MS Flight Simulator vs. Real Life | Hacker News Reader

MS Flight Simulator vs. Real Life

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188 pointstosh66 comments

All game data will be streamed on demand from the cloud. On one side it is neat, that only required data for the moment will be downloaded, but on the other hand, the game will require constant internet connection, and in the future, when servers will be finally turned off, it simply won't work.

Well that is simply not true. It will work, you'll have lower resolution and detailed map, but sim will certainly work.

-edit: should have refreshed before commenting :)

Why isn't there an option to download the assets? How much space are we talking about here?

Two petabytes, according to PC Gamer.

...Oh. Okay then. I guess that makes sense.

Still would be nice for them to have a ~300 GB download option with a resolution somewhere in between the standard offline mode and full quality, but they're clearly operating at an inordinate scale here...

The game already has an base installation size of 150GB and contains an offline mode that reduces the level of detail.

You can pre-cache regions and flight paths. I don't know how easy it would be to back that data up.

While this is also false, if it we’re true I wouldn’t worry much as the last game from 2006 is still actively developed and supported.

Until it isn’t.

I can still play pong. So many kids today will never get to relive their childhood.

I once thought about a business model where once a year I would go buy a phone and pay for all the top games.

Then professionally remove the battery and stick it in a drawer for 20 years.

The old 32 bit games kids played 10 years ago don’t run anymore. They likely won’t be available in the future.

The issue is that so many games require a net connection and a server that won’t be here in 20 years.

Otherwise these phones would probably fetch an enormous sum of money when all these kids are in their 30’s.

I probably won’t play the game in 10-30 years from now. In any case, I suspect it would still be playable, without the fidelity of textures/locations that you can get with streaming data.

As far as I know, this game does have an offline mode that has lower fidelity environments.

I personally don’t understand the folks who get upset about the required internet issue. You have the choice of not buying the game. Personally I think what they seem to be doing with this game is very innovative. Supposedly the total data is on the order of petabytes. They could squeeze down the quality of assets by orders of magnitude and not provide the same experience. I don’t see another way.

If the games work without servers, most likely in the future you'll just be able to run an Android emulator and install the APKs downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Or reverse-engineer jobs would be done for the biggest games to create servers that will allow the client to work.

That's not true, there's a completely offline mode. The quality of terrain will obviously suffer.

This fear of servers being turned off forever is overblown. Most people will have stopped playing by the time the servers have to shut down.

While true for many consider the many patient gamers who wait for sales or miss the hype cycle, only later to discover a product they now love is unplayable. That only feeds into the FOMO and encourages churn.

Unplayable? Name 3 AAA titles that were unplayable when they were sold at a discount.

Original Battlefront games have been sold for years on Steam without working multiplayer. Only recently did they get fixed.

No sense in catering to laggards, they know the risk they take.

What an inclusive attitude. Reminds me of that whole gamer-gate phenomenon.

No one is entitled to play a game. It’s not a human right.

I've long wished someone would do this for racing games too. An open-world street racing game powered by real-world environments/maps would be wonderful :)

For an unrelated product demo some years ago I modded Orbital Eunuchs Sniper¹ to play on the environment outside the site we were demoing in using a few images from Google Maps. The split on whether it was fun or utterly wrong was probably 90/10, but I'm sure it would've been a different story with a tabloid paper reporting on it.

Now imagine you're publishing a game where drifting on roundabouts outside real elementary schools is a mini-game. Probably good for publicity though, iff you're willing to take the heat :/

1. http://www.icculus.org/oes/ - Still an awesome game

I mean, it's not like there needs to actually be kids in the game :P

There's a great track for Assetto Corsa called Rio which is a race around the streets and highways of Rio de Janeiro.

That would be awesome, but I’m not sure if the surface terrain detail is there yet. For flight from far away you might be able to get away with it, though.

Personally, I'd be totally happy for the game engine to fill in the details. It's more about the familiarity/general sensation of driving through places known places and exploring new, real-world ones!

I'm actually looking at how to import lidar data into a game called BeamNG (It's a super realistic driving simulator, with accurate body deformation, aerodynamics, etc). Long stretches of mountain road I'm familiar with are a great to drive down especially since you can fly around corners.

Right now the process to create these maps is a pain, you have to find the lidar data online, smooth it out and get rid of any weird artifacts. Then putting into the game requires more processing: drawing the roads, texturing hills and cliffs, etc. You have to place all buildings manually (which also means creating the meshes)

Overall, it's technically possible in this game, just a ton of work. There is definitely ways to automate and speed up the process. The terrain processing could probably be entirely automated, maybe building meshes could be taken off Google maps or something. Even with no buildings though, it's still a fun experience.

https://beamng.com/

Ever since I was a kid, I wished someone would do it for an FPS or an action RPG. They often feature locations representing real-world ones, but it would be cool to play a game in a real-world area, particularly one you've been to or live in.

My dream was a CS 1.6 map of my school

The Getaway came close on PlayStation 2 back in 2002. Gameplay wasn't great, but it featured a very realistic (in its time) rendering of 10 sq miles of central London.

https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2017/12/12/how-pioneering-op...

Still have very find memories of exploring, have been waiting ever since for another realistic open world game based in London.

The new sim looks simply spectacular.

12 years ago I built my first new PC just to play Crysis, with money that I had saved up over some time. Fast forward to today, I just have a Macbook Pro from work, as I almost stopped gaming entirely.

