New Xplane Convert

[cmdrnmartin 1]

Hi folks.So, with MS Flight being nothing better then Pilotwings II, I finally made the switch to Xplane.1. The geomesh and scenery is amazing.2. The weather looks good, but I'm concerned about the accuracy on long flights in a jet. The winds aloft seem wrong.3. The 3d cockpits are very cool, and the displays are stunning (its painful to look at guages in FS9 and FSX now.)4. The night airports look very good, BUT, the colours seem too dark on the ground, no stars, no moonlight, very hard to navigate an apron on the ground.What do I need to get my sim up to snuff? I got REX trying to fix the weather, but I don't think it did.

[GoranM 3,809]

Can you post a screenshot of the sim and of the settings you're using?

[cmdrnmartin 1]

Uhh, a screenshot? Of which settings page?

[GoranM 3,809]

I assume you're talking about x plane 10.SHIFT + SPACE takes a screenshot of the sim and stores it in your root x plane folder.Settings are in the top menu under settings - Rendering and settings

[cmdrnmartin 1]

Sorry, just using 9 right now, still waiting for my 10 DVDs which I bought this week.

[GoranM 3,809]

Screenshot is CTRL + .and the settings are under the top menuSettingsRendering Options

[VegaSS 2]

Sorry, just using 9 right now, still waiting for my 10 DVDs which I bought this week.

OH. You should really like 10 than. :(

[lightplane 0]

Hi folks.So, with MS Flight being nothing better then Pilotwings II, I finally made the switch to Xplane.1. The geomesh and scenery is amazing.2. The weather looks good, but I'm concerned about the accuracy on long flights in a jet. The winds aloft seem wrong.3. The 3d cockpits are very cool, and the displays are stunning (its painful to look at guages in FS9 and FSX now.)4. The night airports look very good, BUT, the colours seem too dark on the ground, no stars, no moonlight, very hard to navigate an apron on the ground.What do I need to get my sim up to snuff? I got REX trying to fix the weather, but I don't think it did.

For night lighting, ensure you have HDR turned on. Night lighting is darker than FSX, but it is actually more realistic.To help at night taxiing, use the Night Vision option under "view" - I've set a key to toggle this on and off and useful to see taxiways at night that are not very well lit.I doubt REX will work with X-plane 10 as it was written for X-plane 9 and the weather system is totally different.X-plane will evolve. Over the run of it, Austin will release updates - for Version 9 there were around 69 updates. So expect a lot of improvements to come to the sim.To help, report bugs to Laminar via the bug report (just google xplane bug reporter) or email Austin at the address on the startup screen. Austin does read them and will respond if he needs more information to help sort the problem.EDIT - HDR is Xplane 10 only. Night vision works on both. Night lighting on 10 is much much better than 9 - but you must have HDR on for it to work. Edited January 9, 2012 by lightplane

[cmdrnmartin 1]

Thanks for the tips lightplane.Does REX do winds aloft using weather reporting points? I'm just trying to find somethign that will model winds correctly at the moment, since I plan for 10 knots on the tail, and taking 40 in the nose kind of throws my flight plan out the window. I try to judge what it will be using AWWS ASEP charts, but REX doesn't seem to get the winds right either?

[GoranM 3,809]

Might be a stupid question, but have you enabled real world weather download?

[cmdrnmartin 1]

I did, but I don't think it is reading the winds aloft. It does make the weather at and around airports work correctly, but when I get to FL240~280, my typical cruise height, the winds remain in the same direction as they were at a nearby airport, and are not reflective of the upper winds in the area. I do not know if this is a software limitation or not. I have enabled the real world, set the interval to ten minutes, but over a 60 minute flight, I was taking a 40~50 knot headwind when I should have had about 20~30 on the tail.The winds and weather at or near an airport have me impressed, you get a real feel for the weight of your plane on a final with a stiff crosswind, and the CRFI modelling is great! But the winds aloft thing is nagging at me.

[Janov 2,383]

I am not sure that "winds aloft" are downloaded and processed by the real-world-weather... Last time I looked at the file the download creates there were no entries for winds aloft.To do a proper long-range flight you would need to have wind forecast for the flight-levels you are planning your flight at. The METAR format is only for the airport itself - it doesn´t say anything about winds at 5000 or 10000 feet - much less about FL370 or so.In addition there are no reporting stations in remote areas or over the oceans...As a practical matter I would maybe switch from "real-world-weather" to "set wxr globally" at some point during your climbout and just enter the wind aloft as desired manually.Then - as you approach your destination - initate another download of the real world weather.Jan

[cmdrnmartin 1]

In addition there are no reporting stations in remote areas or over the oceans...

Well, that's why we have these bad boys. So we technically have weather reporting stations over the ocean, with information entered into the NOAA dataset from a selection of global sources. The issue is someone designing a piece of software that takes these values and auto-sets them inside of the simulation engine. I believe ActiveSky did this for FS9, it always seemed to do a reasonable job of predicting and simulating upper winds.

As a practical matter I would maybe switch from "real-world-weather" to "set wxr globally" at some point during your climbout and just enter the wind aloft as desired manually.Then - as you approach your destination - initate another download of the real world weather.

Yeah, I was worried that this was the only option. I personally feel that pulls me out of the simulation too much, I'd much prefer to have the data pulled and set for me. Not a question of laziness, but just a preference to avoid losing the immersion of the sim itself.

[TedG 1]

The winds aloft mechanism in XP9.7 can be a bit wonky at times. I feel your pain having flown 600+ miles last night in a PC-12 with continual 90kt headwinds although that may have been some glitch associated with XSquawkbox. I don't believe there is a weather "smoothing" function within XP9 without resorting to setting your own weather.REXPlane will not have any effect either...but it does look good!As a possible cure for seeing your way at night might I suggest having a look here:http://an148xp.ucoz.ru/360 low light TV/FLIR as standard in the center MFD....a lovely bit of freeware :(

[Pascal_LSGC 310]

the issue is someone designing a piece of software that takes these values and auto-sets them inside of the simulation engine.

Looks like we have a winner:http://forums.x-plan...&showfile=15453didn't try it yet, but looks excellent !Pascal Edited January 9, 2012 by Pascal_LSGC