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Orbx and Microsoft Flight Simulator

Anna Cicognani

By Anna Cicognani
in Orbx Company Updates

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Captain Lars Life Member

Captain Lars

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So what are the news in this thread?

 

1. Orbx is going to produce addons for MSFS. Surprise...

2. Orbx is going to port over some of the airports to MSFS. That's more of a surprise actually since airports seem to be the only scenery addon class that's needed in the foreseeable future. The default aerodromes are still dull, albeit 2020 style dull. 

3. Orbx is going to charge for the airport portovers.

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Hexsplosions Advanced Member

Hexsplosions

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5 hours ago, annacico said:

We are considering special x-platform prices for current customers who have bought content for P3D and XP, which will also appear on MSFS. We haven't really decided anything yet, but the intention is to make it easy and affordable to use the same content across platforms. 

 

I'd love to see cross-platform bundles. I already have both X-Plane 11 and P3D V5, so the cost of having matching sceneries is prohibitive, but I would happily pay a small premium/uplift for cross-platform coverage, especially if it covers three sims! :)

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huascar Advanced Member

huascar

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Anna - Allow me to say Orbx offers, by far, the best scenery pay-ware of the bunch. Most importantly, your prices are very reasonable and discounts are often offered.
 

I guess my question is this - If MSFS is using satellite images to replicate the world, how would Orbx come close to producing products as realistic as MSFS with having access to these images? 

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andy1252 Life Member

andy1252

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Well, I've ordered my copy. I'm not going to speculate about anything (what is the point, people?) - I'm just really looking forward to seeing this for myself. Great that Orbx is going to be involved, but did anybody REALLY think they wouldn't be?

 

This will sit alongside XP-11, P3D5 and AFS2 (and a whole bunch of other stuff) on my machine and I'm expecting all those will continue to have their benefits and annoyances, and no doubt MSFS will come with both too. But everything I've seen so far would seem to indicate that the benefits will far outweigh any (probably temporary) inconveniences like the absence of helicopters etc.

 

And I'm hoping that MSFS really knows how to use multiple processors well - I took a gamble and got a new PC based on the 3950X rather than a hyper-Ghz Intel! I guess I'll find out in a few weeks <grin>

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dilo Advanced Member

dilo

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17 minutes ago, David Woodford said:

The whole planet downloads photo imaging from Bing.As I understand,  If it’s in Bing Maps, it’s in the Sim.. hence the need for fast broadband

Satelite photos alone do not make photogrammetry. You need aerial photos (from aircraft) too. 

When there is no aerial photage available, MS used AI to guess the rest. Or standard objects (like trees) are used. That's not photogrammetry.

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Dadtom65 Life Member

Dadtom65

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5 hours ago, Ben McClintock said:

MSFS (the standard edition) will be available as part of the Xbox Game Pass. They have an introductory price of $1 for the first month (then a recurring $4.95). If you don't like it, you can cancel before the month is up and would have only spent $1. Probably best to subscribe closer to release, as it's still over one month until MSFS' release date.

Arrrrr. That’s not fair, did not realise that as thought it would start the day 2020 Fltsim came out. Surely that’s not right. Thanks Derek.

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wain71 Life Member

wain71

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this all gets very interesting, I am thinking maybe gamepass in August, try for a month, if I can use it (pc up to it?) then I will purchase......as it gets closer I am interested more but will need to look for more info like ATC, seasons, what happens if internet crashes during flight, will my X52 PRO work, saitek panels etc.....but very pleased that Orbx will be there....

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flying_fish Senior Member

flying_fish

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Thanks Bert, that's very helpful. I see that it is possible to change the default location for new apps to download and be stored from the c drive to another drive. This will be very helpful for those who want to keep their primary partition free for the o/s.

 

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Tony Wroblewski Life Member

Tony Wroblewski

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2 hours ago, huascar said:

I guess my question is this - If MSFS is using satellite images to replicate the world, how would Orbx come close to producing products as realistic as MSFS with having access to these images? 

 

If they're already in the sim, why would we need access to them as they're already there for everyone? There wouldn't be any sense in trying to replicate what is already in the base-sim, but rather to use it as a base and build on that. 

