Is Flight simulator the most detailed game for...? Possibly ALL GEN?

Would this be accurate. When it comes to photographic detail and scale, this is currently da best and will likely not be topped for years?

Has a game, just, right of the gate, topped everything? Is such a thing even possible?

Or is it overrated? Just Google Earth but up high.

I am more into up close ultra high resolution detail than good looking landscapes. I want to zoom in into a wall and see the good stuff 😮

🤷 Looks good, I guess. No interest in playing it, so I don't really care. Also been more impressed by other games' graphics.

Short answer... Yes.

Long answer.... Yeah. :P

It's the best Bing simulator of all time, I'll give it that.

@uninspiredcup: Have you tried it in VR yet? I bet it looks amazing especially on the HP reverb two headset.

This!

@warmblur: Na, haven't even played it. Just watched the nephew playing it. Even his his monster rig it was chuggin', can only imagine what it's like in VR.

The new Microsoft Flight Simulator is using orthophotos, which are high resolution satellite images mapped over terrain geometry. This is a technique that has been around for years and has been employed by the X-Plane flight simulator community for at least a decade.

@ghost_of_phobos:

Amazballs, seriously. :D

Not really, no. It's a technical marvel, but the technology also shows its flaws clearly. The streaming and on-the-fly rendering process can result in absurd texture and geometry "pop in" and even when the process is done your city skyline doesn't look nearly as good as a pre-modeled skyline in most games would.

It's not a knock on the game - again, it's a technical achievement and these flaws are kind of a necessary evil for it to achieve that scale. But the topic was specifically "most detailed" and that is in fact its weak spot due to that achievement

Having done extensive research it appears this "X-Plane" looks nowhere near as good.

Voodoo 2 existed before the GTX 960.

Doesn't matter. 960 better.

That looks unreal. Or maybe, too real.

Probably, haven’t played it myself yet though. From what I’ve seen on it it’s definitely a gorgeous looking game. Looking forward to playing it myself on the Xbox Series X.

"Extensive research" ... sure. Apparently your "extensive research" didn't include a simple search at Duck Duck Go. It took me less than 10 seconds to find these videos.

@dzimm: Don't know man, weather and lighting seems like way behind MSFS.

Here comes the bu*thurt cows.

Can you land in neighborhoods?

Sadly attempting to use the old "flight simulators are boring, this doesn't count" line amounts to nothing more than a begrudging admission, mitigating rather than denying.

Not sure if detailed is the word i'd use, unless you are referring to the planes themselves which are insanely detailed.

but its probably the most overall impressive game graphically that is out there.

Agreed.

@girlusocrazy: Set the game to stormy weather, at sunset and tell me it's just a pretty sky box. You people are just too much, don't even mind losing credibility over fanboyism.

And I get it can be boring to most but there's still fun stuff to do geared towards more "casual" people. Like the landing challenges, which are short yet fun to engage with.

Personally I love it, it's a cool simcade that can be enjoyed with a controller, with gorgeous graphics and an incredible sense of scale. Wonderful to get to know our own planet, and I honestly got emotional several times in the more that 50h I spent with it. (Weed might have helped). And I can't wait to play it again once it comes to the XSX.

It is an amazing game, but the problem for me it the fact that is SHOULD use Google Maps, instead of Bing Maps. Bing hasn't updated their topographical map in YEARS, and it shows in game. Because they're missing a buttload of modern landmarks. Of, course, if you have the time, you can mod stuff yourself, but that still doesn't excuse Bing Maps lacking.

If this is against the rules feel free to erase this post. Just want to share some videos of me playing. Keep in mind I have a 1660ti, but it's still gorgeous imo.

Chasing a storm

An example of a landing challenge

Some screen captures

Looks like a PS2 game

@girlusocrazy: I moved my pc to the living room to play it, but I use my PC for music production and coding so it was not practical. I've played it with a X360 controller, still had to use the keyboard but it was minimal.

From looks of it they out an impressive degree of detail into this it's something I would like to test myself to see how my familiarity with areas compares to how it is depicted in game.

Yes. 110% the most detailed game ever. With some context that needs to be taken in; while it is the most detailed in its comprehensive mapping of literally the entire world, it is not as detailed in terms of fidelity. That is, there are not a lot of high-res textures. A lot of it, from my reading, is done via algorithms.

@lamprey263 It is super accurate in my experience. Anyway, why do I think it is detailed? Please read below for my first experience with it:

First thing I did when I loaded it up was look for my local, municipal airfield that is literally two blocks up the road. It's a single runway asphalt strip suitable for propeller planes and small jets. Lo-and-behold, I was able to find it. While not as detailed as the major airports, it was accurate enough to be, well....accurate. I drove by it the other day and pulled over and made note of certain landmarks and they were all there. Everything I needed for it to be immersive was there.

