Hi all, just wondering if someone who owns both FSX and X-Plane can inform me (us all) of the main differences between the two platforms for flight simulation? Which has better FPS, better graphics, is something better about one than the other, etc? Just wondering if X-Plane is something I should consider investing in having seen the Skymaster for X-Plane has been released by Carenado.

Try the demo.

So far, all Carenado planes that have been brought to X-Plane have seen some significant enhancements over their FSX counterparts. Having said that, though, there are still fundamental differences between FSX and X-Plane. Here's a quick overview:

 

-FSX has support for more elaborate visuals. Reflections, fresnel maps, specular maps are not available in X-Plane yet. But Carenado has some neat features in X-Plane, such as dynamic reflections in the glass gauges, 3D interior lighting, etc. (Dynamic reflections in the gauges are not a feature normally supported in X-Plane; they were added to Carenado's planes as an experimental special effect.)

 

-X-plane's main feature that set it apart from FSX are "Blade Element Theory" to calculate (or rather, predict) flight characteristics, instead of look-up charts.

 

-X-Plane 10 also adds new scenery features, such as intelligent, Open Street Maps based scenery generation. This is still in its development phase. Laminar Research refers to this technology as "Plausible World". Other features in X-Plane 10 include HDR rendering with dynamic lighting on every single light in the sim (lights cast beams and shadows... even CAR lights!), "LEGO-style" scenery creation, where art assets can easily be combined to create complex sceneries, etc.

 

-X-Plane is a platform under constant development. This has pros and cons. The main pro is, that it's not "dead." It's constantly being upgraded and moved forward. Right now, 64-bit support is being developed. This raises X-Plane's memory headroom, and allows for the application to tap into more of the computer's physically installed RAM. Of course, this also comes with frustrations and headaches for developers, as plug-ins need to be re-written to support 64-bit.

 

-Carenado has about 15 planes published to date for X-Plane. These planes are in the process of being updated to run under X-Plane 10, but won't be released until after the 64-bit development has been finalized. Part of the update process of all of Carenado's planes is, to retrofit them with a plugin system that enhances all planes to rich 3D sound and other neat effects, such as enhanced prop disc visualizations, view presets, pop-up control windows for configuration of the aircraft, etc. These features are not all available in Carenado's FSX products.

 

-X-Plane's version 10 run has had its rough patches over the past year, but Carenado is one company that's really pushing X-Plane's limits, working closely with Laminar Research on fixing bugs, enhancing features, and supporting new technologies.

 

Besides now having over a dozen of Carenado's planes on X-Plane, which allows for direct head-to-head comparisons between the two sims, as Ohsirus mentions just above, X-Plane can be downloaded as a free demo, and it runs on Windows, Mac, and even Linux.

 

Beware, however, that X-Plane's user interface may require some getting used to, as it is quite different than FSX's. But this too is being developed and improved on an on-going basis.

 

As for Carenado, the process of porting its fleet of FSX planes to X-Plane is on-going. These planes are becoming increasingly complex and interesting. Alabeo has also recently started porting their products to X-plane.

 

X-Plane's community is one that's quite creative, and learning how to make planes for X-Plane is fairly easy. The included "PlaneMaker" program is visual and intuitive, and is great fun to play with, even just on a casual basis.

 

To see how easy it is to get started creating aircraft for X-Plane, check out this high-speed

of my

tutorial series, available on my YouTube channel.

Doesn't look very good to me. The cockpits look like they're default FS9 cockpits and I can't see any human pilots in any cockpits from the outside views. Flyable aircraft external models resemble default FS9 AI traffic. I haven't downloaded the demo - just checked out pics and videos from the X-Plane10 website. I think I'll give it a miss.

In light of the fact that your original question was posted in the Carenado thread, it would seem relevant to compare apples to apples in the two sims.

No, not just that but also the fact that only two airports are modelled to any degree beyond just runways and taxiways. I read a review that only two airports have any buildings and that the others around the world only have runways and taxiways - no buildings at all. It seems to me to be just a basic "world" that requires a lot of user investment to fill the void, so to speak.