Eugel

So these charts are useless then ? I don´t think we´ll find a decent comparison. And for me it´s not just about the share of the market, though I do think that the percentage of players/sold copies of flight sims compared to all games in the 90s was higher than it is today. But neither of us can provide accurate numbers and today it´s distorted by free to play models and such. What defines the "golden age" for me is just that in the 90s there were like two dozen different companies that competed in giving us players the best flight sim they could make. Gaming magazines talked about those games, many were nominated for best game of the year awards, etc. Yes, MSFS is kind of an oddity, it caused some hype, but it´s included in Microsofts game pass, basically everyone with an X-Box has played that at some point, so those player numbers don´t mean much. And I don´t think that flight sims in the 90s were easy or cheap to make. They couldn´t just rent the latest unreal engine, they all had to program their own engines at the edge of ever changing hardware limitations.

How about the list I have posted ? There were 95 titles that came out from 1990 to 1999, and in comparison about a dozen in the last 10 years (and the latter includes Ace Combat and Project Wingman, and I´d argue if those count, we would have to include Wing Commander and Tie Fighter in the 90s category as well) If flight sims are more popular today, why aren´t there software studios/publishers pushing out several titles per year, trying to make it better than the others ? Because that´s what happened in the 90s.

"The StarCraft series has been a commercial success. After its release, StarCraft became the best-selling PC game for that year, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide.[128] In the next decade, StarCraft sold over 9.5 million copies across the globe, with 4.5 million of these being sold in South Korea." Source: Wikipedia Anyway, selling 10% of one of the most successful PC games is still a lot, especially for a niche genre. Check out the list at the bottom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_flight_simulation_game And compare how many sims came out between 1990 and 2000 compared to the last 10 years, especially in the "modern" category...

Yes, that´s why I wrote "the longbow franchise" Still, selling 1.2 million copies in a time when computers weren´t available as much and in a niche is remarkable. According to Wikipedia, Longbow 2 sold 99.430 copies in the US from November 97 to October 99. I would be really curious how many DCS: Apache modules were sold so far in the US to have a comparison. I agree, might be that we are in another golden era right now.

It might have 70 million registered accounts, but nowhere near that number of players. Can´t compare free to play accounts to sold copies. I have two friends who have tried DCS, one has played for 8 minutes, the other one for 18. I wouldn´t count them as DCS players. Queue up for a simulator battle in WT and you´d be lucky if there are a 100 people playing. Jane´s Longbow franchise sold 1.2 million copies. Would be interesting to compare that to the sold Apache modules in DCS.

I´m not trying to imply anything, I´m just stating that my experience about computers in the early 90s seems to differ from yours. I don´t live in the US, so I can´t say anything about those 30%, maybe we had more computers in germany, I don´t know. And I also think that that time was kind of a "golden era" for flight sims. Of course back then, neither software nor hardware were as sophisticated as they are today. But today, if you are interested in combat flight sims, you can choose between 1 or 2 sims (depending on your interest in WW2), add another 2 or 3 if you are willing to give up realism. Back then, you had dozens to choose from. There was more choice, more companies providing different experiences. Today, it´s either Ace Combat, War Thunder or DCS. Back in the 90s, you got much more in between those.

In the late 80s/early 90s, basically everyone I knew had a Commodore 64 or Amiga at home and I got my first "gaming" PC in 1994 and most of my friends had PCs by then as well. Computers back then worked quite well without the internet...

I only fly in VR as well and I didn´t notice any performance changes from the last update (neither negative nor positive).

That must be some screen ... I was in an IMAX theatre a couple of weeks ago, and that was still smaller than what I perceive in VR.

To be honest, I do regret it. It´s been over a year now, and the populated areas still are unplayable for me in VR, while outside of those areas the map really is kind of empty and boring. In that whole year, I spent maybe 5 hours flying through admittedly beautiful fjords. But other than that, I haven´t really touched it.

Bei mir auch, lässt sich jetzt wieder in Sekunden statt in Minuten messen

Has anyone tested the map after todays patch ? Did the new redesign of city blocks and tree distribution system improve perfomance over the city areas ? Unfortunately, I didn´t have the chance to test it myself yet...

