Hi Geofa,I can summarize my response pretty simply:- I agree on all counts that the default sim needs to show the sim to users...we have a lot of work that we need to do (and are doing) to update the fleet.- I thought from your previous post that you are in the author's camp because you make your own panels - perhaps I am wrong about this!So..."My point here is that the default fleet is not showing off the full capability of the sim"is a message to authors that there's a lot of potential in the SDK. For users, we must update our own default planes, and improve the scaling algorithm (the code for this is already in 930, which should go beta this afternoon I think).

I understand that one can build one's own plane (I have been trying but it appears gauges are not scalable but the entire bitmap has to be redone-a whole other can of worms if I am understanding the process correctly) but understand that fs'ers who will be trying this program will probably meet this screen resolution situation immediately.

Gauges definitely ARE scalable. You simply change the "size" ratio at the bottom of the Plane-Maker screen. We (LR) do not recommend that sophisticated third party authors do this because: - Pretty much all of the serious panel I have seen for x-plane provide their own gauge bitmaps. In the X-Plane community if you make a panel using the toolbox of 600 instruments that come with the sim, you're not really considered to be top tier.- If you are making your own bitmaps, you might as well size them to the size you need up front...if that is smaller than default, you can use bicubic sampling in PhotoShop...if it is larger than default, you can increase the res from a higher quality photo souce.- So in other words, while sizing is available, it's not the highest quality path, so most top tier third party authors don't use it.Tote that scaling the _whole panel_ and scaling an _individual gauge_ are different propositions. Scaling the whole panel is something x-plane does in response to monitor res...in 920 that is done with nearest neighbor filtering, which is dreadful...in 930 it is done with bilinear filtering, which is tollerable.

Again-the thread is about fs'ers migrating to xplane. Just giving you a heads up on what some of the issues are going to be. I'd like to see you succeed.

It is a thread about a lot of things...the FS->X-Plane migration experience, the capabilities of X-plane as a platform, and reaction to Austin's post! I agree completely that "the SDK can do it" is not very useful for end users. My jumping in here, however, is mostly about trying to correct what I consider to be inaccuracies about SDK capabilities.Basically when I have been speak with MSFS third party developers of late, a lot of the MSFS community hasn't revisited X-Plane's capabilities recently. That is understandable both because (1) we don't have good docs saying "here is what X-Plane can now do" for authors (something I have been trying to write in my spare time while trying to get the beta out and (2) they're MSFS developers so what X-Plane can do is a bit off topic.X-Plane's mesh res is no longer limited to 500m grid points.X-Plane's tex res is no longer limited to 2 mpp.X-Plane's panels are no longer limited to 1024x1024.X-Plane does have a VC.etc. Of course, if you are ont an author, you don't care, and I get that! But there may be authors lurking/reading/googling so I figured I'd jump in.cheersben

Like I said many posts back... won't ever catch me developing anything for X-Plane.I know I'm not alone in that regard.

One thing I didn't notice in the hundreds of replies in this thread is this (maybe I missed it...)

Yes, page 6. :( And I appreciate Ben taking the time to outline and elaborate on some of the differences between FSX and XP. Yes, I'm still waiting for my disks to show up, maybe tomorrow? So I glance through the XP forum, trying to get a feel for that world of flight simulation. I see where I will need to spend some time setting up my MS joystick (with one hat switch), then spending more time making other setting adjustments so that I can spend some time in the air. And I think about all the postings in the various MSFS forums from people that can't add a repaint, install a simple scenery addon, etc and wonder what their impression will be should they decide to look at XP?X-Plane appears to contain a lot of geekiness. And to some extent I can appreciate geek. But other times geek gets in the way. There are certain aspects of FSX design work that involves too much geekiness, as if geek is the only method to accomplish an end result. A longggg time ago I wrote code, but realized that the audience for the work couldn't care less about what new "cool" thing I had thought of. They just wanted it to work and with the least amount of effort possible. Somewhere along the way, probably sooner than later, X-Plane is going to have that staring them in the face, is it too geeky that the intended audience gets frustrated by it and turns back to a simpler alternative?Developing scenery for X-Plane and how it contrasts to FSX methodologies should start to be realized a little bit this weekend. Rain is in the forecast! :(

