https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/349297-21mar25-big-week-for-777-testing-definitely-feels-like-vernal-equinox-for-the-dev-team

Quote

Hello and happy Friday!

Well, I finally have some good news with respect to our effort to bring you the PMDG 777 product line in MSFS2024. As of about six hours before this writing, we have finally handed our beta team their first builds of the 777-300ER, 777-200ER and 777F that are compatible with MSFS 2024. This is a big step forward, as it is the first time we have felt confident enough in the stability of the products in MSFS24 that we were willing to ask our testing team to begin looking at it without fear of wasting their time.

Bringing our products into MSFS 2024 is not just a simple matter of dragging some files over to a new location and bit twiddling some settings. These are effectively complete refactors of the existing MSFS 2020 products built in compliance with the new MSFS 2024 SDK directives so that they run most efficiently on the new simulation platform, leveraging the simulator developer's intentions so that the product will look well, perform well and be stable.

Nothing about this process has been predictable or easy- and you may detect a note of pessimism when I caution everyone that this bit of good news does not necessarily indicate that the battle has been won.

For those who haven't been tracking this saga, beginning last summer we expressed some skepticism that the effort to move our products into MSFS 2024 was going to proceed smoothly or quickly. We have been at this business a long time, and we had every reason to be enthusiastic about the promise of the new platform, while also remaining well grounded by our previous experience bringing products alive in new platforms. That skepticism proved to be well founded as the initial release of MSFS 2024 was incompatible with it's own WASM capability- much like MSFS 2020 had been a few years prior. This left us effectively unable to do anything with MSFS 2024 until the first SU1 beta was dropped in January.

At that time, we launched an all-hands effort to rebuild the 777 using the documented methods and practices for MSFS 2024. It was felt that we could choose between a "drag-and-drop" port which would be unstable and unsatisfying, or we could do it the right way and build you something that will last and show our product quality well. It has been a herculean task, to put things mildly, but we continue to push that stone up the hill because we want to ensure our 777s will be stable and compliant with MSFS 2024 for performance purposes on both PC and Xbox platforms.

MSFS 2024 is a new platform with a ton of commonality to the old platform, but also plenty of breaking changes that have not yet been documented, while others are partially documented, some are even documented incorrectly, and the more insidious problems come from features that are documented but not working properly. We have been feeling our way through each of them, one at a time, working with a number of our peer developers to share information on solutions and generally try to raise the state of play in such a way that will allow us to get these products out to you.

The first trip through on a new platform is always the hardest and always the least fun. MSFS 2024 has lived up to the full measure of our skepticism and our expectations in that regard- and the team has been working every single day since the initial SU1 beta dropped because we are as eager to get these products to you as you are to have them.

Today marks a big step in the right direction.

While undertaking this effort to get our products working in MSFS 2024, we have also been hard at work upgrading the entire 777 platform. This update process has included hundreds of small fixes, tweaks and changes to improve handling qualities, correct nuisances, fix bugs and improve performance. Our sound team has refactored nearly the entire sound environment using new recording equipment, new processes and coordinating with our coding team to build in even more fidelity to the rich sound environment of the 777, including variations in engine type represented by the 777-200ER.

Overall we are really excited to finally be testing the 777 (and soon the DC-6!) in MSFS 2024- and while it would be tempting to tell you "I think we'll have them to you by X date at the latest" I am going to stick with tradition and common sense and keep my opinion to myself until I know well and darned sure that what we have will serve you well.

PMDG has always been a bit "different" in the simming community because most of us are aviation people at heart and all of us have been at the business of creating highly detailed simulations of airliners for decades. We are building the airplanes that WE want to fly in MSFS 2024, and it just happens to be a happy accident that fun little community of PMDG pilots gets to enjoy the work as well. Sometimes we perseverate on the details a bit too much- but we do this because we feel that accuracy, quality, stability and performance are far more important than cracking out something for you that is built on a promise and some fairy dust.

We thank you for your patience as we continue to ensure these products are truly ready to carry your simming responsibly for the next couple of years. It will take us just a bit longer- but we promise it will be worth the wait.

Post-Note: I know folks want to hear about all the other things we have on the burner right now- but this update is focused only on the 777s moving into 2024 finally. When we have a bit of the initial testing behind us, and my sense of humor has had a chance to recharge a bit- I'll come back with more details on those items. For now- you can check below in this forum for my previous updates, because the information hasn't changed a whole lot since they were posted.

Be well... We'll be back with more news after we have a chance to see what the beta team thinks.

 

 

 

From the 1 March PMDG announcement and the general public OC3 test, I thought they were closer to release then what they just posted now. 🤨 

Edited March 21, 20251 yr by Wise87

I assume that the "hundreds of tweaks, fixes and improvements" to the 777 will also be coming to the 2020 version (including those sound upgrades)?

