Please don't shoot :D Questions about X-Plane

[PaulGR 168]

I have FSX-SE and I like it a lot but as we all know 32bit is getting old so I'm thinking on moving to second platform and grow it with time.

The FlightFactor 767 is calling my name.

I did my best to read as many posts as I can but figured it doesn't hurt to ask in 2019.

1. Performance. I am building a 9700K which I want clocked at 5.0GHz, 32GB ram and 1080. Is that enough for 30+ FPS with the FF767 with stock scenery? 1080P is fine at this point.

2. I use EZDOCK. Anyhting similar for X-Plane?

3. It's hard to tell from YT as people like to colorize everything but is stock X-Plane scenery/graphics ok compared to FSX? I have ORBX Global and regions but as far as I am aware they are still not available for X-Plane.

4. Traffic. Big fan of World of Ai. Anyting similar for XP?

5. I don't use yokes. Just a thrustmaster joystick. Any problems with that?

6. Overall impressions from those that own both platforms?

7. Does the FF767 extended have a paintkit? I like to do a lot of fictional liveries and it's almost a must for me. Good is not helping me in this regard.

Much appreciated.

PS. I fly exclusively PMDG and QW tubeliners. Not interested in GA. I don't use any payware airports. Only freeware stuff to fix approaches and etc.

Edited February 25, 2019 by PaulGR

[klamal 282]

1 hour ago, PaulGR said:

I have FSX-SE and I like it a lot but as we all know 32bit is getting old so I'm thinking on moving to second platform and grow it with time.

The FlightFactor 767 is calling my name.

I did my best to read as many posts as I can but figured it doesn't hurt to ask in 2019.

1. Performance. I am building a 9700K which I want clocked at 5.0GHz, 32GB ram and 1080. Is that enough for 30+ FPS with the FF767 with stock scenery? 1080P is fine at this point.

2. I use EZDOCK. Anyhting similar for X-Plane?

3. It's hard to tell from YT as people like to colorize everything but is stock X-Plane scenery/graphics ok compared to FSX? I have ORBX Global and regions but as far as I am aware they are still not available for X-Plane.

4. Traffic. Big fan of World of Ai. Anyting similar for XP?

5. I don't use yokes. Just a thrustmaster joystick. Any problems with that?

6. Overall impressions from those that own both platforms?

7. Does the FF767 extended have a paintkit? I like to do a lot of fictional liveries and it's almost a must for me. Good is not helping me in this regard.

Much appreciated.

PS. I fly exclusively PMDG and QW tubeliners. Not interested in GA. I don't use any payware airports. Only freeware stuff to fix approaches and etc.

1. Performance. I am building a 9700K which I want clocked at 5.0GHz, 32GB ram and 1080. Is that enough for 30+ FPS with the FF767 with stock scenery? 1080P is fine at this point.

I don't have the FF 767 so I can't speak specifically to that scenario but I think you will be able to run XP fine with that setup.

2. I use EZDOCK. Anyhting similar for X-Plane?

The default camera system in XP is all anyone really needs, I think.  It's super easy to use too.  Unless you need a whole bunch of different camera angles.

3. It's hard to tell from YT as people like to colorize everything but is stock X-Plane scenery/graphics ok compared to FSX? I have ORBX Global and regions but as far as I am aware they are still not available for X-Plane

This is where XP shines, IMO!  Get Ortho4XP and start making photoreal scenery.  Super easy.  And with all the freeware airports out there, you will be more than good to go.  Even better than Orbx/land class scenery in P3D/FSX.

4. Traffic. Big fan of World of Ai. Anyting similar for XP?

There is a product you can buy but I can't remember it's name now.  I don't use anything or fly on Vatsim.

5. I don't use yokes. Just a thrustmaster joystick. Any problems with that?

No problem at all.

6. Overall impressions from those that own both platforms?

As has been said a lot of times here and everywhere, XP seems to "feel" more real when it comes to actually flying through air.  Where P3D/FSX is more like "flying on rails" unless the aircraft models it better.  But default P3D/FSX does not do the greatest job, IMO.  Lighting is a big difference too.  P3D/FSX is more "vivid", at least on my setup.  And many others have said too that XP out of the box is pretty "dull".  But you can tweak that too.  There are those that will argue each is more realistic.  But, in reality, they both are.  Mother Nature can produce an infinite number of combinations of lighting/colors.  With P3D and XP getting it exactly right in certain situations.  But both of these two topics are perception.   So what looks good to one is not good to another.  For me, if I want to fly "study level" airliners, I fly P3D.  If I want GA(and the awesome Hotstart TBM 900), I fly XP.

