283

 

Wow, well there you go. And LR have something like 5 developers? Even if they just doubled that with some smart guys they'd be able to do heaps more given time =).

I still hope that before the end of the 10 series we will get a good simulation platform out of xp10.

 

Those cloud textures posted yesterday, some promissing upcoming aircraft add-ons, like LES Saab ( I really liked their dc3 ), etc... are promissing...

 

At the very same time FSX add-ons are also progressing with some rather interesting add-ons recently released. A2A's p51d with AccuSim, and a few days ago AccuFeel v2, can turn FSX into an even more enjoyable simulation platform and certainly not a dead one!

 

I'm on another train right now, anyway, but keeping an eye on everything worth the attention happening on both platforms :-)

I still hope that before the end of the 10 series we will get a good simulation platform out of xp10.

 

 

 

Don't see it happening. What I believe will happen is XP10 will run it's course of bug-fixes and optimizations and then LR will release XP11 and it will all start anew. 5 developers cannot prosper on a stable platform. From a business standpoint there is no profit in constant bugfixes and providing an environment for 3rd party developers to thrive. You have to keep innovating so the people will rebuy anew.

Don't see it happening. What I believe will happen is XP10 will run it's course of bug-fixes and optimizations and then LR will release XP11 and it will all start anew. 5 developers cannot prosper on a stable platform. From a business standpoint there is no profit in constant bugfixes and providing an environment for 3rd party developers to thrive. You have to keep innovating so the people will rebuy anew.

if Austin abandons xp10 in 2013/2014, that's gonna anger many customers Is it true that LR is a 5 Dev team, I find that hard to believe with this awesome sim. If it is a 5 man team, then these 5 guys/girls are geniuses

Don't see it happening. What I believe will happen is XP10 will run it's course of bug-fixes and optimizations and then LR will release XP11 and it will all start anew. 5 developers cannot prosper on a stable platform. From a business standpoint there is no profit in constant bugfixes and providing an environment for 3rd party developers to thrive. You have to keep innovating so the people will rebuy anew.

 

All things considered, the X-Plane development team has done an astounding job in the past 5 or 6 years. While Microsoft dropped the ball (stopped developing FSX) and then tried to go a different way by making the "arcade-like" Flight before dropping that project as well, X-Plane has one trump card- they are DIFFERENT, completely different, and assumed the Herculean task of redesigning a simulator "from the ground up" that (now) encompasses the entire world. ORBX has spend a lot of hours in development of the entire world just in TEXTURES, but haven't done a thing to address the basic simulation program's memory ceiling (they can't fix that, only Microsoft or Lockheed Martin could - and LM has been mum about migrating P3D to 64-bits.)

 

There will undoubtedly be an XPlane 11 at some point, but considering X-Plane 10 is only on 10.20 release version - there is PLENTY of headroom for Austin and his team to continue refining. Because the scope of XP is so large (remember, they are brave enough to offer the ENTIRE WORLD, and bonus, unlike Flight, you don't have to buy it one chunk at a time. I hope that everyone over at Laminar Research (X-Plane's parent company) grows wealthy, their courage and tenacity cries out for reward. Many of the FSX developers will likely offer X-Plane products which will speed the maturing of the XP platform.

 

It wouldn't shock me if a 400-lb gorilla company went to X-Plane and tried to acquire the franchise. I hope that doesn't happen, because small development team means they pursue their dreams while a corporate bean-counter will take the "less-is-more" approach and then try to nickel-and-dime you with add-ons (this seemed like what Flight was trying to do).

 

Again, XP 10 still has some warts - but at the end of the day - I'm betting that Austin will succeed and we're fortunate to be able to be part of the process.

I went from FS 2004 to XP 9 to FSX and what drove my directions was what could be done with the sim + add ons.

 

Currently my sim of choice is FSX + Orbx + Accufeel + REX & OpusFSX with A2A, RealAir, Aerosoft, Eaglesoft aircraft, which gets me a great experience but is no way perfect.