They really just entered the testing phase? After all, the 777 has been running in MSFS 2024 since the first beta, just a few tweaks needed...

So the TLDR I'm getting from RSR in this post is that:
a) they've done various changes to the 777 in order to get it properly compatible with MSFS 2024, and they've made use of development best practices for 2024.. and now official beta testing begins
b) they're doing various fixes and improvements that to me sound sim-platform agnostic and will benefit both 2024 and 2020 versions?

As part of a) or b) there might be some new features/capabilities of 2024 that's being taken advantage of?, but not very clear.

FWIW, when a user asked this: "Nice. Very interested to see how the 777 will fly in MSFS 2024 compared to 2020, given the new flight model in 2024."
Mathijs responded: https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/349297-21mar25-big-week-for-777-testing-definitely-feels-like-vernal-equinox-for-the-dev-team?p=349342#post349342
"Well, a lot of the flight behavior is hidden by the FBW systems, but I find it a bit more 'fluid'. "


Relevant quotes from RSR post:

Quote

At that time, we launched an all-hands effort to rebuild the 777 using the documented methods and practices for MSFS 2024. It was felt that we could choose between a "drag-and-drop" port which would be unstable and unsatisfying, or we could do it the right way and build you something that will last and show our product quality well. It has been a herculean task, to put things mildly, but we continue to push that stone up the hill because we want to ensure our 777s will be stable and compliant with MSFS 2024 for performance purposes on both PC and Xbox platforms.

 

Quote

While undertaking this effort to get our products working in MSFS 2024, we have also been hard at work upgrading the entire 777 platform. This update process has included hundreds of small fixes, tweaks and changes to improve handling qualities, correct nuisances, fix bugs and improve performance. Our sound team has refactored nearly the entire sound environment using new recording equipment, new processes and coordinating with our coding team to build in even more fidelity to the rich sound environment of the 777, including variations in engine type represented by the 777-200ER.

 

Edited March 21, 20251 yr by lwt1971

So much randazzling in the original post from PMDG!

Please, just release when ready we don't need all the babble!

 

 

He says the DC-6 is about to go into testing as well. Music to my ears - I absolutely love that model.

Some of us actually prefer the updates opposed to total radio silence which the same people complain of as well so you're damned if you give people an update and damned if you don't. 

If you don't need the updates then ignore them and just wait for the "It's released" thread... 

  

Edited March 21, 20251 yr by psolk

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I assume that the "hundreds of tweaks, fixes and improvements" to the 777 will also be coming to the 2020 version (including those sound upgrades)?

Per Mathijs:

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/349297-21mar25-big-week-for-777-testing-definitely-feels-like-vernal-equinox-for-the-dev-team?p=349320#post349320
"Yes, it is an almost complete rebuild of the soundscape for both simulators on all platforms."

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/349297-21mar25-big-week-for-777-testing-definitely-feels-like-vernal-equinox-for-the-dev-team?p=349343#post349343
"Yes, every change (that is not platform-dependent) will be shared on FS2020 and FS2024. At this moment in time, we consider both platforms equally important. That can change, though. We are tracking the market continuously and will adapt when we feel it is appropriate."
 

2 hours ago, tpete61 said:

So much randazzling in the original post from PMDG!

Please, just release when ready we don't need all the babble!

 

 

People complain when they give updates and they complain when they don't. There's really no pleasing people.

Really good news.

Each to his own, but I really prefer that they take their time to release a product ready for msfs24 instead of releasing a expirental version that will be full of bugs, giving headaches to their custumers.

 

Good news! Hurry up with that beta PMDG 👍

3 hours ago, tpete61 said:

So much randazzling in the original post from PMDG!

Please, just release when ready we don't need all the babble!

 

 

Developers can't win - say nothing like FSL and people complain. Say something and it is babble.

I've never seen complaints about the length of Fenix progress reports ....

 

Edited March 21, 20251 yr by DavidP

4 minutes ago, DavidP said:

Developers can't win - say nothing like FSL and people complain. Say something and it is babble.

 

Like everything in life, if you go to one extreme (PMDG) or the other (FSlabs), people don’t like it. 
 

there’s a happy medium where most developers live .. it’s not that hard 

4 hours ago, Wise87 said:

From the 1 March PMDG announcement and the general public OC3 test, I thought they were closer to release then what they just posted now. 🤨 

Why would you think that ?

I don't think hard dates were issued and even if they were i think putting out a quality product with as few bugs as possible is more important than pushing products out the door at pace only for there to be a myriad of bugs present that affect even standard usage of the product.