Some news about 10.40

[alpha12125 213]

Agree with M. Camp - there's something about a certain stubbornness in the X-Plane >> dev << community that appears to be led from the top of the chain! After 3 years of updates to version 10 we are still looking at the same god awful weather 'engine' Don't get me wrong, am overall glad to have this sim as an alternative and for night flying it has the upper hand (luckily darkness hides that problem I just ranted about) I purchased skymaxx pro and while the clouds look great they are limited by the weather engine - have tried EFASS and NOAA and they do help but seem inhibited by underlying x-plane code.

 

Similar for Flightfactor (Ramzzess) 777, which I also purchased. They refused to fix the cockpit and so Pumper came along and fixed it for us (huge props to him for that) The last glaring anomaly are the wings and for an 80 dollar plane, its just incredible they refuse to fix them.

 

It is only because of the great work of  the >> non dev << community that x-plane 10 has been at all usable - they have fixed the mesh, the textures, the visibility, the performance..... kudos to you guys. 

Lets be honest. Before 10.40 there where people constantly complaining about missing visibillity and weather engine. Now its just the weather engine, if they fixed that instead of visibility, people would be ######ing that without visibilty it is useless.

 

It is always the next thing that keeps x-plane from becomming the ultimate alternative for fsx/p3d. I have been watching this for a few years now and little by little every single complaint is slowly beeing ironed out or fixed. Is it slow ? Sure, but they are a few people only and some not even full time. Laminar stated multiple times they dont want to be a replacement for FSX/P3D and they will not try to emulate everything that they can do. They go their own way and unlike many think listen to complaints and fix them. allbeit not as fast as some people like.

 

As far as the T7 goes, that is something that FSX/P3D Developer also have. Compare the FF 777 to the Captn Sim T7 and it is a shining beacon of quality. And dont even talk about the 50$ planes that are the Hawker 850 or the Citation II that are unflyable without the community fixing them  

[Paraffin 2,197]

It is always the next thing that keeps x-plane from becomming the ultimate alternative for fsx/p3d. I have been watching this for a few years now and little by little every single complaint is slowly beeing ironed out or fixed. Is it slow ? Sure, but they are a few people only and some not even full time. Laminar stated multiple times they dont want to be a replacement for FSX/P3D and they will not try to emulate everything that they can do. They go their own way and unlike many think listen to complaints and fix them. allbeit not as fast as some people like.

 

This is all true, but I still think it's puzzling that "going their own way" -- which basically means working on what Austin cares about, like improved turboprops now that he owns a plane with a PT6 -- doesn't include more focus on the weather. As a GA pilot, shouldn't he care more about this himself? Maybe as a recreational pilot, he just never flies in bad weather so he doesn't think it should be modeled more accurately in the sim?

 

Or maybe they're just afraid of the CPU demands of better weather modeling? Maybe they don't want to tackle it until we're all running the equivalent of today's NOAA supercomputers on our desktops. 

 

Whatever the reason, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that a completely different modeling method will show up in v11, something that can handle vertical convection (i.e. discrete thunderstorms), and weather that doesn't change centered around your plane location. Even if it's just a bare bones weather system with enough hooks in it for 3rd party developers to improve. Better weather modeling along with seasonal terrain changes would be a big selling point to encourage upgrades. 

[alpha12125 213]

This is all true, but I still think it's puzzling that "going their own way" -- which basically means working on what Austin cares about, like improved turboprops now that he owns a plane with a PT6 -- doesn't include more focus on the weather. As a GA pilot, shouldn't he care more about this himself? Maybe as a recreational pilot, he just never flies in bad weather so he doesn't think it should be modeled more accurately in the sim?

 

Or maybe they're just afraid of the CPU demands of better weather modeling? Maybe they don't want to tackle it until we're all running the equivalent of today's NOAA supercomputers on our desktops. 

 

Whatever the reason, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that a completely different modeling method will show up in v11, something that can handle vertical convection (i.e. discrete thunderstorms), and weather that doesn't change centered around your plane location. Even if it's just a bare bones weather system with enough hooks in it for 3rd party developers to improve. Better weather modeling along with seasonal terrain changes would be a big selling point to encourage upgrades. 

