• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

FlightGear is a no-go

mmann

mmann

Messages
604
Country
ca-britishcolumbia
I installed the latest FlightGear and its scenery for Vancouver Island and gave it a bit of a workout. Unfortunately although it was better than default FSX in some areas, such as including the Alberni Inlet and the Courtenay River, it fell flat on its face in other areas.

Courtenay Airpark is shown on an island, too bad it wasn't Vancouver Island but its own little island the size of the airstrip! The airports have no hangars, no control towers, no aircraft or anything but a runway or runways as the case may be. Port Alberni is given a satellite image of a city that looks like it could contain a city with a population about 400% larger.

As far a smoothness of the frame rates, it wasn't any better than what I can achieve using FSX with Orbx PNW and REX. So I uninstalled it and have returned to FSX!

If you are using just default FSX you might want to give FlightGear a try, the price is certainly right and in certain areas it is superior. If you have more than just default FSX you likely won't be too impressed with FlightGear.

Regards, Mike Mann
 
Thanks Mike for the heads up.

Im waiting on XP10 to come out. Should be interesting.

I emailed Austin the other day to find out how the keyboard switch over system was going, and found that they are not going to do that for XP10. The keyboard switch over would be for guys that fly in FS to be able to bootup XP and with a click, the keyboard is instantly FS layout. But no.... arrgh.. It would make it so much more easier on us.
 
That is bad news. Considering that Austin keeps pushing the switching from Microsoft Flight Simulator idea, you would think that a simple thing like having the keyboard commands switchable to a MSFS type setup would be considered almost essential.

Do you have any idea on when they are planning to release XP10? At one time I think they were saying December of 2010, but it seems that they missed that one by a long shot.

Regards, Mike Mann
 
Hi Mike,

I saw on their blog yesterday that it should be available before Christmas this year.
 
Hey Mike,


That is bad news. Considering that Austin keeps pushing the switching from Microsoft Flight Simulator idea, you would think that a simple thing like having the keyboard commands switchable to a MSFS type setup would be considered almost essential.

Mike
Click to expand...

I know.. arrrgh.. I have done it on my own installation of XP, but they do not have 'multi-function' keys which may be the huge factor there, though he is in the core level area right now of the sim, writing the platform, so I thought he would be able to do that.

A multi-function keyboard switch, for instance, that FS uses, is the S key; spot view, panel, cockpit, tower views, all in one nice button. With FSX, its also the A key now, shift A getting us through option views. X-Plane doesnt have this, only 'direct too' button links to views/commands. But, at least we can link to say 'cockpit' view with S key, etc.

Do you have any idea on when they are planning to release XP10? At one time I think they were saying December of 2010, but it seems that they missed that one by a long shot.

Mike
Click to expand...

Yes, lol.. Then it was January, then March, then, then.. And now its still sort of out there. I think the main thing they or Austin is working on is AI traffic. He really wants to get that working and smoothly. The FS version works really nicely, low memory. Austins platform seems to not do too well with it. He was saying that using multicore computers will enable AI planes, but maybe he is in the middle of a breakthrough on finding a smooth way to run AI..

I learned that 2048 is the limit on texture sizes presently. I asked if it would be 4096 (it will not), as alot of 'FS' birds are now being released in that resolution. He is really into having the sim run smoothly. It is priority one.

Thats about all I know. I am not on a Beta team on it, which is probably a good thing. I would sure like to see a FS keyboard layout on it though. We could 'instantly' go into XP and fly, but instead have to learn their totally diff keyboard system. That is the main reason why most FS guys try XP and just uninstall it and put it away is the 'learning factor' for the controls.....
 
Arno and Bill, thanks for answering my query on the X-Plane 10 release date. I guess it will be a matter of it's released on the day that someone can buy it. :rolleyes:
 
Isn't that always with this kind of product? Same with most addons that people are working on here. It's done when it's done and giving release dates usually makes not that much sense :D.
 
Crummy default scenery in Flight Gear?

Hold on ... this is FSDeveloper.

