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Microsoft Flight Simulator - August 18, 2020

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atomheartbevo

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https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/154700-aerosoft-official-retail-partner-for-microsoft-flight-simulator/

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It is with great pride that we can announce that Microsoft has chosen Aerosoft as its retail publishing partner for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator .

Aerosoft will bring the two boxed versions of this venerable simulator to customers in Europe. Including 10 (!) double-layer DVD’s and a printed manual in a spectacular box, it is an ideal way of entering the new age of flight simulation.

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For the last few months, we have been working closely with the spirited team from Microsoft and the talented developers at Asobo. They have helped us in getting our add-ons ready for the new simulation platform and in a very small way our 27 years of experience assisted in creating this amazing simulator.

We should be able to start shipping the boxes at or around August 21st. The official announcement from Microsoft is here.

10 double-layer DVDs?  Printed manual?

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But only in Europe.  So much disappointment.

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atomheartbevo

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Some more info

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015204020-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Pre-order-FAQ

"The Play Anywhere is a new initiative by Microsoft to combine platforms of gaming, letting Xbox gamers play on PC with any first-party Microsoft Studios published game that is digitally purchased, and vice versa. Microsoft Simulator is an XPA title."

Specs:

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These are the high-end "hand-crafted" airports, but they claim over 37,000 airports will be in the game.

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atomheartbevo

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@Assman There is a chance somebody will do it third party.

https://www.flightsimulator.com/partner-program/

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We are excited to announce our new Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner Program!

For the first time, Microsoft Flight Simulator will include a built-in Marketplace which enables approved partners to sell their content directly to simmers.

The 3rd party creator community has been incredibly vibrant, delighting simmers with their creativity for many years. We recognize that creations by 3rd parties are a vital ingredient to broaden and deepen the Flight Simulation experience so we are excited to announce our Marketplace Partner Program which enables approved partners to sell content within our built-in Marketplace.

We are looking for partners with all types of content that will enhance the simulation experience. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

So in theory, somebody could go and recreate Meigs Field and sell it directly through MS Flight Simulator.  And buyers don't even have to leave the game to do it.

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atomheartbevo

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Seriously though, their list of recommended controls on this page (scroll down) probably support it out of the box

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015204020-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Pre-order-FAQ

I have a friend who swears by Virtual Fly products.  I have an old Logitech stick that's probably not much to look at these days, but should work fine with it, and that's what we'll use.

  • Hook 'Em 1
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Fudge Nuggets

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23 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Seriously though, their list of recommended controls on this page (scroll down) probably support it out of the box

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015204020-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Pre-order-FAQ

I have a friend who swears by Virtual Fly products.  I have an old Logitech stick that's probably not much to look at these days, but should work fine with it, and that's what we'll use.

Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS for the win

 

AA18817_3__13773.1563937971.jpg?c=2?imby

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atomheartbevo

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This is going to take Surly flight-tracking/stalking to another level. 

https://hothardware.com/news/flight-simulator-2020-flightaware

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Other than the revelation that the Closed Beta will be kicking off late this month, the key announcement in this update comes in a major Partnership Series Update with the addition of FlightAware. FlightAware isn't a name that most people will be familiar with; it's an aviation intelligence company that provides real-time and predictive flight insights to many major aviation companies. The company synthesizes data from thousands of sources around the globe using Machine Learning and AI to give accurate predictions of where a flight is and where it's going.

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 FlightAware says that its data stream, called Firehose, will power the real-time, global traffic in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

The data will enable players in the game to see planes near them in real life. The data that powers the system comes from sources like commercial schedules, air navigation service information from 45 countries, VHF and satellite datalinks, worldwide weather, and ADS-B data. FlightAware says that the core of its network is its ADS-B network of 28,000 receivers that are managed by aviation enthusiasts around the globe.

 

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atomheartbevo

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https://hothardware.com/news/navblue-goes-live-on-flight-simulator-2020

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NAVBLUE will provide real-world aeronautical data to Microsoft through its Navigation+ offering. After launch, it will supply Charts+ services to support the realistic experience for the next generation flight simulator. The company will be providing authentic worldwide navigation data of the same sort that is currently used on all major Flight Management Systems and Flight Operation ground support tools. The software tools will be delivered in the international standard format for aircraft navigation known as ARINC424.

