RFX Development a dead duck?

[12oclockhigh]

More trolling behavior? Some people are paid to promote products. I am not. Smaller words?

[TomC]

Originally Posted by 12oclockhigh

More trolling behavior? Some people are paid to promote products. I am not. Smaller words?

Ya, maybe smaller and fewer words would help, lol!

[tenngunner]

So, I bought a discount version of RF-X from Tower about a year ago. Does this mean I wasted my money? I have never installed RF-X bc we have a pretty good flying season here in E. TN year round.

Should I install it when my new shop computer arrives, or just bag it??

[TomC]

Originally Posted by tenngunner

So, I bought a discount version of RF-X from Tower about a year ago. Does this mean I wasted my money? I have never installed RF-X bc we have a pretty good flying season here in E. TN year round.

Should I install it when my new shop computer arrives, or just bag it??

Up to you. Keep in mind that besides installing your RF-X disk you will also need to download the latest Beta 1.5 update. Depending on your d/l speed this can take several hours, including a few re-starts. Also takes up a lot of space on your PC (~30gb).


latest 1.5 beta;

https://www.knifeedge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33036

Like you I bought a disk-only version from Tower earlier this year. I already had a RF7.5 Interlink Elite controller. After getting it all going with the beta 1.5 update, including VR with my Oculus Rift, I felt I had wasted my time (and $'s) and I have now uninstalled it and just use RF8 (which works great and has better physics imho).


If it is still nib, maybe re-gift it to someone you don't like, lol! Just kidding.

[12oclockhigh]

You do need a good computer with a good graphics card.

Check out the RF-X system requirements to make your decision. Many of us love it. I can only see it getting better with time.

It really is the future of VR flight simulators.

[tenngunner]

Tnx for the feedback, Guys. I will think about it for a while. since I have only 1/2 the list price, I don't have even an airplane's worth invested. lol

[Bellah1z]

Originally Posted by 12oclockhigh

You do need a good computer with a good graphics card.

Check out the RF-X system requirements to make your decision. Many of us love it. I can only see it getting better with time.

It really is the future of VR flight simulators.

hey 12 O'clock I wonder if there will be a Horizon rebirth?

[Marvo32168]

What has happened to RF 7.5 & RF-X? No updates, not a word. We all have been scammed for buying this software!

What a Waste

[csgill75]

7.5 won't ever receive anymore updates since RF8 was released. RF-X may or may not be updated further since the publisher was purchased by Horizon Hobbies.

[Bellah1z]

Originally Posted by csgill75

7.5 won't ever receive anymore updates since RF8 was released. RF-X may or may not be updated further since the publisher was purchased by Horizon Hobbies.

I Can understand RF 7 being put out to pasture as RF8 superseded it but poor RFX has been left an orphan child, so much promise. I wish the publisher would just say that it is a dead duck and it goes onto the scrap heap with all the other half completed Indi software and we can all move on !

[TomC]

Originally Posted by Bellah1z

I Can understand RF 7 being put out to pasture as RF8 superseded it but poor RFX has been left an orphan child, so much promise. I wish the publisher would just say that it is a dead duck and it goes onto the scrap heap with all the other half completed Indi software and we can all move on !

I hate to say this but I think that Ikarus, Germany may have beaten RFX to the punch with it's new Aerofly RC8 release. I bought the download version from their webstore yesterday (late Xmas pressie from my wife who did not know what to buy me, lol!). Man it was friggin expensive ($aud340. or ~ $US240 after PP currency conversions from 199 euros).

I mainly bought AeroFly RC8 for VR with my Oculus Rift and currently I believe it has only been optimised for the Rift and Vive. There is no mention of WMR support so you would need to ask them about this. I no longer have a WMR headset so I cannot test this out.

So far (early days) but in VR this seems to be a cut above RF8 and RFX. Like everything I'm sure there are trade offs. I'm still not convinced it is worth ~2.4x the price of either of these RF products but time will tell. Support has been pretty good so far. I had a couple of questions that got answered to my satisfaction within ~12 hours.

For now all I can say is that Aerofly RC8 VR only works well in the RC8 4D fields (~equiv to RF8 3D fields). These are kinda limited (= 8x 4d fields right now) but, like Wright Island in RFX, many of them are interconnected over a fairly large and impressive flying area.

Like Aeorfly FS2 it seems to utilise cpu multi-cores so VR FPS are very good (90fps is pretty easy with a good gaming PC). However, it is still a kinda lifeless world and as far as a serious non-RC flight simulator goes, X-Plane 11 is still best, even at lower fps imho.

