Last one on Flight School

[andy1252]

OK, so I found the cfg file and meddled with the LOD radius settings, put it up to 7.5 same as my P3D, and no great improvement. Still a shaky flight, no detail in the distance and popping autogen. Shame, as the close up environment is not bad at all.

 

A few shots heading out from Brisbane. Didn't get far, got bored with nothing to look at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a couple on the ground at San Jose, after a flight down from KSFO. At ground level it's not too bad. But in the air it doesn't do it for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, it was an interesting experiment, but I think that's it for Flight School for me unless there's a major upgrade. It feels to me very much like plain old FSX but with Orbx Global added in, but without all the flexibility of FSX - two planes only, no real control over the environment etc. I'd sort of expected better from the pre-publicity.

 

It was never going to be any kind of replacement for my current setup, but it could have been a fun side-show. As it is, it's pretty much everything I dislike about FSX with a few added grumbles thrown in. If LM can resolve the autogen popping and give a decent horizon I don't see why DG couldn't have done the same.

 

I'll no doubt pre-order their sim when it gets to that point - I'm nothing if not an optimist, but I won't be getting too excited if this is anything to go by. It will sit on my hard drive alongside FSE and X-Plane 10 and probably get ignored the same as them.

 

So, back to P3D and the PNW, or maybe Africa, or perhaps Scotland, or maybe . . .

 

[TheGreenToad]

Thanks for the report! I was somehow expecting that with the hype that has been made during the last weeks the actual release might be more or less a disappointment to many people. It took LM years to get Prepar3d to what it is today, so I suppose DTG (and also addon developers) will need a similar amount of time to get their products up to the standard that we are used to today. But by then Prepar3d will surely have seen some advancements as well ...

 

Nevertheless, it is interesting to watch and see how things will develop, more competition in the Flightsim business will certainly be beneficial for us customers!

[RJ]

Thanks again for this report, Andy! I wonder who's the main target audience for this product. 

[Bermuda425]

My first view of this sim here. Not really good indeed.

[MZee1960]

Hi Andy,  

 

" Welcome to the dawn of a new era in flightsim. ".  

 

Please remember how Flight Simulator was in it's early days .... , maybe have a look at FS2004,  or even FSX when it first came out -  the original boxed set.  It was quite  'simple'  no doubt.   It was the sim community which kept it alive for the next decade,  the many devoted virtual pilots,  who, against a tide of naysayers  (those who just put it away on the shelf),   believed all along that MS really had something worth saving.  This obviously captured the attention of many third party developers, .... a flood of addons ensued ...... and,  well   "the rest is history".   Now, we finally have a new working foundation added to the mix,  on which to continue to build,  and hopefully,  without the need for a truckload of tweaks.  Think of this as the appetizer,  with the main course yet to come.  Soon we may all forget the meaning of terms as  OOM, VAS, and FPS. 

 

OMG, ...  wouldn't that be nice ?           

[andy1252]

Hi MZee,

 

I can see what you're saying, but for me, this is still a disappointment as DG had the base FSX to work on and haven't even come up with the improvements LM have managed with P3D. Flight School seems to have added nothing substantial except better base scenery, and that's down to Orbx. The basic display engine and graphics still feel rooted in the past even though it uses DX11.

 

I'd be more than happy for this to be just a stepping stone to bigger and better things when they release the actual Flight Simulator, but I don't have much confidence in that now after seeing this. This doesn't belong in the same environment as P3D, not even close.

 

But hey, like I said - I'm an optimist so who knows?

[MZee1960]

20 minutes ago, andy1252 said:

But hey, like I said - I'm an optimist so who knows?

 

Me too !   .......... The  'big'  step forward can be summarized in three words :  sixty four bit .   

 

Now, all the cores in your system can finally come out to play.      

[VH-KDK]

Thanks for the report Andy, the planes look nice though.

[Ken Hall]

the core engine is quite different the aircraft look so good due to there Physics based Rendering, which simply put means the lighting is as nature intended, it's going to be a steep learning curve for the developers but it will look awesome once its fully implemented. don't be discouraged by what you see at the moment, this was not aimed at us rather guys wanting to try a flight sim for the 1st time, if you looked closely in the CFG you would have seen an entry for cloud shadows. this is very early days, I remember all the disappointment with P3D when released, then they slowly introduced fixes and upgrades, hell they didn't have cloud shadows to start, poor frame rates and quite stuttery, now finally it has surpassed FSX only took about 2 years from release, more if you count V1.

Optimists will be rewarded, just buying it and shelving it is enough support, they have a real flight sim enthusiast at the helm, and he has passion for this project.

cheers all

[andy1252]

9 hours ago, Ken Hall said:

Optimists will be rewarded, just buying it and shelving it is enough support, they have a real flight sim enthusiast at the helm, and he has passion for this project.

cheers all

 

Hope so Ken, the more the merrier really. For now it's shelved for me. But I'll keep an eye on it and I'm sure they'll pump any updates down the wire so we'll see. Meantime though, the sky is P3D shaped for me

[ryanbatc]

Cool shots... this sim just screams "Oversaturated."  It's like they tried to go with a realistic look but just overdid it, much like everyone is photoshopping up their photos these days... uber saturation and contrast lol.

[shermank]

Emfbi, but let's get a grip. I have no interest in buying it. It is for beginners..Flight School...kind of simple. For $15 U.S. What do,you expect. This is just a teaser. Wait for the full monty and see what develops then

 

just my 2centd.

 

sherm

 

[BradB]

Thanks for the shots mate .

 

Cheers

 

John