...but additionally the External FDE itself contains work that buffets and moves the plane around in flight (and as said earlier; it does a heck of a more convincing job than native FSX does)...

 

Are you perhaps using OpusFSX DHM? This might be the reason that you see the plan moving about.

However, I am yet to see it bounce about, the plane itself I mean. I am using FSGRW, and all other planes are being bounced around except for Q400. Tried it also with AS 2012.

 

Or is there some setting that I am missing?

What is the best tutorial for the Q400? I found the Majestic tutorial not same useful as PMDG tutorial style... I want to learn to fly it and its VNAV.

 

I highly recommend owners complete the advanced/detailed tutorial from Majestic, which will enhance your understanding of the aircraft and teach you the essentials of managing the engines.

Are you perhaps using OpusFSX DHM? This might be the reason that you see the plan moving about.

However, I am yet to see it bounce about, the plane itself I mean. I am using FSGRW, and all other planes are being bounced around except for Q400. Tried it also with AS 2012.

 

Or is there some setting that I am missing?

If you read the earlier posts you'll see that both myself and several others explained why it doesn't seem to react to turbulence.

 

 

it's a side effect of making the FDM entirely external. It's most likely a real challenge to Frolov and his team to change that as well, probably because the q400's fdm runs at a much higher clockspeed (30mhz i think?) than fsx's native fdm and its effect algorithms (i think i've read it runs at 12-15mhz thereabouts...pretty much unchanged from fs98 if that's the case).

 

 

--Xavier

I highly recommend owners complete the advanced/detailed tutorial from Majestic, which will enhance your understanding of the aircraft and teach you the essentials of managing the engines.

I found this so bad written compared to the PMDG style for example...

I found this so bad written compared to the PMDG style for example...

 

 

What was so bad  about it  than?

I've found the advanced tutorial to be pretty good. That's the one from the guy flying the real things, right? He had a few punch lines in there, for, erm, the guys from another airline, but those came in funny. Seriously, 71 pages with the needed charts, pictures and a bit of the background. Good work!

 

I think the main manuals for the plane are weaker in that regard. Means that the PMDG docs deliver much more detail. Perhaps something in between would be best. That's from knowing that quite a few folks get distracted when the manual comes with 1000+ pages or so.

 

As far as I understood, Majestic could not bundle the full rw docs with the normal sim rendition. Unfortunately I must say.

Well, i never have the feeling of moving via slew mode with this add-on. It's just as bumpy as i'm used to with the other addons.

 

Take off + landing is very immersive. the bumps you hear slowing down and the engine roars, and with a shaking ezdock camera, it's far from any slew mode feeling.

 

Has the potential of becoming my fav no.1 addon. Time will tell.

 

There's something fun about turboprops, it gives a better sense of power and speed when looking at (and hearing!) those blades turning.

 

 

As far as i know, the MS Q400 is capable of using multicore Processors as the Flight Dynamics Engine is running outside of FSX.

This gives a truly amazing perforance with one or two issues to be solved in the future. For example turbulance not affecting the airplane and so on. But that doesn't change the

way i think about the whole thing.

 

Wow really?  If so, maybe Majestic is on to something meaningful.

I've not come across any evidence that the external FDE, courtesy of NASA software, is responsible for the high frame rate, as a consequence of "using multicore processors". 

 

FSX always uses all cores anyway, to some degree.

 

You have to remember that the Majestic Q400, fantastic add-n that it is, is nothing like as complex, and therefore demanding, as something like the NGX. In the NGX there's a huge amount of computation that goes on in the background that requires CPU performance. Far more than in the Q400.

These comments have been a gripe of mine for some time now....The external FDE is NOT the cause of improvement of frames. It is the graphical side of things, the glass gauges, as well as the invisible systems, being multi threaded that make this bird perform so well. It is also a case of it being very highly optimised as far as textures go that helps this.

Absolutely.

 

It's just built and presented in a very efficient, optimized way, and it's performance in the sim reflects that.

You have to remember that the Majestic Q400, fantastic add-n that it is, is nothing like as complex, and therefore demanding, as something like the NGX. In the NGX there's a huge amount of computation that goes on in the background that requires CPU performance. Far more than in the Q400.

 

would you care to elaborate further on this please ?

 

which are those differences exactly because i get the distinct feeling that the Q400 matches the complexitiy of the NGX and that this will even increase more so with the pro and training versions to come.

would you care to elaborate further on this please ?

