• 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.

Ms Esp

Messages
68
Country
unitedstates
Hi everyone! I have been reading lately on aviation magazines and I came to an article talking about Microsoft ESP. As far as I can remember, they released it in January 2008. I'm not sure about that, maybe next year. As I read on, it's kind of much like FSX Deluxe and Acceleration Pack combined. The difference is, MS ESP is specialized for aspiring real-life pilots and pilots who wants to practice some of their flying skills. It looks fun, although I have no idea where to buy it. It's on special software stores, so we may have to stick with FSX

For more info about Microsoft ESP go here: http://www.microsoft.com/esp/
 

arno

Administrator
Staff member
FSDevConf team
Resource contributor
Messages
32,859
Country
netherlands
Hi,

The target audience is not really real-life pilots. It is targeted at professionals who want to design their own simulation simulation for a training or research purpose. So unlike FSX you can not really use it directly after installation. It is a more a toolkit you can use to build a solution for a certain problem.
 
Messages
516
Arno is right. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the community with regards ESP and MS's material doesn't do much to explain things.

Basically, as it stands now with ESP v1.0, ESP is essentialy FSX Deluxe without the game wrapper front end, (for selecting flights, etc.) That's all.

The main differentiator between FSX and ESP is that ESP is licenced for commercial use, where as MS's agreement with third party content suppliers like Jeppeson only permits FSX to be used for home use. That's it.

So for FSX enthusiasts, ESP doesn't offer anything more (apart from a little more info in the SDK with regards air files) than FSX. I use ESP at work for commercial stuff, but at home, I wouldn't want it. FSX offers me more.

It's a mistake to think that because you may be an aspiring pilot or a real hardcore FSX enthusiast that you should want to use ESP. The aircraft physics and core functionality is identical, (some would say "unfortunately.")

ESP is designed so that commercial companies can take the core simulation and world engine and build a standalone bespoke simulator out of it. You could do exactly the same thing with FSX using exactly the same techniques, but it wouldn't be legal due to EULA restrictions if you wanted to make a commercial product out of it.

To be honest, ESP v1.0 is too limited in many ways because of its commonality with FSX. The APIs are far too restrictive to be of use to people used to coding flight sims using traditional high-end toolkits, (like VegaPrime or MetaVR.) Having said that, I believe ESP will likely find a new, more applicable market, when they expand its features to inclde sea surface and macro-level urban environment modelling and better land vehicle surface interaction.

In short, if you got ESP, (and you currently need a volume licensing agreement or MSDN subscription to do so), you'd be disappointed if you're expecting a different experience to FSX.

Si
 
Messages
997
Country
us-missouri
The way I understand it, is that ESP v2.0 will be the next significant step.

Perhaps ESP v2.0 will coincide with TrainSim2 and FS11 in some respects.
 
Top