And im sold

[uhntissbaby111 58]

Ive been simming with microsofts FS since FS2000. I finally caved and did the thing i said i would never do, i ordered x-plane. I finally got it installed today and spend about 30 minutes getting all my controls set up and just flying around seeing how it is. First off, what a change haha. I kept pressing the ALT button to try to get to the task bar, and remembered that its not FS!! But i just wanted to post, im sold already on it. Holy potential. IMHO, vanilla x-plane 10 kills vanilla FSX, and yes i remember vanilla FSX well since i built a new computer not long ago and flew in vanilla FSX for a bit just to see how it was. The night lighting...oh my oh my, its all so real. The lights just look so beautiful, i was particularly impressed with the red/green lights that mark the beginning end of the runway, they just looked so real haha. The flight model, very nice i must say, it just felt so smooth. And the clouds!!!!!! Thats when i said to myself, yup this is it. I took the F-22 for a spin from EDDM, i figured i can cover lots of ground/sky with it and take in a bunch. So i took off and turned right, and then i decided to fly through the overcast. The clouds are actual objects, they have a presence, the dont vanish and do weird things that the fsx clouds do, instead they behave just like they do when you fly into them in real life. And then when i pierced the layer i leveled off just a few hundred feet above the layer and flew. And then it happened!!! I was flying along just admiring/drooling over the look of the clouds when i saw a tiny opening in the sky and saw the ground below, and no BS, i said, holy crap. Something about it just looked so real, i dont know how to explain it, but seeing the gap in the overcast and the ground below, it just looked perfect. Just how i remember  from real flights and in pictures. FSX just never managed to capture this look, even after all the addons. I love it, simply love it. I cant wait till the IXEG 737 comes out, that is a big reason in my purchase of x-plane. Sorry for my rambling, but i just wanted to post how excited i am about XP10. And in no way did i mean this to be a FSX bash, i still love FSX, but in my eyes, it is a dying game. It is unsupported and we are stuck with what we have. XP10 is alive, it is constantly being improved, there is no "well its a limitation/bug of FSX and we cant work around it" with XP10, if there is a limitation or bug, it can be fixed. And it looks oh so good out of the box, did i mention that the night lighting and clouds are phenomenal? I cant wait to get some addons going and really see what this game is capable of. Im very excited and happy that i decided to give x plane a shot and i look forward to being part of the community!

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

Get skymaxx pro for better clouds. And hd mesh v2. And I could go on and on....

 

Welcome to xp 10. Another fsx convert.... It's looking good. Just need the developers to follow the fans.....

 

Xp10.25, is as I say daily, amazing!

 

Ian

[benrussell 20]

Don't underestimate the developers that are already working with X-Plane.

 

The more fans and converts we get the more we can do.

 

Many of us work X-Plane as a second job, we know the potential is there but it's hard to show it when all you can commit is spare time.

 

You can wait for your favorite brands to figure out how to make the most of X-Plane if you want OR you can support the people that already know how to work with it today.

[TOGA-saurus 330]

Hello Adam.

First of all, welcome to the world of X-Plane It's great to read about you excitement towards this simulator. Thanks for sharing.

Second, I strongly recommend you take a look at this thread: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/429465-x-plane-10-add-on-resources-freeware-and-payware/

 

Once you start adding bits adding pieces to your sim, you'll love it a whole lot more! Enjoy

[Phantom88 3,278]

Welcome Adam,Thank You for sharing the story of your first X-Plane flight.Cheers!

[jcomm 5,882]

Adam, welcome!!!!

 

Yes, I think you nailled it perfectly in as far as describing the transition most are doing and will do in the near future!

 

X-Plane 10 is really already, and becoming, a great flight simulation platform, where users from fs9, fsX can find good reasons to stay and invest!

 

Just would loive to see Majestic develop their Q-400 for X-Plane 10 - I miss it so much here, although we already have a nice one by JSBsim, I believe...

