Some Quick Vids of Microsoft Flight

[HiFlyer]

First impression is of a smoother FSX. Second is that there is more detail, and maybe more than first meets the eye overall. Jury is still out, though from the YouTube comments, it seems that some hard-core simmers may already be up in arms.

Time will tell.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY4bOiV28BU&feature=related

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7igmfzQH40&feature=related

[spud]

I have the same reaction as the day Flight was announced. HO HUM!

[kamarad]

Clouds are non impressive.

The ground detail are rather good.

Seems smooth also.

Well see anyway. For free its a no risk tryout.

[maxter]

Those look really smooth. I reckon they show some real promise. Hopefully the ability to implement some real systems etc will soon follow.

Cheers and thanks for the heads up...

[Scott Harmes]

Microsoft flight seems to me to be a system designed by Microsoft to ensure that no one but Microsoft make any profit from it. From the start they were going on about having a one stop, integrated system to purchase additional sceneries and aircraft etc. Now with the release announcing that Flight has been released FREE it just makes me laugh. FREE if you only want to fly around Hawaii in one aircraft, otherwise be prepared to spend whatever Microsoft says you have to spend to cover the rest ofthe globe. Can anyone say MONOPOLY!

Scott

[Foxbat]

I don't get the negative sentiments regarding MS locking up Flight so they can profit from any additional content beyond the base install. We don't work for free do we? Everyone retains a monopoly over their product - me and you over our labour, orbx over their product and libraries. It is up to others to come up with something better. MS is not a charity and it does not even have a monopoly over flight sims. Its not as if we don't pay for add ons now.

[Virtualwombat]

Clearly Foxbat has not absorbed all the implications of Microsoft's marketing strategy. As it stands, Flight only models Hawaii, and has no ATC and or a competent weather engine, suggesting that improvements to the performance of Flight have been achieved by stripping out FSX realism features. Without a Flight SDK there is no role for Orbx or any other developer, including PMDG, A2A, RealAir, REX, etc. These are the companies that have continued the development of FSX and are the reason that FSX is still viable in 2012. I see no value in taking giant backward strides in realism, flying around in dumbed-down planes collecting magic tokens in a tiny fraction of the world's area. Please consider that there is no certainty the MS will add ANY additional scenery areas or complex aircraft in the future. If Flight micro-transactions fail to meet the targets of the MS marketing managers we can expect the game to be quietly buried.

Moreover, without 3rd party input the pace of development of Flight can only be a fraction of what we have come to expect in FSX and those that are made will be made to suit the lowest common denominator, not the tiny fraction of people like you and me who appreciate the challenge of a detailed sim.

Cheers,

Noel.

[Foxbat]

Let me try again. The comment I responded to was that MS is designing Flight in a way to maximise their revenue. Why is that such a bad thing?

Microsoft did not create quality scenery. Orbx did. Similarly PMDG and RealAir created a market where MS did not participate. These developers were not in for the charity – they were in for our money. As they should be. Which is why they succeeded. If someone came up with a better scenery – people would jump in a second faster than you can say Orbx.

It does not matter what MS does with flight. If there is enough demand – a detailed flight simulator will come into being. It could be Lockheed, X-Plane, Aerosoft or even Orbx. People would jump in a second and suddenly MS FSX and MS Flight forums would be dead. The worst case scenario is that MS Flight is a complete dud and FSX continues to be supported as major developers have said they will.

My broader philosophical point being – lets get rid of the entitled mentality. I keep coming across this on forums regarding MS Flight. MS does not owe us anything. Neither does Orbx. Their job is to be a successful business. If Orbx decided that supporting the commercial/military market is more lucrative rather than selling $40 sceneries to us and they decided to drop this segment – I am not going to feel bad about it though I will be sad. It is the way it is. I may even feel good about their success. Sure the implication is that I will be flying in less than ideal scenery but hey if Orbx developers have more lucrative careers and businesses to pursue – I am not going to feel as I have been unfairly treated because my needs are of paramount importance. There has to be a mutual need between a seller and a customer.

