Pros & Cons of X Plane

[hychewright 46]

These replys are so very informative and intresting. So, as I see it, out of the box X Plane needs a lot of freeware/payware in the way of scenery to get it looking like the beautiful screen shots that I see.  

 

P3D, FSX, and X Plane each has their pros and cons. Really there is no perfect sim, I guess we all know that. There are things I like about FSX as well as P3D and things I don't like. However, in my own opinion X Plane has the best looking scenery but lacks in other areas.

 

We as sim pilots have many, many choices to make.

[jcomm 5,889]

 

 

We as sim pilots have many, many choices to make.

 

 

You are Right Wright !!!

 

:smile:

[desertrat 0]

There are several things that make X-Plane very good.

 

1.  All airports, fixes including STARS & SIDS can be updated every cycle from Navigraph (payware).  Try and do that FSX, FS9 or P3D  - This way your frequencies, etc are always up to date.

2.  For the best performance you will need a graphics card with a min of 2Gb however 4 Gb is better and 16Gb of Ram.  With this setup I dconstantly see 45-80fps.

3,  If it crashes you only have to go the the log.txt file, scroll down to the bottom of it and you will see the cause.  Try and do that FSX, FS9 or P3D .  Here is an example, that happened after loading in some new scenery.  I removed the bad nav file and everything was ok.

 

 

1:48:16.926 I/SCN: Failed to find resource 'test/AGtrees_test.for' (parent = 'Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/Common_Elements/Misc_Buildings/' at 'Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/Common_Elements/Misc_Buildings/test/AGtrees_test.for'

1:48:16.926 I/SCN: Failed to find resource 'test/AGtrees_test.for' (parent = 'Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/Common_Elements/Misc_Buildings/' at 'Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/custom objects/test/AGtrees_test.for'

1:48:16.926 I/SCN: DSF load time: 228467 for file Custom Scenery/Global Airports/Earth nav data/+30-110/+37-109.dsf (0 tris)

1:48:19.185 I/SCN: DSF load time: 2153799 for file Global Scenery/X-Plane 10 Global Scenery/Earth nav data/+30-110/+37-109.dsf (195817 tris)

1:48:22.388 I/SCN: DSF load time: 2786208 for file Global Scenery/X-Plane 10 Global Scenery/Earth nav data/+30-110/+38-109.dsf (215337 tris)

--=={This application has crashed!}==--

[RichUK 474]

I agree with the above comment about not treating freeware as free. Developers deserve a little something if you enjoy the work they do. Same thing applies to this forum too. Not that I have any ties to Avsim, but it ain't free to run this site.

[Guest JustanotherPilot]

No seasons

No good ATC addons

No good Ai addons

unrealistic airports

Poor weather representation

very bad interface

Plausible world

Very few addons that can compete with the best that FSX/P3D can offer.

 

Other than that lot it's Ok

 

 

 

Agree, might add poor user interface to the list, especially the start/scenario selection page

[JSkorna 137]

 

 

3,  If it crashes you only have to go the the log.txt file, scroll down to the bottom of it and you will see the cause.  Try and do that FSX, FS9 or P3D .

 

If a Windows program crashes all you have to do is go to the Events log file; just as easy.

[Spam3d 54]

I really enjoy xPlanes fluid motion, it doesnt have a single stutter, runs at my refresh rate and with skymaxx and airfoil labs C172 an absolute joy to fly around in, I can even handle the basic scenery as i know that at least its being improved and the development will come

[Raven9000 272]

No seasons

No good ATC addons

No good Ai addons

unrealistic airports

Poor weather representation

very bad interface

Plausible world

Very few addons that can compete with the best that FSX/P3D can offer.

 

Other than that lot it's Ok

Hmm for a minute thought you were describing an put of the box FsX..

If a Windows program crashes all you have to do is go to the Events log file; just as easy.

Hahah good one, really funny!

 

Try sorting it out between the thousands of messages per second the event viewer shows you (or their mostly cryptic nature)

 

 

I really find it funny when people defend their little sim and bash at the other(s). ALL OF THEM have good things and bad things (lots of great addons, weather etc. in fsx bad in xp, GREAT helicopters in XP, HORRIBLE in fsx), and so on, and so forth, and what have you...

These replys are so very informative and intresting. So, as I see it, out of the box X Plane needs a lot of freeware/payware in the way of scenery to get it looking like the beautiful screen shots that I see

This is true. However, the same goes for fsx, which out of the box is FFFFugly as hell too...