So, anyway, I proceeded to take off from that airfield and then flew to the next airport, the one closest to where my parents live. I flew by several landmarks; some oil refineries in Richmond, the Benicia bridge, the 680 freeway, until I arrived at Buchanan airfeld. They even had the golf course there!

Instead of landing, I kept flying. I followed the freeway to the interchange, I then did a 270-degree circle until I found the overpass I needed, and then I flew into a circular orbit over the neighborhood where I grew up. After a few glances I found my childhood home and, sure enough, it looked exactly as I expected to look. Oak trees, swimming pool, separate garage...even the orange tree was there.

It was all just gravy from there. One of my dreams was to be a bush pilot, so I found some gravel airstrip in Alaska and flew through the mountains.

Next I said "Oooooh Air America with Mel Gibson and Rober Downey Jr, that was a good plane movie" so I flew around Cambodia and Vietnam, through lush jungle valleys and airstrips with a pucker factor of 11.

After that I said "Well I've always wanted to visit Norway" so I twirled the globe around and found some random airfield and cruised around there, with beautiful dark blue waters and fjords.

It looks very good, and I think people need to look at it a bit differently: it's not so much about insane, high-res details as it is about being geographically accurate and universally comprehensive in its detail.

Anyone going in expecting it to look photorealistic needs a reality check. And I certainly don't think that it should be held against it as a negative.

Asobo Studio is 2/2 in my book; MSFS is great, and A Plague Tale: Innocence is one of the best games of 2019.

I usually am too--I always argue for better textures over just about anything else--but MSFS makes me question that.

Some nice cannabis and some mellow tunes goes really well with MSFS. Also some good beer :D

It's also a nice way to listen to some podcasts as well. Just put one or two in the que and then casually fly around for an hour or so.

Going to try it today, I'll let you know :D

HOTAS + VR = Best sim experiences ever. Elite Dangerous and DCS World especially, and probably MSFS too (as soon as I get it updated).

@mrbojangles25: Lots of space cake and Boards of Canada along with MSFS.

I like to pretend I'm Godzilla in Google Earth VR. Stomping around everywhere.

It's also like over 200 gigs or close to it and unless you enjoy the simulation of flying plane, then it's boring as shit. The novelty of the distant terrain wears off pretty quick and there are a lot of button combos you need to get used to along with the fact that there isn't much to listen to aside from airplane sounds and radio chatter. There's no sense of 3d position audio or anything but then again it's not needed but just pointing out how freaking boring it is but that should be expected for anyone who isn't an airplane enthusiast.

Flight simulators and game should never be used in the same sentence. Kind of like a grass growing simulation or a paint peeling simulation.

the reason why it needs to stream data is simple.

people dont have the storage space for the whole game.

Not a fan of Sim games. I do find it strange that people shit all over sonys "movies games" but this game that involves taking off watching scenery and landing is one of the greatest accomplishments in gaming ever.

I am barely impressed with this as it's mostly hard static geometry. No AI interactions, few particle types and doesn't exactly act as a "game" (though it IS truly transcendental! / beyond gaming!).

AC3 valhalla's facial models are more impressive.

Demon's Souls Remake's tessellation and lighting are more impressive.

TLOU 2 and RDR2's animation systems are FAR more impressive.

Spiderman MM/Remaster as a package is more interesting for a console (good human models, RT, non spastic crowds like CP2077, lots of particles).

Some of CP2077 and Metro Exodus lighting looks more impressive on consoles.

AC unity crowd is more impressive.

Even Forza Series X looks more impressive to me also because that's an actual game.

Compared to those, it feels like a tech demo worse than the supposed "tech demo" Crysis.

Maybe it's top-tier detailed but it feels smoke and mirrors, closer to that of The Order 1886.

There is no doubt that the game is both detailed and beautiful, but non of that makes it less boring to me,

Like David Cage games and The Medium, its just not video games 😎

X-Plane 11 was first released around 5-years, so there are some graphical tricks it is lacking compared to something released in 2020. I was only commenting on the use of orthophotos to create the appearance of highly detailed terrain, something X-Plane users have been doing since as early as X-Plane 9 or 10. X-Plane 12 will be the next big overhaul of the simulator, but it probably won't be released for another few years.

The detail may improve further as well. Because I heard MS is improving the mapping technology used over time.

They are factually video games, just that you don't like them. 😎