Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#71

Post by mrcarrot » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

ornitorrincos wrote: post #33

tpmx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flight sim noob, but that Cessna Citation CJ4 model behaves very oddly. It has this very weird pumping up/down behavior. The 747 model behaves a lot better. This is not a tolerable release. My gut feeling is that Microsoft needs to get this french studio (Asobo) to spend at least 50% more time on making this work. I don't think they will.

Tbf, the cessna and the 747 will behave very differently. I do think some jerkiness is added by the head camera effects that have been added.

Also the default controller profiles don’t include any dead zone, so at least on my setup, the control inputs were way too sensitive. Once I added some dead zone, and reduced the sensitivity curve in the options, it became much less twitchy.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#72

Post by tpmx » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

mrcarrot wrote: post #67

georgespencer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: no longer a problem! Original comment: I've seen reports that the Steam refund window of a few hours of 'gameplay' is used up by the mammoth download time. Steam only downloads the installer, and the installer then downloads the game data. Steam considers the installer to be the game itself and starts the clock ticking.

Valve have said they will (somehow) not count the time taken to download the game content against the 2 hour refund clock [1]. [1]: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-20-valve-assu...

I will still take more than two hours to figure out if this game is playable or not, especially since everything is so random/buggy. And the framerate when loading scenery (looking in a new direction) currrently seems to depend on the the time of the day, because the geometry servers are overloaded or somthing.

After 6 hours of game play (sort of - half of that been spent looking at loading screens and trying out different settings) I'm still not sure. It's oh so promising but also so insanely buggy and random.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#73

Post by dawnerd » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #50

dawnerd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loads times don’t bother me, it’s the really buggy aircraft systems that do. Multiple times I’ve gotten the avionics bugged out where they flat out don’t respond anymore. Autopilot also flys like a drunk. First thing you should do though is disable live traffic and no online players. It greatly improved performance for me. Visuals are amazing now.

I disabled those two things. Framerate it still mostly random.

Damn, I’ve mostly had good frame rates except in large cities when it loads in. But I also set a huge rolling cache - which for whatever reason takes forever to change.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#74

Post by Stevvo » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

user_501238901 wrote: post #54

tpmx wrote: post #10

Before anyone gets excited and goes to buy the game outright: First: Please consider trying out the game via the Xbox Game Pass for PC program instead. $5/month, $1 for the first month instead of buying it outright. Do remember to cancel. Thank me later. Second: The whole download/install experience is a trip. You need to download about ~90 GB of data (no problem!). However, the downloader is abysmal. It's not optimi…

According to many long-time flight simmers, the performance of this title is about the same as previous ones, with the addition of 10x improved graphics. So that's why they don't care and you're getting downvoted on Reddit. PS: It's a next gen game built for the future in mind, GTX 1070 is basically outdated. Expect to require a 3xxx series graphics card for good performance.

But it's not. In X-Plane 11.50, I get 100fps+. 30 in MSFS.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#75

Post by Stevvo » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

ppod wrote: post #34

bitxbit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably the best flight sim to date. I see huge potential for addons to leverage the map data. Perhaps an arcade mode to make it more accessible to casual gamers.

Overall maybe, but I'd say the jury's out on the flight model vs X-Plane, and it (currently) doesn't model airliner systems quite to the level of the payware X-plane airbuses or the Zibo boeing. It really crushes X-Plane on weather currently.

X-Plane's flight model is unquestionably better.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#76

Post by alkonaut » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #10

Before anyone gets excited and goes to buy the game outright: First: Please consider trying out the game via the Xbox Game Pass for PC program instead. $5/month, $1 for the first month instead of buying it outright. Do remember to cancel. Thank me later. Second: The whole download/install experience is a trip. You need to download about ~90 GB of data (no problem!). However, the downloader is abysmal. It's not optimi…

Never, ever, buy a large game until it gets at least a few months of updates. You don’t want to pay to be a beta tester.

Just wait 6 months and if it’s not smooth by then it probably never will be.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#77

Post by bluedevil2k » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

btgeekboy wrote: post #37

ornitorrincos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I have the same loading times on an hdd with a 2700 and 64gb of ram, so the slowdown seem something relatively indenpendent.

I’ve been running the task manager on a separate monitor to see where the bottlenecks are. Those long load times appear to be, for me, GPU bound. It’s probably pre-rendering something. I'm running a 3700X, 32GB RAM, M2 SSD, GTX 1070, gigabit internet.

