Long Haul Flights

[ErichB 3,650]

 

 

With all due respect Erich, what was the point of coming to this forum and making criticisms about a simulator that a) is yet to be completed and basically putting down every civil airliner developer for not being "Tier 1"

 

 

 

 

So if you disagree, great! To each their own but this thread was about long haul flights in XP and not another xp vs fsx/p3d. 

 

Yup,  you are right.

 

I guess what I'm expressing is frustration that  XP is still only an 'almost' sim.   To bring my point back to the topic - you cannot talk about longhaul with out having a fully functional weather system.  You cannot talk about long haul without fully functional aircraft to fly.  Your weather environment and your equipment are absolutely critical to long haul.   Both have to look and work properly for the experience to work.  That's what flightsim is - an overall experience. 

 

Yes there is alot of potential in XP, but that has been the status for many years now.    When is it going to be the sim where everyone stops saying, 'yeah is so amazing, but the weather doesnt work very well.'   'yeah it so amazing, but none of the the FMC's  work very well.    'Yeah, is really superb, but, you know,  it's an evolving beta, so these things fundemental things are still broken'.  There always seems to be a small but quite crucial caviet and that's what drives me insane.  It never seems to cross a line where all aspects of the sim - from a pilot's perspective - functionally and comprehensively come together

 

I guess what I'm saying is that I want to get onboard with XP, and I wish it would just get there already.

[Denco 48]

I did a 10 hour haul once in XP10 from KLAX to EDDT and had no issues. I reckon XP11 is capable of the same abuse if not better.

[Will66 3]

After about two years of flight simulation and never having an out of memory error, i jacked up the LOD radius in the CFG file as the blurry radius was beginning to annoy me on a high end system, and then I finally got the out of memory error. However that being said the longest haul flight i've done with the 747 v3 and 777 is Heathrow to Shanghai. No issues at all, and thats with orbx global, vector, openlc europe, REX textures and REX weather all at 4096 resolution so I cannot argue there, a stable framerate rarely below 30. Guess i'm one of the lucky ones!

[tonywob 4,770]

Good points Erich, I agree with your points. X-Plane has always been an "almost there sim", but it seems to be lacking in the things that most FSXers actually want and are used to. It reminds me of the "year of the linux desktop" that never came to be

[Desaix 235]

Yes, the big mistake other platform users do is to pretend the same things in XP. It's like my "beloved" citizens travelling abroad and pretending to find the same well cooked pasta with the same carbonara sauce even in the middle of Africa.

 

Different countries, different food...otherwise a disappontment.

 

Let's see it optimistically though, master chefs are spreading around.

[ErichB 3,650]

Desaix, on 16 Feb 2017 - 10:43 AM, said:

Yes, the big mistake other platform users do is to pretend the same things in XP. It's like my "beloved" citizens travelling abroad and pretending to find the same well cooked pasta with the same carbonara sauce even in the middle of Africa

It is not a mistake of any kind (regardless of your sim choice) to expect a sim weather engine to simulate accurate weather physics and for clouds to look like clouds when flying through and around them. It is not a mistake to expect an aircraft's navigational control systems and interface to work like its real world counterpart actually works. That is the expectation from a simulation environment - to simulate reality, both visually and functionally. The 'plausible' concept - 'yeah, it's sort of there, but you'll need to flex your imagination to make it work' doesn't work anymore. Others have moved way beyond that point, and as a result people are demanding FAR more than fewer micros-stutters and less OOM's these days (both of which are very easily manageable and avoidable) - so that is no longer a primary reason for any platform to exist.

 

While I agree with your literal point about the false expectations of people travelling outside of their country, it is not an accurate analogy in this case.

[Jimm 437]

After about two years of flight simulation and never having an out of memory error, i jacked up the LOD radius in the CFG file as the blurry radius was beginning to annoy me on a high end system, and then I finally got the out of memory error. However that being said the longest haul flight i've done with the 747 v3 and 777 is Heathrow to Shanghai. No issues at all, and thats with orbx global, vector, openlc europe, REX textures and REX weather all at 4096 resolution so I cannot argue there, a stable framerate rarely below 30. Guess i'm one of the lucky ones!

That's all well and fine, but this is the XP forum, not P3D or FSX, so the post isn't exactly relevant to the OP's questions and data on long-haul flights in XP.

[Desaix 235]

I did your mistake when I moved to XP10. Got frustrated because I was missing ATC, weather and AI.

 

Why? I expected the same addons I used in PRD. I changed my attitude, focus on GA and had lot of fun to the point I could not stand anymore the look of old sim. Then I discovered I could have a decent AI with WT none the less (with hard configuration but I could), a good weather with XEnviro even with bugs and missing features, and I think a good ATC with Pilot2ATC I'm going to try as soon as I finish a couple of sceneries I'm working on (yes, I discovered that scenery design is even easier in XP than that of FSX).

 

Do not compare fully stuffed PRD with deafult XP, do not commit the same mistake of many. Are you saying that PRD default weather and systems are anything decent?