 

When XP + add ons exceeds this will probably move again, could be P3D, just don't know at this time.

 

One thing that XP has right now that FS doesn't is a future.

if Austin abandons xp10 in 2013/2014, that's gonna anger many customers

 

Abandon is a strong word... but they will terminate any work on XP10 at some point in the future ...just as they did with XP9, 8, 7, etc. etc.

 

Although many people hold X-Plane in high esteem for its near-endless chain of improvements and ongoing growth, I contend such methods are one of the reasons why we see fewer 3rd party developers, second of course to the overall market share X-Plane has.

 

Why make a 3rd party enhancement to a part of the platform when you never know if Laminar Research themselves will build it in for free in a week, month, or year? It's one of my strongest criticisms of the X-Plane culture. In a peverse sort of way, MSFS's inherent shortcomings version after version were a catalyst for many innovative 3rd party developments. With the current version of X-Plane undergoing continual feature improvements month after month, I don't blame developers for keeping a cautious distance. Then, when XP10 ceases development, XP11 will likely be right over the horizon, once again continuing the endless cycle...

 

Ultimately, they need more developers on staff to bring XP10 to it's design goals (*whatever they are) sooner, so it can enjoy a period of operational maturity before XP11 betas start flowing. X-Plane finds itself in a state of perpetual adolescence, never having a chance to truly flurish.

 

-Greg

I have tried the demo a few times ago and my game was full of stuttering. The demo is in 32 bit or 64 bit ?

 

i have i5 3570k 4.5ghz and gtx 660

Abandon is a strong word... but they will terminate any work on XP10 at some point in the future ...just as they did with XP9, 8, 7, etc. etc.

 

Although many people hold X-Plane in high esteem for its near-endless chain of improvements and ongoing growth, I contend such methods are one of the reasons why we see fewer 3rd party developers, second of course to the overall market share X-Plane has.

 

Why make a 3rd party enhancement to a part of the platform when you never know if Laminar Research themselves will build it in for free in a week, month, or year? It's one of my strongest criticisms of the X-Plane culture. In a peverse sort of way, MSFS's inherent shortcomings version after version were a catalyst for many innovative 3rd party developments. With the current version of X-Plane undergoing continual feature improvements month after month, I don't blame developers for keeping a cautious distance. Then, when XP10 ceases development, XP11 will likely be right over the horizon, once again continuing the endless cycle...

 

Ultimately, they need more developers on staff to bring XP10 to it's design goals (*whatever they are) sooner, so it can enjoy a period of operational maturity before XP11 betas start flowing. X-Plane finds itself in a state of perpetual adolescence, never having a chance to truly flurish.

 

-Greg

here is a good example of a feature that Austin should have released as a patch/update but instead I had to buy it. It's an amazing product that really tuned up the textures in the distance. TABURET - XPORBIT FOR X-PLANE 10

 

I have tried the demo a few times ago and my game was full of stuttering. The demo is in 32 bit or 64 bit ?

 

i have i5 3570k 4.5ghz and gtx 660

sounds strange, you shouldn't get stutters with that setup, did you have HDR on the highest setting: 4xSSAA or 8xSSAA

You're seeing the future of our hobby, not it's demise.

etc .........

Hi Robert glad to see you are enjoying Xplane 10. You haven't mention the helicopters yet.

 

Regards Pete

here is a good example of a feature that Austin should have released as a patch/update but instead I had to buy it. It's an amazing product that really tuned up the textures in the distance. TABURET - XPORBIT FOR X-PLANE 10

 

You mean the same problem that Laminar Research has already hinted at that they will be fixing after they get things squared in the 64-bit world? So - will Laminar continue to work on fixing this problem as they suggested they would, or will they bail out on the repair because someone else did the dirty work for them... even if you have to go out and buy it?