It sounds however that the graphics engine doesn't hold much prospect for scenery-add on makers.
 
hcornea said:
Hold on ... this is FSDeveloper.
Click to expand...

The FS standing for Flight Simulation which is what FlightGear is. FSDeveloper has recently add a couple of forums for X-Plane. They have not yet added any forums for FlightGear (although they are considering it), which is why I posted my findings here in the General chat forum.
 
mmann said:
[...]If you are using just default FSX you might want to give FlightGear a try, the price is certainly right and in certain areas it is superior. If you have more than just default FSX you likely won't be too impressed with FlightGear.
[...]
Click to expand...
Hm.. wait, isnt FlightGear OpenSource and so free, only the DVD-Version does cost money?!
 
They also offer it for lease if you want to re-outfit it with your own scenery, planes, effects, shaders, etc. One large platform. If you had a team of people, you could go into the payware FS business affordably. It would be alot of work though to create a fleet of various planes, realistic scenery, autogen, etc, etc, etc... For a freeware sim, its very very nice.
 
mmann said:
The FS standing for Flight Simulation which is what FlightGear is. FSDeveloper has recently add a couple of forums for X-Plane. They have not yet added any forums for FlightGear (although they are considering it), which is why I posted my findings here in the General chat forum.
Click to expand...

I think Ian more meant that this is a forum for developers, so we should be happy with the possibilities of improvement offered by a less good default scenery :D.
 
Yep ... Arno got it.

The perfect sim has a brilliant engine ... and rubbish scenery by default.

Loads of possibilities. And the base package is free.

Mind you .. the bar is always a little higher if there is something there to start with.
 
Who said FlightGear was accurate and easy? ;)

With a $0 pricetag and freely accessible source code, do you really expect all the spit and polish of MSFS?

Just like FSX, you need to build your own scenery, if you want it to be accurate.
 
FSX has great tools such as ModelConverterX and Airport Design Editor. It also has a fairly comprehensive SDK and a very helpful online community here at FSDeveloper.

FlightGear has many roadblocks; the AC3D import/export script has not been ported to Blender 2.5 yet. Using SketchUp entails using Blender as well as SketchUp.

The biggest obstacle is that FlightGear has performance issues even with next to no scenery models loaded. I would shudder to think what an airport with a number of well modeled static aircraft and buildings would do to it. :(
 
mmann said:
FSX has great tools such as ModelConverterX and Airport Design Editor. It also has a fairly comprehensive SDK and a very helpful online community here at FSDeveloper.
Click to expand...

So does FlightGear.

FlightGear has many roadblocks; the AC3D import/export script has not been ported to Blender 2.5 yet. Using SketchUp entails using Blender as well as SketchUp.
Click to expand...

Older releases are here:
http://download.blender.org/release/

The biggest obstacle is that FlightGear has performance issues even with next to no scenery models loaded. I would shudder to think what an airport with a number of well modeled static aircraft and buildings would do to it. :(
Click to expand...

OpenGL and no spit and polish does that.
 
lionheart said:
I would sure like to see a FS keyboard layout on it though. We could 'instantly' go into XP and fly, but instead have to learn their totally diff keyboard system. That is the main reason why most FS guys try XP and just uninstall it and put it away is the 'learning factor' for the controls.....
Click to expand...

This is bad news. That is one of the main reasons I don't have XP9 anymore. I think this is a bad move on their part.
 
mmann said:
I installed the latest FlightGear and its scenery for Vancouver Island and gave it a bit of a workout. Unfortunately although it was better than default FSX in some areas, such as including the Alberni Inlet and the Courtenay River, it fell flat on its face in other areas.
Click to expand...

The scenery for Vancouver Island is not very good at the moment. I am working on a solution, but not for Courtenay - but I'll try and fix that as well.

There is good scenery for most of the United States part of the Pacific Northwest. It's not perfect, and right now it's an add-on, but it's much better than the worldwide coverage, which is not very precise.

The problem is, as a volunteer project, users need to go through and actually place/develop each specific hangar at every airport. While this can be done generically, it is time consuming and there's not many people focused on it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top