For me it is more or less evident that the weather can never look as good as it does in FSX / P3D with ASN, AS16 or other products before LR redefines the way some cloud types are rendered.

 

Apparently X-Enviro's team has found a wise workaround for the limitations imposed by the presently available datarefs for weather definition. It can draw weather up to the visible horizon, and not looking like a square or a donut around our aircraft. I'm not sure if they were also able to kill the fog wall effect, or the Moon being seen across overcast or bellow ground level under some weather conditions involving fog... ?

 

If LR spends some time increasing the scope of it's weather engine, and giving 3pds the tools required to create anything comparable to Active Sky, we have that OK for XP11...

 

Then, we need to reach stability in s far as Austin's present focus of attention goes... His experiments with prop effects and jet / turbofan engines will hopefully converge towards something 3pds can start using in their upcoming models or updates for older releases. The same applies to the turboprop ( free-running ) modelling, which so far still looks broken to me in some aspects, including for instance Fuel Flow simulation in the C90 ( shouldn't vary with RPM adjustments, at constant altitude and throttle )...

 

Then there's the AI. Yes the airports are populated with lot's of static aircraft, but the heavy AI airplanes are the first thing I kill everytime I install again X-plane... for my rig it is just too heavy, and I can't understand because I can play DCS World and IL.2 in a complex combat scenario with tens of AI opponents of all types, in the air and on ground....

 

Then, we all look forward for the procedural snow... It would be great to finally have it working in X-plane, where white / snow covered terrain made my delight as far back as version 3 of the sim....

Regardless, oranges are much better, but I use apples as well. My lunch box is quite big so I can fit them both in and enjoy apples for what they offer, even if they are not as good, and that 'apple a day keeps the doctor away' is total BS BTW. I even use the odd pear despite the lack of support and trouble with long term stability, but I still think they have something to offer.

 

Anyway oranges FTW (they clearly look better too) and anyone who says otherwise is a moron.

 

Wow you are a wealth of information - thank you

I just tried turning it off. Doesn't seem to make much difference. My CPU is quite old (Intel Core2 Duo E7500), but overclocked to 3.5GHz. I guess 4GB of RAM doesn't help either. But seeing how well it handles other games I play, it's surprising that X-plane is so much more demanding on the system.

 

Are you serious? A Core 2 Duo! And you're complaining about bad performance? This is a modern flight sim not something that's been stagnant for a decade. Also it's a beta.

 

Anyway oranges FTW (they clearly look better too) and anyone who says otherwise is a moron.

 

Yes, but "What if" if one cannot run orange on apple?

For me it is more or less evident that the weather can never look as good as it does in FSX / P3D with ASN, AS16 or other products before LR redefines the way some cloud types are rendered.

 

Apparently X-Enviro's team has found a wise workaround for the limitations imposed by the presently available datarefs for weather definition. It can draw weather up to the visible horizon, and not looking like a square or a donut around our aircraft. I'm not sure if they were also able to kill the fog wall effect, or the Moon being seen across overcast or bellow ground level under some weather conditions involving fog... ?

 

If LR spends some time increasing the scope of it's weather engine, and giving 3pds the tools required to create anything comparable to Active Sky, we have that OK for XP11...

 

Then, we need to reach stability in s far as Austin's present focus of attention goes... His experiments with prop effects and jet / turbofan engines will hopefully converge towards something 3pds can start using in their upcoming models or updates for older releases. The same applies to the turboprop ( free-running ) modelling, which so far still looks broken to me in some aspects, including for instance Fuel Flow simulation in the C90 ( shouldn't vary with RPM adjustments, at constant altitude and throttle )...

 

Then there's the AI. Yes the airports are populated with lot's of static aircraft, but the heavy AI airplanes are the first thing I kill everytime I install again X-plane... for my rig it is just too heavy, and I can't understand because I can play DCS World and IL.2 in a complex combat scenario with tens of AI opponents of all types, in the air and on ground....

 

Then, we all look forward for the procedural snow... It would be great to finally have it working in X-plane, where white / snow covered terrain made my delight as far back as version 3 of the sim....

I had that feeling but now I'm sure you are not the best qualified to speak about Xplane.

 

With WT I have the best traffic I could only dream in Prepared: my 2015 package present all realistic european liveries with correct timetables (now a year old of course) with realistic movement on the airports I was able to set routes. Not intuitive as buying a UT2 package but I could not ask more. Some bugs with overlapping approaches but I'm confident it will get better with next version. AI planes follow SID and Stars and offer good animations unlike PR3D AI which looks robotic at times.

