It is well known in the business world that you constantly watch your competition, compare, borrow ideas and make them better-to not do so is a sure recipe for disaster or at best mediocrity. Comparing sims ditto. Not being familiar with other sims, their feature sets, and positives and negatives ends up with poor results.

 

I found this interesting site last night:

http://www.ranker.com/list/all-flight-simulators-list/reference?page=1

 

I was hardly surprised upon reading it that I owned/used almost every sim on the list (anyone remember "stunt Island"?-one of the most surprising and the first to have a Beech Bonanza.

 

Look what happened to Fs2000/Fly-after Pro Pilot for several years had new innovations that went way beyond what the sims at the time offered-in fact every sim today has "borrowed" from the innovations, including built in atc, rw terrain based on mesh,real world cockpit instruments and 3d clouds. Even though Pro Pilot did not make it-everyone copied and took their ideas some place further. Very smart.

 

As far as the pictures above-Goran yours would be like dropping someone in Rawlins, Wyoming and saying-yep-that's what the United States looks like.

 

Perhaps a more valuable compare would be the series of shots I did in this thread of my area of the world (one of the largest US cities, but varied terrain, and also rural areas). I think they nicely show both the strengths and weaknesses of both sims, are done in exactly the same locations with varied scenery.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/392346-beta-5-is-out/page__st__25

 

I do agree with Golran that the night lighting in xplane is far superior to any sim, the streets, the moving cars, streets and street detail superior, and the autogen the best seen on any sim (though more variety needed).

 

I would purchase the sim just for that. As a flight sim enthusiast I would purchase xplane, as not supporting a sim means there may be none at some point, and that would not be good-if you are a flight sim enthusiast.

 

I just celebrated my anniversary with my wife with a meal of Dim Sum-and it was seriously one of the most enjoyable meals I have had in a long time. It cost about $27 and was over in 20 minutes.

 

I can guarantee if you purchase xplane-you will probably have much more value of cost/time. You will enjoy a lot of aspects of it....and to delve into it properly there is at least a month if not more time. After doing so you may start to notice some you do not enjoy as much, and do the compare thing. Good thing imho.

 

As for Larry's shots above I remember them well. They along with some of mine were taken very early after fsx's release. While most were turning autogen settings up to the max and then complaining of horrible performance Larry and I discovered that by turning the autogen completely off and turning the terrain textures to their highest detail that a stunning rendition of the earth was present which was completely hidden by cartoony autogen (and no it is not photoscenery) and that performance at that time could be stellar with these settings. I even found that I could remove the building autogen, but increase the tree autogen and get those great looking textures with trees. I spoke to one of the MS programmers at that time and asked if it would be possible in the future to have autogen while only on the ground, and then have it "fade" out at 3000 ft. to reveal the beautiful textures which at that point look more realistic than the cartoony autogen.

He said it would require a rewrite of the engine-but maybe in the future...which of course we know now is not to be.

 

So-yes I'd get Xplane-for the future.

I have the Canadian Rockies and Final Frontier. and almost all of the fine aircrafts by Jason. The scenery is like memories from FS2000. Purchased, checked and trashed. Have you ever seen Tongass Fjords X or Pacific Northwest by ORBX? Why do people convert FSX scenerery for use in XP? There is nothing that comes close.

When Laminar announced XPX I was very excited. I have painted 1000 AI aircraft for FS and wanted to move to the ultimate, up to date flightsim, but it was nothing than a big bubble. Add ons of the old versions of FS? Cant use them, but I can buy almost everything I can imagine. I dont mind spending my money, but I demand quality.

I used fsx since it came out and invested well over $1500 on addons for it. I was impressed with what developers could do with it but never really satisfied with it. The blurry scenery issues and the fact that I had been using it for so long. Got me looking for something new. I played a few air combat sims I enjoyed, and gradually stopped playing fsx altogether.

 

Later I got the bug to try something new and gave xplane 10 a shot. At first I didn't like it but stuck with it and now i am really enjoying it. It's far from perfect but it is pretty darn good at times. I hope to see it get better over time and it has improved in the last 10 months since I've had it. Just not as much as I would like. I also still play a lot of dcs world and rise of flight which are pretty amazing too. I have not touched fsx in over 10 months now and really have no interest in it anymore, although I will say it looks pretty good still for its age.

 

I am very curious to see what the future holds not only for xplane, but for dcs, aerofly and p3d. It should be interesting.

