I ran with AES on it's release and then jumped ship after I realised I was having to continually buy the credits. After having used GSX now almost since it's release, I agree with others here, that it does have shortcomings, which after first installing it, I had not discovered. eg, while the 'follow me' vehicle operates most of the time, sometimes it has not appeared. Also, it often drives off the taxiways and across the grass! I have also found it frustrating when it does not stop for AI and simply drives through a taxiing aircraft. Another thing I find frustrating is when a service vehicle, maybe the fuel truck or catering van and they drive through the passenger bus! Now it may well be that these shortcomings are also displayed with AES, I can't say. I can say in the short time I used AES that I was far less unaware of these issues as I am with GSX, but then in fairness it may simply be because I have been using GSX for much longer. One other thing I would like to add, is that while most guys report that there is not a framerate hit with GSX, I most certainly would agree. However, I most certainly will report that, on my system anyway, that there is a performance hit. By this I mean, within the handling of the data. I get definite graphical spiking, the kind associated with GPU overload. This appears the minute GSX is in use. In fact I have to admit, that I have considered the unistallation of airport services for two reasons 1) to alleviate the graphical spiking that I experience at SOME airports and 2) to get rid of that darn alarm beep every time it tells me to close the cargo or passenger doors, even after I have closed them!!

(Succinct and candid post)

 

Pure class.

while the 'follow me' vehicle operates most of the time, sometimes it has not appeared. Also, it often drives off the taxiways and across the grass!

 

This is really more like a bug report, rather than an overall consideration how the program works. I always said that, keeping this findings for yourself, won't help us making GSX any better: while is very easy to do a program that works only at specific airports, doing something that works universally, over the multitude of 3rd party AFCADs made with their own styles, quirks and even errors, is both way more difficult AND impossible to test, we surely can't test GSX with 20.0000+ airports supported, we can only rely on users reports on specific issue, which are mostly related to the AFCAD and after a precise report, we are usually always able to include additional code to defend ourselves against strange things in the AFCAD.

 

So, if you happen to see something like this, please file a bug report on our forum, including ALL the following information, in a simple text message:

 

- The airport you used. If it's not default, provide easy ways to identify the scenery (payware, freeware, etc.) and if you changed the AFCAD, provide that one too.

 

- Your position at the airport when you called for the Follow Me car.

 

- The Gate you selected as your destination.

 

 

I have also found it frustrating when it does not stop for AI and simply drives through a taxiing aircraft.

 

This is surely an issue we might want to tackle in the future.

 

 

Another thing I find frustrating is when a service vehicle, maybe the fuel truck or catering van and they drive through the passenger bus! Now it may well be that these shortcomings are also displayed with AES, I can't say.

 

This shouldn't normally happen, you should really file a report on our site about airport used, airplane used, gate used and possibly the order of the operations you selected.

 

As I've said, having some vehicles not popping out of nowhere and making them drive through the airport in a realistic way, comes with its own baggage of potential quirks like these. But we usually have some measures to prevent this from happening, and it's not supposed to happen normally so please, file a bug report on our forum.

 

By this I mean, within the handling of the data. I get definite graphical spiking, the kind associated with GPU overload. This appears the minute GSX is in use.

 

GSX might be more intensive on the GPU than your average FSX addon, especially with human characters using bones animation, since there might be several of them at the same time, and each one uses the maximum number of bones a single object supports in FSX. The issue is, the difference between various GPU (older or newer) can be dramatic and, since newer and more capable GPUs comes constantly at always lower prices and they evolve way faster than CPUs, we are not really worried about this, since GSX can scale well with better hardware. It would be more frustrating having the latest hardware and not being able to get any advantage of it, which is the other side of the coin for a "more GPU-dependent" program.

This is really more like a bug report, rather than an overall consideration how the program works. I always said that, keeping this findings for yourself, won't help us making GSX any better: while is very easy to do a program that works only at specific airports, doing something that works universally, over the multitude of 3rd party AFCADs made with their own styles, quirks and even errors, is both way more difficult AND impossible to test, we surely can't test GSX with 20.0000+ airports supported, we can only rely on users reports on specific issue, which are mostly related to the AFCAD and after a precise report, we are usually always able to include additional code to defend ourselves against strange things in the AFCAD.

 

So, if you happen to see something like this, please file a bug report on our forum, including ALL the following information, in a simple text message:

 

- The airport you used. If it's not default, provide easy ways to identify the scenery (payware, freeware, etc.) and if you changed the AFCAD, provide that one too.

