Microsoft Flight Simulator

[Van-d-all]

No helicopters on release

 

[karoliner]

I´m just happy there is a new MSFS after all this time.

 

[Naraya]

Handful of information for people not in the know (from this reddit thread):

• The whole world is mapped, 1:1 (using Bing maps, satellite and AI) you can fly anywhere
• Highly complex weather simulation, and real world weather. If there's a hurricane off the coast of Florida, it will be there in the game, you'll be able to fly into it
• Due to the level of detail, you will probably be able to see your house in the game (many alpha and early testers have confirmed this, albeit a very basic model) Edit: to clarify so as not to over-hype this, open Bing maps, look at your house, the AI will try to make a simplistic model of that. If your house is in a part of Bing with 3D or near an airport it may look more accurate) Edit 2: Here is an example of individual houses - https://youtu.be/Z2HwLeJSAGc?t=617 (the fidelity of this will apparently vary across the game, this is about the highest quality I've seen so far)
• It's got multiplayer, you can play with friends
• There is bush flying, you can literally land in the bush whether it's Alaska or Africa
• There will be real air traffic
• If you see a real plane flying overhead, there's apparently the possibility of taking control of it in the sim (I believe it has to be one of the supported models, someone can confirm this)
• If you have a fast internet connection that will allow the game to "stream" a high level of detail to your machine, conversely, there will be a completely offline mode available (with less detail)
• The minimum/recommended specs are available
• You can play it on XBox PC games pass, so if you get that 1 month for 1 dollar deal, you can try out the sim for a month
• The buttons and switches in the cockpit are all clickable and usable. They used hand-scanners to capture all the detail directly from the planes themselves. They also used arrays of microphones to capture the real sounds of the planes inside and out
• Apparently every airport in the world is in the game
• Third parties (other companies) will be developing extra stuff for the game (gives hope for gliders, helicopters, etc)
• No VR on launch but apparently it's something they may implement

A lot more stuff I can't think of right now, am not a flight sim head but really into this because I believe it's one of the most ambitious computer games I've ever seen in development

Edit: and to temper expectations and not go too nuts, here is a comment detailing some issues and mild criticism of the flight sim from an (unconfirmed) alpha perspective. The usual disclaimer applies; the alpha doesn't represent the final version of the game, issues described may or may not be present in the final release, etc.​

Have to admit, I am hyped as fuck for this. This could finally be a good reason to upgrade my PC.

 

[Nano]

Microsoft are really just using this "game" as an opportunity to push their shitty online services on people, aren't they? Of course they're not reviving this series out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Tiger]

Handful of information for people not in the know (from this reddit thread):

• The whole world is mapped, 1:1 (using Bing maps, satellite and AI) you can fly anywhere
• Highly complex weather simulation, and real world weather. If there's a hurricane off the coast of Florida, it will be there in the game, you'll be able to fly into it
• Due to the level of detail, you will probably be able to see your house in the game (many alpha and early testers have confirmed this, albeit a very basic model) Edit: to clarify so as not to over-hype this, open Bing maps, look at your house, the AI will try to make a simplistic model of that. If your house is in a part of Bing with 3D or near an airport it may look more accurate) Edit 2: Here is an example of individual houses - https://youtu.be/Z2HwLeJSAGc?t=617 (the fidelity of this will apparently vary across the game, this is about the highest quality I've seen so far)
• It's got multiplayer, you can play with friends
• There is bush flying, you can literally land in the bush whether it's Alaska or Africa
• There will be real air traffic
• If you see a real plane flying overhead, there's apparently the possibility of taking control of it in the sim (I believe it has to be one of the supported models, someone can confirm this)
• If you have a fast internet connection that will allow the game to "stream" a high level of detail to your machine, conversely, there will be a completely offline mode available (with less detail)
• The minimum/recommended specs are available
• You can play it on XBox PC games pass, so if you get that 1 month for 1 dollar deal, you can try out the sim for a month
• The buttons and switches in the cockpit are all clickable and usable. They used hand-scanners to capture all the detail directly from the planes themselves. They also used arrays of microphones to capture the real sounds of the planes inside and out
• Apparently every airport in the world is in the game
• Third parties (other companies) will be developing extra stuff for the game (gives hope for gliders, helicopters, etc)
• No VR on launch but apparently it's something they may implement

A lot more stuff I can't think of right now, am not a flight sim head but really into this because I believe it's one of the most ambitious computer games I've ever seen in development

Edit: and to temper expectations and not go too nuts, here is a comment detailing some issues and mild criticism of the flight sim from an (unconfirmed) alpha perspective. The usual disclaimer applies; the alpha doesn't represent the final version of the game, issues described may or may not be present in the final release, etc.​

Have to admit, I am hyped as fuck for this. This could finally be a good reason to upgrade my PC.

