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Wedge598

New to X-Plane coming out of FS retirement

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Hi all,

 

Years ago I was a big user of MS FS2004 and had bought myself a nice Saitek controller as well as TrackIR rig and a bunch of add-on planes and scenery to fully enjoy the experience.   I was even involved to a limited degree with a third party developer and helped create a few manuals for some helicopters.

 

That was quite a while ago and I haven't touched a flight sim since.  Now I'm thinking of getting back into it a little and was looking at X-Plane 10.   I've read a bunch on it and tried out the demo which seems to run pretty nicely at 25 fps with moderate detail on my 3 year old gaming laptop. 

 

In reading about X-Plane 10 I think I understand that the whole world is modeled with accurate roads in many areas but the buildings and environment detail is auto-generated around these roads to provide a realistic looking world but not accurately modeled world.  Which is to say famous landmarks are mostly non-existent.  Is this true?  Do I understand that correctly?   Also it seems that only a few dozen airports are modeled with any detail and most will be flat and lifeless?  

 

As a primarily VFR flier this might bother me to some degree but I think I could appreciate the fact that the detail in the world could suspend my belief in most areas.  It seems that the Seattle area in the demo lacks the expected landmarks but yet the area looks wonderfully populated and alive.

 

Also, can I expect that the frame rates I'm seeing in the demo to more or less reflect what I'd see typically?  I expect that certain busier areas would drag it down some but I could be happy if the framerates were in the 25 fps range like in the demo in most places.  Or does the full version take a hit in the framerate right out of the box?   My computer has a dedicated NVidia card and dual cores but it is three years old so I'd struggles on some highend graphics games of today.

 

Thanks for the advice and see you in the air.

 

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In reading about X-Plane 10 I think I understand that the whole world is modeled with accurate roads in many areas but the buildings and environment detail is auto-generated around these roads to provide a realistic looking world but not accurately modeled world. Which is to say famous landmarks are mostly non-existent. Is this true? Do I understand that correctly? Also it seems that only a few dozen airports are modeled with any detail and most will be flat and lifeless?

 

 

This is exactly right.....for the time being. We have a strategy at Laminar for addressing these things and we on the cusp of seeing it fully implemented. We have implemented a system recently whereby users can easily modify airports and then send that work back to Laminar. These areas, improved by the community, will then be distributed to x-plane users through the normal x-plane update process. This is our strategy for making world airports more detailed. We also have generic buildings that can be placed at airports in order to create a "basic representation" of an airport and not have the airport be empty. Our current selection of "official" generic buildings is currently limited but we will be growing that library of 3D stuff over time. Fully custom buildings that exactly resemble their real counterparts will have to come from the community through freeware / shareware / payware channels. This whole system is still in its infancy though as we have been building the foundational tools for many years. What remains to expedite the growth of more customized scenery is good exposure and education on how to use these scenery building tools and that will be forthcoming within the next year I believe.

 

As far as landmarks, we actually have a couple done but that effort got put on hold in lieu of other foundational work. X-Plane is starting to come together very well in my opinion and I believe we will see these voids filled soon. The general consensus on landmarks is, "yes we need to get those in, it is on the todo list".

 

Regarding framerates, what you see with the demo is generally what you get. The demo comes with some conservative settings for visual quality and scenery density though and you can play with these in the demo to see how far you can push your machine, but the demo will perform no different than the regular sim. It is 100% dependent on your rendering and weather settings.

 

Tom Kyler

Laminar

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Which is to say famous landmarks are mostly non-existent. Is this true? Do I understand that correctly? Also it seems that only a few dozen airports are modeled with any detail and most will be flat and lifeless?


Out of the box, this is true - there are no landmarks to speak of, and with the exception of KSEA and some airports in Europe which ship with the Global Edition of X-Plane, all airports are currently flat and lifeless.

That said, X-Plane has recently enabled the ability for airport designers to submit airports to Laminar Research for inclusion in the master airport database which can contain some generic buildings and structures. In coming updates, these user submitted airports will begin populating the landscape and provide at least a few more airports with buildings. Be advised that they are all user-generated, so unless A LOT of users spend A LOT of time working on airports with buildings, these enhanced airports will be the exception rather than the rule for quite a long time.