Cheers

[Virtualwombat]

Thanks for the clarification. The sense of entitlement one encounters on forums probably arises from the long history of the franchise. I have been into flight sim for almost 15 years and many people have been involved much longer. As serious simmers we are already marginalised within the broader gaming industry and without MS support our options are substantially limited. We see the realism that is achieved in high budget shooters and wish that a developer would bring that to Flight Sim. This has happened to a limited extent with companies like Orbx but only for a platform that is both flawed and out of date (FSX). We need the platform itself to be improved. Perhaps P3D will be the answer in the future but right now there is not enough benefit to the user to justify the entry fee. X-Plane 10 also has promise but without 3rd party support XPX provides little beyond what is already available in FSX. And that's about all there is out there in terms of civilian Flight Sims. No wonder simmers are cross when they see Microsoft dumbing down the franchise in pursuit of short term profit.

Cheers,

noel.

[2110]

Noel has a good point, I also have played most of the flight sims that has ever been released.

As a matter of fact I owned FSX for two years before I started to play it, simply because the scenery was so awful looking, once I discovered orbx that all changed.

So lets face it the history of Microsoft teaches us one thing, they are greedy and selfish. When Microsoft started FS, they did it knowing that all the third party developers would keep it going, that was there strategy from the beginning.

Microsoft dropped this industry a long time ago, I am not saying I wont give flight a try, but after investing so much money into FSX, I am not about to drop it. Flight will not provide anything new, except perhaps eye candy.

I really feel we need a new flight engine, one that will allow us to use our exciting FSX addons without limitations, when FSX was released it was the bee’s knee’s, but hardware and software technology has left FSX behind.

I think that considering the millions that this industry has invested in MSFS over the years, perhaps it’s time that the industry as a whole stepped out from underneath Microsoft, and designed a better engine, one that properly supports newer hardware and allows us to use our software addons as they are meant to be used.

Microsoft do not own the franchise, they just monopolise it, so why not remove Microsoft from the equation all together and get on with what we do best.

Cheers Phil.

Honestly, when I think of Microsoft and Flight, I just laugh

[Canflitesim]

It's a program for gamers. After all there are 50 developers working on it vs. the few thousand that developed FSX.

[Foxbat]

See I agree where this is coming from (I am invested a lot in FSX too and will continue with it) but I think it reflects a misunderstanding of how the world works when I read stuff like MS is greedy and selfish or they monopolise it - and it leads to needless and unproductive ranting (See the MS Flight Forum on avsim). It’s their job to monetise their output as best as they can. All developers have restrictions over their output based on how they can maximise their profit.

The other comment regarding Flight is for gamers is ironic. There are lots of games far harder than Flight simulator. They do not pretend to be ‘not gamers’. Even more funny is that scenery, repaints, better clouds are all essentially eye candy. Real simulators have rather pathetic looking scenery and objects – because it’s not essential to real pilot training. I am sorry to rain on this parade but I don’t want this forum to be infected by the disease that has taken over other forums - where every Flight thread is eventually derailed into MS sucks series of posts.

The OP had a post about that it seems smooth despite the greater detail and I agree. Comments like MS is Greedy, monopolistic and that it is for gamers only while we obviously are a class of elite non gamers are not positive or productive or add to the discussion especially to people who are interested in finding about new developments in the sim world.

[2110]

No offence intended Foxbat, but I was being kind when I described Microsoft as greedy, selfish and monopolising, and I can assure you that was not a rant. I have been using Microsoft products, since the days of DOS, I remember 5” floppy disks, my statement is nothing personal it is just a simple fact.

Foxbat you are entitled to your opinion, so good luck with that. I am certainly not trying to change it.

Everything else aside, why does everyone compare Flight to FSX, when it’s a completely different engine, so why would it not look smother, as for the graphics, my current graphics looks better, but in fairness they are still at beta stage, so we will see.

I would like to add as well, this does not look like a flight sim, it looks like a flight arcade game to me, but I could be wrong again, it’s at the beta stage.

Time will tell, Microsoft can always change after all, they said they would never do another Flight Sim.

[BionicCrab]

Actually it's been found a couple of times that Microsoft is not a monopoly and the only thing they have been found at fault for is bundling IE with Windows.

My take on this is that once Flight is released people will realize that a game that runs with constant frame rates is a better flying experience than one that doesn't. The video's so far seem to guarentee this and I'm actually pretty excited to get my hands on it. Without these improvements you aren't targetting the modern gamer, you are targetting PC gamers who never cared about FPS, most knowing that a new machine was always around the corner that would solve the problem. That's not how the rest of the world thinks.

[Foxbat]

I thought it was the same game engine? I could be wrong but I remember one of the Orbx team mention on Avsim that MS installed Darrington in Flight at some point of time.

