When they disbanded the team in 2009 I thought we'd never see a proper replacement for Flight Sim X. The visuals look gorgeous but the real test is whether the airplane models have realistic physics - otherwise this is just a toy like Microsoft Flight.
Well, there's Prepar3d, which is derived from the FSX codebase but as of version 3 has advanced quite significantly - the biggest changes being full multi-threading and being natively 64bit.
Thank goodness for that. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a game that needs a PC rather than any other type of computer or an X-Box. The two go together, a fine combination like how some beverages go with certain meals.
A PC confers that it is not a game but something more like work. It gives the game seriousness as it becomes a simulation and not a game. Plus there is the legacy going back to the DOS versions, which will always have some magic to them that the new shiny graphics versions will not have. Maybe the blocky pixel versions were better for the imagination, the controls were pretty good you just had to imagine the scenery.
An FAA Qualified Level simulator can easily cost six figures, no one is suggesting a VR simulator is going to replace it - however once you've tried a sim in VR you'd likely never want anything else again.
An FAA certified tampon will set you back $10 each if you want to use the tampex tampon with the appropriate tracking number for a Piper. :P I'd expect uncertified to surpass it for far less.
(I've tried VR flight sims.. my god, having the view track with your head is amazing. One of a handful of killer VR apps)
I don’t understand this reply. It would make sense if they were arguing that it needs to have VR support or else it will fail, but all they did was state their own personal opinion.
Have you tried flight/driving sims in VR? You might change your tune once you realize how much closer to reality it feels compared to having a bunch of monitors in front of your face.
You also get that close to reality visual experience for a few hundred bucks, compared to professional sims that would be totally out of reach to anyone but actual flight training companies (and hobbyists with large amounts of time and money).
Camera movement independent of what your body is feeling = vomit
Camera movement consistent with player movement = no vom
For the most part inside the cockpit of a plane or car it's not so bad (for me at least) as you're largely experiencing the same forces as your eyes make you think you should be experiencing. But as soon as I play something with a third person camera that follows something I get immediately sick (Lucky's Tale was the specific game I remember doing this to me).
YMMV of course, but you should try playing something where the only continuous movement is controlled directly by your head movement. The way VR action games usually get around this limitation is by letting you point to a spot and instantaneously teleport there.
For the VR driving game I played, it was most problematic when I hit a rail or another car. I think my physical sensations not matching what I saw was what made it uncomfortable
Have you given it a go with a REALLY nice VR setup? Dude it's incredible. I'm a private pilot who has friends who fly commercial and who've tried my setup at home. From a systems fidelity perspective and immersion, you can get quite close. They were all awestruck. Short of a Level D sim, they all agreed it's the best they had seen, and in certain respects even felt more immersive (lighting is a big one, since you have a lot more control over shadows and whatnot, compared to level D sims which usually end up having a disconnect with cockpit lighting and the outside, unless its a night flight).
I'll be so disappointed if it does not have native support for VR. My Rift has been gathering dust, when I first bought it all I could think about was a great flight sim... been waiting so long now.
It's really easy to do a VR flight sim that simulates what you see out the windshield, but much trickier for the instruments and controls inside the cockpit. Where do you put them? Do you build a real, physical cockpit and AR what's outside? Or do you simulate the instruments in VR space? If so, how? Do you need haptic feedback? To what degree does this emulate real flying?
Not saying it can't be done--it's being done--but it's tricky and not as universally desirable as many non-pilots seem to think.
You're making it unnecessarily complex. The current version of x-plane does VR really well, viewport is in the pilot's seat and all you need for full immersion is a set of rudder pedals and the VR controllers themselves.
Using VR controllers, you can manipulate any modeled knob, switch, throttle, yoke, lever and trim wheel in the cockpit. With rudder pedals, it is as close as it gets to reality. I even felt nauseous after trying out aerobatics in it.
The biggest problem with VR in X-Plane is the headsets aren't high-res enough for the text on the instruments to be clear and readable. It's a bit better on the newer headsets with slightly higher resolution, but then the framerate tends to suffer. There's still a lot of room for improvement.
With Odyssey+'s new SDE filter, and 150% superscaling - I get smooth and really nice looking graphics! I compromise slightly on autogen ground scenery (one notch below ultra) and no ground shadows but everything else is maxed out.
I'm consistently above 45fps using 7700k and titan Xp (3 year old), I'm sure a 2080 or 2080Ti would do better.
I actually just lean forward a little bit with my Samsung Odyssey (original) if I want to know the exact figure - but I learned to fly in old 6-pack C152's so I'm quite used to the gauges and can generally tell I'm on the right speed / altitude / power setting pretty easily.
The resolution will get there eventually, but until then, VR flying is pretty awesome short of having multiple large displays wrapping around you.
