Friday 2010-12-17 Dev. update and Discussion

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by erco

The last time I was at FlightSafety for recurrent training, I spent some time with the sim techs, asking questions and looking at the hardware. I was surprised to learn that today's multi-core desktops have more than enough computing and graphics power to run a Level D full motion simulator. What the desktop can't do is properly synchronize everything so that everything that's supposed to happen NOW happens NOW. Thus you need a multi-board/multi-processor thing that lives in a server rack. But, relatively speaking, powerful it ain't.

Makes sense. The days of the 8 and 16 core processors aren't too far away. Once we get to that point we'll be able to do the same sorts of things on a home PC that they do with server racks. Of course it just means that there will be server racks with the equivalent multi core CPU's to match

[Azimech]

And we may see the development of interchangeable modules like A2A has with Accusim, at least that's what they claim, that in the future their modules will be able to interface with a number of 3D flight engines. Imagine SoW becoming hugely successful, and top of the line third part developers joining forces thereby increasing the level of technology. Who knows, maybe russo-american cooperation might even lower the threshold for products from a certain american defense corporation. I'm dreaming again.

[Trumper]

The sim should always be overdeveloped as computers in time will catch up and you need to keep the sim on the front edge able to use the technology as it comes in.

[louisv]

I was talking to some CAE engineers (by far the largest company in the field) and they said the difference is you are in a real cockpit that moves, with real instruments, a true panoramic view, and that costs millions all by itself.

The cockpit is bought from the manufacturer of the aircraft...a cousin of mine is an engineer there and he went to buy a A380 cockpit in Toulouse for CAE's A380 simulator...

The computing power is less than some workstations since they don't upgrade everything all the time. And the software is still mostly 'cheat sheet', table based...no real inertial calculations...To be fair that was 5 years ago, but still the differences are less than you might think, other than the physical cockpit of course. The graphics, while updated all the time are not that great but they are full surround !

Louisv

PS: "Real Flight Simulator" is a repackaging of a free software: by today's standard it's a piece of crap. Enough said.

Originally Posted by Trumper

The sim should always be overdeveloped as computers in time will catch up and you need to keep the sim on the front edge able to use the technology as it comes in.

I think Oleg has been working with that philosophy in mind since it too years for IL-2 to be playable at MAX settings on a mid-range system. (although IL-2 was very scalable as well)

[Skyflier]

Originally Posted by louisv

Louisv

PS: "Real Flight Simulator" is a repackaging of a free software: by today's standard it's a piece of crap. Enough said.

Louisv I just wanted to concur. I'm not sure I'd ever mention "FlightProSim" as a credible source for anything! Flightgear(.org) might not be the hottest peice of software out there, but somone slapping their logo on a GNU (freeware) release and marketing it with a "money back guarrantee" is pretty sick. I feel sorry for anybody that fell for their scam.

[klem]

Originally Posted by erco

The last time I was at FlightSafety for recurrent training, I spent some time with the sim techs, asking questions and looking at the hardware. I was surprised to learn that today's multi-core desktops have more than enough computing and graphics power to run a Level D full motion simulator. What the desktop can't do is properly synchronize everything so that everything that's supposed to happen NOW happens NOW. Thus you need a multi-board/multi-processor thing that lives in a server rack. But, relatively speaking, powerful it ain't.

Well, "powerful it ain't" may be true at the single board/processor level but combined into that multi-board multi-processor supercomputer it is a fair bit more powerful than the new i7 multicore PC about to arrive on my doorstep. But it's true that things have moved enormously over the 20+ years I spent in the flight simulation business. The Visual computers for a certain VSTOL aircraft back in 1987 occupied a portacabin-like structure about 30 feet by 30 feet, completely full up, unique PC boards about 2 feet square and generating enough heat to warm a factory. All to enable low level graphics rendering at high speed. It was later replaced by a system in a cabinet about the size of a small single wardrobe. The later ones were about half that size and some are now down to super PC/rack size.

We've come a long way and we haven't finished yet.