What about seasons?

No seasons means I am out.

I guess the same can be said about P3D/FSX.  No 64 bit and no PBR, and I'm out.  But that's just me.  I prefer PBR and 64 bit over seasons.

 

That's highly disappointing and somewhat puzzling. They must be at least somewhat aware that their current weather implementation is extremely sub-par for a flight simulator.

 

I'd give up every single change announced in X-Plane 11 for improved weather, honestly.

You really would?  Just think, no more tweakguides.  No more OOM's.  No more 32 bit limitations.  To each his own, I guess.  

 

Anyway, my FSX vs X Plane senses are tingling.  So let's not degrade the thread into a pointless debate.  Avsim is a big place, and you are all free to stick to your preferred platform.

The point is nobody really uses any of these sim platforms right out of the box. A majority of us simmers rely on 3rd party add-ons, and thats where the comparisons come in. I've wasted a lot of money in weather add-ons for X-Plane trying to make it look as good as FSX/P3D and they still do a poor job of depicting the weather. I really want to like and enjoy X-Plane, but no matter how much money I spend or find add-ons that will help improve it, it still is sorely lacking compared to FSX/P3D.

 

I really hope to give X-Plane 11 a shot to see if there's any hope. But I'm no longer keeping my hopes up anymore. I've given it many tries.

Great to see you exercise your freedom of choice, Aaron.  I'm just curious, what weather add ons have you wasted a lot of money on?  I could absolutely be mistaken, but I thought there was 3 weather add ons available.  And REX was 1 of them, but that was years ago.  I only know of Skymaxx and XPGFS.  You make it sound like you bought half a dozen weather add ons.

You really would?  Just think, no more tweakguides.  No more OOM's.  No more 32 bit limitations.  To each his own, I guess.  

 

Anyway, my FSX vs X Plane senses are tingling.  So let's not degrade the thread into a pointless debate.  Avsim is a big place, and you are all free to stick to your preferred platform.

 

I wanted the weather, not the game, as in I'd want a weather on par in X-Plane in exchange for all the announced features.

I wanted the weather, not the game, as in I'd want a weather on par in X-Plane in exchange for all the announced features.

In that case, my humble suggestion is to petition Activesky to get in touch with Laminar and see what can be done.  It wouldn't be the first time Laminar and a 3rd party developer worked together to get a feature or features implemented into X-Plane.  And it won't be the last.

Great to see you exercise your freedom of choice, Aaron.  I'm just curious, what weather add ons have you wasted a lot of money on.  I could absolutely be mistaken, but I thought there was 3 weather add ons available.  And REX was 1 of them, but that was years ago.  I only know of Skymaxx and XPGFS.  You make it sound like you bought half a dozen weather add ons.

 

I've bought SkyMaxxPro v2, and then v3 when it came out, also MaxxXP for color adjustments, Real Weather Connector, and also FSGRW. Although it did help make the world look a bit better but it's still far off from what you can get in FSX/P3D. This alone is a huge deciding factor for me in whether or not I can fly in X-Plane. Weather is a big deal and something that makes or breaks the flight simming experience for me alone.

I've bought SkyMaxxPro v2, and then v3 when it came out, also MaxxXP for color adjustments, Real Weather Connector, and also FSGRW. Although it did help make the world look a bit better but it's still far off from what you can get in FSX/P3D. This alone is a huge deciding factor for me in whether or not I can fly in X-Plane. Weather is a big deal and something that makes or breaks the flight simming experience for me alone.

 

I really don't see how P3D weather looks better than Skymaxx.  But maybe we just see things differently.  

One thing I will add.  I see a lot of people say what you said.  "I really want to like X-Plane, but..."

Following the "but" is 1 single element of X-Plane.  That 1 element, in your case, the weather, is the deal breaker.  You're not really giving X-Plane anywhere near enough of a chance if its just the weather that is the deciding factor in your statement about really wanting to like X-Plane.  If I really want to like something, I'll forgive several drawbacks in favor of the bigger picture.  Again, that's just me.  Maybe wait until X-Plane reaches your standards of quality and you might give it another chance.  Until then, P3D doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Enjoy.

