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jfri

What can X-Plane 10 offer if I already have FSX,P3D2

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I already have FSX (FSX-SE) and P3D2. I also use Orbx scenery and have MSE photo scenery and a lot of ad on planes like A2A and the PMDG 737NGX.

In what way could XP enhance my flight simming experience in this case ? My question should not be taken as which sim is best but rather what are the strong points in each sim (with available addons). For example I was unable to find a good Piper Archer III (which I flew in a trial flying lesson) in FSX. Maybe I could find something better in FSX ? Or maybe the scenery in XP could be better where I live (north of Gothenburgh) compared to FSX. So I'm thinking about answers like XP + these addon offers something better than what FSX + its addons can give

 

Since XP is on sale on steam it does not cost more than an addon so the cost for the sim itself is no issue. But  there are other considerations like

 

If I install XP and the 'must have' addons how much harddrive size do I need at least ?

 

Which are these 'must have' products and what do they cost ?

 

I have a haswell I7 4770K (@ 4.5 GHz) with 8 Gb RAM and a GTX970 4 Gb  video card  on a 27" 2560*1440 monitor. Will XP struggle with that ? I have read rumors that for all practical reasons you need 16 Gb RAM in XP with the recommended scenery add on.

 

Is it much work to install the all the most commonly and best addon and setup the sim ?

 

Does XP offer something similar to EZdok in FSX ?

 

Can I use different controllers for different planes and have the sim remember which controller should be used with which plane ?

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1) The best dusk and night lighting you have ever seen in any simulator.

 

2) The best KPDX you will ever find and it's free.

 

3) I love flying in DD's NYC and NYC airports (dusk or night) in the Airforils 172SP.

 

4) The best San Francisco area and it's free + An excellent KLAX & Catalina airport. An excellent KLAS package.

 

5) I have three Brazilian airports that are simply amazing (SBGL, SBRJ, SBSP) that FSX can't match.

 

6) XP 10 planes feel a little bit more realistic.

 

7) Many free airports and utilities.

 

8) Free and donationware scenery such as HDMesh v3 and free utilities that will satisfy your wants.

 

9) Smooth simulation.

 

10) Check out this video:

 


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

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Lots of questions, Ill try my best to answer them as best I can. 

 

I have P3d, FSX and XP10 and they can all be installed on the same PC without and problems, providing you have enough HD space.  As for the size of X-Planes installation size, it can vary depending on how much of the scenery you want to install and what addons you use. If you have X-plane 10 global, you can elect to only install scenery for the area you intend to fly in. If your a GA only flier and only plan on flying in europe, you can install it without installing US scenery etc..  I have everything installed plus a ton of addons including mesh and satellite scenery and my X-plane install is up to 450GB and growing.  However, you can keep it a lot smaller than that. Phot scenery uses the most space. Most scenery files are very small and easy to install and remove since all you have to do is copy them into your custom scenery directory. Most addons including X-plane itself, do not make and changes to your registry, which is something I really like about X-plane.

 

As for the Piper Archer III, I think there is a very good freeware one I had a while back, but I have no idea if its been updated for the current ver of XP. Carenado's Archer 2 is very good, but does not have a GPS. I find the Carenado planes a little better in X-plane than their FSX counterparts, but they are high quality models in both.

 

Must have addons, depend on what your into. I would recommend Carenado products and the LES Saab is fantastic!!! I don't fly much larger than that, but someone else here can chime in here on airliners. Skymaxx (payware) is a great addon to improve clouds.

There are some really good freeware sky colors available on the .org site. Carendo C210 or Bonanza F33 with the REP addon is amazing!

 

There are some addons that are similar to Ezdoc.  X-camera  is similar to EZdoc and Simcoders (headshake) gives nice effects when in Virtual cockpit.

 

 

Your system should run X-plane just fine. keep in mind, there is a long learning curve to get use to the XP UI. Setting up the graphic settings is very different than in FSX. Start off by setting everything to the lowest settings and than work up from there until you get a good balance between what looks good and smooth FPS. XP puts more emphasis on your video card than FSX/P3d, which is more CPU bound. Video ram is your best friend for XP. 4 Gigs or ram or better is recommended, but 2 is do able but more and more aircraft are coming out with very hi res textures and less than 2gb, may not cut it.

