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Sesquashtoo

I guess it's fair play to give a warning....

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I'm just in a paused flight between Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, heading for an eventual landing at KFNT (Flint/Bishop), Flint, Michigan, USA.
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I have been using, and more importantly to note above all else, LEARNING how to use/run XPX.22 to its full advantage for about 6 weeks now. We have all in this forum sang the praises to XPX perhaps to ad nausea from anybody else coming into this forum from another sim platform.

But, I personally really felt the need to warn any of the users from either the FSX, or the P3D forums, that if you find FSX ( and there is no reason not to, other than its 32 bit coding + add on tendency to CTD) to be your sim of choice because of how it looks to you, and runs, and the major investment in add ons (aircraft, atmospherics,and scenery) then I would suggest that you pass on by, XPX, or the XP franchise in whole.

No...this is not a TROLL post. The saying, 'Ignorance is bliss' was coined for a reason.


I have hundreds to (shudder...) into the thousand figure for add-ons of all kinds to FSX since it came out. The money is spent, and the programs are installed in the FSX folder. When I run FSX, it looks GREAT...right up to the time it drops me to the desk top at any time of the flight without warning, (and it will for anybody that runs it to the max as I do...and my system can handle to render 30 FPS right before being kicked out of the flight due to exhausted RAM available of my more than ample 12 GB's sitting in their slots ). Oh joy.......

With all that said in the paragraph above, I probably have clicked upon FSX in total, three or four times in the last two weeks. If you have a choice, regarding CTD's...whether you want to put up with them as in Flightus-Interuptus (smile), or you wish to pick an airport, pick a sled, enter your flight plan, take to the runway, aim towards the clouds, retract your landing gear, and settle in for the FULL duration of your flight plan, no matter how detailed you made your set up, including everything at max (if your system can give you 20 fps or higher at that system setting, blah, blah, blah....) you will...yes...you WILL eventually choose to have a flight simulation platform that is stable enough to give you full-duration operation, from taxi to taxi. You will. The money you spent in another flight platform in total, will no longer be an issue with you. You will stick for the main part, and where simulating real world flight models, torque, yaw, atmospheric effects upon your air-frame...all of this, will become more important than the investment within FSX as a whole. If you leave CTD frustration at the FBO office, you will love XPX after you allow yourself the time, effort, and exploration of the entire program, and its different settings combinations that will give you 'what you need' to stay captive within it as I have found for my experience.

Where am I ramblin to? Any present exclusive FSX/P3D user will predominantly move over at a 80/20 percent usage split in favor of XPX.x and XPXI.x etc. after learning its gems and secrets. The flight models, the as-I-type maturing and growing scenery and custom airport base, blah, blah, will make the move for you as easy as ever.

Don't bother downloading the XPX demo, if you are truly happy as a pig-in-manure with FSX as it runs...and you simply smile and shrug 'no big deal' when it kicks you to the desktop in flightus-interuptus just as you were settling into your cruise phase of the flight for any flight 20 minutes or greater....here's the warning; Ignorance is bliss. Once you fly for weeks on end in 64 bit mode, with ample system RAM, from beginning to end, no matter HOW LONG, how many HOURS the flight plan required, you will not go back to CTD's. That is the 'warning'. If you can move on....adapt, and let go of the precept (...I invested too much to take on another sim)...then by all means...download and explore the demo....buy the full GLOBAL edition, spend six weeks or greater educating yourself in how to fully bring out the gems of this franchise, and then settle into some pretty decent adventures, rewards, and joyful moments in being able to fully utilize modern hardware, and to have a in-real-time supported flight simulation platform leverage that modern 64 bit system of yours.You will love it, you will appreciate it, and in six weeks like I have, I'll bet dollars to donuts, that what you spent over the years in FSX, will no longer be the emotional and decision-making 'deal breaker' concern it might be for you now as you read this post. Ok, warning over....pressing post to forum, and back to my paused flight. FSX users....I at 64 bit operation and 12 GB's of system RAM...KNOW that I will make those number at the end of my 500 to 1,000 nm jaunt.

