FSX starting to look old

[domfliss]

Hi guys,

You know, for the first time, I actually realised how old FSX is starting to look even with Orbx installed.

I know it's a vast improvement over how FSX originally looked, but compared to modern engines available, it really is starting to show its age. The amounting of editing I do with my screenshots to make them look... acceptable in today's world should have told me something, LOL.

As I use FSX so much I don't tend to explore other software as much as I used to, but recently I've been exploring and it really was a kick in the teeth.

I think Orbx do a good job making it look how they do, but I wonder how long it can continue.

Dom

[maxter]

Uh oh - This ain't gonna be pretty

[domfliss]

Uh oh - This ain't gonna be pretty

LOL, I know what you mean; but it's purely an observation.

[Bruce Hamilton]

I don't see anyone working on FSXI at the moment.

[domfliss]

I don't see anyone working on FSXI at the moment.

Yeah it's a shame Bruce. Sometimes wish technology didn't move so damn fast, LOL

[BradB]

When and if Lockheed Martin release's version 2.0 of P3D with 64 bit , that might be the day I put my old FSX

out to pasture .

Brad

[jrrbolkin]

Its true though there is nothing in the pipeline (sadly) that utilizes today's PC set -ups.When you see how old and dated the default fsx scenery/landclass looks then its a sad state of affairs.

Microsoft tried with Flight (that went well) .Then for a while the rumour was that Aerosoft were developing a new ground up sim, seems that idea has died.Then x- plane 10 promised new frontiers did't deliver IMHO.

At least with FTX Global someone is making an attempt to improve things,and as brilliant as their stuff is you kinda feel we are flogging a dead horse,To tweak or not to tweak "this" will maybe fix that and hey try "this" it gave me an extra 2fps.Not really ideal but it seems its all we have. Ideally we as a community should have a whip round and collectively re-hire the original Aces team and say hey its the 21st century you will not believe what PC'S can do these days.

Or persuade the guys at Orbx to go gung-ho and start from scratch and bring our beloved hobby up to date......again a fantasy.

Finally we have P3D a silk purse from a pigs ear with the greatest respect to L/M and all the hard working people on there team.

Maybe we will one day see the sim we want but sadly I am not holding my breath,These are just my thoughts on the matter and I know some of you guys will disagree.

At least with Orbx we get a tantalizing glimpse of just what is possible and credit and kudos to them for trying.(pick the bones outta that one).

Gary

[Foxbat]

I actaully think FSX doesn't look that bad either.  Is it good enough for learning about aviation on a computer - I think so.  Eyecandy is great and yes that could be further improved - but if I was stuck in a cave with a laptop, I would think this is pretty good.  But yeah, I like pretty stuff too which is why I have Orbx.

[Tim Harris]

Nothing.. (think about this a sec)...to this day... can simulate an entire globe with real world weather system, day/night etc like FSX can

 

Old perhaps, but rivaled?... no not yet, not even close.

 

Cheers

Tim

[jaseman007]

I generally get good results from my fsx setup. Orbx has rejuvenated my setup and overall experience. FSX kicks ass when it comes down to apples v apples. Nothing comes close.

Jas

[chumley]

The next version will be FSXXXX - none of us will be around to see it.

[Capnsully]

Ooh you are a shat stirrer Dom!

I am a sim-whore as you know. So yeah, I know what you mean, eg War Thunder, its graphics poo all over FSX. But I'm loving P3D while waiting for the V2 and hidden sims revolution! And my jaw still drops at some p3d scenes I see. Maybe you need to buy a new PC with a new 770 card )

[Capnsully]

Like this? See the sunrays?



 

[domfliss]

Ooh you are a shat stirrer Dom!

I am a sim-whore as you know. So yeah, I know what you mean, eg War Thunder, its graphics poo all over FSX. But I'm loving P3D while waiting for the V2 and hidden sims revolution! And my jaw still drops at some p3d scenes I see. Maybe you need to buy a new PC with a new 770 card )

I think you might be the expert shat stirrer Simon  

My Apple runs FSX fine mate and it does so....silently; it was purely an observation on how FSX is stacking up 7 years after it's release date.  Considering the age of the product it's longevity is quite surprising and unsurpassed in the gaming world. 

I agree, with Tim that in the flight simulation 'civil' area nothing comes close to FSX because it has the add-ons to increase it's appeal, but in terms of graphical ability.....like your War Thunder; it is starting to look old and limited. Even, dare I say it X-Plane has it moments (rare) which make FSX look dated even with Orbx installed.