 

 

Of course it means on working what austin cares about. Its his company Its the way I run my company, i do what i care about, that way i stay motivated and it fits my vision. I know where you are comming from, but the problem is that we base our knowledge and our assumptions on 2% of the public knowledge and fill the rest with guesstimations. Personally i think the weather engine is not perfect but it is a good working engine and for me its not killing the immersion as much as the dsf fix. Thats why for me its not a high priority. So personal expectations always skew the perception of people. I know how system design desicions screw you over 5 years later in ways you never imagined.

 

We dont know what is happening behind the scenes: HiFi said that they would look into developing for X-Plane. Who knows if they are not in contact with Austin already? I know from developers that, allthough he has his own interests, he is always open to suggestions and will listen to request if they are resonable. So i guess we just have to wait and start giving them the benefit of the doubt If Hifi is developing i wouldnt bother "wasting" resources on the weather engine aswell.  Also it was already said in an interview that they have some ideas regarding seasonal textures and regionalized crowdsourced autogen. It will come in due time

[Guest]

 

 

SSDs are not the best way to run XP, IMHO.  Please check this web site or others for SSD info.  A full SSD is little better than a HD.

 

I'll disagree with you there also ... maybe several years ago when SSDs were just being introduced there was a don't exceed 85% capacity, but these days even 98% capacity operates considerably faster than mechanical drives.

 

With sustained transfers of 400MB/sec on upwards to 600MB/sec ... SATA3 is 3GB/sec cap, SATA6 6 GB/sec so both specs far exceed capabilities of SSD transfers.  If you want state of the art, then use M.2 SSDs provided your motherboard supports them ... over 1GB/sec.

 

I'm hoping DSF will thread and spreading the data loading so it doesn't saturate the main thread (aka stutter).

 

Glad to see LR is still working on XP10.x ... look forward to the update.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[AUA425 130]

Of course it means on working what austin cares about. Its his company Its the way I run my company, i do what i care about, that way i stay motivated and it fits my vision

yes that´s also true, but if you have customers and call your simulation "ultra realistic flight simulator" than you have to fulfill this !!

do not understand me wrong (not you personally), i like XP10 (found the cloud shadows in the DataRefEdit and shared this with the community and some other stuff) but what should a FLIGHT SIMULATOR have FIRST:

 

1. Flight characteristics 2. WEATHER ("we are in the air") 3.Terrain 4. ATC (for "offline flyers") 5 .Living world 6. Effects .... .... and so on (sequence not important, only as example)

and NOT

1. Flight characteristics, WED, oculus rift, WED, oculus rift, android and other mobile staff etc etc...... (really overstated now :-) I know, WED is also very important part of XP10, but that´s all about written in developer blog )

 

As I said, they are doing a good job and have they own strategic decisions (depending on business, no doubt about this) but if min. 40%  of your customers "are saying" "please rework the weather engine" or clouds than you can´t ignore this, sorry, that´s a fact !!

oculus rift is a VERY cool feature, that´s clear, but how many people already own one ?? (ask home cockpit builders about this)

You said "the weather is not killing the immersion as much as DSF feature do, but for some other people is this "the other way round", and both of this features are important (I´m also IFR flyer and very happy about extended DSF´s)

I´m here not speaking about 10 different cloud types or about "cloud simulation" or something like that (the "nature" is only in real -> "REAL")

but about fixing some basic stuff,  things like "jumping" visibility, cloud rewriting + performance, thunderstorms, fog, and the possibility for SMOOTH load from external weather engines (new brigde or plugin ...), this could and should be fixed (release date XP10 was in 2011 -> now is 2015)

If the base is ready, wide or finished you can look for some other cool features and stuff and by the way you can win much more customers (it´s also good for business). And if all this features would be implemented -> some people would be ready to pay more than 70 bucks for XP10 (much more)!