[mwilk 1,104]

As bad as some would make X-Plane out to be, PMDG must have seen something in it that they're willing to devote the time and resources to develop for it.

[strider1 575]

Hmm for a minute thought you were describing an put of the box FsX..

Hahah good one, really funny!

 

Try sorting it out between the thousands of messages per second the event viewer shows you (or their mostly cryptic nature)

 

 

I really find it funny when people defend their little sim and bash at the other(s). ALL OF THEM have good things and bad things (lots of great addons, weather etc. in fsx bad in xp, GREAT helicopters in XP, HORRIBLE in fsx), and so on, and so forth, and what have you...

 

This is true. However, the same goes for fsx, which out of the box is FFFFugly as hell too...

 

Just ignore JSkonra, he is trolling like usual....

[hs118 707]

The reasons why X-Plane is not as popular as FSX at HoverControl are probably the same reasons that X-Plane is not popular at Avsim. Mostly unwillingness to invest the time and money, a dose of low curiosity, and a dash of confirmation bias.

 

No matter how much real world experience, comparing the 2 sims requires USING both sims.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  2x on the confirmation bias being shown on this 3rd page of this topic.

[Comanche 417]

I don't like these "my sim vs your sim" threads, which is what these topics always morph into at some point.

 

There are good and bad things about each of them. Id love to take the good from both and make one awesome sim, but that is not possible. I will say that X-plane offers me more of what I am looking for in a sim and is what I am spending the majority of my time and money on.

 

There are some things about X-plane that annoy me, but for the most part it does work extremely well. After downloading lots of fantastic freeware and a few cool pay ware scenery packages, plus some tweaks here and there, X-plane looks way better to me now than my P3d install, which also has a ton of addons.

 

Still, there are things, that X-plane is lacking like a good ai traffic program and a better weather program. Seasonal textures are not anything I care about. It might be nice, but only if its done better than it is in FSX. I only flew in summer in FSX because all the other seasons looked bad to me.(well winter wasn't too bad).

 

Too me, the best thing is to have both. (X-plane and P3d). they are both fantastic in there own ways. I spend more time in X-plane, but fire up P3d once in a while because I have some cool add-ons for it that I don't have in X-plane at the moment. I deleted FSX a few years ago.

 

I think a lot of people shy away from X-plane because it works very different and has a more complex and sometimes, not very user friendly interface.  I can totally understand that.  All I can say is that it does get easier and before you know it, it becomes a breeze to use and a lot easier to diagnose and fix issues. But that comes with time.   Also its hard to devote time and money to a 2nd sim after spending a lot of money on FSX\P3d. I can relate to that too since I was a heavy FSX user since way before FSX (FS2 on C64).  FSX felt like an old shoe. Comfortable and worn in nicely. Plus I spend a small fortune on it. There was no reason for me to move to X-plane except curiosity.

 

I got X-plane 10 when it first came out and was not impressed. What ###### me off was that there were a lot of people who liked X-plane and I could not figure out why? so I started tweaking it and buying a few add-ons and downloading freeware scenery and before I knew it, I was hooked and never looked back. You just have to stick with it. I'm glad I did.

 

Rob

[RichUK 474]

Well said Rob. 

 

The other thing I love with XP is you can throw everything at it and your only real limitation is your PC specs. No fear of OOM's. I hate flying wondering when it will OOM. With XP I really just concentrate on flying.as it should be.

[Bobsk8 12,499]

What do you mean by spin ? The default 172 is pretty stable. I don't remember it ever spining at the drop of a hat ! Are you trolling ? The default planes do suck, kind of like FSX/PD3 ! You friend needs a few good ADD-ONs !

 

That is what I was stating, but obviously you can't comprehend what you read. Try reading what I posted again slowly and see if you can grasp what I was saying. 

[hs118 707]

Well said Rob. 

 

The other thing I love with XP is you can throw everything at it and your only real limitation is your PC specs. No fear of OOM's. I hate flying wondering when it will OOM. With XP I really just concentrate on flying.as it should be.

Performance tuning X-Plane for various hardware configurations is very straight forward and easy to do compared the black arts involved with tuning FSX. With 3 pages out of the X-Plane manual you can get great results with about any mid-range system including cockpit/cloud shadows AND high FPS simultaneously. Of course, you should read the manual, unlike all the fiddling with tweaks in FSX.