MS Flight Simulator 2020 First Look

[stiletto2]

Direct Comparison of a P3Dv5 plus Orbx visual with a MSFS visual at the same exact location - all in one screenshot!

Some people have said they have to reboot their computer to run P3D after running MSFS.  I don't have that  issue and, in fact, I can have both P3D and MSFS loaded at the same time.  Of course, I have to click on which screen I want to be active but it is great to do a direct comparison of scenery visuals to find out how well does P3Dv5 Plus Orbx look visually when compared to MSFS...at least just outside of Portland, Oregon. 

I chose the Oregon City area less than 15 miles from downtown Portland "as the crow flies".  I loaded P3Dv5 using Enhanced Atmospherics and Orbx TrueEarth Oregon.  The P3Dv5 settings are moderate with Autogen and scenery draw distance on medium and vegetation and building density on Very Dense.  I loaded MSFS set to High graphic settings (one step below Ultra).   

The shot was taken facing towards downtown Portland from about 2,000 feet AGL and less than a mile away from OG20.  It is one screenshot.  I edited off the 3rd screen of my triple monitor system since it did not apply.  Both sims were paused at the time of the shot.  Bottom line:  I was amazed at how well the P3Dv5 visual compared to the MSFS visual.

After you enlarge the image, if you right click and save the image to your desktop and then zoom in a bit more you can clearly see the downtown Portland buildings (the Portland Cityscape) on the P3Dv5 side of the screen about 1/3 in from the left a little bit below the horizon.  This makes sense as the high buildings should be visible in real life on a day with very good visibility.  Unfortunately, no buildings can be seen at that spot in MSFS2020.   This is because the buildings at 15 miles on the horizon do not show up with High Graphic settings in MSFS.  I guess you need Ultra which is too much for my 5 year old system.

See below for the single screenshot and judge for yourself.  With P3Dv5 continuing to be my sim of choice until MSFS2020 gets all fixed up, I am glad to know I won't be missing missing great visuals since P3Dv5 plus Orbx has them too!


Looking North towards downtown Portland from the Oregon City area



Rod

[kaha]

Good shot, Rod.

Also in your screenshot the P3D scenery looks much darker overall, as it does in my videos.

Karl

[kaha]

... Which one felt better flying into Lake Tahoe.

Robert, P3D still is the sim that feels better, much better.

I know that it will take a lot of time and work to get MSFS to a handling level that can compare to my P3D installation. This of course will get better once there is an A2A aircraft or one like the RealAir Duke.

Karl

[nbrich1]

Will be sticking with my current sim for a long time. (No choice in the matter).

The release of the first update containing fixes for MSFS 2020 (79 gb  ) is expected Aug. 27th!

[stiletto2]

Good shot, Rod.

Also in your screenshot the P3D scenery looks much darker overall, as it does in my videos.

Karl

Hi Karl, actually the darkness is caused a bit by EA which I hope Lockheed can improve when EA comes out of Beta.  I could have raised the brightness a bit with the P3D lighting settings.

See the same shot below but with EA turned off which is bit lighter.  I can even make it lighter via the lighting settings.   I wish MSFS had lighting settings along with a few hundred other things because I would like their visual to be a bit darker.  I did most of the postioning to match the scenes using P3DV5 because of the less friendly movement options using the MSFS drone. 



Rod

[FSRobert]

Here is a youtube link of a C182T real life approach and landing in Lake Tahoe


https://youtu.be/rlrEUt9oMvY

[kaha]

Thank you Robert.

Difficult to say. THe weather, for me, seems to be much closer to P3D EA. All the haze that I never saw in MSFS.

The video is too light, they used a wrong exposure value. So it's difficult to judge about the landscape.

Karl

[kaha]

Saw a terrain irregularity in P3D. When flying the same route in MSFS the artefact was there as well. Here is an image on my OneDrive share.

@Rod: I am not able to have both sims running on my PC at the same time so I had to trick it with Photoshop:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjaGV13seqR9oop9rEgMC03PKn186w?e=afpSF5

Coordinates are:

N35° 38.92
W118° 29.79

go to 6000ft


There is a tree growing on top of the artefact in MSFS!


Karl

[stiletto2]

Hi Karl,

Good catch!  Your pics show that Microsoft 2020 is probably using the same mesh data as P3D in that area.  Not surprising since there is a lot of ESP underneath MSFS2020. Your terrain looks different than mine but I don't have Orbx Southern Cal region installed.  I assume you do.  Do you also have Orbx Kern Valley?   You should report this artefact to Orbx and Micrsoft.  Very soon Orbx TrueEarth Southern California will be coming out.  I bet it might have the same artefact if nobody reported it. 

Rod

[Doug]

I found an excellent YouTube vid on how to "tune" up the computer to handle FS2020. I got almost a 25 fps bump by following this person's instructions.  My "final tweaking" (settings for MSFS inside it), are a little different than his.  But I was able to "up" the settings and still picked up significant fps.

YouTube Vid:

By the way, there is a FREEWARE Bush scenery out now, you can find it here at MSFSAddons (a new site):

https://www.msfsaddons.org/

Look under scenery for Quantam River.

Here's how things are looking for me in FS2020 over the Campbell River Area, running ave of 60 fps now, my screenshot is a little blurry, I "dumbed it down" to post it, but the REAL pic is very sharp and clear.

Doug

[kaha]

....  I assume you do.  Do you also have Orbx Kern Valley?   ...

Yes, I have ORBX SC. But I don't have Kern Valley.

Karl

[dexthom]

This from Henrik on the Outhouse forum:

"MSFS2020 AI ships...
Today Knud managed to put the first of our ships into MSFS2020 - we are still far from understanding how it works, but to see one of the ships there tells us the Global AI Ship Traffic project can have a future in MSFS2020".

[kaha]

That's good news!

Karl

[jeff3163]

     Wow, this thread is all over the place.  I think the "First Look" phase is over by now.  I suggest starting new threads for the various topics being discussed.   

 Thanks 

[FSRobert]

Agree with with Jeff 100%

...simply BRILLIANT with AIShiping.