MS FS2020

[Missile=Awesome]

Used to love flying Combat Flight Simulator and IL2.  A lot of fun on a 10’ screen.  My wrists used to ache from the overplay and vibration that came from firing machine guns and cannon...Enjoy the new game.  Might have to dust off the cobwebs on some old friends...

[aviatoreb]

When I was 14, easy 1980s, I mowed lawns all summer and saved and bought an Apple II - that ran integer basic so pre Apple II plus.  And I got the original Microsoft Flight Simulator for the Apple II, with raster graphics line drawings on my green screen.  I LOVED it.  I was so amazed by the 3 world inside the computer.

Seems the new version has improved a bit too.

Edited August 3, 2020 by aviatoreb

[wishboneash]

9 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

When I was 14, easy 1980s, I mowed lawns all summer and saved and bought an Apple II - that ran integer basic so pre Apple II plus.  And I got the original Microsoft Flight Simulator for the Apple II, with raster graphics line drawings on my green screen.  I LOVED it.  I was so amazed by the 3 world inside the computer.

Seems the new version has improved a bit too.

I ran a flight simulator on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 80s as well. Quite amazing that it would run on a 64k machine and was loaded into memory using a cassette tape. Wikipedia entry shows it was by Psion software.

[Raptor05121]

I've been frothing at the mouth for the release of this. I'm sure some 3rd party company will make an aftermarket Mooney

[Hank]

Just now, Raptor05121 said:

I've been frothing at the mouth for the release of this. I'm sure some 3rd party company will make an aftermarket Mooney

We have enough programming types here, you'd think getting a Mooney add-in would be simple. 

[carusoam]

1 hour ago, wishboneash said:

I ran a flight simulator on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 80s as well. Quite amazing that it would run on a 64k machine and was loaded into memory using a cassette tape. Wikipedia entry shows it was by Psion software.

Some high schooler wrote the OS for the Sinclair...

Sinclair was missing the inherent skill required to write such an efficient code, for so little memory and speed to work with...
 

That same guy went on to form MSFT.... and brought his other friend with him... aka Gates & Allen.

Their operating System was called DOS...

PP thoughts only, not a historian...
Best regards,

-a-

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, wishboneash said:

I ran a flight simulator on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 80s as well. Quite amazing that it would run on a 64k machine and was loaded into memory using a cassette tape. Wikipedia entry shows it was by Psion software.

The Sinclair!  I remember that machine - one of my D&D buddies had one.

ah the days of software loaded by cassettes.  My apple did that.  I eventually became an early game developer in my mid teens and published some.  You can still find me on the big list of classic gamers for “troopers”.

the two games that just blew my mind for their complexity triumph on such diminutive machines were the ms flight simulator. And zork.

my mind is blown again by me flight simulator 2020.

[aviatoreb]

Just now, carusoam said:

Some high schooler wrote the OS for the Sinclair...

Sinclair was missing the inherent skill required to write such an efficient code, for so little memory and speed to work with...
 

That same guy went on to form MSFT.... and brought his other friend with him... aka Gates & Allen.

The operating. System was called DOS...

PP thoughts only, not a historian...
Best regards,

-a-

The games on the Apple II at least were written directly in machine language - 6502.  I used to know 6502 inside and out.

[carusoam]

To compile a FORTRAN program into machine language required so much memory and speed.... we had to use a DEC10 computer to do the compiling....

It took another year to get the compiling down to desk top speeds....

To compile a FORTRAN program... save it to a 5 1/4” Floppy disk... walk the disk across campus to where the DEC10 was...

Nothing like finding a spelling error after you get there...  
 

Fine disjointed memories...

The internet, the cell phone, and GPS... PFM...

Best regards,

-a-

[Raptor05121]

10 minutes ago, Hank said:

We have enough programming types here, you'd think getting a Mooney add-in would be simple. 

For a high-fidelity model, its not simple programming. 90% of it is animations modeling. Most flight-sim companies spend months on a model with a staff of 5-20 people.

[carusoam]

We need to see what the carrenedo? People have in mind for Mooney add-on...

https://www.aerosoft.com/us/flight-simulation/flight-simulator-x/aircraft/279/carenado-m20j-mooney-fsx

GO NA Mooney!

-a-

[aviatoreb]

9 minutes ago, carusoam said:

We need to see what the carrenedo? People have in mind for Mooney add-on...

https://www.aerosoft.com/us/flight-simulation/flight-simulator-x/aircraft/279/carenado-m20j-mooney-fsx

GO NA Mooney!

-a-

I wonder if there might be some kind of conversion system to automate the porting of their old models to the newer software platform?

[McMooney]

Can't wait for MSFS 2020 it's gorgeous.  My new rig is just waiting availability of the Intel-10900k in a Mooney owners price range

Edited August 4, 2020 by McMooney

[carusoam]

AMD is rocking around Wall Street... eating part of intel’s lunch...

NVidea is rocking too... if looking for a graphics chip...

Not sure what Wall Street finance has to do with actual chip performance...

Best regards,

-a-

[jonhop]

On 7/23/2020 at 3:12 PM, Ricky_231 said:

Any word on VR support?

Yes.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/30/microsoft-flight-simulator-steam-track-ir-and-vr-support/

[aviatoreb]

41 minutes ago, carusoam said:

AMD is rocking around Wall Street... eating part of intel’s lunch...

NVidea is rocking too... if looking for a graphics chip...

Not sure what Wall Street finance has to do with actual chip performance...