 

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hartson Advanced Member

hartson

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As an Xplane user and fan or Orbx I'm pleased to see that you are growing your business. It's also clear from the posts on this and other forums that there's a lot of enthusiasm from the simming community for the new MS simulator. Realizing I'm in the minority I have some concerns about MSFS. I will admit that in much of the publicity material its looked very good, but I do wonder how much the experience is going to differ for PC users based on the capabilities of their hardware and their internet access. While hard core simmers tend to have very good rigs for MSFS to be a success I believe that it's going to need to widen the net of users. Some users, with less powerful hardware/less capable internet access might be put off at the beginning between the difference in their game rendering and the videos that are posted online.

I do worry that many of the good names in the Flight Sim industry are going to go running off after this new business opportunity which may, or may not succeed. There has to be a concern that the other simulators (and of course I'm worried about Xplane) are going to be starved of new content as focus moves to MSFS. There's also a danger for the commercial companies working on MSFS. Microsoft don't exactly have an unblemished reputation with the community. While I don't believe this will be dropped as MS Flight was we'll all need to see Microsofts commitment over time to develop the program. Getting the balance right between a game (which I believe most MSFS users will be looking for) and a true simulation is going to be difficult to balance. Also how big is the market going to be for expensive add-ons in MSFS?

So, MSFS may well succeed but I'd suggest that Orbx and others don't bet the farm on it. Other add on providers have managed to hack off their loyal community (Carenado jumps to mind) and that's a road to avoid. It's fine to be looking forward to MSFS2020 and for many existing flight sim users this may be a big step for the hobby. Remember thought that the hard core simmers will be perhaps 10% of the audience for this new program. General gamers and their opinions on MSFS2020 will likely have the loudest voice. 

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American1337 Newbie

American1337

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G'day Anna, I've heard in fselite, (I am not sure), that funds for the X project (x-plane 11, I think) ran out. Will this mean that in the meantime no xp sceneries will be made? Or will you continue to develop for the laminar sim? Any responses will be very appreciated.

 

P.S. I really love Orbx simulation systems. You make the best scenery for x-plane and p3d. I am very excited to see your work in future sims such as msfs2020 and more to come. 

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perohijo Senior Member

perohijo

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4 hours ago, flying_fish said:

Now that we have a month to prepare for the installation of MSFS does anyone know if it has to be installed on the C drive, or can it run from a separate drive?

...

It would be better if you can installed it on your C drive, as long as you have the space.

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orbmoke Senior Member

orbmoke

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11 minutes ago, perohijo said:

It would be better if you can installed it on your C drive, as long as you have the space.

I don't really, so I'm looking at uninstalling XP11 and also all the addons that have been added to it over the past few years.

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DriverX Advanced Member

DriverX

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Everything out of the box from FS2020 is already far better than every addon i have seen for P3D or XPlane. To have a competitive addon means for the devs to put the bar on the next level. This is so cool what's going on right now. 

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perohijo Senior Member

perohijo

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18 minutes ago, flying_fish said:

Thanks for your reply, Perohijo, but why do you say this? 

I was having a conversation with one of the testers and also been the company that built my rig specifically for FS 2020. They suggest installing the simulator will provide the best performance. I can also install it on an SSD but I rather use those for storage and other games. I have P3Dv5 installed on the C drive and it works great and since I have all my addons for P3D installed on the SSD drives and everything works as it should, besides, my C drive doesn't have a lot of stuff installed on it. In my case I have way more than the recommended systems for FS2020 so I could really install it anywhere.

Granted, you run the risk that if your C drive fails so does you OS so it is a risk but here is my thing. I back up everything every day, my internet speed is real fast so re download is not a big issue for me, and I clone my C drive every so often. Bear in mind though that drive failure can happen with any drive so the important thing is to back up often. 

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GCBraun Advanced Member

GCBraun

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Those are some good news.

 

While I will try to buy things as much as possible from the built-in marketplace, Orbx may be an exception due to the painless and straightforward way Central is designed.

 

Looking forward to remaining a customer on this next chapter of flight simulation history.

