Guys, why do you always gather to talk this stuff while I'm asleep...?  Now, there's not much I can add :-/

 

Well, just a personal note: I personally would like to resist buying P3D v2, because I have seriously adopted X-Plane 10 as my main simulation platform. Yet, since I have long been using AS and other HiFiTech products under development, as a beta tester, I always kept FSX installed, even when I shout here I uninstalled it :-/

 

I also keep using FSX for some of it's add-ons, namely PMDGs and the Aerosoft Airbus X Extended. I no longer have installed A2As or RealAirs, not because I don't consider them some of the best add-ons for MSFS but because those are exactly the types that I think can much more easily be used on X-Plane 10 with remarkable results. I just wish one day A2A and RealAir could look seriously at X-Plane...

 

I actually invested again in FSX, getting the excellent DX10 Fixer, and it proved to be everything announced, so, I really don't think I need yet another update of FSX on my disk...

 

Now, as devs start stepping into P3D v2, many things can happen. I believe from what I've read that PMDG add-ons for that platform will certainly be very expensive, and although I love their products, I will rather buy Aerowinx PSX 744 than their 747.400 v2... 

 

I keep a lot more time using X-Plane 10 than FSX. I start FSX lately just to take notes of the different implementations of Boeing and Airbus systems logic in products for FSX vs X-plane. I do most of my "flying" in the NEO lately, and look fwd for v2 and their A330 - the NEO is, even with it's present limitations, the best Airbus simulation I have used in a PC sim!

 

Then, I didn't download Andras Mesh V2 - need to test just a small area ( Northern Portugal ) and see how it goes with my glider flying. That's the type of flight you can simulate in X-Plane 10 like you really still can't in FSX ( ASN will change this scenario, but I still prefer the smoothness in X-Plane, as well as the glider flight dynamics....). 

 

Airliners setting higher standards will come to X-Plane 10. We already have the FFs, the NEO, the iXEG 737 is coming along extremely well, and I believe the first PMDG will rather be their DC-6 project ( not bad!!! and probably a good reason why LR also found that it was important to turn their attention to the "torque bug"...).

 

So, and also reading more comments from users that are coming from FSX and trying X-Plane 10 and liking what they find, specially if they can use it with HDR on, and at night, I believe that while X-plane 10 will still probably be a smaller market than P3D / FSX together, it will still be wide enough to keep LR and many devs busy if they want to embrace the challenge of being in the simulation market with Lockheed!

 

The basic things that fail( led ) in X-plane 10 when released are progressively being included thanks to the efforts from LR and 3pds. With time we will have a default X-plane 10 that is already more equipped than even the FSX / P3D platforms with some good scenery enhancement add-ons ( and even aircraft add-ons ) over it!

 

I'm on it, for good, and, as a simaholic, will desperately try to resist P3D v2, because I know that during the next year or so, I already have practically all of what it can offer me in FSX, and certainly in X-Plane 10 too...

 

 

I think Laminar Research failed to capitalize a great part of the opportunity they had.

 

Stating that Laminar Research failed to do this assumes that Laminar actually had this goal (to use the opportunity of becoming FSX successor).

 

How do you know that they really had this goal? (Laminar's marketing claim "your next flight simulator" is no proof of that, because this does not necessarily point to the consumer market).

 

X-Plane always was and always has been Austin Meyer's personal simulator, and the wishes of consumers were always secondary.

 

Regardless of P3D, X-Plane will continue to develop, as slowly as it always has been developing. It will not die, it will have a small stable user base, and many people trying it, some staying, most of them going back to P3D. X-Plane will get new features, but these are not necessarily features the community wants to have.

 

 

Stating that Laminar Research failed to do this assumes that Laminar actually had this goal (to use the opportunity of becoming FSX successor).
 
How do you know that they really had this goal? (Laminar's marketing claim "your next flight simulator" is no proof of that, because this does not necessarily point to the consumer market).
 
X-Plane always was and always has been Austin Meyer's personal simulator, and the wishes of consumers were always secondary.

 

I have always thought so, but couldn't encapsulate it quite so succinctly.

 

Though there is this: http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/switching-to-x-plane/ 

 

The bottom line is that we at Laminar Research are ready to accept the inflow of customers from Microsoft, will continue to make X-Plane the best flight simulator in the industry, have new things lined up that will knock your socks off, and will post tools and information here that will make your transition from MS to X-Plane be as painless (and fun!) as possible.

 

 

People read a lot into this and LR has not exactly disavowed it. But........ it all seemed based on the assumption that Microsoft FS users would have no place else to go. Time has passed (too much time) and this is obviously no longer the case.

Stating that Laminar Research failed to do this assumes that Laminar actually had this goal (to use the opportunity of becoming FSX successor).

