X-plane 10 demo is out...

[Tierborn 191]

I have used MSFS since I was about 8 yrs old... I have loved it, and still do. Xplane 10 >> This however is an incredible experience. Actual 3D clouds :: A flight model that if you crank the wind to 200 knotts, will actually lift the plane off the ground. X-Plane is a wonderful experience. Have a look at these clouds: I find myself playing with fsx less and less. it no longer feels real...

Simulated 3D .. technology cant produce actual 3D clouds yet

[Guest HowardHughes]

I have used MSFS since I was about 8 yrs old... I have loved it, and still do. Xplane 10 >> This however is an incredible experience. Actual 3D clouds :: A flight model that if you crank the wind to 200 knotts, will actually lift the plane off the ground. X-Plane is a wonderful experience. Have a look at these clouds: I find myself playing with fsx less and less. it no longer feels real...

When have you ever seen clouds which look anything like that?

[woweezowee 10]

you guys are killing me. I'm out of x-plane, ok. I'm convinced. Will buy Prep. just for those nice clouds at "maxed out" settings. As a benefit I'll get some commodore C64 pop-up sprites in the scenery. haven't played Summer Games in a long time anyway ;)

edit:uh wait; doesn't run on Mac. damn! I'm busted! ;)

[Gibbage 199]

Simulated 3D .. technology cant produce actual 3D clouds yet

Not true. There are many plugins for 3DS Max that will render real volumetric clouds. DreamScape does great! It just takes hours to render... =)

[Oliver Ooi 85]

Simulated 3D .. technology cant produce actual 3D clouds yet

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_10_infinite/?page=5this software can render hyper realistic cloud, but its not realtime..

[Guest HowardHughes]

Not true. There are many plugins for 3DS Max that will render real volumetric clouds. DreamScape does great! It just takes hours to render... =)

http://www.e-onsoftw...nfinite/?page=5this software can render hyper realistic cloud, but its not realtime..

Given the context of this website, I think it's fairly clear that this isn't what he was talking about.

[Gibbage 199]

Given the context of this website, I think it's fairly clear that this isn't what he was talking about.

When has context really mattered around here?

[Ben Cap 89]

