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New MSFS... 2020

Started by farrokh747, Tue, 11 Jun 2019 06:17


cagarini

Some conjectures already, as, for instance but not only, the fact that scenery will e streamed, and a monthly fee will have to be paid for the use of the sim...

The level of detail seen in the video and a few shots is conductive to think it is using Ortho-Photos, and very detailed / customized autogen / OSM data, so, you would have to buy TBs to store that all, unless you only buy restricted areas ?

Streaming scenery is a tendency for the future flightsims.

I once wrote someone at a big Full Flightsim company which was looking at the simmer market suggesting yet another approach - making their full flightsim flight and systems modelling available through the Net, with people installing clients in their desktop side and some local data / scenery, and the flights actually being kind of "streamed" in as far as the FDM and core systems modelling goes.

mgeiss

In my opinion, streaming will be used for most AAA titles in the near future. There's hardly an alternative to streamed scenery if they really use worldwide ortho coverage.

I hope there will be a possibility to download regions for those who don't need worldwide coverage or have slower internet connections.
Cheers,
Matthias

beat578

Imagine that graphics with Hardys B744... Can't stop drooling.

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers

I believe that in general, streamed software is the future. Just because it puts all eggs in the software manufacturer's basket. If you only get a TV image of your software, and you only relay mouse/touch and keyboard back, then you are finally where they want to have you: before your pay TV again, like in the 1980s.

Streaming Office? You are almost there already.

End of piracy as we know it. From then on, piracy means sneaking into somebody else's account to leech on their feed.

Add hard encryption of the video feed that only your registered monitor can decode, with your device registrations required when you sign up, and even account piracy becomes difficult. It also makes it a lot more difficult for you to refute that you did something, if it was encrypted towards a device you own and streamed successfully. Business happy, surveillance state happy. You happy?



Hoppie

asboyd

But your data costs go up so you end up having to be online at all times and monitored as such. So long privacy...
Talk about red rabbit opportunities.

:(

AlexB
Alex Boyd... Sydney, Australia

ahaka

Let's think about it: A streamed flight simulator, used as a scenery generator for PSX...

First you need to send motion data from your PC to the streaming server over the internet, and then the end result is streamed back to you. That would add too much latency, I think.
Antti

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers

With a reasonable line that can carry VoIP, there should not be significant latency. 100-150 ms should be easily obtainable and a tiny bit of predictive vectoring then does the rest. It definitely would be a great mechanism to get you the computer power that otherwise you would never really get, without investing into heavy iron that is outdated in 3 months.

Problem: is there money in this? How many people would pay for exactly this scenery-only service?

Hoppie

cagarini

I believe only scenery and weather will be streamed... Locally there must be a client that will do the FDM math, and georreferencing ( 6DOF ).


brian747

QuoteHow many people would pay for exactly this scenery-only service?

A good question, Hoppie. Perhaps there may be a hint of an answer when one considers the situation with ChasePlane, a camera utility that insists on storing all your saved camera settings in the soi-disant "cloud". (Although strangely, it fails to store control/key assignments, so if you do reinstall ChasePlane your cameras are available but you have to tediously go through and reassign them all.  <sigh>  Anyway...).

This lack of ability to store settings locally has dismayed many users, and the result has been a steady stream of requests to provide a way of storing settings locally — pleas which have all been sternly resisted by the developers, leading to comments such as —

> "I have not tried ChasePlane because of the cloud requirements (always on internet)..."

> "If there's one thing that guarantees I'll never buy something it's that."

But the point that I'm (slowly) making is that it seems that there are many people who dislike simming with a utility that *requires* one to be online, and hence I suspect that the same might be true for an entire simulator with what appears to be an absolute online dependency.

However, this new announcement seems to be entirely focused on Xbox, so perhaps Microsoft's newest attempt at a simulator is aimed at a different market? (The same one as their abortive "Microsoft Flight", seven years ago, perhaps?). Add to that the open question about add-ons (would existing simmers be happy to throw away their enormous investment in add-on scenery?) and I somehow suspect that Lockheed Martin and Laminar Research will not be worrying too much, at this point.   

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

ahaka

Quote from: Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers on Thu, 13 Jun 2019 23:58
With a reasonable line that can carry VoIP, there should not be significant latency. 100-150 ms should be easily obtainable and a tiny bit of predictive vectoring then does the rest. It definitely would be a great mechanism to get you the computer power that otherwise you would never really get, without investing into heavy iron that is outdated in 3 months.

I guess it also depends on the software code, how it is written? Because I've noticed differences in lag and smoothness even when running on a LAN. The PSX ExternalSim is really excellent in this, no latency and ultra-smooth motion. Cannot praise it enough.
Antti

asboyd

I have an xbox one and you can play games without internet but all saved information is in the cloud, so you cannot achieve anything (in the virtual world) when offline....

I am guessing that the msfs may be the same if they release a dvd (or even blu-ray) data disk to install.

Alex B
Alex Boyd... Sydney, Australia

brian747

Aha — a new announcement (and clarification).

See it here: https://fsi.microsoftstudios.com/

The key points:

"We recognize that without people like you, we don't get to make experiences like this that span more than 35 years and maintain such a passionate following. Thank you for being patient enough to weather the turbulence caused by some of our previous missteps. Thank you for being willing to look to the possibilities of the future while asking us to be accountable for the past."

And —

Quote1. We are making Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emphasis on the word SIMULATOR.

2. Designed for PC, optimized for multiplatform support (e.g. Xbox).

3. Yes. We are supporting 3rd Party Content Development and Community Content creation. We are aware of the concerns in the current eco-system and are working to address them.

4. Yes. We genuinely want to work closely with the community in the development of this title.

5. Accessibility is important to us. Whatever your abilities are, if you want to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left behind.

Sounds (potentially) interesting. But the key question of whether existing "3rd Party Content Development and Community Content" will be compatible isn't addressed, as far as I can see.

Now we wait, I guess....   

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers

Let's hope people push for "PSX" as one of the accessible options  :-P

Hammerstan

Help wanted.  1x programmer to develop PSX bridge to legacy scenery generator (currently undergoing renovation)

Hammerstan

A good hour long video on what may be to come:  https://youtu.be/psZgtalap7Y

Blake H


martin

It's truly amazing how much "secondary literature" and exegetic videos* can be generated based
on a 1:44 [min:sec !] trailer. Talk about self-amplifying systems...

;D

* OK, here's another one (duration 19:01) :)

Will

Interesting. I'm curious to see what they come up with.

I've always thought that an interesting business model would be for MSFS (or a competitor) to just get out of the flight simulator business entirely, and proudly call themselves a world simulator. Make, in other words, a planet with weather that is viewable by a mobile camera. They could then license their world to anyone who needs it -- for flight simulation, combat simulation, mountaineering simulation, or maybe even as the setting for stories.

Also, when streaming the world, they could make a good visual experience by limiting the frame rate to 24 fps, as long as there is a bit of blurring between the frames. (24 fps is the standard for professional motion pictures.)
Will /Chicago /USA

United744

I always get scared when people talk about backwards compatibility.

Screw that! Time to start fresh. Not all the existing code for add-ons will be useless - just the part where it interacts with the FS API, which if they did the basic design right wouldn't be a problem for them to replace anyway.

I've decided that the bigger FS devs are lazy - to them "compatible" means "no work required". Dream on!

As for streaming flight sim scenery - the UK still has atrocious reliability when it comes to all things internet connectivity. It's not going to happen.

What happens if it can't load the scenery fast enough? Black squares or crashes?