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General x-plane thought

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12 hours ago, N1G said:

I love X-Plane too, but I just can't stop thinking about the investment in all of the aircraft, scenery and utility addons for FSX and P3D! So now I have to find a way to discuss my new flightsim requirements and investments with my better half!  Oh my, life can be very difficult sometimes.

Same boat here.  But I gave up looking at the cost and investments made for FSX/P3D as the microstutters and blurries just killed it for me.  My biggest investment that I threw away was all the Orbx stuffs.  Performance was just bad with microstutters, especially on steep turns.  I I tried everything tweaks etc. you named it.  I have upgraded my PC twice for the FSX/P3D sim, I am done throwing more hw and not having the sim used it.  I still see the same microstutters on youtube videos of people with much better hw that I have, so the conclusion I draw was just the the old engine is just inefficient at the core.  For the type of casual flying I do XP11 fits the bill.  No OOM, no stutters, no blurries and the env. looks much more realistic as I compare to my view outside the windows of every commercial flights I was on.

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Vu Pham

i7-10700K 5.2 GHz OC, 64 GB RAM, GTX4070Ti, SSD for Sim, SSD for system. MSFS2020

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37 minutes ago, N1G said:

Good point! Right now I am in demo mode and am in fear of roaming out of that area once I buy in, since that area is so very well done. I fear though as you mention the freebies, which I agree are excellent, may slide their way to the payware market depending on the popularity. Although most is free there may be a better than good chance it won't remain free market. Mister6X is a good example. Don't get me wrong, many would gladly pay as his art work is top notch. Looking forward to what is ahead though.

 

This link, will give you a great overview of what is available for airports: http://x-plane.cleverest.eu/ . It may seem overwhelming at first, but you can clearly see where development is concentrated.  I frequently use this map to find new places to fly, based on the development stage of the airports.  Red is the best, followed by orange, and then of course, blue.  Red will give you a very good experience, as the developer has taken the time to detail out the airport.  Orange, otherwise known as default, can vary, depending on the actual age of the airport, and who it's from, since a lot of them are port overs from as early as XP9.  Some independent developers have contributed to the orange as well.  Blue, is a carryover from XP9 and not a lot was done.

people like MisterX6, finally caved, based on the amount of work being done as well as how much donations he was receiving.  While donating is strictly voluntary, i think deep down, he was hoping people could kick him a few bucks and when that wasn't happening, he went payware.  Don't get me wrong, he is well deserving of every penny.  I bought KSLC (my first and only payware airport right now), and it is wonderful.  If he sticks with payware, then I'm still buying, because all of his work, freeware or payware, is worth it.  As for other developers catching on, it's happening, but at the same time, there are mixed reactions to the quality vs. cost, and I haven't seen anything from the bigger names to make me grab my wallet.  Another emerging developer, Omar Masmoor ( http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/104589-announcing-dallasfort-worth-intl-kdfw/ ), has KDFW to offer very soon, and I look forward to this one too, as it is very well detailed.

XP11 is getting it's legs, it just takes a little time.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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4 hours ago, MarioDonick said:

But it will become one soon :D

And has been.  The cost factor and investment on a platform that does not perform really well (for me and my 5 years old i-72700K/GTX980 system anyway).  Plus the hundred if not thousand of bucks spent on add-ons.  My breaking point came after XP11 and the ability to use the second monitor, plus FSGW weather, when I see my flight being smooth and trouble free, it beats all the regret abouts not be able to use my expensive add-ons in P3D to the fullest.


Vu Pham

i7-10700K 5.2 GHz OC, 64 GB RAM, GTX4070Ti, SSD for Sim, SSD for system. MSFS2020

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When I first started going over to x-plane 10 and using Ortho photos for NYC coupled with the default autogen, osm data for roads and 3rd party manhattan sceneries, I knew right there and then I can get a more realistic world than I can with orbx. Not putting them down but they never appealed to me so I never really bought a ton of their stuff. X-plane 11 is more crisp in this regard, my frames into JFK the other day after a flight from Athens was great, no stutters, I felt once again immersed in the world.

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5 hours ago, N1G said:

Good point! Right now I am in demo mode and am in fear of roaming out of that area once I buy in, since that area is so very well done....

Hey N1G - If it is the quality of the scenery outside of KSEA  that bothers you then take a look at this 'quick and dirty' vid of Innsbruck that I just made using the default scenery, Ortho4XP and Reshade (both donationware).

 

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5 hours ago, Jimm said:

This link, will give you a great overview of what is available for airports: http://x-plane.cleverest.eu/ . It may seem overwhelming at first, but you can clearly see where development is concentrated.  I frequently use this map to find new places to fly, based on the development stage of the airports.  Red is the best, followed by orange, and then of course, blue.  Red will give you a very good experience, as the developer has taken the time to detail out the airport.  Orange, otherwise known as default, can vary, depending on the actual age of the airport, and who it's from, since a lot of them are port overs from as early as XP9.  Some independent developers have contributed to the orange as well.  Blue, is a carryover from XP9 and not a lot was done.

Hi Jimm,

I'd like to add that the airports there are only the gateway airports (i.e. airports which are or will be included in X-Plane distribution). There are some others maps around with freeware airports, which cover a lot of the planet too, but beware the libraries dependencies hell ! ;) (check out for example Mario's excellent selection: The tourist)

And, for the gateway, I think you misinterpreted the meaning of colors. Blue are indeed old ones from v9. Orange are airports created since the gateway exists (maybe around v10.25??) and are already present into the current X-Plane version. Red ones are newly created, not yet included. Red and orange say nothing about quality, it's just about the state of the publication process.