Hi Geofa,I can summarize my response pretty simply:- I agree on all counts that the default sim needs to show the sim to users...we have a lot of work that we need to do (and are doing) to update the fleet.- I thought from your previous post that you are in the author's camp because you make your own panels - perhaps I am wrong about this!So..."My point here is that the default fleet is not showing off the full capability of the sim"is a message to authors that there's a lot of potential in the SDK. For users, we must update our own default planes, and improve the scaling algorithm (the code for this is already in 930, which should go beta this afternoon I think).Gauges definitely ARE scalable. You simply change the "size" ratio at the bottom of the Plane-Maker screen. We (LR) do not recommend that sophisticated third party authors do this because: - Pretty much all of the serious panel I have seen for x-plane provide their own gauge bitmaps. In the X-Plane community if you make a panel using the toolbox of 600 instruments that come with the sim, you're not really considered to be top tier.- If you are making your own bitmaps, you might as well size them to the size you need up front...if that is smaller than default, you can use bicubic sampling in PhotoShop...if it is larger than default, you can increase the res from a higher quality photo souce.- So in other words, while sizing is available, it's not the highest quality path, so most top tier third party authors don't use it.Tote that scaling the _whole panel_ and scaling an _individual gauge_ are different propositions. Scaling the whole panel is something x-plane does in response to monitor res...in 920 that is done with nearest neighbor filtering, which is dreadful...in 930 it is done with bilinear filtering, which is tollerable.It is a thread about a lot of things...the FS->X-Plane migration experience, the capabilities of X-plane as a platform, and reaction to Austin's post! I agree completely that "the SDK can do it" is not very useful for end users. My jumping in here, however, is mostly about trying to correct what I consider to be inaccuracies about SDK capabilities.Basically when I have been speak with MSFS third party developers of late, a lot of the MSFS community hasn't revisited X-Plane's capabilities recently. That is understandable both because (1) we don't have good docs saying "here is what X-Plane can now do" for authors (something I have been trying to write in my spare time while trying to get the beta out and (2) they're MSFS developers so what X-Plane can do is a bit off topic.X-Plane's mesh res is no longer limited to 500m grid points.X-Plane's tex res is no longer limited to 2 mpp.X-Plane's panels are no longer limited to 1024x1024.X-Plane does have a VC.etc. Of course, if you are ont an author, you don't care, and I get that! But there may be authors lurking/reading/googling so I figured I'd jump in.cheersben

Ben-Thanks for some good info. In my case I have authored a few freeware things for several sims-but only to the limits of my capabilities and time. Fortunately, there are several add ons for fsx that make it easy to for instance as shown above, create professional looking panels simply, create scenery, and missions easily.I did give a try to plane maker-seems to work very much like when I used it some years ago. I will look into the scaling of instruments some more per your advice. In my case-I use a sim purely and simply to practice for my real life Baron flying-primarily ifr. I noticed that though there was once a payware Baron for Xplane-the link no longer works and there is no mention of where it went.Therefore, my next desire would be to fairly easily be able to create a Baron on my own. Also needed are real working instruments such as approach enabled gps (sounds like Jean Luc may be looking into that) real approaches to practice with, instruments that match the real thing or are at least very close, scenery that gives enough visual cues to be recognizable, weather which gives a close match, and a flight model that allows me to fly with precision by the numbers. I have those things in fs presently-and would be happy to move along to something even better. :-)

For those interested, the X-Plane 9.30 beta 1 has been released... big list of updates!http://www.x-plane.com/beta.htmlBen also mentions this in his bloghttp://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2009/02/...e-930-beta.htmlRemember this is beta #1 and so expect that there may be bugs (which should therefore be reported)

Of course, you have to pay for X-Plane to test the beta. :(

Of course, you have to pay for X-Plane to test the beta. :(

That is not true!You can download the beta as a demo.You can update a demo as a beta.

Betas aren't demos... not in the software industry.Beta testers are generally rewarded for their hard work with a free copy... in the software industry.Of course, doing that might hurt his pocketbook. :(

Betas aren't demos... not in the software industry.Beta testers are generally rewarded for their hard work with a free copy... in the software industry.Of course, doing that might hurt his pocketbook. :(

You seem very negative! I hope Microsoft will give me a free copy of Windows 7 since I am testing the Windows 7 beta. :( Are you are a commercial developer of FS9/FSX addons and maybe it's not in your interest for users to switch to X-Plane? IMHO a lot of X-Plane bashing may be due to conflicting commercial interests of 3rd party developers.

Like I said many posts back... won't ever catch me developing anything for X-Plane.I know I'm not alone in that regard.

Wow, I'm sure that the whole flight sim community appreciates that insightful comment and contribution. :( Thank you very much.

