X-Plane 11 Add-ons (P3D v4 Equivalent)

[AlRayes_BRN 3]

Hey pilots!

I currently own P3D v4 with a lot of add-ons and thinking of setting up X-Plane 11 as well and use both, I searched online about the different add-ons for X-Plane 11 and I saw that a lot of people are divided for some of the add-ons. (looking for P3D v4 equivalent add-ons for X-Plane 11)

Below are all the add-ons  I currently own on P3D v4 and I’d appreciate it if you can copy & paste the list and mention the P3D v4 equivalent add-on for X-Plane 11. (Payware is not an issue, what matters to me is the quality and realism )

Scenery:

- Orbx FTX Global Base Pack
- Orbx FTX Global Vector
- Orbx FTX OpenLC
- Orbx sceneries by country (England, Germany North, Etc..)
- FS Global Ultimate

Textures:

- ENVTEX

Weather:

- ASP4
- ASCA
- PercipitFX

Airports:

I know who develops the best airports for P3D v4 but I have no idea who are the major devs for X-Plane 11 airports

Aircrafts:

- FSLabs A320x – JARDesigns A320 (Also waiting for FF A320)

Utilities:

- Chase Plane
- PTA
- GSX
- PFPX
- Fsaerodata (to update P3D v4 Nav database)

Many thanks in advance guys!

[Guest]

Xplane requires a different mindset, because it is very different from P3D out of the box, so in most cases you are looking to fix sth that aint broken in XP.

 

ChasePlane: don't need that, XPs camera system is far more advanced than P3Ds. (there is a payware realistic camera addon however, I dont use that though)

PTA: don't need that, XP is pretty out of the box (there are freeware tools however to improve to water quality for instance)

GSX: XP comes with lots of moving ground vehicles at airports, addons planes add their own, so again I'd say, you don't really need that, but maybe look into the JAR ground services thingy

PFPX: works as is. You have to export the flight plans depending on the addon planes. For the FF planes for instance, the Aerosoft Airbus profile works just fine.

FSaerodata: don't need that, XPs database is up to date.

 

Airports: MisterX (freeware and payware), Aerosoft, Nimbus (the newer ones), JustSim (decent quality, not top-notch). In general, the ultra high quality stuff (think Flightbeam) is rare in XP11, but there are enough high quality airports and more are coming

Aircraft: Flight Factor, IXEG 737 Classic, Aerobask, Vflyte

Weather: Xenviro or wait for Active Sky (unknown release date)

Textures: included in Xenviro or freeware

Scenery: don't need most of that, because XPs scenery system is superior to P3D. Maybe get HD Mesh (freeware) and look into ortho4xp. Also: MisterX trees HD.

 

To sum it up: XP is a much cheaper sim to run than P3D. If you throw a couple thousand bucks at it, P3D may still be the superior sim for some use cases, but what's great about XP is that you can just install it and it looks pretty already. There really are no "can't fly without it"-addons in XP, because there is no need for that.

[Anxu00 176]

If you own FSGW, it also works with XP11.  XAviation SkyMaxx Pro gives you the equivalent of AS/REX sky texture and more.  XEnviro is the equivalence of AS2016/ASCA.  For Aircraft, I would go for the FF A320 rather than the JAR Neo.  Seasons are also coming to XP11 (from XAviations ).  For scenery, the quality and quantity of free/donation ware is astounding in XP, start with the HDMeshV4, then get Ortho4XP if you want to do them yourself, otherwise get the USOrthoXP which have done most of the US for you.  ORBX is also coming to XP as well, so you can always check them out when they do.  Note that HDMeshV4 is a mesh and vector product based on OSM data, so you don't need ORBX Vector.  For high quality Airliner Sim, the IXEG 737 and the FF757v2 are the best for now.  FF767 is also good, but I would stay away from their 777.  SSG 747-8i is also good, but not everything is simulated, their EJETs and ERJ are also very good.  For GA, vFlyteAir SR-22 and Arrow III are very good too, as well as any offering from Aerobask.  If you are looking for A2A type of Accusim, look up REP (Reality Enhanced P?) for the default Cessna 172, Carenado F33A and B58.  Good luck and welcome to XP11 if you decide to take the plunge.

[RXP 2,338]

5 hours ago, AlRayes_BRN said:

(looking for P3D v4 equivalent add-ons for X-Plane 11)

I'll preach for my choir and add a new section:

Avionics Simulation:

- Reality XP GTN 750/650 Touch for FltSim and X-Plane.
- Reality XP GNS 530/430 V2 for FltSim and X-Plane.
- Reality XP G600/500 For FltSim and X-Plane (upcoming).

These products ship both for FltSim and X-Plane, fit nearly any aircraft, and are supported on the following simulators / OS:

- P3D4, P3D3, P3D2, P3D1, FSX-SE, FSX-ACC, FSX-SP2, FS9
- XP11, XP10, XP9
- WinXP (GNS only), Vista, Win7, Win8, Win10.

[MarkRobson88 0]

Don't forget ATC. The default ATC is awful.

Freeware: http://124thatc.matacchieri.eu/

Payware: http://pilot2atc.com/ (can import PFPX plans)

[FlyIce 354]

For the scenery part, I only have one word:

Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP...

I simply can not stress more.  If your favorite flight area are covered by good quality Bing aerial photos, you must try Ortho4XP. It's free, it's easy and it can generate amazing scenery in batch that beat Orbx by miles and miles. After some simple setup, all you have to do is just to click on the map within Ortho4XP where you want to make the scenery and go. Of course, make sure you have good amount of TB available on your hard drive. 