 

X-Plane 11 is leaving FSX and it's forks behind. I would be surprised if we don't get procedural/coded seasons and nicer weather during xp11. The fog is a indication that they didn't forget it. I guess we also get VR and Vulkan support within xp11.

I really don't see how P3D weather looks better than Skymaxx.  But maybe we just see things differently.  

One thing I will add.  I see a lot of people say what you said.  "I really want to like X-Plane, but..."

Following the "but" is 1 single element of X-Plane.  That 1 element, in your case, the weather, is the deal breaker.  You're not really giving X-Plane anywhere near enough of a chance if its just the weather that is the deciding factor in your statement about really wanting to like X-Plane.  If I really want to like something, I'll forgive several drawbacks in favor of the bigger picture.  Again, that's just me.  Maybe wait until X-Plane reaches your standards of quality and you might give it another chance.  Until then, P3D doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Enjoy.

 

 

 

I'm comparing X-Plane with 3rd party weather add-ons to P3D with Active Sky 2016/ASCA. And there's more reasons than just the weather. Weather was one of the major ones. 3rd party aircrafts aren't on par with the ones in FSX/P3D, airports as well. There are very few airports that I can recall that's as good, and a few other big ones, AI and ATC. I bought WorldTraffic, but having to use weds to create your own taxi flows, and all that, is just unecessary when in FSX/P3D, AI just works out of the box. The only thing I really like about X-Plane is the fact that it's 64bit and the night lighting is amazing. But that's not enough to keep me from wanting to use it. Once most of those concerns are addressed, then I'd probably will switch back again.

Well, there are flaws. Weather (by default) is still popping up from nowhere and though RWC fixes this, the weather elements possible within X Plane are rather limited compared to 3rd-party-developers within FSX oder P3D. AI-Traffic works better there, too. 

 

But to be honest, that's it. Those two points. There is no simulator that can compete with the stability of X Plane. I remember several flights within first FS2002, then FS2004/FS9, later FSX and now P3D that were crashing, regularly short before touchdown because of x, y or z happening deep within the code. I had one CTD in X Plane this year. Having performed about 100 flights. I recall X Plane 9 being that stable, too. 

 

Adding to stability, there still are other points: extendability and literally all parts of the program being open to 3rd-party-developers. A decent flight model, 64 bit support, sloped runways, not to forget the superb community. I first had X Plane 10 installed on this machine and afterwards installed P3D. You can find like any airport you want as a well modeled freeware alternative. That is where P3D lacks.

Visually IMO, there is no way to claim X-Plane's weather is better than FSX / P3D weather.

 

As a long time beta tester for HiFiTechInc, and as a meteo man IRL, I know what I'm saying ( I believe ... )....

 

Completely different is the assessment about the effects of weather on aircraft and systems. That's a different story, and both simulation platforms still lack a lot of detail. And of course I know how limited the modelling of icing effects is in XP, in some aspects even inferior to what is available in MSFS - where YES, structural icing has been modelled since early versions post fs4...

 

IMO X-Plane has always done turbulence and effects of variable wind / shear interaction with the flight dynamics model more credibly than MSFS, even considering the overdone ground effects on ground which Ben once tried to explain.  This being said, the way METARs are parsed in XP default weather engine is wrong, something I've been telling Austin for ages, just like the torque bug.... But the NOAA plugin has fixed it brilliantly ! METARs report variability fields referred to 10 min averages, and tower uses 2 min averages. Default XP in the presence of a DDD_​1VDDD_​2 field varies the wind vector madly between DDD₁ and DDD₂​ in just a few seconds.. as well as it overdoes Gusting Wind  fields...

 

In XP the effects of the various types of precipitation are modeled much more realistically than in MSFS with ny add-ons. XP lacks in up / down draft due to convective systems modelling, but in MSFS it isn't modeled to my liking either.

 

There is still, on both sims, not way to divert from ISA atmosphere when it comes to pressure. Temperature and winds can be injceted and interpolated, but not pressure surfaces ( geopotential ).

