Beta 9 now out

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Well, I personally enjoy reading Geofa's posts. Forums are for discussing things, people need to be a bit less defensive.

[Longranger 148]

If I were a developer I'd be waiting too- this is a cycle we have seen over and over (except in xplane versions before the internet age). I'd be waiting for 64 bit to get "stable" but with 32 bit taking a year to do so what is a developer to do?-wait perhaps? Do they just release a patch for 32, move on, or wait for the real "stable" which is obviously 64? Perhaps there is the realization that only 64 is "stable" -might have to dig in for another long wait.

 

Well, I think you are poking directly at a sore spot of X-Plane 10. There were a lot of people exspecially with a Mac OS X background that demanded that X-Plane 10 should be 64 bits from the start, but they didn't want to. On the one hand it was understandable: They didn't want to open a different working place, when the whole system was a total chaos.

 

But as usual there were a lot of additional problems to solve and in many cases it simply needed an additional amount of system RAM. This has nothing to do with your Video RAM and in fact in most cases the system wasn't out of memory it was simply unable to allocate the amount of memory within its available address space at a valid location. There are certain restrictions involved.

 

In fact this was less obvious for Laminar since developers tend to limit their environment to bare necessities. If you have to restart for every tiny detail you want the restarts to be fast. But during the develoipment of 1.10 it was obvious that nothing could avoid the problems. They were rtunning in their own problems as well as certain developers as an example EHAM or the Ramzess 777.

 

There was simply no way to postpone 64 bits till X-Plane 11.

 

.While Ben Supnick tries to ro stop the rush I don't think that the 32 bit versions of X-Plane will really matter in 6 months unless you want to use doomed plugins with no active support or if you have a weak computer with a 32 bit OS. If you want to use X-Plane on a faster computer the 32 bit versions will bcome more and more unusable. Laminar and plugin developers will no longer take a very close look at the memory consumption if it doesn't slow things down. In fact I am quite certain that a lot of people with 8 GB RAM will have to consider an upgrade. I didn't look back after I upgraded from 6 GB RAM to 18.

 

In my experience flight simulators tend to grow very fast, so I don't really like them on a SSD but with such an amount of RAM the OS simply tends to use the available RAM as a giant cache that can be decreased on the fly if necessary.

 

And while some people only consider these things as cosmetic: These cosmetic things are in fact the expensive things that need such a huge amount of resources. Especially the jump to 64 bits is a giant leap for third party developers.

 

It was exactly this problem to use multiple plug-ins at the same time that pushed me from FSX to X-Plane 10 in the frist place. I think it will make things much simpler when the different components are no longer in such a stiff competition

[jcomm 5,939]

I'd restrict further development to the 64 bit platform if I were LR, and concentrate solely on that platform, with no 32 bit compatibility mode. People with 32 bit systems would have to upgrade (it's time to anyway...) and the LR team and 3pds would have some sharper objectives to concentrate in.

 

Does anyone believe P3d v2 will be 32bit (actually, does anyone believe P3d v2 will be?...) Well... not my day today.....

[woweezowee 10]

Better yet, read all of Geof's posts (complaints).

JGregory did. He also read Cameron's replies, as well as Tom Kylers and mine. Yet Geof continued to make the same complaints.

 

What helps, Goran? We're obviously now at the point that the flawed strategy of Laminar that I am talking about since … a long time … becomes obvious to ALL users, not only those like the Mac Pro guys who fell trap to X-Planes ressources hunger while beeing stuck in 32-bit. The only way to avoid that would have been to go 64-bit, and only 64-bit, from the start up. It might have been delayed yet another time, but X-Plane 9 was a stable and valid platform that maybe should not have been abondoned that early.

 

Fwiw, Geofa has many other valid points. If you guys don't finally start to take the cronstructive criticism serious, well, I don't know. You not only hear it from FS-Diehard, but X-Plane Diehards, too. xsimreviews e.g.; however no one really seems to care to tackle the core of the problems.

 

No delays? No moving target at the moment? Let's talk Mu-2 or other examples?

 

Having said that I myself am very happy with the 64-bit progress. Some important plugins already work, and there are a good bunch of plugin-free planes that one can have fun with until 64 gets a stable release and developers catch up.

 

But is XP10 a fun ride from the start? Anything but that.

 

AeroflyFS is fun. X-Plane 32-bit is not. X-Plane 64-bit will be in some months.

