What’s new in Condor 2

Graphics engine:

  • Update 2.0.5 brought Virtual Reality Headset support. Works with Oculus, Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets
  • 6DOF operation with TrackIR and similar head trackers.
  • Rendering code completely rewritten to DirectX 11, allowing extensive use of GPU shaders (vs DirectX 7 of Condor 1 with fixed pipeline)
  • Screen resolution limited only with hardware (vs max 2048 in Condor 1)
  • True multimonitor / multiview support enables huge viewing angles (180+ degrees) without distortion
  • Fullscreen ALT-TAB functionality is now supported (vs. full screen switching not supported in Condor 1)
  • Fullscreen emulation mode offers best of windowed and fullscreen modes – fast multitasking functionality and good peformance
  • In game antialiasing setting for smooth edge rendering
  • Anisotropic filtering makes distant textures crisp and clear
  • Better compatibility with new hardware

Weather model:

  • Many improvements to thermal model (higher cloud base, thicker clouds, streeting, flatlands activity)
  • Completely new Cu cloud model, much less strain on the GPU and more realistic lighting, will enable much bigger clouds (2.x version)
  • Improved ridge lift model
  • A new high level wind speed setting with wind speeds up to 100 km/h (vs. no high level wind setting and wind speeds of max 50 km/h in Condor 1)
  • Completely rewritten wave lift with multiple waves and lenticularis clouds (vs. single wave and no lenticularis clouds in Condor 1)
  • Adjustable cirrus density (vs static in Condor 1)

Multiplayer:

  • 64 planes or more in MP with better (smarter) plane position data exchange (vs max 32 planes in Condor 1)
  • 16 towplanes (vs 8 in Condor 1)
  • Automatic port forwarding (vs manual NAT setup in Condor 1)

Flight physics model:

  • Improvements to flight physics model with even nicer plane handling
  • Completely new wing bend model, wings now have inertia (vs. no inertia in Condor 1)
  • Better spin recovery, especially with ballasted gliders
  • Option of fixed ballast or second pilot (in double seaters) to load every plane to maximum permissible weight

Scenery rendering:

  • 30 m resolution scenery, internally 22.5m (vs 90 m in Condor 1)
  • Default scenery texture size is 2048 (vs 512 in Condor 1, that is 16x more texture data)
  • Much lower terrain texture memory footprint despite higher texture resolution
  • Much denser forests with real size trees and more accurate tree placement (vs less dense forests with 3x too big trees and 16x worse tree placement in Condor 1)
  • Multithreaded terrain loading which loads terrain tiles much faster (vs. single threaded terrain loading in Condor 1 which would now take 8+ seconds if not multithreaded)
  • Water is “alive” with sun reflections and waves (vs static texture in Condor 1)

Sky and shading:

  • New sky model with more realistic sunrise/sunset effects
  • Exponential (realistic) haze (vs linear haze in Condor 1)
  • Cu clouds cast shadows depending on the sun position (vs shadow always vertically below cloud in Condor 1)
  • Lenticularis clouds cast shadows on ground and planes
  • New sun and flares model, sun is hidden behind objects, flares disappear (vs. sun and flares always ON even if behind an object in Condor 1)
  • Realtime scenery lighting and shadows, mountains cast shadows (vs. static texture shadows in Condor 1)
  • Trees, planes, airports and all ground objects lighted from sun and shadowed from mountains and clouds (vs. static color in Condor 1)
  • All ground objects cast shadows (vs no shadows in Condor 1)
  • Realtime self shadowing of planes in cockpit and outside (vs. no self shadowing in Condor 1)
  • Specular highlights on planes and other objects (vs no specular highlights in Condor 1)

Planes:

  • Much higher poly count of planes (exterior and cockpit)
  • 3D instrument models (vs 2D textures in Condor 1)
  • Reflections of pilot on instruments (vs no reflections in Condor 1)
  • New, high poly and high resolution texture pilot model
  • New animation for hand to see wristwatch which is animated
  • Rotating wheels on planes (vs static wheels in Condor 1)
  • Improved high/low G effects

Airports:

  • Completely redesigned airport rendering with high resolution asphalt and grass textures (vs. low resolution textures in Condor 1)
  • Scenery designer controlled placement of windsocks. Multiple windsocks per airport are allowed, with adjustable size (vs. 1 windsock with generic placement in Condor 1)
  • Much higher poly count and higher resolution airport objects

Other:

  • New, higher resolution GUI
  • High resolution flighttrack logging (vs. low resolution in Condor 1)
  • Right button mouse “zooming” allows camera placement almost everywhere (vs static distance camera in Condor 1)
  • Moved all user files (flighttracks, flightplans etc) to documents\Condor folder (vs “virtualstore” issues in Condor 1)
  • Revised registration and verification to eliminate installation counter problems
  • Many other improvements (variable tow rope length etc.) …