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Post by thegetter on Apr 11, 2012 2:18:39 GMT
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Post by mikethepilot on Apr 11, 2012 16:12:18 GMT
This looks very promising, I think that Microsoft will have to re-think its current business model with MS Flight. Reading the article I have two concerns:
1. The FDE, if TestPilot is implemented in FSX will be abolished and use an aircraft handling system based on the aerodynamic shape of the aircraft. This means that some aircraft add-ons will not work as well. Maybe the new TestPilot FSX engine will ignore those and not be a problem.
2. The group is talking about changing or modifying the FSX engine core files, this might create a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) issue in the U.S. as I bet that MS will claim that there was some reverse engineering in the code.
But otherwise, I am very intrigued to what may come out of this project. If there's is a 5% performance increase in FSX with my current hardware configuration I am all in.
Thanks for sharing!
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Post by +mrfaosfx on Jul 17, 2012 4:20:08 GMT
I have always been interested in "Aerodynamic Modeling technology" because it really does represent the true flight dynamics of an aircraft, thought, this takes away the ability to "fine tune" an aircraft closer to the real thing.
This technology forces developers to model the exterior part of the aircraft as bloody accurate as possible, down to the very inch in detail; flaps, wings, fuselage, tail, flap fairings anything that is on the outside.
But, for it to work, you need to assign certain parts a "weight factor" so that the technology knows how to interact with an aircraft, how much it weights compared to the design of the parts.
There are a lot of add-ons out there that are good but if they ever met up with technology like this, those aircraft would DEFINATELY not fly no where near close to the real thing, it would be all out of wack.
It is also surprising that a small team can do what a big corporation can't, take advantage of todays technology, which, is multi-core and multi-gpu technology, its why FSX is so horrid in performance.
MS Flight is a childs game and I agree that it will NEVER replace FSX and then there isn't the ability to "produce new content" for that new platform because they own all the rights...MS Flight will be in style for perhaps 1 or 2 years but then slowly die out.
I believe the three most successful release of FlightSim, have been FS98, FS2004 and FSX ... I can't mention FS2002 because it was quickly forgotten but amazingly there are people still fooling around with FS98!
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Post by Alejandro on Jul 17, 2012 18:14:02 GMT
That will be a very good problem. There are planes, specially the fly-by-wire, that can't fly "alone", they are unstable. How will this change affect this planes?
The F-104 and the Buccaneer have active control surfaces, with bleed air over the wings and tail. And there are allways the special cases like the F-35 and so on.
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Post by +mrfaosfx on Jul 18, 2012 1:01:13 GMT
That will be a very good problem. There are planes, specially the fly-by-wire, that can't fly "alone", they are unstable. How will this change affect this planes? The F-104 and the Buccaneer have active control surfaces, with bleed air over the wings and tail. And there are allways the special cases like the F-35 and so on. See, that's what happens when you start to shoot for super high realistic or close to real world simulations. You have a lot more factors to worry about and then, its not going to take a developer like us, its going to take aerodynamic engineers to develop add-ons, lol!!!! |
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Post by aerofoto - HJG Admin on Jul 19, 2012 2:38:20 GMT
With regard to FDE .... and I mean to speak generally here and not just in regard to HJG offerings only ....  