Best regards,

-a-

GPU computing has become all the rage in scientific computing as well. Cheap high performance massively parallel computing.  I’ve been running a job for a week On a cheap laptop with a decent gPU that should be done by Friday. Woulda been many many months on a standard cpu style computation

[jonhop]

I'm preparing to start a new PC build that will hopefully last the next ten years. I'm coming from an I7-2600K, Nvidia GTX980, 16GB of RAM, 3X250GB SSD's in RAID 5 that I purpose built in 2010. The GPU has been updated three times and the PC and still runs FSX Steam Edition flawlessly. I also do a lot of photo editing and video rendering and it just takes far too long these days, so it's time to pass the HW on to the wife, which is still overkill for her use cases.

I'm considering an AMD 3970X Threadripper, Nvidia RTX3080--release date is this September--, 64GB of RAM, Striped M.2 or M.4 SSD's, and possibly an Optane disk as a photo or video scratch disk. Should drive MSFS 2020 well. My only question is 3970X vs the 3990X. AMD is killing Intel at the moment. The 3990X is so powerful it is limited by Operating Systems.  

[carusoam]

Erik,

Dif EQs in 3D? 

In that case...

Nvidea has some of the fastest CPUs available for complex computations...

They specialize in displaying video...

They also handle video cameras in real time for automotive safety equipment...

A demonstration they gave was a simulation of landing on Mars... with the number of computations per second that were required.... probably a SpaceX video now...

Very impressive stuff...

The CEO of NVDA... is a close relative of the CEO of AMD...
 

AMD... Lisa Siu 

NVDA... Jensen Huang

https://babeltechreviews.com/nvidias-ceo-is-the-uncle-of-amds-ceo/
 

So... if integration of your hardware is important... these two are in the family...   

Listening to an interview of either of these giants is always interesting... They give a lot of insight to what is coming next... from the inside...

Commercial experience for NVDA chips... they were the preferred hardware for bitcoin mining.... just a Couple of years ago... Explosive part of the business... but only momentary...

PP thoughts and fuzzy memories...

Best regards,

-a-

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, carusoam said:

Erik,

Dif EQs in 3D? 

In that case...

Nvidea has some of the fastest CPUs available for complex computations...

They specialize in displaying video...

They also handle video cameras in real time for automotive safety equipment...

A demonstration they gave was a simulation of landing on Mars... with the number of computations per second that were required.... probably a SpaceX video now...

Very impressive stuff...

The CEO of NVDA... is a close relative of the CEO of AMD...
 

AMD... Lisa Siu 

NVDA... Jensen Huang

https://babeltechreviews.com/nvidias-ceo-is-the-uncle-of-amds-ceo/
 

So... if integration of your hardware is important... these two are in the family...   

Listening to an interview of either of these giants is always interesting... They give a lot of insight to what is coming next... from the inside...

Commercial experience for NVDA chips... they were the preferred hardware for bitcoin mining.... just a Couple of years ago... Explosive part of the business... but only momentary...

PP thoughts and fuzzy memories...

Best regards,

-a-

No it’s a high dimensional convex optimization from an inverse problem.  CPU can do it.  But there’s a step in its middle that’s a bottle neck that lends well to the massive parallelism of GPU.  GPU can’t do everything but some things it does well enough but amazingly fast by parallelism.  Like several thousand computational units in a chip.

Edited August 4, 2020 by aviatoreb

[Ricky_231]

11 hours ago, jonhop said:

Yes.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/30/microsoft-flight-simulator-steam-track-ir-and-vr-support/

Huh - I hope they add Oculus support as well. I really don't want to buy a second VR set... especially at $600

[bradp]

So I’ve only ever build two rigs - AMD was my first and Intel was me second.  I used nvidia cards for both.   I was considering an i7-10th gen.  But looking at the 3990. 1) wow and 2) wow $$$$.  Way out of my budget but impressive. 

[jonhop]

14 hours ago, Ricky_231 said:

Huh - I hope they add Oculus support as well. I really don't want to buy a second VR set... especially at $600

I hope you don't have to buy another VR headset. I've read that MS will open up other VR headset support to most existing headsets today about a month after the G2 launch. Gotta hate teaming agreements amongst technology corporations. That's one of the reasons I haven't invested in VR. One, the offerings are not mature enough and they are very proprietary. Besides that, I'm not really ready to start investing in puke bags sitting in my virtual cockpit. 

[carusoam]

MS contest...
 

Prove how realistic the MSFT FS2020 is...

If you suffer from actual spatial disorientation... there will be obvious signs left in the sim room...
 

Clean up before anyone finds out....

No pics required... I’ll take your word for it...

Best regards,

-a-

[Ricky_231]

9 hours ago, jonhop said:

I hope you don't have to buy another VR headset. I've read that MS will open up other VR headset support to most existing headsets today about a month after the G2 launch. Gotta hate teaming agreements amongst technology corporations. That's one of the reasons I haven't invested in VR. One, the offerings are not mature enough and they are very proprietary. Besides that, I'm not really ready to start investing in puke bags sitting in my virtual cockpit. 

I've been playing Xplane 11 with Oculus for a while now. The first few times were simply unbelievable - then you get used to it, but it's still super cool. Flying in exotic places, like out of Lukla airport, is quite an adventure. One that I'll probably never get to experience in real life, so there's that. All that gets even better when the model is well built - like the native 172. Stalls, maneuvers, landings - it all feels very realistic. When you crash, it's pretty scary. 

And you do get a little spatial disorientation at times - but that's with all VR. Even playing VR poker sometimes... :-)

 

[Ibra]

Looks I may need to spend less on avionics and go for graphic cards to enjoy weather flying