POLL/QUESTIONAIRE - for new flight/combined simulator kick starter

[SpiritFlyer 987]

kelvinr, on 16 Jun 2013 - 03:35 AM, said:

The more (genuine) responses this thread gets the more reliable the information gathered is

Kelvin,

 

The speed of growth of this thread tells you and your principals all you need to know about community demand, (for now), to move forward to provide the supply. :good:

 

Do it, do it, do it!

 

Kind regards,

[mmann 72]

I find it intriguing that when Aerosoft was considering developing a Flight Simulator that they declared the Outerra engine unsuitable. Has Outerra changed enough in the last few years to overcome this?

[WarpD 824]

I find it intriguing that when Aerosoft was considering developing a Flight Simulator that they declared the Outerra engine unsuitable. Has Outerra changed enough in the last few years to overcome this?

I find it intriguing that when Aerosoft (a company that has never made anything as complex as a flight simulator) made such claims that you accepted it without question. :wink:

 

As for a new sim... Outerra has the visual capability, of that I'm certain.  JSBSim is a quality flight simulation engine... so the next step is to locate a quality weather engine.

[whitav8 98]

For my purposes, we need a ground terrain model as photoreal/accurate as what is available from GoogleEarth including all their 3D models but with highly detailed airport models - completely backward compatible with commercially available FSX models. All FSX aircraft models must be fully functional and frame rate performance with three independent 3D views and four more 2D screens must be a minimum of 60 fps with no hesitation/stutters. Forests, water, sky models must be highly sophisticated. ATC and AI aircraft should be standard as is multiplayer.

[cameni 9]

I find it intriguing that when Aerosoft was considering developing a Flight Simulator that they declared the Outerra engine unsuitable. Has Outerra changed enough in the last few years to overcome this?

 

This unsuitability was declared at the time when we had no public tech demo yet. Aerosoft didn't ask to get one, or to get the technology behind it explained. Far as I know they decided it solely from what everyone else could know about it from the public information.

 

Since then we have got an NDA with Aerosoft, but seems it was already too late as they put AFS on ice soon after. I don't know what was stated as the official reason so I can't comment on that, but it had nothing to do with OT.

[ETOPS3_TTV 37]

Ok I will bite, its early and I have not had a cup of coffee yet...!

Oxiin,

 

"Build it and they will come"....

 

1. Windows user here Win 7 or 8

2. Nvidia user here so DirectX or OpenGL would work " I don't know the specific differences between the two.  

3. Price point if you blow us away I would pay up $200-$400 us dollars for a platform that I know will be worked on into the future.

4. Don't just look at pleasing us FS guys... Make the world universal train sim, boat sim, and car sim etc.

5. If you do this right maybe you can sneak into replacing professional sim software which I don't like very much.

6. I might get negative feed back for this but maybe a large beta version or even paid beta version. This will generate feedback on what we all want fixed or included.

7. Use the developers now! They can and will be a wealth of information and figure out how add-ons can work for everyone. Example something like they pay you $50 for each add-on and they get the rest of the money.

 

8. Give us the world...! Weather is important clouds and fog. If you can make it happen dust storms accurate snow and rain.

 

9, I don't have to have photorealistic but when I fly over San Francisco I would love to see something really close to what I would see looking out the window at 20,000 feet. Include accurate  mesh for the entire world including sloped runways.

 

10. Accurate friction when on the ground or water

 

This list can go on but I think this is a good starting point. Again plan for systems with-in 4 years but with the vision about how to always innovate and better the simulator for the future hardware. No matter how you slice it you will not please everyone but if you cover all these points plus others in this thread I know we will all come running from FS.

 

Good luck......! I would love to help out anyway I can...

[Dillon 2,197]

This unsuitability was declared at the time when we had no public tech demo yet. Aerosoft didn't ask to get one, or to get the technology behind it explained. Far as I know they decided it solely from what everyone else could know about it from the public information.

 

Since then we have got an NDA with Aerosoft, but seems it was already too late as they put AFS on ice soon after. I don't know what was stated as the official reason so I can't comment on that, but it had nothing to do with OT.

 

Brano we need you guys... If anyone is serious your engine is the way to go. Can you guys do more promotion on FS related sites so people can get a clue? I got a thread started on Flightsim.com where people are clueless as to what your product is all about. Speaking of the guy here who states he has a team building a simulator I'm skeptical. Like I said when people are serious they do what Aerosoft has done and contacted houses like Outerra who's already done a great portion of the work. From there they can build on that much like Microsoft did with BAO's Flight Simulator. Outerra and solutions like it is exactly what a serious developer would look at.

 

 

Good luck......! I would love to help out anyway I can...

Then I'd say you get behind a project like this:

 

http://www.outerra.com/wgallery.html

[SpiritFlyer 987]

and,

 

...perhaps think about making Google a partner, for all the obvious reasons.

[mmann 72]

 

 

Since then we have got an NDA with Aerosoft, but seems it was already too late as they put AFS on ice soon after. I don't know what was stated as the official reason so I can't comment on that, but it had nothing to do with OT.

 

They stopped thinking about AFS when Microsoft announced Flight. Considering how well Microsoft Flight did, maybe Aerosoft figured things wouldn't be as profitable as they at first thought.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

There are already three viable FSX replacements:

 

1. XPlane

2. Prepar3d

3. FSX with a slew of 3rd party add-ons.

 

If I was trying to develop another competing flight sim app, it would use 3rd party FSX scenery and SimObject products directly and run under Android for phones and tablets. The Android platform is much more fertile  ground for new apps than anything based on Windows, which as an OS is starting to sink below the horizon.

[mgh 89]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.

