Deciding to move from FSX?

[Longranger 148]

T

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 (

According to Philipp there probably won't be any significant changes in the default weather engine in X-Plane 10. But external weather engines and third party tools like Sky MAXX Pro will be able to get the more detailled weather informations, like the weather at the nearest airports.

But the default engine will only have one weather so it is much more difficult to get a direction dependend weather.

[charlie130 196]

Thank you very much guys for your thoughts.

 

Its quite a decision to commit to a single simulation upgrade.

 

I have to upgrade my PC soon and I was attempting to upgrade with a single simulator in mind.

 

However, whilst to install both XP and P3d would be ideal, it would be costly in both time and cash.

 

The appeal of a 64 bit simulator is compelling. Able to use as much VAS in RAM as you have installed is surely the way forward. Few of us still use 32 bit operating systems now. More than a few of us will have heard the Oom warning bell, if you have flown FSX over heavy areas, in a "heavy" (HD) aircraft, then had that "fatal error MS flight simulator needs to close" message! Although P3d appears to have improved the memory use, it remains a 32 bit sim.

 

 

 

I see some XP aircraft have 4096 HD cockpits (thinking of the PC 12 in particular), in a 32 bit sim that would use a sizeable chunk of VAS. In XP, if there is 16 or 32 Gb in your PC then a super HD cockpit can be the norm. As can HD scenery, weather and HD external views.

 

 

I use MCE and RC4, extensively. These have plugins for XP, so I am a happy chap as far as that side of my sim world goes:-)

 

 

I will ponder some more. A fresh start is on the horizon.

 

Many thanks again.

 

best regards

David.

[Murmur 3,941]

According to Philipp there probably won't be any significant changes in the default weather engine in X-Plane 10.

 

I'm fine with that, but I'm hoping that we'll get more weather capabilities (also and especially in terms of plugin hooks, to be used by weather add-ons) for X-Plane 11. I seem to remember that Ben hinted at something like that on his blog, on some old post.

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

I found this little video which brings back my 30+ years of flight simulation on the computer and it brings the SubLogic all the way through FSX.  I found that P3D offered no more than FSX in my book.  MS Flight offered a glimpse of what it could be like, but catered to the gamers - not simulators.  Then, I found X-Plane and though I had tried it from time to time since V7, I never found it to be worthwhile until XPX.  But look at the video and you will see why I appreciate it so much - even with what people now days seem to think are warts!

 

 

John

[Murmur 3,941]

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.  

 

Is it possible that the reason is the NOAA plugin? From my experiments, the native X-Plane weather engine should correctly depict the variable METAR conditions between different weather stations.

 

In other words, if station A reports CAVOK, while the adjoining station B reports overcast, the weather screen should reflect the situation, depicting no clouds over and in the vicinity of A, and overcast clouds over and in the vicinity of B, with no cloud popping if flying from A to B.

[LAdamson 240]

When I upgraded my computer last year, after going a year and a half without flight simming..............my thoughts were to use X-Plane 10 & FSX, right off the bat. Even had a new copy of FSX Gold in the drawer, that was on sale for 10.99. Had it for a year or so. No single sim for me. 

I'm still slow, when it comes to installing addons. I'll usually buy them, when on sale. Then they might sit for months, or even a year or more.  

[jcomm 5,887]

Is it possible that the reason is the NOAA plugin? From my experiments, the native X-Plane weather engine should correctly depict the variable METAR conditions between different weather stations.

 

In other words, if station A reports CAVOK, while the adjoining station B reports overcast, the weather screen should reflect the situation, depicting no clouds over and in the vicinity of A, and overcast clouds over and in the vicinity of B, with no cloud popping if flying from A to B.

 

I honestly don't recall Murmur - will have to check when I get back home in a week ... 

 

One thing I noticed is that the coverage depiction is also dependent on the DSFs, so, now that I am in extended mode, I can see more clouds covering the skies in the distance.

 

SkyMaxx also has an option to extend or shorten the distances of cloud depiction.

[Donald Traill 8]

The OP mentioned improvements to scenery and textures.

 

I highly recommend the freeware HD mesh available for X-plane. And till you have the time to install custom airport scenery, I recomend a file that does 25000 airports to a low level of real life fidelity. Expect about the same level of detail of FSX default airports... It sets itself automatically to low priority so if you have custom scenery for an airport it won't conflict.

