The demo area is impressive indeed. But once you buy XP11, as I did, and give the rest of the world a try the out of the box experience is pretty shocking. Totally empty airports everywhere.

 

After the initial WOW experience (those reflections! those lights at night!) my appreciation for XP took a hard fall. As in 'I will check it again once the beta is done and hope for the best'. Because apart from those reflections and the lighting system it's all very disappointing to me. I won't name everything I don't like because I don't mean to bash XP: it simply isn't the sim I like to see at this current moment. It's all very subjective of course because others already posted they are getting more and more impressed.

Yesterday I went back to P3D for a flight and I immediately bought an extra FTX region LOL because I simply like it a LOT more. Flying in FTX Norway and Northern California made me wonder why the heck I even bothered getting XP... Probably it was just wishful thinking because no matter how nice P3D is, it is FAR from perfect, of course. But I will keep XP installed (since I bought it anyway) and it's nice being able to keep it up to date and see where it is going. You never know where this may end up.  :wink:

 

... and how does P3D look like without ORBX?

With all due respect Jeroen - really - but i think You are comparing apples and oranges here.

I - and i am sure many, many others do so as well - are very much hoping for more and more dedicated 3rd party developers to join XPlane.

It is the good old "chicken or egg - dilemma" i guess, meaning more customers/users, more dedicated 3rd party developers.

Anyways, we'll find out anyway where X Plane 11 will be heading, or as You have mentioned it:

... to see where it is going ...

:smile:

 

Food for thought Jeroen: Tried flying over Norway in P3D without having spent 120$ at ORBX before taking off..? It does not look anything remotely like Norway out of the box. Last time i checked, by looking out my actual window, there was no dessert in Norway  I find the X-Plane "plausible scenery" a lot more plausible than Lockheeds attempt.. makes me wonder: where on (sim)earth do they intend to teach pilots to fly their physical, paid for by tax payers, million dollar destroyers of worlds?  Iraq perhaps? 

 

What X-Plane is lacking, in my mind, are add on airports that are on par with the ones available for purchase on the ESP platform. Granted, there are many great, free (!!) add-ons for X-Plane, but hopefully more payware designers will convert their masterpieces in the future! Ground scenery is easier, now that the brilliant Ortho4XP is pretty stable. Flew from Zurich to Barcelona the other day, over Ortho4XP tiles at zoom level 17, and was blown away! It looks so real! Coupled with OpenStreetMap-data via World2Xplane, it is pretty much identical to the real world.  :wub:

 

I´m really excited for X-Plane 11 - considering what we have seen so far - this will evolve into something brilliant! 

+1

Could not say it any better.

 

 

Food for thought Jeroen: Tried flying over Norway in P3D without having spent 120$ at ORBX before taking off..?

 

 

... and how does P3D look like without ORBX?

 

Yes, very true, I should have mentioned that (as I did in another topic) but let me add that no matter what you add to XP it won't bring it up to P3D/Orbx levels. Imho of course. :wink: XP does indeed need more developers. I will certainly give Norway Pro a try when it has been updated and as I said, I didn't delete XP nor do I plan to do so but for my regular flying hobby I will turn to P3D for the moment being. Maybe it wasn't wise of me to dive into XP with this beta: I probably should have waited until there was at least a more final release, but well... some of those screenshots and movies got the better of me.  :wink:

The 11.00pb1 update (which updated my X-Plane yesterday) seem to have improved performance with regards to reflection rendering... I can run at MAX reflection now, where it was a complete performance killer before... 

 

Fantastic!

 

Do these updates just happen or do you have to apply them? How do you check what update you're running? Thanks!

Yes, very true, I should have mentioned that (as I did in another topic) but let me add that no matter what you add to XP it won't bring it up to P3D/Orbx levels. Imho of course.

 

Wow. You know this after spending a couple of days with a plain vanilla and beta X-Plane? Honestly, I have a bit of a hard time with your massively volatile opinions you are voicing quite extensively here. One day there is nothing better in this world than X-Plane 11 and the next day everything is shocking. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion but a more balanced and fact-based opinion (e.g. saying that X-Plane airports are mostly flat is just wrong) would be more helpful. That is of course my personal opinion.

