2 minutes ago, alpha12125 said:

well if you know something about the way the scenery is done in x-plane, there is no way to use the current orbx way of doing things in x-plane. pretty much w2xpl is state of the art in that regard. 

the biggest issue of w2xpl is that the models are not optimzed and from different sources and that there is no uniform single source. So the way orbx would release it imho is photoscenery with w2xpl placed objects and improved models. So while it is of course not illegal, it does have a funny taste.  its borrowing a car, rebuilding it completely putting another colour and batch on and sell it. 

Of course they could only use it as analyzing the competitor and everything else is just coincidence ;)

I have to admit I don't know anything about W2XPL and the way it works. But in the FSX/P3D world it is quite common that freeware tools are used even for payware sceneries. Arno from FSDeveloper made a lot of great tools (for example scenproc) that make it a lot easier to develop for FSX/P3D. And professionals use them as well. Of course I hope they donate big time ;)

SODE is another example. Freeware but in the meantime most payware sceneries depend on it.

24 minutes ago, Treetops45 said:

No doubt the Orbx skirmish into XP11 will generate some interest in XP.

Could  folk who are running both P3D v4 & XP11 give their thoughts as to which ITHO, is better as regards - scenery visual realism, weather, aircraft FDE & visual appearance. Perhaps overall?

& any other aspects of Sims that they look for?

Thanks

T45

 

My two cents: Performance wise I think X-plane is a clear winner, also you won't get blurry textures on the ground as you'd in FSX/P3D. Visually for me X-plane is more pleasing, however you might want to use Reshade, as the base colors are quite muted. There is global lighting on everything, including every headlight from every car on the road, at night X-plane is truly spectacular. Weather modelling is better in P3D (especially with Active Sky), flight modelling is better in X-plane, hands-down. Base scenery is not as good in X-plane, however you can download free orthophotos for most parts of the world with Ortho4XP, if you are into that (although summer only, however with orthophos, X-plane's scenery looks way better than P3D in my opinion). There are some great quality payware aircrafts, not as many as in P3D, but at the most popular aircraft are well represented addonwise. Being a payware scenery developer I won't comment on scenery matters, I leave that to others.

Thanks 986.

Helpful insights.

T45

Orthophotos take up too much space (for me) unless you can get color correction and accurately placed accurate looking autogen.  Ive always thought that Orbx did a good job (sometimes great but not always) in making photoreal look good in a sim.

I'd love to have their work in XP11 whether it be a large photoreal region or whatever they come up with.  XP looks better to me and the night lighting cannot be beat but my day flying ground textures could use help.

 

13 hours ago, ca_metal said:

Yeah, I'm with you, no matter what Mr. Venema said, It's not possible this second shot was took on P3D. And is really noticiable the difference between the two pictures you posted.

Absolutely agree-  he just made a mistake in announcing it was P3D v4.  

Anyway...ORBX scenery will be amazing with XPL11 !Finally in the right place! and all that
undoubtedly.

11 hours ago, tonywob said:

JV has responded about this, it was a mess up and they have been using W2XP for various reasons. The interesting thing to come out of all of this is that they are still developing for X-Plane.

It will be fascinating to see how they get around the open file structure for scenery in XP.

As we've all discussed before, it's possible to use DRM for aircraft models in XP due to the way plugins load before the plane does, so that's a break point for authorization. But scenery doesn't load that way. It's an open, unprotected file system... which is why it's so easy to back up, restore, and move XP scenery installations between computers. 

The initial unpacking of a scenery purchase might have an authorization front end, but it's open once it hits the file system. I can't see Orbx selling scenery on this basis, but maybe they've figured something out.

Would be wise for LR to introduce some sort of DRM also for scenery, this makes return on investment more profitable although we know there's not a definitive cure for piracy.

 

3 hours ago, Desaix said:

Would be wise for LR to introduce some sort of DRM also for scenery, this makes return on investment more profitable although we know there's not a definitive cure for piracy.

I hope that doesn't happen. The fact that XP isn't flooded with DRM'd scenery is likely the reason why we have so many great scenery options. We can have DIY orthophotos, or a wealth of free user-developed airports through the Gateway, or downloaded separately at the .org. And we still have some great payware airports that basically operate on the honor system. Why change that? 

