X-Plane 11 - perhaps hold off a bit

[kneighbour 32]

Well I am not a beta expert but typical xplane betas have plenty of bugs. And since you are a experienced xplane user you should know better ! I think you are doing everybody a disservice that wants to participate in the early betas by complaining. If any of the developers read this nonsense they will probably stop offering us access to the early betas. 

 

As far as weather-vaning goes I know it's buggy but just use the opposite rudder to keep on the centerline of the runway. I just set up a 15-20 knot cross-wind and I was able to takeoff on the runway centerline. The weather-vaning is really buggy when you are at a standstill, but if you add a little power and opposite rudder you should be able to manage. I think the weather-vaning has something to do with the friction. If not then you need to take a look at your rudder pedals. And since you are a beta tester you should file a bug !  

We can disagree about the beta. No problems, my opinion is the opposite of yours. Not sure why you are calling my posts 'nonsense' though - bit harsh!

 

If the weather vaning effect was as simple to fix as you suggest (ie just a bit of opposite rudder), then I am sure very few people would mention it at all. The problem is most of the time opposite rudder is simply not enough. I have used opposite rudder AND opposite nosewheel steering, and still could not stay on the taxiway (let alone on the centerline). As others have surmised, I don't think it is simply weather vaning, the effect is simply too great. 

 

And I am not keen on submitting bug reports - that is what I deal with all day long, not keen on doing that in the few hours a day I get off. And from what I have seen so far, the issues I have found do not seem to be unique.

[strider1 575]

We can disagree about the beta. No problems, my opinion is the opposite of yours. Not sure why you are calling my posts 'nonsense' though - bit harsh!

 

If the weather vaning effect was as simple to fix as you suggest (ie just a bit of opposite rudder), then I am sure very few people would mention it at all. The problem is most of the time opposite rudder is simply not enough. I have used opposite rudder AND opposite nosewheel steering, and still could not stay on the taxiway (let alone on the centerline). As others have surmised, I don't think it is simply weather vaning, the effect is simply too great. 

 

And I am not keen on submitting bug reports - that is what I deal with all day long, not keen on doing that in the few hours a day I get off. And from what I have seen so far, the issues I have found do not seem to be unique.

 

I think Ben's blog post was written with you in mine !

 

First, thanks to everyone who has filed bug reports for the first X-Plane 11 public beta. One of the reasons to have a public beta is to get information about bugs that we don’t see “in-house” (e.g. literally in-house since everyone at Laminar Research works at home). We’re still a small company with a limited number of total computers, so feedback from the field is critical to us.

 

It was nonsense because your whole rant was about bugs in a beta.

 

If the weather vaning was that bad then nobody would be using X-plane. And I am not suggesting using opposite rudder is a fix to the weather vaning problem. It's a fix to you taking off on the grass instead of the runway centerline, when the wind 15-20 knots or less.

 

Like I said file a bug ! If one or two people file bug it's not going to get Laminar's attention like it would if 100 people file a bug. It would have been a lot easier to file a bug then rant on this forum about bugs. Just saying....

 

Cheers !! 

[kneighbour 32]

I think Ben's blog post was written with you in mine !

 

It was nonsense because your whole rant was about bugs in a beta.

 

If the weather vaning was that bad then nobody would be using X-plane. And I am not suggesting using opposite rudder is a fix to the weather vaning problem. It's a fix to you taking off on the grass instead of the runway centerline, when the wind 15-20 knots or less.

 

Like I said file a bug ! If one or two people file bug it's not going to get Laminar's attention like it would if 100 people file a bug. It would have been a lot easier to file a bug then rant on this forum about bugs. Just saying....

 

Cheers !! 

Wow...rant...just goes to show how things do not come across on the internet as intended. My apologies if your day was upset by my 'rant' and my 'nonsense'. I don't recall mentioning too many bugs at all (just the USB joystick one, and that seems to be fixed). And I don't appreciate you intimating that I am mistaken with the weather vaning effect. If you have not seen it, then I am happy for you. Many people have as have I. It is not permanent, so the sim is usable most of the time. If it was permanent, then I am sure it would be much easier to find and fix.

