Time for the comparison shots you have all been waiting for. The only things in my shots that are not default are the water shaders and airplanes. Everything else is out of the box default. As usual, locations are matched as closely as possible. I have not been able to find location 2. It seems to be a very tricky one to find, even with help.


Screenshot 1

FSX


Flight



Screenshot 2

Location has not been confirmed


Screenshot 3

FSX


Flight



Screenshot 4

FSX


Flight



Screenshot 5

FSX


Flight



Based on these shots, we can conclude that there is a huge improvement to the capabilities of the scenery engine. (probably a rewrite along with a texture set that is going to be completely new. They are probably still working on replacing the textures.) The shaders appear to have been upgraded a good amount. Buildings look like they have self shadows. (visible in shot 2, not posted here, but available on the Flight website)  The overall lighting on the aircraft in shot 1 and 2 seems very nice compared to FSX. (was forced to use FS9 planes in the comparisons due to the lack of fsx native freeware Stearmans and Vans RV-6A's) The water in Flight is looking good, although lacking some reflection. Hopefully that will be added. As for the waves meeting the coast, that is a huge improvement. Waves washing onto the coast in Flight are like nothing we can get in FSX. It would appear that the sand is even left a little wet from the water! Clouds look mostly the same, although there might be somewhat of an improvement to the way they are rendered. (more coverage?) Sky textures look to have all been redone. That horrible bright blue from FSX looks to be gone. Autogen coverage looks to be quite good. You can see it go out much further into the distance in Flight than in FSX. Ground textures look much better, although blurry in spots. My opinion on this is that the settings were not turned up all the way for these shots. (Microsoft doesn't want to show us even more amazing shots, then end up having to cut out a feature and Flight not look as good in the end.)

Overall, there is a huge improvement to the whole graphics engine. (I'd guess that it's a rewrite in progress, or completed. Texture set could be a work in progress with most of the textures we saw in FSX getting redone) As long as it delivers with these amazing graphics and good performance, it's a definite win. The online store shouldn't kill freeware. It's a store...meaning, it will offer payware, most likely. Freeware will either be available on a specific freeware place at the store, or will be freely available at all the normal add-on websites. Add-on development needs to be a little simpler for beginners, so I hope that they make that a goal.

Wow...Flight looks so much more in depth and much better detail...

BrandonF wrote on Jun 4^th, 2011 at 12:24am:

You know what ? Your ability to reproduce those screenshots in FSX is far more impressive than the screenshots themselves
Here is the best I could get in my FSX, and that's far from what you got



In this screenshot, I'm using the freeware Hawaii mesh coupled with a landclass that was made for FS9, as well as the FSX mountain mod.

Some people are just never satisfied man, and thanks for taking the time to do the comparison shots. It really shows how far Flight has come from FSX. I think Flight looks amazing and cant wait to see what else Microsoft has in store. So far its looking great. 

BrandonF wrote on Jun 4^th, 2011 at 8:36pm:


I am not impressed at all because on those screenshots, Flight looks like nothing more than FSX with alternative ground/rock textures. The scenery casting shadows on autogen objects are still the one and only new feature that we could see so far.


Quote:

Aren't you getting a bit too optimistic here ? It's quite obvious that Hawaii islands will be quite detailled (but still imprecise, if you compare with Google Earth pictures), but I really don't think that the whole world will get such a "precise" landclass. What we're seeing in those shots is just the Flight-equivalent of FSX's St-Marteen island. St-Marteen sure looked good in default FSX, but the rest of the world was not as much detailled (appart from the official "detailled" cities/airports). It will be just the same in Flight, just for different places.

Quote:

They could do exactely the same than OrbX guys could do with FSX, from what I've seen so far. Flight is taking the same path than FSX took. FS9 had some landclass terrain types, FSX had much more, and hopefully Flight will get much more than FSX too, but there is nothing impressive or unexpected here.

in your posts, you say that the locations can not be confirmed, meaning that noone except those at Microsoft know the true location of where they took their picture.  HOWEVER! you loaded your FSX and went to that location to take your comparison shot. So therefore you know of the location, but you just do not want to give away your knowledge, possibly for fear that we (the rest of the simming world) would know that these areas/airports are in a "Highly detailed DEFAULT area" and not just some random coastline in India, or South Africa. .... oh, and for your 2nd shot... that IS Hawaii, and I will prove it! ( see picture below )

Now, if Micro$oft wants to give the WHOLE PLANET the same attention that they give Chicago, New York, LAX, San Fran, Seatle, etc etc and not just 20,000 DETAILED airports but EVERY SINGLE GRASS STRIP as well, then yes, Flight might be worth something.


Your shots are edited for the Water Shaders.  What does the water look like STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX?? As soon as Flight hits the shelves, there are not going to be 10 addon programs like, ULTIMATE TERRAIN, GROUND ENVIRONMENT, REX, etc to change things like the color/shade of the water. You get what you get.



Yes there are some improvements over FSX out of the box, but not much.  If Micro$oft really wanted to WOW! us with a new product such as this, then maybe they should STHU, stop listening to the designers, and start listening to the people that pour out THOUSANDS of dollars every year to make THEIR product better, because, out of the box .. IT SUCKS!!!!  -- Why do you think we have to buy ORBX, ULTIMATE TERRAIN, GROUND ENVIRONMENT, AIRPORT STUDIO, CAPT SIM planes, POSKY........... its all because FLIGHT SIM is not good enough straight out of the box.





Mighty funny that you can not find, or figure out where your shot #2 was from, when I could figure it out by the 3wing building that is just below my Port Bottom wing.  I have flown this island enough to figure it out for my self.   And doing my own comparison shot vs yours and Flight... WITH MY ADDONS, it looks like MY shot is closer to Flight than yours is.     .. oh, and if you get REX, if you look closely, you do get Cloud reflections on the water.

FSX (sp2)
REX
Ultimate Terrain X
Ground Environment X
PHNL - Honolulu, Hawaii

BrandonF wrote on Jun 6^th, 2011 at 12:01pm:

Ah, but have they? I'm merely pointing out that all is not necessarily as it appears.



Quote:

It seems obvious to me that MS wants to control all addons via the Games for Windows – LIVE platform. If you visit the website you will see that it's all based on commercial products. http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/aboutGFW/pages/gfw3intro.aspx