Do these updates just happen or do you have to apply them? How do you check what update you're running? Thanks!

 

It's stated in the 'splash' screen when opening X-Plane.

Also, you can view it, by selecting [ Settings -> General -> About X-Plane ]

Hmm , guess its about time to find some space to install this demo after being a FSX/P3D customer all these years.

 

Have almost everything worth buing in P3D (95% ORBX/FTX ,PMDG,FLYTAMPA,FSDT Flightbeam etc etc,)

 

Havent even got a clue about scenerys out there for XP11 actually

 

 

Anyone who has experience with SLI in XP11 ? I have 2 x GTX970SC that needs to stretch there bits and bytes.

 

Michael Moe

 

XP doesn't support SLI and probably never will.

Wow. You know this after spending a couple of days with a plain vanilla and beta X-Plane? Honestly, I have a bit of a hard time with your massively volatile opinions you are voicing quite extensively here. One day there is nothing better in this world than X-Plane 11 and the next day everything is shocking. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion but a more balanced and fact-based opinion (e.g. saying that X-Plane airports are mostly flat is just wrong) would be more helpful. That is of course my personal opinion.

 

Yes, only after a couple of days: I'm a clever guy. But seriously, it's a known fact that WOW-experiences aren often followed by less wow-experiences. There are a few things that really blow you away but after a while you start to see other things that aren't blowing that hard and then the enthusiasm gets lower. I understand your problems with my massively volatile opinions but well, I am just posting what I feel about XP and what I experience. Your post is clearly posted out of your liking of XP and that's totally logic and fine. But I didn't come here (as some others do) just to bash XP11 without even giving it a try: I've tried it and this is what I think about it. Sorry it's not what most people here like to hear but well, that's what a forum is (also) for: sharing personal opinions with actual experience with a specific product.

 

BTW Right now I am downloading 3 GB worth of libraries so I can give Norway Pro (the current version) a try. It's not that I shelved XP11, I still WANT to like it. But I can't help I am not too positive about it all. :wink: For now. Maybe Norway Pro will WOW me again. :wink:

Jeroen, did you see my post, and if yes, did you check your scenery_packs.ini ?

I might be wrong, but your remark about airports made me think something is not right.

 

 

 

Uh? there are about 3000 (and growing) airports installed by default. Something might be wrong with your install. I noticed that if you install HD mesh or UHD mesh for some reason the default airports are hidden. Check your scenery_packs.ini inside the Custom Scenery folder. The meshes should be last.

 

IMHO, the demo area is not the most beautiful. Many european cities are really nice with the new autogen. The mountain ranges are generally very well done.

 

Cheers,

Pascal

 

 

Wow. You know this after spending a couple of days with a plain vanilla and beta X-Plane? Honestly, I have a bit of a hard time with your massively volatile opinions you are voicing quite extensively here. One day there is nothing better in this world than X-Plane 11 and the next day everything is shocking.

 

I see Jeroen has already responded, but his reactions are not terribly shocking to me at all. This was nearly my exact sentiments during the production release of X-Plane 10, so I am very much aware of what Jeroen has experienced. He's sharing his gut reactions to what he's seeing, and my gut reactions were similar during the first year or two of XP10...

 

This looks GREAT! So much PROMISE! Hey, what about this feature? and that feature. umm, what about... oh, you can't? there's no 3rd party for that? but... what about...  hmph.

 

I spent a few months with XP10 trying to get on board, picked up a couple of payware airplanes, downloaded some airports, and even designed several dozen airports in WED which eventually ended up in the airport gateway scenery project. In the end, my gut feeling ended up being true - the differences between my preferred platform and XP10 were too great for me to overcome and despite my best efforts, X-Plane 10 just wasn't for me.

 

Each of us has our own different opinions as to what is important in a sim platform, and these items may already be clearly evident in the demo/beta and overall ecosystem.  For some, X-Plane will meet or exceed their criteria quite comfortably. For others, it may not. I was a bitter, frustrated curmudgeon for the first few years of X-Plane 10's life because the features I felt were important were going nowhere.

