But as long as you can e.g. slip in X-Plane and feel the wake turbulences when flying behind an other plane or in a thunderstorm (but not in FS), then that's what I call flying.

 

1) In X-Plane downwash / wake turb  are not, as far as I know, modelled with that accuracy... Should it be that good and we would be able to feel those effects during glider tow, just as we do in real life ;-) They're simply programmed effects you can also experience with a good weather program for, say, Prepar3d, just like the one I am using (As2012 SP2) and provides not only wake turbulence but great overall weather effects, including the turbulence from convective clouds and even orographic currents... and even more realistic thermals (the generation and triggers, and wind effects on them... thermals in X-Plane10 are undeformed by any winds....)!

 

2) Aircraft well designed for FSX / Prepar3d slip / skid just as good as in X-Plane... For a couple of examples, try A2A's p51d or b377 Stratocruiser, RealAir's (anything), etc...  Ah!, and they aren't using external flight dynamics models, like most users believe!!!!

 

There are, nonetheless, aspects of flight dynamics modelling that the ESP-based platforms can't do as well as X-Plane10 - asymmetric thrust effects is a good example, with even the best models (including RealAirs, A2As, PMDGs) failling to model the result of loosing an engine (prop or jet) as well as X-Plane10 does it, I must admit!

 

But then again, you can name many add-ons for the ESP-based platforms that behave much more realistically regarding prop effects than those in X-Plane10 (with it's know torque roll glitch...)

 

But then again they also have problems, and for instance the A2A p51d Civil, one of the models I use the most with Prepar3d isn't perfect when it comes to prop effects at higher AoA, gyroscopic effects, etc...

 

There is one *** PERFECT *** sim already, in as far as these and other effects go ( downwash and wake turbulence not included, because I never tested it and I don't even know if it is modelled...), and that is the sim I start whenever I feel a big deception with the way these aspects of flight are so poorly modelled in the civil sims... 

 

Just as a side note, the most perfect helicopter flight dynamics ever produced for the PC is about to be released for that sim too :-)  

"Different" = worse? Couldn't it be the other way round? "Different" = better? Nooo! Of course not. "Different" is always worse. Aaahhh ... well ... now as you're saying it ... Colorful opinions aside, I would expect a great many XP users to be taken by surprise at just how different FS is .

 

And from this perspective of view, one should warn people in the FS forums to help a user make a more educated decision about their purchase, don't you agree?

 

 

 

Good that you mentioned this: "city center" scenery with facades. It costs you exactly 0000.00 EUR.

 

 

Well, you know ... as far as I remember, Cirrus used X-Plane for research building The Jet (if I'm not mistaken Garrow aircraft too, maybe others?). Of course, for in depth development they used more advanced programs. But as long as you can e.g. slip in X-Plane and feel the wake turbulences when flying behind an other plane or in a thunderstorm (but not in FS), then that's what I call flying.

 

 

Maybe someone could explain this to me: as I already mentioned, some users are wasting their precious time in this subforum instead of having fun with their FSX.

 

 

Aaahhh .... now I understand ... they probably don't have fun with their FSX, so they are searching for other leisure pursuit :lol: .

It really isn't about FSX-interesting that some want to always turn the discussion that way.

 

I have always used sims to help my rw flying which I started in 1989. A trainer needs to be able to simulate reasonably what one finds in rw to be useful as a trainer. Right now with the plausible world, a lack of ability to get legal photo scenery for my area of the world, and a lack of landmarks xplane is not useful for Vfr flight practice in my area of the world. Having moved to an area of the world that has very complex airspace, this would be most useful.

 

Yes I would be most happy if either a pay ware person, or freeware could take care of this. It hasn't happened yet.

It really is that simple- has nothing to do with another sim.

 

Actually the potential deal breaker for me may end up being the ifr department. I hope this is not correct but from my reading the Reality XP gps being 32 bit will not be compatible with 64 bit xplane. If this is te case, and no one steps up to the plate with a current ifr gps, either pay ware or lm, xplane will be unable to be a useful ifr simulator for me.

 

As for flight dynamics, I found xplane not useful for the last 9 months or so. With the latest beta I now once again find the fm's credible and non bad habit producing.

 

Game like? I've never used a sim that way except when I was not a pilot -from 1981-89. I like many owners here hope xplane can grow into the useful sim we can use in a useful way-sooner than later.

Quite frankly, XP falls somewhat short in some of the flight dynamics department,

It's a matter of personal perspective!!!

 

If you take 10 experienced pilots and ask them the same question regarding XP's flight dynamics you WILL get mixed answers. So its all about Personal_Perspective.

 

Neither XP or FSX have it right or wrong.

 

To me it feels better in XP but to many others it is the other way around. Thank God we have different choices for our different tastes.