But, just reading now the end of your statement where you don't want GA and you fly only PMDG/QW stuff, you may want to go to P3D in my opinion.  If that's what you care about the most is quality aircraft.  XP has some really good close to study level airliners, but not quite what can be had in P3D from PMDG or FSLabs.  On the other hand, if you're ok with pretty close to PMDG and really good scenery/free airports pretty much everywhere you go in the world, than XP will be great.

The bottom line though, this is a purely subjective topic.  You're going to find people that will fight to the death for each side.  In reality though, they each have their pluses and minuses.  As the saying goes, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Good luck!

Edited February 25, 2019 by klamal

[avgaskoolaid 292]

3 hours ago, PaulGR said:

I have FSX-SE and I like it a lot but as we all know 32bit is getting old so I'm thinking on moving to second platform and grow it with time.

The FlightFactor 767 is calling my name.

I did my best to read as many posts as I can but figured it doesn't hurt to ask in 2019.

1. Performance. I am building a 9700K which I want clocked at 5.0GHz, 32GB ram and 1080. Is that enough for 30+ FPS with the FF767 with stock scenery? 1080P is fine at this point.

That system is more than enough to get great fps in every situation at high settings with default scenery, and is even good enough to get good FPS at high settings at the largest, busiest airports with detailed custom scenery.

2. I use EZDOCK. Anyhting similar for X-Plane?

Some people use X-Camera, which is similar to EZDOK and Chaseplane, but the default camera system is fine for most. The default cameras in XP are much more simple and powerful than the FSX/P3D camera system

3. It's hard to tell from YT as people like to colorize everything but is stock X-Plane scenery/graphics ok compared to FSX? I have ORBX Global and regions but as far as I am aware they are still not available for X-Plane.

In general, the default textures don't look as good, the autogen trees don't look as good, but the autogen objects are better and placed more accurately. In terms of addons besides orbx, there's Orthos and MisterX6 is coming out with a global texture replacement similar to ftx global.  

4. Traffic. Big fan of World of Ai. Anyting similar for XP?

WorldTraffic. It's payware and not as user friendly as the P3D traffic system, but the schedules are up to date and it looks really good once you learn how to use it. 

5. I don't use yokes. Just a thrustmaster joystick. Any problems with that?

No

6. Overall impressions from those that own both platforms?

I'll agree with what was said above- from a real pilot's perspective XP feels so much more alive, and looks much closer to real life. FSX/P3D has this feeling of an old program that is just being gradually patched, while XP11 actually feels modern. The way I think of it is that P3D is like a 2D painting, while XPlane is like a 3D model. At least that's what it's like to me. 

7. Does the FF767 extended have a paintkit? I like to do a lot of fictional liveries and it's almost a must for me. Good is not helping me in this regard.

Yes, and it's pretty easy to work with. 

Much appreciated.

PS. I fly exclusively PMDG and QW tubeliners. Not interested in GA. I don't use any payware airports. Only freeware stuff to fix approaches and etc.

 

1 hour ago, klamal said:

 Lighting is a big difference too.  P3D/FSX is more "vivid", at least on my setup.  And many others have said too that XP out of the box is pretty "dull". 

Weird, because I have the opposite impression of the two sims. I have both P3Dv4.4 and XP11 set up with all the different addon software and I spent a lot of time trying to get each to look as realistic as possible. I find it impossible to get P3D to look as vivid as the real world does in most situations- the whole sim just has this dingy and flat look which is impossible to get rid of without making night scenes, clouds, and lighting on aircraft completely too bright and washed out. It was better in v3, but v4 changed it for the worse IMO. P3D's lighting is great during the day in the dead of winter with clouds and snow, but not at any other time of day/time of year. XPlane, on the other hand, is not only able to get closer to real life, but it's easier (and cheaper) to do so. By default XPlane comes with some surprisingly awful sky textures that are responsible for much of the dull look. Once you switch those out for better sky textures, the overall look dramatically improves. Basically, both look dull out of the box, but XP 's lighting looks dramatically closer to real life to me in almost all circumstances. Furthermore, much of XPlane's tweaking can be done on the fly, while the sim is loaded up, so you can mess around with different settings/mods/textures and see the results in real time. With P3D, with the exception of reshade you almost always need to close and re-load the sim to make/save changes.  

That's just my opinion, but it's one developed after a lot of time and money spent trying to get each sim look and feel as good as possible. But, of course, I don't doubt that P3D looks sufficiently vivid to you- different monitors and monitor settings make a huge difference one way or the other along with a whole host of other factors. 