As an erstwhile FSX addict think it's time for me to build a new rig again just for MS Flight & hopefully one that works well with an Oculus (Quest) too!

I've been waiting for the next flight sim or Elder Scrolls game to build a new rig. Crazy to think that it's almost surely going to be Flight Simulator that comes first.

It looks great. But in all cases, it's still pretty simple to distinguish the game from the real photo. And that is because the game looks just too perfect. E.g. the wave patterns on the water just are too uniform. But this is sth which might not be too difficult to make more random, right? E.g. use sth like Perlin noise.

This, the new AMD CPUs, nVidia 3000 series, Alyx, and the new generation of consoles (which means a large number of new games the coming year) means the stars are aligning for a new gaming rig again this year.

What is special about 3000 series? Any good links?

Nothing revolutionary is expected but I think it's a new process so should have more power headroom. A new generation always drives down the prices of the last generation at least.

I legitimately could not figure out which one was real for several of these shots. Well done to the FS team and all related teams (my understanding is this game brings together a lot of tech). Couldn't be more excited to try this out.

It's great, but it's certainly not indistinguishable. The water and clouds are a dead giveaway.

Also, except for the yellow/black silhouettes, the graphics have lower contrast than the photographs, which makes me wonder if it would be even more obvious if they increased the contrast to match. At first glance, it seems like they're using washed-out colors to hide something.

The photos may have been edited for more contrast as well. The ingame images don't look unreal, actually; haze does reduce contrast and not every day is an opportunity to get a crystal-clear magazine-quality photo everywhere.

Give Google Earth VR a try, on a recent headset. Where Google has captured data by flying over the terrain in aircraft, the effect is astonishing. It's as if Google swept a giant LIDAR over everything, mapping every nook and cranny.

I hope a VR mode will be available for FS2020 (I tried to check the latest situation on Google, who helpfully showed me an ad for a PHYSICAL hands-on hysteroscopy simulator!)

I can't wait for this one!!! Especially now with the current lockdown :( X-Plane 11 doesn't quite cut it.

However it will have to support VR otherwise it's a non-starter.

The devs said they will support VR, just not initially.

Oh that's too bad... I suppose this has to do with their console focus (considering the Xbox doesn't do VR).

Otherwise, I don't understand why anyone would make a simulator now without VR. It makes the difference between day and night.

Should I get X-Plane now or wait for this?

Checking out flight sims is on my bucket list, but not urgent. Can anyone who knows better comment on this? Yes, I can try the trial X-Plane. But I'm lazy.

To give a sense of what I'm looking for: I tried X-plane on Android TV. The controls were extremely realistic. And by that I mean I never managed to land without crashing. :) I was ok with that.

If you want to get started, you can download DCS World for free (a combat simulator, but very realistic with free-flight modes and VR support) and play that until FS is out.

Depends on what you want. X-plane can look quite nice if you invest in scenery from e.g. Orbx. I think they just announced southern California; which looks pretty nice. I use Ortho4xp to generate my own scenery. And for Europe there's simheaven.com with detailed 3d scenery generated from open street maps and other sources.

Obviously the new MS sim goes beyond that in level of detail as they have better data and the know how to post process that. I suspect, X-plane 12 might try to close the gap a little again and of course the flight model is where X-plane shines traditionally, which for a lot of pilots is a reason to prefer this simulator.

My kid has an X-Plane rig and there's a lot of cool plugins, aircraft, and addons available right now to use. I don't know if or what the 3rd party market for FSX20 will be or when it will be available so it's all a matter of your timeframe.

If you're lazy or won't use anything more powerful than a phone, you might as well play with toy simulators and/or Infinite Flight.

https://infiniteflight.com/

> And by that I mean I never managed to land without crashing. :)

Sure you weren't just playing in Launchpad McQuack mode? :)

All indicators point to MSFS2020 blowing X-Plane out of the water in every metric.

As far as graphics go yes. But xplane has some great mods and a well established community. For example, you can download a free 737 that has a fully working FMC with all the buttons in the cockpit working. This was made by a community member. It's the gold standard 737 people download and use.

Take flying lessons.

Looks like it's time to get the old HOTAS out.

When is this coming out?

Game is set to be released in 2020, but as with all game release dates it might change.

TBD, still in alpha.

Is there a key saying which is real and which is simulator?

Second photos are real.

Where is that picture of the striped land from?

It looks a bit like inverted lake in the Netherlands (man-made by mining peat)

https://www.aerophotostock.com/media/30b15e9e-a9d3-11e3-ab9d...

I pasted it in the reverse Google image search and it seems to be Marismas Nacionales Nayarit in Mexico.

In Other News: the Marismas Nacionales Nayarit exist.

Curious too

Is this from the new version? It looks amazing!

This will probably be the best reason to buy an xbox soon.

Doesn't it run on Windows as well?

Windows 10 is listed as supported platform.

Along with Xbox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20...

Edit: I have this feeling that Microsoft's marketing normally oversells their games. In this case the game has been developed by an outside team:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asobo_Studio

Said team "only" has 140 employees, and they've been busy with releasing other major games every year so far.

I'd be cautious.

Edit: Revenue per employee is 50k EUR per employee. That is kinda low. To be fair, I compared 2014 revenue numbers with 2018 employee count numbers.

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