in certain areas. It is a limitation of shader 2.0, only so much detail can be allowed.

You'll have to explain more precisely what "flat" is for you, because I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to. FSX, despite its shaders limitations, will accept 1m meshes. For example, you can take a look at how the Mt St.Hellens looks like in FSX Acceleration where it gets a 3m mesh. Nothing flat there.

Quote

Look at the comparison screenshots of Flight and FSX and you should immediately notice the difference in shaders.

The differences in terrain are precisely one of the most difficult things to spot in the screenshots. Appart from the fact that Flight had a better default mesh and a better default landclass, I fail to see what critical differences should be spotted there. Yes, we all noticed the new shadowing system already. But what else ?

Quote

It is only your opinion and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is most certainly not a fact.

Not a fact ?
If you install a faulty mesh you'll get a faulty terrain. Get a wrong measurement in your mesh and you'll get a wrong terrain shape. Install a new mesh for that area and your pike is gone. That's a fact, FSX is not generating randomly terrain mistakes here and there, as far as I know.

Quote

The technology used in FSX is outdated. There is no full utilization of hdr lighting. No AA in DX-10 preview mode. No SSAO and no tessellation.

Indeed.

Quote

Now of course there won't be any of those advanced technologies in FSX

excepted with post-processing of course. Currently most of us have HDR in FSX. And I can even get some nice SSAO... but only with a TERRIBLE fps impact   So I just keep the HDR for now.

Quote

, but I'm only backing up my argument of why FSX is outdated. Take a look at Rise of Flight or Tom Clancy's Hawx 2 to see how current flying games make use of some today's available technology.

Yes, we all know that FSX technology is outdated for the graphic engine, this is not a secret for anybody here.
Now, when it comes to other sims, keep in mind that simulating a whole planet with easilly customizable-definable terrain/places (meaning: not hard-coded) changes quite a lot of things in the technical choice you'll have to make in your graphic engine. If you ever worked in 3D programming, you'll know that already. The comparison with Hawks, as a consequence, is a total non-sense.

Edited by Daube, 12 September 2011 - 06:18 PM.

[162db]

For me, the differences in terrain were easily spotted in the FSX and Flight screenshots comparison. I was referring to how you said "FSX looks good" is not a fact, only opinion. FSX has to render an entire planet and other games don't. While that may be true, the engine is not rendering the entire planet all at once. IMO, saying something like FSX can't have a certain level of detail because it has to render an entire planet is as you put it "total non-sense"

[Daube]

Of course the engine is not rendering the whole planet at once, at least not in high details. The area around you is rendered in high details while the rest of the visible world (which can be a full half of the planet, depending on how high you're flying) is rendered on the lowest LOD, just like Google Earth for example, or XPlane as well.

And yes, FSX cannot have the same level of detail as Hawkx because it has to render a whole planet. Now, if you try to focus a bit on the technical side, you may understand that I'm not referring to the AMOUNT of rendered stuff, but on the WAY this stuff has to be rendered. Hawkx world is not generic/dynamic. It's a fixed, predefined world that cannot evolve, that cannot be enhanced or enriched by any addon, and the consequence is that your graphic engine won't need the same complex mecanisms as the FS / XPlane engines need to render a given area. Hawkx doesn't need to look for eventual additionnal meshes, then eventual additionnal landclasses, then to look for eventual additionnal sceneries with corresponding libraries, then to modify the terrain textures depending on the weather, then to modify the autogen textures depending on the weather and season etc.... and those are just a part of the problematic. The fact that the Hawks world is predefined allows the programmers to use many optimisations that are simply impossible to use in a graphic engine of a simulator.

In the end, comparing the FS/XP/Flight engines with games like Hawks is a total non-sense exactly like the comparisons that were frequenlty made between FSX and Crysis back when FSX went out. As soon as you'll have any programming skills, you'll be able to understand what I'm talking about. Until then, you will probably continue to refuse and ignore the explanations above...

Edited by Daube, 13 September 2011 - 01:52 AM.

[162db]

Yes I'm well aware that FSX can't have the same level of detail that is in Hawx 2. FSX has a very old engine afterall. I'm well aware that Hawx 2 is a predefined non variable world. Why are you comparing FSX with Hawx 2? I never said anything about FSX having the same level of detail as Hawx 2 to begin with. I should have made it more clear sorry. I was trying to say that it was ridiculous of MS to come up with the excuses that they used in order to cover for their poor coding. Now let's get off the subject of Hawx 2. So far from what I'm seeing, I have been disappointed with Flight compared to what they have done with XP-10. Given the fact that both have to render an entire planet, I'm wondering what excuse MS will come up with this time.