 

The only way around that for me was to realize that despite my own hopes and wishes and the marketing hype telling me that it is, it was entirely possible that the platform might not be the best one for me. When I realized that and dropped my expectations of X-Plane meeting my personal needs and wants, the emotional reactions really subsided.

 

There's no need trying for force on the shiny new shoes that don't fit if you've got a slightly worn but really comfortable pair sitting right next to 'em.

 

Anyway, the X-Plane 11 beta demo does look like a very nice evolution in the series. That said, it looks like the finished product will still be lacking in certain areas for me, so I'm keeping all my expectations in check this time around... hoping for the best but unlike last time I won't be holding my breath.

 

Carry on!

Jeroen, did you see my post, and if yes, did you check your scenery_packs.ini ?

 

I might be wrong, but your remark about airports made me think something is not right.

Yes, thanks, I saw it, sorry for not responding, but I managed to get an airport running in the meantime. I think the main problem was some library that was missing... or something like that. But it's working now. It looks quote okay too (ENBR from tdg) with Parker planes and all.

 

I just (well, just...) installed Norway Pro and all possible libraries and decided to create a comparison between XP11, P3D and real life. (EDIT The city you see is Bergen, Norway.)  I am using the settings I am using in the sim, so I didn't set things to max for this comparison. It's pretty rough (didn't remove the menu and slew info) but it gives an idea.

 

My main findings are:

 

1. XP11 (with Norway Pro) lacks color and the haze is way too much: things look very grey and bland and the buildings look like simple Lego blocks. It doesn't look real at all compared to the real photo. It looks like a rather basic (and old) computer game.

2. P3D (with FTX Norway) looks like a total mess with those ground textures going absolutely nowhere but from a greater distance it feels more like the real thing, mainly due to the colors and the clutter. It doesn't come close neither, really, but it feels closer somehow... you just shouldn't look too close. Close your eyes a bit and gaze at the three pictures and to me P3D comes closer to the real life picture. (EDIT Maybe I should have maxed out the P3D autogen for this comparison: XP is using the max amount of world detail.) BTW I seriously checked if FTX Norway was installed allright because it looked so bad... look at the textures with houses baked in near the shore... yikes.

 

Take note that I didn't post this just to say P3D is better of XP11 sucks: I am just comparing things. And you can't really say these are apples and oranges because XP has been 'upgraded' with one of the better freeware addons. This is what you can get right now and P3D nor XP11 can't get any better afaik. Unfortunately. :wink: (EDIT: XP probably CAN get better in this example with Ortho4XP groundtextures: forgot about that. I suppose that with Norway Pro that would make a real difference. It's next on my list of things to try.)

 

In short: we still have a few decades to go LOL (and seeing these screenshots almost make me lose hope I will see a real good sim in my lifetime).

 

I think Jeroem's feelings pretty much sum up XP11 attitude that is a GA simulation not YET customized for a liners environment with a plausible weather and terrain depiction at long range, AI and a good ATC. But these features came in the FSX world only after some years since the last version of FSX. Default FSX was poor, I'd say really poor, in term of weather, ATC and AI. Only third part devs could completely change the initial embarassing rendition.

 

Still looking at that ugly textures of PR3D I think it's overrated, just look at those roads overlapping ground textures and I think they don't change that much with Orbx textures.

After getting used to photoreal with a decent realistic overlay I cannot fly anywhere else, the fact that I get this environment in XP10 for free it's not irrelevant to me.

My experience is quite explicative, when I moved to XP10 trwo years ago I was almost only a liner addicted, never flown a liner in XP10 so far.

 

I could go back to fly liners in PR3D but I don't because one aspect that most here have forgotten and not underlined is the more, at least for me, rewarding and immersive flight model of XP11.

 

Of course things have and are changing quite fast in the XP world, IXEG and 757v2 are perfect examples of great liners at PMDG level so I bet it's just a matter of time when we'll have good weather injectors and AI traffic generators with ATC assistance. In the meanwhile I prefer flying low and slow in this amazing photoreal scenery that Saints Oscar Pilot and Tonywob offered us for free.