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AURORA Newbie

AURORA

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11 hours ago, annacico said:

Hi all

 

Just by way of intro, I have been Orbx’s CEO since September 2019, and I am based in Australia. I have not actively participated in the forums so far, limiting myself to reading the diverse and eclectic views of simmers and industry players, but the recent announcement of MS Flight Simulator launch calls for a view on where Orbx sits in all this, so I am breaking the ice.

 

Firstly, at Orbx we are thrilled to see that the new MS Flight Simulator will launch in August. Like the rest of the community, we are very impressed with what we have seen so far in Microsoft's next gen of Flight Simulator. 

 

We’ve been waiting for some time for a date to lock down our product roadmap on this new platform. So this is it!

 

I am very happy to say that Orbx is producing content for FS, and are excited to be able to deliver our world class products on this new platform, both through MS marketplace and our own channel, OrbxDirect.

 

Our roadmap continues to include high quality content for XP, P3D and Aerofly FS (when possible), and we will continue to support these platforms. We have some real gems in store, and of course we continue to support our partners and industry friends - specifically this month through #FlyJuly.

 

Overall, we hope to see new users take up simming with the new FS as well as take our current simmers on a journey of discovery, with AAA content!

 

I am keeping this topic open for questions or clarifications. 

Looking forward to expanding our (collective) horizons!

 

Cheers,

Anna

Hi, I'm a little confused.

You confirm that you are already developing content for the new MSFS or you confirm that you intend to do so.
I'm sorry if my question seems a little forward, but this official statement, hard as it is to believe, has surprised the entire development community that has no connection to Orbx.

Especially because those of us who are part of the group of third party developers in the MSFS forum (and they are many and very famous) who have been involved in this since the first minute, we were not aware of your participation and especially when the SDK, as far as we know, is not yet fully operational and today take an airport to the simulator with the tools we have because it is not possible.
And you will understand that this has unleashed some discomfort among the community, especially if you have received some special treatment or some SDK that others do not have.
I hope you understand my point, it's not a personal attack or anything like that.

It's just surprising.

 

Best Regrads.

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dilo Advanced Member

dilo

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5 minutes ago, AURORA said:

And you will understand that this has unleashed some discomfort among the community, especially if you have received some special treatment or some SDK that others do not have.

 

In case Orbx has gotten special treatment, is MS obliged to give equal treatment to every 3rd party developer? 

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pmb Life Member

pmb

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16 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

 

While I will try to buy things as much as possible from the built-in marketplace, Orbx may be an exception due to the painless and straightforward way Central is designed.

 

I already thought about this, too, and tend to come up with the same result.

 

Kind regards, Michael

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merlinux Senior Member

merlinux

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1 hour ago, perohijo said:

It would be better if you can installed it on your C drive, as long as you have the space.

despite maybe having faster read/write speed, I can't find any other advantage of having your sim into your Windows partition. Yet I see so many that goes against that idea. I am not going to cite them here because it is absolutely off topic.

 

Back on topic. With all this news about MSFS release coming soon, I have weird feelings about it. I am sure it is going to be good and I know I will buy it sometime near release day. Like many here, I had no doubt Orbx would be involved in developing addons for MSFS from day one. They even said they were working closely with third party addons developers  and Orbx has been number one of those for a long time now.

In the meantime I believe it is not going to be my main sim for a while to come. Since the advent of trueearth and looking at all the $1000 's I spent on P3D addons, P3D is set to compete very well I think.At least at first.

 

One thing we haven't heard is about the SDK, I really do hope that they have made it easy to convert ESP based scenery to their new format. I have a premonition they did reading this thread and what Anna had to say about having some kind of reduced prices for owners of converted sceneries (something they did not do for long for their xplane 11 convertions as they realized it was #!*loads of work)

 

About the hardware if you can run P3D or xplane  pretty well I don't see why people are saying they need to upgrade. There is a lot of optimization that can be done in terms of graphics with actual hardware. P3D is archaic in many aspects although it has gotten better than what it was years ago. They have seriously done some work on modern graphic cards technologies but they still have that reliance on the main processor. And I hope this is where MSFS will excel.  Do this and some kind of ESP compatibility and you win the market.

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