Flight simulator X demo available for download :: Archived

Shadow_Homfixr

WOW Great shots there to compare and I do agree FSX does look a lot better!

JG300-Stoopy

Oh hey, try hitting the "A" key in different views to cycle through some cool options. In VC view, "A" immediately takes you to the 2D panel.....real fast.

EXOS has a great idea....and here's another pair of comparo shots that also illustrate something quite cool. The terrain mesh in FSX is completely user-definable all the way down to 1m!!! Say goodbye to terrain mesh downloads. I'm flying with a setting of 38M and it's quite good enough/

The finer terrain mesh data is REAL evident at this island where SABA is located...I've been spending most of my time around here basically becuase this field is so short and the rising terrain on the far side of the runway makes for a real challenging short-field approach:

Exact same plane, same latitude and longitude, airspeed, zoom, view angle, screen res, time of day, and weather - framerates shown also (full-size images are in the gallery):

FS9:

FSX:

JG300-Stoopy

Oh and a note on my above shots FYI.....

I'm flying at "reduced" graphics as well (Water is on "High-1X" instead of any of the "2" settings" and some other stuff dialed in. I'm REAL happy with how it looks. I don't mind a bit that I can't fly regularly with every slider maxed, that will come in time with future system upgrades like it always has.

Don't know if any of you read how you can save several different settings and then email them to other folks to try out on their setup. Just pop the settings file in the same folder as your own opnes. Screen resolutions won't be shared, but the other settings are, so it makes an easy way to "share and compare" tweaks, and have different parameter sets. Pretty cool.

Shadow_Bshwackr

Fled and I were delving into the inner workings, file folders, features and came across the fx for dropping bombs. In this case it was flour bombs, but the point is, you should be able to load any 'bomb' effect you want. Now, we also discovered the planes texture files have the same extensions as those found in CFS3 AND FSX is run via XML files that same as CFS3.

This information leads one to believe and imagine all kinds of possiblities and scenarios that could exist. (Hint: Bombing missions w/escorts) ?

Can the damage boxes be moved or incorporated into FSX from CFS3? Hmmm....

Some cool features found is in virtual cockpit mode. When you take off or apply full power, your field of vison mimics your head moving back from the inertia. When you apply brakes, you get the forward movement too. Very COOL! Also, once you turn up the settings, you'll see moving cars on the roads and while I didn't see this, I've heard you can also see moving ships. On my system, it knocked me to about 10fps turning up the 'eye candy', but it's cool non the less.

Nice pics Stoopy and what a difference in the terrain!!

JG300-Stoopy

You can say THAT again, LOL!!

A while back when it was announced that the ACES group would be doing the development, the first thing that popped into my head was "CFS3 baseline"! and it appears to be generally true, with an awful lot of cleanup and refining. In fact, a longer while back there were some "escaped" screenies of the then-under-development-then-cancelled CFS4 (true!). There were only 1 or 2 shots, but it clearly showed some graphics work in common with FSX, notably the new shading/shadowing functions that allow partial shadows on an aircraft (like, park an FS9 plane so it's halfway in the shadow of a building, it will either be all lit or all shadowed, no partials) and the ability of the aircraft to throw shadows on itself, from it's own wings or engine nacelles. Stuff this demo is doing now.

It's all a real good thing, because even though CFS3 is met with scorn by some hardcore simmers who had issues with it's required resources or limited features, it's clearly an effort to revamp and modernize the whole FS "engine" for more flexibility in the future. And especially, in CFS3 I saw a big difference in flying online and how the aircraft are tracked and positioned, etc. Far more precise and I think the smoothness will be noticed by FS9 online fliers too, since the online aspect seems to have finally got attention and is WAY different (looked at that section yet??).

For XCaliber, I did a short x-country in the baron and interacted with ATC the whole time. I'd have to say that while the menus look new, the options and choices all seem about the same. One thing I haven't checked yet (but you could too) is to see if ATC will still direct you to the wrong runway based on weather....was kind of a bummer being directed to an active runway that had a rather strong tailwind, I don't know if they've fixed it yet.

JG300-Stoopy

Hey would anyone with a REALLY NICE FS9 setup (Rodion? Anyone?) be willing to duplciate the above shot for me? ACAO code for the airport at the island is SABA, and general heading, altitude, location info is in the screenshot.

I've always been convinced that my own FS9 never looks as good as others, even though it's running on some good-quality stuff. In looking at the above, I'd have thought the FS9 shot should have come out way better but honestly thats really as good as it was....and I'm not trying to short-change good ol' FS9 either.

Uhu_Fledermaus

Stoopy,

OK, tryed to get in the same position in fs9 as indicated Wink

and this is what I came up with

www.com-central.net/us...ba_fs9.jpg

I've attached the link for the full screenie so you can see it full size Wink

Small remark.................... I have FS_Global2005 World Mesh installed

fs X looks better that's a fact .......... alltough judging by the closed thread at the AVSIM messageboard we'll have something going on Laughing

fled

JG300-Stoopy

Well, kind of a bummer for those of us who like sailplanes and have been waiting to see what soaring options are in the sim. I've been all excited and turned on about the early pix of a sailplane getting a tow from a powered job, and saw the key commands for "request tow" and "release tow rope". And noticed the thermal vis options, which is cool.

