The progress never stops with X-Plane... 9.40 beta 1 and beta 2 have now been released.Of particular note:-* Better multi core support* Normal map support (bump mapping) for aircraft and scenery objects! (FSX only does bump mapping for aircraft)Plus tons of other improvements...http://wiki.x-plane.com/Betaedit: It didn't take long for the XPlane developer community to pounce on the normal mapping capabilityhttp://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=40267&hl=edit2:* The Stinson L5 is a new default XPlane plane included in 9.4. It's payware quality but is free with 9.4! Check out the screenshots herehttp://www.dmax.it/stinson/index.php

The progress never stops with X-Plane... 9.40 beta 1 and beta 2 have now been released.Of particular note:-* Better multi core support* Normal map support (bump mapping) for aircraft and scenery objects! (FSX only does bump mapping for aircraft)Plus tons of other improvements...http://wiki.x-plane.com/Betaedit: It didn't take long for the XPlane developer community to ponce on the normal mapping capabilityhttp://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=40267&hl=

I went through all the pics. Quite impressive! Besides, I think that scenery and aircraft detail is just as important as the flight modeling. It's all part of an illusion! L.Adamson

The progress never stops with X-Plane... 9.40 beta 1 and beta 2 have now been released.

...and that's it's problem, it is constantly a moving target for developers like PMDG, Level-D or similar. X-Plane will never get as big as it could as long as developers at this level stays away. 3rd Party developers require a stable platform (at least for a reasonable period of time) to build on.

...and that's it's problem, it is constantly a moving target for developers like PMDG, Level-D or similar. X-Plane will never get as big as it could as long as developers at this level stays away. 3rd Party developers require a stable platform (at least for a reasonable period of time) to build on.

Yada yada :( Stay with FSX then :(edit: Have a look at what these devs are doing for XPlane... These guys seem not worried about tweaking their aircraft to work with the latest version. I imagine they would be very happy about the bump mapping added in 9.4!http://www.jrollon.com/indexResto.html (CRJ-200 !)http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?board=65.0 (Hawker 800)http://www.dmax.it/home/Great stuff!

Yada yada :( Stay with FSX then :(edit: Have a look at what these devs are doing for XPlane... These guys seem not worried about tweaking their aircraft to work with the latest version. I imagine they would be very happy about the bump mapping added in 9.4!http://www.jrollon.com/indexResto.html (CRJ-200 !)http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?board=65.0 (Hawker 800)http://www.dmax.it/home/Great stuff!

Now compare that to what's available for FS! All I'm saying is X-Plane won't get the attention it could get, as long as the main high end developers stay away. The best X-Plane aircraft, is still not as good as even many Freeware FS Models.

Now compare that to what's available for FS! All I'm saying is X-Plane won't get the attention it could get, as long as the main high end developers stay away. The best X-Plane aircraft, is still not as good as even many Freeware FS Models.

I agree. I like xplane a lot but there is nothing available for it (yet) that makes me want to fly it.

matthews: Given that FSX can barely render a BITMAP without at least 4X AA and AF says enough, like you said yadi yadi da! Heck you turn on DX10 and the planes just don't render at all :) That normal mapping should come in real handy around airports not just airplanes. Lots of signs and the even the jetways could seriously be improved performance wise. But this is just heaven for the overhead panel :) The one thing about development environments these days is you end up getting "patches" to 9.x when they're really meant as new features for XP 10. Sad that the only gripe these MS junkies could come up with is, our SDK is dead as Latin :)And that CRJ just looks sick.

matthews: Given that FSX can barely render a BITMAP without at least 4X AA and AF says enough, like you said yadi yadi da! Heck you turn on DX10 and the planes just don't render at all :) That normal mapping should come in real handy around airports not just airplanes. Lots of signs and the even the jetways could seriously be improved performance wise. But this is just heaven for the overhead panel :) The one thing about development environments these days is you end up getting "patches" to 9.x when they're really meant as new features for XP 10. Sad that the only gripe these MS junkies could come up with is, our SDK is dead as Latin :)And that CRJ just looks sick.

Avn8tr-it really saddens me to see you turn these discussions into we vs. them. I am not a fs junkie-I know for a fact Larry isn't, and either is tf51d. If we were we would not bother purchasing xplane on a regular basis. I am a junkie to the sim that bests serves my needs-and I am always searching for an even better one. Right now fsx is that-when xplane becomes that I will readily convert. It just has never made that in all the versions I have owned yet. I'd like to see it become that-I am hopeful pointing out its weaknesses and why many of us who are willing to convert but can't might make that happen.4x AA really doesn't concern me-reality does, and being useful to rw flying does.When you speak of lots of signs and jetways fsx effecting performance-true.But perhaps you should point out that in xplane most airports look like deserts. That and severly limiting visibility along with other limitations are what makes xplane more fps friendly. Frankly, I am into fps and smoothness-because I use a sim to train. I turn a lot of the eye candy down on fsx to get this-but still find pound for pound fsx gives more eye candy per frame rate than xplane- with the same smoothness.There is a reason the more major FAA simulators are going with esp right now-even with a limited license from Microsoft (which is horrible).

Avn8tr-it really saddens me to see you turn these discussions into we vs. them. I am not a fs junkie-I know for a fact Larry isn't, and either is tf51d. If we were we would not bother purchasing xplane on a regular basis.

