Switch to DX 9 or 10 . Include insane texture resolutions and antialiasing, and all that stuff for Crysis level graphics
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Yes, of course...
You don't need Crysis level post processing and frankly, it'd be a bad idea. But I think that the switch to DirectX 9 would significantly increase performance as DirectX can benefit from the modern card architecture.
I'm sure Martin can find his way around with ease, but for anyone wanting to learn the ways of the DirectX:
www.directxtutorial.com
This is a pretty good website that will introduce you to low level Windows API programming and basics of DirectX... a bit more (basic games like tetris) if you're willing to part with 20 dollars or something.
@Medics:
Well, I wouldn't go into *so* much diversity, after all, the difference between a satellite, a powered spacecraft and a probe (from Orbiter's engine perspective) isn't big.
The big difference is between a land vehicle and a ship. The primary function of a ship is go to in space and Orbiter has very accurate space physics. But when it comes to the ground, you'll notice that on impacts, your ship may bounce off in quite a weird manner.
I have seen many times the parts of my DGIV bouncing all over the place as I smashed it into the ground...
The creation of a vehicle class type would increase reality on the ground and would open up a whole new level of possibilities as far as missions go. As far as rovers that exist today... it's like trying to turn a rocket into a car....
The creation of "various" object type would enable rocks and clouds and various other types of objects to be randomly (or along another algorithm) generated around you to a certain range. Now... as you can't expect a rock to have a powered ascent into orbit, you could easily turn the calculations for physics for these types of objects off while they're just sitting in a ship or somewhere on the ground. That would allow the simulator to be accurate and still hold high performance.
And suddenly, you'd find yourself on a rock collection mission on Mars.