FSX is no dog! It has great features to be sure. The deal breaker for myself, was that its inherent 32 bit code breaks under the ad-on load. Your flight ends, despite a well-healed system running it. Deal breaker. Deal breaker.....

I'm sipping a coffee and enjoying, stress free, the great scenery and real world atmospherics, and how those 'ats' are impacting the King Air. Superb!

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Sorry, can't read your text, html tags everywhere... what happened ?

I tried to edit a typo..and that came back...am cleaning it up as I type this...

 

Fixed...whew (lol!)

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FSX runs fine for me. No reason to try anything else. (until P3D v2 anyway)

 

Opus, Orbx and PMDG are the current reasons for me not to stray.

 

But as you said....ignorance is bliss. :lol:

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I'm sipping a coffee and enjoying, stress free, the great scenery and real world atmospherics, and how those 'ats' are impacting the King Air. Superb!

is it a Tim Horton's coffee? :lol:

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FSX runs fine for me. No reason to try anything else. (until P3D v2 anyway)

 

Opus, Orbx and PMDG are the current reasons for me not to stray.

 

But as you said....ignorance is bliss. :lol:

Then, as I typed in the flavor of the post, you are good to go! :)

 

If you experience no CTD's, or you can dismiss that happening, certainly it will be a great ride for you!  I thought (in good humor) to post my tongue-in-cheek-  'warning'.  The 'warning' theme, came as I have for the most part let go FSX as my main-squeeze in favor of XPX.  It happened only because I took the time to explore it, set aside any learning curve frustrations, etc...and it's been gems and jewels since. :)

 

Mitch

is it a Tim Horton's coffee? :lol:

Nah, Five...Maxwell House Robust on sale, LOLOLOL!   When in Canada, you must run a Tim's break.....lol.

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Nice view Sesquashtoo :-)

Anyway, I would say that after re-installing FSX Gold ( from GFWL ) and all of the add-ons I had since 2006 bought for it, and after applying the well known set of tweaks required to get stability, I am yet to experience a CTD with it.

Yes I remember those old times when weather injectors were very basic, and on a long haul flight you could get tossed away by a sudden shear of 180º and 30 knots, but AS2012 is today one very stable and complete weather injector, injecting not only many cloud layers, but also different wind layers and temperature layers as well. The latest are important to program my PMDG 737 NGX FMC and cope with VNAV for instance.

With FSX Gold I am also able to use CumulusX!, a program that gives me, unlike XPX, very consistent thermal lift, and of course, also ridge lift (an area where X-Plane10 is on par), and slope thermals.

I am using just the default FSX Gold scenery, with the exception of LPMA, EGLL and Lukla.

The PMDG 737 NGX, and even the Aerosoft AXE are much more complex and detailed than the best airliners I have for X-Plane10... The ATR 72 - 500, the A2A B377 and P51D perform beautifully as I am sure no prop aircraft of the same type can perform in X-Plane10 right now (maybe in the future...).

So... while I keep X-Plane10, I certainly can't let go FSX. And, even less can I give up on DCS World....

Why do I keep X-Plane10 then? Very simply because I believe in it, because I recognize that some of the important fingerprints I look for in a flight simulator are already there and are dynamically being updated and tuned to give an even better experience to the users.

Scenery is progressing at a pace that is very encouraging, and getting World scenery coverage in X-Plane10 is a LOT less expensive than in FSX / P3d.... thanks to the huge efforts of those we know!...

Then, when it comes to, for instance, flying an approach under bad weather conditions, FSX ( well, maybe only with EZDOK, which I do not own... ) can't simply get to the level of challenges that X-Plane10 offers...

Flying helicopters is also so much more consistent in X-Plane10 than in FSX / P3d, that I can only compare it to DCS World.

