Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Hi geneb, all, De : geneb ge...@deltasoft.com Envoyé le : Jeudi 28 février 2013 15h41 It's a best foot forward kind of thing. The quintessential default airplane in MSFS has been the 172. The default set of airplanes in FG should be the absolute best of the best, simply because that's what a new user is going to be exposed to for their first time. First impressions are everything. Someone will see the FG 172 and instantly assume that the rest of the simulator is like that. 100% agreed. Probably we should update it (especially the cockpit), because I think the rest of it is pretty neat. Or think about a replacement, like the DR-400 or the cap-10b. I think the cap10b could be added in the default aircraft set. Oliver -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Hi Vivian, That's really good to hear - but if we are falling behind in some respect then we will make an effort to improve. I am reminded that the flag and wake shaders are inoperative when Atmospheric Light Scattering is activated. With the departure of Emilian, I see no prospect of this being fixed unless someone else steps up to the plate. Well, we couldn't possibly leave the flag just hanging around, could we? :-) http://www.gitorious.org/fg/fgdata/commit/be7ee7e06cf4237d60cf8ae5849cf098308b7cd8 (The flag shader is a simple variant of the default model shader, so just 5 minutes of Copy/Paste the flag-specific code into the default model fragment shader did the trick - that must have been my new record for shader conversion. Also, in ubershader-lightfield.frag we now have all the code blocks of the atmosphere effects nicely separated and lined up in a fragment-only environment, so when you need to write a shader which isn't performance critical, then I recommend just copy-paste of the four blocks, supplying them with properties, and you should be almost there...) As a suggestion to improve the Vinson, I would ask for some dirt/rust/stains on the Flightdeck - the homogeneous grey appearance is the thing that sticks out most to my eye. I recently saw a short video of FSX with moving cars and trucks populating the roads. We can do that up to a point, and trains as well, and I forgot to mention that we can also texture tracks and roads properly: We can only have a few - around 50 if we are to keep framerate within bounds. If we ever get the Kent scenery fixed up well enough for release I'll include this around Manston/EGMH. You seem to have managed the trick to align the uvmapping of the street texture with the direction of driving. If so, I think we could have an almost arbitrary number of (low resolution) cars for cheap by shader magic: * use an overlay texture which is transparent except where the cars are supposed to be * use the heightmap technique of the urban shader to give them some substance * overlay them on the lane and move one coordinate along the driving direction over time (* add light effect in dark and so on) Since this could all be in the fragment shader, and only a vanishing amount of screen pixels would usually be occupied by linear features such as roads at any given time, you could generate tens of thousands of cars that way without hitting the performance badly. Of course they'd suffer from the same artefacts as the urban effect from close-up, but the sheer number may completely make up for that. Cheers, * Thorsten -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Thorsten aka Renk wrote: -Original Message- From: [mailto:thorsten.i.r...@jyu.fi] Sent: 28 February 2013 07:57 To: FlightGear developers discussions Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo Renk, you should take a look at the default Cessna 172 in FG and it's mate in FSX. The FSX version wipes the floor with the FG version with respect to the cockpit model. (I'd really appreciate if you guys would call me on first-name basis 'Thorsten'...) We had at one point several Thorstens/Torstens - I suppose Renk was just easier. And if you start your postings Renk Thorsten people will assume Renk is your first name. That's a question of what a fair comparison is. I'm going to assume that whoever put a demo version from FSX together has specifically chosen scenery and airplanes in the demo to impress users. So my standard of comparison is not 'How does the same airplane or the same scenery in FG look like' because I regard that as unfair - they got to chose, we didn't. My standard of comparison would be - if I were to put together a FG demo to impress users, how would that compare? You are certainly right with the c172, but the fair comparison is e.g. our DR- 400 against the FSX C-172, and FG is going to win that one. It doesn't matter so much that many aircraft in FG can not measure up to that standard - I don't usually fly them. We have 20-30 really high quality aircraft, and I doubt FSX has that many out of the box. If you count addons, we can field all the non-GPL hangars in return, where I believe T4T is doing some really impressive warbirds... If you're going into comparing 'the same' (scenery, aircraft,...) than my next question would be - FG has beautiful scenery in central Iran with the Middle- East texturing definitions. I doubt FSX out of the box has any scenery there at