name='TheoGregory' timestamp='1285903611' post='1839838']But to me, a flight simulator simulates flight. Look up tables just don't float my boat. Never have and chances are never will as I'm sure many people out there would agree with. I have used FSX, not regularly albeit but i have flown in it. I just wasn't impressed by it..

I'll get right to the point. As a pilot, plane owner, and one who has experienced flight in quite a few aircraft including the Pitt's, Stearman, Marchetti SF260, Van's RV's, P51D Mustang, etc............ I can tell you first hand that "lookup tables" can do an amazing job both in believability & realism. And at the end of the day, that's what counts! I too, use both sims, and I can think of no reason not to. However, just don't assume that lookup tables can't reproduce some excellent flight characteristics. If they couldn't, all of us pilots would have left MSFS years ago..........just as Geof & I did for Pro-Pilot during the FS98 days of MSFS. Yes, Pro-Pilot just had the edge, at the time.L.Adamson

I'll get right to the point. As a pilot, plane owner, and one who has experienced flight in quite a few aircraft including the Pitt's, Stearman, Marchetti SF260, Van's RV's, P51D Mustang, etc............ I can tell you first hand that "lookup tables" can do an amazing job both in believability & realism. And at the end of the day, that's what counts! I too, use both sims, and I can think of no reason not to. However, just don't assume that lookup tables can't reproduce some excellent flight characteristics. If they couldn't, all of us pilots would have left MSFS years ago..........just as Geof & I did for Pro-Pilot during the FS98 days of MSFS. Yes, Pro-Pilot just had the edge, at the time.L.Adamson

uhm the flight models are Control Derivative vs Blade-Element. A "lookup table" is a datastructure.

"Funny since I am a Software Engineer!"If your under 18, that loosely translates to I have some C++ tutorials on my computer. If you actually do make software, then i take back the bit about you not being a programmer, but I also program some of our aircraft using lua. I doubt they draw up all those aircraft. So you click on it and watch it. It's most probably just loading up that aircraft and forgetting about the other ones. Just cos ones there doesn't mean they're all there. It is its very impractical to draw up KJFK and When your sitting at Terminal 2 at WSSS...

As I approach my 62nd birthday in a few short months, I only wish I were still ~18. :)I can absolutely guarantee that every AI aircraft listed as "active" is being drawn -at least within memory- ready to be drawn on screen with zero delay. Depending on the LODs for any given model, what's drawn can be as simple as a two flat polygons (balsa model) to as fully detailed as one could wish, entirely dependent on the distance of the view camera from the AI object.Because most "user flown" models do not have LODs included, they typically make horrible models for AI use, since even if only being "drawn" in memory, they take up a HUGE amount of both memory but computational resources!Which is precisely why if one chooses to use a "user flown" model as AI, and have jetway definitions in the model's aircraft.cfg [exits] section, it will be a "lethal combination" vis-a-vis sim performance! Even though neither the a/c model nor the jetway is being drawn on screen, they are both being drawn "in memory," thus consuming HUGE amounts of resources!The main point I'm driving at is this: when set up properly, the FS AI system performs very well. But, if abused by careless or clueless folks, it can be the proverbial "boat anchor" with regards to overall sim performance... :( I've also no doubts whatever that X-Plane can (and is) similarly subject to such abuse... :(

Hi all !More news from Austin Meyer here today:http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/xplane-news/message/1656Happy reading ! :(

Interesting, personally I can see Microsoft going this route eventually if they haven't done so already. Either way it'll address some of the sour points I have with XP9. If it supports 16 core, it should support 64 bit memory as well. I wonder if that means Austin is being forced to run Windows for the compiler.

XP9 supports 64 bit. XP 10 will too.Austin doesn't run windows. He uses a compiler on his mac to port it over to windows and linux. He has said if it works on his mac, it'll work on windows and linux.

I think Ben does a better job explaining the more technical aspects of X-Plane 10. Austin's recent post about Object Oriented Programming as being the reason X-plane 10 performs better than X-plane 9 seems to miss the mark. The real reason the performance is better are changes to the way X-plane 10 handles threads (which has little if anything to do with the method of programming you choose), But now he's going to convince someone out there that the only way you can improve performance is by using OOP which is clearly incorrect.

I think Ben does a better job explaining the more technical aspects of X-Plane 10. Austin's recent post about Object Oriented Programming as being the reason X-plane 10 performs better than X-plane 9 seems to miss the mark. The real reason the performance is better are changes to the way X-plane 10 handles threads (which has little if anything to do with the method of programming you choose), But now he's going to convince someone out there that the only way you can improve performance is by using OOP which is clearly incorrect.

What he writes makes him sound like a bit of a novice programmer who only just discovered OOP.

What he writes makes him sound like a bit of a novice programmer who only just discovered OOP.

Also boasting of 100fps with no scenery and only 20 AI aircraft does not bode well on performance. If I turn all my 3D scenery off in FSX and using UT2 cut my AI down to 20 AI aircraft. (I actually still get about 40 though for some reason, probably a bug in UT2) When facing them I get about 80 FPS, If I turn away though I get over 100FPS. That though is only with a 2 core E6850 @ 3.0Ghz 4GB mem and a 9800GTX. I could imagine what you'd see with an I7-980 with a GTX480 card. I would think an OpenGl App running on an 8 CPU 16 core MAC, should do better than that without scenery.

XP9 supports 64 bit. XP 10 will too.Austin doesn't run windows. He uses a compiler on his mac to port it over to windows and linux. He has said if it works on his mac, it'll work on windows and linux.

Actually no it's a 32-bit application for now, and I'm pretty sure CodeWarrior only supports win32. You can run it SxS on Windows 7 but all 16 cpus will share the same 2 gig space. But I suppose he can just build with Microsoft VC compiler in a virtualized window :)

Actually, no, a friend of mine on Skype is running it on Windows 7 64 bit.Quad core 2.67ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia 9500GT with 1GB Vram

Do you even understand the difference between a 32bit and 64bit application? Seriously I thought you were a "developer". Anyone with windows can run task manager and see clearly it's a Win32 application,

*sigh*Taken from x-plane.com"X-Plane is the world's most comprehensive, powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.X-Plane version 9 requires a computer with at least the following specifications:

• A 2 GHz processor
• 1.0 GB RAM (physical memory)
• 64 MB VRAM (video memory on your video card)
• 10 GB of hard drive space

The simulator will run on Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32- and 64-bit), and Linux. Note that when using Windows Vista and Windows 7, it is recommended that at least 2 GB of RAM be used." Perhaps you would like a link to where I found that?http://x-plane.com/pg_Sys_reqs.html And yes, I call myself a developer, as does Avsim, my distributor, my friends and my customers. Before trying to insult me, I suggest you look up the system specs like I did...just to make sure you're right.

I can guarantee you 100% that X-Plane runs on Windows 7 64bit perfectly

Pilotman22: nope try again this time with Task Manager not My Computer... find the x-plane.exe process and note the "*32" beside it. That means the Kernel can only assign 2 gigs of ram to that application, and only within the lower memory range. I said the application is 32bit.. doesn't matter about the OS version at all.