
MS Flight Simulator 2020 vs. Real life - lelf
https://imgur.com/a/hdWw4ds
======
pridkett
It seems like MS Flight Simulator 2020 might hit the right place at the right
time. Like many people quarantined, I’ve got a wicked sense of wanderlust
right now. Going through MS Flight Simulator 2020 is different than just
fooling around on Google Earth because it requires a tiny bit of effort to
discover things and I think it will make it a little more rewarding. Looks
like it’s time for me to build a cockpit.

~~~
sharkweek
It’s been interesting - I was a “gamer” for whatever that means many of my
teen and early 20s years.

Gave it up almost entirely with career/starting a family 7-8 years ago. We’re
talking cold turkey, gave the systems away, deleted steam etc.

Ever since quarantine started, I’ve been gaming like a fiend every night. Big,
open world games especially. Partner has been chill about it as I wait until
the kiddo is asleep, but it’s been one of the most sanity-saving activities
for me while we hunker down.

~~~
xnyan
No reason it can’t continue after, it’s a balance right?

~~~
jkhdigital
There are certain people for whom “balance” and “moderation” are nothing but
fleeting and elusive ideals (I am one of them). Usually it is much easier to
just draw a red line around certain activities altogether.

~~~
sharkweek
Exactly - I come from a long line of addicts, some recovered and some dead. I
am (now in my thirties, less so when I was younger) always extremely careful
when I notice an unhealthy behavior taking a hold of me.

I’m making an exception for video games during this time because honestly it’s
pretty low on the unhealthy scale in my current usage, especially with the
accountability of a spouse who knows I can be this way and will call me out if
it gets bad.

~~~
jkhdigital
A kindred soul, as I suspected. I had to quit drinking and video games cold
turkey once I got married and had a baby on the way. Still don’t drink but
gaming is occasionally okay. As long as I stay far, far away from solo world
builder and 4X type stuff.

------
Guillaume86
They should release a Google Earth VR style app. There's a lot fewer places
modeled in detail compared to Google Earth (sadly, my region in Belgium is an
example) but having animated sea/weather/traffic etc would probably be
spectacular.

Side note: try Google Earth VR if you can, it is not possible to explain how
great it is with words, it's the killer VR app for non-gamers IMO.

~~~
catchmeifyoucan
I made a game using Mapbox GL to have a 3D plane that drops you somewhere in
the world, and you have to get home before fuel runs out. No compasses. It’s
very much V0 and there’s only one level for now. It’s just a normal map for
now, but I think it could be replaced for a map with better features.

[https://www.heyraviteja.com/goingbackhome/](https://www.heyraviteja.com/goingbackhome/)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That was brilliant - I don't know the US that well it seems. Ended up on the
wrong coast and ran out of fuel. Keep hacking - its got something brilliant at
its core :-)

~~~
catchmeifyoucan
Thanks for the words of encouragement!

------
Buttons840
The thing I love most about flight simulators is the avionics. I would happily
exchange flight realism for more depth in the avionics systems.

I especially love the 90's / early 2000's style with a mix of analog and
digital instruments. Lot's of physical buttons, multiple small screens, a
somewhat poor UI compared to modern standards, etc.

I'd love to play around more with these types of simulated systems. I almost
literally would just like a button pushing simulator. Are there any other
games / simulators which might scratch this itch for me?

~~~
arianvanp
Go check out DCS! It's free to play this month due to COVID-19.

They have everything from WW-II steam gauges up to modern glass cockpit jets
like the JF17 and things in between like the Mirage or the F14 tomcat. They're
all extremely accurate simulations and you'll be reading 1000+ page manuals to
learn what all the buttons do. It's literally button click simulator

~~~
nazgulnarsil
wow how is this not esports, this is edge of your seat stuff!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt2W6flz9go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt2W6flz9go)

~~~
arianvanp
It is an e-sport! Just very niche!

We livestream dogfighting competitions
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqUdcYvbzf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqUdcYvbzf8)

------
fullito
I took part in the beta and checked out my city. It is unbelievable
impressive.

My City is not that big and its in germany. But still, i was able to fly over
my flat \o/.

And we have sandbanks and a river, autobahn, bridges etc. and it looks still
great! There have been cars driving as well :)

~~~
waiseristy
How much of the terrain is interpolated out to 3d structures? I believe they
are using a combination of aircraft photography and photogrammetry for cities,
but at some point they have to go back to satellite imagery for sparsely
populated areas

~~~
LegitShady
its bing maps data, is my understanding.

~~~
sixQuarks
From my understanding they use algorithms to form realistic looking trees and
structures from the maps data. This is the real breakthrough in my opinion.
This game is really an innovation on 3D maps, and they just threw in the plane
simulation as the added bonus

------
acwan93
I’m working on my PPL right now, and in my aviation circle we can’t wait until
Flight Sim 2020 is released.

Even at $60 + hardware controllers, it’s a steal compared to actually flying a
small single-prop.

