X-Plane vs. FSX

[Avcomware 1]

Hello everyone.These types of threads can easily get into the personal exchanges, I hope this will stay civil.I will give my opinion, with intent to be used as constructive / useful feed back and if anyone cannot accept it as such, stop reading now.Both sims have good points and these are some things that I would like to see done differently in XPX, since I would just be using up energy and gain nothing by giving any feedback to MS, I will not do it.I have a fairly extensive Real World flying background and ALL the feedback is based on MY personal observation / feel of the Real World.Reference acft. C172, with many settings in forward view, Lateral Field of view from 45 to 85, in MSFSX I use 50% view. VC cockpit adjusted to see the 6 Pack and a small part of the cowl. For this I adjust the model to get the view I want. You can also achieve the same result using +- and Up Down arrows but they would change if you reset the Forward Panel view, this has changed since XP9.As far as performance I see no problem running either sim, and FPS is not an issue, XPX is a little more demanding on the hardware but that is a none issue for me.I will Not go into fine / small details about models and or scenery, just some things that I would like to see addressed.Nr.1.XPX and XP9 seem to have an out the window / forward view that appears to be sloping up, ahead of you, even when the terrain is flat or sloping down a little. What I am trying to convey is that there is a wrong feel when I look out from the cockpit.To elaborate, I am up at 1600 Ft. on the ILS to KLGB and I have no sense / feel of height that I see in real life, if anything the Runway seems to above the cowl. As I approach the Runway, and I am on the Glide Slope at VDP, the far end of the Runway seems to point up, when it should look closer to flat looking. Also in the last Phase, the Flare, where you normally end up in an attitude where the cowl points right above the end of the runway, in real life, in XPX you can still see almost half the runway, if you try to set the cowl on the end in the XPX you end up Stalling.Nr.2.With Xwind in the 10-15 Kts., it's just about impossible to keep the aircraft on the Runway. I was able to modify that in XP9 with some planes but it adversely affected other things.Nr.3.Unable to use the Twist on the Joy Stick, to view Left Right, normally used as Rudder on the Joy Stick. I have Rudder pedals, reason, no Null adjustment for the axes, without it every movement of other axis wil affect the View. I would assume that this is an easy fix.Nr.4.Lack of "View center" assignment key, it was available in XP9 but missing in XPX. Useful to center your view without changing the cockpit position / zoom. Things that I like, is the feel in a coordinated turn that seems closer to the real life rate, the fluidity, the cloud opacity (did not see through them), before the RC2.The representation of the Roads, and other points in the scenery. TV

[jcomm 5,929]

Morten, thx for the picture.P-factor, even if being quite negligible on most situations, accounts for YAW, not BANK.

jcomm,Not 100% sure I understand you right but..AFAIK, X-Plane models BOTH propwash and P-factor. Attach a shot of the propwash over the tail causing yaw.(static on runway, purple lines, from lelf to right hitting the rudder). On my XP Archer (which I also fly in real) you have togive significant right rudder, especially at low airspeed+full power (like takeoff). So to me that seems realistic.With regard to P-factor, as your links say, it will at an AoA (climb+cruise) give you a left BANK which X-Plane also does well atleast on my Archer. (it is trimmed so there is no bank in cruise)This being said, I can PROVE that the propwash is a bit weak in X-Plane. I suspect this is intentional(!) because of the ground model. Long story, but if it was100% realistic, most prop aircraft would end up in the ditch on takeoff because of gear friction/computationalcreep issues.The other thing is offcourse that real aircraft have buildt in trim tabs, offset stabilizer, canted engines etc that the XP designer mightnot be aware of and the aircraft will not behave correct in this regard.M

[60North 120]

P-factor, even if being quite negligible on most situations, accounts for YAW, not BANK.

Right, I offcourse meant Prop Torque effect which will give you BANKhttp://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/dynamics/q0015a.shtmlM

[fly_like_an_eagle 10]

empty

Edited January 27, 2012 by fly_like_an_eagle

[Johnny Thunder 0]

