It's not that a simulation cannot look like this theoretically, but nobody making simulations has the budget, and even if they did, nobody has the hardware to run graphics like that at the same time as a complex simulation.

We can dream of the future though. Just wait for the mind/machine interface :p

Why not?

Complex physics are very hardware intensive, so are complex graphics, one has to find a balance between both in order to not rape consumer's computers.

Being a fan of Battlefield 1942, I can't wait for this game, I love simulations and realism, but I can live with games like this, it's a shame, however, that the game will not be moddable, I just hope they release a DLC or a pack with WWII theater.

Then again, modding could easily make it closer to a simulation, like Project Reality did to Battlefield 2.

Well I suppose an argument could be made that as long as your gpu is up to the task then everything else can fall to your cpu. It could be that I am simply too used to thinking in terms of what has been true of gaming in the past.

But even so I think it would be a monumental task. Like in that video for instance, the game area appears to be quite large but I am willing to bet almost anything that a huge amount of what you see is not actually part of the game's world. Those mountains are almost certainly the edge of it, and I doubt they are navigable.

Take that smoke in the distant background in this video. Definitely amazing looking. However there is no way in hell that is some kind of volumetric fog. That is an animation that was rendered pretty much by hand and will play out the same way every single time. You can never actually get close to it or go into it, so it never really has to be simulated. It only takes a few resources from the GPU.

Once you provide that you might actually be able to interact with it though, suddenly you can't just use a graphical shortcut. you must now compute both its physical properties, and how those properties will translate into a visual. Herein lies the real problem: translating an effect that is simulated and variable into a visual is an order of magnitude more complex than simply using a stock visual that comes with a stock effect.

Anyway I will concede that it may be possible to get a simulation to look like this and still run on a top of the line machine. However it is pretty much going to involve having a budget that allows for things like "ok you are the shrub guy. Your entire job is to ensure that shrubbery looks good at any distance, from 3 inches to 10 km, with seamless transition in between, and that this shrubbery also interacts with all possible environmental objects and effects. Oh and make sure it is perfectly optimized as well."

Heh I should have read the thread more closely, you pretty much summed it up much more concisely than I did.

I agree that CloD probably could have stood to take a few more tricks from the FPS's

In real life, does it look more like what it is now in the game? I doubt it. I've seen propellers in real life. From the side, it's more like a thin, translucent eclipse, not like the visible turning propeller blades as we have in game right now.
I'm mostly criticizing the look of propellers from the side view and the awkward transition from other angles to the side view.

I don't buy this argument anymore.

In the past ten years, our PC's and our graphic cards have seen their computing power greatly expanded.

If a flight sim is probably more computer-intensive than a FPS, a 2011 flight sim must nevertheless show more than a "last decade style" sim !

No they are not, couldn't be further from the truth, you do understand that most FPS have very little balistics modelled, they dont model any air over the vehicles, honestly you should go and wash your mouth out, probably one of the silliest comments I have heard in a while.

I flew choppers in BF2BC, but it wasnt quite the same as flying one in Black Shark, I love these FPS games, but why are we comparing it with CoD, they are just different games simple as that.

Trust me man,the side view is spot on,if my experience with warbirds is still worth something.. A Cessna prop might look like it's gleaming cos it's mostly gloss paint white props,but big black semi-opaque props look just like that. I agree about the transaction though,but then again I suppose it depends on graphic settings? Best prop rendition so far is RoF.