Microsoft Flight Simulator Is Alive!

[Von Due]

4k is not something I worry about. In honesty I'm not totally up to date on what it even means! I mean, I still have my crt monitors laying around, my sb16 and tnt cards too! As long as I can get a fast framerate for heli flight, I'm happy.

[Skybird]

4k means doubling of resolution fullHD, both horizontally and vertically. 4 times as many pixels.

[Skybird]

4k means doubling of resolution fullHD, both horizontally and vertically. 4 times as many pixels. Thats a lot of more stress for the GPU.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Skybird

4k means doubling of resolution fullHD, both horizontally and vertically. 4 times as many pixels. Thats a lot of more stress for the GPU.

Thanks, Skybird, for the explanation! Yeah 4k sound alright but not the additional costs for the hardware. My c64 was good enough for 15 years and fsx runs well enough.

[Skybird]

I do not care for 4K either. It makes sense if you sit very very close to your monitor and your nosetip touches the screen surface, so to speak, of if you use a TV of a really big size. Then one might see those tiny single pixes. But I cannot see them, not on my 24" computer monitor and not on my TV screen with 80cm diagonally form which I sit 2 meters away. It makes no sense for me to buy 4K, it is simply a wasdte of money asnd hardware ressoruces for my living conditions.

If I had a screen with 1.5 meters, it would be somethign different. But i do not want such a monster in my flat. Full HD, 1920x1080 that is, is fully sufficient for me. My eyes cannot benefit from higher resolutions at these screen sizes and seating distances. And I bet the eyes of many others, too. You see, there are people who claim less than 120 fps is "unplayable".

Well, they must be very, very young then.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You see, there are people who claim less than 120 fps is "unplayable".

Well, they must be very, very young then.

Hah I hear you. My 64 gibson amp got me nothing but scorn.. until I switched it on. Then the local guitar heroes queued up to try it.... 4k or marshall stacks. Bling is little more than bling.

[Skybird]

10 Minutes of a normal day on an open server.





I am not sure Microsoft does the title a favour by allowing this stuff happening, instead of letting the planes physically correctly break apart, it makes FS20 look like an arcade title. The ghostign effect on the victim plane when an offender runs/flies into it can be kept, but the offender should get killed, according to the laws of physics, while his victim may play on.

[Von Due]

Looks like 60 fps is possible now with the new geforce 3080/3090 cards. Not too keen on the 3090 though as the cheapest I could find cost the same as the entire new pc I bought... The 3080 is a LOT cheaper though so that might be a buy. Now for those helicopters...

[Skybird]

LittleNavMap, an alternative to SkyVector Flightplanner.


https://albar965.github.io/littlenavmap.html

[Skybird]

VR is here.

Still installing, the process lasts eternities (plural, since I feel like using it...)


Giving FS20 its VR had higher priority for the developer than completing the develoment for xBox version, I read. I will see tonight how good or bad it is.

[Skybird]

VR is a brutal mess, bug-ridden, dysfunctional and unusable right now. What were they thinking? How could something like this pass QA...??

[Skybird]

Must correct my first condemning impression, apparently the update went wrong somehow, despite downloading for 4 or 5 hours on a fast cable connection. I had switched off the system meanwhile, ate, and then went back to it, cold start, it downloaded again something for FS2020, I think it was no quick hotfix, but I am not certain. Since then, things go better here, and I meanwhile found the way to get rid of that irritating black square frame as well (toggle off FOV stencil in Occulus tool).

Working frames over Berlin in small airplanes, actually I am surprised how smooth it works. But the instruments are unreadable, an airliner or IFR plan i do not want to fly this way, it is of little use, cannot really be handled well. For VFR, I now think it actualyl works very good, and with newer headsets and higher resolution it may be even better. But it remains to be a toy thing for pure VFR in small planes. Take it as that and have fun. Expect more, and you will be disappointed.

