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pegruder

New User to X-Plane, some questions!

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So I picked up X-plane awhile back but never really gave it a chance.  Every now and then I see a video of it and think maybe I should give it a go.  Yesterday was one of those times.  For the most part I am a P3D v3 user and am really enjoying the experience, which has come a long way.  However sometimes in P3D it doesn't actually feel like flying.  Weather doesn't appear to affect any of the aircraft much unless it is in an extreme environment.  When I see videos of X-Plane, the movement of the aircraft just seems more realistic so its peaking my interest again.

 

With that said there are a few things I've noticed..Aside from the Seattle area, where is all the scenery?  I set myself to JFK and there is no buildings are anything?  Manhattan also has only like 3 sky scrapers, with the rest looking like towns in the midwest somewhere.  Am I missing some content or is this the way X-Plane is?  I like that in P3D nearly every airport is there, major or not - granted, some of them look quite basic.  At least there are buildings and gates there though.  This allows me to pick up payware for my favorite spots - and run stock everywhere else I don't hit quite as often.  X-plane's website mentions virtually every airport is included but without any kind of buildings is a little odd.  Can someone clarify what X-plane is all about?  Sorry for the rambling & thanks in advance!


Chris DeGroat  

XP11 | MSFS

i9 12900k | 32GB DDR5 RAM | 2TB Samsung EVO SSD (1TB x 2 in RAID 0) | MSI RTX 3090 | Reverb G2 | RealSimGear TBM900 Panel with Yoko+ TQ6+ & TM TPR Pedals

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So I picked up X-plane awhile back but never really gave it a chance.  Every now and then I see a video of it and think maybe I should give it a go.  Yesterday was one of those times.  For the most part I am a P3D v3 user and am really enjoying the experience, which has come a long way.  However sometimes in P3D it doesn't actually feel like flying.  Weather doesn't appear to affect any of the aircraft much unless it is in an extreme environment.  When I see videos of X-Plane, the movement of the aircraft just seems more realistic so its peaking my interest again.

 

With that said there are a few things I've noticed..Aside from the Seattle area, where is all the scenery?  I set myself to JFK and there is no buildings are anything?  Manhattan also has only like 3 sky scrapers, with the rest looking like towns in the midwest somewhere.  Am I missing some content or is this the way X-Plane is?  I like that in P3D nearly every airport is there, major or not - granted, some of them look quite basic.  At least there are buildings and gates there though.  This allows me to pick up payware for my favorite spots - and run stock everywhere else I don't hit quite as often.  X-plane's website mentions virtually every airport is included but without any kind of buildings is a little odd.  Can someone clarify what X-plane is all about?  Sorry for the rambling & thanks in advance!

Are you running the latest version? They added the "Lego" Airports last year with 10.25 i think. Now everybody can create airports and upload them to x-plane. Once they are verified, they will be included into x-plane out of the box. Unverified Airports are available on https://gateway.x-plane.com/

 

But as of 10.45 there should be close to 2500 fully 3D Airports in x-plane that pretty much blow all stock airports from FSX/P3D out of the water. That beeing said, after looking at the gateway, it seems only the 2D layout of KJFK is approved atm, so here you just go for the big freeware community for an airport ;)  http://theosdavis.com/xpfiles/downloads_v10.html

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Are you running the latest version? They added the "Lego" Airports last year with 10.25 i think. Now everybody can create airports and upload them to x-plane. Once they are verified, they will be included into x-plane out of the box. Unverified Airports are available on https://gateway.x-plane.com/

 

But as of 10.45 there should be close to 2500 fully 3D Airports in x-plane that pretty much blow all stock airports from FSX/P3D out of the water. That beeing said, after looking at the gateway, it seems only the 2D layout of KJFK is approved atm, so here you just go for the big freeware community for an airport ;)  http://theosdavis.com/xpfiles/downloads_v10.html

I should be running whatever the latest steam version is.  I'll have to double check but Ill def look in to the freeware list as well.  What do they X-plane folks use for Weather, AI Traffic & ATC Addons?  Is there any comparable 737 NGX that is on par with PMDG?  So many questions!