 

X-plane is my preferred sim for VFR on Pilotedge. With HD mesh and freeware airport sceneries in many ways (ASN weather excluded) it looks better than FSX in that area. However when Orbx finishes Socal I will probably use FSX for Pilotedge since it supports addon GPS's. Then Socal on FSX just might look better than X-plane.

 

Donald

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

I honestly don't recall Murmur - will have to check when I get back home in a week ... 

 

One thing I noticed is that the coverage depiction is also dependent on the DSFs, so, now that I am in extended mode, I can see more clouds covering the skies in the distance.

 

SkyMaxx also has an option to extend or shorten the distances of cloud depiction.

 

yeah and it EAST FPS!

[Bobsk8 12,492]

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.

 

How can you evaluate it when the demo only gives you 15 minutes?

[Scramjet333 39]

How can you evaluate it when the demo only gives you 15 minutes?

15 minutes at a time. You can save a situation and restart the sim, and you get another 15 minutes.

 

Do note that the demo also continues to run after 15 mins - it simply ignores mouse/joystick input to control the plane. You can set the AI to control the plane while fiddling with settings.

[LAdamson 240]

The sim can also be paused, to set joysticks, preferences, etc. Doesn't count against the 15 min.

[charlie130 196]

Hello chaps.
 
Thanks again for the input.
 
I have been visiting numerous sites searching for mesh and scenery.  To get started.  The HD mesh and w2xp textures will be first.
 
Its rather daunting looking for all the add ons. I have a feeling  X Plane can be built up into a super sim! It is after all 64 bit!  However, it will take time, this sim isn't a Toaster!
 
 
Then I came across this, at 3.29 into the video I almost fell off my chair! :-

https://youtu.be/HXnUEjgKfcU

 

 

Since I prefer to fly with MCE and RC4, (both of which have X Plane plug ins) the DC-6 may well tip the scales! With MCE anyone can script Vox Script flight crew flows and checklists. Since the DC-6 was "flown" by a crew, its a perfect aircraft to simulate!

 

Lets hope its released soon. Doesn't cost the earth. The coders can then use 4096 cockpits and HD externals to their hearts content, with X Plane and exceed the old 4 Gb (32 bit) limit!! :wink: Some will know how much VAS the T7 used in FSX. :Shame On You:

 

 

Regards

 

David


 

[mtaxp 666]

Things that should be improved in x-plane (note that I don't care about atc and ai as I use vatsim [ although didn't fly quite a while , bo time :-( ]:

 

- Ground textures ; we need more kinds of ground textures , in USA it's great with HD MESH series , also in some places at the world.

However in some cases it really fails , espicially in regions in center of europe.

you can easily create photoreals , howver I prefer a solution like ftx global...

 

In that matter , I'm waiting to see what comes out of this:

 

 

 

Currently they are developing LKPR for FSX/P3D and I belive a bit later for Xplane , then I hope they'll start covering european regions with thier addon in the video.

 

 

 

- Weather; in terms of visuals and the smoothnes of the transitions.

We need something like the weather engines avilable for FSX/P3D , those guys: https://www.facebook.com/realwx are working on it and in talks with austin meyer , so I think it's just a matter of time.

As for REX like thing ... we have skymaxxpro and V3 should come soon:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do hope that eventually SMPV3 and fs global real weather (or any weather engine) , will the ideal thing , in terms of visualls & weather depecting (espicially smooth weather changing and not a cloudy weather and then boom... clear skies)

 

 

 

As for airports , it's just a matter of time , some great freeaware and payware developers are working and releasing many great airports recently , and it'll grow bigger with time.

 

And last , airliners... also just a matter of time and no so long , PMDG said they'l release their first Boieng airliner (after their DC-6) in 2016 , IXEG 737CL should be released by the end of the year , and I hope Flight Factor will make the step-up in their 767 (for now it sounds like this is the case)

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

As for REX like thing ... we have skymaxxpro and V3 should come soon:

 

Great shots!  I have yet to see any weather quite that spectacular in my XP flying.  A bit off topic, but I'm curious which aircraft that is in the second shot??