It does look a lot smoother with more detail which is great. I am hoping that there is a free flight option besides the arcade stuff and on launch they have other detailed regions and more complex GA aircraft. If this turns out to be the case I plan to use FSX and Flight side by side for different aircraft and regions. Hopefully newer computers will make FSX still comparable and enjoyable for some years alongside Flight. I am worried Windows 8 might make it incompatible.

[marith]

My view is that I think it's too early to gauge the performance of Flight as every video I've seen has had all the other features we take for granted - ATC, AI Traffic, Real-World weather etc. disabled.

There are rumours that these disabled features will be enabled as DLC so it will be interesting to see if Flight runs just as smoothly once they're enabled and using up CPU power.

In other words will a fully enabled feature rich MS Flight run just as smoothly as we've seen in the videos? We shall see...

Personally I will be waiting for at least a year after release before concluding whether MS Flight is worth investing in (i.e. spending money on DLC). That doesn't mean to say I won't try out the demo.

For me, my enjoyment of Flight Simulation for the next few years at least will come from FSX (or P3D) with Orbx scenery, REX, Active Sky and a huge range of quality aircraft in my hanger.

[BionicCrab]

Foxbat: that's the thing you don't really need a new engine just the obvious bug fixes. What you really need is away to limit the content so the engine is never overloaded. Same thing they do with first person shooters, the engine is no better just that certain assets will find it's way to the cutting room floor or reworked because it causes the engine to drop below the target framerate. Sometime hard to see this in action in the FS community but certainly these decisions are being made as well behind the scenes. And there are people who believe that if there isn't a high polygon count that they are being cheated somehow. But what is more important being able to take screenshots that are photorealistic, or having the program meet the critical timelines for rendering. I wouldn't say a game or even sim is mission critical but to run in realtime it has to be programmed and used in that matter.

[caaront]

I guess ya'll think Walmart is an evil entity also.

If you don't like Flight don't download it, it's as simple as that. Just stick to FSX and your add ons.

[Foxbat]

@BionicCrab – This makes me think did Lockheed drop the ball? Assuming for now that the videos are a realistic portrayal and both Flight, P3D use the same engine – MS definitely did a much better job of fixing it.

To me right now P3D is a dead platform for home simmers - I’d rather spend the $500 on FSX and/or Flight add ons. I suspect the large silent majority feels the same.

[Bernie]

I am curious as to why ORBX are allowing these videos of another developers scenery to be left on this Forum. I was under the impression that this was not allowed.

Kind Regards

Bernie.

[Foxbat]

I am curious as to why ORBX are allowing these videos of another developers scenery to be left on this Forum. I was under the impression that this was not allowed.

Kind Regards

Bernie.

Bernie,

To clarify - This is thread is about another flight simulator not FSX or P3D which are the platforms Orbx develops for. Secondly this is not an add on scenery. Its a base install of another simulator. Also lets appreciate that Orbx has this fine forum where we can talk about flying and simming in general while respecting their interests.

This thread keeps getting derailed to non MS flight stuff!

Cheers

[Bernie]

Bernie,

To clarify - This is thread is about another flight simulator not FSX or P3D which are the platforms Orbx develops for. Secondly this is not an add on scenery. Its a base install of another simulator. Also lets appreciate that Orbx has this fine forum where we can talk about flying and simming in general while respecting their interests.

This thread keeps getting derailed to non MS flight stuff!

Cheers

Fair enough answer, I just thought this was one of the things that John was referring to in this http://www.orbxsyste...-or-publishers/

I take back what I said if this is not the case.

Kind Regards

Edit: My original post was suggesting that maybe!!!!, Microsoft Flight may!!!! have ORBX scenery in it. As we are not allowed to be told this, it does not mean that it may!!!! not have happened. This would then be a good reason to leave it here.

Bernie.

[2110]

@Bernie, I think your right, this is advertisement for another product, but if they had wanted is removed they would have done it by now.

@Foxbat, Can I ask what info do you have that it is the same engine as FSX?

Cheers Phil

[Foxbat]

I think if this thread is defined as an advertisement pretty much all screenshots and other threads are advertisements for Microsoft, Carenado, PMDG, Photoshop, Beechcraft, Boeing etc. Orbx is a business and they rightly prefer their forum is not used as a platform for other developers who they compete with - I am not sure how a youtube video about Flight beta with no payware scenery is an advertisement or an announcement about a product release, c’mon guys lets apply some common sense here. This is a non-FSX thread which has nothing to do with Orbx products - Are we trying to provoke Orbx into locking this thread? Lets stick to the thread topic please.

