9 ms·

When Microsoft shut down the old Flight Simulator development team and program (FS1 up to FS X, not including the new MSFS2020,) they licensed the commercial ve

When Microsoft shut down the old Flight Simulator development team and program (FS1 up to FS X, not including the new MSFS2020,) they licensed the commercial version of the platform to Lockheed Martin, who took over development and kept it going as Prepar3D. Lockheed's biggest contribution to the platform over their years of stewardship was to port the codebase to 64-bit and to modernize for DirectX 11. There is still a very rich library of add-on software for the old MSFS, including some very detailed simulations of airliners, that today are flown on Prepar3D. Since Lockheed Martin doesn't want to be seen as a video game company, the $60 license is an "academic license." However, this is what most people looking simply for a modernized FS X engine will buy for their home use.

caycep 4y ago
How does it compare w/ the new MSFS, or the other big names w/ commercial "gaming" development efforts behind them, i.e. Xplane, DCS, etc?
- Macha 4y ago
  The base game is very very sparse compared to newer offerings like XPlane or MSFS. Due to its long history of development it has some of the most well received third party aircraft add-ons, but be warned, these will cost more than the sim itself. If you want a video game, you should get the new MSFS. If you want something more realistic you should get P3D + third party aircraft for airliners or XPlane for GA aircraft (+ setup ortho scenery for XPlane), but much of the ecosystem is slowly releasing MSFS ports too. I am a little worried for what will happen to hobbyist flight sims after MSFS though. A large part of its appeal is the bing maps powered streaming of good terrain and other map features, and I suspect Microsoft won't maintain that forever. If they lose interest for a similar length as between FSX and Microsoft Flight or between Microsoft Flight and MSFS, that could be a bad time for the flight sim world if they've gotten too used to MSFS. --- If you do get into the P3D third party ecosystem, be warned that many of the developers are older hobbyists turned devs which have been in their own universe and so can have weird ideas from time to time. Like a support system that is a public forum where you must manually sign your real name at the end of each post or get banned (PMDG), or uploading the chrome username/password DB of suspected hackers based on a check for username (FlightSimLabs).
  - ahartmetz 4y ago
    AFAIK the flight model of MSFS has always been trash, it's a bunch of lookup tables that kind of approximate a real plane in the most standard situations - there are no real aerodynamic calculations. MSFS can be used for serious training in navigation, procedures, cockpit instruments and such.
    - kqr 4y ago
      This is how basically every simulator before/other than X-Plane does it, though.
      - bklaasen 4y ago
        I recall Flight Unlimited[1] made a big deal of their flight model which incorporated "real-time computational fluid dynamics". I'm not a pilot but I found it very compelling. It was groundbreaking for its time. None of the rest of Looking Glass' flight sims used the first game's fluid dynamics model. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Unlimited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Unlimited
        cjbgkagh 4y ago
        I’m sure you could make a deep learning model approximation of the computational fluid dynamics that would be much computationally efficient. Allowing form more detail and or faster execution.
        dharmab 4y ago
        If you care about computational efficiency, build a lookup table and cache it. Flight models generally deal with a known, bounded problem space rather than novel inputs.
        cjbgkagh 4y ago
        Sure, if a lookup table works for your problem then use that. Im specifically talking about an optimization of CFD.
- mmaunder 4y ago
  Those are games that can be used for training. Prepar is a military and civilian training tool that can be used (against its license terms) for gaming. It’s the only direct to consumer product that Lockheed has - so it’s basically their military trainer that they’ve been nice enough to make available to us. The motivation behind this was probably for the dev ecosystem it would bring. The non-entertainment term in the license is a legacy from their deal with MS when they bought it.
- hadlock 4y ago
  Prepar3d uses the MSFS X engine, so 90%+ of mods/add-ons for MSFS X/10 work for Prepar3d. MSFS X is, like a lot of games, a warmed-over version of a previous game engine, with improved directx support and tweaked to run on the latest (at the time) version of windows. I forget if it has it's roots in MSFS 3.0, 4.0 or 2002, but it was a pretty old engine in 2006 and has gotten a few updates over the last decade but is pretty crufty and when you play it, unless you have $300 of after-market add-ons, is very obvious it's old, especially compared to x-plane etc As the other guy said, the people still heavily invested and running the modding scene for a 20 year old video game are... esoteric. Playing MSFS X as a newcomer at this point in time is mostly to inspect a historical artifact, but it's a very detailed simulator if you want to take off in a 747 from LAX and fly it to London or Moscow non-stop.

caycep 4y ago

How does it compare w/ the new MSFS, or the other big names w/ commercial "gaming" development efforts behind them, i.e. Xplane, DCS, etc?