Glad you're having fun mate.  Say hi to your taxi driver  

Dom

[bill ho]

hi.I was only thinking earlier today before i saw this post that Fsx was still pretty good.Also i hardly ever have any problems with it (touch wood)...my 2cents worth....cheers Bill

[DocBird]

I agree that FSX looks good from up above! I even looks good flying "low and slow" in ORBX-country. But even in the most recent areas like SAK it looks poor if you land at places outside the airports. I have done a trip to some huts in SAK lately and it is painful to see the ground (big squares all over the place). So it should be possible in a modern sim to make this better (maybe not in FSX but that's what this post is all about). Also the mountains far away are not crisp which is a pity and last not least the water should be flowing down the rivers.

 

There are some more modern rendering machines (like e.g. Outerra) and I absolutely look forward to the generation of sim after P3D V2.0.

 

And I do believe that there is a market for a good sim: It could be used for several purposes and games. And if there would be a good engine there could be a lot of gameplay and missions around that would attract new customers.

[kaboki]

Nothing.. (think about this a sec)...to this day... can simulate an entire globe with real world weather system, day/night etc like FSX can

 

Old perhaps, but rivaled?... no not yet, not even close.

 

Cheers

Tim

 

 

Totally agree. I'm still amazed of all the things this old engine is capable off and how devs are discovering new ways to get around the engines limititations. I still see me enjoying FSX years to come, and I don't think the graphics are that bad at all. I still have along way to fill up the whole world with good scenery(and devs still have along way in making them) and still plenty off nice addon planes to buy, so I actually can wait a few years for FS11.

If a new sim popped up tomorrow I would have to start all over again collecting scenery, waiting for releases and that could take some years and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet...

[Tim Harris]

Just cleaned this up a little, lets keep this ON TOPIC chaps

[Dukester]

Imho it's the whole emersion factor that makes the experience.

It's developers like ORBX that continue to push the limits of the base code & engine who will give FSX a life much longer than any of us could have dreamed of.

Case in point is I still love to play Grand Prix Legends even with its 15yr old graphics engine it still provides a fantastic simulation with its groundbreaking physics, it just feels right.

Add to that mods from the development community are still being released unlocking more & better content so many years afterwards.

FSX may be getting older but like a great wine it's getting better & better as it matures.

[COBS]

I think that our expectations get out of hand on occassions.

For absolute reality it will always be necessary to fly a real aircraft in the real world.

FSX with FTX applied is an utterly fantastic experience.

If you Google videos of cutting edge Flight Simulators used by both the Airlines , and

the military airforces , one thing immediately becomes abundantly clear ,

our FSX/FTX Flight simulator is far superior.

We need to reconsider exactly how lucky we are to have it.

Cheers

Karol

[domfliss]

Imho it's the whole emersion factor that makes the experience.

It's developers like ORBX that continue to push the limits of the base code & engine who will give FSX a life much longer than any of us could have dreamed of.

Case in point is I still love to play Grand Prix Legends even with its 15yr old graphics engine it still provides a fantastic simulation with its groundbreaking physics, it just feels right.

Add to that mods from the development community are still being released unlocking more & better content so many years afterwards.

FSX may be getting older but like a great wine it's getting better & better as it matures.

 

 

Yes, totally agree with you; the immersion is a key factor.  When I used to play F19 Stealth Fighter, those brown triangles were mountains and I believed it

 

Grand Prix Legends? Class game; especially with the add-ons and mods!!  

 

The Ferrari was a killer, but sounded so lovely!!

 

For me it was Formula 1 by Microprose. Both 1 and 2 were amazing!! I think I killed my fingers one month doing a championship, LOL.

 

Geez, must be over twenty years now; getting old!!

 

Dom

[moonman]

An interesting topic here.

Although FSX, without any doubt, has come a long way and sure offers a lot - But (!):

There is almost always some space for further improvement.

I mean:

ORBX and many other developers have shown how far the envelope can be pushed within FSX and how far things can still be improved here nowadays.

But i think the day is comming closer somehow now, when it may not be possible to get any further.

 

Does this now in anyway mean that what has been achieved until this specific point is worthless?

No, not at all!

Not at all!

But to move on further, it may need some new re-configuration, some almost complete new approach.

In regards to FSX this somehow means that although a lot - a real lot - has been achieved within in, some significent changes are needed, to progress further.

 

We will see what P3D, Version 2 will have to offer once it is released or how other possible future flightsimming engines will progress, but i - all just personally spoken - also think, that some serious overhaul of the FSX engine is imperative if our interest in simming should have a realiable platfrom available in the future!