This year at PAX East, Thrustmaster had a VR demo of their HOTAS controllers[1], which are intended to allow pilots to access all critical functions of the aircraft without removing their hands from the controls. It's been a long time since my flight sim days, and I've never had such a strong urge to drop a couple thousand dollars on a new gaming PC. (Thankfully I don't have that kind of money available at the moment.)
Your questions are all valid, and I'm sure the answers vary for different people. There's definitely a market though, and hopefully it's enough to motivate continued improvements in the tech.
You don't need to be pretty as a commercial flight sim, you just have to have enough accurately modelled instruments and inputs to be confident putting someone in a real plane after a bit of sim practice - they won't be surprised that the mountains are no longer grey cones.
I wonder how they will do the photorealistic terrain, if you can have an offline copy of the entire world or just NA I wouldn't be surprised if its 300gb+, unless they are continually streaming the terrain/textures and models.
Currently I've been flying in X-plane 11 with Ortho4xp and downloaded data can easily run into the hundreds of GBs and even multi terabytes.
That's what I was wondering. Models will not be any smaller, and internet bandwidth is not so much of an issue. Maybe it's time to harness ye old servers they've got lying around the world.
The satellite imagery around the world is getting pretty good these days. Look at what's available in Bing Maps. City models can be bought fairly cheaply, or it is possible they just used city data and had artists do corrections.
We took some open city point-cloud data last week and created 3d tiles from that using Cesium, and I was amazed at the result. Nothing like what you're seeing here, but I imagine an artist or possibly AI could do enough correction to make the cities look amazing and realistic enough.
Because you aren't looking at the city like a map, they don't need Google Earth level of accuracy.
Though another possibility is that Google Earth is licensing their data for games, so possibly Microsoft has licensed that?
Microsoft probably doesn't need to license Google Earth data because Bing data has been competing pretty well in that space, reports to the contrary aside.
One of Bing's particular focuses contrasting them to Google Earth/Maps photography has been a particular interest in "Birds Eye" isometric-feeling photography taken from helicopters at particular altitudes and compass angles, I would imagine is particularly applicable to trying to generate rich models for Flight Simulator use at similar altitudes, more so than a lot of traditional "flat" overhead aerial photography used by map providers.
(It's gotten harder to find Bird's Eye in Bing Maps redesigns sadly. It's "hidden" in the right-click menu now. Still, it is a useful and interesting type of aerial photographer that should be celebrated as useful and interesting.)
I didn't realize Birds Eye had moved into the right click. I was looking for it a while ago.
However, when I now see Birds Eye, it isn't available in Sydney, and many other locations in the world. Where I did see it (San Francisco & Paris) it is just the photographs, no photogrametry, no rotation, very little zoom, etc. etc.
Am I missing something? Can you let me know what you're seeing?
I'm guessing it is used for generating 3D buildings from map data and for the AI planes. They could also use it for voice communication with the in-game ATC but we'll have to wait for the release to know for sure.
Absolutely stunning scenery. I’ll speculate that they’ll offer some sort of subscription service which allows you to stream high quality textures beyond what the standard install provides. It would also be incredible to see AI powered ATC. Something that is a little more adaptive and real would be amazing. For instance I’d love to be able to declare an emergency and have the ATC actually understand that. ATC seems very plausible for AI as there’s a somewhat limited set of instructions that need to be understood, and basically anything beyond that would be icing on the cake compared to what’s available in FSX/X-Plane (aside from the real ATC plugins.)
Implementing AI in a large flight simulator would make an interesting platform to do trials. Of course you can setup large scale simulations of known inputs and expected outputs, but you'd also get a variety of skill levels and you'd see how the AI responds to some idiot taking off from the taxiway (e.g. Would it successfully redirect landing aircraft).
If someone could implement an AI that worked in flight simulator, it could help serve as evidence supporting a real world implementation.
It will be a long time before I trust AI to do anything of the sort. For me, I just want a simulation ATC that I can talk to with my mic that will more or less understand what I'm saying. Something to practice on.
That looks incredible, and makes me upset I'm not a pilot and don't have the time to learn!
Genuine question: is there any way to explore the world with visualizations as beautiful as those, but without the plane mechanics?
I have so much fun with Google Earth, but it doesn't have anything like the level of "realism" shown here -- the water, the clouds, the sunset, the shadows. While a game like GTA V can be gorgeous visually and you can fly a helicopter in it intuitively... but it's not a real place.
Is there any way to enjoy that realism without learning to fly a plane realistically?
I’m assuming you’re still able to start the simulator with any variables, including location/altitude/speed/etc. I always had fun flying around even though I didn’t really know what I was doing. Just start yourself at a good altitude and speed near the thing you want to look at.
I can’t guarantee the flocks of birds you see in the trailer though, unless that’s another variable you can manage these days.
