PFM chances??

how does anyone find anything in this world?

 

god forbid the issue of fms actually be a more complicated subject than can be adequately expressed in a single word. you tell me what's so wrong about having to actually do some research on what you intend to buy?

This is exactly what I'm arguing for

And ED already does check the quality of the FM, they tell devs that they are required to develop at least a believable FM before they grant the licence.

its fine as it is, the people who care will find the effort to obtain the information they want

the people who can't find the information obviously dont care

this is in response to what you were saying about the labels not being descriptive enough and necessitating forum lurking.

Right but you're posting in a thread which we've all seen before wherein a member of the community (in this case for over a year) hasn't been fully apprised of the overcomplicated system we have

Does that strike you as reasonable?

I've seen dozens of threads like these and they're totally unnecessary and only add to the confusion for prospective new customers.

And the only reason they exist is because the system we have is opaque and bothersome

Even Yo-Yo was on record once as saying it was a nonsense as I recall.

EDs products carry their own PFM brand. If you buy a third party product it has the label EFM which is the 3rd parties version of AFM, they will outline how good this is in their pitch and ED have stated the expectancy to achieve this label, it is then up to you whether you purchase it or not. There should be no expectation that this is going to be as advanced modeling as EDs PFM and why should it, they're not the same devs. No confusion.

yet there are plenty of people who find the fm descriptions perfectly comprehensible, so it must mean there are some people who obfusciate themselves regardless of the lucidity of the information being presented to them.

it doesnt make sense to me that their own responsibility of comprehension should be assigned to someone else.

in the end i just think it's really trivial, like if ed decides to change it to be more accessible to a lower denominator it doesnt affect much of anything, but conversely i dont think it's something that warrants addressing with any sense of urgency.

I don't necessarily think it should be a top priority or anything but it's not very respectful to watermanpc and others like him to insinuate that this is a problem of his own making.

EDs products carry their own PFM brand. If you buy a third party product it has the label EFM which is the 3rd parties version of AFM, they will outline how good this is in their pitch and ED have stated the expectancy to achieve this label, it is then up to you whether you purchase it or not. There should be no expectation that this is going to be as advanced modeling as EDs PFM and why should it, they're not the same devs. No confusion.

So EFM=AFM but may be worse (or better) than ED's own AFM/AFM+ modules and sometimes EFM might even be as good as PFM? I'm certainly confused!

So EFM=AFM but may be worse (or better) than ED's own AFM/AFM+ modules and sometimes EFM might even be as good as PFM? I'm certainly confused!

What is so confusing in the fact that third parties make their own FM which is expected to meet a certain high standard. How can you define a third parties FM otherwise, all you really need to know as a customer is that this is not an ED product but it is ED approved

The fact ED name their FM PFM while every other flight sim uses the definition AFM. Third parties make AFM, ED make AFM yet ED call there own FM PFM. That is all.

If still confused then just accept that it is all AFM. Whether one dev makes a better one than another is really irrelevant to any of this naming business.

PFM= EDs AFM

EFM= 3P AFM

What is so confusing?

The only thing I can think of as is confusing for people that haven't lived through the evolution of the flight models is the why. They have organically devloped and been upgraded and thus people who haven't been around since the A-10C start don't understand why. Essentially all you need to know is there is a MINIMUM standard and its akin to all the developed modules and ED have upgraded even the FC3 ones (still Mig29 to do?) to the same standard. However, the naming literally only tells you it's origin, not it's quality as they have to hit minimum standards and the minimum standard is listed in the mod sub forum. And its all way beyond my comprehension.

its fine as it is, the people who care will find the effort to obtain the information they want

the people who can't find the information obviously dont care

 

this is in response to what you were saying about the labels not being descriptive enough and necessitating forum lurking.

I have actually searched about FM "rating labels" long time ago (believe it or not, I DO care about it),just though (as I already said) EFM wasnt as good as PFM and thus I opened this thread...does this means I "obviously" dont care about FM to make a search to pinpoint the quality of the FM????:huh:...whats more, does this means FM labels cant be improved and are perfect???does this means labels cant be confusing???.

