FSX-MS Has FSX and Flight Simulation gone by its best times?

[fsxflyer 0]

A question for people, do you think FSX and Flight Simulation has gone by its best potential now?

 

Yes don't get me wrong, it's a very fun and an immersing game when it all runs well and good, however, most of the time you are encountering problems and having to do research to find how to fix a problem etc. Furthermore, you have to spend thousands of £,€,$ to get a system that's can cope with the high demands of FSX which for probably a lot of people (unless your an enthusiast) is a lot of money!

 

So I ask it again, has flight simulation run its time?

 

Nathan Green

[PIC007 82]

 

 

most of the time you are encountering problems and having to do research to find how to fix a problem etc

 

Not at all, I went through that phase many years ago. Then I found FSGS, had Mike set up my system, and never had a problem since. (I only wish he was still here, he helped so many people)  I spend my time flying and cant imagine a better way to spend it.

[fsxflyer 0]

Can you elaborate as to what FSGS is? and I'm also fly for real, so close to getting my PPL now, at the cross country stage of training.

[9MMPQ 1]

Hi Nathan,

 

I'd say it might depend on what you're looking to get out of it. Sure FSX is done development wise but flight simulation with FSX has hardly run it's time.

 

There are still a lot of freeware & payware add-ons being developed for FSX. Right now I greatly enjoy the PMDG 777 and am looking forward to their update for the 737NGX & the new 747-400 V2. Throw in some quality airport sceneries that are out there and i keeping coming back to it. Then you have several options available to get weather simulation & other airline traffic involved... well, you see where i'm going with this

 

System wise definitely some money would be involved but hardly thousands like you mention. The PMDG 777 was my main motivator for jumping to a new system & FSX. Sure i saved some money to get there but it wasn't quite that impossible. You mention encountering problems most of the time, perhaps because of your system ? On a system with lesser specs it can definitely be a mix & match of settings to get to the best results for that system. That was exactly the reason why i stuck with FS2004 for so long.

 

So there's a lot of life left in it & I'll spend many hours on FSX for quite some time to come

[PIC007 82]

Can you elaborate as to what FSGS is? and I'm also fly for real, so close to getting my PPL now, at the cross country stage of training.

Unfortunately the person that ran the service passed away a few years ago, and there is no one to replace him. I live in fear that someday my system goes down and he's not around to fix it :-(

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

A question for people, do you think FSX and Flight Simulation has gone by its best potential now?

 

Yes don't get me wrong, it's a very fun and an immersing game when it all runs well and good, however, most of the time you are encountering problems and having to do research to find how to fix a problem etc. Furthermore, you have to spend thousands of £,€,$ to get a system that's can cope with the high demands of FSX which for probably a lot of people (unless your an enthusiast) is a lot of money!

 

So I ask it again, has flight simulation run its time?

 

Nathan Green

 

 

If you look at FSX as a game, yes it needs a fast system to run well, but many "gamers" have such systems..

 

If you are an aviation enthusiast, FSX is only gradually coming into its best years, as computers become faster, and addon vendors develop ever better airplanes, scenery, and other wonderful additions that change the way FSX appears on your system.

[pilottj 198]

With addon developers like A2A, RealAir, PMDG....etc each still producing FSX addons, with many more in the works.   If those developers see value in spending 1000s of R&D hours for FSX projects, FSX is far from dead.

 

 

Cheers

TJ

[LAdamson 240]

Started flight simming, with it's invention.  Quit for a couple of years, but now back with a fast system. I'm using ORBX scenery and airports, and have never had such a good time, as now. 

[Howellerman 104]

Heya Nathan, 

 

I assume your question was more a "meta" question, about the state of flight simulation in general?

 

Having been flying for only a couple or years, first with FSX, then P3D V1.4, and now P3D V2.4, I cannot offer the perspective of a seasoned veteran that started with FS9 or earlier. However, it seems there has been an increase in flight simulation activity, certainly on the commercial level, that has happened in these last couple of years. Look at the explosive growth of Orbx, and the overall interest in Prepar3D. Lockheed Martin seems pretty committed to their flight simulator, and the potential of 64-bit programming almost seems certain within another couple of years. Vendors such as PMDG, MilViz, RealAir, A2A, and others seem to be invigorated by the new (and challenging) platform, and models are getting increasingly sophisticated, accurate, and sometimes flat-out amazing. ASN was a glimmer in someone's eye only a few years ago, and they are now a dominant player in the weather programming segment. Dovetail games, with the Steam Edition of FSX, has generated their own amount of buzz to a platform that has not been supported in years.