[uhntissbaby111 58]

Thank you everyone for the kind replies. I look forward to adding all the add ons and make it look even better. And as for the Q400, I know!! I love the majestic q400, it was my favorite aircraft in FSX

[MSFS Ralf 149]

The FJS Q400 is a nice plane. I never flew the Majestic but from what I know I'd say the FJS is a little lighter on systems. i love it that way. During work days my simming time in the evening is 60-90 minutes. I like to jump in and fly my route.

[FlyBoyMike 38]

Been getting into XPX more and more these days especially after getting SkyMAXX Pro and the FF 757. I still go back to FSX and have been last couple of days to fly the PMDG 777 and 7-day trial of ASN, actually a very nice weather engine I must say, something I really wish we had in X-Plane as others have already mentioned.

 

If ASN (or FSGRW?) was available for X-Plane today there would probably be no reason for me to use FSX. Although I might still miss all my PMDG jets...

[jcomm 5,882]

Michael, I'm with you in this "between x-plane and fsx" spirit... although I have no doubt about X-Plane 10 being the way to go.

 

For me a good weather injector would be, together with the flight dynamics fixes for prop aircraft, the two cherries on top of the cake.

 

As a beta for HiFiTech, I keep asking internally that they consider X.Plane10 as their next move :-)

[captain420 3,099]

Clouds are amazing in XP10 really? The default clouds look absolutely terrible. How can you think they look amazing? Default FSX clouds look much better. I'm not here to bash but I own FSX/P3D/XP10 and fly between the 3. I've taken a break from XP10 and taking the time to enjoy P3D. I do agree that the night lighting in XP10 looks great, but the clouds really look horrible, not unless you go with skymaxx and yet they still don't look as nice compared to REX in P3D/FSX. Hopefully it'll get better and so will the planes, scenery and a ton of other add-ons that XP10 is lacking. Until then I'm sticking with P3D.

[jcomm 5,882]

Yes, It's true, at least for me, that the skies in FSX, with even the default clouds and a good weather injector, look sometimes much better than in X-plane 10.

 

Also, the long distance visibility and the various types of could drawn in FSX / P3D look a lot more realistic to me, and with a much more convincing diversity and overall effect than in X-plane 10.

 

I am sure that something can be done about it, either through future versions of Sky Maxx Pro, or even by changes made to the core of the weather engine in X-Plane 10.

 

For instance, when flying in overcast situations, or on days where we have the warm sector of a front, those Ns type clouds look better to me rendered by the default X-Plane 10 weather engine than by Sky Maxx Pro, and I switch Sky Maxx Pro off ( which is a bit tricky because I have to keep a backup of some dds files from the original X-Plane 10.25 install ).

 

Sky Maxx Pro has considerably enhanced some aspects of weather rendering, and the team behind it at X-Aviation is dynamic, and a couple of updates were already released, with more probably going to become available in the future.

 

Anyway, things are dynamically changing in X-plane's World, and I hope we will be able to get better results in the future, but Aaron, it's certainly not a problem with your eyes or brain :-) unless we both have the same problem :-/ 

 

When I sum up all of the good things recently added, and the upcoming, for X-Plane 10.30, when I look at the fact that FSX and P3Dv2 will still be there, shining in their best, but subject to the limitations of the core 32 bit platform they depend on, I think that X-Plane 10 is really a better choice.

 

The price to pay is having to wait for the next versions, still during X-plane 10's lifetime, and for the remarkable work of freeware and payware designers who are making available excellent products for this platform.

 

I love my PMDGs, my Aerosofts, my Majestic, my ASN, the effects of the DX10 Fixer, but, landing an Airbus under bad weather, at dusk / night, or even during day, over a beautiful ( free!!! ) SimHeaven scenery, is something I can't reproduce in FSX. I have been enjoying that unique experience with my recent Peter's A321 acquisition :-)

 

P3Dv2 will move further, I believe, and having the chance to run FDEs externally is great, but what you can achieve flight dynamics wise with, say, the Majestic Q-400, is easily achievable with the default flight dynamics model in X-Plane 10 - I had the chance to try the Q-400 from FlyJSim, and honestly I find it more plausible than the Majestic Q-400 in FSX.