And all of that is sure not only due to reasons of "eyecandy features" or so, but lots of "technical" issues instead, such as OOM-Errors or all the "FSX-typical-microstutters" - just to mention two examples here (as there are much more).

 

So to sum it up somehow:

FSX itself has shown and proved how much there actually is possible - or how much there can be achieved within the realms of flightsimming ...

 ... so why stop now and not move on further instead?!

 

[Clutch Cargo]

P3D v2.0 with DX11.  That should change how things "look".

[TracyQ]

I know that most here go back further than I,  but I started with FS98,  and I am amazed at what FSX is able to do thanks to the addon developers.  If it stayed at exactly what it is today,  I foresee years and years of enjoyment.

 

I, personally,  haven't even touched on 99% of what this sim has to offer.

 

Not that I would be adverse to something even better,  but a flight from one custom FTX airport to another,  in a Realair Legacy  (and others), with real weather enabled,  is not a bad way to spend an hour or two!

[Tim Harris]

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/605-orbx-forum-terms-of-use/

 

 

1 ) While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters.

 

7 ) We also do not allow posts that are sexual (even subtle sexual innuendo), political, race-oriented, religious in nature or violate Orbx community standards. The Orbx staff shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards.

 

 

 

OK I have been patient, polite, cleaned this thread up 3 times, removed some completely off topic gun-debate posts, enough is enough, tread carefully or this topic is closed, this is my last warning.

[domfliss]

Which version of Flight Simulator do you think really started to change things; you know, how we started to look at simming seriously?

 

I think for me it was FS98.  That was the big one.  I remember my first real weather download.  Having live, real weather loaded up.....wow, that was really something.  I've forgotten the name of the program, but that and FSNavigator really changed it for me. Yep, Flight Simulator has come a very long way.  

 

Where is my copy of FSClouds   

 

Dom

[DocBird]

The key question is: Why are so few young people interested in flight simulation? Why was FSX not as successful as MS hoped it to be and why happened that again to FLIGHT?

 

I think that it is a lack of eye candy and simplicity: Try to impress a school student with FSX (even with ORBX) or Flight after he has played some of the up to date games. Yes, ORBX has totally improved the FSX immersion and, yes, it is great to fly from one ORBX-airport to another over ORBX-country. But: For the beginners there needs to be eye candy (People, planes, vehicles, traffic lights, trees, animals, etc.) out of the box and it needs to be possible to fly with little to no training and then there should be some “reward†(meaning rewarding outcome).

 

The FSX cannot be compared to professional simulation software as such professional sims clearly do not focus on the graphic side of the business. If the world (down to the ground) is like the ORBX-airports with interactive People-flow (V2.0) to fuel up the plane and passengers to board your plane and effects (like splashing water or winds from rotors) would be more natural that would attract new simmers and if the game would be easy to use it would fascinate new simmers.

 

I bet that most of us didn’t start flying at level of total realism. Face the facts, Ladies and Gentlemen, if you have fun to sit in front of the computer to make a real weather, real time flight from A to B that takes 3 hours than you are somehow addicted. Most “players†need to play for a long time to see that fascination of the “gameâ€. Most people want to jump on it and start without loading time of 10 minutes for FSX and REX and most beginners want a self-explaining sim (which is difficult even with a C172!).

 

So a new sim needs to fascinate the player in the first 5 minutes but needs room for the personal development of the player over the years.

 

I think it is the same as with those little model railways. You see them for the first time at your grandpa’s place but need to start with a beginners pack when you are only 7 years old. Then, over the years things become more and more complicated and realistic and you find out that it is not so much the fun to play with the railways but to build it and improve it.  But the first step it to hook the kids and fascinate them with nice (and up-to-date) and easy to use products. And, sorry, this is not what FSX is.

 

MS would have been smart to buy PNW (+KHQM) from ORBX and to integrate it as the standard flight in its FSX if the default flight starts in Bowerman. Together with a nice military airport and some interesting missions it would have had a chance to rise again.  Maybe this is an idea to push P3D V2.0 a bit further!

 

Just my 2 ct!

[Andrew 737]

The next version will be FSXXXX - none of us will be around to see it.

That's quite sad

[Andrew 737]

I think that our expectations get out of hand on occassions.For absolute reality it will always be necessary to fly a real aircraft in the real world.FSX with FTX applied is an utterly fantastic experience.If you Google videos of cutting edge Flight Simulators used by both the Airlines , andthe military airforces , one thing immediately becomes abundantly clear ,our FSX/FTX Flight simulator is far superior.We need to reconsider exactly how lucky we are to have it.CheersKarol

Hi Karol

You are absolutely 100% correct.

