1) it feels like your flying, not on rails.  This is the biggie, and it's 80% the reason why X-plane is like a breath of fresh air when you pull back on the stick. 

 

He,he  :smile:

 

With the smooth and fluid frame rates from my newest PC , I see & sense no difference between the better aircraft for X-Plane, and the 3rd party planes I own for FSX.   I know we're comparing 3PD here, but I still assume they fly the same as FSX.  

I flew the real stuff for many years, including aerobatics. I've just never gone along with the "rail" notion.  Other than that, X-Pane is a great sim. When I upgraded my system last year, X-Plane was half the reason for doing so. 

Thank you guys once again! Awesome community here. 

I have only started with X-Plane 2 months ago and must say I am really enjoying it.

 

A few words about it:

 

The Mesh is fantastic...get the HD Mesh v3 which is free and you will have a great looking sim.

 

The default textures are about the same quality as FSX, but you can use the World2Xplane free setup and create your own autogen and scenery. This comes with a caveat....this autogen and scenery is very heavy. With my 8G of RAM I kept crashing just north of Frankfurt....I now have 24G of RAM in my machine and I can get through the area but it is still a struggle...but boy does it look marvellous.

 

The Plug_ins are great. I use X-Camera which is like EZDOCK, also X-Assign which works like FSUIPC, you can configure your controls and even create 3 different control profiles per aircraft, and it is free. You will need the free XPUIPC plug in if you are connecting external software like ACARS or dedicated hardware, again it is free.

 

The new XP10.40 release means that FS Global Real Weather, the really impressive weather engine for FSX and P3D will release for X-Plane. This will be the first true dedicated payware weather engine for X-Plane so it is highly anticipated. At the moment I use the free NOAA plug-in and for the first time in a sim I experience true gusting winds, flapping flags and moving windsocks, looks marvellous.

 

For aircraft I dont own the JAR A320 but I did read that a big update was released a week or so ago and there is really good feedback on it.

 

I do have the JAR A330 and we plan to provide a review of it this weekend as part of our increased coverage of the X-Plane world.

 

We have great choices now with FSX, FSXSE, P3D and X-Plane!

I'll join in welcoming you to XP as well;  I'm also a convert, but from FSX.

 

To be fair, I still use both sims, but I do find I spend quite a bit more time in XP.  The ratio being, the last time I cared to check, about 10 to 1.

 

Some of my biggest joys in XP have to do with the way the scenery is presented.  For example, last night I flew a flight on FSEconomy from CYVR to CYLW; I took of at 6 am, and the view as I climbed into the mountains was absolutely beautiful.  Now, I've been a loyal FTX user for a lot of years, and there's no denying that they bring a lot of detail to their full regions.  But hands down, I prefer flying through any rugged country in XP over FSX.  The textures and mesh remain sharp and detailed, even at far distances, and there simply isn't as much uniformity to the forest textures.  Combine that with brilliant atmospheric effects (enabled via third party freeware addon, RealTerraHaze), and there's times when the view out your window looks amazingly lifelike.

 

There are other pros, and cons of course too, but a very nice selection of in-depth aircraft combined with amazingly good freeware scenery has pretty much won me over.

 

Unlike many converts, I have no issues with the UI.  It's small and compact, and allows very quick access to pretty much anything you need.  However, I do think that it might feel more at home with users that have a good familiarity with operating systems other than Windows.

Hello, 

 

After years of using FS9, FSX and now P3D, I would like to try a X-Plane. I would like to ask a few questions, basically about addons. 

 

I will list addons I am using in P3D, and could you please write down if there is good equivalent in X-Plane?  

 

1. Aircrafts: I use mainly 3 addons here: 

• Aerosoft A320 (JAR Design 330 is even better then the 320)
• PMDG 737 (Watch out for the 737 classic  to be released soon     http://www.avsim.com/topic/436428-ixeg/page-23  and watch for this 737 800 freeware the VC to be released soon http://x-plane.benedikt-stratmann.de/ )
• Majestic Dash Q400

I heard that Jar Design A320 is a good option? What about other jet/turboprop airplanes?