This is definitely a flagship product for Microsoft - they are promoting the shit out of Azure, Bing, etc. with it.

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atomheartbevo

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3 hours ago, Assman said:

I haven’t played a PC game in probably 10 years.  What kind of rig will I need to run this?  For prospective, I think my desktop still has Windows XP.

Does your desktop have a little logo somewhere that looks like this:

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or does it look like this:

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But seriously though, the minimum specs they are talking about are quad-core CPUs from around 6 years ago, which is way after XP, so I'm guessing your desktop won't handle it.

Do you have a laptop, and if so, what kind? 

The good news is, a decent little gaming rig is not bad.  I wouldn't go with their minimum specs, but if you did, a Ryzen 3 quad-core is not much over $100, a RX 570 video card is under $150, and so on.  Invest a little bit and you could have a rig that lasts for several years.  Maybe not as long as your XP rig (which may still be able to run Flight Simulator X).

 

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MadBurgerMaker

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6 hours ago, Celery Man said:

Ah shit, so still a ways off until a version is out on Xbox. Of course, PC with a full setup would be optimal but I need to get a rig together for that and was hoping I'd be able to still play.

Check first to verify (I got the Steam version), but I believe if you get it from the Microsoft store, it has the play anywhere thing.  You can get your flying fix in even on a potato-ish PC, then fire up the Xbox version when it's available.  The PC spec requirements aren't particularly crazy:

https://www.flightsimwebshop.com/en/blogs/content/system-specs-flight-simulator-2020-published/

The differences between low and ultra aren't too bad, with the settings being independently adjustable (so bump up the clouds so they don't totally suck and compromise somewhere else):

 

Also, Austin:

 

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atomheartbevo

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10 hours ago, seven said:

I've never played any msfs, what do you do in it? Are there missions/campaigns, or just free fly? I just built a new system after being out of pc gaming for the last 7ish years and on the hunt for new games. 

 

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Hefeweizen

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16 hours ago, seven said:

I've never played any msfs, what do you do in it? Are there missions/campaigns, or just free fly? I just built a new system after being out of pc gaming for the last 7ish years and on the hunt for new games. 

I haven't played in 20 years but just free fly as I recall.  It's extremely realistic with controls and plane fidelity.  Unless you're interested in flight, I don't think the "game" part is especially attractive.

 

I am going to sink some time into it!

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atomheartbevo

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8 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

Downloading this beast now.  96 GB.

It's going to sell a lot of SSDs.  And eventually video cards.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-gaming-hardware-doesnt-yet-exist-to-make-microsoft-flight-sim-really-shine/

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The gaming hardware doesn't yet exist to make Microsoft Flight Simulator really shine

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is in serious need of next-gen Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA 2 power.

Places you should visit according to PCGamer

https://www.pcgamer.com/10-places-every-microsoft-flight-simulator-player-should-visit-first/

 

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atomheartbevo

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On 8/14/2020 at 1:54 PM, seven said:

I've never played any msfs, what do you do in it? Are there missions/campaigns, or just free fly? I just built a new system after being out of pc gaming for the last 7ish years and on the hunt for new games. 

I think they do a pretty good job of capturing why it's popular/interesting.

https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-review/

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Whatever criticism you might throw at Flight Simulator 2020, it’s tempered by the fact it recreates the entire planet in extraordinary detail, and then lets you fly anywhere on it. 

What an incredible achievement. Harnessing the power of Bing Maps, Azure AI and photogrammetry data, developer Asobo has built an open world to rule them all, and the sheer implausibility of that fully explorable virtual earth gives this a much broader appeal than a flight simulator should, by rights, possess. Just as much as it’s a learning tool for enthusiasts and pilots in training, it’s also a game, and one for people who couldn’t give a toss about ILS vectors. It should please both crowds enough  to become a stalwart of the PC gaming landscape for years to come. 

The review goes on to say it doesn't hold your hand as much as past versions do.  That's a bit of a problem for newcomers, but I'm guessing their target audience has played previous versions.