I have spent the last two years building a cockpit and have ended up with 5! Not a single one can do everything - you have to go flying in the real world if you want that degree of realism.

As far as I know, when you approach an airfield in a C172 with 30 flap doing 65kts and trimmed out, over the field you slow down a bit more, suddenly the wind drops off and nose goes down and sh... Full power and go around - the forces on the column, they are something.

I have a flight illusion FFB yoke but it can't simulate this. A Friend has a Sim in Reading that he uses for line sim checks and training etc; are his graphics as good as FTX? NO!

I am slowly lowering my expectations everytime I fail in my endeavour to create a 'Smooth 180% visual Orbx world' to fly my cockpit in. I am beginning to wonder if this is actually possible?

[JimmiG]

Of course it's starting to look old. It is old - nearly 7 years old, which i an eternity in the world of computers.

 

Normally, we'd get a new FS version every 2-3 years or so. Just look at FS 98 (released mid 1997) and compare it to the FS9 which came out almost 7 years later in late 2003. If there was a Flight Sim 2013, FSX would seem just as outdated today as FS98 did in the FS9 days.

 

FS98:

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/541750-microsoft-flight-simulator-98-windows-screenshot-the-learjet.png

 

FS9:

http://www.carenado.com/CarSite/Portal/image/productos/BE800/1.jpg

 

 

The biggest problem is that the graphics engine comes from the "GHz wars" era, when it was believed that ever increasing CPU clock speeds (Intel was predicting 10 GHz chips in 2010) would solve all our problems. Then we got DX10, DX11 and fully programmable GPUs to take the burden off of our stagnating CPUs. FSX (and P3D 1.x) by contrast, does almost *everything* on the CPU. Since CPU performance has been pretty stagnant in the last 5 years, there are limits to what even OrbX can do with this old engine.

 

I have high hopes for P3D 2.0, though. I'm not expecting miracles in terms of visual effects and detail, but with DX11 support, 64-bit (maybe in P3D 2.1?) and less CPU dependency it should allow companies like OrbX to keep increasing the detail while actually improving performance at the same time.

[birdguy]

A little bit of imagination helps the medicine go down.  For those of us who are or have been real life pilots no computer simulation (except maybe a three-axis simulator none of us can afford) will replicate the real thing.  The different sounds.  The seat of the pants feeling.  The G-Forces.  The unexpected turbulence that you FEEL instead of see on a monitor.  No sudden feeling in the pit of your stomach when you hear something unusual or see an instrument acting up.

 

The so called 'total immersion' of the two limited visual and audio dimensions can never stack up against the real thing.

 

But not being able to fly anymore I find FSX is wonderful experience for this old man and I ain't gonna knock it because it's old.

 

Sometimes the next best thing is something to appreciate when the first best thing becomes unavailable.

 

Noel

[mjrhealth]

Now that I have ants Trojan a new door is open, its a delight to fly. I just load at some unkn own  airport and fly in some direction for a while ejoy the view than land. Its the take pffs and landings I enjoy when I get them right. I have the 7373 and antoher ailine i bought and havnt flown yet, probably my most spent timeis aircraft carrier landings now that we have so many good carriers and naval planes out there.

[lthendrix]

Its a simulator   it simulates  ........lets think back a minute and thank and praise Mr.  A

Im with bird guy... you all need to get your head off the ground while your in the air ... A little immersion helps but to be honest I could really care less becuz to me its all about flying my sim plane as a sim pilot ....I am just happy we all still have a simulator and that we dont have to be licensed by big brother to use one ..... after all knowledge in the public hand is a dangerous thing.... very dangerous !

[Rob Newman]

The key question is: Why are so few young people interested in flight simulation? Why was FSX not as successful as MS hoped it to be and why happened that again to FLIGHT?

 

Well from my perspective at least (as a very early adopter of FSX), the reasons for the lack of user support for both these platforms are two entirely different things...

 

FSX is now, and for some time yet I'm sure, the premier sim platform... yes, even more so than P3D at this moment in time, simply for the fact that it is so open ended and CAN be modified and improved upon so readily by 3rd party developers. ORBX is not alone in pushing FSX's envelope to the very extreme. That's FSX's real strength... It's ability to be broadly customized to a huge degree. However, despite all the recent advances by 3rd party devs, we can't ignore the fact that MS released a product that was seriously hobbled with bugs and issues.

