Microsift Flight - MFS is still alive

[longam]

Site best viewed in IE because of silver light.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/#

http://news.cnet.com/i/tim//2010/08/17/Microsoft_Flight_610x342.PNG

Q:
What is "Microsoft Flight?"
A:
"Microsoft Flight" is a new PC game from Microsoft Game Studios. The new title will be available on the Games for Windows - LIVE service and will bring a new perspective to the long-standing "Flight Simulator" franchise. From new game play elements and enhanced scenery and terrain to new aircraft and integrated content marketplace, it is an entirely new breed of virtual flight. The Games for Windows - LIVE platform sets the stage for all your virtual flight needs while connecting you to a global base of users, content and endless exploration. Microsoft Flight builds off its heritage of deep, immersive simulation and is redesigned to make the experience easier for virtual fliers of all interests and skills.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Is that the same as the one from last August? :hmmm:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=173754 ;)

[longam]

Is that the same as the one from last August? :hmmm:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=173754 ;)

Looking at the thread the information is more detailed now, but I was just passing it along.

[FIREWALL]

I haven't yet figured it out. Are their planes and airports ?

Is it a better grafics FSX ?

I think the info has been bare at best.

Hell... Nobodys that interested here by the look of the replies.

[Arclight]

Just skeptical. Stuff like "will bring a new perspective to the long-standing "Flight Simulator" franchise" and "it is an entirely new breed of virtual flight" is setting off alarm bells.

They keep saying they are focusing on PC development again, and yet in their pre-E3 conference 3/4 of their time was devoted to Kinect. Even the console-gamers don't want to hear about that damn thing, it's got about 2 or 3 titles that might be worth their cash.

They've already proven that they are completely out of touch with gaming in general (imho at least), let alone PC gaming, so personally I don't have high hopes for the future.

[GSpector]

My problem with MS Flight, is that I enjoy FSX for its single flyer challenges but I have yet to see anything for MS Flight for me. Everything about it seems to be for those that enjoy flying with others.

It looks breath-taking but I will hold off and see if there is a single-flyer career mode.

[FIREWALL]

Where is there any game info ? I have found nothing.

Just what is this thing ? What I've seen posted here tells me nobody else does either. :haha:

If their going to do an FS11 bring back the original team.

Don't do a Boobasoft.

edit: I found this and it's fairly new but not by much. http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/#faq

[GSpector]

Since it's for "Games for Windows - LIVE service","while connecting you to a global base of users". That implies web access during play. The only benifit to this is for flying with others (ie: global base of users), like an MMO.

[FIREWALL]

Kinda like a Pay to Play GSpector ?

[GSpector]

Limited info is still available from MS:

Q:
How does “Microsoft Flight” differ from “Flight Simulator?” Why the new name? What’s changed?
A:
With “Microsoft Flight” we’re approaching the virtual flight genre from the ground up, with the focus on the universal appeal of the experience of Flight. We believe the simplicity of “Microsoft Flight” perfectly captures that vision while welcoming the millions of existing Flight Simulator fans. The new “Microsoft Flight” retains the full fidelity simulation longtime fans have come to expect while offering all players a whole new look and feel, a wide range of new game play and challenges, persistent experiences and social connectivity.
Q:
How does Games for Windows – LIVE factor in?
A:
Games for Windows – LIVE introduces a new level of connectivity to virtual flight, enhancing both the social and game play experiences of the title. Content is updated virtually. You can fly solo or join an entire global flight community online. You can easily connect with and facilitate flight experiences with your friends. The addition of Games for Windows - LIVE creates an ubiquitous virtual world of flight that offers easy and engaging access to the magic of flight for all.


Source: http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/#faq

[GSpector]

Kinda like a Pay to Play GSpector ?

I do not think (or hope it's not), a Pay to Play. I always end up disappointed in most games that focus on Multi-players, even when there is Single Player modes (Like Arma2 and Americas Army). I just want something that will allow me to enjoy a (Preferably Military) career-mode without the problem of competing with a bunch of kids online.