Chris DeGroat  

XP11 | MSFS

i9 12900k | 32GB DDR5 RAM | 2TB Samsung EVO SSD (1TB x 2 in RAID 0) | MSI RTX 3090 | Reverb G2 | RealSimGear TBM900 Panel with Yoko+ TQ6+ & TM TPR Pedals

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I should be running whatever the latest steam version is.  I'll have to double check but Ill def look in to the freeware list as well.  What do they X-plane folks use for Weather, AI Traffic & ATC Addons?  Is there any comparable 737 NGX that is on par with PMDG?  So many questions!

 

for atc addons there is a plugin for radar contact if you have that. 

 

for AI there is world traffic(a bit hard for normal users and alot of fiddling around.) and x-life(in beta and not that many airports.)

 

for weather you can buy skymax 3 and there is an upcoming weather connector.

 

there is also IXEG 737 coming out soon but its the classic version of the 737. 

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it is important to note that skymax is not weather engine.  If you have FS Global Real Weather for P3D/FSX, you can use this for x-plane now too at no additional cost. This is the atm the only payware weather engine. Other people swear on the free NOAA plugin, while others use the EFASS weather plugin (which i find subpar compared to the rest).

 

As for the 737, there is no NGX on PMDG Quality avialabe. However the IXEG 737 Classic will be out shortly (we all hope ^^) By all that has been presented sofar, this will be on the same level if not surpassing it. While it is no NGX, it has a fully functioning FMS that is imho the most important part.

 

If you like steam guage planes, there is an absolutley great 732 avialable from FlyJsim. This doesnt have an FMS only the option to upgrade it with a CIVA plugin. Fly's absolutely beautiful though :)

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Scenery is a little bit behind but there's enough free add-ons directly from X-Plane.Org to make it a non-issue.

 

I was a FSX fan for years until X-plane 10.25. Since then I've never looked back.

 

Here's a video of a friend of mine (Left seat) shooting an approach into Palm Springs at night

 

XP 10.42

Generic scenery

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA5giik2T5Q

 

Go to the 7 minute mark. Things get interesting....


Ray S.

 

Check out my aviation portfolio:

http://scottshangar.net

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Scenery is a little bit behind but there's enough free add-ons directly from X-Plane.Org to make it a non-issue.

 

I was a FSX fan for years until X-plane 10.25. Since then I've never looked back.

 

Here's a video of a friend of mine (Left seat) shooting an approach into Palm Springs at night

 

XP 10.42

Generic scenery

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA5giik2T5Q

 

Go to the 7 minute mark. Things get interesting....

 

 

holy ######. that looked so real when they were high. x plane night lighting is awesome

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for atc addons there is a plugin for radar contact if you have that. 

 

for AI there is world traffic(a bit hard for normal users and alot of fiddling around.) and x-life(in beta and not that many airports.)

 

for weather you can buy skymax 3 and there is an upcoming weather connector.

 

there is also IXEG 737 coming out soon but its the classic version of the 737. 

 

I dont but not opposed to picking it up.

it is important to note that skymax is not weather engine.  If you have FS Global Real Weather for P3D/FSX, you can use this for x-plane now too at no additional cost. This is the atm the only payware weather engine. Other people swear on the free NOAA plugin, while others use the EFASS weather plugin (which i find subpar compared to the rest).

 

As for the 737, there is no NGX on PMDG Quality avialabe. However the IXEG 737 Classic will be out shortly (we all hope ^^) By all that has been presented sofar, this will be on the same level if not surpassing it. While it is no NGX, it has a fully functioning FMS that is imho the most important part.

 

If you like steam guage planes, there is an absolutley great 732 avialable from FlyJsim. This doesnt have an FMS only the option to upgrade it with a CIVA plugin. Fly's absolutely beautiful though :)

Im in to the newer stuff but maybe Ill check it out.