~~~
joezydeco
My son is also working on his PPL and has been flying 172s in XPlane 11 for
the last year or so.

At Oshkosh he jumped into a $250,000 Frasca simulator and did a complete
flight with no assistance /and/ the sales guy turning off various parts of the
avionics. He’s 15.

TLDR don’t wait around for Microsoft.

~~~
selectodude
Be careful, too much time in a simulator and not enough time in an airplane
can teach bad habits.

~~~
alteria
I'm curious, what kinds of pitfalls can occur?

~~~
sowbug
Uncoordinated flight (roughly, not being turned in the direction you're
flying) feels very weird when you're experiencing it for real. It's also an
ingredient of a deadly spin if you let other things also get out of control.
On a sim, you won't experience much more than a certain dial reading a certain
reading, and the plane will more or less fly as expected. It's important to
learn coordinated flight "by the seat of your pants" to have the habit of
adjusting the rudder ingrained in your muscle memory.

There are other feelings, such as buffeting before a stall, that you'll miss
on a sim. But flight training is very explicit about those situations, so
you'll learn them when transitioning to a real plane. Avoiding uncoordinated
flight is something that pervades your whole flight experience; it might be
hard to retrofit it onto a sim-trained student.

There are other habits, but that's the most notable one when I'm comparing the
two environments.

~~~
lonelappde
Why aren't those part of the sim?

~~~
ericpauley
While there is an instrument on panels that shows when turns are coordinated
(a turn coordinator), fixating on it isn't really possible, and it's better to
develop a feel for what coordinated flight is like, and be able to adjust
automatically. Replicating this feeling in a sim is difficult because it's the
interactions of motion _and_ rotation that cause flight to be coordinated or
not.

~~~
briandear
Vastly disagree. I am an instrument rated pilot about to take a commercial
checkride and using the seat of the pants to determine coordination is a very
bad idea. The turn coordinator is part of your instrument scan and “stepping
on the ball” is a fundamental skill that you learn during primary training. In
the clouds, you can be in an uncoordinated turn and not “feel” it because your
inner ear is doing one thing, your eyes are doing another and using “feel” is
a great way to crash. The FAA specifically advises to not fly by the seat of
your pants due to the dangers of spacial disorientation. Teaching pilots to
listen at all to physical sensations is teaching them how to die. Not
hyperbole, but fact. VFR pilots can and should trust their eyes and look
outside, but any CFI trying to train coordination through “feeling” is setting
the student up for a very dangerous habit. Your inner ear lies to you. The
majority of the airmanship training you get in the instrument rating is
designed specifically to teach you how to ignore your body.

[https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media...](https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/SpatialD.pdf)

[https://www.aviation-accidents.net/tag/spatial-
disorientatio...](https://www.aviation-accidents.net/tag/spatial-
disorientation/)

~~~
ericpauley
Thanks for the insightful reply, certainly not meaning to diminish the
importance of trusting your instruments. For what it's worth, a turn
coordinator isn't required equipment for VFR flying, and in either case
(whether helpful or harmful), the inability of a simulator to faithfully
reproduce turning forces seems like a weakness.

------
mhh__
Just because no one else seems to have mentioned it yet, but DCS (think MSFS
but military aircraft modelled to similar amounts of detail) is still doing a
free month.

DCS basically simulates as much as isn't classified and is played by an
increasing number of RL fighter pilots.

~~~
arianvanp
It also supports VR. So you can go sit in an F/A 18c cockpit and click around.
It is extremely immersive.

Must note that the graphics are a bit dated to me. (Cloud rendering is
completely broken; lighting is very over-saturated and not accuratre). but
still a very beautiful game and an extremely accurate simulation of awesome
warbirds

------
zone411
Somewhat off-topic, but if like you these sorts of views and have some spare
money, I recommend trying a drone with goggles. When it comes to safety, some
new drones already have ADS-B receivers and hopefully remote ID transponders
will come soon.

~~~
elteto
I wanted to get into flying quads but came away confused by the licensing
requirements.

If I want to fly something heavier than 250g, with goggles, what kind of FCC
license do I need?

~~~
FPGAhacker
I haven't been flying for about 1.5 years, but last I saw, there were just
guidelines from the FAA.

The problem for me has been city ordinance. My city is urban sprawl and it's
illegal in my city to fly in parks, or over people. So that rules out pretty
much everything interesting.

