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Guest troyboy66

PMDG NGX and Microsoft FLight

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Guest troyboy66

Hi PMDG's staff, its probably not fair to ask this question... But with the mention of Microsoft releasing 'Microsoft Flight' in the future, are their any thoughts in terms of compatibility with the NGX and 'Flight?' I know that NGX is to be released soon, and prior to 2010 ending but no one knows the release date of of FLIGHT. It could be Xmas it could be late next year. But experiences tells me that Microsoft likes to release their products just prior to xmas i.e., FSX - October 17, 2006, FS9 - 29 July 2003, FS 2002 - 19 October 2001. Microsoft Flight was announced in August of this year so it just seems unlikely they may wait a year from announcing to an actual release date. With that said, the long awaited NGX comes out soon,though it was expected sooner by its many fans like me. I'm just wondering if we will be able to enjoy NGX long enough even if MS FLIGHT was released sooner than expected? unlike FS9, I personally have had some bad experiences with FSX. As soon as MS FLIGHT is released, I plan to jump on it right away...and I fear without such wonderful aircrafts as PMDG's NGX.Your thoughts..ThanksTroy

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There's no real information yet on Flight and thus no way to answer this question. If there's serious changes (ie, the rumored from the ground up engine rebuild) then the answer will probably be no. I for one actually hope that they don't have backwards compatibility - they need to start with a clean slate and a modern GPU driven engine if you ask me. Backwards compatibility contributes hugely to the low performance - FSX has at its core stuff that dates back to FS98 and 2000, that's eons ago in technology time.


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Guest troyboy66
There's no real information yet on Flight and thus no way to answer this question. If there's serious changes (ie, the rumored from the ground up engine rebuild) then the answer will probably be no. I for one actually hope that they don't have backwards compatibility - they need to start with a clean slate and a modern GPU driven engine if you ask me. Backwards compatibility contributes hugely to the low performance - FSX has at its core stuff that dates back to FS98 and 2000, that's eons ago in technology time.
Good answer.I do agree with you. I'm still running a mediocre machine but hope to build one here really soon for the upcoming release of Flight. Incidentally, I might have to do that sooner so that I can fly NGX with minimal crashes - mostly because FSX though. You guys are great. Keep up the good work...always a supporter.With such great designs of your aircraft, I'm surprised none of your staff is associated with Microsoft. I saw them snooping around (looking around) a few weeks ago on Avsim site for a developer to help with Flight design or at least join whatever the new ACE team is called these days. Developers like yourself would make Flight an imaginable piece of software......Would ANYONE happen to know who got the job???By the way, thanks for your response..Troy

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I think I speak for every future purchaser of both and say, while it would be good to get a rebuild of the basic sim, a new series of add-on purchases will be a sad thing. As you say, nothing you or any developer can do about it, but it will be an interesting transition.

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There's no real information yet on Flight and thus no way to answer this question. If there's serious changes (ie, the rumored from the ground up engine rebuild) then the answer will probably be no. I for one actually hope that they don't have backwards compatibility - they need to start with a clean slate and a modern GPU driven engine if you ask me. Backwards compatibility contributes hugely to the low performance - FSX has at its core stuff that dates back to FS98 and 2000, that's eons ago in technology time.
I agree, start from scratch!

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From Scratch agreed. We spend all this money chasing FSX and I'm sorry. but there is no home dream machine for it.

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From Scratch agreed. We spend all this money chasing FSX and I'm sorry. but there is no home dream machine for it.
Actualy there is..Just around now the hw to run FSX at high detail with stable and high framerates are getting to reasonable price levels.Just in time for a new generation of flightsim..Dont be suprised if Flight brings the high end rigs to its knees when it actualy hits the market..And there we go again..:)

