MSFS -Everything you know about upcoming Flight Sim from Microsoft-

[DragonflightDesign]

Yep, available on the PC as advertised here.
Just Sayin' So far, not liking what I read.

Yep, that pretty much kills any third-party development. Running an XBox program inside a container on a PC makes a lot of sense because it means that Microsoft can break away from the 'develop for Xbox, port to PC' cycle. Write once, read many.

 

[Vitus]

I have a question:
did anyone here know about this in advance from Microsoft? They claim to be working closely with experts in the industry, but so far I've only seen people being surprised by this.

 

[=rk=]

Tomayto/tomahto. But seriously, I'm only feigning surprise.

 

[WarpD]

No one involved would ever respond... NDA.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

The subscription based model makes sense as there are petabytes of data if I have read correctly. It will require an internet connection capable of streaming the data, as well as reading data from the PC regarding position, speed, etc...

The good news is a lot of the computation of the objects, AI, and scenery will be done in the Azure cloud, so a lower-end PC (or XBox) with a strong internet connection may have good fps. If I'm right here, Microsoft solved 2 nagging issues with simulation: the need for cutting edge, over-clocked computers, and the need for massive storage.

The downside here would be terrain developers ( landclass, vector, photoreal) are out of work. This is all streaming photoreal, all coming from Microsoft. And we'll be paying $5-$12 a month, every month, for years, for the subscription. People on fixed incomes will have to tighten their belts a bit. PC replacement purchases should be cheaper, internet costs may be higher. We'll see if payware DLC is controlled by Microsoft, and how much we'll get with the base (included) aircraft.

I think modelers will still have a market. New or replacement airport buildings, landmarks, aircraft. Mission builders will definitely have a job to do.

 

[robystar]

Suppose for a minute that you would find a server that could store your Google Earth (or other) satellite images of the whole world and that can be used selectively, depending on where you want to fly, you have yourselves a new FSX or P3D flight simulator that does not cost as much and does not prevent you from adding your own addons?

 

[Heretic]

Suppose for a minute that you would find a server that could store your Google Earth (or other) satellite images of the whole world and that can be used selectively, depending on where you want to fly, you have yourselves a new FSX or P3D flight simulator that does not cost as much and does not prevent you from adding your own addons?

So basically business as usual, except with bloody large hard drives?

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Own servers:

Capital costs for a 1-petabyte (PB) storage system, such as the Dell EMC Unity 400, is about $500,000 amortized over five years. The maintenance contract to support that system is 20% of the purchase price per year—so another $500,000 for support over the same five-year period.

https://wasabi.com/blog/on-premises-vs-cloud-storage/


Rent server space:

Google’s Coldline storage costs just $7,000 a month per petabyte and the data can be accessed instantly (milliseconds delay) and securely downloaded to anywhere in the world. Moreover, included in this cost is not only all of the hardware needed to store that data, but the power and cooling and some of the world’s best system administrators and engineers managing it all and keeping everything secure. Also, keep in mind that the way that Google and the other cloud vendors achieve their high levels of availability and durability is that they make multiple copies of your data (Google Persistent Disk makes 3.3 copies of your data for example). This means that for that for $7,000 a month you are storing just a petabyte of data, but behind the scenes you may actually be consuming several petabytes of actual physical hard drives to provide the necessary redundancy and durability. You can even analyze your data piecemeal by streaming it through a set of Compute Engine instances, taking advantage of Google’s pricing model in which data transfers between its storage and compute offerings in the same location is free.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/01/17/why-are-we-so-afraid-of-petabytes/#7797336d5875

In Azure, I figure a hot dual zone HOT blob storage of 2 petabytes (say east and west US zones) would cost about $85000 per month. There are actually 34 zones. I don't know if read access is restricted to zones, but we're talking instant retrieval needed. At retail, worldwide, about $1500000 per month Google seems the much better deal, but maybe Microsoft will make a deal.

 

[=rk=]

Suppose for a minute that you would find a server that could store your Google Earth (or other) satellite images of the whole world and that can be used selectively, depending on where you want to fly, you have yourselves a new FSX or P3D flight simulator that does not cost as much and does not prevent you from adding your own addons?

And it quickly become FS2004, as geography and borders continue to shift, any new landmark is built and we abandon ICE for electrics.

 

[Alexis]

Suppose for a minute that you would find a server that could store your Google Earth (or other) satellite images of the whole world and that can be used selectively, depending on where you want to fly, you have yourselves a new FSX or P3D flight simulator that does not cost as much and does not prevent you from adding your own addons?

