As with any piece of software, there will always be some issues on an initial release. What LR does is absolutely no different to what any 3PD does.

 

Goran, you seem to focus on the patching of bugs and performance issues - I've actually tried very specifically to exclude them from this conversation!

 

Laminar's treatment of inadvertent bugs and their quest to improve performance are second to none in the simulation industry and very good when compared to electronic entertainment in general. My focus and concern on the development side has far more to do with the completion of intended features which were not complete or not functional when they chose to release the software.

 

It may be an apocryphal story but I heard that Laminar Research intended on putting seasonal textures into XP9, but this never came to pass. I don't want that type of scenario to burn me should I invest time and money into XP10.

 

For me and my scenery interests, many of the acknowledged missing or incomplete features have the weight and importance to steer my purchasing decision. I don't have the desire to spend $80 for something I know doesn't meet my needs with the hopes that the developer can make good on their stated intentions. Thankfully, nobody's holding the proverbial gun to my head forcing me to update and for that I am thankful, but at the same time I am a flight sim geek and I really, truly want them to wrap up these features so I can make an honest attempt at the X-Plane life... especially if they are to become the next go-to platform once FS2004 and FSX run their course.

 

We can go back and forth all weekend on this I'm sure - I appreciate the dialog.

 

The short version: Separate and distinct from bugfixes, myself and like minded individuals ultimately feel that XP10 was born prematurely, and we are not comfortable with the uncertainty the development cycle brings as Laminar works to finish the acknowledged features one would expect to be inherent in the product.

 

Cheers,

-Greg

The exact same thing happened with FSX. I'm sorry for always bringing it in, but I'm going to be honest about things here. As soon as it came out, the view was to stay away from it and stick with FS9. And it wasn't just the bug fixes that were needed. Unless you dialled down the settings, the whole thing ran like a slide show. It seems that all the negative points you are pointing out about x plane, FSX went through the exact same issues

 

Much of this was caused by Aces themselves unnecessarily in the way they released FSX! Essentially they shot themselves in the foot. First they built in the capability to add more detail to the sim as future hardware progressed. The problem was they built it in the GUI. Naturally people with top end systems of the day (Which were the first C2D systems) thought they could run it at full detail levels (Sliders to the right) They found out that they couldn't without the sim becoming a slide show. What made the problem worse was FSX has the capability of deploying jetways for not only the user aircraft, but AI as well. On release this was set to on by default. Worse you couldn't turn it of without editing the aircraft.cfg exit section's. The result was frames for the first couple of minutes were in the low ones. If they waited (Which most didn't before labeling FSX as a poor performer) they would have seen frames increase at least to the point it was flyable. Take a look at m first youtube video below, and that even had 100% AI and road traffic. It was done shortly after FSX was first released on my previous system an E6700 @ 2.66Mhz 2GB memory. Had Aces set the top levels of the GUI to handle the top system of the day with the ability to add detail for future HW via the config file (Which it does, it's just that it was set too high by default.), and disabled the AI jetways by default (With a GUI way of switching it on or off) FSX wouldn't have gotten the reputation on performance that it got. If that happened, I think more FS9 users would have switched much earlier.

 

Pardon the quality Youtube's resolution was limited back then (January 2007)

 

What I think Greg may be referring to is the overall immersive quality of X-plane 10 vs. FSX. Scenery, detailed aircraft, realistic clouds and sky, water, sound; all of these thing come together to produce the sensation that you are immersed in the simulation. Unfortunately X-plane fails in this regard in a few key areas, at least at first. If someone downloads the demo, the first thing they are treated with is a beautiful swoop down through pink tinged clouds at sunset over Seattle to a waiting 747 which is nicely detailed inside and out. The Sea-Tac airport is also detailed with plenty of buildings, cars, jetways, etc... Then they take off, and the fantasy ends.

 

I'm from Seattle, Wa and I can tell you that aside from the properly arranged roads, X-plane 10 fails miserably to give anyone the sense that they are flying over Seattle. The clouds are near perfection, especially on a cloudy day (which is most of the time :). Yet when you look down it seems not exactly "plausible." I know Austin's plan was not to make what you see out the window realistic, but instead be "plausible." Unfortunately X-plane 10 fails to even make a "plausible" version of Seattle unless you believe that perhaps this is an alternate universe where all the major cities have been destroyed and replaced with southern California style homes oddly intermingled with Bronx style row houses all built on top of one massive stretch of astroturf.