Problem is, there is so far no reason for me to give up on either, and I only installed FSX because after P3D starting to prevent me from using some very good add-ons I had for it, I thought it was stupid of me not to profit from those excellent aircraft (the ATR 72, the Cessna Mustang, LevelD767, etc...)

Then, there is a light at the end of the tunnel now with MS FLIGHT too!!! Apparently it will be possible to port FSX 3pd aircraft (simple) to MS FLIGHT, the first being already under conversion. I can't forget that I still think MS FLIGHT's weather and flight dynamics + graphics and overall sensation of "being there" is unique, even without having any AI traffic, or life anywhere, no cars on roads, etc...

What I wanted to tell you is that, while I can perfectly understand your enthusiasm, and I do place in X-Plane10 some of my biggest expectations for the future of PC-based flight simulation, I still find the need to start FSX, MS FLIGHT, DCS World, because they still complement each other in different aspects. There isn't yet a single one capable of subsuming it all IMHO!

Use them all (at least I am trying to... ) and my Guardian Angel is probably so fed up with my install / uninstall paranoia that he made sure they all ran smooth and as stable as never before :-)


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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Nice view Sesquashtoo :-)

 

Anyway, I would say that after re-installing FSX Gold ( from GFWL ) and all of the add-ons I had since 2006 bought for it, and after applying the well known set of tweaks required to get stability, I am yet to experience a CTD with it.

 

Yes I remember those old times when weather injectors were very basic, and on a long haul flight you could get tossed away by a sudden shear of 180º and 30 knots, but AS2012 is today one very stable and complete weather injector, injecting not only many cloud layers, but also different wind layers and temperature layers as well. The latest are important to program my PMDG 737 NGX FMC and cope with VNAV for instance.

 

With FSX Gold I am also able to use CumulusX!, a program that gives me, unlike XPX, very consistent thermal lift, and of course, also ridge lift (an area where X-Plane10 is on par), and slope thermals.

 

I am using just the default FSX Gold scenery, with the exception of LPMA, EGLL and Lukla.

 

The PMDG 737 NGX, and even the Aerosoft AXE are much more complex and detailed than the best airliners I have for X-Plane10... The ATR 72 - 500, the A2A B377 and P51D perform beautifully as I am sure no prop aircraft of the same type can perform in X-Plane10 right now (maybe in the future...).

 

So... while I keep X-Plane10, I certainly can't let go FSX. And, even less can I give up on DCS World....

 

Why do I keep X-Plane10 then? Very simply because I believe in it, because I recognize that some of the important fingerprints I look for in a flight simulator are already there and are dynamically being updated and tuned to give an even better experience to the users.

 

Scenery is progressing at a pace that is very encouraging, and getting World scenery coverage in X-Plane10 is a LOT less expensive than in FSX / P3d.... thanks to the huge efforts of those we know!...

 

Then, when it comes to, for instance, flying an approach under bad weather conditions, FSX ( well, maybe only with EZDOK, which I do not own... ) can't simply get to the level of challenges that X-Plane10 offers...

 

Flying helicopters is also so much more consistent in X-Plane10 than in FSX / P3d, that I can only compare it to DCS World.

 

Problem is, there is so far no reason for me to give up on either, and I only installed FSX because after P3D starting to prevent me from using some very good add-ons I had for it, I thought it was stupid of me not to profit from those excellent aircraft (the ATR 72, the Cessna Mustang, LevelD767, etc...)

 

Then, there is a light at the end of the tunnel now with MS FLIGHT too!!! Apparently it will be possible to port FSX 3pd aircraft (simple) to MS FLIGHT, the first being already under conversion. I can't forget that I still think MS FLIGHT's weather and flight dynamics + graphics and overall sensation of "being there" is unique, even without having any AI traffic, or life anywhere, no cars on roads, etc...