On cities and buildings...

 

Thats what OpenStreetmap already does as a central repository. And there are quite a few "attributes" you can attach to a building footprint ... like for example the height of a building.

 

True, but as you know those elements are not used in the native DSF's, nor are there plans do to so. If OpenStreetMap data is the solution for cities, why then is it not being used as the source to lay out airport buildings, considering many airports have their hangars and terminals annotated in OSM?  It's not the right tool for the job at airports, and I don't think OSM building data is the right tool for the job I'm proposing, either. Let me explain...

 

Perhaps I'm not being entirely clear in my intentions - I'm not looking to import every building in every city in exact locations, like how OSM2XP is designed to work.  I'm offering an idea which would allow significant buildings in urban areas to be quickly annotated in by end-users as a facade via WED or OverlayEditor, submitted to a central repository which then would be integrated into X-Plane's distribution process much like how forthcoming "lego brick airports" are going to work.

 

This allows the new buildings to sit side-by-side with the existing autogen, and gets distributed to all users as time goes on via the X-Plane update process. Since 95% of the coding and procedures for this idea are probably already created to support the airport design project, it seems like a natural path to take. It just seems like a very good way to leverage existing processes to further enhance the X-Plane scenery environment.

 

If self-service tools and 3rd party downloads were good enough, why did Laminar spend so much time on re-working the default airport process to support the crowdsourced airports w/ buildings? The answer lies in the fact that they recognize that there might be shortcomings in the "out-of-the-box" airport experience which can be improved - I humbly suggest that this very same process can be leveraged to great effect to help cities look more like their real-world counterparts right "out of the box".

 

(Grammar edits)

Actually the potential deal breaker for me may end up being the ifr department. I hope this is not correct but from my reading the Reality XP gps being 32 bit will not be compatible with 64 bit xplane. If this is te case, and no one steps up to the plate with a current ifr gps, either pay ware or lm, xplane will be unable to be a useful ifr simulator for me.

There's the 32-bit option. It's not XP's fault that RealityXP will not make their products 64-bit compatible.

I am not putting any blame. Merely stating that any pilot who uses a sim as an ifr trainer will find xplane64 Pretty non useful until a current rw gps emerges. As for 32 bit-the other problem is my desktop aviator gps hardware seems only to work with the default gps which is useless. Again, no blame- just a fact.

For some hardcore XP users, landmark is not important in a flightsim, flight dynamic is #1 important! I even read a XP user said something like this is .org forum: "flightsim is not a 'tourism program', why you need those landmarks?"

This is the Black Man vs. White Man argument. Until we get to a point where people stop defining themselves and differentiating completely, we'll never get anywhere. I'm not saying that XP sucks because it doesn't have landmarks and FS is better because it does. What I am saying is that I am FLIGHT SIMULATION (not to be confused with FLIGHT SIMULATOR) user, loyal to NEITHER PLATFORM fully. I will use the product that best suits my needs. The goal of any FLIGHT SIMULATION should be to replicate a flight and all that it includes as efficiently as possible. That includes objects that resemble their real-world counterparts.

 

If the cars driving down the 3D roads were squares with textures, do you think that would be passable in the least? At that point, we would turn them off as they would be equally as useless and the CPU cycles could be diverted to more important tasks. Also, a plausible and nearly as realistic as a real-time simulation can accommodate flight model to allow us to experience the controls and how the aircraft would react, should we be in the aircraft and not in a virtual replica. The atmosphere, both weather and AI traffic of all sorts (air, land and sea) are important to immerse us and make us feel as if we were there. I'm sure there are a few other things that this list could use, but my point is made. Landmarks make the land mesh more than just something that trees and random buildings placed on and turn it into a representation of the real world.

 

We couldn't expect LR to make the whole world in 3D for a base product, but if I remember correctly, XP 9 series did have landmarks and special buildings in it. Why not include them in the new system?

 

I'm in love with XP as it is now, but it still lacks many things that make it a complete simulation. The basic systems and concepts are there for others to build on and some of those are ever expanding, leaving a wide world of vast options for 3PD to utilize. The biggest concern is that I didn't buy a base platform, I bought a simulation that, in time, would expand to fill my needs. Basic expectations are that a new simulation would have many of the original feature set of a previous generation product and current accepted normals for experience.

Perhaps I'm not being entirely clear in my intentions - I'm not looking to import every building in every city in exact locations, like how OSM2XP is designed to work.  I'm offering an idea which would allow significant buildings in urban areas to be quickly annotated in by end-users as a facade via WED or OverlayEditor, submitted to a central repository which then would be integrated into X-Plane's distribution process much like how forthcoming "lego brick airports" are going to work.