Any Sims you could suggest?

[Arclight]

Think it's just smoke and mirrors in an attempt to attract people back that know FS but didn't find it interesting. From what they tell us, it's just FS with a higher focus on the "social" aspect.

Think pop-ups notifying what friends are doing, more stats that are tracked and that you can view (see what friends are up to/have been doing), stuff like that.

Problem is they are managing all that through GFWL, which is an absolutely horrible platform. For example, with GTA4, you couldn't even save your game unless you were logged in. No internet, no saving, basically. Not exactly the same, but it amounts to the same always-on nonsense Ubi tried to push (something they did come to regret I suspect). Can't say this Flight thing will have similar restrictions or not, but if it does, I think I'll pass.


Actually, think FS on Steam. Pop-ups with notifications, easy way to reach friends, easy way to join a game with friends, robably achievements, etc. My guess is that's what they're shooting for.

[GSpector]

If that's what they are aiming for, I'll be missing it.

Shame, the graphics look great.

I keep looking for new info on it but they are not much for releasing details and real update.

[FIREWALL]

Same link I just posted. I'm a thinkin I'll stick with my FSX \Acell heavily modded for the time being till this is out for awhile and has alot of outside reviews. :yep:


I thank you for your input. :salute:

[Arclight]

Aye, wait and see for me as well. Might be completely off the mark of course, but I wonder...

Microsoft was spouting they are doubling down on PC gaming, and yet their E3 conference was mostly focused on Kinect. Something wrong with that picture imho, no high hopes here. :-?

[FIREWALL]

I think I'll focus on CoD as my next FS but I understand it's all about Graphics "which I like" and has some problems and bugs to be worked out to make it what I hope it should be.

So again I'll stick with IL2 1946 Heavily modded.

Both FSX and IL2 1946 have FF which satisfy my needs for now. :yep:

Thx Arclight for you input. :salute:

[Skybird]

I think Flight will be "social networking" meeting "VFR candy". And thus, It is no necessity for me, since flightsimming to me mostly means: system simulation, avionics, cockpit complexity. And for that I am better served with FS9, due to the immense frame reserves it now offers on modern hardware. What use is thewre in getting FSX or Flight - if you add a couple of modules for airport scenery and airliner, and immediately deal with stuttering frames again as long as you do not keep details to low limits? For the feeling of just flying/soaring, I prefer "Condor's" superior physics anyway. Flight simming in general to me means "the scvience of switchology". Because just getting from A to B while staring at a monitor - in itself is a relatikvely boring and dumb business, isn'T it?! Give me something to do, to learn, to study.

[Arclight]

Flight simming in general to me means "the scvience of switchology". Because just getting from A to B while staring at a monitor - in itself is a relatikvely boring and dumb business, isn'T it?! Give me something to do, to learn, to study.
And yet you knock DCS for it's AI? :doh:

The first part is understandable if you truly don't desire buying a new card now and then, but that last part really derails it. :hmmm:

[Skybird]

In my iFly thread running parallel at the moment I have already said that I have u-turned on my former scepticism about A-10, and pre-ordered it. But I indeed expect it to be not to offer the fascination related to mission flying like for example F4 did, or SH3, or SBP, but to keep my interest exclusively through studying the manual and managing the bird to get it flying like I want, like in a module for FS9. Also, the looks just have caught me, the cockpit'S graphjics look phantastic.

I also run Black Shark over here - and mission flying just does not interest me in there. I just struggle to make the machine do what I want without crashing. :D

As far as I'm concerned, the DCS sims to me are very much like cockpit modules or exclusive platform simulators for FS9. I do not deal Black shark as a combatsim/game, and I probably will not do that with A-10 as well.

