Comment by BossingAround | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BossingAround | Hacker News Reader

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This looks amazing from the simulation point of view, and if you are interested in flying planes, this looks like a place to be. It makes me want to buy a state-of-the-art PC, joysticks, and actually learn how to fly planes in the simulator.

At the risk of sounding flippant though, the graphics are still not great. Now, I absolutely understand how computationally demanding flight simulators are, but I can't help but feel that Microsoft oversold the graphics capability of FSX. As someone noted in the thread, for me, this means there's still some suspension of belief required.

I just cannot wait until we have a flight simulator that has graphics comparable to non-simulator games. I think that might actually compel me to spend the $10k (or however much you need for the compute power and peripherals) and invest the time in such simulator. Maybe when I'm retired, I will get to experience the dream of flying planes in what feels like almost another reality.

What part didn’t you like about the graphics? I think the external shots looked quite good, especially the lighting through the clouds. I’ve never seen a real plane that immaculate, so that was a bit unrealistic.

I also liked the haze/heat waves from the engine exhaust, but I think it actually looks more blurry in real life.

The lighting on the interior views was unrealistic, but I think that’s a conscious decision to make the controls legible?

I think the video highlights FS2020 at it's best, and it looks very good to me.

The problem is that it's a global simulator: this is a major part of its appeal and marketing. If you only ever plan to fly airliners between handcrafted payware cities, it will look pretty great. As soon as you start flying VFR outside those points, the generated terrain shows its limits. I don't fly it often, but when last I flew:

* The generator couldn't handle windmills. You would see them as flat, projected images on the landscape with no 3d asset.

* It can't handle boats. Again, they're rendered as flat images on the water. Marinas in particular look bad, because they fade out as they get away from shore.

* It can't handle washes. You'll fly over the desert and see a glossy sheen of reflective water where the sim thinks there should be a waterway, but it's quite obvious that no water was present when photos were taken.

* It can't handle meandering streams. You'll see that same glossy sheen cutting a straight line over the terrain, while the photographed stream meanders back and forth.

* It can't handle bridges: you'll see cars drive right through the bridge and along the terrain underneath it.

Some of these are fair criticism. There's a few key things missing for immersion, especially if you're flying low and slow.

By contrast though, I mostly fly VFR in the Bay Area in the sim. I can see my house, complete with our car in the driveway (although I'm annoyed it has older imagery from before landscaping).

When I went on a discovery flight IRL, I was stunned by how easily I could navigate from the air and locate my home. It was eerily familiar. Same when I went on a flight in Kauai. I was able to plan out photos in advance. I was equally stunned with how familiar the airport felt.

This has all aided visual familiarity with the traffic patterns at these places, especially KSQL where you have to watch out for the bravo.

Given recent improvements and where it's heading,I have nothing but high hopes and faith it will improve. Hell, we have an addon that adds more bird traffic. My only gripe is how expensive or subscription based some addons are that shouldn't be.

Biggest problem with the graphics here is general unevenness. Some stuff looks really good which makes the less great parts stick out even more.

Many textures shown here were bit low-res so that pixelation/blurriness is visible in closeups, in cockpit, plane exterior, and ground. Small thing but the tires looked very bad, sticking out like sore thumb. In cockpit you can also see (because the low-res textures) how some of the fasteners are just textures and not geometry, making them look bit off.

> The lighting on the interior views was unrealistic, but I think that’s a conscious decision to make the controls legible?

Maybe, but on the other hand DCS has fully shaded cockpits and I haven't heard much complaints about legibility there.

I think the texture issues are due to the underlying plane model being a port from PMDGs previous releases on older simulators. If you look at a greenfield plane built specifically for MSFS like the Fenix a320 the texture work is immaculate.

You can get that today with a high-end VR headset and a full motion rig. The human eye (or rather, brain) will never be completely fooled by a 2D image placed a few feet away. But when you’re have a 3D image that fills your entire FOV, your brain will put up with much more and even help by filling in details where there’s none.

What are you referring to. The graphics were stunning? Are you referring to the tiny number of low poly assets like the oil pipe refilling the fuel? There were maybe 10 of those in the entire video.

FSX is from 2006 but that’s not the one you meant. It’s relevant to the graphics you mentioned though. Graphics comparison of different versions: https://youtu.be/CchRwnTorjY 2.0 was the first one I saw and 3.0 was the first one I actually owned. You can have fun flying around even with those graphics. FSX was fun but definitely seemed more like a computer world. 2020 blows me away since it feels like you’re exploring the real world (although it’s funny when a building I live or work in that is only a couple years old is a construction site in the game). I built a new PC in 2020 to play it and it’s closer to $1000 not $10000. I had to wait until this year when the video card shortage ended to buy the video card I wanted though. And I bought a nice yoke: https://flyhoneycomb.com/collections/honeycomb-flight-sim-ha... so somewhere around $2000 total I guess. I’m sure MS Flight Simulator 2035 will make 2020 look like pong, but no reason to wait that long. :)

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