Posts by John Hargreaves

    This is getting a bit off topic, this thread is supposed to be about slow progress, but all this stuff is clearly the opposite :rolleyes:. That work looks like anything but slow progress to me, the terrain method looks really exciting, and those shots are looking gorgeous. The holy grail for me would be to fly over a landscape and not be conscious I was in a flight sim. Looks like we might be getting a step closer to that.

    There you go, if AF2 only has two core programmers, then that makes it even more impressive, an indy title mixing it with the big boys. I'll tune in to the Steam forums a little more if that is a good place to read discussions. Thanks for the info Jeff, keep up the good work.

    To the guys who doubt themselves singing the praises of AFS2; I honestly believe you have seen the potential and are 100% correct about this being among the leading sims of the future. We just have to wait, and that might be a couple more years before it is what you might call release version. Keep the faith, but people will be impatient and expect miracles instantly, so don't be surprised when they are cynical.

    To the devs, my opinion is to just keep doing what you are doing, there are clearly many good things in the pipeline and your energy is best spent writing code. However, don't underestimate the power of a little communication here and there to keep people on your side. A quick dev post here and there works wonders.

    I think once the OrbX stuff is published, a lot of simmers will sit up and take notice as that is a brand they know very well.

    Personally I'm happy to let AFS2 bubble away in the background and grow out of sight, it's not like we are short of stuff to do in the meantime. Hang in there everybody, it will be worth it in the end.

    Most VR threads on all the sim forums I read contain a long stream of enthusiastic posts from people who have jumped on board with VR. This one is by no means unique, and most people are sharing their experiences so that others can enjoy what they have discovered. From what I have seen, I think there are far fewer people who have tried it and wish to go back to 2D. There are a few who have reservations, whether it's resolution, price, Mark Zuckerberg ruling the world etc. and that's fine.

    I'm glad there were people who were enthusiastically posting about VR as that helped me to make the decision, and I have been really happy with my rift. For me it has transformed the simulation experience, probably most of all with helicopters.

    I hope this helps inform the OP's decision, but ultimately it's your sim, play however you want.

    Operating switches etc in VR doesn't feel any more odd than using a mouse to do it in 2D to me. You have to accept some compromises in a sim, but the only way to do it would be to have a full size mock cockpit for each plane that you fly, so that the hand tracking could match up with what was happening in the virtual cockpit. I would imagine this is unlikely to happen, so we just have to go along with the limitations of a sim.

    There is a lot you can do with joystick buttons and button boxes, as you can easily feel where they are without looking, so you can complement the VR experience quite successfully. Certainly no weirder than using a mouse to press a switch that is in front of you.
    Some people will be into the VR thing, some people won't, it's no big deal, just best to do the thing you like best and discuss and share it with others on the forum. That's why we call it a forum :cool: it's always interesting to see other points of view.

    I have lots of controllers attached to my PC - wheel, joystick, throttle, rudder, button box, Xbox controller and they do all work together in Win10 and FS2, so there must be a solution to your problem. I think that FS2 picks up on all these controllers and assigns random functions, so the first thing to do is highlight the controllers one by one along the bottom of the setup screen and delete any assignments that conflict. I leave all mine attached to the PC, as many games seem to forget them if you disconnect them, even if you haven't run the game.

    OrbX do excellent work, and a game engine like FS2 will allow it to really shine. Their work is really good even on FSX with DX10 fixer, but as new titles are coming out like XP 11, which looks lovely with community mods like Ortho4XP, it needs a new engine like FS2 to show just what can be done.

    Oh well that's quite good news, I probably would have bought a copy anyway if it hadn't been too expensive, but getting a free copy is very cool. Competition is a very good thing for sims, it makes everyone up their game, so having several new titles out will be good for us. What I would have spent on the based game I can mentally put aside for any nice add-ons (or maybe just get Innsbruck for FS2). Only thing now is that if it comes out at the same time as DCS Normandy 1944, which one will I give the most attention :rolleyes:

    They need to be careful I reckon, it's not like there is no competition out there, and people are going to need a good reason to stick with X sim over Y sim. There is some high quality work going on in the flight sim market currently, after FSX being alone for years, and they need to bring something fresh to the table.
    No VR, no 3rd party stuff, not many planes, mmm..what have you got exactly?

    Exciting times for Flight Simulator enthusiasts :)

    As for the communication from our side: The marketing of Dovetail is impressive for sure, and after reading this, one surely wants to try the new simulator. But to be honest, this type of communication is not our style. I think we have made enough statements on what to expect from Aerofly in the future, so I am not sure what else we should communicate here. If you expect weekly updates or news, we simply cannot do this. What we can say is, that we are busy on multiple construction sides: New airplanes, increased system depth, new features. I know we are too quiet for some users, but its just the way we work and it has proven to be good for us as it does not put too much pressure on our workflow.

    Take your time guys, just make FS2 the best it can be and the rest will take care of itself. No point hyping anything too soon, you are still in the relatively early stages and many of us can see the potential. Dovetail deserve their time in the spotlight, and I'll probably buy at least the base game to help support them, but my long term money would be on FS2.

    For flight sims, Oculus definitely has the edge for immersion, it just becomes a totally different experience to a desktop/monitor setup. However, if you also use your PC for other stuff, then a monitor is much more versatile. Half the time I still use my monitor for flying and driving as the level of detail you get is way ahead of the rift, and sometimes you just want to get in and go without strapping the thing on. Dual monitors work very well for flight sims, as there is often a frame line down the centre of the cockpit, but do you ever play a driving sim? if so, the bezel being right on the vanishing point is a bit irritating, so triples are better if you have the PC power.
    I've been really happy with my 34" ultrawide. For me it has been the best all round solution to flying, driving, shooting stuff and, er, actual working on the PC. Triples are bulky and support is not always that good in games, but the single monitor doesn't have to worry about this. Also, as a monitor rather than a TV, you can have it really close on your desk, so the angle of view is not that far from using triples anyway. You tend to have triple just that bit further from your eyes.
    I actually use the 34" ultrawide as my main monitor, and have an old 19" LCD next to it, so in X-Plane 11 for instance, you can have all the detail on the main screen and a live map browser on the smaller one.