But it looks like there's no ridge lift, in the demo at least. So we may be limited to just thermal soaring, which is cool in it's own way, but ridge soaring, riding the lift from the wind coming up the face of a hill, doesn't seem to work. I found the biggest, longest hills available with a nice slope on them and set up a strong wind coming right against them and did nothing but slowly loose altitude no matter where I tried....and I've done plenty of slope soaring in sims and R/C combat slope gliders so I know how to do it. Even tried right down among the bluffs of the shoreline, Torrey Pines style, and, nothing.

Kind of a drag becuase we had this even back in FS4 (north of the San Franciso bay) as well as thermal lift. The two kinds of soaring are comletely different techniques with ridge soaring being way more exciting ('specially in the Alps or some other exotic location). Well, at least we have thermals back, and a real tow plane now and a rope, so I'm sure we'll get the whole works eventually!

JG300-Stoopy

Anyone else playing with this???

FYI, made some GREAT progress on increasing flyability and FPS last night. Getting very smooth performance on my rig, and note that the really important factors are (in no particular order)

1) Turn Autogen scenery down to "sparse" - as noted in other forums, and due to an issue with the autogen handling, to be fixed inthe release.

2) Dialed water settings down, again as noted in other forums. I'm bouncing between "High - 1X" and "Low - 2X" (middle settings) and am real happy....water isn't what the sim is about for me, anyway.

3) Turned that stinkin' "Light Bloom" feature off in the display menu!! Besides dragging FPS down considerably with updated ATI drivers, it caused a fair amount of screen flicker in external view with my outdated drivers.

4) In DXDIAG, I turned down the Hardware Acceleration for the sound card (old CFS3 trick that works). Set it to "basic" (one notch up from "off"). I got some rough sounds form the Howard 500 the first time I launched FSX Demo after doing this, but then quit, restarted, and all's been well. Seems to free up some resources for vid card hardware acceleration.

5) Updated my ATI vid card drivers to the 6.7 CAT release from last month - previously the driver set was 6.1-something, about a year old. Dang card works so well I just forgot to keep current on drivers (if it works don't fix it, right)?

Anyway, after all the above I'm gettign between mid/low 20's at the bottom and a high around 40, my max FPS limit is set to 41 anyway. At Princess-Whatever airport (the one the default flight is set to) I'm averaging around 25/27 FPS on takeoff, both in the VC and External view. Panning around gets some short, very temporary hit on FPS due to texture access I guess, then the FPS recover nicely - all in all it's real enjoyable.

If anyone's interested, we maybe could experiment on sharing the "settings" files that you can save and import for tweaking purposes. I'll upload and post a link to mine if there's any interest. It doesn't change vid card driver or resolution settings, just all the other sliders, so as long as you use the "save" options for your own settings first, it seems completely safe.

Uhu_Rodion

Sorry for the late reply, Stoopy.

My FS9 installation is not at all special or particularly well tweaked, and so my rig, so draw your consequences. I just had a trip over SABA, and I think no shot is worth to be shown, as my "representation" of the place is exactly like your first one: a flat board on the water.

If stock FS_X, as it looks, has a more realistic set of mesh, that's one more reason to get it, in spite of hardware restrictions - Fled choice to get the Global World Mesh installed was, so to speak, the final solution, as FS9 concept of "elevation" is rather poor. I myself have several sets of alternative mesh files to add some solid to the liquid. Mr. Green

Trying your suggestions Thank you very much) to squeeze a more reasonable frame rate, I managed to get a steady 20 (which is the limit I set) fps in any view, and fair weather; I had the anisotropic filter on, also. I have ATI drivers #6.14.10, and have to check the new ones you point at - I'll let you know.

Marco

Adrian_Wainer · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 03, 2006 Posts: 255

Here are some screenshots taken in FS X that I hope are new to some of you guys and gals, enjoy!
[NB to expand the screenshot image, put the cursor over it and left click with your mouse]

www.fs2004.com/gallery...&pos=0

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Shadow_Bshwackr

Nice pic Adrian! You gotta' love those reflections! Wink

On my system, I can only average around 10 FPS with that much reflection turned on Shocked

JG300-Stoopy

Yo Adrian_Wainer Dude!!!

Man I think all ya gotta do is fly it, and it's one great screeny after another eh?

BTW never got to say how much I appreciated that PM you sent me about the particular German WWI aces! VERY interesting!

Uhu_Rodion

Adrian,

Thank you for the heads up: I just had a look at those screenshots, and have to say I'm astounded; the only thing I'm slightly worried about is: which rig (and at which settings) produces these results?

Because, if I have to spend thousands of Ã¢â€šÂ¬s for proper hardware, I'm not sure that to purchase this sim is a bargain in itself. On the other side, testing which is the best compromise between quality and performances might bring us to the conclusion that, even with the puters we have at present there's a chance to take advantage of at least part of FSX's new features, and that would be enough to me. Wink

Marco

Adrian_Wainer · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 03, 2006 Posts: 255

Glad you liked the screenshots folks!

re: performance issues and FS-X. I have not downloaded it, I am going to wait till it is released for sale, but I also post on another forum and we have had some discussions there about FS-X performance, you will have to register if you want to see the forum posts, sorry about that [ I would repost the items here but the interesting ones about performance are not mine, so I think it would be a bit OTT if I was to repost somebody else's ] .

www.heritagevirtual.com/

You might enjoy, this item with an Indian flavour re FS-X!

www.youtube.com/watch?...3rQ&NR

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

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