 

As for the controller question, I have 3 different joysticks set up, One I use just for helicopters and one for everything else, plus rudder pedals and a throttle controller I use for mixture and props. It works pretty well. It takes I little time to set everything up correctly. I do not think there Is a way to have a separate controller for the same functions based on individual planes, I I read your question correctly.

 

FSX/P3d do an amazing job as a sim and X-plane does as well. They are  all different, but I feel X-planes lighting and scenery mesh to be a lot nicer than FSX especially with Mesh 3 files (freeware).

For me, the thing I like best about X-plane, is the ease at which I can create scenery for my own area. By default FSX, P3d and XP scenery for my hometown airports are horrible. There were not even good freeware or payware to use for any of them. In XP I was able to re-create the small airports I fly to in real life with great detail and it only took me a few hours. I am still working on them all the time, but using WED(x-planes system of building scenery), it is amazingly easy to use once you get the hang of it and its fun too. I am an idiot with this stuff and tried and failed to make scenery in FSX, but with XP it was a breeze. Im still working on this, but below is what I have so far. 

 

Flight models in X-plane are very good, for the most part, but no better or worse than FSX. It all depends on the developer. I have some amazing planes in FSX as far as flight models go and some that are horrible. In X-plane its the same. Some good and some not so good. After a while, I learned who the good developers are for XP and which ones to avoid. Read reviews before purchasing. Some developers really know how to get the most out of a particular platform.

 

Rob

 

8_zpsqsyjzrn0.jpg

 

CirrusSR20_8_zps8asy7heb.png

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Guest JustanotherPilot

Jfri, I too am at your position having been a dedicated fsx/P3d user for 20 years. Here's my thoughts so far. X-Plane 64 bit Cpu management is far superior,some scenery and weather is better, scenery is plentifull and easy to load. The XPlane community is vast and friendly. On the downside, the user interface takes alot of learning, ATC and AI traffic aren't as good, nor are the high end paywhere aircraft. Like Fsx and P3d the stock aircraft are okay but lack any detail.Will I stick with XPlane...yes because it's completely different to what I'm used to. I'll also keep using P3Dv3 because' of the 737NGX the ASA320, ORBX scenery,ASN and REX textures. At the end of the day they're both fun and have different features and are both evolving to our benefit.

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 I have read rumors that for all practical reasons you need 16 Gb RAM in XP with the recommended scenery add on.

Those are not rumors. It simply depends on your settings and the sceneries, that you use. If you use UHD Mesh and extended DSFs and  w2xp sceneries and good settings  it is very likely that your RAM will not be enough in some areas or with some planes.

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You can assign different views directly in x-plane, it's like built in. If you use trackir I recommend X-camera. For weather you have NOAA that is freeware and FS Global Real Weather that's payware. Then you have World2xplane and HD Mesh V3 which are donationware and top of the line. I have recently bought Flight Factors 767-300ER and I must say that Iam impressed, if you are an Airbus type of guy I highly recommend JarDesign and BSS sound pack on top of that. SkyMaxx Pro v3 and then you have  Ultra Weather XP which I don't have but I have heard that it is good. The only thing that I come to think of thats not so good it's the Xsquawkbox and model matching if you enjoy flying online.

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Try before you buy! There's an X-Plane demo which you can download and enjoy - and use to at least get more insight into the X-Plane world. The demo is time limited and restricted to a fairly generous area around Seattle.

 

Here's the demo. Download and enjoy - and you should have plenty of time to decide if it's a good fit for you before the Steam sale expires.

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I love making my own airports. They are easy to make and you can make them as detailed

as you want them, especially with all the new libraries that are coming out.

I have several airports I'm working on now and just work a little on each when I get the chance.

 I would have never dreamed of doing that with FSX. X-plane can be as good and as detailed 

you want it to be.

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Another one whos joining Xplane. The steam sale did it.  Dont think I will ever leave p3d as there is just too much invested in it and I do like it alot. Xplane is quite the different beast from what im seeing initially. Definitly concur with the statements above. Quite a large learning curve to learn the interface. I hate the way you interact in the cockpit.

But the view system is way better.  Night lighting. well wow! Its pretty sweet and fair to say any night flying will be in xplane from now on. Ive downloaded alot of scenery and mesh all free. Its plausible but unless its handcrafted payware, they are generic cities quite often. Theres no specific city character with landmarks.

