Looking to jump from the FSX ship

[keithb77 308]

OK thanks.<br />BTW that 737 does look nice, though I don't normally do tubes...<br />Cheers<br />Keith

[CarlosF 1,241]

OK thanks.<br />BTW that 737 does look nice, though I don't normally do tubes...<br />Cheers<br />Keith

XP's Baron 58 and King Air C90 are pretty good, there's the Columbia 400 also. Give them a try!

[tf51d 284]

XP's Baron 58 and King Air C90 are pretty good, there's the Columbia 400 also. Give them a try!

I think Geoffa would have a different opinion when it comes to the Baron, and he flew them in the real world!!

[CarlosF 1,241]

I think Geoffa would have a different opinion when it comes to the Baron, and he flew them in the real world!!

I bet he does, but that would be his personal opinion. I still think that the default Baron is a nice airplane and its FREE!

So lets not get into the "the aileron deflection if off by 1 deg compared to RL" type discussion.

 

This gentleman (Keith) is asking for suggestions as to what to try in the demo. I'm just trying to help!

[tf51d 284]

I bet he does, but that would be his personal opinion. I still think that the default Baron is a nice airplane and its FREE!

So lets not get into the "the aileron deflection if off by 1 deg compared to RL" type discussion.

 

This gentleman (Keith) is asking for suggestions as to what to try on the demo. I'm just trying to help!

Sorry, I thought you were referring to Carenado's B58 for XP ,which Geoff had previously commented on!!

[CarlosF 1,241]

Sorry, I thought you were referring to Carenado's B58 for XP ,which Geoff had previously commented on!!

No problem Tom!

[LAdamson 240]

I prefer personal opinions from those who have owned and flew these airplanes, such as the Baron. Why dismiss it so easily, by just calling it a personal opinion? If I want a great Baron, I suppose I'd go with the Milviz model for FSX. Just as I would for the Baytower RV7 for FSX. Use XP for others. Slowly sent from IPhone...

[Robert McDonald 167]

Wow. I never dreamed that the debate over FSX versus X-Plane would still be getting so much energy. Like several here, I first tried X-Plane "demo" a while back, and found it a little nettlesome to reconfigure my hardware, and had a devil of a time getting "used to" X-Plane and how different it is from FSX.

Some months later, I can cheerfully report that FSX is a memory - it's completely erased from my hard drive. I did the old Ben Franklin close:

On a piece of blank paper, I drew a vertical line down the middle. On the left side, I put down what I liked about FSX, and on the other side, what I disliked about FSX.

Then, after flying the X-Plane demo once again, this time in 64-bits, I added a bunch of payware planes, most especially the Ramzzess 777. I obtained some payware airports, plus a bunch of freeware ones. I joined PilotEdge realtime ATC. Like the old saying, "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going," I elected to fly ONLY in 64-bits. If there is an add-on for X-Plane that won't run in 64-bits, I'm not using it.

I calibrated my flight hardware to the new airplane, and began programming the FMC, which is as close to the NGX as I have thus found, albeit different because it's a Triple 7. Then I discovered that a 10.1 Note Tablet could run the FMC on my airplane simply by entering the network address of the main xPlain system into a web browser! I instantly disconnected my VRinsight CDU-II and replaced it with the Samsung Note 10.1 "touchscreen tablet" - this was wildly better than the hoops I had to jump through to use the CDU-II from VRinsight. I also use the Note tablet to jot down instructions from ATC, and I can switch back and forth between the FMC and my Wacom Tablet notes on the Samsung very quickly and easily. I liked the Note 10.1 so well I dumped my iPhone for a Samsung Note2 smartphone.

Life became considerably better. Sure, I admit that X-Plane 10 64-bit is still growing. Yet I am filled with hope and admiration for Austin Meyer and his little team over at Laminar Research. I would not deny any of you the fun of incessant tweaking on your system, nor threaten the cottage industry that has sprung up to make the sow's ear (FSX) into a silk purse (FSX with tons of add-ons). Once the silk purse dragged my i7 4.7ghz with SSD and 16GB ram plus the GTX690 EVGA Signature card into 17 fps and less - it was time to saddle up that tired old horse and ride her over the hill to X-Plane land.

I was enchanted by the roads, the freeways, the trains, the cars with white headlights coming at you and red taillights going away... the view from the sky at night in X-Plane is unlike any experience I ever had in FSX. In FSX, you have to virtually KILL your autos and night lighting to try to save your frames. Not the case in X-Plane 64.

Simply put - the anxiety and bother of constantly futzing with FSX outweighed the fun I had when I had everything "just so". Move one setting anywhere in the FSX setup - and LOOK OUT WORLD. The DING-DONG warning bell from FSUIPC of impending out-of-memory errors.

If you have the patience and the desire to go to a different place- a world that is still developing and immature - you may elect to ditch the headaches and fly x-Plane.

