Video: Flight Simulator from 1982 to 2020

[Gabriel]

Another nice video of the different versions of Flight Simulator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CchRwnTorjY

It's been a loooong journey.

Bruce Artwick was a genius. (Bill Gates too)

[Gabriel]

This Bruce Artwick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUCT0MobR6E

[Gabriel]

And since we are at it, this video almost made me cry back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB7CAKWhOdc

It was made 15 years ago and with MSFS 2004 (*), which is almost 18 years old, and it still looks amazing and still the best Flight Simulator appreciation video I have seen this far. (**)

(* albeit with a ton of add-ons for planes and scenery, and very good video edition)
(** the music helps too)

[elaw]

Neat! It's amazing how far the game has come over the years... of course it's been quite a few years.

I have to admit there are still some things I prefer in FSX vs. MSFS - to me it's just dumb that they went backwards in some respects like not being able to fly under most bridges and not modeling "every airport in the world" like X did (in spite of what I'm pretty sure are claims to the contrary). But the graphics in MSFS are definitely a leap forward.

[Gabriel]

But the graphics in MSFS are definitely a leap forward.

You think so? Just came across this in the Flight Simulator section of the forum there.
This is RIDICULOUS!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF7vPKhIYis&t=345s

[elaw]

Yeah, the cities that have been "hand tuned" are pretty impressive. The one where I live... definitely fairly impressive compared to older versions of FS, but let's just say the AI could sure use some help.

I just did a quick video to show the good and the bad: https://youtu.be/yNBF5BmrNyg (including one of my signature crappy landings).

In general it is indeed pretty amazing. But there are some really stupid things in there like parts of rivers apparently extending upward onto bridge surfaces (that's a recent development), cars driving above or below bridges (one I fly over in that vid has stay cables which are not visible in the sim but cars are driving up/down them), and way too much vegetation in general, particularly on and around bridges (as in, trees seemingly growing in the water). That, and the general inability to fly under bridges... I can sort of understand it when an AI is trying to create a "world" from satellite images, but given that you could fly under them in FSX and earlier versions, it's disappointing. And... not having "every airport in the world", again like previous versions. That one in particular seems like it should not be that hard... just pull in the database from the old version, and add some basic code to allow airplanes to take off and land on those surfaces.

I'll admit I'm holding this thing to pretty high standards, but they're the standards promised by the developers/sellers and I don't think that's unreasonable.

[Gabriel]

Yeah, the cities that have been "hand tuned" are pretty impressive. The one where I live... definitely fairly impressive compared to older versions of FS, but let's just say the AI could sure use some help.

I just did a quick video to show the good and the bad: https://youtu.be/yNBF5BmrNyg (including one of my signature crappy landings).

In general it is indeed pretty amazing. But there are some really stupid things in there like parts of rivers apparently extending upward onto bridge surfaces (that's a recent development), cars driving above or below bridges (one I fly over in that vid has stay cables which are not visible in the sim but cars are driving up/down them), and way too much vegetation in general, particularly on and around bridges (as in, trees seemingly growing in the water). That, and the general inability to fly under bridges... I can sort of understand it when an AI is trying to create a "world" from satellite images, but given that you could fly under them in FSX and earlier versions, it's disappointing. And... not having "every airport in the world", again like previous versions. That one in particular seems like it should not be that hard... just pull in the database from the old version, and add some basic code to allow airplanes to take off and land on those surfaces.

I'll admit I'm holding this thing to pretty high standards, but they're the standards promised by the developers/sellers and I don't think that's unreasonable.

Oh, yes, the infamous (and forbidden) Hyatt approach to RWY 14. But the virtual runway is wrong, it doesn't have threshold markings, touchdown zone markings, or fixed distance markings. It is a take-off-only runway.

Vegetation: Yep. El Paso seems to have become a rainforest. But in general, there are too many trees everywhere (that has not been manually edited). Not sure why, that is one if the things that one would think AI would get right from satellite and aerial photography.

The bridges seem to be flooded too. Now Boston is one of the cities that they should hand-edit in high detail. It deserves it. (Buenos Aires too).

As a side note, Buenos Aires has an amazing mistake: The ILS to RWY 13 is misaligned with a runway by a big lot, it doesn't have a heading anywhere close to 130.