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It can be a medium for virtual tourism with an Xbox controller in your hands, managing a simplified flight model and gawking at the Kola superdeep borehole or the Vredefort crater, or your house, or the Vinicunca rainbow mountain. It’s worth the price of admission on those terms alone.

And with a flightstick, a throttle, and a few instrument panels on your desk, it can become an ultra-realistic simulation ready to nudge X-Plane 11 aside. Calibrating these devices is a bit of a pain at the moment, with some controls mapped twice by separate controllers (throttle mapped to my actual throttle and a slider on my flightstick), but the feeling of immersion is fantastic. And I can’t even get my head around the potential of the upcoming VR version. 

 

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Doc Reeves

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On 8/18/2020 at 5:44 AM, Hefeweizen said:

Downloading this beast now.  96 GB.

Beast is fucking right.

Running on a i9 9940x, Nvidia FA 2080ti, 96gb RAM, Intel Optane 900P SSD with a 950+mb/s internet connection and the game has paused on me twice for about a full second. 

For comparison, it takes between 5-8 sec for windows to completely load up when i turn my system power on

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MadBurgerMaker

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I was buzzing around San Antonio after I took that DKR pic, and they've got stuff like high school fields (flew over Central Catholic and Alamo Stadium) and small colleges (Incarnate Word) modeled.  There are also business signs that are readable on some buildings, like Alamo Cycleplex on 410 and a nearby Whataburger.  It's the 3D photogrammetry stuff.  In places where that doesn't exist, they still have at least some of the field markings, but the stadiums are flat, like the AI didn't know what to do with them.

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Captainant

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Lol for all the talk of how MS flight sim is a big selling point for azure... they sure do keep a bunch of their game assets in S3 with a cloudfront distribution 😛

Super excited about this release, I may finally upgrade my logitech extreme 3d pro to a proper HOTAS setup

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atomheartbevo

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5 minutes ago, MadBurgerMaker said:

In places where that doesn't exist, they still have at least some of the field markings, but the stadiums are flat, like the AI didn't know what to do with them.

They will be pumping out world updates every other month (with the months in-between dedicated to updates to the flight model/flight sim itself).  They've got something like 2 trillion objects in the game, over 1.5 billion buildings.

As for modeling areas, they had three methods

  • Hand-crafted - a person sat there and built and raised 3D buildings and landmarks, made sure the buildings were skinned properly,  made sure the colors were approximate, etc.  There is a listing of the handcrafted airports towards the start of this thread.
  • AI-generated areas that you mentioned that had proper GIS/photogrammetry/height modeling for buildings, landscaping, etc. 
  • AI-generated areas based on 2D satellite photos.

I'm guessing the alternating monthly world updates will mostly be taking that last category and bringing it up to the standards in the second, with handcrafted areas being added here and there (it's got to be manpower intensive to do that, don't see them doing that for the long term).

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atomheartbevo

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25 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Lol for all the talk of how MS flight sim is a big selling point for azure... they sure do keep a bunch of their game assets in S3 with a cloudfront distribution 😛

And there are still people with streaming problems.  Makes me wonder how many updates they are currently making that is hammering all of those servers.

But then again, it's still amazing that they decided to go all-out and include FlightAware traffic, real-time weather, etc. at all, which is not helping with the streaming.

It's going to be a big selling point for the Xbox once it hits console, and is included in Xbox Game Pass.

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atomheartbevo

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9 minutes ago, Captainant said:

From reading some early reviews, it looks like the game can get a little frame-y because of waiting on the real-time data stuff. It sounds like if you're having performance problems but have a good gaming machine that's the first thing to try

Even just streaming and merging two different things - real-time air traffic and weather, and not just whatever updates MS is streaming, could easily cause those pauses.

On a side note, my nearly 70 year-old uncle is buying an Xbox just for this.  Happy with his iMac and not wanting to spend the money on new full-blown computer.  I think the last console he bought was an Atari 2600 for his kids back in the 80s.

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atomheartbevo

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1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

Xbox version is still not out though, unless I'm very much mistaken.

Not yet.  It's still being optimized, and supposedly the optimization will benefit PC users.

That is not surprising about Epstein's island.

And I'm surprised at how many bored football fans bought it and have been filming themselves flying around various college stadiums.

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