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FlightGear Reaches v2.0

Posted by timothy on from the on-wings-of-eagles dept.

distantbody writes "The flight sim project FlightGear has reached version 2.0. From the website: 'Highlights of this new version include: Dramatic new 3D clouds, dramatic lighting conditions, improved support for custom scenery, and many many new and detailed aircraft models.' Full list of improvements here. And of course the screenshots. The release coincides with the release of SimGear v2, the 'set of open-source libraries designed to be used as building blocks for quickly assembling 3d simulations, games, and visualization applications' on which FlightGear is based."

52 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Great work, FlightGear team! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I just want to give a huge THANKS to the FlightGear team. They've put out an excellent flight sim that rivals commercial offerings. It's amazingly fun to play.

    What's more interesting, I've heard to some projects in Japan where they use it to make a hentai simulators. The SimGear framework is just that flexible.

    1. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      FlightGear has a long way to go before it can rival Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

    2. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      FlightGear is still being maintained.

    3. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by bami · · Score: 4, Funny

      Enough is enough! I've had it with these motherfucking tentacles on this motherfucking plane!

    4. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 4, Informative

      We get your point. However I don't know about FSX being 'better' in much other than graphics and community size. FlightGear and X-Plane may not be as pretty as FSX when the latter has all the options turned up but at least they are playable on regular hardware. FSX is a *total dog* on anything less than ultra-expensive hardware and even then you still can't turn everything up to ultra. Plus FSX doesn't work on anything other than Windows, unlike X-Plane or FlightGear. I also personally found the flight model of FSX to feel wrong compared to my own real world flying - it feels 'hackily optimised' for the sake of performance (the usual MS story I guess). X-Plane has a much more realistic feel when you spin or stall-turn. For example the flight path marker on the Acceleration F-18 doesn't work right. I guess plenty of people have not flown in real life and so can't tell how crap FSX really is compared to the suposedly 'inferior' competitors. Finally. Longevity does matter. The Tortoise wins the race, not the Hare. So far MS has been the tortoise, improving SubLogic FlightSim continually even when it was initially inferior to other sims at various stages. Now MS have growth woes and they've dropped the ball on FSX. The golden days of FlightSimulator are over and they're not coming back. I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it - I'd suggest trying X-Plane or FlightGear.

    5. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by ooshna · · Score: 1

      Thats Samuel L. Jackson's next movie "Tentacles on a muthafuckin' Plane"

    6. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by ooshna · · Score: 1

      Damn it always being redundant and late.

    7. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Have you seen x-plane 9? It beats MSFS in every way, including graphics now.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    8. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by BlueBlasphemy · · Score: 1

      Cthulu on a Plane?

    9. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by Scoth · · Score: 1

      X-Plane's biggest problem now is lack of scenery. Everything is in place for it to be premier - Terrain, planes, flight model accuracy, etc. But there's still quite limited "landmark" scenery, and a lot of the best is payware. MSFS has had, for a good couple decades now, readily available scenery for major cities with all sorts of recognizable landmarks and every release has added more. I still fly X-Plane a ton more, but I still fire up MSFS when I want to do some sight-seeing. It's really the last thing holding back X-Plane.

      I've also been involved in the X-P community for awhile now, and the lead author, Austin Meyer, can be a bit... eccentric, in a Jobsian sort of way.

    10. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      I have not tried X9 but one of the big things that FS has going for it is the community.
      I admit I am an odd FS user but I don't like flying fighters, bombers, or airliners in FS.
      I love to fly GA and Homebuilts. There is a very good Aircamper for FS9.

      Now you have me wondering just how hard it would be to make scenery for XP.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    11. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by Scoth · · Score: 1

      X-P has a pretty decently tight-knit, if somewhat eccentric community. The main mailing list has a lot of older pilots (60-80 year olds) so it occasionally devolves into semi-OT stories from the 50s and even WWII. Even so it's fascinating.

      There's a pretty decent planemaking community, but MSFS probably has a much wider range of random stuff available.

      I haven't done any scenerymaking, but I'm told it's kind of a pain currently. The primary format changed awhile back and the dev tools haven't caught up yet. Ultimately I can't imagine it's too terribly difficult though.

    12. Re:Great work, FlightGear team! by Spit · · Score: 1

      X-Plane is a beautiful piece of software and even the generic terrain is great. And now that MSFS is defunct, scenery designers pretty much have no choice but to work for X-Plane in the longer term.