And just for the record, my past criticism of Eagle Dynamics was not so much the AI in their products, but the sterile world and lacking immersion said world is offering. Missions lack atmosphere and excitement, me thinks, the world just feels is lifeless, sterile, and cold. They just do not compare to what I have experienced in F4, Microprose sims, SBP, or SH3. Flanker 2 was superior in physics to Falcon 4, but what let it down was lacking atmosphere and Falcon'S superior avionics modelling. And since then, this basic deficit never changed with Eagle Dynamic's releases, me thinks. Their competence with the DCS releases obviously is focussed on the completeness of the platform simulation - not on world simulation and immersion going beyond the switchology. But, no doubt, this is also a question of personal preference. So feel free to disagree with me.

Having read the A-10 manual's first 100 pages, I think it will be easier to get into the A-10 than the Black Shark. More stuff and terminology in there that looks familiar from other sims. After all I just cannot think "Russian". :D

[Arclight]

Right you are, had you confused with someone else. Still spot a bit of a contradiction though: immersion and atmosphere are transfered through sound and visuals. I'd argue that the step up in graphics from FS9 to FSX would improve it, same would apply in a FSX > MS Flight comparison, even if it costs a little performance.

To clarify, I don't mean to attack, it's just that when I spot something that strikes me as a contradiction it triggers a bit of skepticism. :-?

And yes, what draws me most to DCS, and actually any sim that goes into great (extreme) detail modeling a platform and all of it's (non-classified) components, is the actual platform. Flying and learning how the thing works is what it is about for me, tossing ordnance around is just a perk.

That said, they came a long way with the Warthog. AWACS feeding information, chatter from friendly flights (provided you tuned their frequency) regarding weapon launches and kills etc, signing in with a FAC for tasking, I feel much more involved in what is going on than with the Kamov.

Now if it just had a dynamic campaign...


Coming back to MS Flight... I guess actually that advancement in technology might sway me to consider it more fairly down the road. If the underlying simulation from the older titles is still in place, I guess one could ignore the other stuff they tacked on and just make it about flying again. Having something pretty to look at out the window wouldn't hurt.

[Herr-Berbunch]

A-10 is much, much easier to fly 'out the box' than BS, but taking off and landing safely are one thing, getting to your objective, laying down the right weapon at the right time on the right spot are infinately more challenging with more switchology than your standard cockpit fare - and ideally all to be studied and learnt verbatim as not much chance to flick through page upon page of instructions/guides/tips with so much AA coming your way. Reading first will definately help.

FSX, and FS9 before it (and 02, and 98 before that!), immediately appealed to my aviation side, but then they are a very sterile environment and so my interest waned. The built-in multiplayer side always struggled, and the default geography was never, ever, good enough - sure there were a few key places where it was really good, but the rest was crap. And I really begrudge buying a game for £30, and then the same again on a quarter of my country (UK - not even a massive country!), and again, and again.

And A-10 has some 60,000+ square miles to play in (I've just done a rough measurement with Google Maps!), the land is well textured and geographically well represented. For now only the Georgia map is available but I believe the Nevada map is supposed to be DLC for those who didn't get the beta! I would happily pay for DCS's mapping!

[Skybird]

Right you are, had you confused with someone else. Still spot a bit of a contradiction though: immersion and atmosphere are transfered through sound and visuals. I'd argue that the step up in graphics from FS9 to FSX would improve it, same would apply in a FSX > MS Flight comparison, even if it costs a little performance.

A little...?? :D ;)

A modern system bought today - I would say mine is pretty decent and very good bang for the buck - will allow poyu run FS9 with maxed traffic and details and the most complex airliner modules there are, in pretty much every kind of scenery addon there is - without ever needing to worry about frames. I have mine locked at 35. If I would unlock them, they would go pretty much through the ceiling. The same system would wpork hard to run FSX at decent settings, maybe even good settings - but would imemdioately feel the frame drop to below 20 when runing a comparable ammount of addons.

It just does not compare, really!