That video that displays the houses is amazing.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The kid is crazy about planes. Kodexian IQ levels. Even took him to try out some simulators, think one in Västerås cost me like close to 200 euros for half an hour to sit with a real pilot. Dont think he tried DCS.
He got this app on his phone where he does all the check up before take off in Flight Simulator. Takes like 45 minutes before he even lifts off.

He got good grades so its hard to deny him shit he likes. So I'll probably upgrade if needed.

Thing about Xbox version means that you need to play with a gamepad. Doubt that the flightstick will work on X unless they make one.

That's fantastic!!

There are some kids on vatsim who did not even have their the vocal change, and they still own and fly airbuses with their children voices, which amazes me. Even if 99% of a generation are weak-minded, there will always be some jewels.

I also think flight sims is actually quite good for kids because community wise, people tend to work together and become teachers. For example if you're in a shared cockpit with someone, and that guy happens to know a lot more than you, he will often give you lessons that would cost a lot of money in real life.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Handful of information for people not in the know (from this reddit thread):

• The whole world is mapped, 1:1 (using Bing maps, satellite and AI) you can fly anywhere
• Highly complex weather simulation, and real world weather. If there's a hurricane off the coast of Florida, it will be there in the game, you'll be able to fly into it
• Due to the level of detail, you will probably be able to see your house in the game (many alpha and early testers have confirmed this, albeit a very basic model) Edit: to clarify so as not to over-hype this, open Bing maps, look at your house, the AI will try to make a simplistic model of that. If your house is in a part of Bing with 3D or near an airport it may look more accurate) Edit 2: Here is an example of individual houses - https://youtu.be/Z2HwLeJSAGc?t=617 (the fidelity of this will apparently vary across the game, this is about the highest quality I've seen so far)
• It's got multiplayer, you can play with friends
• There is bush flying, you can literally land in the bush whether it's Alaska or Africa
• There will be real air traffic
• If you see a real plane flying overhead, there's apparently the possibility of taking control of it in the sim (I believe it has to be one of the supported models, someone can confirm this)
• If you have a fast internet connection that will allow the game to "stream" a high level of detail to your machine, conversely, there will be a completely offline mode available (with less detail)
• The minimum/recommended specs are available
• You can play it on XBox PC games pass, so if you get that 1 month for 1 dollar deal, you can try out the sim for a month
• The buttons and switches in the cockpit are all clickable and usable. They used hand-scanners to capture all the detail directly from the planes themselves. They also used arrays of microphones to capture the real sounds of the planes inside and out
• Apparently every airport in the world is in the game
• Third parties (other companies) will be developing extra stuff for the game (gives hope for gliders, helicopters, etc)
• No VR on launch but apparently it's something they may implement

A lot more stuff I can't think of right now, am not a flight sim head but really into this because I believe it's one of the most ambitious computer games I've ever seen in development

Edit: and to temper expectations and not go too nuts, here is a comment detailing some issues and mild criticism of the flight sim from an (unconfirmed) alpha perspective. The usual disclaimer applies; the alpha doesn't represent the final version of the game, issues described may or may not be present in the final release, etc.​

Have to admit, I am hyped as fuck for this. This could finally be a good reason to upgrade my PC.

A few comments.

The thing with the "Bing maps" is totally confusing. If it was indeed Bing maps, people could just download the textures and use them to generate scenery for X-Plane.

But it isn't. Bing maps is still full of errors, clouds and ugly zones where the images are stitched together.

So I think this is rather a different version that MS created only for Flight simulator. It will have much less errors as Bing but will not be as up to date as Bing.

Apparently every airport in the world is in the game

This is not really special as there are databases with all airports in the world.

The real problem is to keep them up to date and make them look alive with small, animated objects. And this is where the "30 hand edited airports" comes in. Apparently MS has created 30 payware-quality airports, which are the ones they show in their videos. The other 50,000 airports will look different and much more generic, without much in terms of moving ground service etc.

That means if people expect to get the entire globe in payware quality for 60$ they will be sorely dissapointed. They will get their starter set of 30 airports and 20 planes but once they get tired of that the spending will begin again.