 

Scenery is a little bit behind but there's enough free add-ons directly from X-Plane.Org to make it a non-issue.

 

I was a FSX fan for years until X-plane 10.25. Since then I've never looked back.

 

Here's a video of a friend of mine (Left seat) shooting an approach into Palm Springs at night

 

XP 10.42

Generic scenery

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA5giik2T5Q

 

Go to the 7 minute mark. Things get interesting....

Ill have to check it out!

 

holy ######. that looked so real when they were high. x plane night lighting is awesome

I havent watched it yet but it is!  I did a very short flight around ksea at night and its purely magical!  I think that's what peaked my interest so much is how well it performs, and how nice it looks!  Street lights are ACTUALLY street lights, not just balls of light like FSX/P3D.


Chris DeGroat  

XP11 | MSFS

i9 12900k | 32GB DDR5 RAM | 2TB Samsung EVO SSD (1TB x 2 in RAID 0) | MSI RTX 3090 | Reverb G2 | RealSimGear TBM900 Panel with Yoko+ TQ6+ & TM TPR Pedals

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Hi and welcome to X-Plane!

 

There are quite a few differences to the big gorilla in the flight-simulation ring. Expect to give X-Plane more than a cursory glance and keep an open mind - different is not always inferior.

 

Here is what Manhattan looks like on my installation. All you see is vanilla, un-pimped X-Plane 10.45. No add-ons of any kind. Certainly more than 3 sky-scrapers. Also note the Manhattan Downtown heliport in the foreground, including custom markings, 3D buildings and parked cars, etc. Is this one in default P3D?

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgt5wu1ckcik627/Manhattan.jpg?dl=0

 

Here is a video of what default airports in X-Plane (can) look like:

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGRsg_6rB1D6R2-gIhw2YugvIpBl8MJAp

 

Cheers, Jan

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Hi and welcome to X-Plane!

 

There are quite a few differences to the big gorilla in the flight-simulation ring. Expect to give X-Plane more than a cursory glance and keep an open mind - different is not always inferior.

 

Here is what Manhattan looks like on my installation. All you see is vanilla, un-pimped X-Plane 10.45. No add-ons of any kind. Certainly more than 3 sky-scrapers. Also note the Manhattan Downtown heliport in the foreground, including custom markings, 3D buildings and parked cars, etc. Is this one in default P3D?

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgt5wu1ckcik627/Manhattan.jpg?dl=0

 

Here is a video of what default airports in X-Plane (can) look like:

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGRsg_6rB1D6R2-gIhw2YugvIpBl8MJAp

 

Cheers, Jan

I may have to check my settings - my manhattan def doesnt look like that.  However I have the great Drzewiecki new york city for P3D which looks incredible. I may consider a purchase for x plane if I start to make x plane my home.  


Chris DeGroat  

XP11 | MSFS

i9 12900k | 32GB DDR5 RAM | 2TB Samsung EVO SSD (1TB x 2 in RAID 0) | MSI RTX 3090 | Reverb G2 | RealSimGear TBM900 Panel with Yoko+ TQ6+ & TM TPR Pedals

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Regarding this „open mind“ thingy … There are often questions from people using FSX/P3D and interested in XP, like: “FSX/P3D has feature 1, feature 2, feature 3, feature 4, etc., addon 1, addon 2, addon 3, … Are there similar things in XP?”
The answer is e.g. yes, yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes. According to that, the logical (?) conclusion is: why should I then switch (or at least try) X-Plane? Very simple: because no one asks the other way round, namely “FSX/P3D has feature 1, feature 2, feature 3, feature 4, etc., addon 1, addon 2, addon 3, … Are there features/addons/… in XP which FSX/P3D have not?” :P

 

And of course there are some (possible by default – no expensive addons required): namely icing on the wings (you can fall out of the sky because of that) *, (much) longer braking distance on icy runways * (might be a bit overdone, though), blackout due to hypoxia, wake turbulence of planes flying in front of you (try e.g. air-to-air refuelling or landing in a C172 close behind a B787), birdstrike, EZdok like camera system by default, damaged flaps if exceeding flaps overspeed, ...