For the people who are saying XP's UI is just different and not hard, your only fooling yourself. As someone who has works in some of the most complex UI's out there (3DS Max, Maya, Zbrush) I could tell right off the bat that XP's UI was way too complex.Here is my demo experience.Start the game, and your dropped into a 747 on KSEA. I try the hat on my stick, and nothing. I tried advancing my throttle, nothing. Now im randomly hitting keys to bring up a menu system.At this point, im already disenchanted with the experience. I have never once seen a flight sim that didn’t have some sort of joystick pre-configured!So, now im trying to find the UI by randomly hitting keys. First, FSX gives you a menu to start off with, and in game, you still have the menu bar above. There is nothing in XP10. I hit esc, alt, ctrl, tab, page up, page down, nothing. Im moving my mouse around the screen and to the top and bam, menu bar! Would of been nice to have some sort of pop-up telling you "To access the menu, move your mouse to the top of the screen" so new users are flailing for the VERY LIMITED time they have.So I find the menu, and click on joystick config, and im just staggered SPEECHLESS. The first tab is rather self-explanatory. You have your axis, and you assign each axis to its function. For some reason, this wasent done for my stick by default? I set my axis, and calibrate my stick by rotating it around all the axis. Then I jump to the tab of "buttons: basic". I don’t know about you, but my definition of "basic" must be different then XP's definition of the word. Your assaulted with a shier wall of commands. 5 rows of about 32 commands in each row, for around 160 commands. HOW IS THIS BASIC?So im trying to set up my HAT so I can pan around the cockpit in the "BASIC" window, and there is a view section. There is things like "glance left" and "backwards" but no "basic" was of saying "I want to use the hat to look around". Basically I need to set every direction to a view? I try a few, and it instantly snaps to that view, not panning. I see "3-D cockpit cmnmd-look" listed. #####? what is cmnmd-look?So I give up in "basic" and go into "advanced" screen. I nearly fainted! On the left is a grid of "joystick buttons". This grid is devided into I would estimate over 300 button's. 300!!!!!! My joystick only seems to use the first 20 or so. You click something on your stick, one of the boxes in the grid lights up for god knows why. A 2nd row brakes the commands down into category’s. Thats helpful. The 3rd row is the commands in the category. I still cant find out how to set my had!!!!!So I give up on the hat, and try to fly. I hop into the Cessna 172, and advance my throttle forward. The 172 starts down the runway, in reverse...... Hu? Must have the axis wrong. I reverse the throttle, and it goes forward. OK. So once it gets a little bit of speed, it starts veering left. A little right rudder corrects it. Im thinking "must be torque" and take off. The moment my wheels leave the runway, my aircraft starts banking left! No amount of right aileron or rudder can correct this, and my Cessna 172 finds its way into the lobby of KSEA. Start over.So I find the external view, and at rest, my control surfaces are all messed up. Thats my problem! So I go back into Joystick config, and calibrate the stick. Everything in the joystick menu looks fine, so I exit and my control surfaces are still messed up.At this point im complaining about the UI to a friend who is a big fan of XP and he hops into Skype with me to try and help. It took him well over 20 minutes, but we found out the problem with this button on the axis config that says something like "use this for center". Basically that tells XP that the current position of the stick is the center. That fixed me and I was able to fly.OK. First, again, never had a flight sim not be able to use a simple joystick by default. I can understand a complex HOTAS needing setup, but a basic stick? Also, this XP vet wasn’t even able to figure out A: How to use hat for panning and B: what the axis problem was, yet in the same breath he's telling me how simple and easy the UI really is "once you get to know it".At that point, I have been using XP10 for almost an hour, and only have experienced about 10 minutes of flight. 1 hour for 10 mins of VERY BASIC flight? And I still cant use my hat to pan the camera around! It would take me DAYS to config a full HOTAS system!This UI is horrible, and punishes new users to such an extend im really surprised XP picks up any new users at all! Here is how I see it. My FSX looks just as good, if not better. I love the FM on XP10, but im not going to spend 80$ and suffer though that UI for just a nice FM. What gets me are all the XP fans that ignore the MANY MANY MANY complaints about the UI and just say "well I guess its just different, because its easy for me!". I could understand ignoring 1 or 2 complaints, but so many? Its the #1 complaint in all the forums, yet its ignored.Right now, XP 10 is in a great position to gain a lot of new fans, but the UI will drive a great portion of those possible new fans away. The moment XP makes its UI more intuitive, it will no longer play 2^nd fiddle too FSX. The problem with that is FSX is almost 6 years old, and Flight is (hopefully) just around the corner!Thats not even mentioning the massive amount of graphical glitches I found that are just too numerious to even count. XP fans say the bugs are because its in beta, but later they proudly proclaim that "XP is always in beta" as if its a good thing. So basically they are saying "it will never be fixed"?

This is one of the best summarizations of my TERRIBLE experiences with XPlane. EVERHats of to you

A: How to use hat for panning and B: what the axis problem was, yet in the same breath he's telling me how simple and easy the UI really is "once you get to know it".

ROFL :(

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

That post also sums up my experience in almost the exact same way. Could barely find the menu bar, let alone set up my simple joystick. What a waste of time XP10 has been for us. Also, the volumetric clouds don't look all that great. Very fuzzy and react just like FS9/FSX when flying into them.

[h2egc 34]

I'm loving this!!!XP is NOT for everyone, but it's for me.And if you can't figure out how to setup your joystick in any flight-sim, you need a different hobby or just wait for Nick_N to post a guide on how to do it.Really...

[Rimshot 1,159]

Hmmm. So how long did it take you to configure your joysticks in X-Plane?

[GoranM 3,778]

Amazing how you all feel the need to express your hatred for x plane in such a vocal way. And then you cheer each other on for it.I don't recall anyone pointing a gun to your head telling you to "Download x plane and LIKE IT!"You don't like it? Don't get it. Enjoy FSX, Prepar3d, Flight, whatever your preference.No-brainer, really.Getting all worked up over it won't make you look any more intelligent.

[h2egc 34]

@Rimshot,Less than 2 minutes, but I understand the GUI.

[Rimshot 1,159]

That's pretty quick! It takes me a lot more to setup and fine tune my joysticks in FSX...

[h2egc 34]

Like what was posted before...You have to put some time into the program, just like you did for the MSFS series for things to click.The manual is always a good place to start instead of just clicking away trying to find something.