I didn´t notice a performance increase, for me it´s the same as before. But there are visual improvements. I´m so happy that they have changed the color/lighting of those solar panels. They are not that bright blue anymore, but more black and don´t stand out that much. Now I want to see the map at dusk... And yes, the long loading times are gone as well, so: good patch !

Mein Warthog Throttle hatte nach gut 10 Jahren den Geist aufgegeben und ich musste zum ersten Mal den TM Support anschreiben. Da hatte man mir angeboten das Teil zur Reparatur einzuschicken oder wahlweise mir direkt eine neue Platine zu schicken (was bei den Dingern ja zu 99% die Fehlerursache war/ist). Also ich kann über den TM Support nichts schlechtes sagen...

Ich bin ja eigentlich nach wie vor Fan von Thrustmaster und ich finde manchmal die Vergleiche zu Virpil und Co. nicht so ganz fair. Thrustmaster hat bisher eigentlich immer sein eigenes Preissegment bedient. Klar, ich finde Virpil auch besser, aber es kostet auch fast das Doppelte - im Vergleich zum Warthog. WinWing - habe ich keine Erfahrung mit, aber zumindest bei uns in Deutschland muss man da noch Steuern, Zoll und Versand drauf packen und damit sind die dann auch deutlich teurer als TM, die ich hier halt easy versandkostenfrei auf Amazon kaufen kann. Das Ding ist: Der F-16 Throttle stößt mit dem Preis nun aber ins gleiche Segment vor wie die bisher teurere Konkurrenz. Und zumindest auf den Videos sah es für mich schon so aus als wären die grauen Drehregler ziemlich billig verarbeitet und dieser Fahrwerkshebel ein schlechter Witz. Auf den ersten Blick sieht´s für mich nicht so aus als wäre das Teil seine 500 Euro wert. Interessant wäre auf jeden Fall, wie die Mechanik des Schubhebels nach ein paar Jahren Benutzung standhält, sind ja doch ein paar bewegliche Teile dran.

Naja, wenn man sich für schnell mal 500 Euro Hardware bestellt kann man sich schon denken "Na, die 30 Euro machen nu auch keinen Unterschied mehr" und es sieht schon geiler aus wenn da eine passende Hülle drauf ist. So war´s jedenfalls bei mir. Ich finde die Virpil Hüllen toll. Ich denke mal, es gibt Leute die deutlich mehr für so Dinger bezahlen mit denen sie dann ihre Golfschläger abdecken, so what ?

Ich schätze, er spielt darauf an dass öfter Leute mit wenigen Posts nur Beiträge mit Links zu irgendwelchen Online Shops posten oder wie hier, auf Ebay.

True, but still you´d pay half the price and get a much more detailed model (even without photo etched parts) And if you go with 1/48 scale, you get an F-16 for 50-60 $ But I suspect this is actually a bot. His only other post on the forum was about 3D models and included a link to a shop that sells 3D scanners and this one has a link to a shop with filament...

Also, I´m pretty sure it didn´t look like that before the update.

No, it´s not about his system. As cfrag already wrote, the steam version does not offer an option to launch MT in VR mode. The only way to get it to work is to fiddle with launch parameters and force it to use Open XR. And if you do, you can´t open DCS in 2D mode. When the MT update came out, they said there would be a MT VR option in the launch menu, and frankly, it´s a shame that after months this simple option has not been added yet.

Auto-Collective has been removed, Auto-Hover is still in there, they even added an indicator light for it, but according to the patch notes under "known issues": "Auto-hover (CVS and ALV modes) are work in progress and may not function reliably yet" - whatever that means. I haven´t managed to engage auto hover in the M-variant yet.

Indeed, I just read the new features, got excited and jumped right in. Thanks for the info.

The keybind for autohover is still there, but it doesn´t seem to work.

I think this is the most exciting DCS news for me this year ! Thank you for that, really looking forward to flying the "new" Gazelle.

I agree, with a filament printer, you won´t get the details and smooth surfaces you would want from a model like that. There are probably hundreds of plastic kits from different companies out there, I wouldn´t bother making one myself (unless of course you want to do it to practice your 3D modelling skills) I don´t know why anyone would pay 300 $ for such a model, how big is this ? A Tamiya kit would cost a fraction of that and would be much more detailed.