 

which are those differences exactly because i get the distinct feeling that the Q400 matches the complexitiy of the NGX and that this will even increase more so with the pro and training versions to come.

 

You should read this thread...

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/412331-question-for-developers/?hl=%2Bq400+%2Boutside+%2Bfsx#entry2702118

 

 

 

PMDG have been "doing things outside of FSX" long before other developers decided it was a good idea. And that includes a chunk of the FDE.

 

The fact that Majestic use NASA software to run the FDE is not why you see higher frames.

 

 

 

It makes me laugh out loud when we see folks proclaim that we could "unload" FSX to improve frame rates by moving something outside of FSX...   We have been outside of FSX since before anyone else decided to pitch the idea as a great marketing tool...and none of you even knew it. 

 

 

 

1. We already do something quite similar - the NGX is already completely "fly by software" - we intercept the joystick prior to FSX and modify the inputs behind the scenes to produce things FSX can't normally do. Remember that the guy who programmed these algorithms here is an engineer with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics - I've seen people who appear to think we're just using FSX defaults or something and nothing could be further from the truth. This guy designs these types of mathematical physics models in real life industry. Simply put, using some other FDE would be pretty redundant here, Vangelis is already doing a ton of work of his own that's similar to this. It isn't just the flight modelling either - we do almost everything on its own outside the sim - fuel, pneumatics, autobrakes, electrical etc - it's all custom. Apparently we need to highlight this a bit more in the marketing we do, because a lot of people seem to be under the assumption that we aren't doing these things when in fact we were one of the pioneers of it going all the way back to the first NG we did in 2003.

 

 

 

4. Running more processes like this on top of what FSX is already doing is not going to improve framerates. I suspect their FPS are higher largely because their VC has a lot less clickspots, animations, draw calls and texture resolution than then NGX does, not because the flight modelling is somehow granting it a ton more frames. As well done as their simulation is, it's also a fact that a Q400 is a much simpler airplane (in real life) than a 737 or 777. Full geometric path VNAV that takes into account both altitude and speed with all manner of soft and hard constraints, variable target descent speeds and limits, autothrottle logic etc is very heavy math. (There's all kinds of calculus and differential equations involved in doing it) Look at what our LNAV is doing too - all the turn prediction curve drawing etc - those aren't static things that get drawn once, they're dynamically generated based on the current flight situation and get recalculated with every "tick" of the aircraft's system timers. Again, very heavy math that the Q400's route line drawing doesn't have to do.

Perhaps Martin; there's certainly no denying that PMDG have been thinking (and creating) outside of the box for years.

 

But your still not giving us anyhing convincing in terms of how the MJCQ400 is nowhere near the PMDG's compexity level.     PMDG aicraft and the MJCQ400 are on a level where fidelity is concerned, in my opinion.   Yes, the PMDG products have some areas that the MJC does not; but likewise, where is the Q400's audio crew ambience simulation in the NGX ?..... Where is the advanced flight control tuning configuration interface? ......

 

I'm not knocking the PMDG; I am a huge fan.  But I don't agree one iota with your supposition that the Q400 is easy on frame rates because it's so much less complex than the NGX.

 

PMDG may be ahead of the pack in most areas, but I do believe that performance in FSX is one area they would do well to be looking at Majestic and how they've managed to get frame rates and smoothness that almost beats the default C172, in such a detailed, complex simulation.

 

 

I'm not knocking the PMDG; I am a huge fan.  But I don't agree one iota with your supposition that the Q400 is easy on frame rates because it's so much less complex than the NGX.
 
PMDG may be ahead of the pack in most areas, but I do believe that performance in FSX is one area they would do well to be looking at Majestic and how they've managed to get frame rates and smoothness that almost beats the default C172, in such a detailed, complex simulation.

 

I don't have the Q400 yet but I tend to agree that 'complexity' might be taking a backseat to something in how the code is assembin some way.  I say this because the QW757 really doesn't perform that well compared to default planes, and while it's easier to process than the NGX it's not miles ahead.  And the QW757 is very much less complex than the NGX.  This makes me think the accolades the Q400 get in this department has something else going on, but this is just a guess.  One possibility is the shear size of the files involved as a surrogate for potential complexity.  Someone take a look at these and comment back!