You are not the only one who "understand" how FM labels work mate ;) , but it doesnt mean it cant be confusing nor I could have though EFM had some kind of different quality respect PFM (I just read about this long time ago and had a wrong idea of it), I understand it perfectly but because of that I think it could be improved...of course its not by any means something important, just a healthy discussion.

I don't know what is all the fuss about regarding the FM's. Everything is explained nicely here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=122801 . It says about EFM the following: " What forces and moments are applied to this rigid body from aerodynamics and any other sources except the contact forces is up to EFM developer." So for example in LNS MiG-21 one of the coders is ex MiG-21 pilot, so... do anybody really thinks because it has EFM is less accurate than some modules that have PFM. It has been confirmed by other pilots that the MiG-21 feels the most like flying a real jet. I don't think that the third party developers are constrained in developing less accurate FM than ED. Like it says EFM is just an designation that stands for external flight modeling. And really unless you're not a ex pilot of the aircraft that has been modeled, its unlikely you can tell the difference :). Just enjoy flying you're favorite aircraft, I mean people keep forgetting that not long ago the only study flight sims out there where the ones released in 1990's (Jane's F-15, F-18 and Falcon 4) and nobody complained about them and tough that they where the real thing :) and had lots of fun, and compering them by today standards are like ... I don't know... far less than SFM I suppose.

I don't Know how much difference it really makes, I just bought the Mig-21bis, today and it's AWSOME!

What is so confusing in the fact that third parties make their own FM which is expected to meet a certain high standard. How can you define a third parties FM otherwise, all you really need to know as a customer is that this is not an ED product but it is ED approved

 

The fact ED name their FM PFM while every other flight sim uses the definition AFM. Third parties make AFM, ED make AFM yet ED call there own FM PFM. That is all.

If still confused then just accept that it is all AFM. Whether one dev makes a better one than another is really irrelevant to any of this naming business.

 

PFM= EDs AFM

EFM= 3P AFM

 

What is so confusing?

I'm not sure that's correct, as I thought some ED modules were AFM/AFM+ which would make no sense if PFM=AFM.

My concern about what the various labels actually mean for potential customers stems from the fact I was thinking of buying the Gazelle but then read reviews/posts raising serious questions about the quality of the FM, which makes me question what minimum standard I can expect from an ED-approved AFM third-party module. I understand some of the problems have been fixed now but the Devs are asking customers to be patient and wait for them to find the time to fix the rest. So as far as I can tell, an ED-approved AFM module can have fairly serious flaws in the FM and thus the label is quite meaningless to me and I need to wait and see if other customers report any issues with the FM to know if it's any good.

I'm not aware of such issues arising with any of ED's own PFM modules, so I would tend to be less concerned about waiting for customer feedback before buying one of those.

AFM tends to be used by sim community as an umbrella term covering all "advanced flight models" that are not "simple flight models". In this broadest sense, anything that isn't SFM, is technically AFM.

In DCS speak though, ED defined some "levels" for their own products :

- AFM, first incarnation of ED's advanced flight modeling that appeared in Flaming Cliffs Su-25T

- AFM+, addition of ground handling physics, among other things, into AFM

- PFM is their top-of-the-line one with most intricate and accurate physics for aircraft.

EFM on the hand, means just any kind of non-SFM flight model done by any party outside of ED themselves. It basically means "we didn't do it" :). An EFM can be anywhere between AFM to PFM quality theoretically.

It is really as "simple" as that :)

Thanks for breaking that down WinterH. I finally understand! It seems bound to cause confusion when ED's internal designations indicate the quality of the FM but the external one doesn't and I agree with the earlier suggestion to use EAFM / EAFM+ / EPFM so that customers know what to expect from a module.

I've always taken it pretty straightforward, and believe all this quibbling over semantics is unnecessary.

Simple models are 'weoo yah, we don't need physics'

Professional (or whatever the middle level is, basically the FC3 upgraded models) utilise full physics and simplified avionics.

Advanced is the full simulation model, with clicky stuff in the cockpit.

External merely means it was made by a 3rd party, see their info for further details. Thus far all the 3rd party models have obviously been intended as full simulation modules, so it's pretty obvious what it's 'supposed to be'.