I was watching my task manager as I played. On my 4k @60fps on the Very High graphics settings and the GPU was spiked at 100% the whole time (GTX 1660). Sounded like the propellor was in my computer room. On my 1440p monitor are @75fps I was at Extreme graphics settings and GPU was at 40%.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#78

Post by tpmx » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #61

tpmx wrote: post #10

Before anyone gets excited and goes to buy the game outright: First: Please consider trying out the game via the Xbox Game Pass for PC program instead. $5/month, $1 for the first month instead of buying it outright. Do remember to cancel. Thank me later. Second: The whole download/install experience is a trip. You need to download about ~90 GB of data (no problem!). However, the downloader is abysmal. It's not optimi…

I've experienced most of the issues you described, and yet, I have to conclude that the game is absolutely fantastic despite them. The visual clarity is mind-blowing, and the UI and all the helpers make all the difference between this game and all other sims that I've, as a completely casual player, have tried before. But more importantly, it's not a game that's defined by it's release; developers are clearly followi…

> But more importantly, it's not a game that's defined by it's release; developers are clearly following the service model

Are you sure? Got a source for that?

The french developer company Asobo has typically been launching one great-looking, abysmally performing game per year so far:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asobo_Studio#Games_developed

Why would they spend more than a year on MSFS?

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#79

Post by g_p » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

garaetjjte wrote: post #48

tpmx wrote: post #10

Before anyone gets excited and goes to buy the game outright: First: Please consider trying out the game via the Xbox Game Pass for PC program instead. $5/month, $1 for the first month instead of buying it outright. Do remember to cancel. Thank me later. Second: The whole download/install experience is a trip. You need to download about ~90 GB of data (no problem!). However, the downloader is abysmal. It's not optimi…

I must have different expectations for games, 'minute or two' loading times sounds completely fine to me. Bugs are probably fairly typical of modern 'release broken now, patch later' development.

For me, the biggest issue is the complete lack of visual feedback you've actually launched FS... It's at least 30 seconds on a fast SSD, on a fast PC that is suggested to use the high spec profile!

At least some progress screen to show you've started the program would help.

One major issue is that sitting in the menu seems to use 100% GPU. I can't see any reason for that, especially when the game often runs at 90% GPU for me.

It seems to be multi-core aware, but multithreading is definitely leaving a lot to be desired. Modern CPUs with 8 cores (16 vcores) seem woefully under-utilised.

Turning on vsync tanks frame rate by about 6 or 7 fps for me. "Popping out" a navigation window and putting it onto my second screen also causes around a 4 to 6 FPS drop.

This is definitely a "release broken, patch later" build. I do like the game, but I fear the extent of "patching" might not fix the fundamental performance issues that probably need a rewrite of much of the core simulator engine itself. No software should take 30+ seconds to appear on screen with any indication it's loading. I get the feeling the devs have focused so much on feature development that no time at all went into performance optimisation, and that's a shame as this game has such real potential.

Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator maps entire globe with AI

#80

Post by g_p » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

dperfect wrote: post #64

tpmx wrote: post #10

Before anyone gets excited and goes to buy the game outright: First: Please consider trying out the game via the Xbox Game Pass for PC program instead. $5/month, $1 for the first month instead of buying it outright. Do remember to cancel. Thank me later. Second: The whole download/install experience is a trip. You need to download about ~90 GB of data (no problem!). However, the downloader is abysmal. It's not optimi…

I'm on a fairly new machine (i9-9900K OC'd to 5.1 GHz, 32GB RAM, NVMe, RTX 2080 Super), and I was expecting smooth, stable frame rates at 1080p. Unfortunately, the game seems to be limited by one or two CPU threads consuming a constant 90-100% of those cores, while the other cores hover around 10-25%. As a result, I get fairly decent frame rates (25-50fps, depending on the area), but even in the best cases, it has a…

The inability to take advantage of large numbers of cpu cores is my biggest disappointment from a technical perspective. I don't know why you'd rewrite the game and fail to design it for modern core counts.

The micro stutter is very much real (AMD gpu here, Ryzen CPU), and annoying. I have tried to do some tracing to see what's going on. The fact sitting idle in the menu takes gpu usage to 100% doesn't inspire me with confidence. Frame pacing seems to be causing the stutters but I haven't managed to link it to an IO delay or similar yet.

My fear is the developers will focus on fixing functionality and never really optimise performance - I suspect getting good usage of 8 core CPUs (16 vcore) would require another full rewrite, which doesn't feel too likely.