 

As a customer, I'm left in a lurch because I know this is on Laminar's to-do list, and I'm not about to spend money on something they'll be fixing. As a developer, Taburet is taking a chance that it doesn't get fixed anytime soon and that people aren't aware it's on the list. Only time will tell, I guess.

 

-Greg

Well, this, as crazy as it sounds, is also the problem with X-Plane, you need a really good computer to actually get anything decent out of it. Not everyone can afford brand new hardware, or some people, such as myself, prefer to use notebooks. I've seen videos of X-Plane running on high-end software and it does indeed look incredible, but shouldn't it run better than FSX? For me, it clearly doesn't run better than FSX on the same hardware. I have to turn down everything until it looks plastic, blurry and by that time I just go back to FSX. I appreciate that X-Plane will use the full power of newer systems, but it shouldn't penalise users with slower hardware. X-Plane 9 ran fantastic on my machine, and I enjoyed using that version.

 

 

Hi Tony,

 

I suppose every computer system is different. I run a computer with a Corei7 920CPU, 6gb Ram with ATI4870 1Gb GPU. Yes a 4870 graphics card. It used to be cutting edge! I downloaded drivers the other day for my Windows 8 64bit system and the download had "_legacy" in front of the version number! But I've been surprised how good the performance has been with XPX 64bit. Somewhere in the mid 30's for me using SimAvio 3rd party software panels or Carenado C172. I'm not saying everything is on high settings, I don't think my PC would thank me for that But it still looks very nice. I struggled a bit with FSX's performance, I was a little dissapointed with the frames I was getting when I first built my system with MSFS in mind (As I have done for years) I probably need to tweak more. The performance with XPX though was not always this way, the first betas completely tanked my system but the new 64bit seems to given the old dog a new lease of life. For how long though I'm not sure.

 

Cheers

 

Rhydian

 

By the way, tell you what flight sim has really impressed me with regards to performance....DCS World. How and why it works so well on my system, I have no idea. But I have been really impressed with it. Sorry, a little off topic. I know combat sims are not everyone's cup of tea, but WOW, what a flight simulator!!!

Edited January 9, 201313 yr by rojantrojan

One thing I find interesting is the idea presented by some that greatly expanding the dev team is a need for Xplane. I beg to differ as I believe it then faces the risk of becoming a faceless corporation with little communication between them and the user (just like MS).

 

I used to follow horse racing many years back and one of the necessary aspects of knowledge for those who studied horse racing form was "horses for courses". So much so it has become a common English phrase. So far this little Xplane dev team with Austin at the helm has delivered the goods and continues to do so. So I am very happy with the existing arrangement. For me I feel it is a winning combination

 

Regards Pete

 

PS this tiny team has already produced more than the 280+ from MS (imho of course)

One thing I find interesting is the idea presented by some that greatly expanding the dev team is a need for Xplane. I beg to differ as I believe it then faces the risk of becoming a faceless corporation with little communication between them and the user (just like MS).

 

That's a question of culture, not team size. They need some serious full time workers that get stuff out of the way. Ben and Austin and Chris could communicate even more on the blog etc.

I'd personally like to see them continue to concentrate on the core-64 bit which will be great, give up on the stuff that is way behind but make those areas open and stable so that 3rd parties can take up the slack. Let third party fill the holes with seasons, airport buildings, world buildings and landmarks, ai traffic, and realistic working atc.

 

I just got an email today a pr. person has been hired by Laminar to represent xplane to the "aviation media".

 

Use that persons skills to recruit, and convince the many, many talented 3rd party people that already have a long history of developing these things for msfs to move to xplane and take up the slack. Make it easy for them to do so in every respect.Maybe even subcontract some to produce core features that are missing in the sim itself, and include them in the sim.

 

There is so much great going on with this sim, but being able to customize a sim to what the end user requires has always been the key to success for MS-and why so many other sims could not make it. Even with all the great things going on with xplane, lots unfortunately will stay on the sidelines until this can happen.