 

How do you know that they really had this goal? (Laminar's marketing claim "your next flight simulator" is no proof of that, because this does not necessarily point to the consumer market).

 

X-Plane always was and always has been Austin Meyer's personal simulator, and the wishes of consumers were always secondary.

 

Regardless of P3D, X-Plane will continue to develop, as slowly as it always has been developing. It will not die, it will have a small stable user base, and many people trying it, some staying, most of them going back to P3D. X-Plane will get new features, but these are not necessarily features the community wants to have.

 

The problem is that high quality add-ons (comparable to those available for FSX) are commercially feasible only if the user base is large enough, as (more or less explicitely) stated by some X-Plane 3rd party developers. It's not by chance that the handful of high quality add-ons only started to appear when X-Plane became more widespread.

 

Austin and Laminar goals might be different, as they were indeed 15 years ago, but I personally don't think it's the case anymore. IMO, the direction Laminar Research has been going since X-Plane 8, then 9, and more evidently 10, points towards a mass market flight simulator, directly competing with FSX/P3D.

 

So, in a nutshell, if the user base shrinks, high quality add-ons will shrink; if the user base grows, they will follow. And as an X-Plane user, this concerns me. :smile:

I am too taken to believe that Austin's market / business perspective has changed, and I tend to agree with Murmur's point in that LR somehow lacked the right timming during the "MSFS blackout period".

 

Of course I also think they shhould have started planning for it way before 2012/ 2013, increasing their dev team, in the very first place... Anyway, we can't really compare the budget Austin has to that of the Aces or even LM's Prepar3d, I believe...

 

What matters now is that, after all, P3D v2 isn't a huge change, or a new simulator. While it continues FSX where it was left, it still doesn't bring those new features I would like to see, such as flight dynamics and weather modelling updates. It's true that it opens to 3pds tge possibility of using their own FDMs, weather injectors, and creates better hooks for that in the code, but, I also believe that with it's already very good FDM, and it's smoothness, X-Plane 10 can easily compete with P3D occupying a better place when it come to flight modelling, specially if what 10.30 brings is really what I think it is...

Let's not forget that going 64bit may have impacted LR original road map plans. I for one am glad LR opted to go 64bit when they did and not later.

 

On a side note with P3D v2, once people start shoving p3d's directory with complex add-ons, I'm almost certain they will start to experience OOM's, the fact that it is still a 32bit app guarantees that, optimizing code can only do so much and go so far.

 

We will see...

 

What matters now is that, after all, P3D v2 isn't a huge change, or a new simulator. While it continues FSX where it was left, it still doesn't bring those new features I would like to see,

At the moment, but the swituation is a lot more complicated. This version is more styled for compatibility and only offers a few bug fixes and the DX11 engine. But it also offers an updated SDFK and this SDK will probably break compatibility in several places! And if they would ever decide to switch to true 64 bit it will break compatibility again.

So they don't have 2 but at least three different plattforms! FSX, P3D v2, X-Plane.

Let's not forget that going 64bit may have impacted LR original road map plans. I for one am glad LR opted to go 64bit when they did and not later.

 

On a side note with P3D v2, once people start shoving p3d's directory with complex add-ons, I'm almost certain they will start to experience OOM's, the fact that it is still a 32bit app guarantees that, optimizing code can only do so much and go so far.

 

We will see...

 

That's a very good point. Making the 64 bit conversion a priority feature, was probably the smartest move from LR. This means that X-Plane itself and all the subsequent add-ons will be future proof for years.

 

There are reports that default, plain vanilla P3D v2 at max settings uses almost 2.5 GB of memory. This is dangerously close to the max value of 4 GB for users of complex add-ons.

There are reports that default, plain vanilla P3D v2 at max settings uses almost 2.5 GB of memory. This is dangerously close to the max value of 4 GB for users of complex add-ons.

 

OUCH!! If that's the case, we are in for a rough ride...

It is interesting reading what PMDG now says. One concludes that P3D has a good opportunity to become the natural successor of FSX... for almost everybody. And the reason is that the revenue generated by theprofessional training business will make viable such next generation Fsim platform. That revenue could be 3-4 times more profitable than the one we generate as plain people with a hobby.

 

<quote>P3D is the platform upon which PMDG will be growing our enterprise product lines initially, with some room being left open to do the same on Xplane if our enterprise customers wish for that platform instead. Over time I anticipate that FSX and P3D are going to diverge rather dramatically in terms of capability for future development.  We intend to capitalize on new features within both P3D and Xplane- so each of our product lines will wind up being distinctly different, especially as we move forward<unquote> PMDG CEO..

 

Either Laminar (X=Plane) get into the professional training business, to compete with LM, or find a niche market to make great things (as they do) ... like personal F-Sim for helicopters... !.. hey or for drones... the way of the future....

