Author Topic: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?  (Read 10359 times)

simsuper80

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #15 on: October 16, 2020, 07:07:31 am »
I like to fly realistic airliners.  Still not possible in MSFS.  In fact it seams like it's moving further away.  So staying with V5 for now.  Every now and then I'll take a vfr flight in MSFS

not to mention ai traffic is so much better in p3d

virtuali

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #16 on: October 16, 2020, 11:37:59 am »
not to mention ai traffic is so much better in p3d

By default, or with some kind of add-on ? Do you think there will be no traffic add-ons for MSFS ?

ahuimanu

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #17 on: October 16, 2020, 02:48:52 pm »
Umberto,

Can you please confirm, as I suspect is the case with the recent MSFS release of CYVR, that you have moved away from updating any products or producing new products for P3D?

virtuali

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #18 on: October 16, 2020, 03:41:28 pm »
Already replied in another post. Please don't post the same question twice.

bradl

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #19 on: October 16, 2020, 06:50:35 pm »

Honestly here, I don't see how people are making the correlation and justification of new products for MSFS to mean the abandonment of P3D.

I mean, who said that FSDT only had to support *ONE* flight simulator? If anything, looking at FSDT's history of sceneries should give us insight into what they can do. For example, how many sceneries does the crew have that support both FSX and P3D? When P3D came out initially, did they abandon FSX? No. When FSX hit its own limitations that would then limit what FSDT could do was the time that they decided to abandon FSX.

We haven't hit such a limitation with P3Dv5 yet, despite MSFS coming out. So let's not assume that because one project gets canceled that abandonment of all products for a particular platform is going to happen, because we don't know, nor can say that is true.

This, outside the fact that Humberto put this question to bed in the other thread.

BL.

ahuimanu

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #20 on: October 16, 2020, 08:00:09 pm »
Brad L,

Please review the FSDT product page, which I have summarized below for convenience, to see the point I raise. 

The data show long-standing commitment over the years to provide forward compatibility for older products, which is appreciated.  With the rapid influx of scenery into MSFS, and based on my own review of the MSFS SDK, it seems that "old" scenery projects can be partially forward adapted to MSFS and this is indeed what is happening.  I therefore present that my question remains valid and that Umberto has put nothing to rest, neither by past action nor by his explicit  answer, which is: "we'll have to see how P3D5 unfolds."  The sale of two MSFS-only products in a short period is a more abrupt change than has been experienced in the past, which prompted my re-inquiry.

Also, here is more evidence of past decisions to "phase change" product strategy (which is certainly FSDT's prerogative): https://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,16116.0.html



I continue to inquire if the P3D days for new products are over and it doesn't seem that FSDT is certain at the moment.  That is an honest and straightforward answer, but actions suggest otherwise.  FSDT has not been this quick with new products in a long time (if ever).  Further, the pricing strategy is very coordinated between developers, making me believe they did not all emerge from the same macroeconomics lecture at the same time.  A 1,000-ton Gorilla like Microsoft has an ability to shape the market, particularly when vendors wish to participate in the embedded marketplace that is attached to the software.  Given FSDT's history of involvement with the F-18 and the Accel Pack for FSX, it would be reasonable to guess that a strong alliance with Asobo/Microsoft has been rekindled and that the plans for the product line have abruptly changed towards MSFS, perhaps with the exception of GSX/GSX2.  In any case, FSDT have answered both my initial and recent query - thank you for the replies. I understand the replies and have growing evidence of actions to weigh those replies against.




B777ER

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #21 on: October 17, 2020, 03:13:17 pm »

Honestly here, I don't see how people are making the correlation and justification of new products for MSFS to mean the abandonment of P3D.

I mean, who said that FSDT only had to support *ONE* flight simulator? If anything, looking at FSDT's history of sceneries should give us insight into what they can do. For example, how many sceneries does the crew have that support both FSX and P3D? When P3D came out initially, did they abandon FSX? No. When FSX hit its own limitations that would then limit what FSDT could do was the time that they decided to abandon FSX.

We haven't hit such a limitation with P3Dv5 yet, despite MSFS coming out. So let's not assume that because one project gets canceled that abandonment of all products for a particular platform is going to happen, because we don't know, nor can say that is true.

This, outside the fact that Humberto put this question to bed in the other thread.