 

I would say most users wanted a sim that they could install and run without the need to learn code and buy additional "fixes" just to get it running decently. Those of us who have persevered and invested in FSX addons and learned it's tricks are reaping the benefits, but that large portion of the community that wanted an instant sim were disappointed and abandoned FSX, being quite vocal about it in the process... And of course the whole "DX10 debacle" where MS showed "screenshots" showing what DX10 mode would look like, only to have DX10 mode be a demo preview mode which looked nothing like the hyped up shots, pushed a lot more simmers away.

 

FSX's woes from my point of view were down to poor project planning and overestimating the abilities of what FSX was capable of. 

 

As for Flight, that's a whole different kettle of fish... MS essentially "fixed" a lot of the problems that FSX had, but rather than releasing it as a sequel to FSX, with the ability to use your old scenery areas and planes, they closed out many 3rd party devs with overly restrictive contracts... essentially making it a closed "MS only" system. The fact that people could only look forward to MS released scenery, AND have to pay for every part of the world separately left a lot of people (including myself) quite angry with MS... They were essentially trying to make Flight Sim a micro-transaction program which is why people simply did not get on board.

 

You could argue that FSX in it's current state is also a form of Micro-transaction program... I purchase airplanes from devs like Carenado, or Alabeo, or Ant's Airplanes... I purchase scenery regions, aircraft and airports from ORBX... What's the difference? I would argue that the quality of product from these devs are far superior to what MS was churning out and better yet, even if I DIDN'T purchase any 3rd party addons for FSX, I still have the entire world in FSX default quality, plus a huge range of default aircraft to fly in... The choice is mine to make with FSX whereas Flight made it a requirement to shell out hard earned cash to MS for addons that were nowhere near as good as those offered on the 3rd party market... We know that the likes of ORBX and Carenado push almost all their profits back into R & D and the development of even better products... I somehow have doubts that MS would have had the same progressive goal.

 

But that's just me

[yvesfr]

OUTERRA http://www.outerra.com can be one day our next flght sim

[COBS]

The key question is: Why are so few young people interested in flight simulation? Why was FSX not as successful as MS hoped it to be and why happened that again to FLIGHT?

COST; To run FSX requires a good computer ,and that costs .

Now start adding the cost of your scenery and aircraft ADDONs , then sit down and take your medication ,

because that tally is a lot higher than we want to admit.

FSX priced many kids out of the market place , we will have lost them even as they age and their

disposable income increases , because their interests and behavior patterns will have become set in concrete.

That expensive computer aspect applies to many others apart from kids , I am constantly amazed at the number

of FS9 download files at Flightsim , it is a huge proportion of their files , it's very

apparent that many Simmers have not migrated to FSX.

Cheers

Karol

[pmb]

Most important for the FSXX franchise over a long time was supposedly its scalability. You could grab the game in the supermarket, start out of the box at Meigs and get into the air with that wow factor, while on the other hand, you could gradually add stunning sceneries and really advanced planes.

 

None of the later developments copied this aspect. FLIGHT was geared to the gamers only, AeroflyFS is as closed as FLIGHT, X-Plane lacks just that wow because of sterile graphics and scenery, Outerra will need a few more decades to become a flight simulator, if any. Prepar3D has an obscure license, an overly restricted distribution policy and lacks localized language versions. There is no promising entry point anymore. As a result, flightsimming is becoming a hobby of grumbling old men (include me), as you can find confirmed on many of the relevant forums.

 

We could ignore all that and just use what we have. However, I can well imagine none of these projects being really profitable over a long run just because of a too small user base, and this might finally ground all of them sooner or later.

 

I foresee one time I'll have to sell my Flightsim equipment and start making music again - perhaps not a bad choice either.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[John Venema]

P3D 2.0 will knock it out of the ball park, trust me. We have a good future with a great dev team and a slow-but-steady approach to removing all the old warts from seven year old code and adding hooks to modern CPU/GPU hardware.

[pmb]

Even P3D1.4 is not that bad either and should get a nice visual boost with FTX Global soon. There is certainly still a quite stable user base of FSX/P3D. 

 

What I am concerned about is getting new kins into the game giving it a future. While P3D technically is IMHO overall the best simulation solution we have today, it's not adequeate to provide this because of the difficult ecosystem.

 

Anyway, thanks for taking time to answer,

Michael

[domfliss]

P3D 2.0 will knock it out of the ball park, trust me. We have a good future with a great dev team and a slow-but-steady approach to removing all the old warts from seven year old code and adding hooks to modern CPU/GPU hardware.

 

So P3D 2 will be able to be used for entertainment purposes?