Also those 20 planes do not look study level at all. This is probably gonna be the same stuff like lets say Carenado which everyone hates.

Highly complex weather simulation, and real world weather. If there's a hurricane off the coast of Florida, it will be there in the game, you'll be able to fly into it

This is also nothing special. Other vendors have used weather services for years.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The recommended specs aren't that outrageous. For example a GTX 970 won't cost much these days off ebay. Unless you have a real potato it shouldn't be too bad. Think of the enjoyment your boy will get.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, or Intel i5-8400
• GPU: Radeon RX 590, or Nvidia GTX 970
• VRAM: 4 GB
• RAM: 16 GB
• HDD: 150 GB
• Internetspeed: 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s)

These days anything slightly above a toaster can run a flight sim if you adapt the details to what it can handle.

Take eg DCS which is based on a game that was first released in 2003 and supposed to run on Athlon 1700s with 1GB RAM. Of of course it would not run on them anymore but the basic visuals did not look so totally different to the current version.

Another thing is that payware aircraft often come with extremely complex computations (i.e. simulating entire computers within aircraft) which also have extremely shitty bottlenecks (like scripting engines). The thing with Microsoft is that the first release will come with aircraft that they could design all by themselves, that are probably not very deeply simulated (I doubt that their A320 will rival 10 years of development like the current payware products), use MSFS internals and will therefore run with very low system requirements. It is however possible that a future addon that you buy 3 years from now will have the same problem running decently because the computations are running through Python or whatever.

I think this release will be quite good for VFR, considering it has fantastic visuals and is promising to be extremely convenient to use. But I have no great hopes that anyone who flies tubeliners or even turboprops will be very impressed within the first 1-2 years, and most people will have MSFS as their 2nd sim. A bit like Aerofly FS on steroids.

 

[TemplarGR]

These days anything slightly above a toaster can run a flight sim if you adapt the details to what it can handle.

Take eg DCS which is based on a game that was first released in 2003 and supposed to run on Athlon 1700s with 1GB RAM. Of of course it would not run on them anymore but the basic visuals did not look so totally different to the current version.

Another thing is that payware aircraft often come with extremely complex computations (i.e. simulating entire computers within aircraft) which also have extremely shitty bottlenecks (like scripting engines). The thing with Microsoft is that the first release will come with aircraft that they could design all by themselves, that are probably not very deeply simulated (I doubt that their A320 will rival 10 years of development like the current payware products), use MSFS internals and will therefore run with very low system requirements. It is however possible that a future addon that you buy 3 years from now will have the same problem running decently because the computations are running through Python or whatever.

I think this release will be quite good for VFR, considering it has fantastic visuals and is promising to be extremely convenient to use. But I have no great hopes that anyone who flies tubeliners or even turboprops will be very impressed within the first 1-2 years, and most people will have MSFS as their 2nd sim. A bit like Aerofly FS on steroids.

Those requirements are actually quite high. You need a 2020 mid range gaming pc for the recommended specs. Notice i said 2020, up until recently prices were really high for both GPUs and RAM so many people who got their pcs in the previous few years are probably barely able to run it. Obviously a flight sim is considered an expensive game, meant to be played with expensive joysticks, but still. I wouldn't call it lightweight, that's for sure.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Of course, for every poorfag who can run the sim there will be an even poorer poorfag who still can't.

Obviously a flight sim is considered an expensive game, meant to be played with expensive joysticks, but still. I wouldn't call it lightweight, that's for sure.

Depends what you want. If you only want a flightsim that runs well on low end PCs then you can simply get Aerofly FS https://store.steampowered.com/app/434030/Aerofly_FS_2_Flight_Simulator/

MSFS is basically the latest technology for the price of an X-Box game but as to the deepest simulation, forget it.

"expensive" comes into play when people want quality and depth. Perhaps someone can make you a plane in 1 month but it will behave like a 1 month job. It will fly and have knobs but most functions will not be simulated or pure fantasy.

Let's say another developer spends 1 year, and another 5 years, obviously that means higher prices.

The same with joysticks, there are pretty good ones that dont cost a fortune. You can get great joysticks from a company in Russia (VKB) https://flightsimcontrols.com/product/vkb-sim-gladiator-mk-ii-joystick/
it is practically all you need, has Mars sensors, a ton of free buttons, a throttle control, is almost indestructible and a mechanism that's as smooth like a frog vagina. And for just 80-100$. But some people want a real Boering throttle or a real fighter stick and then of course we are talking about 1,000 - 2,000 or even up to 40,000$.

it's captalism, there are basic options but if you want the real deal you need to dig deeper into your pockets.