Historically, MS Flight Simulator has always had the option of a "slew" mode that basically turns off physics and lets you directly manipulate your plane's position with the controller.
Twitch and Mixer are options. There's some really interesting online streamers doing their own interesting things in all the big Simulators (Farm, Truck, etc). Farm Simulator recently added a "competitive mode" that I'm told is surprisingly fun to watch. Among other things online, Truck Simulator and Flight Simulator have weirdly interesting communities recreating real life routes for fun.
Something that briefly interested me was that Flight Simulator route recreators need Air Traffic Controllers for that extra verisimilitude. It sounds like a fascinating role to try that would be relatively easier than piloting in the Simulator, but it has its own culture of seriousness that includes virtual apprenticeships, and can be nearly as intimidating trying to join.
Is it pretty well established at this point that XPlane is superior to Microsoft? My understanding is that Microsoft has previously used hard-coded flight characteristics to determine how a plane should handle, whereas XPlane will actually model the physics of flight. Is that correct/generally accepted? Is there a plan to change that with this new version?
I remember seeing and playing the flight sims of the 80s as a kid and being so bored by basically staring at a line on the screen (horizon), nothing happening for what felt like hours and then ‘crashing’ which just said ‘game over’, young me having no clue what happened. I can reason the difference between old and modern games, but for me gameplay has not been ‘more fun’; I find 80s Gradius the same pleasure to play as the latest Doom (and Crash 2+3 or Monkey Island 1+2 better than anything I can find now, but taste, you know). With simulators (cars, planes, ...) however I see how far we came; those I simply did not find playable until far into the 2000s and this really looks amazing.
I consider Alien Isolation a sort of simulator of the original Alien movie (the feel is the same for me); this was attempted in the 80s as well and failed as well. Now it works perfectly.
The technology wasn't as good in the early 80's. But by the late 80's we had greats such as F15 Strike Eagle II, and by 1992 we had Comanche Maximum Overkill. Both of those had great gameplay.
I first got into Flight Simulator starting with Flight Simulator for Windows 95. The game even motivated me to take a few flight lessons and log a handful of flight hours.
Wow, this new FS trailer is mind blowing. The graphics look unreal, can't wait.
I spent atlot of time on MS Flight Simulator, from ver 5.1 for DOS all the way up to FSX.
It was a sad day when MS discontinued the product as it is the oldest product offered by the company.
This really feels like a renaissance at Microsoft as the hardcore audience (simmers) for this is small and presumably lead to the earlier cancellation.
That said, people can also presumably play it is a videogame, too. Nothing wrong with people having fun simulating something they'd probably never get to do in real life. At the very least for all the kids whose parents want games to be at least semi-educational, Flight Simulators will always have a niche in videogaming.
I hope it's not too "video-gamey". That was the downfall of "MS Flight". It was highly disappointing to hard-core simmers who had come to expect realistic flight conditions, routes, ATC, physics and a world-wide map.
I was part of a survey from MS about what I'd like to see in the next version of the simulator (this was after FSX went away but before "Flight). The survey asked a lot of questions about my thoughts on making the sim more goal/mission oriented (essentially, more of a game).
I made it really clear that I thought that was fine as an addition but should not replace the current real-world functionality. Give people the option.
I can't imagine my answers were that different from most long-time users - basically it needed to have all the features I mentioned above, plus an open SDK for 3rd party developers.
MS didn't listen and "Flight" was a huge disappointment - at which point I moved to X-Plane.
Hopefully, they've gone back to their roots with this new version because it looks absolutely amazing.
75 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 240 ms ] threadA PC confers that it is not a game but something more like work. It gives the game seriousness as it becomes a simulation and not a game. Plus there is the legacy going back to the DOS versions, which will always have some magic to them that the new shiny graphics versions will not have. Maybe the blocky pixel versions were better for the imagination, the controls were pretty good you just had to imagine the scenery.
Second of all, I don't know of any GA or airline simulators that use VR.
Source: commercial pilot.
(I've tried VR flight sims.. my god, having the view track with your head is amazing. One of a handful of killer VR apps)
You also get that close to reality visual experience for a few hundred bucks, compared to professional sims that would be totally out of reach to anyone but actual flight training companies (and hobbyists with large amounts of time and money).
Camera movement independent of what your body is feeling = vomit
Camera movement consistent with player movement = no vom
For the most part inside the cockpit of a plane or car it's not so bad (for me at least) as you're largely experiencing the same forces as your eyes make you think you should be experiencing. But as soon as I play something with a third person camera that follows something I get immediately sick (Lucky's Tale was the specific game I remember doing this to me).
YMMV of course, but you should try playing something where the only continuous movement is controlled directly by your head movement. The way VR action games usually get around this limitation is by letting you point to a spot and instantaneously teleport there.