 

Ron

when xplane10 gets out of beta, then we will see a flood of xp10 payware. Most Developers are waiting for xp10 final. I love xp10's payware planes much better over fsx, but fsx has more awesome scenery addons.....for now. I still find fsx's colours/graphics too cartoony for me compared to xp10 HDR mode or non HDR. Let's not forget also that xp10 just went 64bit and fsx will never. My top 3 sims in order are xp10, dcs and fsx/p3d.

when xplane10 gets out of beta, then we will see a flood of xp10 payware. Most Developers are waiting for xp10 final. I love xp10's payware planes much better over fsx, but fsx has more awesome scenery addons.....for now. I still find fsx's colours/graphics too cartoony for me compared to xp10 HDR mode or non HDR. Let's not forget also that xp10 just went 64bit and fsx will never. My top 3 sims in order are xp10, dcs and fsx/p3d.

 

I have found this MegaScenery for FSX, to look rather good back in 2007. It's mountainous, and a excellent sensation of depth, while flying over. Wouldn't mind seeing some XP-10 for comparison.

Of course, when it comes to aircraft, I still like some of my FSX favorites.....even though some of the XP models I have, are also quite good. No way, that I'd claim XP aircraft better, let alone much better. But that's opinion, of course.

This looks just like X-Plane 9 with photosceneries:

 

But what was your framerate in 2007 with FSX + add-ons ?

It's quite funny that people like to compare X-Plane to FSX + add-ons. Seems that everyone forgot when FSX was lunched and when became mainstream. XP10 it's now 1 year old and getting better and better. Yes there are many updates, but most of them are betas (which you can avoid them) and this procedure is more involving.

 

 

An entrepreneurs wet dream! A world full of people who don't compare their product to existing products. People who wont notice that your new product doesnt have the gazillion accessories available that the other products have.

 

I wish the world was like that, I think I would throw my hat in to a new business.

 

This looks just like X-Plane 9 with photosceneries:

 

But what was your framerate in 2007 with FSX + add-ons ?

 

The photo scenery in XPX can look just as awesome going by what I have downloaded and seen on my computer. You slightly miss the point when you compare fsx to 2007. It's not the same, you have to compare what the choices are today. I could conversely say how does XPX run on 2007 hardware but we dont. We run both platforms on todays hardware.

Why is it funny?

 

FSX plus addons is what many of us have today. As we evaluate potential new sims (which I do constantly, as I do want something that's better sometime down the road), that's the standard we're evaluating against. Is that fair? Don't know and don't care - it's what IS. Why would I move to a sim that offers less than what I'm currently flying, just because it's better than vanilla FSX which I don't use? That's the argument that makes no sense.

 

BTW, none of the above is meant to be specific to X-Plane or any other sim or to resurrect tired old "which is better" arguments. It's a general comment. Like many, I'm reading here because I AM interested in X-Plane and continue to follow its development. Obviously good 3rd party content is starting to become available and the base platform continues to improve. I'm intrigued - just not quite intrigued enough yet to begin investing time and money.

 

Scott

I have to compare XPX with the sim I use. It's a 1500€+ FSX. That's what I have and why should I use XPX at it's current stage? Most of the money was spend during the last few month. I made that descision because I do not believe in the future of XPX. Before the big boys will throw in their high quality add ons, Austin will move to XP11. And leaves XPX unfinished as 9.7. I have spent enough money on XP9 to be burned for now.

 

Wow! So if we're understanding this, if vanilla X Plane doesn't match up with FSX+$1000's of dollars worth of add ons, then there is no switching?

Just some background on a few add ons I know about.

FlyTampa Kai Tak: (Specialists in scenery) 14 months in development

PMDG 737: (Specialists in airliners) 4-5 years in development

A2A: (Specialists in FDE's and warbirds) They actually hack the FSX flight model using SimConnect to model their aircrafts flight dynamics and engine systems

 

And you expect this in default X-Plane?

My first head shaking moment of 2013.

Wow! So if we're understanding this, if vanilla X Plane doesn't match up with FSX+$1000's of dollars worth of add ons, then there is no switching?

Just some background on a few add ons I know about.

FlyTampa Kai Tak: (Specialists in scenery) 14 months in development

PMDG 737: (Specialists in airliners) 4-5 years in development

A2A: (Specialists in FDE's and warbirds) They actually hack the FSX flight model using SimConnect to model their aircrafts flight dynamics and engine systems

 

And you expect this in default X-Plane?

My first head shaking moment of 2013.