As a developer I reviewed X-Plane for the potential of developing for it.My conclusions are that it's unstable as a development environment for third-party developers. There are several reasons, some of which shouldn't be stated in public. However, X-Plane is not geared towards third-party developers nor do there appear to be plans on it's going that direction.As a developer for FS, I have interacted with ACES. They welcomed input, both positive and negative. They worked hard to provide those who created FS addons with as much support in features and abilities and flexibility as they could muster. Their ego never once entered into any discussion nor did they treat any addon developer as if their needs or desires were unworthy of discussion. Mr. Myers reputation preceeds him, and not in a good way.As a user of FS... I find the flight dynamics in FS to be far more realistic than those of X-Plane.I have an extremely simple test for flight dynamics. It's a real world flight behavior that is almost never modeled correctly, but it's correct in FS. I'll attempt to explain it. When an aircraft is traveling with a specific velocity vector, and the pilot changes the control surface position(s) to obtain a different velocity vector.... it is not an instantaneous reaction. Inertia delays and inhibits the aircraft's reaction to the changes. How much is generally based on what is referred to as moments of inertia. FS, when the aircraft is modeled correctly, gets it right. The more accurate the aircraft's FDE, the more accurate it reacts to control input. In X-Plane, there is no apparent modeling of this very important yet subtle flight characteristic. You move the controls... and the aircraft instantly reacts. This defies the laws of physics.FS comes, as a base product with a far more complete, easy and ready-to-use package. X-Plane requires a great deal of (as someone else put it) geek-work to even get it working. It doesn't come with everything ready to go.I could go on and on... but suffice it to say... for the price being charged... it's less 'bang for the buck' and not as accurate in many respects but most importantly in flight dynamics.MatthewS, since you're well known for running around these forums bashing FS... not sure where you come off as trying to be altruistic. It's just not you. :(

MatthewS, since you're well known for running around these forums bashing FS... not sure where you come off as trying to be altruistic. It's just not you. :(

I am not a MSFS basher and show me where I have bashed FSX! I love FSX and the 3rd party products I have purchased for it, including PMDG MD11, FS2Crew MD11X, LDS 767, Coolsky MD80 (Classic and PRO), Aerosoft TwinOtter, Realair SF260, ActiveSkyAdvanced, FEX, FTX and probably a few others I can't remember. IMO the users posting on this forum who bash X-Plane are motivated to do it because they simply don't like Austin or they have conflicting commercial interests.

Betas aren't demos... not in the software industry.Beta testers are generally rewarded for their hard work with a free copy... in the software industry.Of course, doing that might hurt his pocketbook. :(

X-Plane's beta program and X-Plane's release cycle are simply different from MSFS. MSFS and X-Plane are different creatures that operate at a different scale with different sized staffs.Our beta program is free, commercially unrewarded, and completely open. So...- There is no limit on who can beta test. No one gets booted from the beta program.- No one who is in the beta program has to do more testing than he or she wants, because there isn't any competing for slots.- There is no monetary benefit to being in the beta program. Since we do 6-8 patches per life cycle, I don't think that would work very well anyway. (Imagine a closed beta. We'd want the most experienced users. They'd have the product already after the first patch.)Personally, I like working on the short patch cycle (e.g. 3-4 months between patches). It keeps us in touch with our user base and allows us to respond quickly to new good ideas and user's needs. Maybe that could never work on a scale like MSFS, but a lot of X-Plane users like being connencted directly to the evolution of the product, and as a developer, I like being able to colaborate with the entire community.Consider what has been discussed on this board - a number of MSFS users have pointed out a number of serious usability problems with X-Plane. Since we patch frequently, I can start fixing them now! Some of them are architectural and will take time to overcome, but for others, it's just a matter of writing the code, so why not make X-Plane better in the shortest possible time frame?cheersBen

I can't have a commercially conflicting interest... I don't develop flight simulation software.I do develop addons for MSFS and I have a professional opinion regarding the viability of X-Plane as a third-party development platform. In short, a serious 'no-go'.

I can't have a commercially conflicting interest... I don't develop flight simulation software.I do develop addons for MSFS and I have a professional opinion regarding the viability of X-Plane as a third-party development platform. In short, a serious 'no-go'.

Your blog Gauged Approach seems to indicate you work for EagleSoft on the Citation X 2. So unless you also develop for X-Plane then its in your commercial best interest to keep users on the MSFS platform and not have them migrate to X-Plane where your products are not available. That's the conflict of interest I'm talking about.We know your views on flight dynamics, apart from that, why is X-Plane 9.22 (or 9.30 when its RC) a "serious 'no-go'"? Maybe you can enlighten the developers of the MU-2 or Hurricane as to why its a "serious 'no go'".