      Lack of real landmark scenery can be a pain for VFR navigation, but then again it's a good way to get in tune with the panel if you want to land.

      --
      POKE 36879,8
  2. Already 503'd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Wow. First-ish post and I am already seeing 503 errors from the "Recent Announcement" links.
    Maybe they crashed their own servers prior to this getting submitted in anticipation of /.?

  3. slashdotted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because the main site seems to be struggling, here's the wikipedia page.

  4. Their web server? by Das+Auge · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Crash and burn...

    1. Re:Their web server? by euyis · · Score: 3, Informative

      FlightGear planes don't really burn or break up after a crash...

    2. Re:Their web server? by Nuskrad · · Score: 4, Informative

      FlightGear planes don't really burn or break up after a crash

      According to the Wikipedia article, starting fires when planes crash is a new feature of 2.0.0

    3. Re:Their web server? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      It's a flight simulator, not a crash simulator.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:Their web server? by Elektroschock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I mean honestly, who expected Flightgear to take the place of FlightSimulator... That is the advantage of such open source software. It develops.

    5. Re:Their web server? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Flight Simulator 4 let you turn of crash detection, so your plane wasn't wrecked when you flew it into the ground. If you aimed straight downwards and opened the throttle, the game would crash instead of the plane (more accurately, it would enter an infinite loop trying to work out where the plane should be, and not respond to user input). Apparently this was a feature.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:Their web server? by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      Did they fix it in 4.0c? Because I recall doing exactly that and the plane just bouncing.

    7. Re:Their web server? by jamesh · · Score: 1

      It's a flight simulator, not a crash simulator.

      But how can you have one with out the other? Crashing is an important part of flying, equally important to any other aspect of a simulator. Or at least it is when I play.

    8. Re:Their web server? by Scoth · · Score: 1

      Never ran into this either in 4.0, though given the nature of airplane flight it'd be pretty tricky to hit the ground at *exactly* straight down. I was pretty young and definitely tried out all the different ways of crashing things.

  5. Their servers are soaring by ElMiguel · · Score: 1
    Much like the Hindenburg.

    And MirrorDot seems to be down, too.

  6. How good is it ? by Dolphinzilla · · Score: 1

    Seems interesting, I guess the download has been disabled for now... So how does it stack up against X-Plane ??

  7. YouTube by Das+Auge · · Score: 1

    Here's a video showing a (I guess) Harrier Jump Jet and the new clouds. A blood red sky.

    It looks alright. Though the textures lack detail and look a little cartoonish for it. I've downloaded it to my Ubuntu PC at home via Vino, and I'll give it a try tonight when I get home.

    1. Re:YouTube by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it just me or do the clouds have massive depth-sorting problems at 1 minute 45 seconds...?

      --
      No sig today...
  8. Not in Ubuntu repos by gilgongo · · Score: 1

    "On Ubuntu, FlightGear can now be installed using the "synaptic" tool"

    Nope. It's on 1.9.1-1ubuntu1 as far as I can see.

    --
    "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
  9. Dramatic! by markdavis · · Score: 1

    That's like, dramatic! :)

    Seriously, Flightgear is a great game. Congrats!

  10. Graphics by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

    My first question is-- what is wrong with this guy's face?
    http://www.flightgear.org/Gallery-v2.0/target32.html

    My second question is--
    What's he got in his hand?????

    1. Re:Graphics by bami · · Score: 1

      1) A combination of automatic smoothing groups and a planar UVW map (in other words: lazy modelling)
      2) A joystick. I hope not the one out of his pants.

  11. Re:My apologies for a threadjack. by QuoteMstr · · Score: 1

    Huh? Something changed?

    I've been using the classic discussion interface for over a decade. Switch to it through "help/preferences" -> "preferences" -> "discussions" -> "viewing".

  12. Re:My apologies for a threadjack. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    The classic discussion interface has changed too, it's actually more buggy than the 2.0 one at this point since apparently Slashdot hasn't heard of "regression testing".