 

Look at the qualification to go big into X-Plane "with some room being left open to do the same on Xplane if our enterprise customers wish for that platform instead".... and how many big companies (airlines) are willing to put their bets on a pilot training SW from a company with 10 people ? Compared with LM? If I were in their shoes I wouldn't...

Look at the qualification to go big into X-Plane "with some room being left open to do the same on Xplane if our enterprise customers wish for that platform instead".... and how many big companies (airlines) are willing to put their bets on a pilot training SW from a company with 10 people ? Compared with LM? If I were in their shoes I wouldn't...

 

But you're talking about companies that will put their bets on PMDG products for their training, etc. And how many people does PMDG have? About the same as Laminar I guess :smile:

 

 

But you're talking about companies that will put their bets on PMDG products for their training, etc. And how many people does PMDG have? About the same as Laminar I guess

 

No, no... I mean putting the bets on the platform. Big companies only deal with big companies... we all know that!. Big companies give-up on nice apps if they don't run on the platforms of the big companies...

 

And dont get me wrong.. I love X-plane ; my point here refers strictly to the highly profitable market of training professional pilots by the Airlines. Can you Imagine the impact of a large contract to train Emirates or Singapore Airlines Pilots?  .... wow $$$$$

Laminar Research has been selling a commercial version of their software to flight training schools for several years, I think the current cost is around $700+ if you want to begin unlocking some of the higher-level functions.

 

Airplanes (especially airliners) are very complex machines, but you probably don't need a full simulator to train someone on -- say how the navigation system works. A low cost solution would probably work fine here ... just as long as the software provides the capabilities they are looking for, The size of the company isn't much of a factor unless it impacts product support.   

And dont get me wrong.. I love X-plane ; my point here refers strictly to the highly profitable market of training professional pilots by the Airlines. Can you Imagine the impact of a large contract to train Emirates or Singapore Airlines Pilots? .... wow $$$$$

 

 

I spoke of this almost two years ago when a lot of folks were so excited LM had come onboard.  So far support for hobbyist and casual simmers remains and there is really no sign of that tapering off (and I hope it won't ) but anyway you slice it the casual "Joe Simmer"  was never the reason why they, (LM) purchased ESP from MS.  If a handful of bickering simmers ever became a nuisance to a professional program, well it wouldn't be hard or take long to sever relationships IMO.  Oh and your 3rd party developers which way would you go if you were them?  

 

Yeah I know a bit pessimistic and served with a dose of unfounded conjecture but it isn't too far fetched to be implausible is it?

Let's not forget that going 64bit may have impacted LR original road map plans. I for one am glad LR opted to go 64bit when they did and not later.

 

On a side note with P3D v2, once people start shoving p3d's directory with complex add-ons, I'm almost certain they will start to experience OOM's, the fact that it is still a 32bit app guarantees that, optimizing code can only do so much and go so far.

 

We will see...

 

I'm an FSX phanboy but have been investing a little more "here and there" into XP10x64.  P3dv2 looks tempting but when it's all said and done... no x64 support means OOM's.  And maybe P3D will have 64 someday but then it's far behind XP10.  Most addons will have to be re-compiled (meaning a lot more work ahead for FSX developers) to get their code to 64 compatibility.  XP devs are already doing this.

 

I love FSX, it's done amazing things for me.  But I can't see it being around in 5 years.  Old technology, with the occasional update brought on by some devs' R+D, will defeinitly give it some more life...  but still we'll hit the OOM wall.  And I'm tired of turning down settings because I have too many complex addons.  This is a huge plus side of XP.  I can crank sliders until my GPU melts lol.  I hope P3Dx64 can catch up quickly - if they can, and devs quickly get on the x64 bandwagon I'll probably sim the way I do now (about 80% FSX 20% XP).

 

Some key things have to happen to keep me interested in XP10x64:

 

1) More complex addons, I prefer GA so - something with a RXP sort of feel would be great, or a well-done G1000/Avidyne avionics in acft (READ RNAV!!)

2) More addons which offer Navigraph, OR addons which use stock XP's database but in a realistic manner (get away from that stupid wannabe GNS430).

3) Stock buildings at stock airports

4) Seasons!  Nothing worse than a snowstorm pounding green pastures lol

 

Some key things have to happen to keep me interested in P3D x64 (when it comes)

1) Needs to happen soon (within 2 years would be great!)

2) Mindstar's rumored GNS430/530 units working in x64 and developers integrating their platforms with Mindstar avionics (much like FSX+RXP)

3) No more OOM's (should be possible with x64 architecture)

 

So it's four items against two really.... ie - XP needs to work harder to keep me, but FSX/ESP/P3D can't give up or it will lose me hehe!