 

Anyway, if you think I am speaking nonsense, why not just ignore this thread and move onto something else. This sort of feedback makes for a hostile environment, and I don't think any of that wants that.

[strider1 575]

Wow...rant...just goes to show how things do not come across on the internet as intended. My apologies if your day was upset by my 'rant' and my 'nonsense'. I don't recall mentioning too many bugs at all (just the USB joystick one, and that seems to be fixed). And I don't appreciate you intimating that I am mistaken with the weather vaning effect. If you have not seen it, then I am happy for you. Many people have as have I. It is not permanent, so the sim is usable most of the time. If it was permanent, then I am sure it would be much easier to find and fix.

 

Anyway, if you think I am speaking nonsense, why not just ignore this thread and move onto something else. This sort of feedback makes for a hostile environment, and I don't think any of that wants that.

lol, 

 

It's very rare that I am upset ! Maybe a little annoyed about your rant about the beta itself. Anyhow it's just a flight sim after all !

 

No hard feelings !

[harrry 322]

Tripled?  What caused that to happen?

Identical conditions....no sim changes.  I dowloaded an update.  It made several quick changes to each of the beta aircraft.  My frame rates jumped from a terrible 10 in the cessna to an axceptible 29 in the same airfield same conditions.  Similar results with the 737 which went from round 16 to 35.  Only the default aircraft improved.  My others stayed the same so it looks as if a fix or recompilation has been applied to the default aircraft.

 

 

 

At least strider1 above did not say:"t is just a game."

[SierraHotel 974]

I have been an X-Plane user for years and fully expect to upgrade to XP 11, so I recently bought the full XP11 version. I know it is a beta, but it has so many obvious bugs I really wish I had waited a bit longer.

 

I have a CH Yoke and rudder pedals and an X-55 throttle. All very standard and known to XP11. It took me AGES to calibrate them. The system crashed 99% of the time after I calibrated an axis. Multiple reboots of XP allowed me to at last calibrate the hardware (I think, I am too wary to go back into those screens).

 

After a few hours spent getting it to load and with a few basic commands in the system, I flew the default Cessna around my home scenery. Pretty awful. While the framerates were about normal (30 or so), the screen was jerky and looked little different to XP10. By this time I was sick and tired of all the crashes, so perhaps I was just worn out. But was not impressed. Also had HUGE weather vaning effects - practically could not take off. Actually took off over the grass as could not keep the plane lined up. XP10 had the same problem quite often. Totally unrealistic and I had hoped that they had fixed this.

 

Anyway - I have just seen so many glowing reports of XP11 I thought I would throw in a contrary viewpoint. If you are on the fence, I would wait a bit longer. One thing I did like - you can simply drag a lot of stuff from XP10 across and it will work. All the scenery seems to work just fine. I understand the aircraft do not. The GUI interface is nice (in some ways), but frankly I don't really care. The old menu system worked just fine and the new one is only incrementally better. No big deal. What I would have loved to see is a good fault trapping system (ie no more CTD) or weird fatal errors. That and the framerates issues are really the only 2 things I care about.

 

It is so hard to get a decent experience in XP10 (and now XP11, I guess) that fully most of my flight sessions is spent tweaking and monitoring the framerate. The rest of the time I am just on the edge of my seat waiting for an error to happen. In hindsight, and having done hundreds (if not thousands) of flights, a CTD is not that common at all. But it is always there in the back of your mind. But the framerate issue is there 100% of the time, every flight.

 

Ok, rant over. I know it is a beta and am going to wait for the full release before I try anything again. I am pretty confident that things will settle down, so take my comments in the spirit they were meant.

For someone who does not own X-Plane, surely this has to be the best time to get it owing to the fact that buying the dowload version of XP10 also gets you XP11?

[tonywob 4,768]

No need for anyone to get angry or personal over this. Let's keep the discussion civilized. 

 

 

 

And I am not keen on submitting bug reports - that is what I deal with all day long, not keen on doing that in the few hours a day I get off. And from what I have seen so far, the issues I have found do not seem to be unique.