[LAdamson 240]

Well, I have also just couple of posts here and may disappear in wilderness.... However from what I am reading I have to agree with both JGregory and GoranM. Geofa's whining which he is spreading everywhere certainly IS annoying. We all got his point, it is not necessary to repeat it thousand times over and over.

And yes, blunt or direct should not be confused with rude.

 

Geofa's assessments are right on target (and unlike X-Plane, it's not always on the move). X-Plane is definitely a tinker's sim. One, in which you wait passionately for daily or weekly changes, and keep many notes....either written or mentally, to get the best operation possible. Yet the next day, or next week, it could easily be busted again. This hasn't changed since around 1994, when I became familiar with X-Plane. To act, as though the problem doesn't exist, helps no one, except for developers who have a financial interest.

 

L.Adamson

 

 

 

<br />Better yet, read all of Geof's posts (complaints). <br />JGregory did. <br />

<br />Better yet, read all of Geof's posts (complaints). <br />JGregory did. <br />

 

And what about all of Geof's posts...........in which he praised, and was very excited about the progress & use of X-Plane. There are many, spread throughout cycles of X-Plane. As I've said, I read a lot.

[Longranger 148]

I'd restrict further development to the 64 bit platform if I were LR, and concentrate solely on that platform, with no 32 bit compatibility mode.

 

This is not necessary. You only have to develop on 64 bits, the compiler will do the rest. If their program crashes they have to reduce their settings. There is no need to force them out of the system, simply show them the limitations of their system.

[LAdamson 240]

<br />JGregory (Jim) has been around for about 4-5 years and is considered one of the best programmers in X-Plane (Able to code in C, C++, <br />

 

As well as being a member of Leading Edge Simulations....along with Goran. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it should be mentioned.

[Emerson67 248]

I know for sure that the CRJ200 (bought from the X-Viation/Aerosoft site, not from the ORG site) and the JetStream32 don't work on 64-bit X-Plane yet.

 

Quick question if anyone can give me a little insight. So I have updated to 10.20b9 and it did this with 8 also but the 3D cockpits to all my add on aircraft such as CRJ-200, 777, Jetstream, and for a while until this beta the default King air. When I try to click on some of the 3d cockpit switches with my mouse they simply will not move. is anyone else experiencing this problem?

[Geofa 108]

Wow-how interesting!

 

I'd like to state that I have purchased Goran's Musketeer/Dutchess, several titles from Xaviation including Tkyler's Mu2, xplane commercial scenery, and Simavio (quite pricey), along with 5 Carenado aircraft.

 

Therefore I do consider myself a "shareholder" as I have invested quite a lot hoping this sim can grow into the sim it could be.

 

I have also been led to believe that one of the positives of xplane is that the developers listen.

 

Yet it seems if one brings up a bug,a feature, or even questioning a business practice of xplane as in this thread-these same developers who I have supported with my dollars jump in these forums with a defensiveness that at least I find unbecoming, and it becomes apparent to me that any advice and suggestions for improvements are dismissed as "whining". This thread is a perfect example. I would think all would want the sim to improve as much as it can, and would gladly take suggestions.

 

Greggerm above-who has embraced the sim, but has reported several problems has been dismissed every time he mentions what they are. Look at all the scenery he has recently uploaded at the org-yet when he mentions that there are problems for the freeware scenery developer, his critics are dismissed. When he mentions he perceives problem with the moving target strategy for 3rd party, and suggests a different strategy might be superior he is called out by a developer in this thread. When I mention I have found the moving strategy not so great for the consumer I am labelled a whiner.

 

...and despite that I have made very nice comments about the sim where it excels, it seems mentioning problems brings the same group of defenders (largly developers) who claim there is either not a problem, a rational of why things can't change, or when caught in a corner-the "w" word.

 

I'll say no more about that, and let the above posts rest on their merits.

 

I had a very interesting thing happen last week-I bought my first imac. I have always disliked windows, but used it primarily because two things required it-msfs and quicken. (It appears I am still out of luck on each unfortunately-the quicken version on the imac is terrible). I do love the machine though-much better than Windows.

 

Of course I knew my flight sims would not run as well as on my powerful pc, but the first thing I did is try aeroflight fs and Xplane . Aeroflight was an easy purchase thru the app store-xplane requires a cd which is a problem on an imac since Apple has stated the cd will and has gone the way of the dinosaur, so I was only able to install the demo. I do not have a portable cd and don't plan to purchase one.

 

Starting Aeroflght I was presented with a screen that said "logitec extreme joystick detected" and that certain defaults were being programmed and that if I did not like them to go to the joystick screen to change. I was presented on the runway-and started flying-everything working great.