all. So we're winning flat out in many cases by virtue of having scenery everywhere. It doesn't make too much sense to me to go into that direction. One thing I'd really like to see put together is a The Hidden Secrets of FlightGear page that illustrates all the little bits that people aren't necessarily aware of. Things like the hard science behind a lot of the things FG tries to get right that other simulation software completely ignores or fakes poorly. We've sort of started this here http://wiki.flightgear.org/Unique_Features My problem is that I often know very well how X is implemented in FG, I may suspect that it's not in FSX or X-Plane, but since I'm not running X-Plane or FSX with all addons I don't really know for a fact if it is a genuinely unique feature or if there is a 3rd party addon to FSX/X-Plane which provides the same thing. And we would want to be factually correct here. While we wait for the FSX screenshot, I'd like to see the FSX equivalents of these as well: Honestly, I have no clue how to make a screenshot in FSX... and I don't want to fiddle around with it much longer, suffice to say it gave me some ideas how the GUI could be, but it doesn't draw me in in any way. And you'll not going to find me argue that the Vinson doesn't measure up. It's a spectacular model, and I do love doing carrier ops in FG. That's really good to hear - but if we are falling behind in some respect then we will make an effort to improve. I am reminded that the flag and wake shaders are inoperative when Atmospheric Light Scattering is activated. With the departure of Emilian, I see no prospect of this being fixed unless someone else steps up to the plate. I recently saw a short video of FSX with moving cars and trucks populating the roads. We can do that up to a point, and trains as well, and I forgot to mention that we can also texture tracks and roads properly: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/javelin-hst.png We can only have a few - around 50 if we are to keep framerate within bounds. If we ever get the Kent scenery fixed up well enough for release I'll include this around Manston/EGMH. Vivian -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Hi Thorsten, :) On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Renk Thorsten wrote: My problem is that I often know very well how X is implemented in FG, I may suspect that it's not in FSX or X-Plane, but since I'm not running X-Plane or FSX with all addons I don't really know for a fact if it is a genuinely unique feature or if there is a 3rd party addon to FSX/X-Plane which provides the same thing. And we would want to be factually correct here. The 2.10 release has sparked some interest over at avsim.com (http://forum.avsim.net/forum/198-the-flightgear-forum/) where various FS-X and X-Plane users have been giving it a try and comparing it with other sims. It makes for interesting reading - I hadn't appreciated what a big deal not being able to configure a joystick from a GUI was until I read a couple of comments highlighting it as a big V2.10 feature. There's also positive comments about atmospheric rendering, smoothness and FDM quality. I agree that working out what's unique is difficult, and it's a moving target given the add-ons. Just last week I read a thread from someone asking about failure mode (MTBF/MCBF), something we've had in FG for years. Further down the thread someone responded saying they'd just written an iPhone/iPad app to do just that. Ah well, it was unique for a couple of years at least :). -Stuart PS: Further up the thread Thorsten mentioned that FS-X instruments seemed jerky. IIRC the instrumentation in MSFS has a fixed refresh rate (30fps?). -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013, Renk Thorsten wrote: Renk, you should take a look at the default Cessna 172 in FG and it's mate in FSX. The FSX version wipes the floor with the FG version with respect to the cockpit model. (I'd really appreciate if you guys would call me on first-name basis 'Thorsten'...) I think that's the result of how your name is shown in the email header - it says Renk Thorsten, so us murricans think your first name is Renk. :) You might want to stick a comma in there. :) You are certainly right with the c172, but the fair comparison is e.g. our DR-400 against the FSX C-172, and FG is going to win that one. It's a best foot forward kind of thing. The quintessential default airplane in MSFS has been the 172. The default set of airplanes in FG should be the absolute best of the best, simply because that's what a new user is going to be exposed to for their first time. First impressions are everything. Someone will see the FG 172 and instantly assume that the rest of the simulator is like that. One thing I'd really like to see put together is a The Hidden Secrets of FlightGear page that illustrates all the little bits that people aren't necessarily aware of. Things like the hard science behind a lot of the things FG tries to get right that other simulation software completely ignores or fakes poorly. We've sort of started this here http://wiki.flightgear.org/Unique_Features I was hoping for more hard science items, such as all the great work that's gone into taking terrain masking into account with radio navigation aids. I _seriously_ doubt MSFS or XP has gone to that extreme, but I know for a fact big commercial simulators do it. Honestly, I have no clue how to make a screenshot in FSX... and I don't want to fiddle around with it much longer, suffice to say it gave me some ideas how the GUI could be, but it doesn't draw me in in any way. And you'll not going to find me argue that the Vinson doesn't measure up. It's a spectacular model, and I do love doing carrier ops in FG. If you like, we can take this off-list and I can work with you to provide FSX screenshots to compare against ones you're doing in FG. