Hi Y'all,Geofa: I think the interesting take-away on fps is the difference in standards...the X-plane community is clearly used to high fps. I think their reaction to your fps is "I can't believe fps are that low for the hw being used." So the question is: will anyone with that reaction help you to tune your X-Plane setup? (I would offer, but at this point I have become too busy to do systems tuning - it's very labor intensive. :-( Sorry.)Jan: Your quote:

often we sit on the ILS saying "wow, she needs a lot of power today!". Set target parameters of pitch and power and adjust.

Remind me of a conversation I had with an A320 pilot at one of the VATSIM receptions...he was commenting on the immense variation in real airplane performance within his fleet. (I think he was a United pilot.) In particular, one plane had a rather crude side panel replacement and apparently the plane required rather severe rudder trim to keep it straight for the entire flight.Could you comment on how much variation relative to the published numbers you see within a real fleet of aircraft? The sim community is absolutely obsessed with hitting the numbers, but from the very few conversations I've had with real airline pilots, the procedure is to dial the necessary command to hit targets, and expect the inputs to vary based on the specifics of the plane, the day, the alignment of the stars, etc.cheersben

Hi Y'all,Jan: Your quote:Remind me of a conversation I had with an A320 pilot at one of the VATSIM receptions...he was commenting on the immense variation in real airplane performance within his fleet. (I think he was a United pilot.) In particular, one plane had a rather crude side panel replacement and apparently the plane required rather severe rudder trim to keep it straight for the entire flight.Could you comment on how much variation relative to the published numbers you see within a real fleet of aircraft? The sim community is absolutely obsessed with hitting the numbers, but from the very few conversations I've had with real airline pilots, the procedure is to dial the necessary command to hit targets, and expect the inputs to vary based on the specifics of the plane, the day, the alignment of the stars, etc.cheersben

Hi Ben,that alignment of the stars comment made me chuckle, as indeed sometimes it feels like even paranormal and relativistic parameters will influence the airplane performance :( Especially when it comes to judging the break for the landing - there is just no "formula" to exactly spit out the right altitude and right amount of "break" (no "flare" for professional airliner landings) to get the soft touchdown at the 1000 feet mark...The performance (pitch, power -> rate of climb/speed) will not only vary with environmental parameters and airplane weight/balance but also differ between same model aircraft within a fleet. Engines age, repairs are made (like you mentioned), trimtabs are adjusted in slightly different ways, etc. We calculate the weight of our 737

Jan - thanks for posting such a detailed response - I really appreciate it. I am NOT saying to any users or third party developers are not important, or that wrong performance is a good thing.But read what Jan is writing - real world aviation involves coping with the unexpected, with the varying, with the continuous! This is something that Austin, who has been flying for approximately forever, really takes to heart, which is why unexpected things do happen in X-Plane, and he usually reacts negatively when users ask him to tone things down. In the real world you can't turn off the birds, the turbulence, or the unexpected equipment failure, and if you are an ATP, your plane might be "bent" a little bit. :-)cheersBen

Jan - thanks for posting such a detailed response - I really appreciate it. I am NOT saying to any users or third party developers are not important, or that wrong performance is a good thing.But read what Jan is writing - real world aviation involves coping with the unexpected, with the varying, with the continuous! This is something that Austin, who has been flying for approximately forever, really takes to heart, which is why unexpected things do happen in X-Plane, and he usually reacts negatively when users ask him to tone things down. In the real world you can't turn off the birds, the turbulence, or the unexpected equipment failure, and if you are an ATP, your plane might be "bent" a little bit. :-)cheersBen