 

I downloaded the Outerra Anteworld demonstration on to my mid range PC with  an NVIDIA GeForce GT520 video card. I set its coordinates to 51N and 0W which is over south-east England. I set the height to  0.3 km (about 1000 ft.) and took a screenshot. As a comparison I did the same with FSX using Horizon VFR photographic scenery. I attach the two screen shots.

 

I used GPU-Z to compare the GPU loads. For Outerra it was a solid 99% but for FSX it fluctuated around 55%. Similarly the CPU loads were 48% and 36% respectively. Bearing in mind that Outerra was simply displaying scenery while FSX was flying a the default B737 and its systems  as well as rendering cloudsI'd suggest Outerra still has a long way to go. way to go before I'd consider it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dillon 2,197]

There are already three viable FSX replacements:

 

1. XPlane

2. Prepar3d

3. FSX with a slew of 3rd party add-ons.

 

If I was trying to develop another competing flight sim app, it would use 3rd party FSX scenery and SimObject products directly and run under Android for phones and tablets. The Android platform is much more fertile ground for new apps than anything based on Windows, which as an OS is starting to sink below the horizon.

 

Sounds like your suggesting a game versus a true Flight Simulator someone can train with. You should try Flight as that's something perfectly suited to a port over to Androind running W8 Metro. There's a nice title called F-Sim Shuttle that you would like too.

 

For the rest of us a phone app is out of the question for a Flight Sim as one needs to sit down just like in a plane, use rudder peddles as that's what a plane has, TrackIR to simulate head movement in the cockpit, a large viewable screen (27" being the smallest I would recommend), last but not least a Yoke. It would be hard to do all this looking at a little phone screen with no option to use devices that actually help train. I know some feel FS9/FSX is just a game but it can be used for a training tool. Even as a game a phone is ridiculous.  Sometimes I wish these devices stay on their side of the tracks. Smart Phones are not going to solve all the worlds problems as some and Microsoft think. Sometimes I need a larger screen, a keyboard, and a mouse to get things done efficiently. Smart phone are great gadgets and offer allot but I wouldn't want to throw everything away and just use them solely especially in the sim arena...

[WarpD 824]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.

 

I downloaded the Outerra Anteworld demonstration on to my mid range PC with  an NVIDIA GeForce GT520 video card. I set its coordinates to 51N and 0W which is over south-east England. I set the height to  0.3 km (about 1000 ft.) and took a screenshot. As a comparison I did the same with FSX using Horizon VFR photographic scenery. I attach the two screen shots.

 

I used GPU-Z to compare the GPU loads. For Outerra it was a solid 99% but for FSX it fluctuated around 55%. Similarly the CPU loads were 48% and 36% respectively. Bearing in mind that Outerra was simply displaying scenery while FSX was flying a the default B737 and its systems  as well as rendering cloudsI'd suggest Outerra still has a long way to go. way to go before I'd consider it.

 

 

Outerra.jpgFSX.jpg

I'd say you're mistaking Outerra as being a flight simulator.  It isn't nor has anyone claimed it as such.  It's a scenery engine, no more, no less.  It only provides exactly that which it is given to display.  Since no one's created the land class and elevation data (that you currently enjoy in FSX) for Outerra, it's only displaying generic scenery in a generic environment and doing nothing else at all.

 

You are reading far, far beyond the base of the thread... which is a quest to see if the concept of taking Outerra as the base visual 3D world simulation and building a flight sim around it is of interest or not.

[cameni 9]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.

 

I downloaded the Outerra Anteworld demonstration on to my mid range PC with  an NVIDIA GeForce GT520 video card. I set its coordinates to 51N and 0W which is over south-east England. I set the height to  0.3 km (about 1000 ft.) and took a screenshot. As a comparison I did the same with FSX using Horizon VFR photographic scenery. I attach the two screen shots.

 

I used GPU-Z to compare the GPU loads. For Outerra it was a solid 99% but for FSX it fluctuated around 55%. Similarly the CPU loads were 48% and 36% respectively. Bearing in mind that Outerra was simply displaying scenery while FSX was flying a the default B737 and its systems  as well as rendering cloudsI'd suggest Outerra still has a long way to go. way to go before I'd consider it.

 

It's also important to include FPS in the comparison.

 

Because the GPU utilization 99% means that the GPU doesn't wait for CPU to feed data for rendering. A 55% GPU utilization is actually very poor - it says that almost half of the time the GPU doesn't have anything to do, because the CPU can't feed it the data fast enough. Or that the rendering architecture can't utilize it fully. That's assuming the frame rate isn't locked.

 

Ditto the CPU, considering multiple cores - a lower utilization can mean other cores are bored.

[SpiritFlyer 987]

WarpD said:

 

You are reading far, far beyond the base of the thread... which is a quest to see if the concept of taking Outerra as the base visual 3D world simulation and building a flight sim around it is of interest or not.

Ed,

 

Look what has been stated and asked by Kelvin. I suggest you carefully re-read everything that was specifically asked, and observe what was not even hinted at (by him).

 

He seems to be the only one who has not referred to it, or commented, or answered the speculation about Outerra. I don't know what he is driving at, but he has not mentioned it at all.

 

On the other hand Oxiin says it is about Outerra because of a conversation Kelvin had with him, so who knows. Intersting!

kelvinr, on 16 Jun 2013 - 03:35 AM, said:

 

***A Currant platform is in development that has potential to support a flight/combined simulator*** your opinions are needed.

kelvinr, on 16 Jun 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

 

Thanks for your input Ryan. If I may, I would like to point out that there is some serious talent behind what is in development in terms of providing solutions to simulating real world processes to match and even supersede what we know inside our current platform(s) such as FS 2004, FSX, and even X-Plane.?

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/411219-pollquestionaire-for-new-flightcombined-simulator-kick-starter/?p=2695266