I play both FSX and X-plane and I think X-plane is better now, and will soon be supiror to FSX in almost every way; However what's kinda a disapointing statement is that FSX was feature compleat 6 years ago (Wow, has it really been that long?) While X-plane feels like it's always been playing catch-up with FSX and still dosen't have all the features one would expect from a $ program.The thing that really sets X-plane appart from FSX is that X-plane handels stalls and spins much more accuretly then FSX. When you stall in FSX or go into a spin, the game dosen't really know what to do. It feels like you fell into outer space or something and the aircraft stops reacting to areodinamic forces until you right the aircraft to point in the direction you're moving again. X-plane on the other hand feels much more realistic in a stall, as the aerodynamic forces still react ageinst that shape of the airplane even after the airplane has stalled or gone into a spin, making it much more easy to control in a stall or spin, and also much easyer to recover from stall or to land.The problem I always had with FSX (Not counting the memory problems that seem to desicrate my OS every time I think to play with the highest settings) is that landing the Boeing 747 was always a life or death situtation, every-time.In FSX, as soon as you stall the airplane stops genarating lift compleatly. This is extreemly appernt when landing the 747 in FSX, for if you come in and drop your airspeed to bellow 140knots or so, the plane will drematicly lose lift and fall stright into the ground. This by itself really ruined my expirence with FSX, as I would fly the 747 for an hour or two, and then crash on final more often then not.My conclusion is that FSX genarates lift on the airplane based off look up tables of wind tunnal data, but it dosen't have wind tunnal data for stalls or spins (I mean it's not like they put the airplane on it's sides in the wind tunnal to test how fast it would fall from all directions.) So when you stall your airplane in FSX you go from however much lift you get just above your stall speed to zero, and fall like a rock. X-plane when you stall, the plane will try and right itself and will still be genarating some amount of lift even in a stall.I think FSX is trying to make everyone a better pilot by doing this, or trying to make sure they don't get sued if someone tries something in FSX and it dosen't work in real life. Because in this way the game teaches you to fly the airplane without ever stalling, which is a much safer way to fly, and FSX is perfictly realistic, as long as you never stall. But X-plane is far more realistic when it comes to real world low speed stalls, spins and airtricks that the FAA would probably consider less then safe.Still, the best part of FSX for me was the missions.

[Tom Wright 438]

This is extreemly appernt when landing the 747 in FSX, for if you come in and drop your airspeed to bellow 140knots or so, the plane will drematicly lose lift and fall stright into the ground. This by itself really ruined my expirence with FSX, as I would fly the 747 for an hour or two, and then crash on final more often then not.

That's actually quite realistic behaviour. You use a different technique to landing a jet than landing a small prop. You don't stall it onto the runway, because as you've found large jets drop like a brick when they approach stall speed. Instead you fly it onto the runway, maintaining a constant speed and attitude. At about 50ft, raise the nose by a few degrees and pull the throttles back and let it settle on. Edited January 27, 2012 by Tom Wright

[tf51d 284]

I play both FSX and X-plane and I think X-plane is better now, and will soon be supiror to FSX in almost every way; However what's kinda a disapointing statement is that FSX was feature compleat 6 years ago (Wow, has it really been that long?) While X-plane feels like it's always been playing catch-up with FSX and still dosen't have all the features one would expect from a $ program.The thing that really sets X-plane appart from FSX is that X-plane handels stalls and spins much more accuretly then FSX. When you stall in FSX or go into a spin, the game dosen't really know what to do. It feels like you fell into outer space or something and the aircraft stops reacting to areodinamic forces until you right the aircraft to point in the direction you're moving again. X-plane on the other hand feels much more realistic in a stall, as the aerodynamic forces still react ageinst that shape of the airplane even after the airplane has stalled or gone into a spin, making it much more easy to control in a stall or spin, and also much easyer to recover from stall or to land.The problem I always had with FSX (Not counting the memory problems that seem to desicrate my OS every time I think to play with the highest settings) is that landing the Boeing 747 was always a life or death situtation, every-time.In FSX, as soon as you stall the airplane stops genarating lift compleatly. This is extreemly appernt when landing the 747 in FSX, for if you come in and drop your airspeed to bellow 140knots or so, the plane will drematicly lose lift and fall stright into the ground. This by itself really ruined my expirence with FSX, as I would fly the 747 for an hour or two, and then crash on final more often then not.My conclusion is that FSX genarates lift on the airplane based off look up tables of wind tunnal data, but it dosen't have wind tunnal data for stalls or spins (I mean it's not like they put the airplane on it's sides in the wind tunnal to test how fast it would fall from all directions.) So when you stall your airplane in FSX you go from however much lift you get just above your stall speed to zero, and fall like a rock. X-plane when you stall, the plane will try and right itself and will still be genarating some amount of lift even in a stall.I think FSX is trying to make everyone a better pilot by doing this, or trying to make sure they don't get sued if someone tries something in FSX and it dosen't work in real life. Because in this way the game teaches you to fly the airplane without ever stalling, which is a much safer way to fly, and FSX is perfictly realistic, as long as you never stall. But X-plane is far more realistic when it comes to real world low speed stalls, spins and airtricks that the FAA would probably consider less then safe.Still, the best part of FSX for me was the missions.

What planes are you comparing stall characteristics to, default? If so both sims default aircraft doesn't model stalls/spins well. Now take a model like the Real Air SF260, and the story is much different. I'm not sure what would be a comparable X-Plane model, Goran, or Morten would probably be able to suggest a few. Here's me flying a Mustang in a stall (No spin), and a comparison sim video using the A2A P-51D, which I think comes pretty close and was right on the numbers. The upcoming Accusim model promises to be even better!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoUF2MfDSiIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epCgYZ13YiU

[LAdamson 240]

That's actually quite realistic behaviour. You use a different technique to landing a jet than landing a small prop. You don't stall it onto the runway, because as you've found large jets drop like a brick when they approach stall speed. Instead you fly it onto the runway, maintaining a constant speed and attitude. At about 50ft, raise the nose by a few degrees and pull the throttles back and let it settle on.

