A post I did on the ORBX forum

  • I considered myself lucky to have witnessed the birth and evolution of PC Flight Simulators.

    Back then in the mid 80's I had my hands on the first ever Flight Simulator by Bruce Artwick on a TRS 80, then Sublogic on the first PC (DOS, 4.77MHz, 256K RAM).

    You needed creative imagination back then to augment what you saw and perceived on the screen as "cockpit" - basically all lines in white (or 3 colors CGA) with frame rate of only 3-4fps!

    Suffice to say, I have ALL versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator since ver1 thru FSX.... and needless to say I had spent thousands of $$$ on PC hardware upgrades, software addons etc. anything you can do (if I had to break the bank) to make sims run smooth.... all through the years and more often than not, It was always disappointing seeing at performance issues - there were lots of wishlists, something computer hardware had to always catch up with the software like flight sim demands. But It was "fun". I had all the flight sims that came out, including military ones.

    I left the sims for more than a decade now (Life gets in the way). I have said I had given up on "chasing" flight sims UNTIL that day comes when I don't have to break a bank to get a PC fast enough to satisfy to make a sim fluid enough like IRL.

    And then Aerofly FS2 came along. I just came across it in youtube. I was skeptical at first, but seeing those I had to try it and see for myself. And what a game changer it is!!!! I can't f*****g believe the experience. I really must say this is a milestone. My PC is getting really outdated - i7 3770k @3.5GHz, 650Ti Boost 2Gig, 8G RAM - something that is already considered low-mid setup by today's standards.... but boy oh boyll.... at 2560x1440 res AFS2 runs like butter!! I had always wished the Extra 300 in FSX would at least give me smoothness that came closer to how it manuevers in real life.. but seeing it in action in AFS2 with my mid-low PC setup is beyond awesome!!! Now I am back, spending late nights with it, and I am looking forward to Aerofly FS2 bright future! I will support it all the way.

    Sorry for the long post.. I got carried away LOL!!!

    Edited 2 times, last by santiagoluib3 (December 7, 2017 at 9:57 AM).

  • with the quality of the default aircraft AFS2 team is offering us who needs add on payware aircraft, i certainly hope AFS2 does not go down the path what Micro$ft did and to get anything of good quality you had to pay and buy an addon.

    AFS2 only need to do small updates like have a functioning FMC and stuff like ATC and SID STARs and I will be happy.

  • I don't really mind having to pay a bit of $$ for aircraft addons, *IF* they are this good, without spending a lot of time tweaking the sim.

    My biggest worry for AFS2 is this: that after they add 1) complex weather system, 2) ATC, 3) AI traffic air/land, 4) 3D water, 5) in-depth aircraft systems, the smoothness will eventually suffer. The smoothness that this sim enjoys right now is for the lack of those I mentioned.

    But then I am still hopeful that their core platform and framework is designed in such a way that adding those won't affect fps much. I can still live if they give me 50-60fps with EVERYTHING maxxed out ;) Right now it runs along the lines of 120-140fps on my OLD system.

  • I don't really mind having to pay a bit of $$ for aircraft addons, *IF* they are this good, without spending a lot of time tweaking the sim.

    My biggest worry for AFS2 is this: that after they add 1) complex weather system, 2) ATC, 3) AI traffic air/land, 4) 3D water, 5) in-depth aircraft systems, the smoothness will eventually suffer. The smoothness that this sim enjoys right now is for the lack of those I mentioned.

    But then I am still hopeful that their core platform and framework is designed in such a way that adding those won't affect fps much. I can still live if they give me 50-60fps with EVERYTHING maxxed out ;) Right now it runs along the lines of 120-140fps on my OLD system.

    Behind the miracle that is FS2 is, I suspect, a massive re-engineering of code to shift towards exploiting modern GPU techniques and away from CPU. With this in mind "complex" weather is probably no harder than plain weather. ATC is no biggy, AI traffic probably not much apart from extra rendering of small objects, in depth systems smallish too I'd guess. Water may well be a burden - but then its not likely to have to cope with 500,000 autogen buildings at the same time. Multiplayer could cost quite a few FPS especially having multiple quality rendered aircraft flying close alongside Red Arrows style.