If you are into the whole racing quadcopters thing, there are options, but FPV
exploration was what I liked.

~~~
elteto
This turned out to be the case for me as well. I’m close to the water and not
being able to fly over it was a huge let down for me.

------
amanzi
There are a lot of video games that are like this. The first time I saw Fifa
2020 on a big screen was a demo in a shopping mall — I thought it was just a
group of people watching a live football game. Also, Gran Turismo on the PS4
has a whole bunch of racing tracks rendered in such precise detail that you
forget you're just looking at computer generated graphics.

~~~
Foe
Sure, but the scale of Flight Simulator makes it pretty unique.

~~~
danielbarla
Yes, and hidden therein is an important distinction - basically all of the
previous games that looked quite close to real life (from relatively close to
the ground, that is) did it by extensive handcrafting.

In a very large part, the "level designer" for FS 2020 is an AI, or more
exactly, a team of humans who use AI as a tool to increase their productivity
and reach by orders of magnitude. This is particularly visible in open-world
games, where it is not feasible to hand craft everything. The results do seem
quite spectacular, and put similar games to shame.

It's early days yet, but I'm quite excited about the prospect of using code to
fill in the blanks and generate content like this; it could be a great way to
limit game development costs in the future.

------
shreddit
Every time i see this quality of computer graphics i ask myself: how do i
still know its not real, what little detail is still missing to photo
realism...

~~~
krm01
It's almost always the lighting.

~~~
qzw
Yes, and particularly the way light reflects off of different materials is
often still in the uncanny valley. Perhaps ray tracing will finally get us
there in the next few years.

~~~
krm01
That's the thing, light doesn't just reflect off materials. A bunch of lights
gets absorbed by it, changing the color and the amount of light that is
reflected back, from a deeper surface area. There are just so many things
happening with light, most of it we don't fully understand yet, but we seem to
instinctively see when it's off.

~~~
nuccy
Actually we do understand all the things which happen during normal conditions
with light (i.e. when we speak about: bunches of photons and not a single one;
objects big enough so that quantum effects can be neglected; relatively low
intensities, so that self collimation and other effects related to it don't
play a role), at least from physics stand point. Maxwell equations do a good
job for us to explain light and its behaviour. Though, obviously, there are so
many effects coming from those equations: refraction, reflection, diffraction,
interference, dispertion, scaterring, etc, which just are numerically
complicated all to be taken into account for a rendering engine.

~~~
mattkrause
The general principles maybe, but also you also need to know a bit about the
specific materials being modelled.

There are some neat papers where they do very high resolution CT scans
(microCT) to examine the microscopic structure of different materials, like
the size and orientation of fabrics. If you model that, the material takes on
the appearance of the fabrics, which is amazing:

See Figure 8 here:
[https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~kb/publications/SIG11CT.pdf](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~kb/publications/SIG11CT.pdf)

~~~
njharman
The future(well now too) is machine learning. Don't have to understand. Just
feed pictures of what you want it to look like and out comes materials that
look like that.

Many techniques like this highlighted on Two-Minute Papers

------
alexitosrv
Guys, partially related but, I would like to upgrade my workstation at home
for running this when it gets released. Do you have a best value GPU in mind
to recommend for running this at an acceptable fps?

I have been out of the gaming scene with PC so your thoughts are welcome!

Also, what kind of controller for PC is the recommended?

~~~
the_pwner224
gpu.userbenchmark.com

Select two GPUs from the list there (checkboxes). It will take you to the
comparison page where there are two search boxes to type in the GPU you want
to compare. It'll show price (usually decently accurate) as well as
performance comparison.

On the AMD side you have the 5700xt as the top one at ~$430 (once you select
it the website lets you quickly move between the products in the line - 5600,
700, 700xt). I think they have a newly released 5500/xt which along with the
5600 are probably good value.

On the Nvidia side you have the 2060[ti, super] and 2070[ti, maybe a super
variant too?].

Never forget, nvidia is very evil :) I didn't even consider buying nvidia for
that reason so I bought a Sapphire Nitro+ 5700xt* in November. Had to RMA the
first card due to hardware issues but the replacement works great in Windows
and Linux. It had driver issues but those have been resolved for a while. I
think OpenCL support is still not great in Linux (and maybe Windows) but I
don't use that so I can't tell you more about it.

* Nitro+ has factory overclock and upgraded cooler which is silent when not gaming and cool and relatively quiet when gaming. Sapphire generally considered the best AMD card maker; their Pulse and Nitro+ are competitively priced with other variants.

~~~
alexitosrv
Thanks man for your helpful reply!! Probably at the end of the year I'll get
my hands on any of these.