    All of the following buggy screenshots were taken with discussion 1.0 turned on:

    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/cant_save_prefs.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/email_options.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/floating_div_corrupted.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/floating_div_font_size.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/people_modifiers_cutoff.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/post_headers.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/post_reply_buttons.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/reply_button_with_growths.png (My particular favorite, still unfixed-- looking at it right now as I post!)
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/sectional_options.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/section_collapsed.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/slashdot_idle_comments.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/slashdot_idle_template.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/slashdot_user_template.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/thread_outline.png
    http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot/weird_blue_oval.png

    Anyway, the lesson learned here is that Slashdot is extremely buggy. All those images come from bug reports I've entered against it... very, very few of them have been fixed. (Maybe 2 or 3 of the entire lot? I'm too lazy to log into SourceForce, the worst bug tracking tool in the universe, to check.)

    I submitted all those bugs in response to an editor who complained that I was griping about Slashdot without helping the project in any way. So I put in the bugs to help the project, and gasp shock amaze, Slashdot still sucks ass. Consider that a win for my side.

    The other lesson learned here is don't bother to submit bug reports against Slashdot, like most open source projects they simply do not give a fuck about user-submitted bugs. Your time would be more productively spent smashing your forehead into a wall.

    --
    Comment of the year
  13. windows only by farble1670 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and they forget to mention, version 2.0 is only available for windows. the linux and mac versions are still at 1.9.x.

    1. Re:windows only by farble1670 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      why obviously? they generated a windows dist. that's the attitude that keeps linux from moving forward on the desktop ... telling people they need to compile it from source before they can use it.

    2. Re:windows only by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Lets think about it like we have a brain.

      A) Most Linux users are capable of compiling their own apps, its rather common since most Linux distros come with a compiler, and you've almost certainly compiled things in the past for that app that doesn't work right on your distro or in your setup or whatever it happens to be due to the millions of possible combinations of distros and base software distrubtions, you can assume nothing about the environment you'll be running in when you distributed compiled binaries 'for Linux'. Packages for a specific distro are another matter, much easier to deal with for a particular version.

      B) Most windows users don't have a compiler installed, this is another indication that of A, that its expected that Linux users can compile.

      C) Even between the 7 or 8 versions of Windows from 95 to now, compatibility between them is still rather high, especially if you use the proper system calls to lookup various paths. Simply not true with Linux. Linux has in several different 'system' level subsystems which can be swapped out with several completely different unrelated implementations that may or may not work anything like the original, whatever that was depending on distro. If you don't understand why thats hard to target, then you have no right making the comments you are making.

      D) For every potential Linux user of FlightGear, there are 10s of thousands of Windows simulator fans. The effort to produce one compiled binary for all of the Windows user is tiny from a potential per user standpoint. Linux suffers from a much smaller user base, fragmented across several different distros with their own quirks.

      E) In this particular case, the primary developer of the Windows port got his binaries made and posted first, now you're waiting on other distro package maintainers to do their job. This is how the OSS development model works when keeping up with Linux, if you don't like it, I suggest using an alternative that is more popular and likely to be higher on the list of priorities.

      As has been stated by pretty much every professional development company in the world, targeting Linux for desktop apps is a freaking nightmare that just isn't worth the effort.

      I don't buy games when they come out anymore, they are a rip off at the price point they sell them and full of crappy DRM and new things now to try and force everyone to buy a copy new rather than trading or buying/selling used.

      I don't bitch about not getting games soon enough because I have special requirements that others don't have. I just wait till the games come down in price, have already been patched for all the major problems they rushed and ignored during the initial release, my hardware is generally more than adequate since the games are generally a year old before I buy them so I'm usually running on new enough gear.

      If you choose to ignore the mainstream, and take the a ride with the little guy or the non-standard path, you kinda have to expect that its going to be a rougher ride.

      Linux isn't going to change in this aspect. Developers don't give a shit about you, they care about them and what they want. They can compile. Until you motivate them to care more about you than their wishes, its not going to change. So the only devs really working on what end users want are going to be working at companies like IBM, which while it does put a fair amount of effort into Linux dev, it doesn't put in enough to 'fix' that problem by itself.

      As long as Linux remains community driven, it will remain with issues like these, there is 0 motivation for anything else to happen, and there simply aren't enough educated/talented developers out there who have low enough self esteem to spend their free time making someone else happy rather working on the things they enjoy working on, and far far too few (myself included) give a shit about making it easier for YOU to install something. If it works for me, its good enough, heres the patch, someone else can fix it for themselves if they want it. Welcome to OSS, get used to it.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    3. Re:windows only by redkazuo · · Score: 1

      It's obvious because Windows doesn't have distros or package managers, the installation system is not a pleasant experience, but it's pretty much unified across most windows flavors.