I agree, but when using a simulator as a training device, having the unexpected happen can be detrimental to the desired learning effect. If I am in a typerating conversion trying to get a grip on the engine out abnormal procedure, it is not helpful if I get bird or deerstrikes, additional equipment fails unexpectedly or heavy turbulence makes "learning" the right pitchvalues impossible. It boils down to what you want to use the sim for. If I want to have an entertaining and challenging flight from A to B, then hit me with all sorts of unexpected mayhem. But if I - as a new user - try to get the hang of flying the traffic pattern, it can get really frustrating and confusing if rain falls out of cumulus clouds or turbulence rattles your teeth or the elevator fails, especially if you didn

Hi Jan,Duly noted on training - I believe that X-Plane's instructor mode gives the instructor 100% control over what happens, e.g. no surprises, and this mode of use can be extended to one-user operation. The case of "anything could happen" is more meant to present a _general_ impression of _real_ flying, e.g. blue skies doesn't mean it's hard landing time. :-)The new features are sometimes cranked a bit too high...getting in on the beta can make this worse. For example, the MTBF in X-Plane was set way too low for most of the betas. We increased it in a late RC, but for users in the beta, they may have already ended up with the default setting.cheersBen

It is my experience with X-Plane that new features are sometimes overdone a bit, to showcase the "cool" factor maybe, then toned down eventually at the overwhelming request of the community.

I've seen a lot of comments saying the turbulence is too strong and needs to be toned down. Just try downloading real weather, most of the time when there's turbulence even the 747 (XP default and XPFW version) bounces around way to much, IMHO. Surely its not like this in the real world?

I've seen a lot of comments saying the turbulence is too strong and needs to be toned down. Just try downloading real weather, most of the time when there's turbulence even the 747 (XP default and XPFW version) bounces around way to much, IMHO. Surely its not like this in the real world?

I have to vote for this one too - compared to my extremely limited RW experience turbulence has a couple of problems in X-Plane. For one thing, it's either there or it's not until the weather changes. I would have expected it to come and go. It also seems way too strong to me. I'm guessing that Austin has put together a simulation of turbulence that is reasonably accurate, however, I feel that it affects the aircraft far too much. There are many things that would act as a damping factor in this sort of case - wing flex springs to mind immediately which I don't think X-Plane currently simulates (though many aircraft have purely graphical wing flex). I also feel that inertia/momentum, which would also be factors, aren't considered enough in general in either X-Plane or MSFS. Try this sometime (in either sim not in RL ;) Get yourself flying along straight and level and well trimmed. Now grab your yoke/joystick and roll to one side at maximum deflection. Wait until you get to maximum roll speed. Now release the yoke/joystick and let it centre. In my experience it takes a little while to reach your maximum roll rate, which is what I would expect, but when you release the controls the aircraft stops pretty much instantaneously. Surely it should decelerate rather than just stop dead? My (again extremely limited) knowledge of aircraft aerodynamics tells me that there is a damping factor on the roll but I find it hard to believe that it can even approximate a perfectly damped system like that.Setanta

Hi Jan,Duly noted on training - I believe that X-Plane's instructor mode gives the instructor 100% control over what happens, e.g. no surprises, and this mode of use can be extended to one-user operation. The case of "anything could happen" is more meant to present a _general_ impression of _real_ flying, e.g. blue skies doesn't mean it's hard landing time. :-)The new features are sometimes cranked a bit too high...getting in on the beta can make this worse. For example, the MTBF in X-Plane was set way too low for most of the betas. We increased it in a late RC, but for users in the beta, they may have already ended up with the default setting.cheersBen

Hi again,yes, I know that these things are totally controllable with X-Plane, it

Hi Jan,

It struck me as a "first" when Austin recently connected the "crank engine" command with "fuel flow on", because he got tired of the "I can

The thread has finally moved to a better place hahOne thing that would be nice is to have a place where XPers help FSXers with hardware settings and vice versa. It's difficult to be used to FSX then add XP into the mix. A lot of settings seem different. Instead of getting bashed for using FSX as my main simulator I'd like to get some help from experienced XPers from a hardware POV. I grew up on MS Flight Simulator, can't hold it against me :(

What, the internet could be used for something OTHER than flaming each other? Ridiculous!If anyone decides to try to help anyone else:- Preference folders ARE compatible as long as the CPU is the same (x86 to x86 or ppc to ppc) and the version of X-Plane is EXACTLY the same, e.g. 941 to 941.- Log.txt contains most system info and is a good comparison of two theoretically equal machines.- GPU control panel settings can hose everything and must be examined.- When in doubt, run the fps test for "hard" numbers.