Edited February 25, 2019 by avgaskoolaid

[RichieFly 728]

#6

Interesting that you asked. I've spent a large amount of time with X-plane 11 the last few weeks. 

I've been mostly a P3D user but occasionally dip into X-plane after updates and see what's what. With this last update, I decided to stick around and try some stuff out.

I bought X-Camera, Active Sky XP and Xvision. This really helped with the atmospherics (sorry for the pun) which I thought were lacking. I dusted off some of my favorite aircraft and made sure I had the latest versions. The favorites here are the Take Command! Saab 340, Rotate MD-80, FJS 727v3 (awesome) and VMax 757. I'll now add the Zibo 737 mod to the list too. I also have a hanger full of helicopters.

I added a handful of community libraries too. This was to up the default scenery's game.

Also, I added some photoscenery to an external hard drive using the excellent Ortho4XP 1.3. I have no payware airports; just using the default set and a few community-made offerings. The default set is really good, for the most part.

So, that's where I'm coming from.

My impression is that realism really depends on the aircraft's developer. Perhaps X-plane has a better framework for producing aircraft. I don't know. I do know that there are great aircraft on both platforms and a whole bunch of stinkers on both platforms. Helios, without a doubt, are intrinsically better in X-plane. 

You'll learn or have learned that the best P3D aircraft have extensive in-house coding to create realistic flight models. I don't know, but image the best X-Plane aircraft have similar development tracks. So, to say one platform has more realistic flight models is moot, in my opinion.

Will I stay with one platform over the other? No. 

Does one look better than the other? Let your eye be your guide.

X-plane has made great strides. I've been using X-plane on and mostly off since version 2 or something. Back when they sent you about 12 CD's in a nice cardboard folder. I enjoy X-plane almost as much as P3D. That's partially since I have a huge investment in P3D with airports, utilities and aircraft and I'm really comfortable with P3D. But, for the last 6 weeks, I've been flying both an equal amount.

[klamal 282]

22 hours ago, avgaskoolaid said:

The way I think of it is that P3D is like a 2D painting, while XPlane is like a 3D model. At least that's what it's like to me. 

I totally agree with this too.  I've heard this stated many times too in various forums.

 

22 hours ago, avgaskoolaid said:

I find it impossible to get P3D to look as vivid as the real world does in most situations- the whole sim just has this dingy and flat look which is impossible to get rid of without making night scenes, clouds, and lighting on aircraft completely too bright and washed out. It was better in v3, but v4 changed it for the worse IMO. P3D's lighting is great during the day in the dead of winter with clouds and snow, but not at any other time of day/time of year

I should have added in my original response that I do use TomatoShade and have used PTA in the past.  Also, I have FTX Global.  So I haven't used just default P3D textures since many years ago now.  I can't remember what default P3D even looks like with regards to sky/cloud/autogen textures.

 

22 hours ago, avgaskoolaid said:

Furthermore, much of XPlane's tweaking can be done on the fly, while the sim is loaded up, so you can mess around with different settings/mods/textures and see the results in real time. With P3D, with the exception of reshade you almost always need to close and re-load the sim to make/save changes.

Yep.  This is a big advantage to XPlane.  P3D is texture swapping(though maybe not in all cases these days?).  Where XP is objects actually "reacting" to light like in real life.  

15 hours ago, RichieFly said:

I bought X-Camera, Active Sky XP and Xvision.

How is XVision?  Is it worth it now?  I used it when it was free and really liked it.  But I'm not sure I want to buy it when there is no guarantee it will work with each new version of XP.

 

As I said before though, all of this is so subjective.  I made a comment in a different conversation somewhere where this same sort of stuff was talked about.  I think it was night lighting in P3D.  Some prefer the darker night environment now in P3D 4.4 and some prefer the lighter in earlier versions with each arguing their point of view that it is more realistic.  I argue again that both are probably realistic in very specific scenarios that you'd find in Mother Nature.

I wish it were possible to detect what real skies look like "for real" with no ambiguities, no artist bias.  After all, it should all be just 1's and 0's, right?  Then get that represented in the sim with the exact same 1's and 0's that you see in real life and tell everyone to "shut up".  It's real.  The end.  🙂  I know this is probably not yet possible with the infinite number of combinations that Mother Nature can produce.  But it would be nice.  I want real.  100% real.  Not artists' impressions of what is real.  Maybe that won't always produce a perfect "photo op".  But at least it's real!  🙂

[RichieFly 728]

Kevin,

I like XVision. It's subtle and looks very good. As you know, you can download various sets and adjust settings as you like. 

I think it was $15, so no big risk.