 

You don't need every building in every city when using OSM2XP. You can filter OSM data before processing it with OSM2XP. The tool for this is osmfilter:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmfilter

 

For example you can keep only large building where the height is greater than...

 

You're free to use OSM extracts like you want. You can export everything and keep only light houses, water towers and wind turbines in X-Plane. OSM is not only for the users who want everything.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/404350-random-shots/

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/392958-landing-in-pointe-a-pitre-tffr/

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/387521-flight-above-jarny/

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/382432-c208b-grand-caravan-in-lorraine/

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/378344-flying-around-hawaii-with-the-sequoia-falco/

It's not personal perspectve,it's fact. Take the roll problem for an example. It's been explained away as"torque" by some X-plane purists. Or as an additional pilot challenge not present in FSX. It shouldn't be rolling, to be realistic. It's the reason Austin Meyer, as well as myself, found and eliminated the source in our experimental class airplanes. Read about his Lancair testing for farther info.

On cities and buildings...

 

 

 

You're free to use OSM extracts like you want. You can export everything and keep only light houses, water towers and wind turbines in X-Plane. OSM is not only for the users who want everything.

 

MdMax, I'm certainly not disputing that one can get great results by using OSM data (filtered or not) alongside tools such as OSM2XP and even orthophotos. Your screenshots are proof that it certainly can be done. But, I'm more interested in the armchair simmer getting a better experience out-of-the-box, not necessarily needing to futz with downloads, OSM data exports, and scripting filters and the like.

 

(PS: Thanks for that filter page - I may use that to do a pull of OSM data, somehow extract out only the existing water data, and use it to fill in the gaps in preparation for the forthcoming DSF recuts. Can you point me to a good source where I can get an up-to-date OSM map dump for North America?)

 

It seems like the three scenery items which come up most frequently as being "problems" are - lack of buildings at airports which is being addressed via crowdsourcing, lack of water/OSM updates which is being addressed by eventual DSF recuts, and generic looking cities... which currently have no real action plan outside of autogen and landuse refinements.

 

I'm simply suggesting that if X-Plane had a similar process in place to crowdsource city buildings and notable structures in the same fashion as they're doing for airports, the base package might be able to reap some nice benefits. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be much better than relying exclusively on autogen.

Greg,

 

I think (DISCLAIMER: this is really what I think after what I hear / discuss internally ... this is not necessarily what will happen in any of its forms): Laminar will not spend long hours on implementing the type of city resource, because a lot of it would be a reimplementation from OpenStreetmap. Neither do I think, that you will find many users who would do work in OSM and then do the same work (maybe with some extras) for the Laminar only resource. Its far more likely, that in the long run (not in the coming scenery recuts for sure ... but in the long term), Laminar would rather try to find a way to incorporate existing building data from OSM into the Global Scenery (maybe not on the entire global scenery, as it would introduce quite a big size increase on its own alone - but maybe in selected areas). And if that happens - and as I state, its more likely (even if in a more distant future) - then it will be much better to have a richer OSM data (with height info for all the skyscrapers and larger buildings - that would be really nice!)

 

So I stay with my original statement (and effectively with what MadMax is saying): rather improve OSM (and this happens anyways - even if no X-Plane user cares at all ... OSM has its own big community!), and make better use of it in the future (either via more 3rd party tools, or even more advanced use in the Global Scenery itself).

Andras, as much as doing a crowdsourced buildings option today (with WED or OE) seems feasible today, your explanation makes sense.  Thanks for the insight into it from that perspective. Maybe I'll dial in some notable buildings with height information for when that day comes...assuming it will.

 

Thanks for the followup,

-Greg

"Different" = worse? Couldn't it be the other way round? "Different" = better? Nooo! Of course not. "Different" is always worse. Aaahhh ... well ... now as you're saying it ... Colorful opinions aside, I would expect a great many XP users to be taken by surprise at just how different FS is .

 

And from this perspective of view, one should warn people in the FS forums to help a user make a more educated decision about their purchase, don't you agree?

 

 

 

 

    You are missing the point,  this isn't a FSX vs xplane thing.    Sure, it may be easier for you  to have your argument in the tone you are having it if you call people fsx'ers but you are off the mark.

 

    What we have here are xplane users and potential xplane users voicing what they would like to see in the sim.

 

    The other thing we have here is xplane users, like yourself, telling other xplane users whats really important to them, whether they know it or not.   We also have other xplane users trying to tell people how they can try and do things to their likeing.  Somewhat more helpful than your posts.

 

    If your posts are going to continue to tell xplane users to go back to FSX because their view doesn't match yours then maybe you should consider if you are really contributing to the conversation.

 

    I also understand the problems a small team might face in trying to do some of this but I dont think they doubt that people want this.   I dont think it's any mistake that the demo area in the sim probably has the highest density of non autogen scenery than any other part of the world.