--

Getting back to MS Flight engine – Phil see my previous comment why it may be the same engine. Secondly MS talks about the new weather engine. I thought the fact that they don’t talk about a new graphics/game engine may be significant in the sense nothing to announce in that aspect.

[BionicCrab]

@BionicCrab – This makes me think did Lockheed drop the ball? Assuming for now that the videos are a realistic portrayal and both Flight, P3D use the same engine – MS definitely did a much better job of fixing it.

To me right now P3D is a dead platform for home simmers - I’d rather spend the $500 on FSX and/or Flight add ons. I suspect the large silent majority feels the same.

Dunno if they are even comparable.. Flight seems to be more of a game where as P3D still remains a platform to build off of. The problem it seems that neither side is interested in supporting something in the middle. But I will most likely buy Flight and it's addons.as I'm more into the Flight aspect of it and not the operational side of things as pointed out by the recent promo of Flight. I do my VA flight once a month and that definitely does require the operations, but other times I rather an aircraft like the Lancair.

[2110]

I think if this thread is defined as an advertisement pretty much all screenshots and other threads are advertisements for Microsoft, Carenado, PMDG, Photoshop, Beechcraft, Boeing etc. Orbx is a business and they rightly prefer their forum is not used as a platform for other developers who they compete with - I am not sure how a youtube video about Flight beta with no payware scenery is an advertisement or an announcement about a product release, c’mon guys lets apply some common sense here. This is a non-FSX thread which has nothing to do with Orbx products - Are we trying to provoke Orbx into locking this thread? Lets stick to the thread topic please.

--

Getting back to MS Flight engine – Phil see my previous comment why it may be the same engine. Secondly MS talks about the new weather engine. I thought the fact that they don’t talk about a new graphics/game engine may be significant in the sense nothing to announce in that aspect.

People are not trying to get this thread locked, they just trying to give an honest opinion about Flight, which to be honest is a hard thing to do when you keep challenging them when their opinions don’t suite yours.

With regards to the engine, I believe it is a completely new engine, it would not make sense for them to use an engine they dropped years ago, a newer engine with proper multi-core, memory and graphics support would make more sense.

They will be releasing Flight via Microsoft live, which would indicate that the network side of it will not require Gamespy, it is to be a flight environment that connects you to a global base of users as well as an integrated content marketplace.

From the videos, we clearly see the use of DX11, which if I am correct is not possible via the current engine.

Here is some more news on flight;

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/microsoft-flight-releasing-this-month_663625.html

Time will tell, as so many have already said.

Phil.

[BionicCrab]

The specs are DX9,. And Flight/FSX are as multicore as you can get... don't know where this misconception comes from but let me clear it up... Graphics can only reside on a single core. Anything else has to be non graphics related.

[kennethjkerr]

I just want to comment on the concept of entitlement.

Of course Microsoft owes us nothing, when seen from a certain viewpoint. After all, even at its highest, MSFS was only a spit in the bucket of the sales of that monopoly. However, in the early announcements concerning FLIGHT, their team seemed to infer that they did not wish to forget the heritage of the franchise. In that light, Microsoft FLIGHT was intended to build, to some degree, on the loyalty of the core flight simmer.

Many years ago, I was the founder and owner of one of the first add-on companies for MSFS. It was called "The VIP Group" and we published through PC Aviator back in the late 90's. One year I went to Oshkosh and introduced myself to the lead developer of FS. I never even got as far as finishing my introduction when he said "Kenneth... How are you?." Back then there were so few add-on developers that MS knew my name! After a while I asked "What do you guys at MS think of what we are doing?" His reply was stunning. "We love you guys" he said. Then he continued. "We have people who buy Flight Simulator ONLY because they want to fly your aircraft and panels."

I never forgot this encounter. It told me in no uncertain terms, that in those days MS understood that the success of their franchise was linked directly with not only the end-user customers, but also the small group (then) of developers that were supporting their program. If there had been no third party development in the mid to late 90's, MSFS would never have grown like it did. Did they owe us some entitlement back then? They said that they did, even if it was never in financial terms.

Whatever success the franchise achieved, even when small to the bottom line of MS, DID contribute to that bottom line. Yes, we who made it happen, whether developers or hobbyists, were an integral part of that success story.

