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charlie130

Deciding to move from FSX?

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Ok, so I have reached a point where my 8 year old FSX PC needs replacing.

 

I am considering X Plane or P3d?

 

So, looking at X Planes 64 bit platform, I am immediately drawn to a sim that can use more than 4 Gb and in fact a whole lot more.  That thought alone is a big draw. However, looking at You Tube vids, I see X Plane is, well, rather bland scenery wise at first install? Also the weather generation?

 

So a couple of questions.

 

 

Apart from Skymaxx pro is there another weather/texture program? I see REX is only available for X Plane 9? Which is a shame, since I have used REX for a while in FSX.

 

 

Also what would I need to download and install, scenery wise, to bring X Plane up to Orbx standards of scenery? If that's at all possible? 

 

As to the aircraft, well these have some beauties, but obviously not as many as FSX.

 

 

Any ideas guys? Or should I look at P3d, where I can use all my Orbx scenery, GSX, AI Traffic add ons and most of the aircraft I have for FSX?

 

 

I would like to make the decision before I upgrade the PC. Then, concentrate on one platform. Although I know folks have installed both XP and P3d.

 

 

Any opinions are welcome!  Since at this stage I really find myself choosing between apples and oranges! 

 

 

Best Regards

David


 

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First of all, welcome to the X-Plane forums! You can check out several of the more recent threads (some are just below this) where others are also making the move from FSX to X-Plane.

 

Apart from Skymaxx pro is there another weather/texture program? I see REX is only available for X Plane 9? Which is a shame, since I have used REX for a while in FSX.

Not really. Skymaxx Pro is a solely graphical improvement over the default clouds. As far as the weather generation is concerned, it's fairly good - ground-level weather is taken from the nearest METARs, while winds aloft are now available when flying in the U.S. (as of the 10.40 beta).

 

 

Also what would I need to download and install, scenery wise, to bring X Plane up to Orbx standards of scenery? If that's at all possible?

Of course. In fact I'd say X-Plane can exceed ORBX quality - for entirely free. We have the W2XP scenery generator that takes OpenStreetMap data to generate 3D buildings, from anywhere in the world. It all depends on how much you want to have. We have the HD and UHD Meshes if you want higher-resolution land meshes. Speaking of which, runways in X-Plane follow terrain contours - makes for some very exciting landings in some of the most treacherous airports.

 

Furthermore, many of the freeware airport scenery packages for X-Plane rival payware packages for FSX in terms of quality- just need to check out the work done by the likes of MisterX6, or ISDG. If you want to work on an airport near you, you can tweak it yourself, using the WED tools - it's very easy.

 

Not to mention that it's widespread knowledge that the X-Plane night lighting is without parallel, it's the best that you can get, especially with HDR rendering.

 

As to the aircraft, well these have some beauties, but obviously not as many as FSX.

Don't expect PMDG-level of systems simulation in airliners in X-Plane, not yet, at least. But we're getting there (you might've known that PMDG are coming over, first with their DC-6). Many GA planes from Carenado and Aerosoft exceed their corresponding FSX implementations, especially in terms of "flight dynamics" and "feel", though I cannot confirm this fully, since I've never owned FSX.

 

Any ideas guys? Or should I look at P3d, where I can use all my Orbx scenery, GSX, AI Traffic add ons and most of the aircraft I have for FSX?

You can always try out the X-Plane 10 demo to decide for yourself. The 15-minute joystick input limit can be somewhat overridden by allowing the AI to fly the plane. Any scenery or plugins you install will work as they do, in the full X-Plane install. Note that P3D is still 32-bit.

 

Although I know folks have installed both XP and P3d.

To be honest - these guys get the best of both worlds! :smile:

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X-Plane 10, just like P3d, are under active development.

 

They're both worth the investment, each for it's own reasons.

 

If you can, get both. You will not regret.

 

I myself am only in XP10 though, but I did try the latest version of p3dv2, and it ran smooth on my rig, even not being a recent CPU ( i5 2500 ), but since I use XP10 also as a visuals generator for Aerowinx PSX, I am better served tahn with P3Dv2.


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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I see X Plane is, well, rather bland scenery wise at first install? Also the weather generation?

 

Just like FSX or P3D, yes, it's pretty bland at first.  However, it can be freely upgradable to a level, which in some areas, can surpass anything I've seen in FSX. 

 

Also, there's certain aspects of how scenery is rendered in X-Plane that makes it far more beautiful to fly in rugged, mountainous country with than FSX. I fly GA VFR the majority of the time in my sims, and I've grown to adore XP for bush flying.

 

The weather is a bit of annoying subject for me.  It's quite a bit less mature than FSX/P3D in my opinion, but only when trying to use real world weather.  If you customize it (XP provides a lot of detail for doing so) then it's fine.


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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Welcome David.

 

Your best bet is to try the official demo of the Seattle area:

http://www.x-plane.com/downloads/x-plane_10_demo/

 

P.S. Like FSX, please do not take the quality of the default planes as a measure of the freeware and payware offerings available in the X-Plane world! Most of them are pretty poor to be honest (okay the Baron, the C172 and the C90 are not too bad).

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As others already mentioned, indeed the quality of even so many available freeware add-ons, in all areas, from aircraft to weather, scenery.... makes XP10 a lot less expensive to get into a level in many aspects much superior to what we can get in FSX and P3D presently.