 

Is there a flight simulator that goes further than either XP or MSFS in these aspect ? There are 3 actually - DCS, IL-2 BoS and Aerowinx PSX. On the first two the modeling is rather limited, not dynamic, but is there, and you do notice the difefrence when flying between cold and warm air, for the same surface QNH. In PSX it goes a lot deeper, to the point of there being actually nothing else I can call for in a PC-based flightsim...

 

So, the main drawback in XP are still the visuals, cloud types variety, some effects like up / down drafts associated with convection and some sorts of turbulence. In FSX the effects of different sorts of precipitation that are nicely modeld in XP, and a better interaction between the weather engine and the flight dynamics engine, which again IMO is much better in XP.

 

Ok, now, regarding the announcement of XP11, it looks rather positive to me. Honestly I always preferred XP's GUI over FSX's one. It was always a LOT simpler and intuitive to use for me, but opinions differ in this area. Having a new GUI doesn't bother me, but I would prefer to see the time spent on it used in other areas...

 

I liked to ear what Austin said about the free-running turbine modeling and the updates coming. I hope we finally have a proper modeling of FF on RPM.  Seeing Manifold Pressure mentioned suggests that the upcoming changes will affect not only the turboprops but also the conventional reciprocating engine models ( ? )

 

There were also some mentions to flight model, but I do not know exactly what is meant. I'd really like to see more calculations of interaction between various aircraft lift & drag generation surfaces and the airstream...

 

If the new visuals come with minimal impact on performance, specially for guys who like me have older rigs  ( i5 2500 3,3GHz ) then it is yet another very positive aspect. Also if the same applies to the "living airports", then even better! In FSX I always move the traffic sliders full left because otherwise I have problems running the more complex aircraft add-ons, and I use just default scenery for ages, with only Madeira Airport.

 

We shouldn't also forget about how much more complete ( for free ) World coverage of airports with up-to-date data is in XP10, compared to FSX and derivates, so it can only get better, I believe.

 

Backwards compatibility and being already 64 bit, as well as continuing to offer OSX and Linux versions is another MUST, specially for me who am seriously considering a move to the OSX side of the dark....

Tony: Was there anything in the presentation that gave you new ideas or renewed optimism for W2XP?

 

For the wrong reasons, yes :wink:. I actually wasn't a fan of the new European autogen (but it does look much better than US ranch houses everywhere), which means that solutions for W2XP are still going to be relevant for XP11. Besides the roads though, nothing really changes in this part, the scenery will remain the same. I am excited to actually see the modifications made to the AGS format to see what's possible.

So, the main drawback in XP are still the visuals, cloud types variety, some effects like up / down drafts associated with convection and some sorts of turbulence. In FSX the effects of different sorts of precipitation that are nicely modeld in XP, and a better interaction between the weather engine and the flight dynamics engine, which again IMO is much better in XP.

 

I am with jcom here, I don't believe the weather to be bad or at least not worse then FSX.

Some things are better (turbulence) some worse.

 

What is worse, is the depiction of the weather (visuals).

 

But then, FSX has it drawbacks too, the FSX representation of clouds (2D bill boards) looks beautifull from farther away, but is ugly up close (rotating 2 bitmaps, flying through clouds completely unrealistic).

 

Flying just below or in the clouds in X-plane, while demanding on hardware, is very well done. 

 

But that is just my 2 cents.

 

 

But that's not enough to keep me from wanting to use it.

 

Everyone looks for something different in a sim. I find P3D really lacking for other reasons. P3D isn't going to change for us, it isn't a sim geared for us casual simmers (I say casual lightly as some people take it very seriously), and who knows what LM will do with the sim. Dovetail Games aren't really yet in the game, and when they do, they will have a lot of catching up to do (as will the addons). All my bets are still with X-Plane, and after having seen the passion and enthusiasm myself yesterday from the Austin and Ben, I really like the direction it's going and even if it doesn't attract the diehard FSXers yet, I think new simmers are going to love it. 

 

Remember also that XP11 is just getting started. Look how much changed during the XP10 run.

Andras: I guess mesh treatment is the same so all the HD meshes will work with 11?

 

Yes, definitely! But I also think about possibly do an update round to the HD / UHD Mesh at some point (nd bring it to v4) . Maybe next year ... We will see. But until then, you should have no problems using the existing HD / UHD Mesh Scenery.