BL.


While I won't take the time to find it as it was either here or at Avsim or at FSElite, Umberto let it be known their focus from here forward would be to release for MSFS as it took to long to make major airports and they felt P3D was a dying platform save for updates to GSX.
Eric

Michael1

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #22 on: October 17, 2020, 07:04:40 pm »
"While I won't take the time to find it as it was either here or at Avsim or at FSElite, Umberto let it be known their focus from here forward would be to release for MSFS as it took to long to make major airports and they felt P3D was a dying platform save for updates to GSX."  

The only reson it's a dying platform is that developers are knifing it in the back. I still would like to know what the impediments are to upgrading CYVR and developing new sceneries for P3d? It's not as if the dollars P3d useres spend are worth less that of MSFS users? It's a coordinated and cynical attempt to force people to puchase an incomplete platform, with an underwhelming SDK.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2020, 03:56:38 pm by Michael1 »

simsuper80

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #23 on: October 18, 2020, 08:21:43 am »
not to mention ai traffic is so much better in p3d

By default, or with some kind of add-on ? Do you think there will be no traffic add-ons for MSFS ?

With addons right now yes. There are so so many models and repaints out there. It might be a long while before the variety of models and paints we have with p3d become available in flight sim 2020

airbumps

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #24 on: October 18, 2020, 09:57:32 am »
I'd have supported and encouraged a large scale move to MSFS development if that platform was more mature but whilst its installed on my machine, I've gone back to P3D. The

MSFS is fine for VFR but the airports being developed by large developers like FSDT are more suitable for airline operations, not C172 and Barons. And unfortunatly its going to be a while before we see more complex addons for MSFS I think.

sticky1202

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #25 on: October 18, 2020, 01:38:58 pm »
I agree with airbumps. MSFS is installed on my computer, however I still use P3dv4 99% of the time. I use MSFS for the occasional VFR flight and to just update with the latest patches. I do not plan on purchasing any addons for MSFS until developement gets much further along. I have on the other hand, purchased 2 sceneries just in the last week for P3D....

Jim

simsuper80

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #26 on: October 18, 2020, 07:58:50 pm »
A huge part of airliner flights for me is having accurate ai traffic, which isn't possible yet in the new sim, especially considering that its limited to 50 ai aircraft. A lot of airports have more then 50 gates, so hopefully that number of ai changes soon.

virtuali

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #27 on: October 19, 2020, 02:22:09 pm »
Quote
I'd have supported and encouraged a large scale move to MSFS development if that platform was more mature but whilst its installed on my machine, I've gone back to P3D.

As I've said in many other threads here and in other places too, you as an user have the luxury of basing your choices on the present, and you can change your strategy at any time. Tomorrow ( or the next year, it doesn't matter ), PMDG comes out for MSFS, and you can instantly decide to reverse your choice.

We as developers don't have such luxury, we must anticipate what users will do in the next 2-3 years, because that what it takes to make a big airport entirely from scratch with the level of quality users expect in the 2020s. That what it took to make KORD V2, and we don't have any indications it will take any less in the future.

With the additional caveat that, a scenery made *only* for MSFS it's probably faster and easier to do than a cross-platform scenery, because MSFS has solved several issues that added quite a bit to the workload in FSX or P3D, mostly related to background textures and sloped runways/terrain. If we use these features as they should, we can CUT development time, but it would made the scenery very hard to port back to P3D.

Another big one is real-time Ambient Occlusion offered by the sim, which is lacking in P3D. If you are not a scenery developer, you cannot possibly know how deep is the effect of this feature on scenery development and the quality of the final result. It completely changes the way we *design* a scenery because, instead of fighting when low resolution textures that must contain pre-baked AO ( and our dev time creating it ), we change entirely the way a scenery is made, because we can now use high quality architectural materials on repeating textures which will get all their correct physical material AND proper shading, and this completely turns around the way you model an airport. It saves time and you also get better results. A scenery made this way for P3D would look very bland and cartoonish, so we can't model that way for P3D.

Taking 2 years to do a big airport wasn't sustainable anymore, and this was true even before MSFS was announced. The user base has NOT increased since FSX heydays, quite the opposite, lots of users didn't switch to P3D and many just changed hobby but, thanks to MSFS, many went back, and we have a lot of new users too.