* That’s what I call winter SIMULATION (as it is often hawked around, XP would have no winter – but only due to the, by default, missing winter textures. But there are some as addon).
 


My sceneries (excerpt): LPMA Madeira, LGSR Santorini, the city of Fürth (Germany), ...

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I may have to check my settings - my manhattan def doesnt look like that.  However I have the great Drzewiecki new york city for P3D which looks incredible. I may consider a purchase for x plane if I start to make x plane my home.  

 

Make sure you have the "get latest beta" thing checked, when you update X-plane. Then you should get all the latest autogen updates and airports.

 

Also, Drzewiecki Designs scenery is fantastic for NYC, I have it for P3d too but it runs a lot better in X-plane10. Much higher frame rates.

 

Rob

 

1_zpsreojr0jm.jpg

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Downloading W2XP updates buildings and roads for the whole world, though it may slow down your computer, read instructions very carefully, as some other packages may be required:

 

http://simheaven.com/?page_id=3260

 

Also, you can download hires photosceneries from there, which requires much HDD space and probaly a videocard with much VRAM.

 

Also you can download detailed terrain, from HD to UHD:

http://www.alpilotx.net

 

Note that X-Plane may be more complicated and picky when installing sceneries, read this FAQ at simheaven:

 

http://simheaven.com/?page_id=338

 

And many handcrafted airport sceneries may require additional packages, and if dependecies is not met X-plane will crash, so check this closely and try load up the airport newly installed before flying.

 

 

About my experiences with the weather addons.

Skymaxx Pro replaces the X-Plane weather rendering system and does render very beatiful clouds, but in my case this plugin has caused random crashes sometimes, and also the clouds are only shown locally around your airplane, and several seconds long hiccups when updating new weather data while flying. I got tired of this so I uninstalled this plugin.

 

Ultra Weather XP replaces the X-Plane cloud shaders and textures, also it replaces the textures for water and sky colors. Installer is not great, but the clouds looks great and I am very satisfied with this product, personally I recommend this over Skymaxx at this time.

 

FSGRW, which updates weather data, is great. The only flaw here is it does not support/inject turbulence in air, which turns me off.

 

NOAA weather plugin does a great work as a free weather injector. But the updates of weather is not as smooth as with FSGRW. I would recommed FSGRW over NOAA if you do not care about turbulence. Note I've not tested other weather injectors, and there may be better ones than these two.

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Regarding this „open mind“ thingy … There are often questions from people using FSX/P3D and interested in XP, like: “FSX/P3D has feature 1, feature 2, feature 3, feature 4, etc., addon 1, addon 2, addon 3, … Are there similar things in XP?”

The answer is e.g. yes, yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes. According to that, the logical (?) conclusion is: why should I then switch (or at least try) X-Plane? Very simple: because no one asks the other way round, namely “FSX/P3D has feature 1, feature 2, feature 3, feature 4, etc., addon 1, addon 2, addon 3, … Are there features/addons/… in XP which FSX/P3D have not?” :P

 

And of course there are some (possible by default – no expensive addons required): namely icing on the wings (you can fall out of the sky because of that) *, (much) longer braking distance on icy runways * (might be a bit overdone, though), blackout due to hypoxia, wake turbulence of planes flying in front of you (try e.g. air-to-air refuelling or landing in a C172 close behind a B787), birdstrike, EZdok like camera system by default, damaged flaps if exceeding flaps overspeed, ...

 

* That’s what I call winter SIMULATION (as it is often hawked around, XP would have no winter – but only due to the, by default, missing winter textures. But there are some as addon).

 

Im a little confused ": namely icing on the wings (you can fall out of the sky because of that) *, (much) longer braking distance on icy runways * (might be a bit overdone, though), blackout due to hypoxia, wake turbulence of planes flying in front of you (try e.g. air-to-air refuelling or landing in a C172 close behind a B787), birdstrike, EZdok like camera system by default, damaged flaps if exceeding flaps overspeed," This is in X-plane by default?  I def haven't seen any of this in FSX/P3D so I'm assuming thats what you are referring to, esp the EzDok built in by default.