 

      2. Sceneries: 

• ORBX FTX Global base, Global Vector, OpenLC (  http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/ and http://world2xplane.com/)
• FS Global Mesh      

Are there any addons silmilar to those I listed above? I don't include airports, cause I will find out on my own (freeware airports are available  here  http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads)

 

      3. Other tools:

• FSUIPC - I guess XPLANE don't need sth like this?  (http://www.tosi-online.de/XPUIPC/XPUIPC.html  you will need this if you wish to connect an add on that uses FSUIPC in FSX example Radar Contact 4 ATC)
• Active Sky Next - is there any alternative?     (This thread discusses how to improve default clouds and lists clouds textures replacement and weather generator plugin/sky textures  http://www.avsim.com/topic/474526-deciding-to-move-from-fsx/page-4
• Rex Tecture Direct&Soft clouds - alternative?
• FSDT GSX (ground traffic) - equivalent   JAR design has a nice Ground traffic tool equivalent to GSX
• PFPX (flight planning tool) - I suppose I can use it for Xplane and Xplane addons aswell, yes? 
• EZDOK - any alternative?  (feature in built)
• PRO ATC (Air Controll) - any alternative for X-Plane? (Radar Contact 4 but does not recognize traffic like in FSX however this requires a plugin connector discussed in the below thread and the developer is working to connect PFE 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/465725-radar-contact-4-atc-and-x-plane-plugin/

• My Traffic 6 (Air Traffic) - as above? you can try the demo of world traffic however this requires some manual input to add ground routes and generate route files

http://www.classicjetsims.com/WorldTraffic/

Airplanes http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showcat=157

Ground routes can be found on the Xplane.org and recently someone created a tool to generate ground routes automatically http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=89075&page=5#entry952830

Route files can be generated using the tool inside World Traffic add on

 

 

 

Additionaly, are there any must have addons for X-Plane I didn't wrote above? (I mean categories)  Since you come from FSX/P3D this tool might add some benefits to you http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=24 and G2XPL is a donationware for generating photoscenery  http://forums.x-plane.org/?showtopic=59170

 

Thank you very much for help I am very excited about X-Plane

 

Arek

Please see comments above added to your post. Thanks.

Recommended youtube channels for tutorials/add ons/reviews

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/MrCobolman

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomaRasmussen

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAi6U-mNuHv4g7aeUhNvx6A

Toufic, thank you very much mate!

I have question about versions of X-Plane. I heard that Laminar is working on Xplane 11. Do we know anything about possible realease date? In few months/more than year? I am asking, cause I don't want to buy X-Plane 10 if there is X-Plane 11 in the nearest future. 

It's going to be sometime before we see X-Plane 11. If I'm guessing, it will be late next year. We've heard very little about it, and like with previous versions, we'd know before hand when a new one is due.

I have question about versions of X-Plane. I heard that Laminar is working on Xplane 11. Do we know anything about possible realease date? In few months/more than year? I am asking, cause I don't want to buy X-Plane 10 if there is X-Plane 11 in the nearest future. 

 

The last major versions have always been released around November. So this means it'll be at least 13 months or so before X-Plane 11, although some thinks it'll be end of 2017 (so 2 years) for X-Plane 11.

I'm more inclined to think it'll be somewhere in 2018, even. We get on average a 0.X0 release once a year (this year is 10.40,.last year was 10.30, the year before that was 10.20 and 2012 was 10.10). X-Plane releases on average go to about 0.65 or 0.70, which makes me think we might make it to 2018 with X-Plane 10. Maybe not, maybe. Only Laminar Research knows.

In my opinion 2018 would be very unlikely. That would make for X-P v10 an enormous 7 year life cycle, more than double a typical life cycle of a flight simulator. They're already working on X-P v11 (developers posts and interviews about procedural seasons etc.) and in my opinion it's unlikely we'll have to wait another 3 years for v11 release.

Hey Guys, 

 

I bought X-Plane yesterday and I am really happy because of that. But what scares me is that I need nearly 75 GB of space to install all default scenery (and it will take ages to download). And question is, can I install for example Europe regions for now, and the others in segments in the future? Or I have to install whole world now in the first installation process?

Yes, you can add or remove regions as you please. I only have Europe and some tiles in the US installed.

 

Also, if you install HD Mesh v3, you don't need to install the same areas from X-Plane, so you can save some disk space.

Thank you Tony once again  

And for instance I am using what I call a "thin install" of XP10, specially because I now use the download version of XP10 and also because my disk is only 250GB.

 

I have the Portugal and Spain tiles only, photo sceneries ZL16 covering Portugal, or HD Mesh V3 tiles covering this area, and alternate between World2XP and Simheaven OSM+autogen scenery depending on what I am using XP for ( I use it to test flight dynamics tweaking on prop aircraft, or with Aerowinx PSX as a visuals generator platform ).

Yes, you can add or remove regions as you please. I only have Europe and some tiles in the US installed.

 

Also, if you install HD Mesh v3, you don't need to install the same areas from X-Plane, so you can save some disk space.

 

Hey, I have installed HD Mesh v3 for northern europe but also installed the free scenery off steam.

 

Should I uninstall the steam version then? Or having both will give me better results?