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Stefan Seifert wrote: On Wednesday 27 February 2013 07:42:19 Renk Thorsten wrote: * A big plus about the FSX terrain is that it doesn't have landclass seams. That makes it quite a bit nicer to look at from above. It's not so impressive from close-up, and all in all, I would conclude that regions where we did apply a regional texturing scheme and use the best shader effects available are in fact quite competitive. In particular, I think the recent 2nd generation Hawaii in FG or middle-east looks much better from close-up and is still about on par when seen from a few thousand feet. Of course, FG terrain can look much worse in areas where we didn't customize it. - Pretty much a draw. Hiding the landclass seams better would still - be the thing for FG.. it's just not so easy. A small addition: what has always bothered me about terrain in FG is that roads and rivers are all the same size. For me as a VFR pilot they are the most important navigation helpers while in FG, they are useless. There's no difference between the Autobahn and a small country road. Same for the Danube vs. some riverlet. I've tried some version of MS Flightsim once with Austrian scenery and could easily find my way around. So while we may have the prettier scenery with regional textures, in practice, I'd have to call it a win for FGX. Linear features for the scenery (roads, railways, rivers) are already under development for FG: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-129.png That is a small area of Kent, UK. It is very possible to use the accurately placed features for VFR navigation. There are some problems to resolve about memory usage, but it is already possible to generate scenery with these features. However, at the current stage of development it is pushing the memory limits of 32 bit systems. Vivian -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
On Wednesday 27 February 2013 09:10:01 Vivian Meazza wrote: Linear features for the scenery (roads, railways, rivers) are already under development for FG: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-129.png That is a small area of Kent, UK. It is very possible to use the accurately placed features for VFR navigation. Yeah! That's great news :) Thanks to everyone working on FG! Stefan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Cool review Renk! Regarding FDMs: I was at a friend's this christmas and since he had just bought X-Plane 10, I had the chance to test it with C172 to see how it handles... FG clearly wins here since on X-plane there was not even a slight 'adverse yaw' (aileron-breaking) attitude when turning the plane, with realism on full. (Unless that particular c172 model had differential ailerons, although nothing of the sort was visible when I was looking at the model from the outside). All best, /Klearchos On 27 feb 2013, at 08:44, Renk Thorstenng thorsten.i.r...@jyu.fi wrote: Following a forum discussion, I finally became curious and tested the FSX demo version yesterday. I've spent about two hours flight with it, testing 3 different planes (the ultralight, the Baron and the Learjet) and had a look at different weather conditions and daytimes around TNCM. The installation process takes forever, opens one useless wizard after the next one and never gives any indication what it's actually doing - the Windows way Also startup isn't exactly fast. A few immediate nice impressions: * The launcher GUI is very pretty - including some pics in the GUI adds a nice touch and gives you more immediate impressions what things are about. In comparison, the FG GU (both launcher and in-sim) is very rough around the edges. - I guess it's a matter of taste, but including a pic of the weather situation to expect in pre-defined scenarios would not be a bad touch for our GUI for instance. * I got the IR-sycnhronized LCD shutter glasses 3D effect working out of the box, so I was able to test FSX in real-color 3D which looked very cool - I've never been able to make FG do that, I can activate the whole set of 3d options, but they never trigger my shutter glasses. I wish FG would support that function... - Win for FSX. One in the cockpit, I had serious trouble finding my way around. Maybe it's just whay one is used to, but looking around in the virtual cockpit the FG way came much more natural to me than looking around in FSX. I didn't find any way to adjust my field of view at all. In the following, I maxed out all graphics and realism options I could find. 1) Terrain: * A big plus about the FSX terrain is that it doesn't have landclass seams. That makes it quite a bit nicer to look at from above. It's