Total authenticity simply isn't possible within FS .... and which is why, in relation to the accuracy of flight dynamics, I've always only ever stated (many times over) that one can get "CLOSE TO" an aircrafts real world performance characteristics ..... and/or .... "AS ACCURATE AS CERTAIN FS LIMITATIONS (and our own working knowledge/ability) WILL ALLOW" .... and nothing much more. That's because FS simply isn't real world .... and within FS there's only "a finite/limited number" of editable parameters available to edit/manipulate in favour of trying to represent, or improve, the flight characteristics of any FS aircraft. Even a good/seemingly very realistic FDE .... more often than not .... is usually comprised any number of compromises which need to be made in order to improve FS flight performance and/or (in some cases) for the sake of reasonable panel/gauge fidelity too .... if not both. A classic example of these sorts of compromises can be realized in the need to apply more thrust than may be realistic in order to start, and maintain, a decent taxiing speed in the case of some simulations (ground friction effect) .... because .... if a formulae that results in a more realistic engine thrust taxing speed combination is successfully applied then it can, sometimes, result in totally unrealistic (overly sprite) aircraft flight performance within FS. It's certainly not easy .... and it's extremely time consuming too .... requiring countless hours of editing and test flying, re-editing and then more test flying, and then even more fine tuning and note taking/observation also .... just in order to "TRY" and arrive at 1 sensible/good/decent FDE conclusion .... but ... one which is also, again, often still full of various compromises. At HJG .... the 2 guys with whom I've always worked in regard to FDE matters .... each focus, primarily, on aircraft weights, engine power/thrust, drag, along other editable flight parameters in order to arrive at decent/sensible FS flight performance conclusions for most of (though not necessarily all of .... since some haven't been edited since the old/original HJG days) the aircraft which we've worked on to date. Stating what I've mentioned above .... After all of our efforts combined (not just those 1 particular person) .... the most encouraging thing, to me, is when I get PM after PM, or, email after email over the years .... mostly from retired aircrew .... who's oppinions I trust most .... each saying "THIS FDE/AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE IS PRETTY DARNED GOOD/CLOSE" .... because, given what we're able to do here, that's all I/we ever seek to try'n be able to do .... and that's, basically, "AS REAL AS IT GETS" .... or rather .... as good as we can make it I mean to say. Mark C AKL/NZ |
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Post by garryrussell on Jul 19, 2012 12:40:54 GMT
AFAIK, X Plane already relies on the shape of the aircraft for FDE performance.
How realistic it is I can't say, but I'd expect this to be better than Xplane
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Post by aerofoto - HJG Admin on Jul 19, 2012 21:17:34 GMT
They all do .... or should all do .... to a greater or lesser extent, but, it all depends upon what sort and how many parameters are available to be manipulated in the first instance .... not to mention peoples understanding of them also. Over the past few months I've actually been looking at the like of AIRCRAFT GEOMETRY .... with a view to trying to further improve FDE for a currently available HJG hosted aircraft type .... with some minor, but noticeable, improvements being realized, but, in terms of whats actually designed into the FS2004 and FSX base programs which most of us currently own, the number of these parameters does appears to be "limited" .... it seems. If I remember correctly .... X-PLANE has, for a long white, been credited for having better FDE than FS2004 and FSX (obviously in regard to the number of parameters designed into the base program and whatever's built for it also) .... BUT .... I'm otherwise unfamiliar (basically not the slightest bit interested to be perfectly honest  with this other FS version. Mark C AKL/NZ |
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Post by garryrussell on Jul 19, 2012 22:00:15 GMT
X Plane is reported to be superior to MS, yet it uses the actual shape of the model to fly and the models were quite crude by MS standards.
First thoughts are there are not enough polys in MS to accurately render all the subtle shapes yet X Plane does it or did it with less.
So perhaps the system is quite forgiving and more general
I is difficult to make a wing with the absolute correct airfoil shape as for one thing the info is not that available for modelling.
Where wing cross sections appear on plans they are used but often they're no there or if they are there are not many of them.
The Bristol Freighter has different incidence at the tip to the root, and I only found that out off actual Bristol drawn plans, nothing else shows it or mentions it. It's only slight but it's there
But perhaps model shape FDE will no be too bad after all given the aircraft that have seemed to work perfectly OK in X Plane.