 

MisterX scenery is amazing!  Hes done a bunch of airports on the west coast and I cant believe they are not payware. Finally PDX gets some attention.

 

One of the reasons I decided to try xplane, is the newly released 767 which we are severely lacking on the p3d fsx side. Havnt got it yet because of the cost. Same with the 757 which looks really well done and advanced. However flightfactor the dev charges for everything and it adds up very quickly. like 10 $ for a few liveries when there is about 5 packs. I was hoping the cargo version would be included in the base package but even that one is an additional charge. Not a whole lot of freeware aircraft that are very good.

 

Weather is really lacking. No where near ASN, but I trust this will be rectified in the future. I know they have skymaxx pro but its textures like REX is not an actual weather engine.

 

Overall, the half price on steam makes well worth the introduction to a brand new simulator. XPX has strengths and weaknesses just like fsx/p3d does.

 

I will definitly be looking at upgrading ram with 64bit. Looks like it can use a whole lot especially with the ultra HD mesh in addition to other sceneries on top of that.


CYVR LSZH 

http://f9ixu0-2.png
 

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Lots and Lots and Lots of Great Quality Freeware Stuff :smile: 


100%75%50%d8a34be0e82d98b5a45ff4336cd0dddc

0D8701AB-1210-4FF8-BD6C-309792740F81.gif

Patrick

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As for the controller question, I have 3 different joysticks set up, One I use just for helicopters and one for everything else, plus rudder pedals and a throttle controller I use for mixture and props. It works pretty well. It takes I little time to set everything up correctly. I do not think there Is a way to have a separate controller for the same functions based on individual planes, I I read your question correctly.

 

In FSX I can have different controllers for each plane with the help of FSUIPC but it I get problem with EZdok. I can't assign one button (i.e one controller) for one specific function at a time. I wondered if there was away around this problem in XP (btw I use Track Ir)


Try before you buy! There's an X-Plane demo which you can download and enjoy - and use to at least get more insight into the X-Plane world. The demo is time limited and restricted to a fairly generous area around Seattle.

 

Here's the demo. Download and enjoy - and you should have plenty of time to decide if it's a good fit for you before the Steam sale expires.

 

I have tried the demo although it was when XP 10 was newly released. One glaring issue I encountered then was that I could fly and see the ground below and then when descending I suddenly found myself inside clouds which were not visible when you were above them. I think I have read that this issue is fixed by now.


 

 


Lots of questions, Ill try my best to answer them as best I can.

 

And still forget some. One thing I don't like with FSX and Carenado is the lack of damage modeling. You can treat the engine anyway and it runs fine.

For example the otherwise excellent Aerosoft BeaverX where you can run it at max power without problem. Does XP 10 offer a more realistic Beaver ?

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And still forget some. One thing I don't like with FSX and Carenado is the lack of damage modeling. You can treat the engine anyway and it runs fine.

 

For example the otherwise excellent Aerosoft BeaverX where you can run it at max power without problem. Does XP 10 offer a more realistic Beaver ?

 

 

Simcoders Reality Expansion Packs (for certain Carenado planes) will have you thinking about engine management when flying. Mishandle the engine parameters and you're in a heap of trouble. Start looking for a place to land. :wink:

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I have 8 GB ram and it's fine

 

I run HD mesh v3 and the UHD in Yosemite .

 

I have the les Saab and Carenado payware with misterx scenery - works fine.


| FAA ZMP |
| PPL ASEL |
| Windows 11 | MSI Z690 Tomahawk | 12700K 4.7GHz | MSI RTX 4080 | 32GB 5600 MHz DDR5 | 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD | 2x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 | EVGA 850W Gold | Corsair 5000X | HP G2 (VR) / LG 27" 1440p |

 

 

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In FSX I can have different controllers for each plane with the help of FSUIPC but it I get problem with EZdok. I can't assign one button (i.e one controller) for one specific function at a time. I wondered if there was away around this problem in XP (btw I use Track Ir)

 

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but the x-assign plugin allows you to setup up to 3 different profiles for each aircraft individually, and switch between them on the fly. In combination with xcamera, this is a powerfull tool, but it can be time consuming to setup.

TrackIR is compatible with x-plane and the x-camera plugin, no issues there.

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