"Golden Age" of flight sims?

[animaal]

A phrase has been on my mind - the "golden age" of consumer flight sims.

Right now, we have study-level simulations of the F-16, F/A-18 and F-15, variations of which are all in use today by the USA. 

In contrast, the F-22 and F-35 are still too secret for study-level simulation, even though the F-22's days are numbered. 

Is that the way things are going to be from now on - combat jets having so much tech in them that the details can't be published (at least while they're in service)?

Or can we be more hopeful that the F-35 can eventually be simulated to the degree that the F-15/16/18 are today - it's use outside the USA perhaps limiting the effectiveness of attempts to keep it under wraps?

[unlikely_spider]

47 minutes ago, animaal said:

Is that the way things are going to be from now on - combat jets having so much tech in them that the details can't be published (at least while they're in service)?

Yeah, I'm sure. Since we're so demanding of realism, developers like ED won't attempt an approximation. For less authentic versions, I'm sure that you can find some shovelware on MSFS or War Thunder or the like.

For me personally though, realistic versions of warbirds or cold war-era planes are more preferable, so that status quo is ok by me. The feel of flight in those aircraft are much better than the newer fly by wire airframes. To each their own, but I feel that it's more visceral to be sitting in a Tomcat or Mosquito than it is to be in a 'server rack with a pilot' like the F-18. (Though to be fair I do learn those modules too just due to the campaigns that are available for them)

Edited July 20, 2023 by unlikely_spider

[Yurgon]

1 hour ago, animaal said:

Is that the way things are going to be from now on - combat jets having so much tech in them that the details can't be published (at least while they're in service)?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Though in all likelihood you wouldn't have found an accurate F-104 sim back in the day when it was still brand new, even if home PCs and the simulation genre had existed back then - for lack of documentation and because of a shroud of secrecy surrounding the latest and greatest that the US Air Force had available.

Speaking of the golden age of flight sims in the 90s, those sims certainly took some liberties. Then again, they had gameplay aspects going for them that aren't exactly the focus with DCS nowadays. Not saying either way is better, that's like comparing apples and oranges. I'm just saying, the level of detail and realism has certainly increased since then.

And while the 90s saw the biggest variety of flight sim companies and products, I'd say we're now in the silver age (or maybe upgrade that to the platinum age?), with less variety in regards to companies, but still some strong competitors that are all pushing the boundaries of what's possible to simulate on a home PC. I mean, routinely flying two-seat attack helicopters on multiplayer servers with other air and ground assets, coordinating CAS with virtual JTACs using simulated radios in a changing weather environment - I can't say I really miss the opportunity to fly an F-22 or an F-35 or a newer tranche Eurofighter Typhoon. What we have is a pretty solid foundation, and just a couple of years ago the announcement of an AH-64, and a D model at that, would have made me cry tears of joy (which it did ).

Edited July 20, 2023 by Yurgon
Typo

[SharpeXB]

I can’t figure why the golden age was “golden” let’s face it games sucked back then and a flight game on a tiny 4:3 screen without head tracking would’ve sucked even more. PC games totally had no appeal for me back then, they couldn’t live up to the artwork on the box. I think the reason flying games might have appealed to devs back then was they were easy to make. There were no detailed maps or fidelity or figure animations to do etc. Just some low poly models and a green pool table to fly over. 
The Golden Age is today. 

[sirrah]

I pretty much started my flightsimming addiction somewhere early 90's iirc with "Hellcats over the Pacific" on my dad's Macintosh.

Then came "Hornet 2.0" and the addiction was a fact. Asked me back then and I would have said that was the golden age for flightsim.

Then came Falcon 4.0 and all the Janes stuff leading the way towards eventually LOMAC . Asked me then and I would have said that was the golden age.

Of course, with DCS, I'm now confident this is the golden age for flightsimming.

 

Please ask me again in 10 years

[shagrat]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb animaal:

Is that the way things are going to be from now on - combat jets having so much tech in them that the details can't be published (at least while they're in service)?

Plus at least another decade until the tech is mostly declassified. All Electronic Warfare stuff is still pretty much classified.

Weapon systems and the tech behind them, the same.

What we may get is better "reverse engineering" from public available sources and thus better approximations, but that's pretty much it. I am sure we still have a lot of compromises in the current modern DCS modules for this reason.

But as others already said, we have incredible stuff in DCS, that is so far more detailed and true to life, than even the best Sims back in the 90ies, that I am a more than happy.

[Grodin]

I'd say we are about to reach the golden era when you can combine simpits with VR passthrough so you get 3d vr view outside the cockpit and then passthru image inside the cockpit like you can do with some of the more expensive headsets. And when we get strong enough hardware and stable software that will be the beginning of the golden era i would say.