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Post by Mike Monce - HJG on Jul 20, 2012 22:02:58 GMT
Way back when...  I used x-plane and was able to make from scratch an airplane using Austin's Planebuilder which comes with the program. Yes..x-plane does a great job on the FDE. What got to me was the lack of attention to everything else that makes up the sim flying experience. The ATC was horrible, scenery repetative, I hated the panels (high priority with me) etc. etc. It seems that x-plane is much better now, but I am am so happy at the moment with FS9 (8 years old!!  ) that I don't see any need to rebuild with a new sim. Mike |
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Post by aerofoto - HJG Admin on Jul 20, 2012 23:03:32 GMT
I remember .... years ago .... someone commenting ....
"IF" the quality of flight dynamics is your first priority then considfer going the X-PLANE way.
"IF" panel/gauge quality is your first priority then consider going the FLIGHT (I think it was .... not the new MS FLIGH product) way.
"IF" the quality of scenery, meteorology, 3D aircraft modelling, textures, and general variety is your preference then .... by all means .... definitely .... go the MSFS way.
I don't think there's ever been an FS program designed, to date, that successfully incorporates all 3 of these basic desires into "OnE QUALITY BASED FS PROGRAM" .... but .... whilst bearing in mind that the quality of anything computer and gaming technology related is, indeed, advancing, and will continue to do so too with ever steadily increasing rapidity .... the first to do it .... successfully .... will undoubtedly score a lot of friends and also make a lot of money in the process too.
Mark C
AKL/NZ
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Post by christrott on Jul 21, 2012 15:24:01 GMT
One quick update. Microsoft will have no digital copyright claim to what GNU Aerospace is doing. They are not changing the core engine, they are replacing it. This is legal under the EULA. In fact, it's already been done and is being expanded by other developers.
A2A Simulations "Accusim"
PMDG's FSX products
HiFiSim's AS2012
etc.
Basically, most of the high-end addon developers for FSX have already started bypassing/replacing the FSX engine. The engines are still there, just not being used. A2A has already seen the potential for actually making the sim run faster even though the complexity has soared because they are able to fully utilize modern technology in how their replacement parts run, like the sound system which is much more streamlined and uses file systems that allow for high compression with out loss of quality, meaning that you can have separate sounds for every switch but the total size of the sound package is the same as with one designed for the default FSX.
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Post by +mrfaosfx on Jul 21, 2012 23:56:33 GMT
X Plane is reported to be superior to MS, yet it uses the actual shape of the model to fly and the models were quite crude by MS standards. First thoughts are there are not enough polys in MS to accurately render all the subtle shapes yet X Plane does it or did it with less. So perhaps the system is quite forgiving and more general I is difficult to make a wing with the absolute correct airfoil shape as for one thing the info is not that available for modelling. Where wing cross sections appear on plans they are used but often they're no there or if they are there are not many of them. The Bristol Freighter has different incidence at the tip to the root, and I only found that out off actual Bristol drawn plans, nothing else shows it or mentions it. It's only slight but it's there But perhaps model shape FDE will no be too bad after all given the aircraft that have seemed to work perfectly OK in X Plane. So does the DC8, the DC8 wing has a noticeable wing twist from the root to the tip and I represented this in the current model, it starts round at the root but then slow becomes somewhat twisted and flat by the time it gets to the tip...I spent hours and hours perfecting it. I don't know if I was successful enough to get it right just like the DC8 wing but its close enough, I think. |
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Post by garryrussell on Jul 22, 2012 14:49:12 GMT
Yeah..the VC 10 is similar with and inverted wingroot...OK if you can get wing cross sections otherwise guessing, but by the look of some of the early X Plane models it must be very forgiving as they just didn't have the poly to make accurate shapes.
If this is just as forgiving then all the better
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with this other FS version.
I used x-plane and was able to make from scratch an airplane using Austin's Planebuilder which comes with the program. Yes..x-plane does a great job on the FDE. What got to me was the lack of attention to everything else that makes up the sim flying experience. The ATC was horrible, scenery repetative, I hated the panels (high priority with me) etc. etc.
) that I don't see any need to rebuild with a new sim.