 

 

Make sure you have the "get latest beta" thing checked, when you update X-plane. Then you should get all the latest autogen updates and airports.

 

Also, Drzewiecki Designs scenery is fantastic for NYC, I have it for P3d too but it runs a lot better in X-plane10. Much higher frame rates.

 

Rob

 

1_zpsreojr0jm.jpg

 

That looks absolutely fantastic....

Downloading W2XP updates buildings and roads for the whole world, though it may slow down your computer, read instructions very carefully, as some other packages may be required:

 

http://simheaven.com/?page_id=3260

 

Also, you can download hires photosceneries from there, which requires much HDD space and probaly a videocard with much VRAM.

 

Also you can download detailed terrain, from HD to UHD:

http://www.alpilotx.net

 

Note that X-Plane may be more complicated and picky when installing sceneries, read this FAQ at simheaven:

 

http://simheaven.com/?page_id=338

 

And many handcrafted airport sceneries may require additional packages, and if dependecies is not met X-plane will crash, so check this closely and try load up the airport newly installed before flying.

 

 

About my experiences with the weather addons.

Skymaxx Pro replaces the X-Plane weather rendering system and does render very beatiful clouds, but in my case this plugin has caused random crashes sometimes, and also the clouds are only shown locally around your airplane, and several seconds long hiccups when updating new weather data while flying. I got tired of this so I uninstalled this plugin.

 

Ultra Weather XP replaces the X-Plane cloud shaders and textures, also it replaces the textures for water and sky colors. Installer is not great, but the clouds looks great and I am very satisfied with this product, personally I recommend this over Skymaxx at this time.

 

FSGRW, which updates weather data, is great. The only flaw here is it does not support/inject turbulence in air, which turns me off.

 

NOAA weather plugin does a great work as a free weather injector. But the updates of weather is not as smooth as with FSGRW. I would recommed FSGRW over NOAA if you do not care about turbulence. Note I've not tested other weather injectors, and there may be better ones than these two.

Ill have to look in to some of these.  Honestly if I can get some good AI and a decent ATC plugin I think i'd be all in for X-Plane.  Both of those add a serious level of immersion for me.  There's certainly plenty of addon aircraft of high quality as well as scenery so thats a non issue.  I wanted to try at least one decent payware aircraft, so I picked up the A320 by Peter Hager.  I was very impressed with how it flew and the systems implemented, just didn't care for the sounds.  Some sounds were distorted and sounded low quality compared to the sounds found in P3D.   Aside from that it flew like a dream.


Chris DeGroat  

XP11 | MSFS

i9 12900k | 32GB DDR5 RAM | 2TB Samsung EVO SSD (1TB x 2 in RAID 0) | MSI RTX 3090 | Reverb G2 | RealSimGear TBM900 Panel with Yoko+ TQ6+ & TM TPR Pedals

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Funny, I recently bought the A320Neo from Jardesign, and I had hard a time choosing which of those to buy. This version have a soundpack made by thirdparty which is really nice. Though the FMC is little awkard, and I cannot compare the other products or the real FMC, i.e. speed is not shown in waypoint list (you have to go in the waypoint menu). Also captains and copilots system is not independent. But otherwise I really like the aircraft.

 

The flaw with X-Plane I guess, it yet does not have aircraft in the quality as FSX, that is what I have heard of, but that will hopefully change when PMDG, IXEG and Parsec will release their specific aircraft (737, DC6, MD80). Also hopefully the free x737 project will be good.:)

 

Currently I really like the Saab 340A made by Leading Edge Simulations.

 

About the ATC, it is worthless. Helicharly:s plugin exist in alpha, but is not fully implemented and may crash. I prefer to fly online on IVAO anyway, so that is no problem for me.

http://124thatc.matacchieri.eu

 

Edit: Change of link

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