GPS units for payware aircraft in X-Plane

[anthony_d 32]

Afternoon all,

 

Recently I bought Carenado's Piper Seneca 2. A very nice plane it is as well. However I notice that this plane and their other X-Plane offerings so far only include the default GNS 430. By comparison their FSX offerings seem to include GPS / EFIS units that are far more comprehensive (Reality XP plugins?). I'm sure most users would agree that the stock GNS 430 has only very limited functionality and a very 'soft' low resolution display to boot.

 

Personally I think the payware offerings from Carenado and elsewhere are better off leaving the GNS430 out altogether, but it raises the question: Is there something about X-Plane that makes decent GPS / EFIS units hard to implement?

 

Cheers

 

Anthony

[MdMax 233]

Is there something about X-Plane that makes decent GPS / EFIS units hard to implement?

 

Is Reality-XP decent enough for you ?

http://www.reality-xp.com/flightsim/gns430-xpl/

http://www.reality-xp.com/flightsim/gns530-xpl/

 

Happy flying.

[anthony_d 32]

Yes. They look the business, although they're advertised for X-Plane 9.

 

Question is, why are reality XP units included in FSX payware aircraft but not their X-Plane equivalents?

[MdMax 233]

Question is, why are reality XP units included in FSX payware aircraft but not their X-Plane equivalents?

 

Reality-XP is for Windows only. Most X-Plane users are not using Windows.

[tkyler 88]

Is there something about X-Plane that makes decent GPS / EFIS units hard to implement?

 

No. There are just not enough programming specialists for XP yet to pull it off. Most XP developers are not "serious" technical folks. They're mostly artists and hobbyists with a technical "slant". Programming a GPS requires some specialized knowledge and mathematics. Not just spherical trigonometry calcs or projection conversions, but also data structures / search algorithms and many other things. Guys with that kind of experience do not yet have enough financial incentive compared to other work opportunities they may have given their skills. That's slowly changing but takes times. X-Plane is more customizable than any sim ever made and with the software SDK, there is almost no limit to what can be done. As the market grows, we'll see this stuff and probably much more.

 

Tom Kyler

Laminar / IXEG

www.ixeg.net

[LAdamson 240]

No. There are just not enough programming specialists for XP yet to pull it off. Most XP developers are not "serious" technical folks. They're mostly artists and hobbyists with a technical "slant". Programming a GPS requires some specialized knowledge and mathematics. Not just spherical trigonometry calcs or projection conversions, but also data structures / search algorithms and many other things. Guys with that kind of experience do not yet have enough financial incentive compared to other work opportunities they may have given their skills. That's slowly changing but takes times. X-Plane is more customizable than any sim ever made and with the software SDK, there is almost no limit to what can be done. As the market grows, we'll see this stuff and probably much more.

 

 

I don't even get excited about renditions of the Garmin 430 & 530 anyway. Although the real units are still installed in many aircraft, the graphics and

computer processing power have been left far behind with the new GPS systems from Garmin and others. The Garmin 296 hand-held I owned years ago, actually had much better graphic capability than the 430, and faster processing too. That one has since been replaced by two others. Therefore, some enterprising programmer, is going to have to take the time (lots of time & hopefully some help from the GPS manufacturer as with the 430/530) to completely build a new set of GPS systems for desk top simulators. Might as well build some for both X-Plane and FSX.

 

L.Adamson

[anthony_d 32]

You've got me looking at the Garmin website now. That GTN650 looks the business!

[ohsirus 241]

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9620

 

Pretty decent, better than the default.