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There's no real information yet on Flight and thus no way to answer this question. If there's serious changes (ie, the rumored from the ground up engine rebuild) then the answer will probably be no. I for one actually hope that they don't have backwards compatibility - they need to start with a clean slate and a modern GPU driven engine if you ask me. Backwards compatibility contributes hugely to the low performance - FSX has at its core stuff that dates back to FS98 and 2000, that's eons ago in technology time.
I seriously don't hope it will be a all new sim. If that's the case (breathtaking graphics & breathtaking performance), then we'll all switch to Flight right away and we will have no use for the new purchased PMDG NGX. If, and only if, it can be upgraded to the new FDE, gauge standards, graphics implementation and whatever has changed in Flight, it sure will take some time then. You better release soon :(

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To be honest, even if both the PMDG NGX and Flight were both released tomorrow, FSX with the NGX would still almost certainly knock the socks of anything Flight might reasonably offer straight out of the box. Doubtless that will change as developers get a handle on what can be done with MS flight, but here we are five years on from the time FSX was released and we're still seeing what can be done with FSX courtesy of developers such as PMDG and A2A. flight will probably be an improvement, but it sure won't be an overnight one if you want ultra-detailed simulations of aircraft.Al


Alan Bradbury

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Flight absolutely NEEDS to be a graphics based flight sim, the backwards compatibility of the "current" versions of FS, while great for those of use with gigs and gigs of addons, has proven to the be achilles heel of the franchise. Using a base engine that dates back to 1996, (14 years!) and trying to build onto it has reached the breaking point. In laymans terms, sure you can supercharge a YUGO and have it run 10's, but at the end of a day it's still a YUGO. FS is and has always been way to dependent on CPU utilization, and needs to become more of a GPU rendering based sim. Need proof? Enable SLi in FSX and notice how little of a performance boost you get. Let's face it, video cards are (relatively) cheap, and easy to upgrade as time and the technology progresses. CPU's and motherboards aren't. Like most current games out there, by shifting the computing tasks to the GPU's instead of the CPU, not only would excellent performance be achieved, but a plethora of features could be taken advantage of, like nVidia PhysX, DX11, tesselation, etc. Remember the "Acceleration" for FSX? DX10 "preview?" Yah right... I digress. Point is, a ground up rebuild HAS to be undertaken in order for the franchise to survive. We'd all be starting from scratch with addons, but in the long run the benefits are significant.

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There's no real information yet on Flight and thus no way to answer this question. If there's serious changes (ie, the rumored from the ground up engine rebuild) then the answer will probably be no. I for one actually hope that they don't have backwards compatibility - they need to start with a clean slate and a modern GPU driven engine if you ask me. Backwards compatibility contributes hugely to the low performance - FSX has at its core stuff that dates back to FS98 and 2000, that's eons ago in technology time.
What about looking at developing for another suberb sim, and quite frankly, years ahead of FSX, and that's X-Plane? I see lots of FSX discussion here and the talk on how atrocious it runs on even the latest and greatest HW when X-Plane is there and has been around for years. It's extremely silky smooth on my Q6600 compared to FSX. It also runs on Linux and Mac. The potential for PMDG to win big by developing aircraft for this sim I think would be huge! A whole new market. And one that really hasn't gotten the exposure it deserves. The soon to be released new X-Plane 10 (currently 9.6) will take even more advantage of the multi-core CPU by being truly multi-treaded. I do run both and the only reason I haven't switched to X-Plane full time is just the lack of third party aircraft like PMDG.It blows my mind why no one hasn't even mentioned this simulator here especially now that MS has dropped the ball on it's 12yr old software (literally!). Give X-Plane a try. You will actually see what a true simulator should run like.

Cheers,
Todd

 