When did it die? It died when ACES was removed from the equation. We should have known better than to expect MS to pull another rabbit out of the hat when the true magicians had left the room. These new guys owe us nothing, but then, maybe we owe them nothing either. Which is why we continue to buy and love the work of today's addon companies, like ORBX, and why most of us will probably not abandon FSX or even FS9 for that matter.

C'ya Gang...

Kenneth J Kerr

Former Founder and Owner of "The VIP Group" (Classic Wings series - A VERY LONG time ago!!!!)

[Foxbat]

I just want to comment on the concept of entitlement.

Of course Microsoft owes us nothing, when seen from a certain viewpoint. After all, even at its highest, MSFS was only a spit in the bucket of the sales of that monopoly. However, in the early announcements concerning FLIGHT, their team seemed to infer that they did not wish to forget the heritage of the franchise. In that light, Microsoft FLIGHT was intended to build, to some degree, on the loyalty of the core flight simmer.

Many years ago, I was the founder and owner of one of the first add-on companies for MSFS. It was called "The VIP Group" and we published through PC Aviator back in the late 90's. One year I went to Oshkosh and introduced myself to the lead developer of FS. I never even got as far as finishing my introduction when he said "Kenneth... How are you?." Back then there were so few add-on developers that MS knew my name! After a while I asked "What do you guys at MS think of what we are doing?" His reply was stunning. "We love you guys" he said. Then he continued. "We have people who buy Flight Simulator ONLY because they want to fly your aircraft and panels."

I never forgot this encounter. It told me in no uncertain terms, that in those days MS understood that the success of their franchise was linked directly with not only the end-user customers, but also the small group (then) of developers that were supporting their program. If there had been no third party development in the mid to late 90's, MSFS would never have grown like it did. Did they owe us some entitlement back then? They said that they did, even if it was never in financial terms.

Whatever success the franchise achieved, even when small to the bottom line of MS, DID contribute to that bottom line. Yes, we who made it happen, whether developers or hobbyists, were an integral part of that success story.

When did it die? It died when ACES was removed from the equation. We should have known better than to expect MS to pull another rabbit out of the hat when the true magicians had left the room. These new guys owe us nothing, but then, maybe we owe them nothing either. Which is why we continue to buy and love the work of today's addon companies, like ORBX, and why most of us will probably not abandon FSX or even FS9 for that matter.

C'ya Gang...

Kenneth J Kerr

Former Founder and Owner of "The VIP Group" (Classic Wings series - A VERY LONG time ago!!!!)

Hi Kenneth – thanks for the beautiful comment and sharing that history. Very well said and balanced.

Also puts things into a longer term perspective and relationships which I must admit I wasn’t aware of (simming newbie having bought FSX only a few months back).

[Foxbat]

Thanks for that link Phil - didn't realise it was only 20 or so days away from release. All the speculation will finally come to an end. Let me continue anyway - I expect it retains a significant portion of the legacy code including the core engine (why throw out the most powerful flight sim engine ever developed even if its a bit buggy). Also as BionicCrab said earlier - being primarily a low and slow simmer with simple aircraft - I am hopeful that the smoothness, detail along with downloadable scenery and GA aircraft seems promising. I would assume MS has something up its sleeve to sell - I can't see the point of releasing a free game without any paid options. Of course I could be wrong.

As someone else said on this thread , it might be prudent to wait some time for it to mature after release.

[BionicCrab]

There is a reason a lot of people base their entire careers on developing for MS solely. Just the other day I introduced a young student to the MS developer channel. "Like a kid in a candy store" was his response as he never realized that there was all this content available to him at no charge. And it's been nice to finally turn somebody else on to the real MS, and not the one people keep hearing about thanks to the one sided argument presented by the "open source" community.

So take Flight for what it is, as Kenneth describes it's a new team. No one becomes an engine developer because it's easy... they obviously have a huge passion for the product and games in general and I imagine they know better than all of us what's best or at least required for the franchise to move forward. And no matter how much joy we derive from sitting in an aircraft and just staring at the buttons for hours before we even start the engines for the first time, we need to except and even respect the fact that is also the very thing that turns most people off. So let them do what they need to survive first, then start bugging them for more complex scenery and aircraft.

[2110]

The specs are DX9,. And Flight/FSX are as multicore as you can get... don't know where this misconception comes from but let me clear it up... Graphics can only reside on a single core. Anything else has to be non graphics related.