    I haven't coded for GPU, but that's my guess.

  • Some other news on ORBX, kind a love when Jarrad chips in

    A great time to pick up either of our airports whilst the sale is on.... also... we should have some Aerofly news and previews for you guys before Christmas [Blocked Image: https://forum-owwochgjiuskn0.netdna-ssl.com/emoticons/default_smile.png]


    Cheers,

    Jarrad

    https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/146205-i-did-it/

    BennyBoy. I5 8600K @ 4,3ghz, 16 ram, GTX 1060 6G @ UW @2560 X 1080. Sim: AF2 & P3D V4

  • Absolutely! I share your sentiments 100%. I was right back there with you in the mid 80's as a teen who purchased his first PC (Commodore-64 & Amiga) and discovered the world of flight simulator. As the Commodore line faded, I moved on to the PC compatibles. Bruce Artwick and those guys were my heroes. Having been born with a passion for aviation, I too bought every flightsim/game I could get my hands on. Remember "Solo Flight"? I think it came with four or five airports, haha. Vail, Aspen, Wichita Kansas and a few more I can't remember. You had to have quite an imagination, but it was fun. We've come a long way for sure!

    Probably a good thing we didn't have VR back then, I probably wouldn't have graduated LOL.

    Redtail

    KFRG, KTEB, KEWR, KLGA

    ~Straighten up and fly right~

    DESKTOP: i7-7700k @5GHz (water cooled), Nvidia GTX 1080Ti FTW3, 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, Oculus Rift CV1, Windows 10 Home 64 bit,

    TM HOTAS Warthog (large spring removed), Saitek PRO Flight Combat Rudder Pedals, YOKO yoke!

    Laptop (gaming): Acer Predator Helios 500- Intel Core i7-8750H @4.1GHz, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32GB DDR4, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD.

    Gametrix JetSeat FSE (Flight Sim Edition)-USB Vibrating pad. Nextlevel V3 Motion Platform / Sim cockpit.

  • My wife ventured upstairs into my cave today to find out what all the hype was about with this VR stuff. I put the headset on her in the cockpit of the Skyhawk, sitting on the runway at Innsbruck. This was her first time wearing a VR HMD.

    All I heard was "wow", "ohh", "ouu", "this is cool". LOL

    She didn't attempt flying (yet), but she was clearly mesmerized.

    She has briefly taken the controls in FSX years ago (and from the right seat IRL), so maybe she will try VR at some point when she's ready. ;)

    Redtail

    KFRG, KTEB, KEWR, KLGA

    ~Straighten up and fly right~

    DESKTOP: i7-7700k @5GHz (water cooled), Nvidia GTX 1080Ti FTW3, 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, Oculus Rift CV1, Windows 10 Home 64 bit,

    TM HOTAS Warthog (large spring removed), Saitek PRO Flight Combat Rudder Pedals, YOKO yoke!

    Laptop (gaming): Acer Predator Helios 500- Intel Core i7-8750H @4.1GHz, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32GB DDR4, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD.

    Gametrix JetSeat FSE (Flight Sim Edition)-USB Vibrating pad. Nextlevel V3 Motion Platform / Sim cockpit.

  • I ask Jarrad a question about how much time in % it take to convert a scenery compare to built one from the ground up , and read carefully his answer ;)

    G'day Ben, Innsbruck took ~15% of the development time, Monterey ~40%, and my current (unannounced) project has taken ~12%. This also factors in time spent isolating issues with the conversion process, working with IPACS on new/improved features etc. I feel like we're pretty close to locking down the workflow that works best for existing airports, however this will always be in a state of flux as IPACS create new content/features for us to work with.


    Cheers,

    Jarrad

    BennyBoy. I5 8600K @ 4,3ghz, 16 ram, GTX 1060 6G @ UW @2560 X 1080. Sim: AF2 & P3D V4

  • It's interesting for me to see all of this activity. I've been on the forum since Aerofly FS1, and remember how silent things were, for years, with only the occasional picture hinting at what FS2 was becoming... then the release on tablet, and another wait for years while the forums were silent........

    Now the forum is updated and alive with more people joining daily and talking animatedly and there's excitement in the air.....

    It's a good change.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5