 

Now it is still in its infancy with borderline barely playable VR, but way way ahead of what we had in 90s.

 

Having absolute 100% realism with the planes systems is completely irrelevant to home sims imo, nobody can tell the small differences unless they fly the jet irl and that is a very small part of the market. Close enough approximations based on public data is fine, things like dynamic campaign and better ai would improve the overall experience more.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Grodin

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, Grodin said:

I'd say we are about to reach the golden era when you can combine simpits with VR passthrough so you get 3d vr view outside the cockpit and then passthru image inside the cockpit like you can do with some of the more expensive headsets.

You realize this will never happen because it will always be easier to run a game in 2D at lower fps than run it in 3D at higher fps. So VR will always be struggling for performance but never reach the goal. The performance and quality target for these games will always be based upon 2D and any extra headroom will just go towards making the game better. 

[Slippa]

I remember when the Golden Age of flight Sims meant for me, two ten pence pieces going into a slot for a flight in a spaceship. Asteroids or Space Invaders no less. Never mind Defender. Kempston quickshot IIs were things we couldn’t even dream about then. In time of course, technology advanced in leaps and bounds and before long we were enjoying the delights of Raid over Moscow on a C64 lol. Not exactly flight simming but we were getting there. Desert Storm on the Amiga? Hellfires & Hydras? Oh I forgot, Rambo on the C64 had a Heli lol. There were a few really playable flight things, Knights of the sky was ‘golden age’ for a bit. Ridiculous to look at now and think of hours spent.

What’s available to us now, in our own homes, DCS and the like? It makes the mind boggle. Whether or not this is the Golden age I don’t know but it’s none too shabby is it. 

[Kang]

In way I'd also say there was a golden age in the 90s. Of course the simulations had severe limitations in terms of visuals and even more so in terms of actually simulating, but as Yurgon said, there were a lot of them that made up for it with very clever game design, to the point where I still pull up my favourite 1993 flight sim once in a while and, now and then, sigh deeply when I see some of the things that were possible then and seem way, way, way out of league to even ask for now.

But my personal nostalgia aside, I think one of the bits that made that a golden age in a way was, that (and no doubt this had a lot to do with limitations at the time) even the ones that were considered 'hardcore simulators' were quite a lot more accessible than they are today in multiple ways. There wasn't nearly the same landscape of seriously expensive hardware going around and besides the 'hardcore simulators' there was a little ecosystem of somewhat more arcade-like, yet still comparable, flight simulation games. This all worked to a point that - at least where I grew up - anybody who was somewhat serious about PC games actually had a 'joystick' (the term HOTAS for stuff you put on your desk wasn't even invented yet), and quite keen to get use out of it. If you then decided that 'proper' simulators weren't quite your style, you could always dive into the space shooters that were popular then and sadly have since disappeared almost entirely.

In a certain light I can't shake the feeling that with simulators that have gotten a lot more sophisticated, but mostly the tremendous advances made in simulator hardware, we can do quite amazing things, but quite rightfully it isn't as easy anymore to get people interested in the first place.

[Grodin]

19 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

You realize this will never happen because it will always be easier to run a game in 2D at lower fps than run it in 3D at higher fps. So VR will always be struggling for performance but never reach the goal. The performance and quality target for these games will always be based upon 2D and any extra headroom will just go towards making the game better. 

VR is getting more and more popular and accessible, eventually VR/AR will likely surpass 2D.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Grodin

[SharpeXB]

35 minutes ago, Grodin said:

VR is getting more and more popular and accessible, eventually VR/AR will likely surpass 2D.

 

Those revenue projections are from 6 years ago when the hype train was still running. And the % of Steam users with VR headsets is still < 2% like it’s always been. Zero growth there. 

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

[Mars Exulte]

On 7/20/2023 at 1:31 PM, SharpeXB said:

I can’t figure why the golden age was “golden” let’s face it games sucked back then and a flight game on a tiny 4:3 screen without head tracking would’ve sucked even more. PC games totally had no appeal for me back then, they couldn’t live up to the artwork on the box. I think the reason flying games might have appealed to devs back then was they were easy to make. There were no detailed maps or fidelity or figure animations to do etc. Just some low poly models and a green pool table to fly over. 
The Golden Age is today. 

 Agreed. There was a lot of variety but it was all very limited and hobbled by technology. Nowadays, there is no practical limit to what can be done, it's just a matter of willpower and time.

[Weasel]

Yes there were plenty of good flight sims back in the 90s but I‘d also say that the golden age of flight simulation is now, or even more the platinum age.