I don’t understand this statement, back in 2000, we ran Janes and few other flight sims on a dual P3 CPU board, we re-wrote the bios.

Any software can make use of as many cores as it was programmed to use. Wither or not a flight sim/game uses eight cores or one core simply depends on wither or not it was designed to do so.

As for graphics card, we have dual GPU cards, if fact, we have multi GPU card set-ups, all we need is an engine, which is designed to use them.

The video stats that an i7 CPU was used, but which one, all i7 including the new Ivy and socket 2011 all have integrated video hardware. The socket 2011 is also PCIe 3.0 enabled, so what hardware was used give these wonderful smooth images.

When I look at the videos and I see the lighting involved, as the camera pans around, I look at the shadows, they look really good, realistic, I like the way the shadows fade in and out at the edges.

Not as sharp as they look in DX9, DX11 has lighting technology built into it which more or less does this all by it’s self.

Bottom line is, unless Microsoft state that they have used the FSX engine as the engine for Flight, I’ll stick to the theory that they have built a new engine for flight.

@ Kenneth, thanks for that m8, it just goes to show that money is not always the reason that developers get involved with FSX, I believe that it is mostly because they have a passion for it.

Cheers Phil

[Foxbat]

After using the beta for the last month I will be definitely be buying this. The detail is stunning and so nice to fly. Totally stable and smooth and that is with a low end machine. Fred.

Seriously, a modern flight simulator core engine, a few planes, 20+ missions, and a very high quality scenery area for twenty bucks? That's an easy decision for me. I paid a lot more than that for Flight Unlimited.

http://forum.avsim.n...e-then-i-hoped/

Some interesting comments on avsim. Add ons cost approximately $15 - It does look much cheaper that what I have paid for add ons in FSX.

Flight is looking good, cheap and smooth!

I do hope they can come up with a model which will be agreeable to the current talented developers - ORBX, Real Air, PMDG etc

[manta]

There is a reason a lot of people base their entire careers on developing for MS solely. Just the other day I introduced a young student to the MS developer channel. "Like a kid in a candy store" was his response as he never realized that there was all this content available to him at no charge. And it's been nice to finally turn somebody else on to the real MS, and not the one people keep hearing about thanks to the one sided argument presented by the "open source" community.

So take Flight for what it is, as Kenneth describes it's a new team. No one becomes an engine developer because it's easy... they obviously have a huge passion for the product and games in general and I imagine they know better than all of us what's best or at least required for the franchise to move forward. And no matter how much joy we derive from sitting in an aircraft and just staring at the buttons for hours before we even start the engines for the first time, we need to except and even respect the fact that is also the very thing that turns most people off. So let them do what they need to survive first, then start bugging them for more complex scenery and aircraft.

I agree with everything. Don't want to go offtopic, but concerning new civilian simulators, I invite you to test AeroflyFS', you may find pleasant surprises in there. Not much time ago I read about how flight sims were reduced to a niche market doomed to implode without notice, it seems to me that we are witnessing maybe a new era, never beeing so thrived. Regarding civilian flight sim we have: FSX (through Orbx, Aerosoft, A2A, Pmdg, Carenado, RealAir and other very good developers), X-Plane 10, AeroflyFS, MSFlight, Prepar3D; DCS-A10 & DCS-BlackShark 2 regarding modern combat sim; 777-Rise of Flight (WWI era) and the highly flaw but very promising, since the investments beeing done, Il-2 Sturmovik theatre of Russia and new engine for the Channel, for WWII.

I'm slurping

[Foxbat]

Bottom line is, unless Microsoft state that they have used the FSX engine as the engine for Flight, I’ll stick to the theory that they have built a new engine for flight.

The game is built on an improved legacy engine, for large scale scenery support.

Microsoft Flight: Behind the Scenes at the Microsoft Studios

I thought this was pretty obvious for reasons stated previously - plus why drop a good engine?

A reference to FSX maybe?

The way previous builds were made, the games ran very CPU heavy, and didn’t take advantage of the fact that graphics cards were developing quickly. The team has put a great deal of effort into getting the game to run smoothly at its highest settings, while not requiring out of this world hardware. But also, getting it to still look good on its lowest settings, accommodating those end users with lower-end hardware and even those running the Windows XP operating system.