 

Computers are getting much (MUCH!) more powerful and complex, although the per-core performance seems to have topped out at less than 5Ghz. This is the root issue (IMHO) for most flight simulation problems, and circumventing that limitation leads to the tweaking, and resulting complexity and problems, that you cite. But, they will get more cores, and faster memory, and SSD will replace HDD, and 4K monitors will become commonplace, and on and on and on.

 

That being said, the flight simulation community is aging - the most recent AVSIM demographic survey being a perfect example. Much could be said of GA flying in general: it is more costly, it is more difficult, and Lord knows the government(s) aren't exactly promoting flying, unlike the encouragement seen in the 50's. Will there be a sufficient user base in 10 years to sustain all the glorious simulation activity we are seeing now? 

 

Don't know, but the state of flight simulation today is really amazing. Flying low and slow over the Pacific Northwest in an aircraft that remembers how poorly you treated it when you last parked her, is really just amazing. 

[makdrive 9]

No @ topic.

 

My hangar is still missing a decent A330, A340, A380 and A350

[IUBrian 151]

My first experience with flight simming was on a Commodore 64 in the early 80's, and I've been involved off and on since, depending on school, family, and work commitments, as well as having a computer capable of running whatever the current version was.

 

On the contrary, I believe this is a golden age of flight simulation. In fact, I sometimes wonder if the lack of continued development by Microsoft has unintentionally been beneficial; as opposed to having a new platform every few years that potentially breaks add-ons, the relative "stability" of the platform has enabled devopers to devote the amount of time to create sophisticated add-ons without the fear of then being obsolete by the time they reach the market.

 

Yes, I'm sure everyone would have preferred that the "stopping point" have been a 64 bit platform, but still, I think there may be an inadvertent benefit of FS no longer being developed as a commercial venture by Microsoft, where Microsoft, in order to make money off every new version is required to make just enough changes to render the prior version obsolete. It was either that, or attempt to corner the add-on market, which is what I suspect the tried to do with "Flight."

 

Flight Simming has, I think, matured into more of a hobby than a "game." In that sense, it will be difficult for it to compete with first person shooters in terms of an enthusiast base, but frankly, the more realistic flight simming becomes the less likely it is to interst the instant gratification first person shooter crowd anyway. Let's face it - for someone who isn't interested in flight to begin with, flight simulation can be boring.

[BillW 210]

I got into simming when it first came out. You can't believe how far it has come.Developers and enthusiasts have taken a low price simulator and done great things. It has advanced well beyond my greatest expectations. In answer to your question: No, its just getting started.

[pmanhart 176]

No.

 

We may well have left the golden era of freeware and FS9, but we are right in the middle of a renaissance of FS with the continuing development of Prepar3d, FSX Steam Edition, X-Plane 10 and up and comers such as Outerra.

[addman 33]

For me, the problem of FSX requiring quite powerful hardware (P3Dv2.5 is worse though) isn't the bigggest issue I have with it. The biggest issue is what you get in return for that powerful hardware, there are games out there that basically has real-life grahics on far less potent hardware than what FSX and P3Dv2 requires. Both FSX AND P3Dv2, IMO, still look antiquated (they are, of course, also technically antiquated) by todays standards even with all the best "make-up" add-ons out there put on. P3Dv2 for me is a nice compliment to FSX but not it's replacement even though it looks better, looking better than FSX is not much of an achievment though. I have an academic license of P3Dv2 but it get's about 12% of my total simming time. I keep coming back to it after there's a new update released but it usually only takes a short while until I go back to FSX again. Biggest problem with P3Dv2 is performance, even if I pull back sliders and disable effects and features it is still a stutter-fest so what's the point? The other problem I have with P3Dv2 is that updates keep screwing with add-ons and compatibility so every time there's and update you just pray that I won't mess up half of your add-ons. If it does screw up add-ons then you have to wait at the mercy of third-party developers to update their stuff, some doesn't even do it. Worst case was the lates 2.5 update, it wasn't even a patch, I had to re-download the whole simulator and re-install! It wouldn't be such a big issue if I actually got something out of these updates but personally, I have the same stutter-fest as in 2.4. So again, what's the point of P3Dv2? The usual argument for P3Dv2 is "You should be thankful that LM are working on it and updating it etc." It's total BS, what good is an update if it does NOTHING for me performance-wise except screwing up compatibility and requiring full re-install?

 

Still, I love flightsimming and last night I flew a lovely flight with my A2A civilian Mustang from Catalina Island (aerosoft/limesim freeware) to 29Palms....KTNP. True flightsimming nirvana, I just wish there was something new and great on the horizon...

 

[Mithras 87]

I'm totally new to simming, started November 2014, and I chose FSX purposefully because there was so much fantastic stuff out there for it, both payware and freeware.

 

I am constantly blown away by many of the flights and scenes, airports, traffic and weather. I have never been happier