      Linux, on the other hand, has many different installation systems. It's not reasonable to ask of the developers to create several distinct packages that would probably get rejected by the package system maintainers anyway.

      They could provide an installer to x32, but it's not encouraged by many distros to install things that way, and it still would leave out people on different platforms and require lots of libraries at specific versions.

    4. Re:windows only by advocate_one · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A) Most Linux users are capable of compiling their own apps, its rather common since most Linux distros come with a compiler, and you've almost certainly compiled things in the past for that app that doesn't work right on your distro or in your setup or whatever it happens to be due to the millions of possible combinations of distros and base software distrubtions, you can assume nothing about the environment you'll be running in when you distributed compiled binaries 'for Linux'. Packages for a specific distro are another matter, much easier to deal with for a particular version.

      got news for you the vast majority of Linux users do not know how to do this anymore... most distros do not need you to get down and dirty in the command line to install software... the package will be there in the repositories, not necessarily the absolute latest, but a recent stable one.

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    5. Re:windows only by Anrego · · Score: 1

      this is what holds linux back from being a mainstream desktop

      And in my opinion, well it should!

      For Linux to appeal to the common user, stuff has to just work without needing a proxy to make it work for them (i.e. package maintainers) or getting it to work themselves (i.e. compiling it). For this to work, Linux has to become standardized.. so that people don't have to worry about supporting my favourite stack vs some other gentoo (or other distro) user's.

      And then you basically just have a cheaper, more open version of windows.

      Personally I see Linux as a playground. I can mess around with stuff.. write custom patches.. play with different implementations of core tools.. etc. It's not productive, or even sane.. but I enjoy it.

      Call me selfish.. but I miss the days where unless you were a hard core geek..you'd never even hear the name "Linux". I'd rather a relatively unheard of Linux than a ubiquitous Linux in the Ubuntu vision.

      You want something that just works.. get windows.. or a mac! (Seriously.. not trolling.. I think either are good if you want to just come home at the end of the day and have a usable computer)

    6. Re:windows only by natehoy · · Score: 1

      I debated whether to mod this flamebait due to the obvious flamebait parts of your post, but mixed into the unfounded insults you actually make a salient point, so I'll respond to the valid point instead.

      The reason distros are out there is to make installs easy. Each distro manager takes applications they want to support and builds an installer that suits their distro for each application. This means that someone who understands and maintains the distro has compiled the application and confirmed that it uses dependent objects that are compatible with other dependencies required by the other applications they support. The problem is that software uses common libraries (Windows calls them DLLs) and changing the underlying library to accommodate one bit of software can break another. Windows and Linux approach that problem in markedly different ways.

      Linux users used to install a lot of their own software manually. Anyone can still do it, and many do, but if you have a dependency on a specific bit of supporting software, you can break existing software by upgrading that dependency for your new software. But the same is true of a bit of Windows software that overwrites a DLL that other software is dependent on.

      Repositories solve this problem in Linux by marking software with metadata indicating what it depends on, and what specific versions of each dependency are required. If you upgrade a dependency and it will break compatibility with other software you have installed, the repository will warn you of this.

      Windows is only available as one set of underlying system services, and they are by and large compatible. But updates to those system services can and do break existing software packages, and since Windows lacks a repository it's a harder problem to solve, so it's largely just ignored, and sometimes it causes problems.

      Since Microsoft does not do software repositories, but has a pretty standard install base, the authors of FlightGear can build a Microsoft version that can be installed today. There is no guarantee that the version will be free of DLL conflicts since there is no central software repository to manage dependencies, but it'll probably work for the vast majority of Windows installs. No one at Microsoft has vetted the install, so good luck. It'll probably work. And it probably won't break anything else. But there's no one looking out for you on that.

      Since Linux does have software and dependency repositories, and volunteers checking compatibility for your specific distro, it may take a little while for the repository manager of your favorite repo to download the source from the FlightGear team, check dependencies, and make sure it will compile on your distro. He/she may need to upgrade a few dependencies and update some other software to be compatible with that new dependency. But once it's done, you can be assured that the install will work, all the tools you need to run it will be available, and it won't break any software you have installed today.