FSX, and FS9 before it (and 02, and 98 before that!), immediately appealed to my aviation side, but then they are a very sterile environment and so my interest waned.
It depends on the traffic you use. Using a separate traffic software allows oyu to have many dozens if not 1-2 hundred aircraft ooerating in the vicinity around you. Where you before visited a mega-Hub and saw all gates empty, you now have dozens and dozens of the gates, if not all, used by AI aircraft that could start taxi any moment, plus a dozen planes on approach, and another dozen planes waiitng in the line behind you when you request take-off. I have had situations are Frankfort, Heathrow and de Gaulle where the mere job of taxiing now turned out to be an experience of its own! Using Flight1's "Traffic 2005" here, at 70%. The airports are crowded and extremely busy, almost all gates in use. Plus the scenery groud traffic of the addon airports. The wporld is crowded as well, since I told my triple-midair collision some days ago, I have not had a single flight without other collision warning incidents having haunted me. TCAS all of a sudden has become a vital meaning!

[CCIP]

It depends on the traffic you use. Using a separate traffic software allows oyu to have many dozens if not 1-2 hundred aircraft ooerating in the vicinity around you. Where you before visited a mega-Hub and saw all gates empty, you now have dozens and dozens of the gates, if not all, used by AI aircraft that could start taxi any moment, plus a dozen planes on approach, and another dozen planes waiitng in the line behind you when you request take-off. I have had situations are Frankfort, Heathrow and de Gaulle where the mere job of taxiing now turned out to be an experience of its own! Using Flight1's "Traffic 2005" here, at 70%. The airports are crowded and extremely busy, almost all gates in use. Plus the scenery groud traffic of the addon airports. The wporld is crowded as well, since I told my triple-midair collision some days ago, I have not had a single flight without other collision warning incidents having haunted me. TCAS all of a sudden has become a vital meaning!

Yep! Likewise applications like ActiveSky do wonders to make the weather feel more alive and realistic, RadarContact for properly modeled ATC procedures, Ground Environment/Ultimate Terrain really help make the world a lot more detailed and better to look at, and FSPassengers is a great way to give you meaningful reasons to perform well. Without them I'd lose interest in FS quickly after mastering the systems of a particular aircraft. But with it's an infinitely more 'alive' and dynamic game than anything else I've been playing - there's still oddities and AI stupidity every once in a while, but it's a far cry from boring and sterile. The minus, I guess, is that between all that and payware aircraft, the cost of a truly outstanding FS config is a lot of $$$ (spent about $800 on mine by now... can't say I regret it though!), plus dozens of hours of configuring, tweaking, learning how the software (and not just the aircraft) works etc.

[Arclight]

A little...?? :D ;)
Aye, fair enough. :haha:

My old 8800 handled FSX fairly well, though I always turned off the auto-gen stuff. Everything else was set high, but it would drop to about 20fps or lower at busy, large airports... wonder how this card handles it, haven't flown my beloved 737 in a while. :hmmm:

I've always flown with traffic; I'm still amazed how much near misses or even collisions it produces. Almost started suspecting the game generates them intentionally.

[FIREWALL]

I built my rig mainly for FSX. And it uses all the resourses.

I have FS9 but it would be like going back to SHII for me.

[GSpector]

I'll have to admit, I too enjoy FSX, sometimes more that newer sims. I feel like I have a career in FSX were-as; in other sims, I just feel like I'm just flying missions that are not connected and I'm just another faceless pilot.

Mostly, I just miss the old MicroProse days. They knew how to simulate a career.

[Skybird]

At high altitude (airliner operation),FSX' landscape graphics simply do not matter that much anymore, from FL300 it just does not matter that much. And weather and clouds: you get VERY good images by using Flight Envrionment or something like that.