The demo gives a VERY good representation of what the full version will provide - both performance wise and scenery wise. There might be some FPS improvements or degradation in certain areas of the world depending on terrain, but ultimately it's only a few percentage points. As far as scenery is concerned, all cities will look essentially just like Seattle, except with their local topography and road networks. This too is on the hit list for the developers to work on, but not sure when.

OUTSIDE the box with addons from various sites, you can collect a good number of airports with buildings and structures and details It's a bit of manual labor, but it can enhance your experience if you so choose. There are also some landmark scenery collections which add some features to the world as well.

X-Plane is a bit of a different animal from what you may be used to. The demo does bear witness to this if you pay attention to it's inclusions and omissions. Ultimately, let the demo be your guide!

-Greg

Editing to add: ^^ What Tom said!

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"A picture is worth a thousand words"

 

This is XP10 Toronto with Freeware Scenery Landmarks by ChrisK

 

A388_3_zpsa8a4635b.png

 

 

with OSM North America + XP10 Autogen

 

A388_2_zps6cff45ab.png

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Five, where oh where, do I get those free Chris landmarks?  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?  :)

 

Mitch

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I was even involved to a limited degree with a third party developer and helped create a few manuals for some helicopters.
 
And ... be advised that flying helicopters in X-Plane ist really hard - like in reality and unlike the "other"  :lol: sim.
 
Regarding landmarks:

Seattle Space Needle (in stock XP10), Sears Tower Chicago, KLAX Tower & Restaurant, Golden Gate Bridge, Burj Al Arab Hotel, VFR landmarks France, the whole city of Paris, Dubai landmarks, Chicago landmarks, Quebec landmarks, North of England landmarks, Rumeli Hisari, Istanbul, Hoover Dam & the Grand Canyon, Toronto Skyline, Ted's X-Plane Scenery Page, Nuremberg landmarks, Staten Island, New York, Central City, Manhattan, Upper West Side, Manhattan, Upper East Side, Manhattan, Downtown Manhattan Buildings, Mackinac Bridge, Stonehenge, Cerne Abbas and Uffington, USS Arizona Memorial, Mallorca landmarks, German Airspace Obstacles, Martha's Vineyard, Madeira landmarks,  .....

 

Simply ask your best friend Google e.g. "X-Plane <landmark/scenery name>". If you don't find a native implementation for X-Plane, you can convert MSFS sceneries with FS2XPlane. FS9 sceneries are usually better convertible than FSX sceneries.

 

 

 


My sceneries (excerpt): LPMA Madeira, LGSR Santorini, the city of Fürth (Germany), ...

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Thanks for the replies guys. After testing with the demo a little more i noticed something disturbing. The C130 and 747 didn't have 3d virtual cockpits. Those views looked like you were flying Wonder Woman's invisible jet. Is this a limitation of the demo or are some the planes missing virtual cockpits?

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Wedge598, on 23 May 2013 - 10:13 PM, said:

 

Thanks for the replies guys. After testing with the demo a little more i noticed something disturbing. The C130 and 747 didn't have 3d virtual cockpits. Those views looked like you were flying Wonder Woman's invisible jet. Is this a limitation of the demo or are some the planes missing virtual cockpits?

they do have a VC (and a toilet :lol: ) :blink: :unsure: :wacko: you sure you picked the default 747 or did you download 2D Freeware

 

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they do have a VC (and a toilet :lol: ) :blink: :unsure: :wacko: you sure you picked the default 747 or did you download 2D Freeware

 

My mistake, it's only the C-130 and KC-10 that don't have cockpits.  The 747 does in fact look like that video.

 

If you go to this video:

 

And goto 3:28 you'll see the same interior cockpit view I see.   All I get is the outline of the windows.  The dash and instruments are invisible.  Is that what you get in the full version or is this just a demo limitation.  Or maybe it's been fixed in a recent update.

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Some cites are starting to get landmarks in default xp10   For example boston has some.


Mike Avallone

9900k@5.0,Corsair H115i cooler,ASUS 2080TI,GSkill 32GB pc3600 ram, 2 WD black NVME ssd drives, ASUS maximus hero MB

 

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Thanks for the replies guys. After testing with the demo a little more i noticed something disturbing. The C130 and 747 didn't have 3d virtual cockpits. Those views looked like you were flying Wonder Woman's invisible jet. Is this a limitation of the demo or are some the planes missing virtual cockpits?

the default C130 in xp10 is just 2D

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