The level of realism had never been as much as we have it now. Thus we have a graphic and physic as never before. Not to forget all the excellent hardware, thanks to Thrustmaster, Winwing, etc, takes us to a new level of realismus and experience.

Yes guys, the golden age is now and I couldn‘t be more happier!

[SharpeXB]

It’s funny to refer to the dark ages of computers as a “golden” age

These things only appealed to computer enthusiasts and not average consumers. And again I think devs made flying games simply because they were easy. 
 

As an indicator of today’s appeal, that other “big M” civy sim game has sold 3x as many copies in 2 years than its 2006 predecessor sold in 15. 

[Slippa]

It's a matter of perspective to me. To have anything to control on a screen was amazing, especially when you could do it from home. Look at early Binatone Tennis. - No, do . You won't have any need to clear out any cache or worry about your FPS. The very idea of having control of a clump of blocky pixels and getting some enjoyment from it was unimaginable. Until we could. As things improved, so did gameplay and the knack of keeping us interested.

We weren't all enthusiasts or computer geeks by a long way, it wasn't a niche market thing though in time there was 'Open Source' software and 'Shareware' and a lot of these were early Devs geeking way out gladly. As things became available and improved, millions of households had some sort of 'gaming computer'. I'm not trying to preach, I'm sure you'd understand already, just trying to give a bit of perspective. There wasn't a public intranet, we couldn't go online or download anything but it was nowhere near the dark ages, it was a new dawn, back then.

I've veered off a bit from strictly Flight Simming but I have to emphasise, some of the gameplay, even the possibility to have it was, at that time, pretty amazing. Before that our parents had either models, kites or paper aeroplanes. We had cassette recorders or Disc Drives (A big deal at the time) to load our dodgy games up on, some loaded as rapidly as it'd take you to go to school for the day and come home before it had finished... Well, almost. It was, like a lot of new discoveries when young, amazing. Golden? Well...

We're already beyond what any of us dreamt we'd have and we got just as excited then about a new flying sim with Polygons or whatever as some do now about say the clouds or weather effects, MT etc. today.

Amazing, brilliant, it might just be the Golden age I don't know? I know we've never had it so good.

I just remembered an example of a crappy graphics, superb gameplay thing that had a lot of kids hooked. Elitt I think it was called? It was set in Space, you had a ship, could trade up, do different things for different people to earn money and it drained hours of our time. I should look this up before posting but I think it might be something to do with a 'Sim'? of a similar name that half of us likely have installed today and is phenomenal, obviously, in comparison to what it was.... God, back in the 80s? 90s? I daren't think.

 

[SharpeXB]

Here’s the facts, the Golden Age is today, not the 80s and 90s

[Slippa]

Well, that’s it then. Lock the thread, discussion over.  

In twenty or thirty years time, long after I’ve shuffled off me coil, that graph will zoom out and the perspective will change. You’ll laugh at how we were so easily thrilled with what there is today. There’ll be a new ‘golden age’ and the days of our paper aeroplane flight simulators will be long forgotten.
 

Incidentally, my Great Uncle could make one with the newspaper and it would glide almost the length of the road. That was reality. For me, beating any virtual reality hands down.

If Golden Ages are calculated on sales figures then I’ve addressed a different point of view. 
 

Just looking at the OPs sig made me wonder what he makes of it?

Edited July 24, 2023 by Slippa
OPs Sig & spelling

[Hiob]

I can think of a couple of reasons why we probably had a "golden" age of computer games in general and it won't come back likely. Of course this isn't objective but personal, but the main two reasons for such a judgement on my side would be:

When I played Monkey Island, or Wing Commander or Falcon 3.0 or Fleet Defender and so on I didn't worry about FPS, frame times, micro stutters or how to save $$$$ for the newest Hardware or input device. That simply wasn't a thing - I just played.

Second - usually there was only one real "must play" block buster at a time. (Depending on genres maybe). So it was easier to focus and enjoy without the overwhelming choices.

=======================================================

Apart from that, I can easily see, why now is the best time for flight simulations (yet!). We have never been so close, both in visual fidelity and flight physics. That doesn't mean, that we reached the top of course. I'm sure we will see much improvement down the road!

 

[SharpeXB]

17 minutes ago, Hiob said:

or how to save $$$$ for the newest Hardware

Check your math, a $1,500 PC in 1990 would be the equivalent of $3,500 today. And it was a glorified typewriter
 

I’m not sure what the term “Golden Age” implies in this context. That PC gaming was more popular? In what years?
Another relevant statistic. Even by 2000 only half of US households even owned a home computer. So PC gaming was certainly not more popular then. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Slippa]

14 minutes ago, Hiob said:

I can think of a couple of reasons why we probably had a "golden" age of computer games in general and it won't come back likely.