not so impressive from close-up, and all in all, I would conclude that regions where we did apply a regional texturing scheme and use the best shader effects available are in fact quite competitive. In particular, I think the recent 2nd generation Hawaii in FG or middle-east looks much better from close-up and is still about on par when seen from a few thousand feet. Of course, FG terrain can look much worse in areas where we didn't customize it. - Pretty much a draw. Hiding the landclass seams better would still be the thing for FG.. it's just not so easy. * I know several people who were especially impressed by the water in FSX. Personally I wasn't at all. What it does get is that it knows where shallow water is and thus it gets lighter and the ground can be seen through. But for instance it doesn't have as nice waves and foam as our water, the scenery reflections it generates look completely unrealistic, ocean just doesn't do that, and it didn't really change color when underneath a 8/8 cloud cover where it should have gone to grey - as the FG water shader does. - So that's a win by a narrow margin for FG - still, being able to include depth information into the rendering would be cool. * Models of trees and of the aircraft carrier in the vicinity where largely on par. Probably FSX has more graphical artists and the quality of for instance tree textures seems to be a bit better, but the technique is otherwise pretty similar. I liked seeing a few other aircraft lined up on a carrier - the FG carriers are usually rather empty. - Ever so slight edge for FSX 2) Weather (I looked at 'Fair Weather' and 'Rain' scenarios.): * I wasn't at all impressed by the quality of 3d clouds. The Cu clouds are sort of very impressive at first glance from the ground , right until the point where you realize that they just don't look like real clouds. The form seems to be designed by an artist to impress, but the combination of shapes doesn't occur in real Cu clouds which are turbulent raising air motion. The distribution of cloud sizes is all wrong - a real sky generates Cumuli at all size scales, FSX just does two or three. The distribution of locations is all wrong - they should cluster over islands where convection is stronger than over water, but they don't. They don't respect time - I've gotten the same amount and size in the morning as during the day. They're far too white - real Cu have rather strong self-shading. This leaves the impression the clouds where made to resemble the pretty
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
A small addition: what has always bothered me about terrain in FG is that roads and rivers are all the same size. Good point. That wasn't really apparent from the FSX demo (not so many roads of different size in the Caribbean). I think rivers are less of an issue in CORINE based custom scenery - I seem to remember that I was quite happy following major rivers in custom France or Italy. Roads... yes - Vivian's screenshot looks quite promising though. It's not something that's very important to me personally because I usually fly in pretty lonely places where roads are far an inbetween, so it's something I tend to overlook. Obviously compare the worst YASim with the best JSBSim will always be beneficial for JSBSim. But the opposite will be benefit YASim. This is ridiculous. Erik basically said it - it's not a YaSim vs. JSBSim comparison here. We could make a best YaSIm vs. best JSBSim comparison, and I do have an opinion about that, but that's a different discussion. This kind of remark has no place here, and especially not by you. What's the last half-sentence supposed to mean? Why would I be an especially unsuitable person to remark on aerodynamics? Granted, I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do have a sufficient comprehension of fluid dynamics, solving equations of motion and all the rest, and I have real-world experience as a glider pilot, so I feel entirely qualified to comment on aerodynamical issues. FS X was released in 2006. What is really surprising is that a person like you never had the curiosity to test it before today. Not really - I'm not a Microsoft fan, I try to run Windows as little as possible and mostly live on Linux. What is it then for X-Plane, Fly II Legacy and all the others ? And I am speaking not even of older sim. FS 1, FS II, FS 3, FS 4, FS 5, Gunship, Knight of the Sky, Reach The Sky of, A320, F15II, F29 Retaliator, Falcon, Falcon 4, IL 2, Flanker 2.0, Lock On, etc. .. I have logged many happy hours with Falcon 3 and Falcon 4 and I think they were excellent simulators. I fail to get your point though - if I compare FG with FSX and write my opinion, am I somehow under obligation to make a comparison to every other flightsim in existence at some point in time? So I tested FSX, I found we fare quite well in comparison, I did not test Gunship or X-Plane 10, so I don't know how we fare in comparison and I will not offer an opinion without knowing - what exactly is the problem? Best, * Thorsten -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Renk Thorsten wrote: ... snip * Models of trees and of the aircraft carrier in the vicinity where largely on par. Probably FSX has more graphical artists and the quality of for instance