4 hours ago, carrotroot said:

I'm very doubtful that the inclusion of PBR would have resulted in any meaningful shift in the results of the survey

I'll disagree with you on this point, it wasn't just PBR, it was the ability to present very high resolution photo real content in addition to landclass content without the need for any "updates" from existing vendors content and no more loading/unloading of textures all the time along with another slew of SDK/PDK updates including significant changes to what one can do with sound.  But visuals sell, they always have and they always will ... more than anything else, for the most part people don't really know or want to care what 32bit or 64bit means, just make it look life like and run well.  Internally 64bit has opened the doors wide open, BUT P3D still suffers from the FS9/FSX ball and chain ... devs don't push the boundaries because they still want their product to work in a 32bit FSX ... this IS the biggest problem P3D faces going forward.

4 hours ago, carrotroot said:

There are other factors at work for instance market availability, P3D isn't sold outside of Lockheed Martin's website, X-Plane is sold on steam and is often goes on sale for $40USD or less -- this lowers a barrier to entry for many people.

Agree with you somewhat, but being on Steam didn't seem to help DTG's FSW.  For this type of market I'm not sure that form of "exposure" is that important to sales/usage, not to mention the 30% that goes to Valve/Steam.

Cheers, Rob.

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by Guest

39 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

being on Steam didn't seem to help DTG's FSW. 

FSW's problem was that they closed the platform, made it purposely incompatible with ESP-based addons, and then proceeded to waste a lot of time re-inventing the wheel.  Pretty much repeating the same mistakes that caused the demise of MS Flight.

1 hour ago, carrotroot said:

FSW's problem was that they closed the platform

Agree, that was certainly one of their problems from a list of many.  But like I said, visuals always sell, the more realistic the visuals the more likely the user base will grow ... there's a reason people took note of XP11 PBR and other graphical advances.  The core development teams of XP and LM can only provide the tools to make the visual reality better, 3rd party's job to implement those tools ... it's the sum of all the parts that moves platforms forward because the days of 100's of developers being hired to work on a single product are long gone for flight simulation.  If FSW came to the market with 50-100 developers, then we'd all probably be flying FSW right now regardless of the business model (which I assume was a grab for DLC) ... but they didn't, it was under funded from the get go, just as AF2 is ... and it's unlikely we'll ever see that kind of funding for flight simulation ... not useless it's somehow attached to BFV or GTA VI 😉

XP11's SDK/PDK is still missing A LOT, there are many things one just can't do in XP11 ... both platforms keep moving their SDK/PDK's forward.  Now that LM have caught up on the visual tools, lets see if 3rd party make use of those tools (the race to PBR materials).  

I toss cash at both these platforms in "hope" ... I fly P3D more than XP11 and honestly, I really only want ONE that does it all ... P3D is getting closer to that than XP11 right now.  Don't get me wrong, competition is good ... but a market this small, I'm not sure it is ... like I said, I'm paying twice for the same product for each platform ... that's not a desirable situation, but neither is "the ONE" ... yet.

Cheers, Rob.

4 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

XP11's SDK/PDK is still missing A LOT, there are many things one just can't do in XP11

Like what?

37 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Like what?

You know that can't possibly be answered here in a single thread and it would only generate even more conflict that would go no where.  No to mention it would take a couple weeks or more to layout the difference between the two and what is lacking in XP11  ... do you really wanna dig this up?  I really would rather not go into the XPLM and it's limitations ... I'd rather just hope it will improve over time.

Cheers, Rob.

For all those yearning for a possibly unipolar or perhaps generously bipolar world of simming, Flyinside sim just hit Steam with a major scenery update, showing that some out there still have visions of alternate futures: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/862390/FlyInside_Flight_Simulator/

https://fselite.net/news/flyinside-fs-released-on-steam-december-update/?utm_source=article&utm_medium=push

22 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

You know that can't possibly be answered here in a single thread and it would only generate even more conflict that would go no where.  No to mention it would take a couple weeks or more to layout the difference between the two and what is lacking in XP11  ... do you really wanna dig this up?  I really would rather not go into the XPLM and it's limitations ... I'd rather just hope it will improve over time.

Cheers, Rob.

Yes, I'd be interested to know some actual examples of the mentioned many things that can be done in P3D but not in XP.

19 hours ago, Murmur said:

Yes, I'd be interested to know some actual examples of the mentioned many things that can be done in P3D but not in XP.

It would be a back-and-forth and it would degenerate into something none of us want...

4 hours ago, Mace said:

It would be a back-and-forth and it would degenerate into something none of us want...

Understandable. The important thing to note for the records, is that the statement that many things can be done on P3D but not on XP remains just a statement with no actual examples produced.

3 hours ago, Murmur said:

The important thing to note for the records, is that the statement that many things can be done on P3D but not on XP remains just a statement with no actual examples produced.

Fair enough in calling me out, I will eventually get to this but it's a VERY low priority (like 1214 in my list of things to accomplish next year) ... I would post at xplane.org rather than AVSIM.  I do wonder why you haven't called out all the users/devs saying XP11 SDK is far superior to P3D SDK/PDK and asked for examples ... or have you?

Cheers, Rob.  

EDIT: I think a more productive thread would be if I asked some questions giving the opportunity for devs/LR to expand how to accomplish a task using the SDK, like for example how do I adjust terrain textures for winter, spring, summer, fall?  How can I perform seasonal animations?  How do I prevent AI aircraft from running thru each other, how do I establish more realistic landing lights beyond the 16 default within spills and billboards? 