I know I might feel differently if I was a commercial scenery developer, but as an end-user, I like investing my hobby funds in hardware to run the sim, and a small hanger of payware planes, and not having to throw hundreds of dollars at a scenery library too.

There is one other angle on this, and that's the fact that XP is a constantly moving target. It's hard enough on the aircraft designers (just ask Carenado), but not having a fixed DRM format for scenery means Laminar is free to update their scenery engine at any time, without having to deal with a huge commercial market holding it back.

For example, one thing we all want is seasons and better weather. Austin has talked about wanting to do procedural weather, instead of just a basic text overlay. That will have a major impact on scenery going forward, and I think it's more likely to happen if there isn't a huge installed base of DRM'd commercial scenery to deal with.

14 hours ago, Treetops45 said:

No doubt the Orbx skirmish into XP11 will generate some interest in XP.

Could  folk who are running both P3D v4 & XP11 give their thoughts as to which ITHO, is better as regards - scenery visual realism, weather, aircraft FDE & visual appearance. Perhaps overall?

 

 

I will admit that P3D v4 has got me back into P3D.  Quit it because of the OOM's.  I still love the abundance of payware (and some freeware) that P3D provides, and the lush Orbx regions and airports, and up until recently the GTN 750 - but now RXP has it in XP11 and some addon devs are starting to add it to their aircraft.  I also love seasons in P3D.  I LOVE ortho in XP11 but it's mostly summer/spring textures and sometimes the shadows look funny.  I can't say for certain which is better.  I prefer taking screenshots in XP11 and in general they come out better than P3D (and I take A LOT of shots), but overall it's tough to say if there's a clear winner.  Flight modelling can be neck and neck if you've got the right addon.  Sounds - same...I enjoy both (cliche diplomatic answer lol)

23 hours ago, Treetops45 said:

No doubt the Orbx skirmish into XP11 will generate some interest in XP.

Could  folk who are running both P3D v4 & XP11 give their thoughts as to which ITHO, is better as regards - scenery visual realism, weather, aircraft FDE & visual appearance. Perhaps overall?

& any other aspects of Sims that they look for?

Thanks

T45

Without turning this into a P3D vs XP 11 thread an running the risk of getting scolded, right now P3D v4 is for me the sim of choice. Maybe if you have a GTX 1080 you will see better fps than I do.

Aside from poor performance, ugly clouds, terrible weather depiction (unless you want to spend 70 dollars on a weather addon) poor airplane ground friction, horrible sounds, no seasons, ATC not good, poor implementation of AI, and planes that don't feel or fly right, are my reasons for choosing P3D v4.

There's is one thing that you will never see in P3D.

4 me this keeps XP 11 in my SSD. I want to see XP 11 succeed and I hope it continues to evolve.

 

Just now, DJJose said:

 I want to see XP 11 succeed and I hope it continues to evolve.

 

That's not exactly what you said in the other forum.

20 minutes ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

That's not exactly what you said in the other forum.

You mean that it has no future for me?

I bought a license to use it. I still want to see it succeed.

Plus there are many more simmers that love XP 11 than don't or can't enjoy it.

I will never understand why some people are ready to toss hundreds of dollars bringing PR3D to a good level but pretend that XPlane MUST offer everything and better at 60$. That's a mistery, I justify that thinking that they must have already paid a huge amount of money on PR3D and don't have anymore to buy a weather or ATC plugin like XEnviro and P2ATC.

Lucky for me I had some to spend on those hence XP11 is my sim of choice ;) I have nice weather, professional ATC and plenty of AI...

10 minutes ago, Desaix said:

I will never understand why some people are ready to toss hundreds of dollars bringing PR3D to a good level but pretend that XPlane MUST offer everything and better at 60$. That's a mistery, I justify that thinking that they must have already paid a huge amount of money on PR3D and don't have anymore to buy a weather or ATC plugin like XEnviro and P2ATC.

Lucky for me I had some to spend on those hence XP11 is my sim of choice ;) I have nice weather, professional ATC and plenty of AI...

Mystery?

It's not just add-ons, but hardware. A new video card can cost $500-$700.

When I tried the xp 11 demo, performance was acceptable. After I bought the full version and added a few of my favorite add-ons, performance  with my gtx 970 became unacceptable.