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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I agree. I made the move to X-Plane 10 in January and haven't looked back. It does take patience and time to get comfortable with a new simulator so be prepared to invest plenty of time with X-Plane. Today was the first time this year that I started P3D again. There is plenty of freeware airports and some good cheaper than P3D/FSX scenery. You also get cockpit shadows with OpenGL which are rivaling DX11 (if that's your thing).

Check out the screenshots on http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=23517&page=3923#entry948122 

to get an idea of what's out there.Some of these sceries are converted from X-plane using FSX2Xplane converter program

 

Here's a good idea of whats in development at the moment and it's freeware.....

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/105003633@N02/sets/72157658189979501


Jude Bradley
Beech Baron: Uh, Tower, verify you want me to taxi in front of the 747?
ATC: Yeah, it's OK. He's not hungry.

X-Plane 11 X-Plane 12 and MSFS2020  🙂

System specs: Windows 11  Pro 64-bit, Ubuntu Linux 20.04 i9-9900KF  Gigabyte Z390 RTX-3070-Ti , 32GB RAM  1X 2TB M2 for X-Plane 12,  1x256GB SSD for OS. 1TB drive MSFS2020

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I made to move about 3 or 4 years ago (forgot when exactly).  I still use P3d from time to time. FSX was deleted a while ago .P3d is still a great sim, and I use it occasionally, but I don't have enough time to devote to both, so X-plane gets most of my time and money. 

 

I have to admit, there are a few things from P3d/FSX Id like to see in X-plane, but overall, I'm having a lot more fun with X-plane! 

 

Rob

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Guest JustanotherPilot

I moved to a dedicated Prepar3D about 3 months ago while dabbling in X-Plane 10 every now and again, I think in the natural course of development and LM's achievements and commitment so far, it's only a matter of when, not if, a 64bit version is released. X-Plane is good, but for one who has owned every version of MS/FSim and now P3D it's a hard conversion process, but variety makes it appreciated.

 

steve s

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You can try P3D for 60 days and if you don't like it, get a refund. 


 

BOBSK8             MSFS 2020 ,    ,PMDG 737-600-800PMDG DC6 , A2A Comanche, Fenix A320,    Milviz C 310 ,  FSLTL  

TrackIR   Avliasoft EFB2    FSI Panel ,  ATC  by PF3  , A Pilots LIfe V2 ,  CLX PC , Auto FPS

 

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Any ideas guys? Or should I look at P3d, where I can use all my Orbx scenery, GSX, AI Traffic add ons and most of the aircraft I have for FSX?

 

X-Plane and P3D have different strong points and weaknesses, so neither of the two can be a 100% substitute for the other.

 

Keep in mind that X-Plane AI and ATC are not at the level of P3D (although there is a traffic addon called World Traffic ,and a plugin allowing the use of Radar Contact 4), so it depends on how much importance you place on these two aspects.

 

The most important thing you have to do is to try the demo. It's very important that you take your time to make a judgement, even if your first impression is not what you expected, take some days or weeks to evaluate the demo in a deep manner, so that you can also have the time to add some freeware addons enhancing X-Plane capabilities.


"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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I use FSX and X-Plane. Might try P3D sometime. If it came down to one sim, I'd probably just quit simming. X-Plane doesn't have enough , to drag me completely away from FSX, even though I like mountain flying. It may never be a case, of never looking back for me. In my opinion, those that say that, don't know, or haven't used a lot of what's available.

I also have a system, that runs both sims smoothly, most of the time.

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The only aspect that still disappoints me in XP10 at the moment is minimal, and graphical / weather related.

 

When flying from a cloudy area into one adjacent with less o no clouds reported in the METAR, the clouds pop off all of a sudden, or the way around, reminding me of how weather depiction was affected by "METAR discontinuity" long time ago in MSFS, something that Active Sky sorted out how to overcome, making the experience of flight into and from cloudy areas a very realistic experience in FSX / P3D.  

 

But then, we can't really compare the effects of bad weather scenarios in XP10 vs FSX or P3D. XP10 comes a lot more believable in this area, as well as in the modeling of different types of precipitation and their sometimes very nasty consequences on aircraft and airfields. Even if visually it can be just a bit better than in FSX / P3D, physically it's a lot more plausible.

 

I strongly hope that someone can pick the superb NOAA plugin from where it already is ( very good IMO ), and create a weather injection solution for XP10 at the level of ASN ( I do not use any of the other available weather injectors, so I can't compare, and hence, ASN is my reference :-) )


Main Simulation Rig:

Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, 1 TB & 500 GB M.2 nvme drives, Win11.

Glider pilot since October 1980...

Avid simmer since 1992...

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When flying from a cloudy area into one adjacent with less o no clouds reported in the METAR, the clouds pop off all of a sudden, or the way around

 

This is probably my biggest gripe with XP so far, and it's pretty minor, in the scheme of things.  Around my home, for some reason there's a LOT of difference in the various METAR readings, and there seems to be several that get read, depending on which direction you travel.  The most annoying is even just circling around the biggest airport in my region, CYEG, since two different METARs get read depending on where the airport is in relation to you.  I've had the weather go from overcast, to clear, to overcast, to clear, within the space of three or four minutes.  At that point, I disable the NOAA plugin and just generate some plausible weather in the sim....

 

I too would love an equivalent to ASN!


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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