Even the small plane, that I always flew, would stall and fall through the flare.............if you allowed it. The constant speed prop acts like a brake, and airspeed diminishes very quickly. No floating like a Cessna 172, and little sense of ground effect. The plan is to be very close to the runway as airspeed falls below 60 kias. Either a steep descent with a flare at the right moment, or a bit of power is required.

[Johnny Thunder 0]

Hmmm... well, the 747 in X-plane 10 flys a lot closer to the one in FSX now. I still think it stalls better.

[JasonD210 0]

I don't know how true it is but I've heard several developers say that X-plane is more difficult to develop for than FSX, and that it is lacking in major areas as a potential platform for advanced simulations like A2A's Accusim products, for example. Scenery developers have also commented that its hard to work with, for example the removal of the default autogen and replacing it with custom scenery is much harder than in FSX.However, as you have probably read elsewhere, PMDG is considering producing add-ons for X-plane, so they have a different view.Having never developed for X-plane myself, I cannot comment on any of these claims, only repeat what I have heard directly from the developers themselves, and they haven't stated in detail what the problems are. One guy said that to make a decent aircraft in X-plane you basically have to code it from scratch, but that goes for any aircraft in any simulator.I'd be interested to here the technical details of why some developers are so against X-plane.

[Tierborn 188]

Hmmm... well, the 747 in X-plane 10 flys a lot closer to the one in FSX now. I still think it stalls better.

you guys are funny ... great FDE ... the 747 stalls good :-)

[Johnny Thunder 0]

I got X-plane 10 a few days ago and have been practicing on the 747 trying a nosie up, slow approch on the numbers landing to see if it's better then FSX. I must say the flight model on the 747 in X-plane 10 is lightyears better then the one in FSX, I can land it on the numbers almost everytime in XP10. What would have usally been a catastrophic landing in FSX, is now a rough landing in x-plane 10. You can even bounce the 747 in X-plane 10, which is something I never experinced in FSX.Look at this video where the guy lands it a bit rough in x-plane 10:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9tsqsOFCtMCompare that to this short landing in FSX:http://youtu.be/NntjDsONtF0X-plane looks and feels a lot more realistic on landings. Which was my number 1 grip with FSX and why I switched to X-plane.Still I am upset with how X-plane 10 is not everything they said it would be in the adverts; false advertising anyone? Not to mention the senery looks horrible, almost worse then XP9 in some cases. I was flying around my home town in Santa Cruz and I kept getting lost because I had no idea where I was and nothing looked familiar, the senery has no destinction between commercal, residental and industreal sectors. It's all just houses everywhere. The only land marks you can use accuretly that are their in real life is the roads, and even they look all crazy.Still, I must say I find it funny that 3ed Party Developers find x-plane so unfreindly. Making planes in X-plane is one of it's primary features. It's almost got better support for 3PDs then it dose for it's user base.Oh well, I never bought any 3ed Party Content for FSX so switching to X-plane is really not that big of a deal for me.

[jasonX 24]

Valid point regarding the scenery, but I see this as only a temporary issue. The terrain resolution is really good and in combination with the roads, water areas etc; I think we will be seeing some rapid development when WED is released along with the normal development cycle of Xplane.PS And in the meantime to stay on the positive side of things, the lack of obvious townships, VFR fixes etc give opportunity to develop some instrument skills ;)

[Claviateur 789]

Still I am upset with how X-plane 10 is not everything they said it would be in the adverts; false advertising anyone?

Yes I agree 100% and when I complained about this fact on the only XPlane "official" forum after paying 90$ canadian for XP10, I was attacked by the XPlane "fundamentalists" :) and they blocked my posts with arguments as bizarre and strange as one would expect from a religious cult followers :)With good faith I tried to switch from FSX by buying XP10 following the whole propaganda and preaching on their site for FSX people to convert (after the closure of ACES there was a big publicity) and there is always an overconfident marketing technique for XP as being the best simulator for PC while FS is seen as a toy etc etc... And that makes an outsider like me think that it is all that FSX is and even more...Anyawys I think XP10 has great features but unfinished (a little of this and a little of that) and the lack of seasonal variation is a big weakness in the scenery...As for the 747 in XPlane 10, it handles very well and very convincing on landing... The fact that I can manualy control Thrust without having to over do it like FSX is nice too.. I think the fact that the spooling time / "elasticity" of the engines response to the throttle are smaller in the XP 747 hence the easiness of maintaining lets say a 145kts on shorft final without having to always adjust thrust (in calm weather indeed)Cheers Edited January 31, 2012 by Claviateur

[Johnny Thunder 0]

It's funny reading all these threads about FSX vs. X-plane 10, I didn't know there are mods out there to fix FSX's stability issues. I just tried one of these things that tunes FSX's configuration file to give better stability. Man FSX runs so much better now, it's like night and day.Dose anyone know of some other good FSX stability mods? Preferably the free ones. My computer can handle FSX maxed out, but it keeps crashing due to memory leaks. XPX a lot more stable I would say; Although the lack of SLI support is giving me a worse frame rate then I should be getting otherwise.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Johnny Thunder