 

What I wanted to tell you is that, while I can perfectly understand your enthusiasm, and I do place in X-Plane10 some of my biggest expectations for the future of PC-based flight simulation, I still find the need to start FSX, MS FLIGHT, DCS World, because they still complement each other in different aspects. There isn't yet a single one capable of subsuming it all IMHO!

 

Use them all (at least I am trying to... ) and my Guardian Angel is probably so fed up with my install / uninstall paranoia that he made sure they all ran smooth and as stable as never before :-)

Good read! :)

 

Yeppers...I still fire up FSX of course, but because of my XPX.22 usage, it has become my backbone sim platform. For my usage with FSX, I need all that it will give me...so I usually do end up with a dead flight at around the 22-30 minute in-flight mark. 32 bit RAM is used up. Poof....

As one poster typed here, he doesn't suffer CTD's. With his settings... If he were to crank up everything, run LOD at 6.5 and stay in ORBX....you can be darn SURE that he would. It's not one's personal system 'thang, it's a 32 bit one. You load such a texture demand, that 3.x GB's can't sustain over half an hour. It is what it is....if you can reduce your graphic demands, then sure....you can last longer or not CTD at all. I can't. I want what is there available, and what I paid for. I want what my system can more than handle. That is why I have a system to crank it. Personal pref in play. :)

 

I just landed from an hour and fifteen minute flight with XPX...and it was so fulfilling to taxi up to the G.A. at KFNT, and have the opportunity to shut down. If P3D came up with a 64 bit FSX...it would be a wild-fire killer, and once again, open full wide that franchise. Absolutely. The chances though of that happening? About the same chance of my winning the next Power Ball...... :(

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XPX certainly has a bright future ahead... that's for sure!  And, as I once wrote, I don't believe PMDG would make such a nice compliment to the XPX team if they didn't believe in that too, and, we all know, PMDG is ***** PMDG *****


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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I haven't got midflight CTD's in ages although I run FSX with quite high settings, a lot of addons and complex payware planes. Sure when things aren't working properly FSX can be extremely frustrating, yet when you get it into stable configuration without trading too much graphics it simply provides the most complete simulation available at the moment.

As long as I can't get worldwide AI traffic with real schedules and thousands of airlines, some fixes to sound system (especially removal / tweaking of the tire sounds during touchdown / heavy braking even with big airliners seem to be extremely unrealistic and annoying with X Plane) and something like Multi Crew Experience I will surely keep using FSX as my main sim.

Though if I find some good bush flying sceneries I might start using X plane for GA flying, lack of proper AI traffic, Multi Crew and annoying tire sounds wouldn't bother that much while flying small GA planes.

But yeah Sure X Plane has big future ahead and once some things are improved it will some day provide just as good experience as FSX does. But at the moment I think FSX is the way to go for most airliner flying, that at least until someone creates something like GSX, Mytraffic, Multicrew / FS2Crew and such for X Plane.

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I haven't got midflight CTD's in ages although I run FSX with quite high settings, a lot of addons and complex payware planes. Sure when things aren't working properly FSX can be extremely frustrating, yet when you get it into stable configuration without trading too much graphics it simply provides the most complete simulation available at the moment.

 

As long as I can't get worldwide AI traffic with real schedules and thousands of airlines, some fixes to sound system (especially removal / tweaking of the tire sounds during touchdown / heavy braking even with big airliners seem to be extremely unrealistic and annoying with X Plane) and something like Multi Crew Experience I will surely keep using FSX as my main sim.

 

Though if I find some good bush flying sceneries I might start using X plane for GA flying, lack of proper AI traffic, Multi Crew and annoying tire sounds wouldn't bother that much while flying small GA planes.

 

But yeah Sure X Plane has big future ahead and once some things are improved it will some day provide just as good experience as FSX does. But at the moment I think FSX is the way to go for most airliner flying, that at least until someone creates something like GSX, Mytraffic, Multicrew / FS2Crew and such for X Plane.