[Jimm 437]

Could someone please explain why we are eluding to yet another comparison argument between simulators?  While I initially wanted to make direct comparisons with P3D to XP, when I first started to use XP, I stopped myself, realizing that moving to XP takes having an open mind and being open to a different way the simulator operated.  While certain features are always a staple to any simulator, XP has already made great strides in breaking the barriers of OOMs and CTD's, allowing users the ability to take full advantage of their systems.  With that said, could we please keep the discussions on topic?

[ErichB 3,650]

 

 

Do not compare fully stuffed PRD with deafult XP, do not commit the same mistake of many. Are you saying that PRD default weather and systems are anything decent?

 

I'm in fact not talking about anything default.  I'm talking about XEnviro. I'm talking about the addons - not the defaults.

 

I'm quite focused on airliner hauling, on VATSIM almost exclusively.  That's the only type of flying I do, as after many years of  VFR previously, I became totally bored.  If it wasn't for high quality aircraft, realistic weather environment modelling and interactive online ATC environments, I'd probably have given up simming altogether.   

 

But you make a valid point in this case.  What that represents in terms of realism will be probably be quite different from a VFR experience in a 172 in XP.  You can never make a totally like for like comparison as we all want and experience different things.

 

 

Could someone please explain why we are eluding to yet another comparison argument between simulators?

 

To be fair Jimm,  it's not really about comparing.  It's about wanting something from XP to enhance the simulated environment of long-hauling.  We are totally on topic.

[Jimm 437]

 

 

To be fair Jimm,  it's not really about comparing.  It's about wanting something from XP to enhance the simulated environment of long-hauling.  We are totally on topic

 

If you re-read what Wiler posted originally, he was asking about anyone performing long-haul flights.  What I took from it, is how well XP handles long hauls, equating to long-term performance over time in a single shot...a stress test, if you will.  What I take away from that is that XP is has a good level of stability, which is capable of performing long hauls for users.  Arguing the specifics on who's 3rd party weather and aircraft that's available from one sim to another, shouldn't be argued.  We all know that a lot of the big named developers haven't migrated over to XP fully yet, but given time, it is possible.

[Will66 3]

If you re-read what Wiler posted originally, he was asking about anyone performing long-haul flights.  What I took from it, is how well XP handles long hauls, equating to long-term performance over time in a single shot...a stress test, if you will.  What I take away from that is that XP is has a good level of stability, which is capable of performing long hauls for users.  Arguing the specifics on who's 3rd party weather and aircraft that's available from one sim to another, shouldn't be argued.  We all know that a lot of the big named developers haven't migrated over to XP fully yet, but given time, it is possible.

I'm sure Wiler won't mind peoples views about long haul flights on competing sims. If not i'm sure he would appreciate different peoples experience on very similar but also very different simulators. 

 

Thanks.

[Jimm 437]

I'm sure Wiler won't mind peoples views about long haul flights on competing sims. If not i'm sure he would appreciate different peoples experience on very similar but also very different simulators. 

 

Thanks.

I'm sure he wouldn't mind either, if it weren't for the specific question he asked in his first post.  He says he has over 20+ years experience, with FSX and P3D, so that should clue you in to the fact that he's been around the bend for using them and having issues, and now with the usage of XP, he no longer has the issues.  The talking point in this thread is long haul flights in XP, but now it seems the discussion is straying from that path to discussions on proper aircraft and weather.

 

IF the discussion needs to deviate towards the use of proper aircraft and weather, then let's turn our attention to the developers and petition them to do more research into developing and/or improving content for XP.  Austin and his team are doing a great job with the sim and as for content, we as users, make due with what we have.  Those who have experience with all three sims, would know that the vast majority of developers out there, do what they do for a chosen sim because that's where the money is.  If LR can prove to the community that XP has what it takes, then the developers have a choice, and the users can look forward to the same quality of content they had before, in XP.

[tonywob 4,770]

With X-Plane I've also suffered CTDs after a long flight (A long-haul for me is 3 hours in the 737 and is about the limit of my patience ;-)). e.g. Only a few weeks ago I was flying over default scenery near Nice in France and for no reason, boom, I'm looking at my desktop. Rather than blaming X-Plane, I'd say it was a probably a plugin causing it. It's happened on numerous other occasions in different areas for no apparent reason (and the log shows nothing).

 

However, to have it crash out after flying LA to Auckland would make me throw the simulator or whatever addon I had in the bin out of frustration. It's a difficult one because you don't know what to blame (The simulator or the addon), since the log file just says the sim has crashed. Luckily, most of my flights are maximum 1hr and generally I'm lucky 99% of the time to get back down and land.

[Will66 3]

You have alot more experience than me so I wont disagree with you or any of your points. However you seem to be going to deep into this, I highly respect the three simulators, and truthfully ive never delved into XP or P3D so i'm not saying x is better than y and z. However I am just giving my experience with FSX as I have not had problems so not needed a change, maybe a little off topic in terms of the simulator however forums are for a reason and that reason is to discuss so like we agreed, i'm sure the Author wont mind. I find it a little odd Jim you picked me out for this? 

 

Will.