~~~
slau
By the end of the year the advice will be outdated. Nvidia will have released
their Ampere lineup.

------
neilv
Years ago, before there were better ways to do it in the Web browser, I
implemented animated flight/mission review from aircraft flight data
recorders, using the Google Earth Plugin, a bunch of JS and HTML&CSS, and some
custom 3D assets.

Today, for a desktop tool, the scenery and platform would _look_ much better
with MS Flight Simulator (though that's not the point of review), and
presumably it would also render weather (which could be useful).

When practical, I'd prefer to work from an open dataset and engine, so I'd
lean towards using FlightGear, even if it isn't as slick in some ways.

------
2bitencryption
I know many buildings/landmarks/statues have their likeness "copywritten"
(however ridiculous that may seem).[0]

How does MS Flight Simulator get away with reproducing the likeness of these
structures so accurately? Do they have to get some kind of permission, or are
they covered by some sort of artistic license?

It's well known that in many other video games, statues (like Chicago's
cloudgate "Bean") are replaced with some similar stand-in that doesn't
infringe on the original structure.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copyright)

~~~
arcturus17
From the link you posted:

"French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted
work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being
represented,[96] a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may
be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include
the lit tower."

Also this only covers the illumination in particular and not the landmark.

What landmarks are copyrighted? I've never heard of such a thing.

~~~
tapland
Wikimedia had to remove all pictures of Swedish 'public art' (statues etc)
after a ruling. I think laws and rulings like that could be a lot of trouble.

~~~
dvhh
Another case is the belgian Atomium

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium#Worldwide_copyright_cl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium#Worldwide_copyright_claims)

------
fbnlsr
Ever since I've seen the first trailer for FS2020, I've been more and more
interested in flying. I took a plane once in my life, 20 years ago. Now I
really want to discover this world, and maybe take an initiation lesson. It's
such a bummer that the PPL is so expensive.

One thing is for sure, I'll buy this game and learn more about flying thanks
to this.

~~~
293984j29384
If the 10k for the PPL is prohibitively expensive for you, then flying
probably isn't the right hobby.

~~~
fbnlsr
It's not "prohibitively" expensive. It's expensive. Besides, it's not just the
$10k, it's the $150/h every time you want to take the plane. That adds up
quickly.

~~~
293984j29384
prohibitively: used to emphasize a cost that is so high as to prevent
something being done or bought.

Your rebuttal again is how expensive it is to fly. Some would almost say,
prohibitively high?

~~~
fbnlsr
I never said that it prevented me from doing it. It's expensive, that's all.

------
synaesthesisx
I’m pretty excited to try this - I played lots of Flight Simulator X as a kid.
I’ve read a ridiculous amount of physics - from wind patterns to cloud
generation has been programmed to create a realistic simulation. Part of the
appeal of course, is being able to fly anywhere on the planet and explore.

~~~
keyle
I played that first flight simulator on DOS back in the day! Can't tell you
how many hours I flew that cesna...

------
Buttons840
XPlane 11 has Ortho4XP which will build maps from online satellite images.
It's interesting that most Ortho4XP users use Bing as their satellite image
source because they are more uniformly colored and have fewer "stitching"
lines between areas.

------
hosh
I think the only way I can tell which one is real is that real life is dingier
and dirtier.

------
solarkraft
Microsoft seems to love their flight simulator. It seems to be one of the very
few products from them that actually feels cared about.

Why don't/do they use the tech in other places?

~~~
selectodude
They do. MSFS was Bill Gates' pet project. He loved it, and even though it was
a money losing division, it soldiered on. Once he left, it shut down. This is
a (very cool) advertisement for Azure Maps. It won't make any money, but as a
proof of concept goes, it's going to be hard to do better than this.

~~~
redis_mlc
> MSFS was Bill Gates' pet project. He loved it, and even though it was a
> money losing division

It's true that it was Bill's pet project.

But it was one of the best-selling PC games for 20 years and sold millions of
copies, so "money-losing" is unlikely - maybe in a weird enterprise accounting
way. It's also a useful standard game for their games division.

Also, MS could probably get the DoD to fund all development. MSFS was used in
a lot of military sims over the years, so it's a useful thing beyond gaming.
(Lockheed resold MSFS for several years during the hibernation, calling it
"Pr3par3d.")

If you look at AW&ST around 2000, you can spot MSFS being used for terrain
generation in full-page ads for military sims.