Still looking at that ugly textures of PR3D I think it's overrated, just look at those roads overlapping ground textures and I think they don't change that much with Orbx textures.

 

LOL This actually IS Orbx already! :wink: Right now I am trying to create my very first tile of Bergen with Ortho4XP, using the default settings. Maybe I will be able to create a new screenhot with that tile included. It's a damn shame you can't download tiles for Norway somewhere (apart from the few in the north).

Ok... probably didn't get the best possile tile here (first try, go easy on me) but I can already see this shows more promise than my XP11 screenshot above. Not so much as the colors go (still flat and bland and too much haze) but how the buildings sit and fit in the ground: it's clearly better. Like the buildings in the harbor and also the houses nearby. This already is an improvement. They look out of place above in that grass but here they fit. I can imagine the houses fitting even a lot better with crispier ground textures. Now where and how do I get those...

 

Yes, thanks, I saw it, sorry for not responding, but I managed to get an airport running in the meantime. I think the main problem was some library that was missing... or something like that. But it's working now. It looks quote okay too (ENBR from tdg) with Parker planes and all.

 

I just (well, just...) installed Norway Pro and all possible libraries and decided to create a comparison between XP11, P3D and real life. (EDIT The city you see is Bergen, Norway.)  I am using the settings I am using in the sim, so I didn't set things to max for this comparison. It's pretty rough (didn't remove the menu and slew info) but it gives an idea.

 

My main findings are:

 

1. XP11 (with Norway Pro) lacks color and the haze is way too much: things look very grey and bland and the buildings look like simple Lego blocks. It doesn't look real at all compared to the real photo. It looks like a rather basic (and old) computer game.

2. P3D (with FTX Norway) looks like a total mess with those ground textures going absolutely nowhere but from a greater distance it feels more like the real thing, mainly due to the colors and the clutter. It doesn't come close neither, really, but it feels closer somehow... you just shouldn't look too close. Close your eyes a bit and gaze at the three pictures and to me P3D comes closer to the real life picture. (EDIT Maybe I should have maxed out the P3D autogen for this comparison: XP is using the max amount of world detail.) BTW I seriously checked if FTX Norway was installed allright because it looked so bad... look at the textures with houses baked in near the shore... yikes.

 

Take note that I didn't post this just to say P3D is better of XP11 sucks: I am just comparing things. And you can't really say these are apples and oranges because XP has been 'upgraded' with one of the better freeware addons. This is what you can get right now and P3D nor XP11 can't get any better afaik. Unfortunately. :wink: (EDIT: XP probably CAN get better in this example with Ortho4XP groundtextures: forgot about that. I suppose that with Norway Pro that would make a real difference. It's next on my list of things to try.)

 

In short: we still have a few decades to go LOL (and seeing these screenshots almost make me lose hope I will see a real good sim in my lifetime).

 

 

 

 

Your comparison is very interesting, but might be slightly biased by a few things. I'll add my opinion on those points:

 

Your "real life" picture has been heavily (and badly) modified. Especially, it's evident that contrast has been stretched, a lot. Look at the fluo green trees. Even in switzerland grass is not that green.

Of course, every photography is an interpretation of reality, and only that.

 

Visibility conditions are not the same. I think that in your X-Plane screenshot, the visibility is not maxed out. Please tell me if I'm wrong. You can see the real visibility by going into the detailed weather screen.

 

As soon as some add-ons like RealTerraHaze adapt to the new version, we will have the blue haze at the horizon again. The fog will look very realistic with it.

 

Pascal

Just when I wanted to do such a comparison shot for Alaska you beat me. How did you manage to get the interchanging pictures uploaded? That's nifty. I also was about to buy FTX Norway at the sale but hesitated when I read that the cities were not well done. Seems that they focused on the landscape. Bergen looks really bad. Also agree that the best of XP is the ability to work with Ortho4XP and OSM data to create your own sceneries. I'll try to compose another comparison if you tell me how to do the overlay  :smile: