Classic British Flight Sim

Hi Folks

calypsos wrote:I've just looked at those new FSX shots and MS have put a US Navy scheme on the Merlin RTFM

Trev -
I'd also wondered about this,
although the VH-71 Presidential Helicopter is flown by the Marines
AFAIK the contract for these is actually placed with the the US Navy.
Initially for 23 (+3), now for 31, (28+3) birds.
Not sure if they'll all end up in HMX colours.

She's also up for the US Air Force's CSAR-X contract for 141 aircraft.

There's no RN version, as they're a diferent variant from that modeled,
though look forward to someone repainting one accordingly anyway.

DaveB wrote:I've not tried ANY of the missions in FSX as I'm really not interested..
I'm not a flightsim mission sort of chap.

I also definitely wasn't,
and didn't even try one myself till after FSX RTM'd,
then was very pleasantly surprised.

When you've got some spare time,
recommend trying Monsoon Approach, (15min), Aleutian Cargo Run, (50min), or Yakutat Mail Run, (35min).

Have a root through, you might find something you'll enjoy.
PS.
You can fly missions in any aircraft of your choice,
just tick the 'Enable Changes' box,
though you won't receive any award(s).

DaveB wrote:Suppose I'd better go out and buy a Mesh computer and become a Tony Madge clone!

Unless I'm mistaken,
I thought he'd undergone a Damascean conversion,
last seen producing FSX airport sceneries over at Horizon.

HTH
ATB
Paul

Hi Paul

Tony has not got FS.X and has no intention of having it a present..... so no FS.X screenies from him

Garry

Hi Folks

Ooops...
My humblest apologies folks,
particularly to Tony Madge.

I'd mixed him up with TonyM, (Meredith).

I'm sure I've seen Tony Madge's avatar over at Horizon.

Apologies gents.

ATB
Paul

Paul, could you shed some light on the the incorrect mesh implementation of the two photo scenery players? And also how this might affect performance? My current concern (Okay obsession) is with the dreaded st st st stutters - does SP2 help?

On a more sober note - I firmly believe that Microsoft has oversold FSX from the beginning and, until the details of SP2 were available, continued to do so. To reduce SP2 to a "preview" of DX10 and try to make something positive of it is approaching spin on Prime Ministerial (or Presedential) level. If folks over at Avsim were perhaps a little more honest (with the honerable exception of a few) then perhaps the message to Microsoft might be more to the point. I often see posts that mitigate the issues of FSX by pointing out how much is got for $49 (or thereabouts) - this is forgetting that those of us on this side of the pond pay the same in sterling - double the dollar price! It is worth remembering that upgrades of XP cost £75 in the UK and how much press attention was given to the shortcomings of that operating system (and Vista etc etc) and the resulting effort by Microsoft to put things right.

FSX remains bug ridden (why?) even after two service packs - there are no more service packs planned which leaves us with an "engine" that falls between two stools - that of the old FS9 and before and whatever comes next. To say that no more effort is to be put into FSX to "fix" issues because the team want to concentrate on FSX1 or whatever is close to criminal!

The issue of sofware "not fit for purpose" goes beyond flight simulation; there has been a significant debate over this issue for a while - why on earth do we put up with software that is released far too soon then, after a couple (or more) attempts at fixing things, gets left behind because the next commercial release gets the (necessary) attention?

After all of that I quite like FSX - I don't use FS9 anymore (I can't - I gave it to a friend :-( ) but I do wish that Microsoft would acknowledge its continued shortcomings and address them.

Anyway, end of rant - but just because Microsoft has released two service packs for FSX and Phil Taylor has been more honest than some doesn't mean that we have to lionise them (see too many Avsim posts)!

Regards,
Chris

Hi Folks

ChrisHunt wrote:Paul, could you shed some light on the the incorrect mesh implementation of the two photo scenery players?
And also how this might affect performance?
My current concern (Okay obsession) is with the dreaded st st st stutters - does SP2 help?

Chris -
The issue was not implementing 'fraction bits',
which AFAIU generate the slope between two known elevations, (post points).

This results in a stepped terrain appearance,
which consists of more polys,
therefore is more processor intensive to display.

Put simply -
Think of your household stairs, (simplified as 10 steps, post points),
ground level, 10 risers, 9 treads, top level, == 21 polys

Now replace that with a ramp, (i.e. as if an IRL slope, with the same post points) -
ground level, 10 slopes, top level, == 12 polys

Now instead of a single planar surface,
think of a complex 3 dimensional hillside
comprising of gullies & ridges,
the number of polys increases again.

These example screenies are from a mesh I'd created, (nothing to do with either provider),
but the practise was exactly the same, i.e. compiled without fractionbits.

They probably show the resultant effect better,
with the sandy colour being the treads,
and the darker green colours, the risers.

This first shot is on a gentle relatively even slope -


This second shot is from a more complex surface -


If compiled correctly they would have been a gentle unstepped slope.

Depending on your flight level & config settings
AFAIK, the stutters have a number of causes.
At altitude, they're primarily caused by IO access stalling for the photo-tile mips.
At low-level its a combination of IO access to the photo-tile mips,
plus IO access for the mesh, then resolving the mesh complexity.

The faster you are flying, the more often the data is accessed.

SP2 addresses performance with FSX type photo-scenery, (as c/f FS8 style photo-scenery, e.g. Visualflight).

I'm hypothesising here,
but think SP2 is minimizing stalling by updating the IO request thread,
by discarding any calls for tiles which the viewport has 'overflown' before having been successfully updated.
Possibly also by prioritizing updating on the immediate area of the viewport, e.g. user a/c windscreen,
rather than the distant, and less frequently changing, low-level mips,

If I've understood correctly,
there may also be an additional issue with the 3rd party provider's photo-tile implementations.