No actual Aerofly RC8 VR vids out there yet although I'm sure some will come out soon. With my limited PC skills I doubt that I will be able to provide any in the near future, lol! Here is a bit of current RC8 info fyi;

https://www.ikarus.net/en/rc8-features/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9soIp5YccQ

[Bellah1z]

Thanks for the tip Tom C, just went and bought it and will give it a crack as it may very well be what RFX could have been. I don't know why the new owners would destroy a franchise like RFX that so many of us supported. For me all they needed to say is what was happening with it and their development timeline and when it all goes silent it makes me think of all those half finished idie type games on Steam …. orphaned to die and milk what ever money they can by people not realising its dead.

[0xdeadbeef]

I also updated Aerofly RC7 to RC8 recently but find it quite disappointing.

Actually, while they claim to use a new 3D engine, I can't see much of an improvement and IMHO even the 3D fields of RF7.5 look better than the "4D" fields of Aerofly. Like the new "St. Gallen" is OKish at the default position, but in free flight, the 3D models, textures and ground detail look absolutely terrible (like from the 90s or so). Side note: Aerofly doesn't even have any kind of water.
So gfx wise, RFX is definitely much closer to "state of the art" - even though there's a lot to be desired compared to open world games of the last five years or so.
Besides, RC8 removed quite a few features from RC7 (e.g. "keep ground in view"), the auto-zoom doesn't seem to work at all and the flight model was changed to the worse at least for some planes like the small foam Extra. While they were at it, they also made it incompatible to RC7, so you currently can't import any user made models etc. Plus there are bugs regarding fullscreen mode etc.
I guess the only really reason to get RC8 would be the VR mode which I pesonally can't/won't use.

[TomC]

Originally Posted by 0xdeadbeef

I also updated Aerofly RC7 to RC8 recently but find it quite disappointing.

Actually, while they claim to use a new 3D engine, I can't see much of an improvement and IMHO even the 3D fields of RF7.5 look better than the "4D" fields of Aerofly. Like the new "St. Gallen" is OKish at the default position, but in free flight, the 3D models, textures and ground detail look absolutely terrible (like from the 90s or so). Side note: Aerofly doesn't even have any kind of water.
So gfx wise, RFX is definitely much closer to "state of the art" - even though there's a lot to be desired compared to open world games of the last five years or so.
Besides, RC8 removed quite a few features from RC7 (e.g. "keep ground in view"), the auto-zoom doesn't seem to work at all and the flight model was changed to the worse at least for some planes like the small foam Extra. While they were at it, they also made it incompatible to RC7, so you currently can't import any user made models etc. Plus there are bugs regarding fullscreen mode etc.
I guess the only really reason to get RC8 would be the VR mode which I pesonally can't/won't use.

What are your pc specs and what graphics quality settings you are using? With my fairly good gaming/VR pc I def see good water, including ripple effects, and very good ground textures with RC8 around Norrison Island 4D flying site with my RC8 graphics quality setting = high. This site is like Wright Island in rfx in that it has lots of alternative airstrips and places to explore. this is in both VR and non-VR modes.

It's a bit too early for me to give a proper comparison between RF8, RFX, and RC8 because RC8 still has a few of the usual 1st version bugs to work out. Once these are fixed and RC8 is more stable I will try to give you my thoughts then. For now I can say that I'm really enjoying RC8 in VR mode with my Oculus Rift and I'm still glad I purchased it, albeit maybe a bit too early, lol!

[0xdeadbeef]

Originally Posted by TomC

What are your pc specs and what graphics quality settings you are using?

Well, yeah, even though I don't see the point, I have an RTX2080 and a Core i7-6700K, so not even RFX gives me troubles, but RC8 seem to be more comparable to classic RealFlight versions like 7.5 (I didn't mind to upgrade to RF8).
RFX is a totally different class, no matter how you look at it (geometry detail, lighting, water shader, grass/flowers/corn etc.).
Again, fly around a bit outside the church area in St. Gallen and be prepared to experience 3D from the 90s. Houses constructed from a few polygons, a totally blurry ground and bland repetitive textures that don't care if a window sits at the corner or directly under the roof.

Originally Posted by TomC

What are your pc specs and what graphics quality settings you are using? With my fairly good gaming/VR pc I def see good water, including ripple effects, and very good ground textures with RC8 around Norrison Island 4D flying site with my RC8 graphics quality setting = high. This site is like Wright Island in rfx in that it has lots of alternative airstrips and places to explore. this is in both VR and non-VR modes.

Admittedly my remark about water was a bit short and inaccurate. So there is water visible in the 4D fields, but there is no real water simulation. Like you can ram a 24kg plane into the water surface and still only the nose will submerge a bit and then the whole plane (or its parts) will rest slightly wobbling on the surface.
Even in much older version of Realflight, you could touch the water surface with a wing tip or the tail and there would be a foam/wave effect on the surface etc.
With RC8, every touching of the water surface leads to an immediate crash. In (RC8) panoramas/photofields, it's even worse. Water seems to be a very sticky surface that destroys your plane. Actually, you can even fly under the water surface in one of the RC8 panoramas/photofields.