tree textures seems to be a bit better, but the technique is otherwise pretty similar. I liked seeing a few other aircraft lined up on a carrier - the FG carriers are usually rather empty. - Ever so slight edge for FSX snip ... Better than this? https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-130.png As many ac in the deckpark as framerate considerations would allow. I'd like to see the equivalent FSX screenshot. If it really is better then I'll have to beat up Alexis a bit :-) Vivian -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Renk Thorsten wrote: Following a forum discussion, I finally became curious and tested the FSX demo version yesterday. I've spent about two hours flight with it, testing 3 different planes (the ultralight, the Baron and the Learjet) and had a look at different weather conditions and daytimes around TNCM. [great review snipped] Renk, you should take a look at the default Cessna 172 in FG and it's mate in FSX. The FSX version wipes the floor with the FG version with respect to the cockpit model. One thing I'd really like to see put together is a The Hidden Secrets of FlightGear page that illustrates all the little bits that people aren't necessarily aware of. Things like the hard science behind a lot of the things FG tries to get right that other simulation software completely ignores or fakes poorly. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Stefan Seifert wrote: On Wednesday 27 February 2013 07:42:19 Renk Thorsten wrote: * A big plus about the FSX terrain is that it doesn't have landclass seams. Is this why there's such a hard edge on the coastlines? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
I wrote: Renk Thorsten wrote: ... snip * Models of trees and of the aircraft carrier in the vicinity where largely on par. Probably FSX has more graphical artists and the quality of for instance tree textures seems to be a bit better, but the technique is otherwise pretty similar. I liked seeing a few other aircraft lined up on a carrier - the FG carriers are usually rather empty. - Ever so slight edge for FSX snip ... Better than this? https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-130.png As many ac in the deckpark as framerate considerations would allow. I'd like to see the equivalent FSX screenshot. If it really is better then I'll have to beat up Alexis a bit :-) While we wait for the FSX screenshot, I'd like to see the FSX equivalents of these as well: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-131.png https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57645542/fgfs-screen-133.png Personally, I reckon Alexis is safe for a while yet :-) Vivian -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Renk, you should take a look at the default Cessna 172 in FG and it's mate in FSX. The FSX version wipes the floor with the FG version with respect to the cockpit model. (I'd really appreciate if you guys would call me on first-name basis 'Thorsten'...) That's a question of what a fair comparison is. I'm going to assume that whoever put a demo version from FSX together has specifically chosen scenery and airplanes in the demo to impress users. So my standard of comparison is not 'How does the same airplane or the same scenery in FG look like' because I regard that as unfair - they got to chose, we didn't. My standard of comparison would be - if I were to put together a FG demo to impress users, how would that compare? You are certainly right with the c172, but the fair comparison is e.g. our DR-400 against the FSX C-172, and FG is going to win that one. It doesn't matter so much that many aircraft in FG can not measure up to that standard - I don't usually fly them. We have 20-30 really high quality aircraft, and I doubt FSX has that many out of the box. If you count addons, we can field all the non-GPL hangars in return, where I believe T4T is doing some really impressive warbirds... If you're going into comparing 'the same' (scenery, aircraft,...) than my next question would be - FG has beautiful scenery in central Iran with the Middle-East texturing definitions. I doubt FSX out of the box has any scenery there at all. So we're winning flat out in many cases by virtue of having scenery everywhere. It doesn't make too much sense to me to go into that direction. One thing I'd really like to see put together is a The Hidden Secrets of FlightGear page that illustrates all the little bits that people aren't necessarily aware of. Things like the hard science behind a lot of the things FG tries to get right that other simulation software completely ignores or fakes poorly. We've sort of started this here http://wiki.flightgear.org/Unique_Features My problem is that I often know very well how X is implemented in FG, I may suspect that it's not in FSX or X-Plane, but since I'm not running X-Plane or FSX with all addons I don't really know for a fact if it is a genuinely unique feature or if there is a 3rd party addon to FSX/X-Plane which provides the same thing. And we would want to be factually correct here. While we wait for the FSX screenshot, I'd like to see the FSX equivalents of these as well: Honestly, I have no clue how to make a screenshot in FSX... and I don't want to fiddle around with it much longer, suffice to say it gave me some ideas how the GUI could be, but it doesn't draw me in in any way. And you'll not going to find me argue that the Vinson doesn't measure up. It's a spectacular model, and I do love doing carrier ops in FG. Cheers, * Thorsten -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_feb ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] FG vs. FSX demo