Edited December 23, 20187 yr by Guest

 

3 hours ago, Murmur said:

Understandable. The important thing to note for the records, is that the statement that many things can be done on P3D but not on XP remains just a statement with no actual examples produced.

We have a short leash on XP/LM discussions because they always degenerate into a flame war.and your little nudge here could be considered borderline trolling. 

Since you feel there MUST be one - the weather SDK in XP is essentially non existent. The P3D SDK interface is far superior. I cannot say more than that but it is a real issue.

So, you now have one item - let's move along to a different discussion or this thread will close quickly.

Happy Holidays,

Vic

1 hour ago, vgbaron said:

 

We have a short leash on XP/LM discussions because they always degenerate into a flame war.and your little nudge here could be considered borderline trolling. 

Since you feel there MUST be one - the weather SDK in XP is essentially non existent. The P3D SDK interface is far superior. I cannot say more than that but it is a real issue.

So, you now have one item - let's move along to a different discussion or this thread will close quickly.

Happy Holidays,

Vic

Agreed.  Never understood the banter between the two platforms.

2 hours ago, vgbaron said:

 

We have a short leash on XP/LM discussions because they always degenerate into a flame war.and your little nudge here could be considered borderline trolling. 

Since you feel there MUST be one - the weather SDK in XP is essentially non existent. The P3D SDK interface is far superior. I cannot say more than that but it is a real issue.

So, you now have one item - let's move along to a different discussion or this thread will close quickly.

Happy Holidays,

Vic

Well I think both platform have obvious SDK limitations and talented developers are expected to work around these limitations, something that PMDG or Majestic have been doing for years on FSX/P3D`s side. Moreover, I don`t think that these shortcomings, which may be more present in XP, matter much to the end-user, otherwise we would not have seen this explosive growth experienced in the last couple years.

Edited December 23, 20187 yr by GCBraun

The SDK argument rearing its ugly head again. Of course each sim has limitations, but this doesn't mean there aren't methods around these.  Here are two simple examples that I've personally come across working with both sims for the TrueEarth series:

- X-Plane can only use 1x1 degree tiles for mesh/photoscenery:

Yes, this is a pain, especially if you would like to market regions based on country boundaries. However, rather than giving up and claiming P3D has a superior SDK, regions now are marketed differently. At some point we will hopefully see this issue resolved.

- P3D doesn't support non-rectangular based autogen and it's also very oversized

P3D's default autogen system only allows the placement of simple cube buildings. This obviously doesn't work for anything more complicated than simple houses or square industrial buildings. So, to get round this, autogen is still used for simple buildings, and for the rest 3D models are generated instead.

I'll give a +1 to LM for their excellent SDK documentation, and a +1 to LR for their openness and easier to use SDK for scenery.

I can list numerous more examples that I've come across working on both sims, however these don't stop certain developers continuing to make products for them. I'm not an aircraft developer, but I'm pretty sure both sims are pretty much capable of the same things (but in different ways) regarding aircraft, and if not, contacting the sim developers may help.

...and then there is the seasons/weather argument. X-Plane does in fact support seasons (take a look at the Faroe Islands scenery), however most developers don't want to create multiple versions of textures when the base-sim doesn't include its own seasonal textures, it would look odd. LR have claimed they don't want to use texture replacements for seasons but rather do this via shaders in some future release.

For weather, well you could develop your own weather engine completely and display your own visuals in X-Plane, and this is something xEnviro are working on (including having snow that actually works with photoimagery). 

 

 

 

For me, an outsider these days, looking from outside makes comparisons a little less biased / passionate.

I still think that P3D offers the best experience when it comes to weather, and even some aspects of scenery depiction, like, but not only, seasonal textures. There aren't still solutions for these two aspects of the simulation of World Visuals around our aircraft, that IMO can put X-Plane ahead of P3D consistently...

Then, there is certainly another area where I have to admit the X-Plane is way ahead of P3D and that is in terms of flight dynamics modelling. Systems modelling is questionable because if X-Plane includes most stuff in it's core simulation engine, P3D allows for programming of these features to overcome it's limitations, but unless you try to use an external flight dynamics engine, I believe there are simply many aspects of flight dynamics that P3D can't compete with X-Plane. Does this mean X-plane is perfect in reproducing those effects ? Certainly not, but at least it has it, and the authors ( mostly Austin in this specific area ) are actively working on it, as opposed to what I believe is the case with P3D.

Should P3D next versions present an updated Flight Dynamics Engine, even if still mostly parametric / even scripted, but with the end result being more what we can get, for instance, with DCS World, and I think P3D would gain momentum.

On a side note, I have mostly lost my patience for either platform starting with the slow pace at which both deliver features that are really interesting to me these days. Each time I think of it I really miss the MS FLIGHT concept, and that's probably why I ended up playing sims like IL-2 BoX, DCS World and War Thunder, as well as specific ones like Aerownx PSX. What is common and for me really comfortable about these platforms is their stability, consistency in terms of integration with add-ons, continuity and fast update cycles, because they do not have to deal with a myriad of developers, and if DCS still allows for some ( external ) partners to participate, under strict control, in their project, truth is it certainly can't compare to the "mess" I had when using FS9, FSX, XP, P3D. These rather limitative concept for some of you is actually a remarkable feature for me. I like to fire my sim, get it updated with all the necessary stuff, that perfectly integrates into the platform, and go playing, probably ask or see it being asked for this or that in the support forums, but don't have to think that in a year, 2, 3 I'll be buying a "new version" and have to start this whole cycle again 😕   No more of that for me - I'm done with that stress...

Edited December 23, 20187 yr by jcomm