Not saying it can't be done--it's being done--but it's tricky and not as universally desirable as many non-pilots seem to think.
Using VR controllers, you can manipulate any modeled knob, switch, throttle, yoke, lever and trim wheel in the cockpit. With rudder pedals, it is as close as it gets to reality. I even felt nauseous after trying out aerobatics in it.
I'm consistently above 45fps using 7700k and titan Xp (3 year old), I'm sure a 2080 or 2080Ti would do better.
The resolution will get there eventually, but until then, VR flying is pretty awesome short of having multiple large displays wrapping around you.
Your questions are all valid, and I'm sure the answers vary for different people. There's definitely a market though, and hopefully it's enough to motivate continued improvements in the tech.
[1]: http://www.thrustmaster.com/products/hotas-warthog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator#Loc...
I know Airbus also uses ESP as the base, but not sure about Boeing sims.
Currently I've been flying in X-plane 11 with Ortho4xp and downloaded data can easily run into the hundreds of GBs and even multi terabytes.
We took some open city point-cloud data last week and created 3d tiles from that using Cesium, and I was amazed at the result. Nothing like what you're seeing here, but I imagine an artist or possibly AI could do enough correction to make the cities look amazing and realistic enough.
Because you aren't looking at the city like a map, they don't need Google Earth level of accuracy.
Though another possibility is that Google Earth is licensing their data for games, so possibly Microsoft has licensed that?
One of Bing's particular focuses contrasting them to Google Earth/Maps photography has been a particular interest in "Birds Eye" isometric-feeling photography taken from helicopters at particular altitudes and compass angles, I would imagine is particularly applicable to trying to generate rich models for Flight Simulator use at similar altitudes, more so than a lot of traditional "flat" overhead aerial photography used by map providers.
(It's gotten harder to find Bird's Eye in Bing Maps redesigns sadly. It's "hidden" in the right-click menu now. Still, it is a useful and interesting type of aerial photographer that should be celebrated as useful and interesting.)
However, when I now see Birds Eye, it isn't available in Sydney, and many other locations in the world. Where I did see it (San Francisco & Paris) it is just the photographs, no photogrametry, no rotation, very little zoom, etc. etc.
Am I missing something? Can you let me know what you're seeing?
I wounder will there be some other kind of cloud integration like dynamically streaming models from Azure, pay-per-flight models or such.
If someone could implement an AI that worked in flight simulator, it could help serve as evidence supporting a real world implementation.
Genuine question: is there any way to explore the world with visualizations as beautiful as those, but without the plane mechanics?
I have so much fun with Google Earth, but it doesn't have anything like the level of "realism" shown here -- the water, the clouds, the sunset, the shadows. While a game like GTA V can be gorgeous visually and you can fly a helicopter in it intuitively... but it's not a real place.
Is there any way to enjoy that realism without learning to fly a plane realistically?
I can’t guarantee the flocks of birds you see in the trailer though, unless that’s another variable you can manage these days.
Something that briefly interested me was that Flight Simulator route recreators need Air Traffic Controllers for that extra verisimilitude. It sounds like a fascinating role to try that would be relatively easier than piloting in the Simulator, but it has its own culture of seriousness that includes virtual apprenticeships, and can be nearly as intimidating trying to join.
I have enough subscriptions already, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to add another one for a flight sim, however pretty it may be.
Every other game on the service has been available for purchase otherwise, I doubt that will change here.
I consider Alien Isolation a sort of simulator of the original Alien movie (the feel is the same for me); this was attempted in the 80s as well and failed as well. Now it works perfectly.
Wow, this new FS trailer is mind blowing. The graphics look unreal, can't wait.
I spent atlot of time on MS Flight Simulator, from ver 5.1 for DOS all the way up to FSX.
It was a sad day when MS discontinued the product as it is the oldest product offered by the company.
This really feels like a renaissance at Microsoft as the hardcore audience (simmers) for this is small and presumably lead to the earlier cancellation.
Looking forward to the release!
You can take it all the way to having Virtual Air Traffic Control systems, staffed by other players - eg the VATSIM[1] community.
[1] https://www.vatsim.net/
I was part of a survey from MS about what I'd like to see in the next version of the simulator (this was after FSX went away but before "Flight). The survey asked a lot of questions about my thoughts on making the sim more goal/mission oriented (essentially, more of a game).
I made it really clear that I thought that was fine as an addition but should not replace the current real-world functionality. Give people the option.
I can't imagine my answers were that different from most long-time users - basically it needed to have all the features I mentioned above, plus an open SDK for 3rd party developers.
MS didn't listen and "Flight" was a huge disappointment - at which point I moved to X-Plane.
Hopefully, they've gone back to their roots with this new version because it looks absolutely amazing.