Before you call me a really angry guy, I am not. I love this hobby more than anyone and am just getting to the boiling point when it comes to over-designed add-ons that cause more frustration, harm and poor flying quality than they do good. How long is it going to take for someone to speak out on this? Well, no longer I guess, I seem to be the first when it comes to the online web sites discussing this matter.
Recently, I published a review on Airport 2000 Volume II. Due to my feelings about the product, I have received a hundred or so emails from users proclaiming their sadness and anger over a product being released with glaring bugs, poor design flaws and far too much detail for anyone to enjoy. Yes, Airport 2000 Volume II may look like a great add-on that has the world's most detailed large airports, and that is true, only if you're willing to fly at a frame rate of 5, on a Pentium III 800! I am not, and neither were the 100 users that emailed me. Normally a review I write, results in many positive and a few negative comments directed towards me. This review had no negative comments directed towards me which led me to believe, I hit the mark for everyone on that one. I hate to poorly grade any product, but when it is not useable on today's machines because the scenery is either too detailed or poorly coded to run properly, then there is a big problem. In addition to the horrid frame rates, the sloppy design of such a product really slaps you in the face. (Case in point, the ever-bouncing King Air and the misplaced pilot's point of view in most of the jets.)
Not only does an unusable frame rate product get me ranting and raving but so do instrument panels that are "over-designed" or too large to see from. Airport 2000 contains airliner panels that are photorealistic and largely to scale. It looks like you're standing in the doorway into the cockpit, rather than pushed up against the panel and windshield like most real pilots are placed. Unless you're using FLY! there may be no way around this. A full-scale panel has far too many small buttons, lettering, gauges and widgets for you to ever possibly read, even on a big monitor. In a real jet cockpit, the instruments are actually BIG and after much research, panel testing etc., I have concluded I like big panels with bigger gauges more than the super-photorealistic panels that you can't see. In addition, the photoreal or scale panels don't give you a big enough window to see out of! To slap an insult to your injury, your frame rate is worse than the default FS2000 panels. I want to be able to see the runway and my outside environment clearly and smoothly. Again, frame rate is everything here. What's the use in FLYING if you can not operate the aircraft smoothly with your eyes looking outside?
Before you accuse me of working for MS, I don't. But lately, I've been going back to using their default panels versus the "fancy-doo" panels many of the designers are building using custom gauges. The MS gauges work the smoothest, so why not just stay with those? I love the addition of overhead switches, systems on a pop-up window and sound effects many panel makers are building in to their designs, and I will still be searching for panels that are better than the default ones. But if frame rate goes down just a little or my view is blocked, forget it!
The crabbiness I have towards this subject comes partly from my real life introduction to turboprops and jets, as I am getting qualified to fly them at a local charter company. I can tell you from flying a real Piper Cheyenne II, or sitting in the right seat of the Citation II, you CAN SEE great from any cockpit and the gauges are BIG. So, panel designers, please try to keep things a bit larger, using the default gauges and go from there. Spare me the full scale mockups where every gauge is to scale and so are the blank spots as well! I really want functionality now, without compromising the outside view or frame rate!
When building a panel, please consider the size of your bitmaps and/or interior views. The default panels are bad enough to load and wait for (1 second of loading time is too much as far as I am concerned, each time I turn my head) but the cool add-ons folks are making are even more pigs. Take your time to test try them, so the end user doesn't have to wait until a flight to find out how sluggish they are. Note the size of the .bmp files, big ones take longer to "get away from" when turning your head and longer to load in when turning to a new view. That's why I hate virtual cockpits so much :) The default FS2000 panels, while not ace material by any stretch of the imagination, are better loading than I used to think, since my recent months spent trying out new cockpits, passenger views, and instrument panels widely available right here. They work fairly smoothly, have ample viewing and all the basics right there. The add-on designers work may look great, I just want you to spend time tweaking and testing. Keep in mind, slideshow style cockpits complete with overhead roof panels hanging down, or glareshields too high, and virtual views that take time to load - all end up in the trash! Besides, when a great panel or scenery is found, word gets around, and it often remains in our TOP 100 DAILY FILES category a long time!
Now that I have gotten panels and slideshow scenery off my chest (or out of my harddrive), my last gripe is a result of excellent work that I actually am most addicted to! The aircraft add-ons are outstanding to look at! Animations, details, transparencies, lighting and more is all there to make one say "it is as real as a picture"! However, now, when taxiing your favorite download around, the textures shimmy and blurr out when farther than 200 feet or so in the spot plane viewpoint. Why? Why are the most detailed aircraft so blurry unless you're right near it? I wish I knew. No matter what videocard I use, I still have this result. The outside views get blurry in steps as you pull out your spot plane distance, yet the default airplanes don't do this. Is it texturing or memory related? Even looking around from inside a detailed airplane causing pausing and loading.
In conclusion, I'd like to say as a "flightsimmer" who thinks this is the greatest hobby ever, please all you commercial designers out there, try flying your creations first or get people to properly beta test products before going out on the market. Design around the frame rates please! When I worked at Looking Glass Studios as the designer of Flight Unlimited III we did just that. Adding detail and design features came only after the frame rate counter was displayed each time! I just recently received a new product from a well known add-on company, showcasing many airplanes. This product will be in stores soon, and I am horrified by the amount of shabby looking airplanes, panels and flaws I found within the first 10 minutes. Absolute rubbish! And to top it off, some of the sounds were stolen right off of a major site, without the author's permission. And you'll be paying money for it! I hope not, a review will be coming from me soon on this piece of work.
There are many outstanding quality panels, aircraft and sceneries that perform to "my" standards. They are all here on FlightSim.Com. My hint to you, if you want to keep flying smoothly and happily, is to search for those files that use default gauges, show off their airplanes in pictures and great docs, and describe their scenery by not using the obvious words like "most detailed, every building is accurate or included, every marking on the airport, photorealistic and virtual cockpit, etc."
You'll soon discover that if you're at all like me, and just want to fly a little more than chug around details, then less is MORE.