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At present the problem with developing for X-Plane for many high-end add-on developers, is the fact that the goalposts keep moving, with new versions of X-Plane coming out far more regularly than FS ever managed.Just look at the numbers: X-Plane was first released in 1994, in which year FS was up to version 5, but up to 2006 when FS went through 5 iterations, X-Plane went through 8 and is now at its tenth iteration whilst FS has been frozen on the same version for the past four years.Being stuck with the same version might seem to be a bummer for simmers, but in practice it is not in many ways, because for developers it means they know their long term projects will not turn up 'late for the wedding' after a four-year development cycle only to find they've spent four years making something for a sim that everyone ditched two years ago. You can see the evidence of this with the break in the MSFS development cycle, where things such as the PMDG 737 NGX could be safely developed knowing it would be coming out for the present version of FS even after having taken four or five years to make, and you never got that kind of development commitment when we were getting a new version of FS coming out every two years or so, so just imagine what it would mean to be developing stuff for X-Plane, where a new version comes out more or less every twelve months or so.All credit to Austin Meyer for pushing things along in terms of development, but in some ways that pushing is what is holding it back when you look at what it means for third party add-on developers committing to projects which need time to be created. That's why there are few fancy complicated aircraft for it. It's just too risky from a commercial standpoint. Any developer will tell you that.Al


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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Guest troyboy66

Interesting conversations going on here. When I first posted this thread, I did so with the intentions of picking the brains of our very likable PMDG developers.Though its nice to see that in someway, others like where this subject is taking us. We have covered a few good points:1. Compatibility - (Not a chance)2. Starting Flight from scratch- (Best option)3. Building a new system - (A question of affordability/necessity)4. GPU vs CPU based - (GPU for me)5. Other Simulated Games (X-plane) - (good point...but not an option)Remember we were all in shock when the ACE team was said to be dismissed, hence the drastic increased in FSX 3rd party development; And even more surprising when they announced 'Flight' this past summer and still retaining some members from the ACE squad.While all the above are very valuable options to consider there are still others to look at: 1.For MS Flight to be successful, Microsoft will be looking to us (the buyers) to help support their sales revenue and to show that 'Flight' is the answer to their FSX Woes. 2.Question... are we ready for that responsibility? Are we willing let go of Flight for now so that PMDG NGX is successful with FSX and its constant tweaking. 3. Is it safe to say that many of us have built these high end machines just so we can play our game/s?4.What is FSX today?....FSX is a box with multiple components that make a computer. The OS is called PMDG. i.e, you can't run FSX without having a PMDG :)5.If flight was released on December 25th...how many of you are willing to purchase ASAP knowing that NGX is not available?6.PMDG staff....I have nothing but love for ya but can answer this? IF NGX and Flight were released the same day, would you be willing to discount a price if you ever planned to create NGX for flight?Now please be nice people when you respond. I have been simming since 1991 and is a huge fan and supporter for PMDG. I am about to build a new machine because its time to. The thing I'm battling now is whether I want to install FSX and the thousand add/ons or wait for Flight..ThanksTroy

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At present the problem with developing for X-Plane for many high-end add-on developers, is the fact that the goalposts keep moving, with new versions of X-Plane coming out far more regularly than FS ever managed.Just look at the numbers: X-Plane was first released in 1994, in which year FS was up to version 5, but up to 2006 when FS went through 5 iterations, X-Plane went through 8 and is now at its tenth iteration whilst FS has been frozen on the same version for the past four years.Being stuck with the same version might seem to be a bummer for simmers, but in practice it is not in many ways, because for developers it means they know their long term projects will not turn up 'late for the wedding' after a four-year development cycle only to find they've spent four years making something for a sim that everyone ditched two years ago. You can see the evidence of this with the break in the MSFS development cycle, where things such as the PMDG 737 NGX could be safely developed knowing it would be coming out for the present version of FS even after having taken four or five years to make, and you never got that kind of development commitment when we were getting a new version of FS coming out every two years or so, so just imagine what it would mean to be developing stuff for X-Plane, where a new version comes out more or less every twelve months or so.All credit to Austin Meyer for pushing things along in terms of development, but in some ways that pushing is what is holding it back when you look at what it means for third party add-on developers committing to projects which need time to be created. That's why there are few fancy complicated aircraft for it. It's just too risky from a commercial standpoint. Any developer will tell you that.Al
Good point. I'm sure the constant change would be a developers nightmare which is too bad. Such an amazing simulator that requires very little resources to run every detail at max.I'm sure the 737NGX would be superior in this sim.

Cheers,
Todd

 

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