To have a good idea of quality and completeness to the latest standard, check the "Airport traffic flow", "Taxi route network", and "3D only" checkboxes in the legend.

Cheers,

Pascal

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Nice video J.L. thank you!, and thanks to Jimm and Pascal for the Airports link and clarification. When I fiddled with v10 it was somewhat of a pain keeping up to date with all the lib's, but maybe someone will find a way to consolidate all of them into 1 huge library!  

Bob

 

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38 minutes ago, N1G said:

Nice video J.L. thank you!, and thanks to Jimm and Pascal for the Airports link and clarification. When I fiddled with v10 it was somewhat of a pain keeping up to date with all the lib's, but maybe someone will find a way to consolidate all of them into 1 huge library!  

Bob

 

Ask, and you shall receive: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/30252-x-plane-library-installer/

One word of warning though, while the installer does take care of a good many libraries, you may have to chase it with a followup to whatever requirements are set by the scenery you download.  Not a big deal regardless, because you essentially only need to do this once, and later on, you can backup the entire XP directory for safe keeping.  Some libraries will have updates, but again, descriptions will dictate, and they're still easy to take care of later on.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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1 hour ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

I'd like to add that the airports there are only the gateway airports (i.e. airports which are or will be included in X-Plane distribution).

This is not entirely true, if we are just talking about stock airports.  I only brought up what I did, because I use the map as just that, a map to reference what I am looking for. What I did this morning, and turned out to be a rather easy process, is find the red ones, for example, then do a google search (ex. "KHEF X-Plane").  More often than not, the first result will be at the Org, to which you can go there and look at the airport's screenshots, read the details, etc.  The airports at the Org may or may not be included in the stock set, so I take nothing for granted and merely search for what I want, download it and fly. :biggrin:

How I usually gauge good airports (taxi routes, details to the buildings, good textures), I then look at views vs. downloads.  If at least 10% of the people have downloaded it, it's worth a shot.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not ragging on the devs for their competence, or skill level, but we all would love to have all airports detailed and complete (see MisterX6, for example), and our tastes are all varied anyhow, so with that said, I discriminate a bit for what I want.  Another good gauge, at the Org download section, you can look at the highest rated, most downloaded, new downloads, etc. and scroll through to take your pick.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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25 minutes ago, Jimm said:

Ask, and you shall receive: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/30252-x-plane-library-installer/

One word of warning though, while the installer does take care of a good many libraries, you may have to chase it with a followup to whatever requirements are set by the scenery you download.  Not a big deal regardless, because you essentially only need to do this once, and later on, you can backup the entire XP directory for safe keeping.  Some libraries will have updates, but again, descriptions will dictate, and they're still easy to take care of later on.

Hey Jimm, I think I will continue to ask LOL Wow. Anywya thanks for that but it appears the link is not working. Maybe it can't be reached right now for some reason

Bob

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2 hours ago, N1G said:

Hey Jimm, I think I will continue to ask LOL Wow. Anywya thanks for that but it appears the link is not working. Maybe it can't be reached right now for some reason

Bob

The link works, but I will say that it's been a heck of a time trying to get in to the Org and getting around.  I have no idea why the site has been so slow lately.

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Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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14 hours ago, Jimm said:

The link works, but I will say that it's been a heck of a time trying to get in to the Org and getting around.  I have no idea why the site has been so slow lately.

Thanks. I will check it off an on this weekend.

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22 hours ago, J.L.Seagull said:

take a look at this 'quick and dirty' vid of Innsbruck that I just made

Wow! that is stunning J.L. A great showcase for XP-11, that is even more revealing at such a low altitude.

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20 hours ago, Jimm said:

This is not entirely true, if we are just talking about stock airports.  I only brought up what I did, because I use the map as just that, a map to reference what I am looking for. What I did this morning, and turned out to be a rather easy process, is find the red ones, for example, then do a google search (ex. "KHEF X-Plane").  More often than not, the first result will be at the Org, to which you can go there and look at the airport's screenshots, read the details, etc.  The airports at the Org may or may not be included in the stock set, so I take nothing for granted and merely search for what I want, download it and fly. :biggrin:

With all due respect, Jimm, I wonder if you completely understood what this map is about.

It is the Gateway Scenery Map. The Gateway is a database, part of the process designed by Laminar to gather user created airports created and validated with World Editor, and include them in the default X-Plane distribution, generally during the next update. The validation process ensures that they only use the default objects library.

But of course, it is also incidentally a worlds airport map with ICAO, and you can use it for any purpose, even find airport for MS flight sim is you want. :happy:

Cheers, Pascal

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5 minutes ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

With all due respect, Jimm, I wonder if you completely understood what this map is about.

Yes.

 

6 minutes ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

It is the Gateway Scenery Map. The Gateway is a database, part of the process designed by Laminar to gather user created airports created and validated with World Editor, and include them in the default X-Plane distribution, generally during the next update. The validation process ensures that they only use the default objects library.

Well, with all due respect to you, I don't need someone to point this out to me.  I've been around XP long enough to know why this map was created.  I also know what it is supposed to be used for, but as I said before, it is a good resource, not only for finding out the status of XP stock airports, but to also use it as a comparison guide to see if this is what a user wants, or to head to the Org, to download something better.

Let's not make this anything more than what it is, a map, a resource, something that can be referred to.

Since you brought up the Gateway, it should also be known that the Gateway should NOT be used to download airports.  That warning does not come from me, but other powers that be.  As for other resources that are valuable to the community, I encourage everyone to check this link out, which keeps the community up to date on latest developments for gateway airports:

https://gateway.x-plane.com/NOTAMs


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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