FScamp, for all your pluses regarding FSX, yes, they are there to enjoy, but tell me, what are your settings that you have all those programs in play and do not CTD?!?  I choose to run FSX at full out, except for A.I traffic at 30 percent, and road traffic at 25 percent. Also, the only other thing not at full crank, are clouds set to 70 miles as OPUS handles a full-to-horizon depiction quite nicely.  With a payware as the sled, and LOD at 6.5, I can't seem to make it to 40 minutes before FSX telling me that I have run out of available memory.  So, it would be interesting to have you show me your FSX settings, within the FSX forum, and I can compare mine to yours. I then might adjust to what you display, and run a flight....  Might prove very interesting.  Again, though, I can run XPX at pretty much 90 percent and of course not get any memory CTD.  I must report though, that if you run XPX in 32 bit mode, you absolutely can mimic what happens to a person in FSX. I had a loss of memory capacity around 50 minutes into an XPX cross-country flight...and XPX did not crash, but stated that it would not be attempting to load any further scenery and/or textures into memory. I did like the way that XPX handled the situation....you still flew, but did not update. No CTD, but the program was affected.  32 bit is the culprit, and not the features of either XPX or FSX per se.  When I run XPX in 64 bit....yawn, no issues of any kind, the program can outlast....me!  :)

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Unfortunately I'm currently far away from home, it will be around 2 weeks until I have access to my FSX computer again so I can't tell the exact settings right now.

 

Anyway some time ago I completed +10 hour flight from Athens to Las Vegas with PMDG 747. Weather provided by Active Sky & REX HD textures, Amazing Athens scenery by Flytampa + FSAltitude low resolution photoreal scenery for both Europe and United States.

 

Traffic set to 100% from Ultimate Traffic 2, no road or sea traffic, autogen set to sparse or normal, scenery complexity full. 

 

So other than lower autogen settings & no road or sea traffic at all my settings were set to default Ultra High setting or better. FPS set unlimited inside FSX, limited to 30 using external limiter. 

 

No CTD or out of memory error. Though I admit then later when I tried to continue from Vegas to Los Angeles with MegaScenery Earth and couple of other demanding sceneries I got OOM, I believe I could have avoided it by restarting FSX after arrival at Vegas before continuing.

 

 

Recently I also completed a flight from Aerosoft Helsinki Vantaa airport + a lot of photosceneries around it to Bangkok (covered with Armi Project high quality scenery) using MD-11, same config, no CTD.

 

Also tens of +2 hour flights around europe with 737NGX, no trouble.

 

I got all the tweaks I'm using simply using Bojote's tweaker website.

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Jcomm - your flight-simming life just goes round in circles!

I'm sure eventually you'll settle lol.

Have you tried FlightGear?

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Have you tried FlightGear?

 

All versions! And I always admire that sim too :-)

 

I tried even sims that are less known to many, including a british made GA sim whose name I no longer recall, ESP Protrainer (the commercial successor of Propilot 99), Aerowinx PS1, AS2, ATP Rev D, Fly!, Fly2!!, Fly Legacy!, all flight unlimited versions, ELITE v7 and v8 ( I own that one, borrowed by one of our friend for IFR trainning in Brazil :-), IFT Pro, ASA Protrainer, RTS Pro ( the predecessor of the ALSIM line of simulators) etc...


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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CTDs was a major push to get rid of FSX for me too. I like my eye candy so an LOD of 6.5 was a must to get detail at range, but in Orbx scenery it would CTD eventually EVERY time. That and the poor lighting / shadows (looking back on it FSX has a very '2D' visual feel). Flight was my great hope for the future, and there are things happening there which are starting to reignite hope, but after a couple of months with XP I have to agree. It must be the go-to sim for the future.


i910900k, RTX 3090, 32GB DDR4 RAM, AW3423DW, Ruddy girt big mug of Yorkshire Tea

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