I realise people can be confused by childproof caps, or anything else potentially, but this is not that complicated. It's considerably simpler and less prone to confusion than some of convoluted proposals.

And as others have pointed out, and I have said often over the years : nobody is really going to know how accurate or not anything is unless they've actually flown one. Being a Cessna or 747 pilot does not make one any more qualified to gauge the accuracy of a MiG-21 simulation than a non-pilot like me.

You're all worrying over something that doesn't actually matter, and which can be readily identified by examining the particular module you're interested in in the first place.

Thanks for breaking that down WinterH. I finally understand! It seems bound to cause confusion when ED's internal designations indicate the quality of the FM but the external one doesn't and I agree with the earlier suggestion to use EAFM / EAFM+ / EPFM so that customers know what to expect from a module.

I don't think there can be "EAFM / EAFM+", because EFM, in terms of complexity and applied physics, is on the same level as PFM.

I don't think there can be "EAFM / EAFM+", because EFM, in terms of complexity and applied physics, is on the same level as PFM.

I don't think that's true.

ED have said an EFM interacts with a couple of parts that make up ED's PFM as required by the API, but aside from that it's up to each developer as to what they model and how far they go with it.

I've always taken it pretty straightforward, and believe all this quibbling over semantics is unnecessary.

 

Simple models are 'weoo yah, we don't need physics'

 

Professional (or whatever the middle level is, basically the FC3 upgraded models) utilise full physics and simplified avionics.

 

Advanced is the full simulation model, with clicky stuff in the cockpit.

 

External merely means it was made by a 3rd party, see their info for further details. Thus far all the 3rd party models have obviously been intended as full simulation modules, so it's pretty obvious what it's 'supposed to be'.

 

 

This isn't correct there is a standard flight model NOT simple fight model.

This does take physics into account as well as aircraft parameters albeit at a limited level.

Professional flight model PFM is EDs cutting edge advanced flight model meaning as detailed a flight model that has been attempted within DCS by ED. That is not to say that a 3rd party dev couldn't create a superior FM one day.

System modelling is a separate part of DCS, this includes Standard system SSM (FC3), and Advanced system ASM (DCS). Note the exclusion of simple.

I don't think that's true.

 

ED have said an EFM interacts with a couple of parts that make up ED's PFM as required by the API, but aside from that it's up to each developer as to what they model and how far they go with it.

Perhaps you're right, I'm far from being a FM expert. :)

But judging how Wags describes PFM as "generations beyond an AFM/AFM+", I've always assumed the EFM (in order to meet ED's standards) is also on a level above it, closer to PFM than to AFM/AFM+. I may be completely wrong of course. :D

EFM is totally up to the 3rd party team and their capabilities (not every team has a high-hitter like Yo-Yo on hand). So an EFM could be 1% or 99% of ED's PFM (or anything in between).

Yes clearly it's very clear cut, simple and well understood

No need for change at all

This isn't correct there is a standard flight model NOT simple fight model.

This does take physics into account as well as aircraft parameters albeit at a limited level.

 

Professional flight model PFM is EDs cutting edge advanced flight model meaning as detailed a flight model that has been attempted within DCS by ED. That is not to say that a 3rd party dev couldn't create a superior FM one day.

 

System modelling is a separate part of DCS, this includes Standard system SSM (FC3), and Advanced system ASM (DCS). Note the exclusion of simple.

Yeah, there is a "simplified" physics model, the FC3 aircraft used it for years, and there are still at least two of them that still do, pending upgrade. The MiG-29 (one of my favorites) has a completely different feel to it compared to the ones that have been updated. It's clearly not operating on the same "rule set" as the others. The Hawk is also still clearly on a different rule set, pending upgrade.

Yeah, there is a "simplified" physics model, the FC3 aircraft used it for years, and there are still at least two of them that still do, pending upgrade. The MiG-29 (one of my favorites) has a completely different feel to it compared to the ones that have been updated. It's clearly not operating on the same "rule set" as the others. The Hawk is also still clearly on a different rule set, pending upgrade.

Simpler physics yes, but not zero physics like you said, SFM stands for standard, there are still realistic parameters being met. The physics (rule set) don't allow them to do things outside of limits while flying, so not an advantage more of a hindrance.