Is the world to scale?

I was wondering if the world is to scale, because when I fly high at 35,000ft per say it feels more like im at 15,000 feet, is the P3D world to scale? another thing is the ground moves really fast when I am flying at cruise altitude even without a strong tailwind, in the real world it dosent move that fast unless I am missing something.

Is there a way to mod the world to scale it more vertically realistic?

My apologies

I'm on a 16:9 monitor with 1920 x 1080 resolution, I use a zoom level of 0.7 in virtual cockpit & I have wide aspect ratio enabled in P3D.cfg.

Are you sure it is scaled correctly, because when I was in our CRJ sim the height perception was more high & realistic, maybe it's the monitor or perception I don't know. I also used to be a X-Plane pilot & the height perception was more realistic.

Of course it's scaled correctly, because there's no value to doing it otherwise. As lnuss says, zoom and view angle affect your perception, as well as the size of monitor you're using and even your distance from it. I think the "right" settings are almost completely subjective, because you'll find plenty of people in these and other forums proclaiming the correctness of "their" setup.

I tend to set my zoom (on a 46" screen) to give me the most functional view of the instrument panel, and take what I get as far as the view out the window goes. Some people argue that you should set your zoom so that the instruments are real life size, but I prefer a wider view of the panel. When I fly low, things are bigger than when I fly high; when I fly low, the ground seems to go by faster than it does when I'm higher up, and that's good enough for me.

So it's scaled to real world data? why then does X-plane give better perception with the same monitor, settings, & zoom?

I must be missing a piece of the puzzle seems weird to me, probably because the P3D engine is outdated (2006)?

So it's scaled to real world data? why then does X-plane give better perception with the same monitor, settings, & zoom?

 

I must be missing a piece of the puzzle seems weird to me, probably because the P3D engine is outdated (2006)?

No, but X-Plane has a different set of views than the Microsoft/L-M product, and you are likely scaling things different by your view settings. BTW, I can take a camera in the real world and give you a lot of different perspectives and perceptions, just by the zoom level (wide, tele, how much?), exposure settings (affect focus, among other things), distance from the subject, and more. It's the same in the sims.

Just think of it as the sims using different cameras, which is basically the difference.

BTW, that .7 zoom setting is a wide angle lens. The 1.0 setting gives a bit more accurate perspective (more like a normal lens, such as 50mm in the 35mm film format), but the field of view is often too narrow for many purposes.

So it's scaled to real world data? why then does X-plane give better perception with the same monitor, settings, & zoom?

 

I must be missing a piece of the puzzle seems weird to me, probably because the P3D engine is outdated (2006)?

Probably because X-Plane is not using the same zoom. What evidence do you have that it does?

You're just making judgments based on perception, not fact.

Now for the simmer perception IS fact, so if you're happy with the perception in X-Plane, I'd just stick with that.

I'd be pretty surprised if any sim was scaled correctly. I remember a payware developer back in the day for Fs2002 and FS9 always said a zoom of 0.50 was 'correct'. I've always ran that zoom and seemed to be pretty good.

In FSX, 0.40 seemed to be roughly identical. Now I run 0.40 in FS9 and it seems even better with a much better perspective on the ground at any altitude. The feeling of speed is greatly enhanced and now actually feels like you really are flying at 140-180 kts when close to the ground.

I watched a video of a VFR approach at St Barts. Flying downwind over the island then turning around a hill, over the bay then over the beach to land.

Tried the same with Fly Tampa's TNCM / St Barts scenery and it didn't even feel close to the same. The islands feel like that it is at maybe 75% of the real thing. Both in FS9/FSX, this is what it feels like. A smaller miniature world.

I guess it IS only a simulation. Zooming out seems to be the only way to fix it.

It IS scaled correctly. The data used is not "invented", it's actual real world data that is used by GPS makers, mapmakers, etc and is extremely accurate overall.

Unfortunately we live in a 2D world on our monitors - each person's perception will be different due to monitor and zoom factor. The data is accurate, how each individual makes use of it is not.