I would say if you prefer VFR and low level flying in sport planes, go with FSX. If you prefer IFR and airliner operation and complex cockpit modules and flying at high altitudes, go with FS9. After all, people report far less troubles with complex airliners in FS9, than in FSX where they hit hard ground more easily and more often - still so. And there must be a reason why they still develope dedicated FS9 airliners and scenery, and why the FS9 market after several years since FSX got released still is there.

If people do not know it: for FS9, get a socalled 4GB patch. It allows you to adress any exe (and so the FS-exe as well) and patch it so that it asks the system for more available RAM memory. This works around the inbuild RAM limit of FS9. Maybe this is a handicap for FSX as well. If the sim meets it'S inbuid RAM limit, you get the infamous OOB error and it shuts down (out of memory). I have 8GB RAM, but while I drove up all sliders with my new rig, I got greeted by OOMs in March and April after fresh install. The patch seemed to have been the remedy.

Windows XP needs to be told how to handle such a request for more memory. 64 Bit Vista and W7 should handle it all by themselves, you just need to patch the exe in question.

Does W7Pro 64 Bit even make use of 8 GB RAM? Any competent guy in knowledge? I was confronted with this question AFTER I bought my rig in March. :D

[Arclight]

Pro can use up to 192GB on 64bit. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_wind ows_7

Problem is that any 32-bit application (almost all games only have a 32-bit executable) is always limited to 2GB max unless you use a hack (I guess the patch you speak of implements that). It's not a good thing to do though, but if it works...

[Skybird]

It's not a good thing to do though,
Why?

[GSpector]

In regards to Win 7, in 32bit mode, it caps ram at 4GB (3.25GB usable). With 64 Bit mode:


Here are the upper RAM limits for the different editions of Windows 7:

Starter: 8GB
Home Basic: 8GB
Home Premium: 16GB
Professional: 192GB
Enterprise: 192GB
Ultimate: 192GB
Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/max-memory-limits-for-64-bit-windows-7/4254 (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/max-memory-limits-for-64-bit-windows-7/4254)

[Arclight]

Why?
Hmm was thinking of getting a 32-bit OS to use more than 4GB of memory, tend to lose track of all the different terms and techniques. Long story short: it's a lot easier to just move to a 64-bit OS. Aparently PAE doesn't even work for a consumer OS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

The 2GB per application applies to 64-bit applications as well unless they are flagged as 'large address aware'. When they are, 32-bit applications (on a 64-bit OS) can use up to 4GB while 64-bit applications with the flag can use up to the theoretical maximum of 8TB.

On 32-bit Windows, you can still get an application to use more than 2GB with AWE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Windowing_Extensions


So why not a good idea? These are all things that circumvent normal operation, hacks. As such, you're more likely to run into trouble. Flagging 'large address aware' is aparently fairly easy-going though.

[Skybird]

Thanks but I think we indeed miscommunicated then. I was not saying to patch an older 32Bit Windows to have more than 2 or 4 GB of RAM in use - I use a Windows version that can handle more, obviously. I was about making old exes that are limited to the low RAM barrier asking the system for RAM beyond that limit. The socalled 4GB patch, which became popular with FS9, does right this: it makes FS9 using more RAM than it was designed to ask for, and so the OOM error appears not as often, or not at all.

People started to beef up graphics in FS9 and installing more demanding addons when better hardware became available. Not before this change the RAM limits of FS9 became known to a wide public. Before, nobody was able to push for that "RAM barrier".

I read somewhere how to tell an old 32 Bit XP as well how to handle a patched exe wanting more RAM, XP needs to be told. As you and GSpector said (thanks btw, GSpector), newer OS do not need to be told, since they natively handle more RAM.

[Arclight]

I understood what you ment, just got the terms mixed up (again). :doh:

That PAE for the OS is a pain in the ass, but a patch to make an application large address aware shouldn't be problematic.


Games are starting to push the memory barrier, especially sims. Some, like DCS A-10C, moved to 64-bit because of it. Wish more developers would make the step, they're going to have to at some point.