Currently the platform cannot take this airplane in the level of detail we have created it, without us removing some pieces that our customers feel are pretty critical- and that we feel are critical to the product's success.

 

Robert do you mind elaborating a bit on this if you can?

 

 

Felipe Vicini

Robert do you mind elaborating a bit on this if you can?

 

 

Felipe Vicini

 

yes, please do...

I'm actually quite amazed, versatile FSX and addon-friendly is. It is - after all - a 10 year old platform. That it's capable of supporting and being able to simulate something as complex as the 747v3, (or the Airbus 320X for that matter) to THAT level of detail that PMDG has achieved is simply astonishing.

 

What RSR means, with X-Plane's missing or inability to provide support for these intensive and complex addons, I don't know. I simply haven't gotten any knowledge, with regards of programming for either platform!

X-Plane is an amazing platform - but I have a feeling, that the SDK and support for (very complex) addons, simply isn't that versatile and extensive as the ESP engine is... 

 

Quite frankly, I think we in general, should exercise caution with regards with comments regarding what can and cannot be done in X-Plane. At least, when we don't know the details of what it actually requires to producing complex addons, like those PMDG have completed.

 

 

X-Plane is an amazing platform - but I have a feeling, that the SDK and support for (very complex) addons, simply isn't that versatile and extensive as the ESP engine is... 

 

Not the base SDK which is why every complex add-on uses additional code via plugins. There shouldn't be any limitations that I know of this being the case it's just a matter of how much you're willing to do. Look at what IXEG was able to do but those guys have been developing for XP since the v6 days.

 

 

Felipe Vicini

 

It is - after all - a 10 year old platform. That it's capable of supporting and being able to simulate something as complex as the 747v3, (or the Airbus 320X for that matter) to THAT level of detail that PMDG has achieved is simply astonishing.

 

Not all will share the same opinion. I think most people love the complexity, but to say that FSX/P3D is capable of supporting it is a stretch. We've all heard developers preach about what lengths they had to go through to get around the limits of the simulator. They don't use the systems, the don't use the FDE, they are actually trying their best to disconnect the product from it. And on top of that, how many VAS/OOM threads do we have to read? How much fun is it to watch your VC redraw itself every time you come back from another view because there is not enough room to hold it in memory? How many users spent extra on high end CPU's and overclocked them to get more then 15FPS? I don't think FSX/P3D is supporting anything well at all.

The DC-6 development was designed to build the connection layer that will exist between any PMDG airplane and X-Plane.  We simply need the platform to catch up with what we are able to do under other platforms before we can move something as big and complex as the 747 into X-Plane.

 

Currently the platform cannot take this airplane in the level of detail we have created it, without us removing some pieces that our customers feel are pretty critical- and that we feel are critical to the product's success.

 

That is it in a nutshell.

 

This is huge. But we finally have an answer atleast. I am no developer and don't see the point of pushing Robert here to elaborate on what the exact technical limitations are. We don't know the resource limitations at PMDG and I am sure they tried everything to make it work in XP..

Not all will share the same opinion. I think most people love the complexity, but to say that FSX/P3D is capable of supporting it is a stretch. We've all heard developers preach about what lengths they had to go through to get around the limits of the simulator. They don't use the systems, the don't use the FDE, they are actually trying their best to disconnect the product from it. And on top of that, how many VAS/OOM threads do we have to read? How much fun is it to watch your VC redraw itself every time you come back from another view because there is not enough room to hold it in memory? How many users spent extra on high end CPU's and overclocked them to get more then 15FPS? I don't think FSX/P3D is supporting anything well at all.

 

Not all will share the same opinion. As a FSX user, and wasting many hours tweaking my system and configs, with a medium end system (an I7 not overclocked, running stock at 3.4), i can achieve 30 fps in every PMDG aircraft in the VC, the last time i had an OOM was because a bad scenery development that was solved with a patch (last year or so), with a simulator free of crashes, and free of stutters, too easy to achieve a 12-14h flight without an OOM or crash. I'm very happy with this, because i waste too many time looking for the best tweaks for my system.

 

So if the FSX simmers have problems with oom's, crashes or stutters, that's because they don't spend too much time to know how to avoid that. 