 

- Your position at the airport when you called for the Follow Me car.

 

- The Gate you selected as your destination.

 

This is surely an issue we might want to tackle in the future.

 

This shouldn't normally happen, you should really file a report on our site about airport used, airplane used, gate used and possibly the order of the operations you selected.

 

As I've said, having some vehicles not popping out of nowhere and making them drive through the airport in a realistic way, comes with its own baggage of potential quirks like these. But we usually have some measures to prevent this from happening, and it's not supposed to happen normally so please, file a bug report on our forum.

GSX might be more intensive on the GPU than your average FSX addon, especially with human characters using bones animation, since there might be several of them at the same time, and each one uses the maximum number of bones a single object supports in FSX. The issue is, the difference between various GPU (older or newer) can be dramatic and, since newer and more capable GPUs comes constantly at always lower prices and they evolve way faster than CPUs, we are not really worried about this, since GSX can scale well with better hardware. It would be more frustrating having the latest hardware and not being able to get any advantage of it, which is the other side of the coin for a "more GPU-dependent" program.

 

Hi Umberto, thanks for taking the time to reply. I hold my hand up at maybe being a little slow in forwarding bug reports, so for this I apologise and will be a little more forthcoming in future.

I know what this feels like, tell 'me' it's broken, what's broken, where and how. Give me a routmap so I can fix it. I build it, I don't 'use' it. When 'A' doesn't work with 'B' in my software it's because 'B' took shortcuts and didn't follow the guidelines....

 

... It's tuff being a dev.

The ADE9X Airport Utility has been updated to include changing the parking spot pushback that FS does not use. A new window has been added to the parking spot property with pushback Left, Right, Both and None.

 

http://www.fsdevelop...ad.php?t=327054

 

 

jim

I'm sorry--there is no way in hell I would not purchase any airport Umberto makes. Especially over a ridiculous argument over gate services software. His work is exceptional and is among (if not the) the top of the FS World.The fact is I will probably use both AES (which I use) and GSX (which I am downloading).

 

Buncha babies around here sometime.

 

Jim, there's no need to be so offensive! Let's be nice!

I'm happy using both. GSX is the most impressive overall, but they have no agreement with developers that sell airports with static jetways, something Aerosoft tends to cover well. I think both makers will keep each other competitive, so I can expect new features in the future.

The ADE9X Airport Utility has been updated to include changing the parking spot pushback that FS does not use. A new window has been added to the parking spot property with pushback Left, Right, Both and None.

 

http://www.fsdevelop...ad.php?t=327054

 

 

jim

 

Thanks for the heads up Jim, this will be a useful update for me.

It's worth every penny due to the custom work done for each and every airport. There's a vast difference that's readily apparent between the one size fits all GSX and the custom AES.

 

I will stand by my original post that AES is grossly overpriced. The whole credit purchase scheme seems designed to extract as much money as possible.

 

The cost of purchasing credits for all available airports is really quite expensive. I stopped counting when I reached 500 credits. This is a lot of money.

 

When I look at what GSX can do, it seems the only reason to puchase AES is to get moving jetways (and perhaps deicing). Other than that, GSX does just about everything else that AES does, for a small fraction of the cost.

 

Plus AES is very limited in its coverage. It generally does not handle the default airports. It does not handle the airports from certain developers (like Blueprint). Unless, one spends a fortune, one really only gets AES functionality with a handful of airports.

 

However, GSX works with most airports, for a fraction of the price.

 

While I have AES, I don't use it any more. My main reason for getting it would be the jetway support. However, many of the airports I have which lack functioning jetways, are not supported by AES in any case.

 

GSX is not without problems. For one, I would like to be able to select the AFCAD file it uses. I have MyTraffic, and My Traffic does not get along with many of the payware airports, including those from FSDT. Yet, GSX invariably selects the My Traffic afcads. To get things working, I end up disabling those AFCADs altogether.

 

That being said, I can undestand why people who have invested hundreds of dollars/euros/sterling would be reluctant to give up that investment. However, that is no reason to expect others to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I will stand by my original post that AES is grossly overpriced. The whole credit purchase scheme seems designed to extract as much money as possible.

 

The cost of purchasing credits for all available airports is really quite expensive. I stopped counting when I reached 500 credits. This is a lot of money.