I again have the same thought - Lockheed I think dropped the ball. BUt I guess they were never supposed to be targeting the retail market. Makes me think MS got a pretty deal for legacy code since they knew what their long term plans were (Smoother, cheaper Flight to be developed by some of the finest programmers money can buy).

[Foxbat]

I agree with everything. Don't want to go offtopic, but concerning new civilian simulators, I invite you to test AeroflyFS', you may find pleasant surprises in there. Not much time ago I read about how flight sims were reduced to a niche market doomed to implode without notice, it seems to me that we are witnessing maybe a new era, never beeing so thrived. Regarding civilian flight sim we have: FSX (through Orbx, Aerosoft, A2A, Pmdg, Carenado, RealAir and other very good developers), X-Plane 10, AeroflyFS, MSFlight, Prepar3D; DCS-A10 & DCS-BlackShark 2 regarding modern combat sim; 777-Rise of Flight (WWI era) and the highly flaw but very promising, since the investments beeing done, Il-2 Sturmovik theatre of Russia and new engine for the Channel, for WWII.

I'm slurping

I agree manta. As a recent simmer I am spoilt for choice. There are so many good developers. I have a lot of ORBX products but I don't think I'll ever be able to explore them fully - and so many excellent payware aircraft. It's a good time - I just don't get the gloom. The future is bright for this hobby.

[2110]

An Improved legacy engine, is that not a particular type of architecture, a particular way to design and build games so that they can easily be added to and expanded upon, like modules.

Foxbat: thanks for the info, “Behind the scenes at MS studios” it tells me a lot of what I needed to know.

All I can say now is, I look forwards to trying flight, but I am glad orbx and the rest of the FSX developers will still support FSX, I will also look into P3D, and I will invest both time and money into P3D as I done with FSX.

I think P3D and FSX will have more to offer, for the foreseeable future anyway.

Cheers Phil.

[HiFlyer]

All will be made clear in just a few more days, at which point I suspect that old FSX techies will dig under the hood and probably find an "an improved legacy engine, for large scale scenery support"

If that is the case, speculation on FLIGHTS future potential will probably suddenly look a lot more like the current speculation on Orbx and P3D!

Forum discussions at that point should be very interesting.

Beyond that, I just hope that if FLIGHT does succeed that the purists will be welcoming to curious newbies, including those who think chasing coins is cool! There should be room for everyone. It will be sad, and probably self destructive eventually if the community stays isolated.

In the meantime I am going to provisionally trust Microsoft on this one.

[flyguy737]

i am watching this with great interest however I think all the comments here are very informative. we all sit and wonder. here's a thought, has anyone seen or played the game arma 2? I have it and the graphics are out of this world when cranked full up it still runs smooth and the level of detail is unbelieveable. now I don't know why fsx never had the level of detail and smoothness that games always seem to get. Even back in the medal of honor games it was great. I just don't get why fsx was always so laggy and came out at all. If I have never heard of fsx I would still be using fs9 but I do agree there were graphic improvments and I still love fsx but only since ORBX came along. if there was no ORBX i would throw fsx in the bin. So will FLIGHT be our god send? or will it just be another flash in the pan? We'll have to wait and see.

Colin

[BionicCrab]

I don’t understand this statement, back in 2000, we ran Janes and few other flight sims on a dual P3 CPU board, we re-wrote the bios.

Any software can make use of as many cores as it was programmed to use. Wither or not a flight sim/game uses eight cores or one core simply depends on wither or not it was designed to do so.

Think of it this way... I have a 25 mbit connection. Is it possible for me to now get 200mbit because I have 8 cores? The limitation are obvious here it isn't on the cores it's on the modem, and with graphics the limitation is also not on the cores or the number of GPUs you have, it's on the DirectX interface itself. You can scale the DX interface vertically by having a faster core, but the DX interface can't be scaled horizontally by moving on to other cores. So think of DX as being mutually exclusive regardless of the number of cores you actually have. You can certainly roundrobin the DX interface, passing it from one core to another, but thats only going to slow you down even more since you then have to worry about race conditions. In other words there is no way of knowing when one core is actually going to finish its instructions , so instead you end up wasting cycles looping until you get the all clear.

No doubt everyone is trying to fix this problem and obviously some have a bigger interest than others, but its not something that an individual vendor could do without submitting it for standardization. And it might just end up being the case that it doesn't actually happen with rasterized graphics, but ray-tracing instead. The irony in all of this is once you do get the instructions through the DX interface, the GPU processes them in parallel with up to 48 cores already.