 

But I said at first right? Implying that if you go further beyond your first impression, you might be pleasantly surprised? If we go back a step to my own first impressions of X-plane 9 I could also elucidate a few points. I'm a long time fan of flight sims in general. I was still a high school kid when things like the first Jane's Combat Simulations came out, but I used to play it till my eyes popped. Years later I got into FS9 and FSX when they came out. Each time I got into a brand new sim I was blown away by the new graphics and expanded simulation fidelity. Then in 2009 I discovered X-plane 9. It looked awesome and came with much praise for the flight modeling so I jumped on it. I loaded it up and placed my plane at KSFO in San Francisco and took of over the beautiful Bay Area. Then I said this looks like #@$#! The water looked like sewage outflow, San Francisco was a few randomly placed boxes, there was no bridge, the clouds where made up individual sprites which spun around when you move the camera, and the plane I was in was nothing more than a set of wings and wheels slung together behind a 2-D panel. I immediately banished it from my hard and didn't look at it for a year.

 

It wasn't until the Mitsubishi MU-2 made by Tom Kyler, now published by X-Aviation, that I gave X-plane another chance. It was clear at that time that things where changing. Talented developers were finally starting to make aircraft with immersive 3-D cockpits and the X-plane world in general was becoming more fleshed out. So I gave it another look. Since that time I've purchased many amazing aircraft, downloaded hundreds of free scenery files from the .org, and my X-plane world has become a much more impressive place to spend time in.

 

Microsoft as a large corporation which employed the Aces team of somewhere between 30 and 50 people produced FSX. It was a complete package with world scenery, airports, and missions, however it did have performance and stability issues which where patched here and there and then finally fixed a good deal later to a certain degree with two major service packs. These weighed in at hundreds of megabytes so there must have been more to them then simple default GUI changes like tf51D suggests. At the time it was considered to have a nicely detailed world, but there were criticisms about the graphics that could be voiced as well. Frame rate problems aside, much of the world especially outside of the U.S. region was swathed in what became known the "desert problem" and due to the lower fidelity of the mesh data many of the world mountains become gentle undulating hillsides. It took some time before the FSX world really began to take shape when talented people produced freeware and payware that added much need detail to the ground texture and uniqueness to the airports. If you were to put X-plane 10 up against FSX when it was first released without add-ons I think the comparison would be quite favorable for X-plane 10.

 

Contrast this with X-plane made by Laminar Research which employs what, perhaps 15 people in total? The software is released in more of a beta stage of development and then goes through a kind of crowd sourcing testing phase utilizing the early adopters of the program. Major issues are recognized and dealt with, new features or improvements on existing features are added and the product quickly grows. The main thing is that it has already proven itself, in my opinion, to be a viable platform to grow from. If you look around at some of the Youtube videos featuring X-plane 10 I think you will see that it has already come a long way. Some truly exceptional screen captures have been made of it with really do a much better job of showing off X-plane than the demo itself does, which never seems to be able to make a good first impression.

Just to correct you on 2 things. FSX had 283 people working on it.

X Plane has, IIRC, 7 or 8 people, including the customer service department.

 

But you're right about the scenery in X Plane 10. I would much rather have realistic cities with major landmarks. Overall, though, it's a damn fine package.

I thought this topic is about our pleasant anticipation of the upcoming x-plane 10.10 and not again about this useless, nonsense discussion around FSX versus X-Plane. Please open another "FSX versus X-Plane" thread if you all are so eager to discuss about that, i can a lot of save time then...

 

Are there any screenies of that upcoming columbia 400? Couldn't find any info on it...

You're the one bringing the conversation back to the usual back and fourth about FSX vs. X-plane urthgental. This thread isn't simply about praising X-plane and wondering about what 10.10 will bring either. It's about taking stock of where things are at with X-plane 10 at this point and to do that effectively you obviously must compare and contrast it to the current standard which is FSX. How does X-plane 10 compare to FSX now, what was FSX like at this point in it's development, where do you see X-plane heading in the next few years with regards to the competition. These are all perfectly valid questions.

 

The fact that the Aces team was so vast compared to the team at Laminar Research is also pertinent as it shows the amount of resources available to the Aces people to create FSX. This is one of the fundamental differences between the two programs and why I feel that X-plane needs to be given the time to grow, though it is still fine package to build from already. X-plane is very much an open source product which relies on the community to take the baton and run with it after Laminar has run the first leg. They make robust SDK tools freely available to the masses like WED, Planemaker, and Overlay Editor in order to give the consumers the power to go about the monumental task of creating the simulated world.