So, assuming you had a business on your own and have this situation:

- One platform that due to its graphic limitations forces you to longer development times, which are not easily recovered, since is not gaining new users, which are lot less than they used to be a few years ago.

- Another platform that has a superior graphic engine, that allows you to get better results in less time, which are far more users already, which can only grow further, when they'll release a new console version, and will surely win all the remaining users shortly, when those famous "high end airliners" will eventually come, and they will. A platform that nowadays is already sustainable with sales of smaller airports, that tooks 1/10th of the time to do compared to a big Hub.

What platform would you chose ?

This is strictly from an airport scenery development point of view. While the SDK is not nearly finished, it's at least *reasonably* complete to allow production of airport sceneries that can sustain our business more than they did with FSX or P3D, right now.

Unfortunately the SDK today doesn't allow to create more complex products like hi-end aircraft or complex utilities, we understand that very well, since we are in a fairly unique position of being both scenery developers AND utilities developers ( and we have been airplane developers too ), for that P3D is today clearly the better choice because, the reason why you still don't see GSX for MSFS and PMDG has announced a delay, it's entirely due to the lack of a feature-complete SDK, but we know what is being done right now, we have additional non public channels we can follow development and suggest changes to the SDK, and users cannot possibly get the whole picture, you just have to trust the sim WILL eventually mature.

On the other hand, while you might assume that "just" because we have released several MSFS product in a very short amount of time that we "abandoned" P3D, but that's not the case, we just released a native P3D 64 bit version of the Couatl engine and while users were assuming we "jumped on the MSFS bandwagon", we were also working to do some changes to GSX, and the result you are seeing right now, is the latest release from FS Labs, which feature an incredibly tight integration with GSX, and that came because we worked together with them to add what they needed.

We are also trying our best to convince LM to add a few extra features which would make our life much easier in P3D V5. Apart for the required stability issues, which we hope will be improved in future upgrades, we ( and other developers too ), are trying to obtain at least the following:

- An easier and safer alternative way to draw graphic in realtime over scenery/vehicles which won't require to use complex and potentially dangerous DirectX code, where even the slightest mistake can crash the sim. P3D V5 has enough stability problems on its own that we decided to just DISABLE DirectX from the V5 version of our software, because the last time we wanted is to have users assuming the sim DXGI-crashed on them because of our modules. And DX12 is so much more complex that DX11 ever was, so we really need an alternative in the SDK that is safer and easier to use.

- Support for realtime AO in the sim. This would be a game changer, and we can only hope LM understands that, because if it comes, it would make it much easier for us to develop a scenery in parallel that can be used on both and not look entirely different.

Justinthomas7

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #28 on: October 24, 2020, 10:16:37 pm »
Until there are proper, professional aircraft in MSFS2020 then it’s really not a viable choice for the vast majority of sim users who fly airlines (which I assume are most of FSDT’s customers). 

PMDG said their initial release on MSFS2020 has been delayed by at least nine months.  I think it’s clear in its current state, whilst it shows potential, it’s not ready and can’t compare with P3D which has decades of evolution.   

Developers who abandon P3D now do so to their own peril.   There is probably some initial curiosity in MSFS2020 but people aren’t going to keep pumping money into add ons when basic add ons can’t be supported by the sim.  I’m sure it will do well in the years ahead it’s probably going to take a while. 

It’s taken most of this year for the major add ons in P3Dv5 to be updated.  PMDG777 still isn’t out, active sky is in beta, GSX is missing logos etc.  The problem is going to be much worse going to a new sim. 

I don’t say this to be emotive, FSDT can take whatever commercial decision they want, but do suggest that MSFS2020 has already surpassed P3D simply isn’t true.   P3Dv5 isn’t even a year old - I feel like had Microsoft launched before v5 it might have been a different story, but all the developers have put in a lot of work to upgrade to v5 so it remains a viable (and currently superior) competitor to MSFS2020 for many years to come.   

ahuimanu

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Re: Will FSDT Continue to Roll Out Products for P3D?
« Reply #29 on: October 26, 2020, 10:09:48 pm »
Very clear and unambiguous answer, thank you.

  • You will continue to invest in GSX.
  • MSFS scenery devel is far less painful.
  • Perhaps P3Dv5 may improve.
  • MSFS is paying your bills.