If I might add another bit. Trailer, 1:09. The sattelite-textured areas don't have any "artifacts" such as cars. All are 3D. Same for the water areas -no boats. As this is a developer forum, we all know how long it takes to clean up sattelite pictures from such artifacts, as well as build proper terrain under bridges or over tunnels that exist in our sattelite pictures. I never saw one such artifact in this trailer. If it's cleaned up through AI proccessing, even for the "detailed" areas, it will be revolutionary. And I don't see a reason of using AI image proccessing (part of Azure AI) if you don't use it to clean up the artifacts that your 3D cars will drive over. That's what we're expected to pay there.

Well, personally, I'll also be paying for a bunch of other games, so I don't think that paying $5 per year for MSFS is that bad -the Xbox subscription has at least another 10 games I want.

 

[dave hoeffgen]

Despite seeing quite some impressive photoreal scenes in the video I witnessed some little evidence that there might be no 100% photoreal coverage:

To me this one just looks like some good old LandClass terrain with overlaying vectors.

Maybe the overall size will be bearable for nowadays' hard drives after all

 

[Heretic]

I've changed my mind and got so excited for the new FS that I've uninstalled FSX from my laptop yesterday.



Just kidding. I've never used it much and want the space for a Linux partition.

To me this one just looks like some good old LandClass terrain with overlaying vectors.

Maybe the overall size will be bearable for nowadays' hard drives after all

I'd say that the world model uses landclass by default and only offers photoreal for areas which have previously been processed by that AI of theirs.

Which begs the question in which form the initial release is going to be. Some landmark areas, similar to the photoreal ones in FSX? Entire continents that have good sat photo coverage? Nothing at all?

 

[rhumbaflappy]

They could be building a base pseudo photoreal tile set derived from a landclass. Then replacing tiles with actual photoreal as desired. They don't really have storage restrictions, so this would be possible. Who knows.

 

[FlyingsCool]

...All this speculation on a trailer. Ok how about how do you fly using an xbox controller? Ba Tum Tsss

I'm here all week ... Try the veal.

I use a USB XBox controller to fly FSX all the time. It's great for traveling with my laptop.

Y - Throttle inc
B - Throttle dec
X - Switch View (S)
A - Brakes
Left Stick View Pan
Cross- View Pan
Right Stick - Joystick
Left Trigger - Rudder Left
Right Trigger - Rudder Right
Left Shoulder - Elevator Trim up
Right Shoulder - Elevator Trim down
Start - Gear up/down (G)

 

[Gerli]

I fly Helicopters all the time with my Xbox controller. I also use it in conjuction with Wishplacer to place objects while I slew the airplane on the background.

 

[Heretic]

I'm pretty sure Ron's comment was tongue-in-cheek.

(And I also have an XB360 controller with me when travelling with my laptop. Slightly different control layout though.)

 

[GaryGB]

Consider the storage (and bandwidth) UK now uses for its massively detailed terrain elevation data set:

https://rapidlasso.com/2015/09/02/e...al-lidar-dem-with-insane-vertical-resolution/

GaryGB

 

[ronh]

I'm pretty sure Ron's comment was tongue-in-cheek.

(And I also have an XB360 controller with me when travelling with my laptop. Slightly different control layout though.)

Yes it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and yes you can fly with an x-box controller, however my personal preference is to fly as a simulator and
an x-box controller is not in a real aircraft yet (i'm sure someone will find a pic of one). The XB1000Plus aircraft from Em-Essna uses the x-box controller, but
I can't afford to fly that one in real life ---- kidding

I really hope MS comes up with a great sim, but this is what I want ...

1. Up to date air/radio gps navigation aids, airports, control zones and airspace, airways, SIDs STARs etc. - the things that change
2. Updated weather - where you can break out of the clouds in IFR
3. VR - good performance - keep with the latest and greatest
4. Better ATC - not forcing you to Go-around - voice activation
5. AI aircraft - already good in FSX P3D

Keeping number 1. and 3. up to date may be worth the monthly fee, Heck, I was on a P3D developer license for a long time.
Right now X-Plane gives me the best "real Life" immersion. And that is just a personal preference.

So here's hoping MS gets it right. But I'm just afraid they are going to go where the money is. Don't blame them, but I can dream.

 

[robystar]

I use a USB XBox controller to fly FSX all the time. It's great for traveling with my laptop.

Y - Throttle inc
B - Throttle dec
X - Switch View (S)
A - Brakes
Left Stick View Pan
Cross- View Pan
Right Stick - Joystick
Left Trigger - Rudder Left
Right Trigger - Rudder Right
Left Shoulder - Elevator Trim up
Right Shoulder - Elevator Trim down
Start - Gear up/down (G)

Enjoy your gaming but how about all the panel (VC) settings, fly a flightplan, etc.?
I am afraid you are better off with some simple Flight Simulator that gives you all the eye candy that you want but will be way off an (almost) real piloting experience.
Guess you also fly in outside spot view all the time?
Maybe, the new Microsoft Flight Simulator will then be an excellent choice or Google Earth that also has one?

 

[WarpD]

Some rather judgmental posts happening here...