      If you're eager and willing, you can download the source yourself, put it in a folder, and type MAKE, then find any dependencies it needs and resolve them yourself.

      You can also add FlightGear's repository which will allow you to install 2.0 right now, and will warn you about compatibility problems with any existing dependencies you may have today. That's very much like a Windows install, except you get a warning if you are about to break compatibility with some software you have installed today.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    7. Re:windows only by ploxiln · · Score: 1

      So, I'm only getting to reading this some days late, but...
      flightgear was updated to 2.0 in the archlinux repositories on the same day you made this comment:
      http://www.archlinux.org/packages/?q=flightgear

      Personally I don't mind that linux doesn't "move forward" quite the same way windows and mac does. On linux, I can get whatever I want right now, or if I don't care that much I can wait a while and get it automatically. On windows and mac, I can't really get exactly what I want either way. Well I guess I could, but hacking closed-source and non-configurable binaries is way more work than I want to get into (with props to vlite / nlite / osx86 project).

  14. not great by farble1670 · · Score: 1

    installed (version 1.9.1) on linux. constant crackling from my speakers. when i tried to quit, it hung. used the little "kill window" utility, and it left a process running that was burning up my CPU. all in all not a great experience.

    1. Re:not great by CharlieThePilot · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hold your horses... the new linux version is usually available a few days after the Windows builds.

  15. A suggestion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you're going to post to Slashdot saying "Come download our new version!", do us all a favor and set up a torrent and a tracker.

  16. Good Timing by rat7307 · · Score: 1

    Just bought a new PC for a dedicated Sim box, so the timing is perfect.

    FG 1.9.1 sound was a bit buggy on my old 2.8GHz Arch system, and I figure the old Celeron needed replacing.

    I'm learning to fly right now and I find the flight model in FG is mostly accurate (the niggles I have are minor and not that important), and given MS have dumped Flight Simulator it looks like more focus will be on FlightGear and XPlane.

    (I really upgraded my box for XPlane, but I have been using Flightgear for years on and off)

    Here's hoping more people get behind it and bring more planes and scenery on board (and tools to make them!)

    --
    Burma?
    1. Re:Good Timing by multisync · · Score: 1

      I'm going to be putting together a new system soon to be used primarily for simming, and I'm curious about the specs of your new system, and how it's performed with the sim software you've run on it. I'm currently running FS9 and Orbiter an older Athlon system. I want to upgrade so I can run FSX and X-Plane. Any advise you can share from your upgrade experience would be appreciated.

      --
      I don't care why you're posting AC
  17. Maps? by Osmosis_Garett · · Score: 1

    Its great to see them making advances in their software, but they'll never crack the casual market until they have some excellent or better land maps. Everyone I know who plays flight sims plans their routes around known land features and uses the flight as a way to enjoy the visuals. A relatively few people play to experience the 'real' flight physics over the 'real' appearance of flying past their house.

  18. Anybody else?..... by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

    Anybody else manage to download the Win32 version, then check the SHA sum against the listed sum given on the d/l webpage?? I'll wait and try downloading it again later...

    --
    THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
  19. TFA raises questions... by Shadukar · · Score: 1

    Can clouds be dramatic at all ? Do they have to be 3d or can 2d clouds also be dramatic ?

  20. Re:My apologies for a threadjack. by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

    I have a bunch of other errors, and collecting more as time goes on. The requirement to register and enter bugzilla when you're just trying to browse the site and give a real bug report should be telling. If they didn't have so many bugs, they'd not mind a stray e-mail or two describing what's happening. Nope, they can't keep up with that, so users have to do it. And just wait in case someone feels like fixing it. This goes back to well before I had an account.

    Most open-source fans I know read slashdot to keep up with tech news... but how can we support a site that doesn't support us?

  21. Re:My apologies for a threadjack. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

    Yah I know, except at the time I took that screenshot:
    1) The font color and background color were nearly identical, making it impossible to see the !. (Unless YOU can see it in that screenshot, maybe you have a better monitor than mine.)
    2) The rollover was implemented in such a way that it was completely impossible to click it. The instant you moved your mouse towards it to click it, it would disappear.

    Like I said, some of those bugs have been fixed (although the bugs in the bugtracker have never been *marked* as fixed.) Slashdot development is basically a classic Developmestuction Environment: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Developmestuction_Environment.aspx

    --
    Comment of the year