However achieved,
it's definitely working better with SP2 for me.



The overly-complex mesh issue is their providers responsibility,
and at least one of them will be issuing a new disk to correct this.



Cross cultural cost differences
are I think primarily down to small volume localised marketing costs.

I 'decline to comment' on -
the moderating practises at a 3rd party site,
the expectations extrapolated by other persons,
or any potential merits in your other points raised.

To contextualize,
Vista shipped late,
DX10 shipped late,
DX10 hardware shipped late.

All of which had a direct knock on effect WRT SP2 development.

I will however say,
that given the issues involved,
plus the time constraints,
it was the only possible outcome.


HTH
ATB
Paul

I understand that Horizon are to recompile the GenX mesh to eliminate this problem (if it's the problem that was introduced with SP1). So will that not be necessary with SP2?

I understand Chris's frustrations - it appears that M$ are running away from FSX, like something off 'Rogue Traders'! Charge over the odds, and don't deliver what you've promised. There aren't that many companies that can get away with that on a global scale, but unfortunately M$ is one of them. :@

James

Sl4yer wrote:I understand Chris's frustrations - it appears that M$ are running away from FSX, like something off 'Rogue Traders'! Charge over the odds, and don't deliver what you've promised. There aren't that many companies that can get away with that on a global scale, but unfortunately M$ is one of them. :@

James, I'm sorry, but you must've been listening too much to what was said by the "prophets" and not enough of what was coming out of the mouths of the ACES developers and the guys on FSINSIDER. FSX shipped exactly with what they advertised it would ship with. Most of the bugs being found are NOT with FSX but with addons that are not fully compatible with FSX because again people listened to the "prophets" and not to ACES. They try to run models and addons that have FS98 and FS2000 stuff in them that is not supported by FSX in any manner and then they blame ACES for the problems instead of realizing their own mistake.

The PhotoScenery issue is one that neither the ACES team nor the photoscenery addon producers really had any idea would occur. ACES assumed (incorrectly unfortunately) that the PhotoScenery addon producers were compiling the photoscenery and underlying mesh exactly to the SDK. Unfortunately, they weren't and as such, the problem arose when they tried to port from FS9 to FSX instead of creating a completely new mesh using the SDK method. This is the same reason many FS9 addons don't work in FSX - the planes were built outside the SDK and those items don't work within FSX because of the changes in the way FSX works.

I'm sorry, but it's unfair to blame ACES for problems that aren't of their own doing. They have no control over 3rd party developers and whether or not they use the SDK provided exactly and they don't have any control over the DX10 and Vista groups. Because of that, they have to meet the timeline set for them independent of outside forces, and they released what was able to be released at the time. Remember, originally there wasn't going to be ANY DX9 implimentation of FSX. It was going to be DX10 only. But when they found out that Vista was going to be delayed and they wouldn't be getting an extension, they had to go back and build a NEW engine for DX9. The fact that they managed to do so and it works for the most part is a tribute to the talent of the design team and we shouldn't be bashing them for doing the best they could.

Paul - thanks for that comprehensive (and obviously well informed) reply - even more keen on getting SP2!

Chris - some of what you say is true; however FSX required 2 service packs to bring about acceptable performance for the majority of users and to resolve some rather obvious bugs in the core system. My previous comment on this point is related to precisely the issue of releasing software (any software) knowingly full of bugs and in the case of FSX quite a few low-level bugs remain in the core product and according to Microsoft these will not now be resolved.

I do take the point that FSX fell victim partly to the release schedule of other elements (Vista, DX10) but in part its troubles are also caused by a somewhat overactive marketing team and being released obviously too early. So far we've had two significant releases in time for the US "holiday-season" the first was FSX (with signifiant issues) and the second is SP2 with DX10 which turns out to be a much cut-down product as far as DX10 is concerned to the point where it is now called a DX10 Preview! I suggest that both have been released far too early and are driven by the need to get something out for the holiday-season.

It is easy to appreciate the hard work of the Aces team; particularly those involved in turning round an ailing ship (FSX) but the poor quality of what was originally provided should not be forgotten.

Regards,
Chris

Chris Trott wrote:James, I'm sorry, but you must've been listening too much to what was said by the "prophets" and not enough of what was coming out of the mouths of the ACES developers and the guys on FSINSIDER. FSX shipped exactly with what they advertised it would ship with.

I'll just go back to what is written on the box in front of me:

MICROSOFT wrote:Works great on Windows XP. Works even better on the upcoming Windows Vista.

Microsoft published it. They made the claims, published the screenshots. And now they've cut and run, leaving behind a DX10 'preview'.

I don't think it's a particularly bad product, although they've been saved by the proliferation of dual core CPUs over the last year (something they didn't seem to expect since the original product didn't make proper use of such). But it's clearly still in development. To say that certain features won't be completed due to lack of time will be unacceptable to many.

James

Sorry to ask a really basic question....

I quite fancy trying SP2.... but do I understand it correctly that it will install DX10 (so presumably I have DX9?).. and that works well only if you have VISTA?

I have a dual core AMD Dell, and I have a Vista upgrade that I have never used.... so I'm tempted. Does this combination produce better results? (Graphics card is AMD1300)

Can Vista be installed retrospectively, or do I have to wipe everything clean and start again?

Although FS9 has all the add ons I enjoy, I have never been able to get consistently good anti aliaising, sometimes it's perfect, then on another day I see jagged edges on the horizon or on a leading edge, but FSX seems much better. I also seem to get “flickers”…. But another day and another scenario and it’s fine!

If I could get consistent anti aliasing I wouldn’t even be bothering with FSX!!


Thanks