 

On xplane-my joystick did nothing on starting the program-then in about 30 seconds I got a notice that a joystick was detected and needed to be calibrated. Great I thought-so I did the motions-was dumped on a runway, tried a takeoff and immediately went off the runway. Went into the joystick settings-things were incorrectly calibrated and of course had to do the manual hat switch dance etc. Was it terribly hard-no-it did take some time-but isn't the other way a lot more elegant? Is mentioning that an improvement like this would do a lot for a first time user, or is it whining?

There was a whole thread about this I thought was very good quite a while ago-still nothing though has really changed.

 

Yesterday I downloaded the new beta on my pc. I was excited to see what the new tropical textures looked like. I thought since I had flown in the Virgin islands a few years ago that would be a good place to start up.

Went to the menu-typed St. Thomas-nothing-then tried several of the other islands-couldn't pull up anything by name or geographic location-finally tried San Juan for Puerto Rico-saw something that looked right-ended up at some other San Juan-finally grew frustrated and quit. Yes I could go on the internet or look up my logbook and find the exact airport identifier, but imho this menu system needs improvement in the search area. Yes there was a great thread about that quite a while ago too.

 

So I sure have gotten mixed signals about this sim. It is a moving target and that could be a good thing, except when users mention improvements, bugs, flaws they are called whiners and it appears most users requests are ignored.

 

Why do I say aerofly is the future and the true competitor Already seems to be ahead of the game in the mac department with the app store purchase. It is right now a very simple sim-but way ahead in many areas of any sim seen now. The developer, probably realizing that he can not with his small operation do what he would like to do has stated he is going to make it open and transparent to third party developers. Seems logical-this strategy has worked very well for FS for years...and yes aerofly comes out with updates here and there-but they don't seem to break anything.

 

Just food for thought.

[Emerson67 248]

Beware of beta 9 in 32-bit. This version is crashing (CTD) on very high settings. The 64-bit is running fine, but needs tweaking on Rendering Options to keep the same FPS as beta 8.

[sichars68 1]

JGregory (Jim) has been around for about 4-5 years and is considered one of the best programmers in X-Plane (Able to code in C, C++, Python, although I'm not sure how good he is in that, and LUA).

 

As well as being a member of Leading Edge Simulations....along with Goran. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it should be mentioned.

 

I think you have the wrong developer there, that is Theo Gregory.

 

I believe JGregory is behind JGXDesigns who released the Cessna Corvalis.

[PingPong 60]

(I wrote this post before Geoff's big one above)

 

I hate getting into these things. But I will say, I have the Carenado SkyMaster and it's not working in XPX64. Geoff is right.

 

I would expect a commercial member Jgregory to comport themselves with a higher level of diction. It's what I do in my own business.

 

This comment is unacceptable "Your incessant whining is frankly annoying." Geoff did exactly what I did, we gave XPX a fair chance, we bought add-ons, and now they don't work. He has not been incessantly whining, as you say. In fact he has been very even-handed with his comments about the sim.

 

I can live with this lack of functionality in a particular add-on, as we are undergoing a sea-change in the sim, but to be spoken to, in such a way...by a commercial developer is not acceptable.

[jcomm 5,939]

Well,

 

Geoff, congratulations for having stepped into iMAC... I would if I had the $$$ :-)

 

BTW: you can use SilentWings in iMAC (I believe I'm not wrong) featuring lot's of free scenery areas around the World if you want to try the best soaring simulator available....

 

Then, somewhere in the (I hope not far...) future, Hardy Heinlin will rlease Aerowinx PSX, which will become the most sophisticated airline (b744) simulation ever designed for the PC / MAC...

 

AeroFly's upcoming version looks really promissing, and it works in the iMAC as well ;-)

 

I only regret not being able to see you join the most realistic (prop and heli) simulation I have ever experienced - DCS World... Maybe one day this one will become MAC-compatible as well :-)

[Geofa 108]

Thanks jcomm. I actually got the mac to get back into programming (I did machine language/Basic for a number of years 30 years ago-even for more that 4 years :lol: ). My primary sim machine will unfortunately still have to be my 4 year old pc-it still runs everything much better than the new imac. I do think like my Amiga years ago though the mac really wins in all other areas.

[LAdamson 240]

 

 

 

 

I think you have the wrong developer there, that is Theo Gregory.

 

I believe JGregory is behind JGXDesigns who released the Cessna Corvalis.

. All three names are listed