I love the xp10 UI and learned it pretty quick. u mentioned that other sim :ph34r: and I hear them coming into my thread :lol:

lmfao!!!

 

I like XP UI too, I don't see it complicated as others do. It may be overwhelming at first but it is just a matter of getting used to.

 

But, this thread isn't about "let's compare X-Plane to FSX."

Really? You're the one that posted:

 

"Ground environment graphics: bleh, nothing special. Weather engine, sky rendering: bleh. Cloud-rendering, double-bleh. Availability of fully-developed airports and enthusiast-level aircraft: triple-bleh "

 

FSX weather engine? come on!!

FSX cloud rendering? come on!!

FSX enthusiast-level aircraft? come on?

 

I do agree with you on the airports though.

 

You ARE rating XP based on comparisons with FSX 3rd party options.

give it 3.5 out of 5 stars or 7 out of 10 its got some good things about it night flying and modern autogen, modern use of shaders, textures, and it runs fine at mid settings unlike fsx did first couple of years.  The lack of landmarks, seasons, stereo 3d, snow,  hold it back for 4 star rating or higher.   I like xplane for flying nighttime and autogen to fly between small towns is more modern than fsx, but badly misplaced.  Hope more payware and freeware people hop on board to X-plane its built to run on bigger selection of computers and does not require brute cpu force to get it running decent. 

A 7.0, pretty much for the same reasons presented by NaMcO...  but as a reward for the great effort placed by LR in the migration to 64 bit...

 

I would give LM Prepar3d a 7.4

 

I give DCS World 9.5 :-)

To me the state of xplane is a work in progress at the moment, but will be in much better shape when the following things happen:

-when seasonal textures scheduled for later this year or early next year are available

-when WED is ready for prime time and many airports are hand crafted and made available to the public, which should be in the next few months

-when autogen is refined in terms of placement as well as regionalization (ongoing and getting better all the time)

-when even more high quality aircraft are made available

 

The fact that this sim is 64 bit should allow for much more breadth and depth in features and functionality, so we shall see what more is to come. I have to say that it is interesting and fun to watch this simulator transform into what it will become. As time goes on, it will just get noticeably better and there will be many more people that start to use it.

 

If I were to give it a score now, I would say a 6, but in time, I believe it will be an 8.

 

 

You ARE rating XP based on comparisons with FSX 3rd party options.

 

I'm rating X-Plane on the experience it's capable of providing (default + addons) versus the kind of experience I want. On that score, and assessed only by itself, X-Plane + available 3rd party enhancements rates a 6/10 for me. A point and a half deduction for the UI alone.

 

I don't know how to make it any clearer. If there had never been an alternative, X-Plane + addons would still, even today, fall significantly short of what I want. As I said in my previous post, I'd probably be using X-Plane occasionally, but the love would still be gone.

 

Your experience is obviously different based on your expectations, and I'm glad you like the product. I'll keep an eye on X-Plane as it evolves, but Laminar and the platform as a whole have a very long way to go before they regain my support.

I think I would give it a 6.5 out of 10. Points taken away as I think after 10 releases ATC/AI should not still be a WIP.  Xplane has seemed too comfortable being the "other" sim, but now with nothing  new on the horizon it will soon be the sim to beat. I just hope they stay on XPX long enough for it to mature into what FSXI should have been,

a 5 rating here!

The more I fly it,The more I like it. 9.25 here

4.5 at the max, this sim has a long way to go before it gets my money.

If LR decided tomorrow that they would be closing up shop and freezing X-Plane 10 as it is in its current state at 10.21 I would probably give it a 6.3. On technically grounds it's very good, but the presentation is pretty poor. 

 

 

The graphics engine: HDR/Global lighting is very good, and no blurry textures I would give it an 8.5 (Flightgear and MSFlight do a slightly better job with soft shadows IMO).

 

OSM Global Roads & Rail networks, this is probably X-Plane 10's strongest point a 9.5 (there is still room for improvement --parking lots are rendered in a kinda strange way)   

 

Flight Model (FM) - this is debatable, some say it behaves generally close to real-world, but it's not exact to real-life under some scenarios. Me, I tend to give X-Plane a slight edge for showing structural damage and their effects on the plane, which isn't replicated in other flight sims. (I would give X-Plane a 9.2 and FSX a 9.1 -- FSX also has planes with excellent FMs/Systems, it just doesn't do structural damage, that's an intrinsic difference between the platforms). 

 

Presentation issues:

The ATC needs serious work, right now it is unusable in its present form. I give it a 3 just for it existing, but this may be too generous.

 

Autogen - the models themselves are extremely detailed and look awesome, we just need a megaton more. I give this a 7 (lack of quantity and the variety of building types is lacking)

 

Default Custom scenery/Landmarks - I give this a 1, to me this is the one area that is really hard to forgive. Other than the Space Needle, KSEA, and a handful of airports from Aerosoft there are no other Landmarks or Custom scenery. The Lego Brick crowd sourced airports have not begun to appear yet so airports currently remain empty.

 

Textures/Landclass/Seasons - I give this a 6, the default textures in X-Plane 10 are nice and sharp ... unfortunately, they don't have proper textures associated for cities, so you have what looks like a major city being placed upon a green pasture -- a sim city-ish look. Also the lack of seasons is a knock against it.

 

Default Custom scenery/Landmarks - I give this a 1, to me this is the one area that is really hard to forgive. Other than the Space Needle, KSEA, and a handful of airports from Aerosoft there are no other Landmarks or Custom scenery. The Lego Brick crowd sourced airports have not begun to appear yet so airports currently remain empty.

 

 

Toronto and CN Tower plus other landmarks by ChrisK look pretty darn good :lol:

 

And you should see this city at night

With all the recent addons I give it a 7.

 

FSX vanilla (out of the box) a 4.

 

FSX with all my Aircraft, Scenery, Weather, ATC, etc. addons a 9.

Toronto and CN Tower plus other landmarks by ChrisK look pretty darn good

That is kind of red herring ... because you have to basically go out into the cosmos of the Internet to find this. For a person who is doing a fresh install of X-Plane hunting down these files is frankly a pain. At least FSX ships with Toronto and other major cities, and Flightgear uses terrasync which updates the scenery each time you fly, and MS FLIGHT and DCS have a built-in DLC system (which repopulates your purchases).

 

The closets X-Plane has to this is it's installer/updater which is not quite the same thing yet.

I agree -leave FSX out-as an ancient sim rather odd to bring it up-unless you also want to compare fly, flight unlimited, or pro pilot ( now that you mention it yes 10's clouds remind me of the 14 year old pro pilot). The fact that xplane 10 should be compared at all to an old sim is possibly not flattering-I'd be ducking that one.

 

5.5 presently here-potential to jump points though if potential ever realized and weak areas improved. Thank god the fm's had a recent go over -3 would have been my score before that.

 

Midwest of U.S. where I used to live is not bad ( especially with Toronto add in). Come to Southern California where I am now and it is quite disappointing. Mountain areas great-but areas of the word where the majority live needs great work.

Wow people complaining about XP's UI. Seriously!!!

 

I wonder how the "other sim" would be rated with the included OOM and CTD's and without all the $$$ invested in 3rd party add-ons.

The $$ invested in Add ins for the other sim would be good thing-I've been waiting after an initial investment of about $700 to find more to intice me for xplane 10 but Haven't spent another cent till yesterday-bought the mountain air scenery since I have flown there-the moving trees are kinda cool. I'd love to be tempted-especially by a rw working gps for 64 bit that would be useful for rw training.