X-Plane needs to really really revamp its trees.  It's bad when an ancient sim like Falcon 4.0 BMS 4.33 has better looking trees than XP.

 

To be fair, although Falcon 4.0 came out 17 years ago, BMS 4.33 only came out a few months ago.  Considering that it provided a near total face-lift, you can't really call the combination ancient.

 

But I do agree, XP trees aren't the best looking.  They do look fine though once actually flying...

 

Edit:  Some of XP's trees aren't that nice, specifically the ones that are simply two intersecting faces.  These annoy me slightly, even from the air, since at the right angle they're nearly invisible. The ones that have a third face parallel to the ground are decent enough.

Agree totally. Trees simply do not blend well with the scenery and ruin the realistic feeling of the rest especially whe you see them close. I posted a question about removing the shadow on tree composed of two quads beu got no answer on the org so I believe there's no solution or nobody cares about that but me. If FSX can have better trees I think they should be available in Xplane as well.

Wow, that last link is amazing.

I enjoy my flying on X-Plane 10. Is it perfect? No, but it does a reasonably good job. I am glad to see the prop torque issue has been fixed. If Austin is going to claim "The world’s most advanced flight simulator" he should make sure he is on top of such issues. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect due diligence.

 

When the Aces design team was shut down at Microsoft, I was disappointed and decided to give X-Plane my support. There has been constant improvements in the product and I expect that will continue. I haven't regretted the change. Positive and constructive criticisms will help in future iterations of X-Plane.

P3D doesn't simulate the look of the real horizon, and distant detail.  In fact, I hate to fly at higher altitudes in P3D because of it.  It's a limitation of the core of FSX that P3D is based upon.  XP however has a horizon and distant detail is LOOKS real.  Goes a long way for immersion.

Now this one made me laugh!!! Until recently that real horizon with distant detail in XP10 was limited to 25 miles in all directions at altitude. It wasn't until 10.40. that that limitation was lifted (Here's the bullet item from the release "Optionally load 4×3 DSFs for less blurry long distance viewing from airliners.") , and while it's now much better then before. From the videos and streams I've seen it looks more like you are in orbit at high altitude then flying in the air. Maybe you were confusing FSX/P3D with XP, as FSX and P3D has always had better atmospherics then XP. Especially if you use REX and ASN!

Not to get into "us versus them" but X-plane needs Active Sky to finish development and a high quality add-on GPS like Flight 1. That being said; those two things and finding groups to do multi with just might get me out of FSX altogether...

 

Donald

 

It also needs someone like Orbx to do real scenery (not talking about airports, but entire regions).  I own XP along with FSX, but, every time I try to fly in the Seattle area where I live, the utterly farcical scenery sends me running back to FSX posthaste.  I think the only way I could enjoy flying XP was if I picked a part of the world I'd never lived in or visited, so I wouldn't have to spend all my time thinking "is this a joke?"  Sorry if that offends the X-Plane devotees here, but it's a real shortcoming of the sim as a whole.

James,

 

there is stuff that improves the default scenery, and the best: It covers whole countries and is free. Look here:

 

http://world2xplane.com/screenshots/

 

Cheers, Jan

Scenery, scenery, scenery... Seems to be a big talking point here.

 

There are two simple reasons why there's such a large difference in scenery between X-Plane 10 and FSX (both stock) :

 

First, there are only two to three scenery artists in Laminar (Ben Supnik, AlPilotX and someone else, not too sure who), while ACES studio, as someone else here put it a while ago, had an entire army of scenery artists.

 

Second - X-Plane's 3rd-party add-on community has been mostly a DIY-then-release-to-public-for-free kind of thing. It has only recently moved into the FSX-esque model of payware and massive scenery upgrades.

 

I agree that X-Plane does look bland, and this is coming from someone who hasn't even touched FSX save for a quick demo (and a prompt uninstall because I had an OOM). The clouds in X-Plane cause an unacceptably large performance impact (45 FPS in clear, cirrus, CAVOK weather and sitting idle at KSFO with MisterX6's scenery, suddenly drops to 15-20 with stratus overcast). They really need to improve their weather system as well. Once again - I haven't seen a decent cumulonimbus yet.