The BIGGEST single thing I love about x-Plane? Everything is in the X-Plane folder, right on your desktop. Simple. Plug-ins are controlled from the drop-down menu.

X-Plane is far from perfect, there are things I loved about FSX that aren't present at all in X-Plane. But the FLIGHT EXPERIENCE is just so different.

If any of you on the fence are wondering whether or not X-Plane 64 is really "all that and a bag of chips" - you won't know unless you give her a fair try. The program itself is not insanely expensive. It will use ALL your system RAM and ALL your video VRAM - though the new nVidia TITAN has 6GB of Video Ram, it still can't match the GTX 690 (Titan is single GPU, 690 is dual), which is as it should be.

Like FSX, X-Plane all by itself is somewhat lacking. It needs some eye candy, especially the airports, which by default have runways and taxiways, but no buildings. I'm far from wild about the default airports in FSX, but at least they all have buildings, albeit pretty generic ones. There is a wealth of free scenery for X-Plane at X-Plane.Org and other sites.

I admit that the city terrain is not as complex in X-Plane as it is after you get ORBX and/or UTX on your FSX system. There is no 'winter' in X-Plane per se (yet). There are a few tricks where your scenery doesn't extend all the way to the horizon at altitude (they use fog and/or clouds to mask the visuals). So yes, there are some 'warts'. If those are a 'deal breaker' for YOU as a pilot - I get that. Some folks can be happy with the stutters as they are on final at KLAX. Me? Not so much. X-Plane just is smoother than FSX all other things being equal. And faster (frames), and much much LESS tweaking.

The payware KLAX, KJFK and KLGA airports for X-Plane 10 are stellar, and very pretty, day or night. The frames? WOW. I NEVER had over 100 fps in FSX. I have experienced it in X-Plane, though most of the time I'm more like 45 to 55 fps. In extremely dense high-res airports and airplanes, I might dip down to 30, at night, with a lot of AI planes on the ground at KJFK or KLAX. This is running off just ONE of the two GPUS on the GTX690.

If Laminar ever adds support for SLI- it will be incredible. PMDG has made noises about releasing a plane for X-Plane- and if that were to happen, my life would be even better.

Eventually, there could be so much hang-on stuff on an FSX build that the sim becomes unpleasant to fly. In my view, this was already happening, and was only going to get worse. Add something new, you have to 'take off' something old, or dumb down the graphics.

It's just another type of model railroad. And whether you're an "O" gauge or "HO" gauge person, only you can decide which sim 'works' for you. Sure, X-Plane isn't perfect, but anyone who claims FSX is perfect is going to get an argument from some other people, myself included.

FSX is developmentally abandoned and mired in the morass of the 32-bit memory glass ceiling. Lockheed remains silent about 64-bits - it would be a monumentally complex task to rebuild FSX into a 64-bit platform. The cottage 3rd party world is keeping FSX alive... but every day, as hardware goes forward, FSX falls further behind and runs worse.

For me, and this is strictly a personal choice - I have seen the future - and it is X-Plane 64-bit.

[CarlosF 1,241]

I prefer personal opinions from those who have owned and flew these airplanes, such as the Baron. Why dismiss it so easily, by just calling it a personal opinion? If I want a great Baron, I suppose I'd go with the Milviz model for FSX. Just as I would for the Baytower RV7 for FSX. Use XP for others. Slowly sent from IPhone...

I'm not a real airplane pilot and personally go with Austin's opinion, so I take whatever XP has to offer as "his" opinion. Not that others don't count, the problem is that there are so many different opinions that it only confuses me even more. Since Austin is the creator of XP and also a RL pilot and if take into consideration my lack of aeronautical knowledge, I don't see why I shouldn't trust his opinion.

 

Carlos

[CarlosF 1,241]

For me, and this is strictly a personal choice - I have seen the future - and it is X-Plane 64-bit.

+1

Great post Robert!

[GodAtum 69]

I'm looking forward to see how XPlane progresses this year and whether devs will release more heavies.

 

One questions, can i get winds aloft values in Xplane to enter into an FMC?

[Robert McDonald 167]

AFAIK, XP10 uses NOAA weather.  On the B777 by Ramzzess, I -do- show wind speed and direction on the ND at altitude.  I don't know if this is the question you were intending to ask.

[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

+1

Great post Robert!

I agree, awesome post Robert :clapping:  :drinks:

[Robert McDonald 167]

Thank you for the kind compliments, Five by Five and Pirata.  I'm not an expert (but I play one on television).  I just know what I personally prefer - and again, that's really the meat-and-potatoes of any hobby.  You pays yer money and yer takes yer choice!  Arf!  (To quote Popeye).

 

I only wish I could be a fly on the wall at Laminar.  That would be TOO COOL.

[BimmerCop 332]

Great post indeed, Rob. +1

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

+1

 

Great post Robert!

I agree, awesome post Robert :clapping:  :drinks:

 

Five by Five, are you a dispatcher?

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2