That's also why people in the flightsim community think MSFS will be shit, because it aims at X-Box users who don't understand a thing about quality and just want to play a flight sim on their console with as little effort as possible. They will play it like Grand Tourismo, there is no money to be made from them (they will spend their 50$ once and then cry for a combat DLC. but an average flightsim user spends 50$ a month) and it will be an arcade game, maybe a bit over the level of Aerofly but basically the same thing.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Here is a good video what you can probably expect.



Sounds are great, buildings and water great. Also stutters like hell, airplanes have external intrument UI so the punters can play arcade mode. Colors and glass cockpit screens look the same in different aircraft models, which is a clear indication that there is a ton of copy pasta. This is not a big deal if you are a casual flier of course, but to me it all looks mightily sterile and mentally I already yearn for the first addons, before I even played.

So much for the new, colorful of Microsoft that will give you a perpetual hardon for the rest of your life ..

For comparison, this is what you would already get with a "last gen" flight sim, if you had only paid attention all those years ..

 

[samuraigaiden]

AKA 9-11 World Tour

 

[Burning Bridges]

Thresholdx has an article about the SDK

https://www.thresholdx.net/article/sdkwat

"I've already been playing around with the SDK, but; as many other developers such as have said, the SDK is very lacking in it's abilities and documentation."

He says that the simulator currently only supports models made in 3dsMax ("which I am highly unfamiliar with") at the moment. He cites the cost of the program as a main reason behind pausing development until a Blender exporter plugin can be created by Asobo. Prices for 3ds Max - which appears to be the sole supported modelling software - begin at $205 USD per month, or$1,620 USD per year.

The high price point will almost certainly act as a turn-off for smaller developers until plugins for other programs are released.

Another clue to the completeness of the SDK could be found in the most recent Development Roadmap infographic provided to us in the July 16th update. In it, we got our first peek at what would take place during and post-release.

Interestingly, alongside a number of "Partnership Series" marketing videos, a number of 'SDK Update' points were listed. Could this mean that the publisher, Microsoft, intends on iterating upon a completed SDK post-release, or that the SDK simply won't be complete upon release on August 18th?

One could go as far as to speculate whether this is down to a disconnect between the simulator's developer, Asobo Studio - based in France - and the product's publisher, Microsoft - based in the United States.

Whichever option it turns out to be, it sounds as though some third party developers are rattled by the sudden injection of a deadline - mid-August -into their workflow. In UK2000's post addressing the simulator, it was made clear that the first scenery conversions will just be beginning this month -the aforementioned MK-Studios are also in a holding pattern pending further information from the developer.

To conclude all of this: the impression I've gotten from compiling all of this information is that it is possible to create scenery, aircraft and other software in the SDK provided, however, third party developers are looking for more specialist tools to be compatible with their previous workflows used for Prepar3D and X-Plane 11.

The problem is, while it's taken years to get Prepar3D and X-Plane 11 addons to the standard they are, there's only a month to wait until Microsoft Flight Simulator's release.

 

[Quilty]

I am pretty hyped about MSFS 2020, but also trying to stay skeptical until we see some non-official videos and actually get to fly. X-Plane 11 is still a great option for general aviation, and DCS is a wonderful playground for combat (sadly, no dynamic campaign yet), but MSFS excites me with all this talk of beautiful weather simulation, overall visuals, and multiplayer options. August 18th can't come soon enough.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The visuals are not the problem in X-Plane, once you have orthos and OSM overlays it is great. The problem is this complete absence of AI traffic, ATC and anything that makes a sim feel alive.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Also, I think it's actually the other way around. MSFS will immediately shine for general aviation because those graphics and light. But for airliners X-Plane will remain king for some time.

Before you completely write off X-Plane get the Zibo 737 which is completely free. I give it at least a year until something of similar quality appears for Microsoft.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Some more leaked footage showing the ultra-realistic gameplay

Spoiler

He takes off with extended airbrakes, doesn't know flaps, rudders, thrust reversers etc. But the Airbus flies like a champ.

 

[Quilty]

Some more leaked footage showing the ultra-realistic gameplay

Spoiler

He takes off with extended airbrakes, doesn't know flaps, rudders, thrust reversers etc. But the Airbus flies like a champ.

