After more flak I decided to try the XP9 demo....again.... For now I'll put aside my hatred of the GUI, controls setup (why so difficult to set up hat switch??), and funky AA and AF. Can anyone let me know if the addons get better than the default PA46 that's included in the demo? If the real malibu flew like the demo one does Piper would be getting sued on a daily basis. Or if there's some realism slider I need to change to make it better? Here, look a screenie, to prove I'm trying it again haha.

Hi Ryan, I've seen you on the Avsim/orbx forums I think. I've been doing the opposite, checking out fsx. Not many great flight models there I feel, almost stuck with A2A or PMDG.. I can heartily recommend any of Leading Edge Simulations products (eg Duchess), or C74's piper pack, or of course the Carenado xplane equivalents.

RyanYou can't compare the default aircraft with payware aircraft. You're comparing apples and oranges. Just like you can't compare the default aircraft of FSX to some of A2A's or PMDG's creations.Truth is, most, if not all the default aircraft in XP9 have been recycled from V7 or V8. The default 747 and 777 have been around since at least V7. Search around and you will find add ons that will seriously give FSX add ons a run for their money. Like Simon said (thanks Simmo!) the Duchess I made with my development partner has received exceptional reviews. The CRJ-200 also will surprise you at how procedurally realistic it is.The add ons are out there and I have constantly said I will point people in the right direction if they want to see them and read reviews about them.No one is saying to replace FSX. We're just saying try X Plane as well.

Ha, and I'm going crazy with all these forums now looking the same. I thought you'd posted on the Xplane Org forum! Duh...

I was just going to pm you Goran! Yes, like everywhere, you get what you pay for. Except for a few very well done xplane freewares which also punch above their weight, like the x737 and some of xpfr's freebies. Ryan, pm me if you get lost & I'll hand select some for you. Ok the x737 only has a 2d pit (for now), but crank the weather up, use IFR in low visibility and you'll have a ball, once you wipe the sweat off your brow. Or just try to land Goran's Sundowner smoothly...

After more flak I decided to try the XP9 demo....again.... For now I'll put aside my hatred of the GUI, controls setup (why so difficult to set up hat switch??), and funky AA and AF. Can anyone let me know if the addons get better than the default PA46 that's included in the demo? If the real malibu flew like the demo one does Piper would be getting sued on a daily basis. Or if there's some realism slider I need to change to make it better? Here, look a screenie, to prove I'm trying it again haha.

I'm also curious. Why is it hard for you to set up the hat switch? What are you actually having trouble with?Could you also please explain what you mean by "funky" AA and AF?And yes, there are realism settings as well as joystick sensitivities.Have a look at this, this, and this and tell me if you think it gets better.

So the general consensus is that stock XP planes suck? Most FSX ones do too fwiw. I think what I'll do is wait for XP10 and then see what comes down the pipeline. Funky AA - meaning I cranked the in-game stuff and it looked like my screen shot (didn't look very AAed if that's a word), anyway I probably need to mess around in nvidia inspector and make a new profile for XP. Hat switch hard to configure - meaning you have to individually configure the 8 possible views, it won't work out of the box per se. What I'm getting at is that FSX is setup out of the box to use - lots more to do to get XP working well, and the interface isn't visually appealing. Hopefully that's improved in ver 10. Thanks for all responses.

So the general consensus is that stock XP planes suck? Most FSX ones do too fwiw. I think what I'll do is wait for XP10 and then see what comes down the pipeline. Funky AA - meaning I cranked the in-game stuff and it looked like my screen shot (didn't look very AAed if that's a word), anyway I probably need to mess around in nvidia inspector and make a new profile for XP.

Did you restart the sim after changing AA? It tells you it requires a restart if you change it. Same with overall texture resolution. Once you change it, you need to restart the sim.

Hat switch hard to configure - meaning you have to individually configure the 8 possible views, it won't work out of the box per se. What I'm getting at is that FSX is setup out of the box to use - lots more to do to get XP working well, and the interface isn't visually appealing. Hopefully that's improved in ver 10. Thanks for all responses.