 

now is the best time for flight simulations (yet!). We have never been so close, both in visual fidelity and flight physics. That doesn't mean, that we reached the top of course. I'm sure we will see much improvement down the road!

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

[SharpeXB]

Another interesting chart although flying isn’t even on here as a category, ie it’s always been too small to count. I’m gonna call this myth “busted”

There was no “Golden Age” or rather the Golden Age is today. 

[Hiob]

What beautiful charts you are able to dig up! Two thumbs up!

Unfortunately both, the sentiment of my post and the sentiment of the thread, seem to go far above your head.

 

Edit:

Ok, let me try to be kind and help you out:

There are threads that deal with facts and numbers (technical data of various aircraft e.g.) and then there are threads that deal with thoughts and opinions (and feelings perhaps)....

Edited July 24, 2023 by Hiob

[SharpeXB]

14 minutes ago, Hiob said:

What beautiful charts you are able to dig up! Two thumbs up!

Unfortunately both, the sentiment of my post and the sentiment of the thread, seem to go far above your head.

 

Edit:

Ok, let me try to be kind and help you out:

There are threads that deal with facts and numbers (technical data of various aircraft e.g.) and then there are threads that deal with thoughts and opinions (and feelings perhaps)....

now try to figure out in which ones charts are actually helpful.

 

Ok so it’s an “opinion” or “feeling” that a Golden Age of PC or flight sim games existed. But the facts say otherwise. Unless by “golden” you mean ancient and primordial.

Edited July 24, 2023 by SharpeXB

[LucShep]

I tend to look at these "the gold age has passed" (get off my lawn!!) and "no no no no it's toodaaay!!!" (pffff... boomer!!) type of threads, and can see both sides.
Both are right, in their own way.  

On one hand, we now have the most detailed, most beautiful and immersive flight sims ever, and controllers for them as well. But the whole complexity and related cost....

When I got on the PC (after a youth with the Spectrum 48K and 128K), I remember craving for more "serious, realistic stuff", and it was racing and flight sims that'd fill my joy.

I remember many hours with the old StrikeEagle II & III, Falcon 3, all the Jane's stuff, Warbirds online, and the original IL-2 Sturmovik (among so many others), back in the day.
Some were more demanding than others, and there were a lot more great titles than those, but we didn't have to pay an arm and a leg just to get the propper hardware for them, which is the norm these days. Ah yes, and a fun fact.... LOMAC ran utterly bad, by far the worst of the bunch!!  schh

The evolution these days of both hardware and gaming-software does not even compare to what we had then.
It was like "OMG THOSE GRAPHICS!!" or "OMG YOU CAN DO THAT NOW??" every single year with every new launch. That, and the early modding scene - that was so revolutionary for PC games, when the internet finally became universal.  Of course, all that crossed also with the "oh noes... now I need to upgrade, again!"  LOL

And still... the cost. 
Do the inflation conversion math as much as you want on harware prices, but there is no way you can convince yourself that a decently good CPU, MOBO, RAM, GPU and PSU had the prices then that we pay today. Your average gaming PC (of the "normal" kind, not ubber enthusiast stuff that also exhisted) would run anything and everything, and was far more affordable then. Remember, we could adjust up or down the screen resolution and refresh (good old CRT monitors made it better in that aspect). 
Complete obsolescence in just 18 months?  For sure, that was the not so good part of hardware, but that also created a much bigger sense of evolution and "leaps ahead" in what was being done with games and hardware. It was like everything was moving so fast.

I recall looking at the original Saitek X36F stick and X35T throttle, as well as the good old CH stuff (the first propper HOTAS I can recall as available for PC) and we telling ourselves "I want one but, oh dear, these are a bit expensive now, aren't they?"  (at $100+, the later much revered MS Sidewinder FFB 1 & 2 was a little more expensive).
Yet, such combos were great for the period and we didn't feel we needed $800+ HOTAS to be happy, like we do these days.

I totally get why so many feel like the whole 90's to early 00's were considered the "Golden Age" of flight sims.
It's because the novelty and discovery (and creativity?) feelings with sims and related tech were far, far more intense in that constant roller coaster of releases.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like things are not progressing and evolving (they are), but we no longer have those "constant leaps ahead". It's not even close.

I like what we have now here with DCS, but it's impossible to forget how good we also had it back then, no matter how archaic it all seems now. To us in the veteran side, or to them in the youngster side.  

Edited July 27, 2023 by LucShep
spelling(?)