 

You really need to report them. This is the entire idea of the beta. As already pointed out, the more people who report a bug the more cases and info LR get to fix it (e.g. Varying hardware, settings). I also fix bugs all day as part of my job (and some are incredibly vague), so I have no issues opening bugs for other people  :wink: (It's kind of therapeutic)

[MarioDonick 752]

And I am not keen on submitting bug reports - that is what I deal with all day long, not keen on doing that in the few hours a day I get off.

 

Then do not use a beta version. As a developer you should know that. If you use the beta version, Laminar expects you to submit bugs. They don't release the beta it to say "hey, look, how great our software is". The release it because they need a LOT of external input on bugs and performance, because they can't do that "in house".

 

If you don't want to do that (which is your whole thread about and which I fully understand; after all I am using Prepar3D now in my spare time, to get some time away from X-Plane work), then wait for the final version. Or maybe even 11.10.

[alpha12125 213]

 

But let's no forget that presently for VR Aerofly FS2 beats the competition, and there are new players arriving !

 

 

I love your idealism and enthuiasm, but aerofly fs2 is pretty much dead in the water and will go the way of aerofly fs1. They will fiddle with it for a while, but ultimately ditch it for fs3 because they run out of money.

 

these are the current stats on steam: https://steamdb.info/app/434030/graphs/

they have 20-40 average users  and sold 12k copies. That is simply not enough to sustain a company for a long period of time.

 

Just for comparison x-plane: https://steamdb.info/app/292180/graphs/

just for comparison steam sold 75k copies and that is not even accounting for their main distribution channel over their site. average is 180-280 users.

 

 

now if you look at the big boys: https://steamdb.info/app/314160/graphs/

FSX:Steam sold close to 700k copies and has 2200-3300 users on average. 

 

This is the reality of the market. Any competitor arriving will be dead on arrival as so many before them because this niche is saturated

[jcomm 5,882]

now if you look at the big boys: https://steamdb.info.../314160/graphs/

FSX:Steam sold close to 700k copies and has 2200-3300 users on average.

 

I look at the Big Boys! I actually date one of them :-)

 

https://steamspy.com/app/223750

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

love your idealism and enthuiasm, but aerofly fs2 is pretty much dead in the water and will go the way of aerofly fs1. They will fiddle with it for a while, but ultimately ditch it for fs3 because they run out of money.

 

Interesting statistics, thanks for posting. It's pretty sad, but it seems correct at the moment. With DTG shortly to release a flight simulator and with their large user-base using FSX: SE and their train sims, I think Aerofly FS is going to have to step up their game significantly to even catch up with X-Plane. However, I'm still unconvinced about how open the development will be for DTG's sim.

 

What is interesting is I've never seen so much interest in X-Plane like I have recently (XP10 never generated this amount of interest from what I can remember). It seems many long-time P3D/FSX users are coming over to try it out and sticking around for more than 5 minutes. I think it has a very promising future if this continues and will make the platform ever more attractive for developers.

[alpha12125 213]

I look at the Big Boys! I actually date one of them :-)

 

https://steamspy.com/app/223750

 

indeed dcs: has the niche of combat sim thats why it can survive. while it has1.5 million owners that is largely because it is free. If you look at the active users, it is approx. similar to x-plane and that is why you see some great payware. Also their businessmodel is somewhat different with them releasing payware themselves. But sofar it seems to work for them

Interesting statistics, thanks for posting. It's pretty sad, but it seems correct at the moment. With DTG shortly to release a flight simulator and with their large user-base using FSX: SE and their train sims, I think Aerofly FS is going to have to step up their game significantly to even catch up with X-Plane. However, I'm still unconvinced about how open the development will be for DTG's sim.

 

What is interesting is I've never seen so much interest in X-Plane like I have recently (XP10 never generated this amount of interest from what I can remember). It seems many long-time P3D/FSX users are coming over to try it out and sticking around for more than 5 minutes. I think it has a very promising future if this continues and will make the platform ever more attractive for developers.

 

indeed, it will be interesting to see when xp11 hits steam to compare the stats between the versions, i think the way they are heading is really good.

[jcomm 5,882]

XP11 appeals, and will for sure appeal even more to many users comming from FSX or even P3D, at least until LM announces their 64 bit platform...