 

just one of the comments found on the forums: "I would trade my mother n law and 1 Lung for ASN XP10  :lol:" (I found this very funny)

 

In my opinion the "personal" interests should be in the second place if "MY" customers are "behind" me ! (is only my opinion and not the truth) !

But the conclusion is -> I´m happy about extended DSF´s and XP10 and I give thanks to the developers for the work ( and hope we will read something about reworked weather (engine) in the future otherwise XP10 will stay the "only by nice weather simulator" for me ! :-) !

 

cheers and greetings to all !!

[CaptCWGAllen 49]

From latest X Plane developer blog

 

-is winds aloft still coming on 10.40? i have tested it when Austin released a beta and it was great.

 

1. yes. generally, everything in the alpha builds that Austin tested are in 1040 beta 1

[alpha12125 213]

yes that´s also true, but if you have customers and call your simulation "ultra realistic flight simulator" than you have to fulfill this !!

do not understand me wrong (not you personally), i like XP10 (found the cloud shadows in the DataRefEdit and shared this with the community and some other stuff) but what should a FLIGHT SIMULATOR have FIRST:

 

1. Flight characteristics 2. WEATHER ("we are in the air") 3.Terrain 4. ATC (for "offline flyers") 5 .Living world 6. Effects .... .... and so on (sequence not important, only as example)

and NOT

1. Flight characteristics, WED, oculus rift, WED, oculus rift, android and other mobile staff etc etc...... (really overstated now :-) I know, WED is also very important part of XP10, but that´s all about written in developer blog )

 

As I said, they are doing a good job and have they own strategic decisions (depending on business, no doubt about this) but if min. 40%  of your customers "are saying" "please rework the weather engine" or clouds than you can´t ignore this, sorry, that´s a fact !!

oculus rift is a VERY cool feature, that´s clear, but how many people already own one ?? (ask home cockpit builders about this)

You said "the weather is not killing the immersion as much as DSF feature do, but for some other people is this "the other way round", and both of this features are important (I´m also IFR flyer and very happy about extended DSF´s)

I´m here not speaking about 10 different cloud types or about "cloud simulation" or something like that (the "nature" is only in real -> "REAL")

but about fixing some basic stuff,  things like "jumping" visibility, cloud rewriting + performance, thunderstorms, fog, and the possibility for SMOOTH load from external weather engines (new brigde or plugin ...), this could and should be fixed (release date XP10 was in 2011 -> now is 2015)

If the base is ready, wide or finished you can look for some other cool features and stuff and by the way you can win much more customers (it´s also good for business). And if all this features would be implemented -> some people would be ready to pay more than 70 bucks for XP10 (much more)!

 

just one of the comments found on the forums: "I would trade my mother n law and 1 Lung for ASN XP10  :lol:" (I found this very funny)

 

In my opinion the "personal" interests should be in the second place if "MY" customers are "behind" me ! (is only my opinion and not the truth) !

But the conclusion is -> I´m happy about extended DSF´s and XP10 and I give thanks to the developers for the work ( and hope we will read something about reworked weather (engine) in the future otherwise XP10 will stay the "only by nice weather simulator" for me ! :-) !

 

cheers and greetings to all !!

 

There are no facts we have access to that support any claim. The 40% figure is made up and you know it. We are in a aviation related forum and our needs are very different to that of the general public. Why do you think Dovetail are releasing "Dangerous Approaches" for FSX:Steam Edition instead of Study Level Sims like the A2A Planes ? Because that is what people want.

 

The reason you see WED alot is because Ben Suptnik the person that is posting 90% on that blog, is the Scenery Person so he only posts stuff he is working on, which includes WED. Austin never communicates through the blog so you never hear what he is doing, Like the changes to the weather and the turboprop changes etc. Occulus Rift was or better said is one guy doing the development. And well the whole mobile discussion was done on this forum over and over again. This whole PC Master Race discussion can only be afforded by big budget studios or a developer with a strong publisher in the background. When we see a whole new UI next time arround people will start to see the benefit of cross plattform developing.