Since the Wright brothers built the first powered aircraft, humans have more than 100 years of aviation history. In modern society, people often travel by air. Flying has become an important mode of travel for human beings. However, due to the high price of aircraft and the high requirements for the quality of pilots, ordinary people often cannot see the beauty of the cockpit. How to realize the flying dream of ordinary people? In fact, as early as the 1970s, some people came up with the idea of using a computer to simulate flight.
In 1976, a graduate student in the Department of Electronic Engineering called Bruce Artwick proposed in a set of articles on 3D computer graphics programs The idea of simulating flight on a computer was shown, and a model capable of simulating airplane navigation was displayed on the then popular 6800 microprocessor computer. Seeing the market potential of flight simulation, he established his own company subLOGIC in 1976, and developed flight simulation and flight simulation for popular computer platforms such as Apple II, TRS-80, Commodore 64, and Atari 800.II two games.
Although from today, these game screens are very crude. Except for two dashboards and a terrain, the game screen has no more useful information, and the game refresh rate is only about 1fps. And as the terrain lines change, the game speed will inexplicably speed up and slow down. But people did not see such a game at the time, which allows you to fly freely in the sky, even if the ground is just simple geometric lines.
▲ Flight Simulator 1 Picture from: YouTube
In early 1980, flight simulation became one of the most popular Apple II programs at the time. At that time, Microsoft had just shifted its research and development focus from Commodore 64, turning to the IBM-PC platform, urgently needs an interesting game to perfect the system’s ecology. In 1982, Microsoft obtained the authorization for flight simulation, and the name of the game was changed to Microsoft Flight Simulator.
▲ Microsoft Flight Simulator 1
From the first generation of FS, developers have begun to find a balance between the reality of simulation and the entertainment of the game. In addition to simulating aircraft flight, There are many scenes and missions to choose from in the game: including simple combat missions, fertilization by aircraft and insects, etc. These missions can improve the playability of flight simulations and allow players to get incentives on the way to completing missions.
▲ The picture of each generation of FS has improved
With the gradual development of PC graphics performance, Microsoft flight simulation has gradually changed from a simple first-person flight simulator to a Support third person, a large number of landscapes, features more and more detailed scenery simulation games. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, released in 1999, has basically the ability to fully simulate aircraft flight (including real maps, detailed weather). However, the flight simulation interaction at that time was extremely limited. Except for flying airplanes and visiting maps to complete missions, there was only one player’s airplane in the game, and no one could fly with you.
▲ First person perspective of FS 2000
Although you can fly freely in the sky, one’s sky is obviously too deserted. In addition, flight simulation is different from ordinary flight games, and you need to learn some professional aircraft knowledge (such as instrument flight, aerial chart viewing). For beginners, the lack of an interactive environment will make the early entry of the game more boring, and the chance of retreating is greater.
▲ Someone on Taobao sells FS X tutorial. The threshold for entry is high.
Fortunately, in 2006, Microsoft Flight Simulator X was added to multiplayer mode. Although there are still various problems in using it, it is always better. No. In 2014, Microsoft moved Microsoft Flight Simulator X to Steam, and made comprehensive improvements to the multiplayer mode. With a more stable online platform, Microsoft Flight Simulator changed from a simple flight simulator to a communication platform for flight enthusiasts.
In the game, you can take a small plane from Cenas to explore the scenery and the sunset at the edge of the field. You can also drive a Boeing 737 as a captain, and fly between the airports in Tokyo and Shanghai. You can also use MOD and occasionally enjoy two fighter jets.
If one gets tired, find a friend to play with. Not only two planes can be driven to form a formation, but also two people can fly a plane, and work together to share the pilot. If you are not interested in flying around the map, you can also be an traffic controller (ATC) to provide command services for other players to land at the airport.
If you are a novice and want to get started quickly, Microsoft has prepared a series of interactive courses for you, from simple Began to learn from the small aircraft, all the way to the complex civil aviation passenger aircraft. It can be said that Microsoft Flight Simulator X gathers all flying enthusiasts under the same platform, and they can enjoy the fun of flying the blue sky without leaving home.
▲ Microsoft has prepared a tutorial for you
This well-made game has indeed received recognition from the media and players. In 2016 < span class = "ql-author-27436857 ql-size-12"> Time magazine of the United States has ranked the top 50 best video games in history. “Microsoft Flight Simulator X” ranked 23rd, and even exceeded Blizzard’s masterpiece “StarCraft 2”.
▲ The next time you take an airplane, you can ask the captain if you played the ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator’ series when you were a kid. The answer is 80% ‘Played’.
It stands to reason that Microsoft will definitely continue to develop this game, but the competition of similar games in the market is accompanied by entertainment With the increase of players, the proportion of players pursuing real simulation games is getting smaller and smaller. Coincidentally encountered the financial crisis of 2008, under the pressure of layoffs, Microsoft dismissed Aces Game Studio, a simulation flight development studio in 2009, and Microsoft Flight Simulator has since disappeared.
At the E3 game show in 2019, Microsoft announced that it will release Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. The new Microsoft Flight Simulator still has a hard Nuclear professional gameplay. In addition to professional gameplay, it has the ultimate picture quality comparable to the real world. Microsoft used the Bing Map originally used in the VR field for game map construction.
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Based on the global satellite images of Bing Map and the Azure AI algorithm, 3D modeling was used to complete all the landforms and The appearance of the building. Because the map data is too large, Microsoft adopted Project xCloud dynamic streaming technology. Usually only keep maps of standard resolution. After players connect to the Internet, they can download high-resolution maps of their locations from Microsoft’s database.
With up to 50 people connected at the same time, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 allows flight enthusiasts to experience a near-real flight experience . The 50 people here are online at the same time, which does not mean that there can only be 200 people in a game. In fact, the game server can handle 100,000 airplanes at a time. But given the limited computer performance of players, you can only see up to 50 flights within a range of 200 kilometers at a time.
▲ The little yellow dot on the map is the plane of the connected player
It can be said that the multiplayer online mode of Microsoft Flight Simulator has evolved further than the previous room mode. Imagine that if you change an airplane into a car and then a virtual person in the form of VR, this full network connection, which automatically displays the connection mode of nearby players, will further build a virtual online social structure.
▲ Multiple planes appear in the same frame
Maybe future players purchase Microsoft flight simulation, not only want to fly the sky through this game, but also with their friends Team up online and explore the beautiful landscape of the planet by plane.
The picture is from flightsim