Seems like the footage has been removed, but I think I've seen it elsewhere. If we're thinking of the same clip, I seem to remember someone saying that it was from a much earlier alpha version, and who knows on what sort of realism settings that was being played. I'm still being cautiously optimistic, although the visuals we've been shown so far do have me secretly giddy with expectation.

 

[Burning Bridges]

They take down those videos quickly.

It didn't look bad, in fact the lighting is 15 years ahead of current sims. It just looks a bit ridiculous with all the arcade options and the guy landing in external view, about 100 knots too fast and using only ailerons. It reminds me more of when CFS3 came out and it took 5 years until someone else had modded it to it's full potential.

I also wait for the first time when a developer from Asobo will say that the relationship with Microsoft is not totally wonderful.

Or as someone else put it: "The thing that bothers me about the new Microsoft Flightsimulator is Microsoft"

 

[Burning Bridges]

Quilty. We are all excited. I know some guys who already defend MSFS like fanbois against any criticism although they have not played a single second.

I think it will look really good when the light is working as intended, but also run a bit like shit on non-latest hardware. It is graphically very demanding. It also looks sterile. I think the hot graphix will create new problems, namely that now you notice the absence of things like .. a realistic street looks wrong if there are no people walking around, a backyard needs realistic clothes lines and a park does not look right without realistic litter blowing in the wind. The things they have in the sim look really good but the increased resolution without "actual" detail also creates a diorama-effect that may become a bit depressing.

I don't know what it is but somehow I think this will still need a ton of work. It looks excessively detailed compared with current flight sims but also not good enough compared with flying in actual games (like GTA V) where there is actually something happening on the ground that is not complete eyewash.

I also want a flight sim where I can get really close to an airplane without it looking like a 1:48 scale model and tbh I don't get that either from videos of this one. It will look a bit better than the competition though.

And I want animated passengers and a copilot.

 

[Burning Bridges]

This video is a bit older but one of the more informative ones what you can expect.

 

[Quilty]

Quilty. We are all excited. I know some guys who already defend MSFS like fanbois against any criticism although they have not played a single second.

I think it will look really good when the light is working as intended, but also run a bit like shit on non-latest hardware. It is graphically very demanding. It also looks sterile. I think the hot graphix will create new problems, namely that now you notice the absence of things like .. a realistic street looks wrong if there are no people walking around, a backyard needs realistic clothes lines and a park does not look right without realistic litter blowing in the wind. The things they have in the sim look really good but the increased resolution without "actual" detail also creates a diorama-effect that may become a bit depressing.

I don't know what it is but somehow I think this will still need a ton of work. It looks excessively detailed compared with current flight sims but also not good enough compared with flying in actual games (like GTA V) where there is actually something happening on the ground that is not complete eyewash.

I also want a flight sim where I can get really close to an airplane without it looking like a 1:48 scale model and tbh I don't get that either from videos of this one. It will look a bit better than the competition though.

And I want animated passengers and a copilot.

I totally agree with what you said about it looking like a diorama, i.e. having that strange plasticy, lifeless feeling. Cars zipping about is what X-Plane already has and it's simply not enough for it to look sufficiently lifelike, and that's why the comparison with GTAV is especially apt. Sure, it's a totally different game on a much smaller scale, but the details on the ground contribute a lot. Hopefully, the giant leap in visuals, lighting, weather, etc. that MSFS is (apparently) bringing will also push modding and custom-made scenery forward and enable others to inject more life into the sim.

I remember watching several sim-oriented youtubers after that conference they were invited to where they were allowed to fly anywhere at any time of day and ask all kinds of questions, and many of them came away very impressed. The answers the developers provided certainly did sound good (even humble at times), although as you say, the fact that it's tied to Microsoft should make us all careful until we get our hands on it.

 

[LESS T_T]

Was curious why they didn't spelled out Steam release till now, but this is also coming to Steam:



VR support is coming this year: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/30/microsoft-flight-simulator-steam-track-ir-and-vr-support/

Also today a lot of outlets released previews/gameplay. I just randomly picked a longer one:

 

[Quilty]

Here's another one I stumbled on today. The guy has a very annoying voice, but shows the whole procedure of choosing destination/departure/time of day, etc. and flies around in daytime.



And one with slightly less ADHD flying.





Here's Quill18 giving a nice overview.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Are there missions, jobs?