So true.... :( I do own X-Plane 8 & 9 as well as a few payware models. I've used desktop flight simulations since the beginning; which includes X-Plane demos from 15 years ago........... or more.At the moment, my overall preference is still FSX & FS9. My wife, and a friend's wife are going to take "pitch hitter" courses from a flight instructor. This won't be anywhere close to obtaining a private pilot's license. This just gives them a better chance of getting down...........should something happen to us. Our wives fly with us regularly.In addition to the course, they will practice on my computer. I'm going with FS9, the RealAir SF260, and FlightScenery Portland. The SF260 because it's low wing, sliding canopy, and sticks.....................just like our RV. FS9 just because I like the Portland scenery with it's detailed and life like airports. When & "if"................X-Plane comes up with all that I enjoy with MSFS; then I'll switch...., or at least use it more often. L.Adamson

Ujhmm no the FAA is simulator you pointed out geoff is generic IFR training... the Xplane ones are plane specific in the fact they model the flight of an FAA Ceritified Aircraft... not the radios...

..and what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?By the way the full motion sim I flew was a Cessna 172 with the G1000. Seems somewhat specific to me.

..and what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?By the way the full motion sim I flew was a Cessna 172 with the G1000. Seems somewhat specific to me.

BTW Flight1 Tech now has an X-Plane version of the G1000.http://www.flight1tech.com/Simulation/G1000/g1000.htmledit: I just realised its still in development according to the website.

BTW Flight1 Tech now has an X-Plane version of the G1000.http://www.flight1tech.com/Simulation/G1000/g1000.html

Yeah I saw it in Oshkosh. Very nice piece of equipment.

Geoff: the only thing that redbird seems to offer is a full motion simulator versus every other G1000 sim. But lets not forget here the real Level D sims that Cessna uses are made by FSI. Given there is no mention of redbird on the Cessna site it should give you an idea of how "official" it is. The only thing the redbird offers is a mock Cessna Cockpit and nothing more. Furthermore there are no aircraft manufacturers actively working with ESP/FSX most have switched over, and the rest are probably just using the $40 dollar version for the time being. Now sure the grass isn't that much greener on the X-plane side, but the reality is it could have been the engine behind a full Level-D simulator had the Eclipse project gone through. So back to the topic at hand... ok Austin added Normal Mapping big deal that only allows the aircraft to be enhanced it doesn't break anything. In fact a master livery artist can build these types of things into the base textures. However it's not like Microsoft where in order to support DX10 it forced DXT5 compression on aircraft textures leaving most of them unable to render. If anything, it exposed the way addon developers work where they either borrow visual models or commission out the textures. Obviously most of these developers refused to do the work for free and hence we were left with both incompatible scenery and aircraft, forcing us to buy everything over again. Who does that hurt the most the developer or the consumer? I'd say both.In anything I'm just here to point out what's wrong with MSFS, with Microsoft being such a successful and large company it's almost impossible to fathom how bad the development team really was. And talking about scenery. I really don't think that is as big of an issue as the incompatible mesh model and data in FSX. FSX describes flat mesh surfaces, the SRTM data source are in WGS-84 format which uses conic sections, hence they are not compatible. The only way to get around it is to use a really high resolution mesh or ESP. It's little things like these that drives a Math guy like me completely insane:)

Geoff: the only thing that redbird seems to offer is a full motion simulator versus every other G1000 sim. But lets not forget here the real Level D sims that Cessna uses are made by FSI. Given there is no mention of redbird on the Cessna site it should give you an idea of how "official" it is. The only thing the redbird offers is a mock Cessna Cockpit and nothing more. Furthermore there are no aircraft manufacturers actively working with ESP/FSX most have switched over, and the rest are probably just using the $40 dollar version for the time being. Now sure the grass isn't that much greener on the X-plane side, but the reality is it could have been the engine behind a full Level-D simulator had the Eclipse project gone through. So back to the topic at hand... ok Austin added Normal Mapping big deal that only allows the aircraft to be enhanced it doesn't break anything. In fact a master livery artist can build these types of things into the base textures. However it's not like Microsoft where in order to support DX10 it forced DXT5 compression on aircraft textures leaving most of them unable to render. If anything, it exposed the way addon developers work where they either borrow visual models or commission out the textures. Obviously most of these developers refused to do the work for free and hence we were left with both incompatible scenery and aircraft, forcing us to buy everything over again. Who does that hurt the most the developer or the consumer? I'd say both.In anything I'm just here to point out what's wrong with MSFS, with Microsoft being such a successful and large company it's almost impossible to fathom how bad the development team really was. And talking about scenery. I really don't think that is as big of an issue as the incompatible mesh model and data in FSX. FSX describes flat mesh surfaces, the SRTM data source are in WGS-84 format which uses conic sections, hence they are not compatible. The only way to get around it is to use a really high resolution mesh or ESP. It's little things like these that drives a Math guy like me completely insane:)

Sorry but you are wrong again. The redbird can be configured differently for different aircraft-both cockpit configuration and aircraft.From their page:: What plane does your FMX/SD most closely represent?A: Our FMX and SD are built to be interchangeable so that you can simulate a wide variety of aircraft. The list of availlable aircraft is constantly growing as we develop new expansion packs. We are developing expansion packs for Cessna models, Beechcraft models, Piper models, and Cirrus models as well as a generic single engine complex aircraft. These models wil represent single and multi engine aircraft, and standard and glass cockpits. For a complete list of avialable configurations, please contact us.The cockpit is modular and can be customized.There is certainly lots that can be improved in fsx (I don't call it wrong), and there is certainly lots that can be improved in xplane (which I also don't call wrong). At this point it seems many of us find xplane needing more improvements, and if you feel the other way fine.I hope we can put this Faa certification thing to bed now though.