 

With the many fixes that LR is working on for 10.30, I believe we can only get better!

 

Sooner or later some 3pd will offer a good weather injector. Actually, looking at the datarefs, there isn't really a big difference between what we can achieve on both platforms, and I've been informed that LR is making updates to the "weather hooks" in the sim...

 

X-Plane 10 is pretty much the future for me....

 

The picture bellow is my PC desktop theme. It was taken on a long haul flight in the SSG 747 8i, from Cape Town to Lisbon :-)

The variety of cumulus and stratified cloud types looks very acceptable to me...

 

[FlyBoyMike 38]

 

 

I love my PMDGs, my Aerosofts, my Majestic, my ASN, the effects of the DX10 Fixer, but, landing an Airbus under bad weather, at dusk / night, or even during day, over a beautiful ( free!!! ) SimHeaven scenery, is something I can't reproduce in FSX.

 

Couldn't have said it any better! I just completed a flight in the FF 757 landing in VTBS at night and it's those nighttime/dusk/dawn approaches, with all the twinkling city lights and moving traffic, that are just phenomenal and cannot be reproduced in FSX.

 

I don't have DX10 Fixer and thought about getting it but don't see the point. You have to spend so much more money to make FSX look good whereas XPX has it all out of the box, if you want some really nice scenery it's right there for free from AlpilotX, if you want that kind of quality stuff in FSX/P3D you have to pay for it.

 

Btw Jcomm, are you still using SkyMAXX Pro textures and default XP weather in that screenshot?

[jcomm 5,882]

Btw Jcomm, are you still using SkyMAXX Pro textures and default XP weather in that screenshot?

 

For that flight, because I was aware of the type of weather I would find along the route, I chose to revert to default X-Plane 10 clouds and disabled Sk Maxx Pro.

 

I believe John will try to find a better way of depicting:

 

- straified clouds like: Sc, As, St, Ns

- thunderstorm clouds, which look strange right now :-/

 

Yesterday while driving from house to the office a dense Ns layer was approaching from the southeast, moving along with the warm front than latter hit out area. It's the kind of effects I still see better reproduced with the default X-Plane 10 weather than through Sky Maxx Pro.

[uhntissbaby111 58]

 

 

Clouds are amazing in XP10 really? The default clouds look absolutely terrible. How can you think they look amazing? Default FSX clouds look much better.

 

Ok, I'll give you that from a distance, yes, my FSX REX clouds do look better than XP clouds. But as soon as you get close to and fly into FSX clouds, they are, IMHO, garbage. It has always bugged me, they look somewhat 3-D from afar and then when you get right next to them they start to turn and do strange things and you can clearly see the "billboards" that they are. And once you get into them, even worse. Since when can you see the ground below you when you are smack in the middle of a cloud? Default XP clouds could use some work, ill give you that. However, when flying just underneath an overcast layer, or above it, IMHO, very very realistic. And speaking of overcast, dont even get me started on FSX overcast. And then when flying through a cloud in XP, thats when it really shines. You get the true white out effect and lose all orientation, and you get the turbulence associated with clouds because in XP clouds are actual objects and not just eye candy. I even flew into a thunderstorm in XP and joyfully watched my plane get tossed around and over stressed, much like would happen in real life if you took your C172 into a TS. I dont mean to bash either, i still love my FSX. It has an amazing selection of addons, and i get my super realistic airliner fix from PMDG and Majestic. XP definitely has some bugs that irk me, specifically the blurry ground you see when cruising at high altitude, i think it looks terrible and really ruins high flying for me. But the beauty of it is, those bugs can/will hopefully get fixed because unlike FSX, XP is alive and being actively developed. FSX had a great run, but i got tired of seeing these spectacular pictures of XP10 and all it can do and realizing that FSX will never look like that, and also i got tired of having to accept the shortcoming and limitations of FSX. When i read what a member from IXEG said about their upcoming 737 project, how they can do things with their simulation that simply cannot be done in FSX because the program wouldnt allow it, i knew i made the right choice and am willing to wait until the kinks get ironed out and XP evolves into the sim ive been waiting for for many many years