 

The Aces team had 238 people to create FSX which is why it was a more complete package upon it's release with mission, a built flight instruction set, 22,000+ default airports, a quick flight set up menu, and a nice interface to tie everything together. Laminar has 7 on a good day. Yet with X-plane I've been able to make scenery, airports, changes to the texture set itself (Winter World from xplane.org is great for snowy winters), and create new aircraft. That's something I could never do with FSX without programing knowledge and a lot of patience to deal with the often obtuse SDK package for it.

I am sure LR will do their best to make xp10.10 shine. Their MS-FLIGHT-like "silence" during the last weeks is most certainly due to the team being totaly involved with it, with no time for online brainstorming, and doing their best to release a glitch free version.

 

Not being an xplane user I am keeping an eye on it. For me the future regarding non-military flight simulation is basicaly xplane and ms flight. Yes fsx and even prepar3d are there too, as well as flight gear, but I strongly believe the base will be made up of this two simulators.

 

I am a fan of MS FLIGHT already, and I believe I'll be even more when Alaska gets released, probably near the release of xp10.10.

 

Testing the recently released Carenado's Seneca in xp10 this week over a great photo-realistic Arizona scenery, I was quite impressed with the sensation of flight provided by the great add-on and the sim itself, although when I start making my flight dynamic tests I get results that spoil the otherwise perfect experience :-( Let's hope for xp10.10

10.10 if i loads up faster make couple people happy. Fix Ati would allow to up framerate. Incremental improvements will make a differance. Scenery will have incremental improvments

Hi,

I'm praying for an option in the rendering menu for adjusting (and fixing it regardless de real weather download) the max visibility unless LR improves the long visibility ugly scenery depiction.

I'm praying for an option in the rendering menu for adjusting (and fixing it regardless de real weather download) the max visibility unless LR improves the long visibility ugly scenery depiction.

 

+1 on that one. the 25nm visibility limit has to be my biggest irritation. I just did a cross country flight across scotland today and wonderful scenery though it was, I simply couldn't make out the peaks from far away. Something I enjoy when mountain hiking is being able to see summits 70-80miles away on good days.

The silence is deafening on the developer blog. Over three weeks without a post!

 

I was having a flick through their archives and came across this amusing post:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/06/the-reports-of-my-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/

 

That was June last year, after three weeks of silence. Have they really been abducted by aliens this time? :Thinking:

I been thinking the same thing.

The fact that the Aces team was so vast compared to the team at Laminar Research is also pertinent ....

I have said elsewhere, that the size of the publisher or publisher's team must not have any bearing on the quality, bugginess or completeness of the product published - just as Mazda, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Kia, etc. don't get a pass for putting out an incomplete, faulty or buggy product.

 

If you want to play in the big leagues, play like the big boys and deliver on the promises you make !

 

..... why I feel that X-plane needs to be given the time to grow......

Ten versions over a decade and a half isn't enough time or number of versions to practice on?

 

....X-plane is very much an open source product .....

Let's be a little careful in using the phrase "open source". Flightgear is an open source product, X-plane is not.

 

 

They make robust SDK tools freely available to the masses like WED, Planemaker, and Overlay Editor in order to give the consumers the power to go about the monumental task of creating the simulated world.

Overlay Editor is not an LR SDK. In fact, the author appears to have given up on further development of that wonderful 3rd party freeware tool, thanks to Austin, Ben and LR. The more things change the more they stay the same.

 

Yes, Planemaker, briefer etc. are made available but WED is neither blessed by LR nor bundled with every copy of X-plane like Planemaker and Worldmaker used to be ! IT IS THE LEAST LR SHOULD DO considering they EXPECT the community to contribute.

 

I had written a post at the org on a topic titled "X-Plane 10 unfinished product?", which describes some of the problems that LR and it's owner/team have chosen to ignore, some of which I have already discussed here over the past few months :

 

http://forums.x-plan...pic=59573&st=50 and

 

http://forums.x-plan...pic=59573&st=70

 

 

A premature release of a product can hardly be described as "comprehensive" by any stretch of the imagination.

Here we go again

Yes, Planemaker, briefer etc. are made available but WED is neither blessed by LR nor bundled with every copy of X-plane like Planemaker and Worldmaker used to be ! IT IS THE LEAST LR SHOULD DO considering they EXPECT the community to contribute.

 

You can find WED here:

http://developer.x-plane.com/tools/worldeditor/