 

EnviroX is on par with ASN or OPusFX, it's clear you don't own the plugin because you would not speak that way after seeing some amazing weather depiction. And again it's a package just released.

 

What we need is a good ATC plugin easy to use that could interact with AI, this would be a best seller in XP world but I'm quite sure no ATC package in FSX/PR3 can do that as well. Some plugin can improve the situation, for example think to AI SID&STAR controller but you better have a programming PhD degree to work with, nonetheless no integration with user's plane and AI ones.

 

Again I think you compares default XP with fully stuffed PR3D: it's a non sense, throw some cash, spend some time to set new plugins and then report your experience, I bet you'd have some surprises.

yep, people are comparing vanilla xp11 to a fully loaded very mature p3dv3 with all the addons.  If there was an way to easily post screen shots here id post some, absolutely incredible shots from eddf yesterday, low vis and snowing which xenivro generated with ixeg 737 classic, looked amazing.  Btw, the default eddf that comes with xp11  is payware quality, didnt spend a dime for that scenery and its at least a 30 dollar addon in p3d.  just some fruits of xp....

Yes, but "What if" if one cannot run orange on apple?

I had that feeling but now I'm sure you are not the best qualified to speak about Xplane.

 

With WT I have the best traffic I could only dream in Prepared: my 2015 package present all realistic european liveries with correct timetables (now a year old of course) with realistic movement on the airports I was able to set routes. Not intuitive as buying a UT2 package but I could not ask more. Some bugs with overlapping approaches but I'm confident it will get better with next version. AI planes follow SID and Stars and offer good animations unlike PR3D AI which looks robotic at times.

 

EnviroX is on par with ASN or OPusFX, it's clear you don't own the plugin because you would not speak that way after seeing some amazing weather depiction. And again it's a package just released.

 

What we need is a good ATC plugin easy to use that could interact with AI, this would be a best seller in XP world but I'm quite sure no ATC package in FSX/PR3 can do that as well. Some plugin can improve the situation, for example think to AI SID&STAR controller but you better have a programming PhD degree to work with, nonetheless no integration with user's plane and AI ones.

 

Again I think you compares default XP with fully stuffed PR3D: it's a non sense, throw some cash, spend some time to set new plugins and then report your experience, I bet you'd have some surprises.

It's because X-Plane has always been seen as the "hardcore" simulator aimed at real-world pilots while FSX was (supposedly) for "the rest of us" with more hand-holding and features aimed at novices, and with Microsoft's name and marketing muscle behind it, as well as a more "casual friendly" price point, it naturally sold better.  A larger user base made it more attractive to 3rd party add-on developers, and now we're in a situation where a lot of people have invested over a decade of time and a considerable amount of money in FSX and aren't willing to give it up even if the base software itself is arguably obsolete.  It's a form of vendor lock-in and really has nothing to do with one sim being better than another.  Unfortunately, it's holding back the flight sim market because nobody wants their, in some cases, thousands of dollars worth of add-ons rendered non-functional by a major overhaul to an existing product, or by changing to a new one.

 

Couldn't have said it better. In the "good old days" :wink: (I started around XP 8.50 ten years ago) the percentage of real world pilots in the x-plane.org forum was much higher than nowadays.

They didn't focus on AI, ATC, buildings on airports (which can even be a hindrance as they may bring stuttering) and all the eye candy stuff, as they have all this in real life. Instead they focussed on flying and training of procedures. And XP was (very) good as training tool even back then, although it didn't look nice.

 

 

Then, we all look forward for the procedural snow... It would be great to finally have it working in X-plane, where white / snow covered terrain made my delight as far back as version 3 of the sim....

 

I have to admit that reading about his vision for "procedural snow" sounds very interesting...also sounds like something that has the potential to be very CPU intensive and kill FPS.

I have to admit that reading about his vision for "procedural snow" sounds very interesting...also sounds like something that has the potential to be very CPU intensive and kill FPS.

Not CPU! The idea is shader based on the GPU. At the moment X-Plane is rather tame on the processing power of the GPU. X-Plane 11 will change this in the long run.

Couldn't have said it better. In the "good old days" :wink: (I started around XP 8.50 ten years ago) the percentage of real world pilots in the x-plane.org forum was much higher than nowadays.

They didn't focus on AI, ATC, buildings on airports (which can even be a hindrance as they may bring stuttering) and all the eye candy stuff, as they have all this in real life. Instead they focussed on flying and training of procedures. And XP was (very) good as training tool even back then, although it didn't look nice.