I'll bite.This is my new computer from 1 month ago-a Intel core i7 920 @ 2.67 ghz, 12 gb ram, win 7 64 bits, nvidia 8800gt 1920x1200.Here are my rendering settings:and here is what I see and get performance wise at my home airport of kptk (at innsbruck I get twice this) :Now-with my prior computer-a dual core-I also got similar results although they were even lower.Running latest certified 195.62 nvidia drivers with same settings I run fsx-16x anisotropic,2x antialiasing, high quality texture filtering and vertical sync on.

What, the internet could be used for something OTHER than flaming each other? Ridiculous!If anyone decides to try to help anyone else:- Preference folders ARE compatible as long as the CPU is the same (x86 to x86 or ppc to ppc) and the version of X-Plane is EXACTLY the same, e.g. 941 to 941.- Log.txt contains most system info and is a good comparison of two theoretically equal machines.- GPU control panel settings can hose everything and must be examined.- When in doubt, run the fps test for "hard" numbers.

No kidding man.About the GPU: For FSX I run nHancer. What do you XPers use? IE if I run FSX without nHancer everything looks bad imho. I don't have a current XP version but am seriously considering XP10.0 It is looking really nice.

I'll bite.This is my new computer from 1 month ago-a Intel core i7 920 @ 2.67 ghz, 12 gb ram, win 7 64 bits, nvidia 8800gt 1920x1200.Here are my rendering settings:and here is what I see and get performance wise at my home airport of kptk (at innsbruck I get twice this) :Now-with my prior computer-a dual core-I also got similar results although they were even lower.Running latest certified 195.62 nvidia drivers with same settings I run fsx-16x anisotropic,2x antialiasing, high quality texture filtering and vertical sync on.

Hi Geof,your results strike me as very low. I have recreated the very same settings on my E8500 Core2Duo (overclocked by 10%) with my ancient ATI X1900XT. AA at 2x, 16x AF, I have even set the visibility in the weather menu to 25NM, as I think you are also running that. My monitor supports only 1600x1200, so I have a little less resolution there. My result is a framerate of 23+ (I think yours would be actually even lower, but X-Plane has already reduced your rendering distance with a factor of 0.8something).Jan

I'll bite.This is my new computer from 1 month ago-a Intel core i7 920 @ 2.67 ghz, 12 gb ram, win 7 64 bits, nvidia 8800gt 1920x1200.Here are my rendering settings:and here is what I see and get performance wise at my home airport of kptk (at innsbruck I get twice this) :Now-with my prior computer-a dual core-I also got similar results although they were even lower.Running latest certified 195.62 nvidia drivers with same settings I run fsx-16x anisotropic,2x antialiasing, high quality texture filtering and vertical sync on.

Something seriously wrong there - and I hope I may know what it is.Check under the Aircraft/Aircraft & Situations and turn the number of aircraft down to 1. Did that help?At present AFAIK X-Plane actually models the other aircraft (CPU intensive) where MSFS uses its usual look-up table (Low CPU). X-Plane also does it all in a single thread which of course means only using one processor. Since X-Plane is largely CPU bound these days it's a killer. My own iMac (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo, 4Gb, ATI HD 4850 512Mb) gives around 30fps at much higher settings within X-Plane with no AI aircraft, and something very similar to what you're getting with 20 other aircraft out there. I'm wondering if this is a common problem with people who are using X-Plane from an MSFS background and having problems with frame rate.Setanta