FS2020

Pilots,

Larry shared with me a very comprehensive review of the new FS2020 Flight Simulator. Here's the link:

<a href="flyawaysimulation.com/news/4953/">flyawaysimulation.com/news/4953/

Note that this thread at Fly Away Simulation has many videos of the new simulator and lots of information regarding it. While, unfortunately, it will likely be best-played in a streaming format, it may be worth it for the incredible advances in simulation graphics offered. Unfortunately, this will likely mean an ongoing cost rather than just a single purchase for a product. I tend to balk at such on-going 'rentals' of games rather than buying and owning them, but the information and many videos of this simulator shown at the above link, make it look like it could be game-changer for the flight sim world.

Anyway, for those who haven't seen anything other than the original promo video, these in-depth looks at the new simulator are worth the time.

John

I'm absolutely with your feelings on this Robert! This makes me crazy, but the necessary update to airport changes, major city landmark changes, runway updates, etc. are too numerous to mention. If there was ever an environment ripe for this type of service, I'm thinking that flight simulation would be it. Still, I'll wait to see what happens. As the current Webmaster and President of St. Paul Airlines, I feel obligated to follow this possibly very significant development in flight simming - and will most certainly have to give it a test-drive. I'm relatively certain that I'll have to make it an additional simulator compatible with our offerings here at SPA - as much as will be possible based on it's backwards compatibility and my limited programming abilities to help in that process.

I think the greatest issue I face personally is having to buy a bunch of new aircraft after already sacrificing most of my fsx hangar for a new P3dv4 fleet. Now...so soon, I'm looking at starting over yet again.

Anyway...the future is always changing, and we will try to offer the services most valued by our SPA pilots, while trying to adapt to the future advancements as they become available.

John

Yes Smitty - also all valid points and reasons to be cautious before we all jump ship to the latest and greatest. I do believe that the new platform will be a continuous pay-to-play arrangement. Many applications have moved to that format because it provides the developers to continue to have "their bread buttered" without having to develop and release a whole new application and convince previous users to ditch earlier versions for the new or upgraded version.

The benefit to the end-user is that updates and upgrades won't (or shouldn't) cost extra - and in this case, the program can download and use required files dynamically during play without lengthy installs and updates and large storage on the client-side (pilots) computer. Considering the size of the scenery files required - that would seem to be the only way to go with this. On top of this, I don't see how a computer with anything less than a highspeed internet connection would be able to keep up with in-game scenery loading without lagging.

Still, any upgrade or update of the main game won't take into account various 3rd-party addons that the user might have included. Therefore, while your basic game might have silently been updated/upgraded behind the scenes since you last logged in to play, your 3rd-party addons would not be aware of the changes, or necessarily compatible with them. It would be very frustrating to fly without issues today only to find half of your addons not working tomorrow - or potentially even crashing the simulator as well.

I think I too will wait a bit until I see some of the early reviews from the rank-and-file flight simmers. This will also allow the most frustrating bugs to be worked out before I jump on the bandwagon.

I share all of the concerns expressed here. I am still flying plain old, out-of-the-box FSX on a ten year old purpose-built PC running Windows 7. I have a good deal of ORBX scenery, plenty of payware aircraft, Active Sky Next, Ultimate Traffic, Navigraph FMS updates, etc. I get a stutter free 20 fps with very few crashes and I am more than happy with my set-up. I never considered migrating to P3D and I'm not sure, based on what I can see from the frame shots, that the difference would be worth the trouble. Frankly, I'd be happy staying where I am, although Microsoft is about to stop supporting Windows 7.

Perhaps I am atypical of many sim pilots, in that I am much more interested in flying (aerodynamics/airmanship/aircraft technology) than I am in tinkering with my computer set-up. Accordingly, my principal interest in FS2020 is not the eye candy, but rather the improved aerodynamic fidelity of the aircraft and atmospheric models. These are the features central to the reality of the "feeling" of the aircraft and to the details of competent airmanship. I too will be waiting a while before I change horses, since I will probably have to acquire new computer/gaming hardware to make the change.

Mike