 

The visuals are already some of the best, users don't have to spend a little fortune to have the looks it provides, by night but also by day, with the superb freeware scenery areas and detailed airports.

 

Flight Dynamics wise it has always had advantages, unfortunately not really that easy to translate into accurate or even simply plausible performance of simulated aircraft, but with work and dedication, with talent, and, above all, with the attention of LR, it can easily become a strong flight simulation platform in this area too.

 

It needs the major players to start really investing in it, and that's it's first problem IMO - it's too unstable for a major developer whose design / codding / test / release cycle can take years...

 

For me it is great, but it doesn't actually provide me with anything more than what I get for instance from ELITE if I want to play IFR in a GA, or the looks and flight dynamics  of Aerofly FS2 even if just for a restricted area... the systems of DCS and the flight dynamics of DCS and IL-2 "Battle of.."

 

And... fortunately not every simmer is a Lunatic just like me... Lunatic definition: Someone who wants to see the Moon properly portrayed in a flight simulator.... ( more evident for Latin countries where Lua / Luna is the word for Moon :-) ), or even bothers with details like the way turbines are modelled by default, or the ground physics work.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

IMO the flight dynamics discussion really only applies to the default aircraft and possibly "budget level" addons. When comparing the RealAir Turbine Duke to the RWD Royal Turbine for example, they fly about the same in P3d and XP10 respectively (XP11 if one ignores the few minor bugs introduced in the beta). The same can be said when comparing other high quality aircraft such as PMDG and A2A to their XP10 colleagues.

 

The argument in support of XP is totally valid for entry level users, however.

[StubbinMyToe 14]

Well, I have seen it described better elsewhere, but let me try. You are comparing XP10 (or any game) to a movie framerate of 24fps, I suspect, and thus thinking that anything better than that is acceptable. The problem is the movie system is analog. ie each frame is an incremental change from the one before and your eye tracks and records that. ie you might be filming a person walking - it records every small movement in the whole scene. Digital images on a screen are not like that or so I am led to believe. It is a graphics design/hardware issue. Your eye does not track and record each image in the same way as it does images on a movie screen. So you need a much higher digital framerate than 24 to make the motion blur in the same way.

 

That is the gist of it - do a Google search. There are threads on the ORG that goes into this as well and much better than I can.

 

 

That is incorrect, and I have 30 years experience in digital video and non linear video editing systems as a principle software developer to back it up.

 

For example if you ever watched NTSC television, you have been watching 29.97 FPS which is actually drawn at 59.94 Fields per second and then interleaved.

 

Film is 24 fps, but it is frame doubled to add inter field motion.

 

On a PC drawing faster than your montitor frequency gets nothing, and most (not all) of the time your 60Hz monitor is frame doubling and the video rendering is not being delivered at that frequency anyway.

 

This is a simulation, what is important is not the video FPS, but how much power the CPU has to perform all its flight calculations, AI, ATC, Physics, Weather, addons, gages, etc.  before handing off the geometry to the video card for GPU processing.  I have not one but dual $1000 video cards, but it doesn't mean anything if the amout of texels (yes texels) and vertices handed off is not the bottle neck, but culling and all the other processing on the CPU becomes the bottle neck.

 

Way back in 1980s I worked on a ray tracer for the Amiga before being hired by Adobe in  the 90s and working on game engines wtih Intel after that. The CPU quickly became the bottleneck, today's GPU's outperform the CPU.  Another limitation is the BUS, especially in the PC world, that is why major changes happen there.

 

In a simulation, just like in real time video processing and real time rendering, requires a hefty CPU to handle what the GPU cannot do.  Now people are passing Physics and other tasks to the GPU to try and offload some of the CPU requirements for the sim.

 

So yes, 30 fps is fine so long as everything else is working.  People look at FPS and are completely clueless as to what it means.  And no, it does not have to render at the monitor frequency, in fact most times it doesn't, it simply doubles up on the frames just like NTSC used 2 fields of 60 fields per second interleaved and displayed at 30 (29.97) fps.

 

I used to enjoy laughing at 3D gamers who would quote "Look man, I get 250 FPS" when they were using a 60hz or even 120hz monitor.  Clearly they are clueless.