Following a forum discussion, I finally became curious and tested the FSX demo version yesterday. I've spent about two hours flight with it, testing 3 different planes (the ultralight, the Baron and the Learjet) and had a look at different weather conditions and daytimes around TNCM. The installation process takes forever, opens one useless wizard after the next one and never gives any indication what it's actually doing - the Windows way Also startup isn't exactly fast. A few immediate nice impressions: * The launcher GUI is very pretty - including some pics in the GUI adds a nice touch and gives you more immediate impressions what things are about. In comparison, the FG GU (both launcher and in-sim) is very rough around the edges. - I guess it's a matter of taste, but including a pic of the weather situation to expect in pre-defined scenarios would not be a bad touch for our GUI for instance. * I got the IR-sycnhronized LCD shutter glasses 3D effect working out of the box, so I was able to test FSX in real-color 3D which looked very cool - I've never been able to make FG do that, I can activate the whole set of 3d options, but they never trigger my shutter glasses. I wish FG would support that function... - Win for FSX. One in the cockpit, I had serious trouble finding my way around. Maybe it's just whay one is used to, but looking around in the virtual cockpit the FG way came much more natural to me than looking around in FSX. I didn't find any way to adjust my field of view at all. In the following, I maxed out all graphics and realism options I could find. 1) Terrain: * A big plus about the FSX terrain is that it doesn't have landclass seams. That makes it quite a bit nicer to look at from above. It's not so impressive from close-up, and all in all, I would conclude that regions where we did apply a regional texturing scheme and use the best shader effects available are in fact quite competitive. In particular, I think the recent 2nd generation Hawaii in FG or middle-east looks much better from close-up and is still about on par when seen from a few thousand feet. Of course, FG terrain can look much worse in areas where we didn't customize it. - Pretty much a draw. Hiding the landclass seams better would still be the thing for FG.. it's just not so easy. * I know several people who were especially impressed by the water in FSX. Personally I wasn't at all. What it does get is that it knows where shallow water is and thus it gets lighter and the ground can be seen through. But for instance it doesn't have as nice waves and foam as our water, the scenery reflections it generates look completely unrealistic, ocean just doesn't do that, and it didn't really change color when underneath a 8/8 cloud cover where it should have gone to grey - as the FG water shader does. - So that's a win by a narrow margin for FG - still, being able to include depth information into the rendering would be cool. * Models of trees and of the aircraft carrier in the vicinity where largely on par. Probably FSX has more graphical artists and the quality of for instance tree textures seems to be a bit better, but the technique is otherwise pretty similar. I liked seeing a few other aircraft lined up on a carrier - the FG carriers are usually rather empty. - Ever so slight edge for FSX 2) Weather (I looked at 'Fair Weather' and 'Rain' scenarios.): * I wasn't at all impressed by the quality of 3d clouds. The Cu clouds are sort of very impressive at first glance from the ground , right until the point where you realize that they just don't look like real clouds. The form seems to be designed by an artist to impress, but the combination of shapes doesn't occur in real Cu clouds which are turbulent raising air motion. The distribution of cloud sizes is all wrong - a real sky generates Cumuli at all size scales, FSX just does two or three. The distribution of locations is all wrong - they should cluster over islands where convection is stronger than over water, but they don't. They don't respect time - I've gotten the same amount and size in the morning as during the day. They're far too white - real Cu have rather strong self-shading. This leaves the impression the clouds where made to resemble the pretty picture in the launcher GUI of fair skies, but they miss out pretty much every subtlety I've been struggling with when designing the Cu system of Advanced Weather. - Clear win for FG. * The Cirrus clouds do actually look quite nice and better than what we have - here having people who can do good texture extraction is an advantage... - We could need a helping hand from some photoshop/gimp master to get better Cirrus textures. * Rain and overcast skies didn't impress me either. The rain generated in FG looks more plausible to me, and the light underneath the overcast sky was just wrong. From above the cloud layer didn't look very good. - Well, the