I would have wished for some way of mini-windows overlay over instruments that gives a readable readout of values and data. Glass cockpit screens also are almost unusable in a Occulus Rift sicn ethey scale text anbd readouts realistically, and the resolution of the headset, Occulus Rift, does not do justice to that.

Positive is that you do not need VR hand controllers, I know how it worked in XPlane and I hated it, and while it works wonders in VTOL, the whole game is tailored to be more forgiving. VTOL works well with Vr sticks, but in FS20, having hardware HOTAS I prefer.


Since FS20 focusses on VFR over IFR, VR for it is a real enrichment. Its stunning, when it works. The agme allows different graphcis setups for 2D and VR.

[Skybird]

My rig just took a grilling, I am surprised how well it holds the show together, though almost smoking: fluent frames, no stuttery at all, I cannot believe it. VR and down the Colorado water raceway down that small crack in this tiny rock they call the Grand Canyon, from east to west and into the morning sun, the colours were dancing, the water was blinding at times, the landscape was unbelievable, zigzagging down the canyon and the walls left and right, sometimes sunny and wide valley, sometimes in dark shadow and everything narrow and tight , and all sort of colours outside and reflection on the windshield, and I swear I sat in that cockpit truly and in full reality - breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking once those VR starting problems got sorted out.

Unbelievable! In fact I am blown away by how well the landscape is rendered and how well VR works for VFR. Want instrument simulation and IFR and map navigation? Better stick to 2D and TrackIR, its a full simulation for that, too, but for tourist flying and VFR - VR is a must.


This title in VR is an acchievement hard to overestimate. Its so unbelievably real.

[Skybird]

VR

[Skybird]

I did several VR flights now, in GA propeller aircraft of various types, one engine and turbo prop.

I just came back from a flight from La Guardia to downtown Manhattan at late afternoon and sunset, seeing the transition from (darkened) day time to an electrically lit city, and back to La Guardia.

Everybody is complaining about how bad frames are - in 2D already if you fly over such urban areas with high building density. However, I am absolutely stunned how absolutely smooth and fluid frames for me are at mostly medium and some high gfx settings, and in VR! Its a miracle, I would have bet money on that this would not be possible. Absolutely stunning.

There are also complaints about no MP planes in Multiplayer visible, however, I cakme across severla small planes, mostly acrobatic planes, ding stunts and air dances between the skyscrapers at Manhattan. MP definitely is there.

I rate FS2020 as a must-have-app for VR now, like Google Earth already, just that here the immersion and visual details is even higher. Might not be practical in IFR and with complex button-pressing airliners, but in VFR this is as close to the real thing as it can ever get during our lifetimes. I criticise Google and Microsoft a lot, but did justice to Google and praised them for making Google Earth, and it is only fair that I say the same about Microsoft this time. What they and their subcontractor-developer have achieved here, with all that AI-directed coordination of all these different databases, is a miracle, a computer-digital fairy-tale. Unbelievable.

If you don't try it out in VR, its your own fault!

Oculus users: you must open the oculus tool and deactivate FOV Stencil to get rid of that black frame on the right side of the viewing field. Also b e aware that the visuals is optimised not for old Rift models with their low resolutions but for the likes of HP Reverb G2 now. It is noticable with the cockpits's texts and displays, sicne the cockpits are correctly scaled, the letters often are diffiuclt to read with a Oculus Rift's resolution. That is no fault of the sim, but of the now slightly aged VR display's technology.



In January 2023, the Facebook-activation for my kit will become mandatory, and since I do not accept Facebook, late 2022 will be the time when I buy new hardware - at least the latest VR headset avialabole then: G2 or better. My Rift will then have served 5 years, so will my rig have. I will see how it can run a better VR resolution, or not.

My rig becomes quite hot, VERY hot, in VR with FS20, to a degree that I only know from Assetto Corsa Competizione. If I am lucky, my CPU starts smoking and ends in ashes before January 2023, I then have an excuse to buy new expensive kit before that date.