 

When I look at what GSX can do, it seems the only reason to puchase AES is to get moving jetways (and perhaps deicing). Other than that, GSX does just about everything else that AES does, for a small fraction of the cost.

 

Plus AES is very limited in its coverage. It generally does not handle the default airports. It does not handle the airports from certain developers (like Blueprint). Unless, one spends a fortune, one really only gets AES functionality with a handful of airports.

 

However, GSX works with most airports, for a fraction of the price.

 

While I have AES, I don't use it any more. My main reason for getting it would be the jetway support. However, many of the airports I have which lack functioning jetways, are not supported by AES in any case.

 

GSX is not without problems. For one, I would like to be able to select the AFCAD file it uses. I have MyTraffic, and My Traffic does not get along with many of the payware airports, including those from FSDT. Yet, GSX invariably selects the My Traffic afcads. To get things working, I end up disabling those AFCADs altogether.

 

That being said, I can undestand why people who have invested hundreds of dollars/euros/sterling would be reluctant to give up that investment. However, that is no reason to expect others to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

I dont expect anyone to do anything, thats the beauty of choice. I find AES a great value others dont get what you enjoy makes no difference to me.

I can undestand why people who have invested hundreds of dollars/euros/sterling would be reluctant to give up that investment. However, that is no reason to expect others to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

In order to spend so much on AES credits they must have spent at least 10 times that amount on the payware scenery which AES supports! I don't think that's feasible -- there isn't enough supported scenery to cost anything like that!

 

If you consider the cost of the credits as an addition to the cost of the airport in the first place, then it looks much more reasonable. Simpler airports are 0, 1 or 2 credits, more complex ones more. The price is in proportion to the cost of the scenery in the first place, and certainly not anywhere near as outrageous as you seem to imagine!

 

I will continue to support both AES and GSX as they are both very worthwhile, each having both good and bad points and continue to develop and improve..

 

Regards

Pete

I will continue to support both AES and GSX as they are both very worthwhile, each having both good and bad points and continue to develop and improve..

 

I feel the same. When I drop $30-40 on a scenery, it's worth it to me to spend another $3-5 to put AES on it, knowing that it was hand-tailored for that specific add-on, and that jetways, pushbacks, and follow-me animations are going to work right, first time, and every time. I understand that AFCAD issues often drive GSX problems, and that GSX has a fairly powerful editor than can solve a lot of those problems--but with AES I've paid Oliver Pabst to do all that work for me so I don't have to spend hours tweaking GSX configs for each add-on airport. I like GSX for cargo ops, and it's definitely value-added at default or enhanced AFCAD airfields.

 

I also feel it's a detractor for a payware add-on scenery to not have AES available. It doesn't mean I won't buy any without it, but I am much more discriminating and less likely to buy it if I can't enhance it with AES.

I agree with Pete

 

You have to remember, AES genesis is in FS9 and provided a product that really wasn't available at the time. UK2000 scenery had a couple of jetways which would move and that was it as far as I remember. Also, AES was was made available for a lot of freeware as well. It may cost 0,1,or 2 credits but it was made available. Oliver was asked to provide it for FSX as well but at the time it was not easy to migrate the functionality to FSX but over time he did it and has AES over time. Important thing toremember is that Oliver does this in his spare time and it takes a lot of time to put in the exact push back paths for each gate etc. Considering 10 credits is €14.95, most airports cost you an additional €2.99 on top of the scenery purchase price.So I am happy to pay the additional amount.

 

For FSX, I believe the UK2000 scenery has moving jetways etc built into the software, but when you select it in the AES airport, I believe the internal UK2000 process is removed.

GSX is not without problems. For one, I would like to be able to select the AFCAD file it uses. I have MyTraffic, and My Traffic does not get along with many of the payware airports, including those from FSDT. Yet, GSX invariably selects the My Traffic afcads. To get things working, I end up disabling those AFCADs altogether.

 

If you are using a 3rd party airport which comes with its own AFCAD, you would have the issue of traffic AFCADs getting in the way in any case, even if you didn't used GSX!

 

GSX uses the same rules as FSX itself: the AFCAD selected by GSX will be the one that matches the ICAO of the airport used and the one on the higher layer in the Scenery Library will be used in case there are more choices.

 

If GSX selected a Traffic AFCAD, FSX would have too, and this would result in misplaced taxiways, misplaced parking spots, default buildings popping out, etc, even without taking GSX into account so, you are supposed to fix conflicts between duplicates AFCADs anyway.