MSFS is one of the most underrated software products of all time. Even with
MSFS5, I was able to get my IFR rating in the minimum amount of instruction
time. I would call it the first true virtual reality product.

~~~
selectodude
>But it was one of the best-selling PC games for 20 years and sold millions of
copies, so "money-losing" is unlikely - maybe in a weird enterprise accounting
way. It's also a useful standard game for their games division.

I guess "loses money" might be stretching it, but it was never profitable at
the level that normal Microsoft software is profitable. It stuck around
because BillG made it so.

On that note, Prepar3D is fabulous. I am an "academic" user who has spent
thousands on addons because I am a goof. I am so excited for MSFS2020.

------
horsawlarway
I find it interesting that the perspective feels off still. Beautiful images,
but it feels like the game almost rises up too quickly. Almost like the
horizon line isn't quite where it should be.

Then again, maybe it's just an effect of the particular camera lens, or the
slightly off angles in the comparison pictures.

~~~
iso-8859-1
FOV and perspective are the easiest variables to tweak to your desire. There
are many things that make the images too perfect, especially the sharpness of
the waves in the water. But people may prefer it like that, too perfect.

------
tomduncalf
This looks stunning!

Anyone got any idea how well (or not) this is likely to run on a MacBook 16"
with 5300M? It looks amazing, but I'm not a gamer and really I'd probably just
play it for a bit out of curiousity so wouldn't make sense to invest in a
proper gaming computer!

~~~
yreg
I think you should be okay, the 16 inch is quite beefy. You'll have to install
Windows in Boot Camp though.

~~~
izacus
The 5300M is a low-end GPU though and it will struggle on anything close to
the native screen resolution. Even the top-end configuration will have issues
running this game at native resolution to achieve sharp UI and visuals.

~~~
yreg
I for sure didn't imply it would run smoothly on 1920p, that's a high bar for
a MacBook.

Using lower res is not the end of the world imho, I do it on iMac all the
time.

~~~
izacus
I had pretty poor experience running at lower resolutions on my MacBook -
macOS exposes a very strange set of resolutions which are either too small
(causing very obvious pixelation and poorly readable text) or too big (causing
unplayable performance even in strategy games).

~~~
yreg
Yeah, I play most games in Windows via Boot Camp. MS Flight Simulator which
the op asked about is not available for macOS anyway.

------
mentos
Can't wait to try it out. I think after FlightSim this could make an awesome
google maps competitor. Would love to get directions on streets that have
great landmarks like this.

------
rajnathani
Discussion from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23132593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23132593)

------
aetherspawn
It's so difficult to tell which ones are the originals and which ones are the
simulated scenes, especially in the first one (for me).

------
pvsukale3
I have given up gaming since I bought a Mac. This is very interesting. I am
saving to build a gaming PC for this game.

------
urlgrey_
This might make me fire up my Windows box... I miss MS Flight Simulator

------
winrid
What a fun project this would be to work on.

------
DarmokJalad1701
Now if only they would add good VR support

------
vmchale
Damn I wanna buy a joystick now :)

------
plg
Is it out?

~~~
waiseristy
No, they are running closed betas at the moment

------
macleginn
Planes do not fly over Moscow, so that one is a bit off.

~~~
jmkni
That's interesting, why don't planes fly over Moscow?

~~~
madengr
Maybe after this guy landed a plane there:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust)

~~~
dysoco
There was a mission in Flight Simulator 2000 or 2004 where you had to land in
the red square.

------
jcelerier
GG Asobo !

------
IIAOPSW
Where's the hot air balloons doing 400 knots?

------
SomeHacker44
I was so excited to see side by side pics of cockpits and planes in great
detail and compared. But no, all it was is landscapes. I mean, who looks out
the window when flying? :) Except for the Citabria, not me, much!

------
PunksATawnyFill
Flight Simulator used to start at Meigs Field in Chicago.

Then Mayor Daley the asshole destroyed the airport.

Santa Monica is next. poundMAGA

------
rusty__
A pilot friend of mine assures me that whilst MS Flight Sim is going to be
incredible, everyone should be keeping an eye on X-Plane:

[https://www.x-plane.com](https://www.x-plane.com)

If you're looking for a more accurate, 'real' simulator it has a lot to offer.
MS Flight Sim will be more than real enough for the vast majority of us but if
you're interested in contributing to a product you can improve and have fun
modelling/texturing additional planes, cities etc this is a project to get
involved with.

~~~
technick
X-Plane is beautiful in terms of graphics but gets lost when dealing with
environmental details, such as other air traffic and dealing with traffic
control.

~~~
ddoolin
Compared to 2020, X-Plane's graphics are pretty...bad. Their planes are great
but the rest of the world is extremely bland. I love X-Plane but not at all
for the graphical quality.