 I think the only way I could enjoy flying XP was if I picked a part of the world I'd never lived in or visited, so I wouldn't have to spend all my time thinking "is this a joke?"  Sorry if that offends the X-Plane devotees here, but it's a real shortcoming of the sim as a whole.

 

This is the exact reason I don't like ORBX in places I know, because it's fake and I know it's fake. I like flying around ORBX in the PNW because I don't know the area at all, but if I try it in places I do know I feel the same way and give up. When I installed ORBX UK and Norway for example, I was instantly disappointed flying over areas I know well. 

 

As Jan posted, for W2XP scenery, the objects you see are really there (but don't look the same). You can fly over your house, your workplace, etc.. For GB, Denmark and Massachussets Pro, every building, forest, road is exactly where it is in real-life. If you combine this with photoscenery (which is very easy to make on XP), you'll have very accurate scenery.

Lots of dislike for X-plane on this thread, but I guess that's what happens when someone posts a thread with a title like this one.

 

I have P3d, FSX and X-plane, all with lots of add-ons.  All have good an bad points, but the only ones I'm having fun with right now is X-plane and occasionally DCS world. The rest I fire up once in a while, but for one reason or another just don't do it for me. I was a long term FSX user and one of the first to jump to P3d when it first came out. I enjoyed P3d much more, but then X-plane 10 slowly pulled me away from it. 

 

I guess im in a minority here, but X-plane just looks more realistic to me. (At least in my area)

 

Rob

This is the exact reason I don't like ORBX in places I know, because it's fake and I know it's fake. I like flying around ORBX in the PNW because I don't know the area at all, but if I try it in places I do know I feel the same way and give up. When I installed ORBX UK and Norway for example, I was instantly disappointed flying over areas I know well. 

 

As Jan posted, for W2XP scenery, the objects you see are really there (but don't look the same). You can fly over your house, your workplace, etc.. For GB, Denmark and Massachussets Pro, every building, forest, road is exactly where it is in real-life. If you combine this with photoscenery (which is very easy to make on W2XP), you'll have very accurate scenery.

Same here, don't like the fake areas, especially roads/highways running thru building in cityscapes and lakes in the middle of corn fields.

 

Two of my favorite areas to fly is France VFR Corsica HD with autogen and FlyTampa Corfu.

 

I like both sims (XP/P3Dv3), but has some special aircraft in P3D that I must have, like a single seat Stearman for one.

 

I'm not a pilot so I don't know the difference how aircraft are suppose to fly.  Doesn't matter to me as long as it seems to be accurate in the simulator. :wink:

Now this one made me laugh!!! Until recently that real horizon with distant detail in XP10 was limited to 25 miles in all directions at altitude. It wasn't until 10.40. that that limitation was lifted (Here's the bullet item from the release "Optionally load 4×3 DSFs for less blurry long distance viewing from airliners.") , and while it's now much better then before. From the videos and streams I've seen it looks more like you are in orbit at high altitude then flying in the air. Maybe you were confusing FSX/P3D with XP, as FSX and P3D has always had better atmospherics then XP. Especially if you use REX and ASN!

 

He was referring to the modeling of atmosphere scattering (enhanced by Real Terra Haze). FSX/P3D does not model atmospheric scattering, and this produced unrealistic visuals towards the horizon (for the land or sea). FSX/P3D is the only flight simulator that does not include atmospheric scattering modeling (even Flight Gear has it).

 

P3D:

 

X-Plane:

 

Real life:

 

Now you can stop laughing.

Scenery is just one of those...............things. As I said last year, it all depends where and whats available.  For example, the mountain flight towards Jackson Hole with the Teton mountain range looks fantastic in X-Plane. But once I cross over the mountains into Idaho, it's Orbx/FSX  that looks much better than X-Plane. Same for parts of Oregon.  I prefer a Mr. X  Alaskan airport over the Orbx version. It's the reverse in other places. 

Great shots Murmur,

 

Especially the last one!

 

Rob

After reading all those posts, everyone is free to use whichever simulator they'd prefer. Where you put your money in is a matter of individual choice.

Edward