 

I would even go so far as to say that flight simulator enthusiasts like me are not Austin's primary market and that X-Plane makes the majority of its money from industry professionals, flight schools, and other organizations buying the much higher-priced FAA certified "pro" version.

Couldn't have said it better. In the "good old days" :wink: (I started around XP 8.50 ten years ago) the percentage of real world pilots in the x-plane.org forum was much higher than nowadays.

They didn't focus on AI, ATC, buildings on airports (which can even be a hindrance as they may bring stuttering) and all the eye candy stuff, as they have all this in real life. Instead they focussed on flying and training of procedures. And XP was (very) good as training tool even back then, although it didn't look nice.

Way back in the "good old days", more than once, I made comments how X-Planes looked like toilet paper rolls with paper wings. I wasn't impressed, and thought it to be over rated. I did start XP demos around '94 or '95 as it was advertised in my Pilot store catalogs.

 

I didn't really get into MSFS flight dynamics wise until after FS98, where planes actually DID fly as on rails.  Somewhere along the lines of MSFS 2000 or 2002, third parties started getting involved with flight dynamics. At that time, I still preferred Sierra's Pro Pilot over any Microsoft or X-Plane simulation......with the exception of Microsoft's Combat series. That sim had some realistic left drift, that was quite impressive.  I believe it was MSFS 2002, where I was contacted by Microsoft to beta test. They wanted real pilots.  Microsoft had bought the rights for  real world Jeppeson nav data. Now we had a desktop sim with an impressive amount of airports, along with elevation, nav data, and airport layouts. This (MSFS) is far from just a scenery sim, as suggested by some X-Plane devotees.

 

I did two more Microsoft beta tests, for a total of three. Real pilots were always in the testing, as well as most third party designer vendors. It was encouraged.  I never went along with all of the X-Plane.....real pilot hype. It was mostly the marketing approach, that I thought was a bunch of bull, but I certainly don't blame Austin for doing it. He has done very well. In the meantime, I did buy versions 8,9, & 10, in addition to a fair amount of 3rd party addons. I can support Austin for his donations to animal causes, and fighting against bogus law suits.  My point here, is that while it's been suggested that X-Plane is a real pilot sim, while MSFS is just more of a game...........was nothing more than marketing. Not much truth in it, but a whole lot of simmers believed the hype.    BTW----- these days, I like both. 

They didn't focus on AI, ATC, buildings on airports (which can even be a hindrance as they may bring stuttering) and all the eye candy stuff, as they have all this in real lif

 

since my commodore c-64 times a golden thread runs through the years and brought me to the insight, that such things as enough cpu or gpu power do not exist.

 

Tom

 

 

since my commodore c-64 times a golden thread runs through the years and brought me to the insight, that such things as enough cpu or gpu power do not exist.

 

This. Although I think they've catched up for now, when you consider how well XP11 runs on high end hardware (i7700K + 1080).

I never went along with all of the X-Plane.....real pilot hype.

Regardless of what you "went along with", the fact is that Microsoft Flight Simulator was always targeted at the consumer market with features, and a price tag, that would most appeal to novices and gamers, while X-Plane has always been targeted at professional pilots and pilots in training. This is just a fact of each product (there's a reason you've never seen a FAA certified version of Microsoft Flight Simulator). X-Plane 11 is more "newbie friendly" than any previous version, but it still doesn't hold your hand to the extent that the Microsoft Flight Simulator series did.

This is just a fact of each product (there's a reason you've never seen a FAA certified version of Microsoft Flight Simulator).

 

The FAA does not "approve software" it approves hardware in conjuction with software.

Here's an FAA approved trainer running a version of Microsoft flight simulator for you  :smile:

http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/08/4355/

The FAA does not "approve software" it approves hardware in conjuction with software.

Here's an FAA approved trainer running a version of Microsoft flight simulator for you  :smile:

http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/08/4355/

 

Um, that's Prepar3D, not Microsoft Flight Simulator.  It's based on the same code, but it is for all intents and purposes a completely different product targeted at a completely different market (the P3D EULA explicitly prohibits the use of the software for entertainment).  You couldn't load FSX up on that thing and still have a certified simulator because FSX itself is not FAA certified.

 

As far as certification is concerned: "Certification requires not only that the user have [certified software], but also certified hardware (cockpit and flight controls) [...] This is because flight training systems can only be certified as a complete package (a software and hardware combination)."

http://www.x-plane.com/pro/certified/