To be honest, you are the first person I have ever seen that has complained about assigning views to the Hat Switch in x plane.By no means am I meaning to sound insulting, but it took me literally 30 seconds to set up my hat switch for the various views and no more than 2 minutes to set everything else up that I need.There are many default, out of the box settings already implemented. Views included. They're just different to FSX and you probably haven't found them yet. In that instance, there isn't much to do at all to get x plane working properly. If you want help, I'll be more than happy to point you in the direction of the various shortcuts. Regarding the interface, I've told this to a few other people. You are just too accustomed to FSX. ANYTHING else will be hard to get a grasp of. I have 3 different 3d modelling programs and it was a nightmare going from one to the other. Eventually, I got used to them. Improved might be good. Changed... not so much. But hey, can't make everyone happy.

I thought that included piper WAS a C74.

Can anyone let me know if the addons get better than the default PA46 that's included in the demo? If the real malibu flew like the demo one does Piper would be getting sued on a daily basis.

Hello ! Can you please describe the problem you had flying the Malibu ? If you'll like X-Plane or not will depend on the time you spend discovering all the features, settings, and add-ons. Flying a demo during a few minutes is just like trying a console game. I'm not using in-game "AA" and "AF". I prefer setting these options in the graphic driver. Happy flying !

Hey Max, long time no chat! Nice piccies there. Do you know how to make the gpu driver control the AA? I have nvidia inspector which works great with fsx (there's a profile for it), but can't work out how to find an xplane profile or set a new one?Just curious, I'm actually pretty happy with xplane's AA.

Did you restart the sim after changing AA? It tells you it requires a restart if you change it. Same with overall texture resolution. Once you change it, you need to restart the sim. To be honest, you are the first person I have ever seen that has complained about assigning views to the Hat Switch in x plane.By no means am I meaning to sound insulting, but it took me literally 30 seconds to set up my hat switch for the various views and no more than 2 minutes to set everything else up that I need.There are many default, out of the box settings already implemented. Views included. They're just different to FSX and you probably haven't found them yet. In that instance, there isn't much to do at all to get x plane working properly. If you want help, I'll be more than happy to point you in the direction of the various shortcuts. Regarding the interface, I've told this to a few other people. You are just too accustomed to FSX. ANYTHING else will be hard to get a grasp of. I have 3 different 3d modelling programs and it was a nightmare going from one to the other. Eventually, I got used to them. Improved might be good. Changed... not so much. But hey, can't make everyone happy.

Ok-I have to jump in. The xplane interface reminds me of the dos days. Now no mistake-I used to program machine language with one hand tied behind my back-but I just don't feel like doing that anymore. I also have found the xplane interface tedious. Just being honest. I just want to get going and simulate...

Ok-I have to jump in. The xplane interface reminds me of the dos days. Now no mistake-I used to program machine language with one hand tied behind my back-but I just don't feel like doing that anymore. I also have found the xplane interface tedious. Just being honest. I just want to get going and simulate...

That's fair enough. But wouldn't you want something that is extremely flexible and customizable so you can set it according to what YOU want or would you want a small handful of preset configurations.Once you set your preferences, you can back them up, zip them, save them somewhere and if you ever need to re-install x plane, for whatever reason, simply drop your configuration files in the preferences folder and you're all set. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

That's fair enough. But wouldn't you want something that is extremely flexible and customizable so you can set it according to what YOU want or would you want a small handful of preset configurations.Once you set your preferences, you can back them up, zip them, save them somewhere and if you ever need to re-install x plane, for whatever reason, simply drop your configuration files in the preferences folder and you're all set. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

Well not too happy with every update having to go in and reset every setting manually. Again-I just want to simulate-as quickly as possible...and I know it can be done from another sim...seems like it would be a good feature to add.

I've learnt to backup the preferences file to save time in updates/resets.Having only used fsx in depth the last few months, I could say that setting it up and getting it running smoothly is more tedious than a few intuitive box clicks in xplane (and DOS never had that, but you can relive those days playing with your FSX.cfg file) As Goran says, it depends on the person. I find either interface perfectly fine, and I tell ya, I HATE having to keep hiding the menu in fsx. At least Xp is smart enough to auto hide it.