Last night I flew from KALW to KMYL over Seven Devils using my own Zoom Level 17 scenery generated by Orthor4XP. The scenery is so real so spectacular.. the image look every bit like a live view of the world - I didn't feel I was watching a "scenery" at all. Visually this is the best sim flight I ever had.

I came from more than ten years of FSX/P3D, and it's no question that the world in XP11 + Ortho4XP (helped by OSM data and custom layers for autogen) is so far ahead and advanced. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141852709@N07/shares/Z9j1k5

[MarkRobson88 0]

1 hour ago, FlyIce said:

For the scenery part, I only have one word:

Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP, Ortho4XP...

Yes it's great, but you'll need Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes, Terabytes of drive space for it.

But also don't forget that ortho never changes so you see exactly the same thing no matter what the season is (although there is a winter mod). If XP can get seasons, then I'll make a complete switch from P3D. For now, I'm happy to use both.

[Anxu00 176]

1 hour ago, MarkRobson88 said:

If XP can get seasons, then I'll make a complete switch from P3D

Yes it will, see http://maxx-xp.com/terramaxx

[FlyIce 354]

True those limitations are real. The terabytes part is easy to solve as bigger drives keep getting cheaper. Right now 8TB can be had for around $200, kind of affordable.

No season change is harder. It doesn't bother me for now, but could be an issue in the future. Some people are working on it and hopefully some clever solution may come up eventually.

Another limitation I'd say is that ortho image are frozen by the time it's taken. Five or ten years later they may become more and more outdated. But again hopefully by that time newer and better ortho photos become even easier to get.

[Paraffin 2,197]

It should be pointed out that not ALL of us X-Plane fans like ortho scenery, even though it's very easy (with enough time and drive space) to produce ortho scenery yourself. I'm not a fan of orthos for several reasons:

XP11 already does a very good job with landclass textures, forests, and OSM-generated roads and buildings. Especially with the free HD mesh v4. I do a lot of low-level flying, and I like seeing shadows shifting on trees and buildings, the color of light changing during the day. I hate seeing squashed building and vehicle artifacts that are all too common in ortho scenery when flying at low level. Seeing that just blows immersion in the sim for me.

When season changes arrive -- whether through texture add-ons or a future procedural method from Laminar -- I have a feeling it will work better with default than ortho layers. And finally, I don't fly often in areas I'm very familiar with in real life; preferring the more exotic locations and mountain flying. So if landclass + OSM autogen doesn't match perfectly, then I'm none the wiser.

Anyway, one compromise approach to avoid the need for terabytes of drive space is to generate Ortho scenery for areas you know very well, and leave everything else to XP's default scenery. 

[FlyIce 354]

I hated ortho scenery when it's all flat with no autogen, never used any of them in P3D/FSX. But in XP11 ortho scenery generated by Ortho4XP is combined with OSM-based autogen and that gets me completely sold. The buildings/house autoge layers are now pretty excellent. The major deficiency seems to be the forests. Hopefully the forest layout data will get better and more refined in the future. 

To me XP11's default textures really lacks in terms of variety and look a bit too artificial or sterile. Especially after flying good ortho scenery it's hard to get back to default textures. I really hope developers like Orbx. can provide some much needed helps here simply by refining those textures. Strangely P3D/FSX ground textures are a mess, but somehow they hodgepodge out sth more "organic" looking than XP11. 

[ryanbatc 12,813]

The second post in this thread is spot on.

realizing the default sim can do many things is the key to success.

and I agree with his assessments.

[blocks_off 5]

On 12/31/2017 at 11:12 PM, FlyIce said:

True those limitations are real. The terabytes part is easy to solve as bigger drives keep getting cheaper. Right now 8TB can be had for around $200, kind of affordable.

 

And you do not have to buy Ortho of course, so whilst you are paying for hardware there is no software to buy in relation to Ortho :)

[chelmo 42]

There seems to be this assumption that, like FSX and P3D, you have to throw at least hundreds at X-P to make it look decent. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course, you can if you wish but I have spent (the base sim apart....which even then I got in last summer's Steam sale) absolutely zero on X-Plane 11 and I have a sim which runs and looks better than any P3D sim I have seen. Okay, it is a little lacking in other respects but I for one am glad that my days of trying to work out why my Orbx scenery is suddenly blurry or why it's suddenly developed micro stutters are over!

[alpilotx 505]

On 1.1.2018 at 3:31 AM, FlyIce said:

I hated ortho scenery when it's all flat with no autogen, never used any of them in P3D/FSX. But in XP11 ortho scenery generated by Ortho4XP is combined with OSM-based autogen and that gets me completely sold. The buildings/house autoge layers are now pretty excellent. The major deficiency seems to be the forests. Hopefully the forest layout data will get better and more refined in the future. 

To me XP11's default textures really lacks in terms of variety and look a bit too artificial or sterile. Especially after flying good ortho scenery it's hard to get back to default textures. I really hope developers like Orbx. can provide some much needed helps here simply by refining those textures. Strangely P3D/FSX ground textures are a mess, but somehow they hodgepodge out sth more "organic" looking than XP11. 

Well, as far as I know (I do not use Ortho4XP - for some similar reasons already mentioned ... and some others) usually (depending on what you set) most users get the overlays in Ortho4XP from either the default mesh (where forests are really coarse) or HD Mesh Scenery (where forests are already far more precise - but usually stil not match the ortho imagery perfectly) ...

And in all of those cases, you MUST read this post I wrote some time ago on x-plane.org, to understand whats going on with the forests:

• https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/124771-know-how-where-forests-do-come-from-in-x-plane/