Macha 4y ago
The base game is very very sparse compared to newer offerings like XPlane or MSFS. Due to its long history of development it has some of the most well received third party aircraft add-ons, but be warned, these will cost more than the sim itself. If you want a video game, you should get the new MSFS. If you want something more realistic you should get P3D + third party aircraft for airliners or XPlane for GA aircraft (+ setup ortho scenery for XPlane), but much of the ecosystem is slowly releasing MSFS ports too. I am a little worried for what will happen to hobbyist flight sims after MSFS though. A large part of its appeal is the bing maps powered streaming of good terrain and other map features, and I suspect Microsoft won't maintain that forever. If they lose interest for a similar length as between FSX and Microsoft Flight or between Microsoft Flight and MSFS, that could be a bad time for the flight sim world if they've gotten too used to MSFS. --- If you do get into the P3D third party ecosystem, be warned that many of the developers are older hobbyists turned devs which have been in their own universe and so can have weird ideas from time to time. Like a support system that is a public forum where you must manually sign your real name at the end of each post or get banned (PMDG), or uploading the chrome username/password DB of suspected hackers based on a check for username (FlightSimLabs).
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  AFAIK the flight model of MSFS has always been trash, it's a bunch of lookup tables that kind of approximate a real plane in the most standard situations - there are no real aerodynamic calculations. MSFS can be used for serious training in navigation, procedures, cockpit instruments and such.
  - kqr 4y ago
    This is how basically every simulator before/other than X-Plane does it, though.
    - bklaasen 4y ago
      I recall Flight Unlimited[1] made a big deal of their flight model which incorporated "real-time computational fluid dynamics". I'm not a pilot but I found it very compelling. It was groundbreaking for its time. None of the rest of Looking Glass' flight sims used the first game's fluid dynamics model. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Unlimited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Unlimited
      - cjbgkagh 4y ago
        I’m sure you could make a deep learning model approximation of the computational fluid dynamics that would be much computationally efficient. Allowing form more detail and or faster execution.
        dharmab 4y ago
        If you care about computational efficiency, build a lookup table and cache it. Flight models generally deal with a known, bounded problem space rather than novel inputs.
        cjbgkagh 4y ago
        Sure, if a lookup table works for your problem then use that. Im specifically talking about an optimization of CFD.
mmaunder 4y ago
Those are games that can be used for training. Prepar is a military and civilian training tool that can be used (against its license terms) for gaming. It’s the only direct to consumer product that Lockheed has - so it’s basically their military trainer that they’ve been nice enough to make available to us. The motivation behind this was probably for the dev ecosystem it would bring. The non-entertainment term in the license is a legacy from their deal with MS when they bought it.
hadlock 4y ago
Prepar3d uses the MSFS X engine, so 90%+ of mods/add-ons for MSFS X/10 work for Prepar3d. MSFS X is, like a lot of games, a warmed-over version of a previous game engine, with improved directx support and tweaked to run on the latest (at the time) version of windows. I forget if it has it's roots in MSFS 3.0, 4.0 or 2002, but it was a pretty old engine in 2006 and has gotten a few updates over the last decade but is pretty crufty and when you play it, unless you have $300 of after-market add-ons, is very obvious it's old, especially compared to x-plane etc As the other guy said, the people still heavily invested and running the modding scene for a 20 year old video game are... esoteric. Playing MSFS X as a newcomer at this point in time is mostly to inspect a historical artifact, but it's a very detailed simulator if you want to take off in a 747 from LAX and fly it to London or Moscow non-stop.