So, to the OP, if you don't "perceive" it realistically, it's your settings, not the sim. Keep adjusting until your perception changes.

Vic

I remember a payware developer back in the day for Fs2002 and FS9 always said a zoom of 0.50 was 'correct'.

Remember, you're just looking through a "camera" which, just as a real world camera, can distort things or not, depending on which lens (or how much zoom), along with the viewing angle and lighting. So that 0.5 being correct might have been true for some set of circumstances in a particular sim.

If you want to check "scale," then fly time and distance vs. ground speed to check distance accuracy, and set up climbs and descents at a specific rate of climb or descent and time it vs. how soon you get to an altitude or to the ground to check height accuracy, perhaps using (if your mesh is high density) a mountain peak for altitude accuracy.

I've done all that and more, and the results always, ALWAYS, came out to be as I'd have expected from doing the same thing in the real world. That was almost true (horizontally, at least) in FS98, but in FS9 and later it's DEFINITELY true.

Again, in the sim you are looking through a potentially distorting "camera," not through a set of eyes, that can look right or not, depending on your settings.

One thing to note is that even though the world is correctly scaled, the look of the autogen buildings and vegetation skews the perception even with properly zoomed views.

Autogen houses and trees are generally considerably too large which makes urban areas as well as dense forests look much less impressive than in real life.

Basically I believe the 1km landclass tiles with urban neighborhoods are not scaled properly or the amount of generated autogen would be overkill on any system.

Remember, you're just looking through a "camera" which, just as a real world camera, can distort things or not, depending on which lens (or how much zoom), along with the viewing angle and lighting. So that 0.5 being correct might have been true for some set of circumstances in a particular sim.

 

If you want to check "scale," then fly time and distance vs. ground speed to check distance accuracy, and set up climbs and descents at a specific rate of climb or descent and time it vs. how soon you get to an altitude or to the ground to check height accuracy, perhaps using (if your mesh is high density) a mountain peak for altitude accuracy.

 

I've done all that and more, and the results always, ALWAYS, came out to be as I'd have expected from doing the same thing in the real world. That was almost true (horizontally, at least) in FS98, but in FS9 and later it's DEFINITELY true.

 

Again, in the sim you are looking through a potentially distorting "camera," not through a set of eyes, that can look right or not, depending on your settings.

I have done that and ‘flown’ in many areas I’ve flown in real life or places I’ve lived. And flightsim world is definitely smaller. Messing around with some small airports in places I’ve visited, using accurate google measurements never seems to work.

It’s a bit of fantasy, but I guess a nice one, to expect it to be the ‘exact’ same size.

The flightsim world is NOT smaller. It is the actual same size (as far as land, etc).

The problem, as stated earlier, is the viewpoint in the sim is NOT the same as IRL so one perceives the "world" to be smaller.

But it is the same.

Vic

What zoom levels do you guys recommend, I tried 0.50 but it was too zoomed out for me, should I disable wide view aspect in the CFG would that help with the feeling.

Now that I know it is scaled correctly all I need to do is adjust the camera, as for autogen is there a addon or mod that decreases the size of the houses & trees?

What zoom levels do you guys recommend, I tried 0.50 but it was too zoomed out for me, should I disable wide view aspect in the CFG would that help with the feeling.

 

Now that I know it is scaled correctly all I need to do is adjust the camera, as for autogen is there a addon or mod that decreases the size of the houses & trees?

Try them all, stick with what works for you.

It's PERCEPTION, not reality...

Have you every had a monitor with one dead pixel? One in the thousands of pixels and THAT'S the one you see, no matter what. I have a feeling that your issue with scaling is somewhat like this. Set it around .5 and just fly for a week. Don't "look" to find errors, just fly.

Just like FPS, don't look at the counter - if your fight is smooth - what difference does it make if the fps is 20 or 60?

Less analysis and more enjoyment.

Vic