 

Yes, too much workload, that only a few has done it

 

So please, don't tell that FSX/P3D is this or it's that if you don't know how to deal with it, if you don't know how to tweak it, and if you don't know how to achieve 30 stable fps in VC PMDG cockpit without stutters with a medium end system

 

Thank you

 

 

There shouldn't be any limitations that I know of this being the case it's just a matter of how much you're willing to do.

 

I think I accept PMDG's assessment more. I suspect they know what they're doing.

 

 

because i waste too many time looking for the best tweaks for my system

 

Exactly..

 

I think I accept PMDG's assessment more. I suspect they know what they're doing.

 

A bit of a conflict of interest wouldn't you say? They can tell you whatever they want to keep you on the platform that they have all of their products built on. I think a proper assessment requires some backing, or it's just marketing.

A bit of a conflict of interest wouldn't you say? They can tell you whatever they want to keep you on the platform that they have all of their products built on. I think a proper assessment requires some backing, or it's just marketing.

 

 

Unless you're an experienced developer, how can you dispute their assessment of technical issues and what is/isn't possible from a given SDK? Certainly the average simmer can't. In any case, you are suggesting a certain level of impropriety with your statement.

This has been a very interesting discussion and I've really enjoyed hearing everyone's views. I was initially surprised by how much vocal support and enthusiasm there is for X-Plane but then reflecting on that I think it demonstrates how open the flight sim community is to supporting everything that is on offer, whether it is P3D or X-Plane or all the other sims there are / will be.

 

Hopefully the positive sentiment from the forum will nudge PMDG to set out that road map (wink wink and fingers and toes crossed)

Unless you're an experienced developer, how can you dispute their assessment of technical issues and what is/isn't possible from a given SDK?

Especially at a time, when the valid SDK is nearly 5 years old. Even Laminar couldn´t give you an X-Plane 11 SDK, since it won´t be written till X-Plane 11.1 is final!

That´s a problem that most people don´t understand. The plane´s at this time are far from finished. They can experiment with the PBRs and the basic flight behaviour, but there are few things, that they can really do right now. While there are several airliners already updated to X-Plane 11 they are more or less still part of the beta. They all have an FMS by Philipp Muenzel, who is also responsible for the new default FMC. Since this FMC will be the background system for nearly every new FMC in X-Plane he simply had to check, if these functions can support all his previous works.

Exactly..

 

 

A bit of a conflict of interest wouldn't you say? They can tell you whatever they want to keep you on the platform that they have all of their products built on. I think a proper assessment requires some backing, or it's just marketing.

My very same feeling, they proved they can do what they want in XP with DC6. Too many people ready to leave the FSX platform for Xplane not to be seriously taken into consideration from a marketing perspective. And you bet that was the same reason why Orbx quit. When you have all your money flowing from FSX you don't want to kill your main source.  And we know in the end they're business man, they need to sell to continue businness.

Not all will share the same opinion. As a FSX user, and wasting many hours tweaking my system and configs, with a medium end system (an I7 not overclocked, running stock at 3.4), i can achieve 30 fps in every PMDG aircraft in the VC, the last time i had an OOM was because a bad scenery development that was solved with a patch (last year or so), with a simulator free of crashes, and free of stutters, too easy to achieve a 12-14h flight without an OOM or crash. I'm very happy with this, because i waste too many time looking for the best tweaks for my system.

 

So if the FSX simmers have problems with oom's, crashes or stutters, that's because they don't spend too much time to know how to avoid that. 

 

You just stated one of the biggest issues that we continue to do (basically living in the past) with FSX that you should NOT have to do with a modern FS platform.  No spending hours having to tweak X-Plane so you can get a stable FS experience.  And no OOM's unless you physically only have 4Gigs of RAM which, now a days, most have 16-32GB's.

 

Not going to going to comment on P3D as I don't use it and never will.  It's meant for "commercial" use and I have no intentions on paying the high prices for something that I will never use at that level.

I think I accept PMDG's assessment more. I suspect they know what they're doing.

 

 

Sure which is why why I asked RSR to elaborate a bit more. He hasn't responded and probably won't so until PMDG can give us some specifics I'll go based on evidence which are the current products available for XP. Based on that alone, there doesn't seem to be any limitations on what can be done that PMDG already does on ESP. Now if the limitation is on the development side then that's another matter entirely.

 

 

Felipe Vicini