 

What is strange about that really? They are not trying to be fair to xpx, they are judging by their own circumstances.

 

If you didn't have any vehicle and needed to buy one of two, an older model or a newer model then you would have some things to think about. If you did have a vehicle and had $100k worth of customisations to it would you really throw it away to get this years basic model?

 

These guys are clearly comparing what they have now to what they would have if they got xpx now. It's not apples to apples but neither does it have to be in their situation.

Wow! So if we're understanding this, if vanilla X Plane doesn't match up with FSX+$1000's of dollars worth of add ons, then there is no switching?

 

Didn't say that or even anything like it. Please read what I actually wrote - my standard for comparison is what I have. And what strikes me as funny is someone who would think I should compare to some other arbitrary standard which I don't fly with. Simple.

 

Note that I also SPECIFICALLY mentioned my interest in X-Plane AND that I'm increasingly pleased to see additional developer activity. I fully expect to have to re-invest in additional payware whenever I switch to a new platform - that was implicit in my comments.

 

Good grief, man.

 

Scott

Of course, its not just that. Lets say they did have another $1500 to plunge in to xplane. Where would they spend it? What scenery could they purchase? I know some of it is about but its just not all there yet!

What is strange about that really? They are not trying to be fair to xpx, they are judging by their own circumstances.

 

If you didn't have any vehicle and needed to buy one of two, an older model or a newer model then you would have some things to think about. If you did have a vehicle and had $100k worth of customisations to it would you really throw it away to get this years basic model?

 

These guys are clearly comparing what they have now to what they would have if they got xpx now. It's not apples to apples but neither does it have to be in their situation.

There's a very big difference between a car with $100k worth of accessories and a flight sim with thousands of dollars worth of add ons.

You can resell the car and get most of your money back.

 

:Peace:

 

Didn't say that or even anything like it. Please read what I actually wrote - my standard for comparison is what I have. And what strikes me as funny is someone who would think I should compare to some other arbitrary standard which I don't fly with. Simple.

 

Note that I also SPECIFICALLY mentioned my interest in X-Plane AND that I'm increasingly pleased to see additional developer activity. I fully expect to have to re-invest in additional payware whenever I switch to a new platform - that was implicit in my comments.

 

Good grief, man.

 

Scott

 

Scott

Notice the quote of mine you posted. It was a question.

I re-read what you said and this is what stuck out...

FSX plus addons is what many of us have today. As we evaluate potential new sims (which I do constantly, as I do want something that's better sometime down the road), that's the standard we're evaluating against. Is that fair? Don't know and don't care - it's what IS.

Just calm down a little. It's new year and it'd be a shame to get it started like this.

Have a good one!

The photo scenery in XPX can look just as awesome going by what I have downloaded and seen on my computer. You slightly miss the point when you compare fsx to 2007. It's not the same, you have to compare what the choices are today. I could conversely say how does XPX run on 2007 hardware but we dont. We run both platforms on todays hardware.

 

Well talking about 2007 was LAdamson's idea. And most simmers were still using FS2004 during this year. Today, photo sceneries still look awesome, but not during your take off and approach, nor for low and slow flights. Flat trees, flat roofs, flat roads, flat vehicles, everything is just flat, even with the best textures. That's why I'm using OSM2XP with X-Plane 9 and now X-Plane 10. It's just a lot better:

http://forum.avsim.n...ht-above-jarny/

http://forum.avsim.n...an-in-lorraine/

 

Of course, you'll never find X-Plane 10 add-ons if you search for "XPX + Orbx". ^_^

Just calm down a little. It's new year and it'd be a shame to get it started like this.

Have a good one!

 

Perfectly calm, thanks, but it's still the old year here so I have time to be cranky and not spoil the new one.

 

Your question seemed more rhetorical than a request for clarification, and the head shaking at the end seemed to back that up. If that was not the case, then hopefully I've clarified.

 

Let's start over, shall we? B)

 

Scott

There's a very big difference between a car with $100k worth of accessories and a flight sim with thousands of dollars worth of add ons.

You can resell the car and get most of your money back.

 

:Peace:

 

 

 

Do you not understand the point which is you are not going to trade in a car or a flight sim for something less than you already have. It doesnt matter if the other simulator or car is newer. You are comparing it against what you own, highly modded with a larger investment.

 

Why would you give up something that is better for something that is only newer? It has to offer more than being just newer and in the future it probably will.

 

You seem to be more interested in scoring 'points' than participating in the conversation.