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themose

Future of X-plane

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46 minutes ago, mjrhealth said:

hey i dont like MS and hate all the "spying" but since you cant escape it these days, but win10 is quiet good. As for linux, run it on a laptop, but it isnt for the faint of heart even these days.

I referring specifically to "Xplane and MSFS are primarily single threaded", such as you hear in the likes of

He's wrong.

Both are heavily threaded, it's windows doesn't support it, and what it does support is buggier than a dumpster from men in black.

And on top of that, windows doesn't report off thread crashes properly, which is at the heart of what jarmstro is complaining about,

https://developer.x-plane.com/2019/02/the-plugin-sdk-is-not-even-remotely-thread-safe/

There are other caveats to other OS's, but the point here is not "Linux is better", the point is neither Laminar nor Asobo can fix the very old and broken windows NT kernel.

Edited by mSparks

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2 hours ago, mSparks said:

There are other caveats to other OS's, but the point here is not "Linux is better", the point is neither Laminar nor Asobo can fix the very old and broken windows NT kernel.

Windows 10 is very good, and has always been the premier gaming platform, other fast paced sims don't suffer from low fps, stutters and CTD's. XP problems are due to: support for too many OS's, legacy code, bad/inefficient code, poor exception handling, and the core engine which is a single threaded nightmare.

Edited by Greazer

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36 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Windows 10 is very good, and has always been the premier gaming platform

Nope, PlayStation is the premier gaming platform, by a wide margin, followed up the rear by the nintendo switch and mobile growing rapidly as they get better and better GPUs.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276768/global-unit-sales-of-video-game-consoles/

PC games sales are literally an order of magnitude smaller, e.g.

Assassins Creed 4:

    • PS3 — 2.43 million
    • X360 — 2.17 million
    • PS4 — 1.22 million
    • Xbox One — 0.55 million
    • PC — 0.38 million
    • Wii U — 0.12 million

everything just runs better on the modern BSD based operating systems in a post single core era.

windows is just noisier, mainly due to requiring advertising to make up for peoples unwillingness to recommend it.

Edited by mSparks

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I wasn't comparing consoles I was talking about XP desktop platforms Win, Linux, Mac 🤐  You are too engrossed in your consoles and games, that's why your screenshot looks like PS2.

Edited by Greazer

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1 hour ago, Greazer said:

I wasn't comparing consoles I was talking about XP desktop platforms Win, Linux, Mac 🤐  You are too engrossed in your consoles and games, that's why your screenshot looks like PS2.

Don't worry, I'm sure MSDOS will retain its throne on 486DX PCs forever more.

I'll also concede, that if you are willing to exclude 99% of revenue from computer gamers you will always be able coax the numbers to make windows the number 1 gaming platform, just don't expect a warm reception at the next shareholders meeting when you present it, most of them are smarter than that, I'd say everyone in Laminar is to, very very much doubt they will use such insane logic when planning their future.

Edited by mSparks
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11 hours ago, mSparks said:

hes trying to express that the issue you are describing generally only exists on windows, since msfs is windows only it has a lot of them.

xplane already has this

https://questions.x-plane.com/24075/this-application-crashed-because-plugin-xplm_plugin_xplane

its just windows mostly doesnt, and windows buggier than a dumpster from men in black

This is what was happening-

I had updated the Navigraph data installer and when I ran it to update X-Plane to the latest Airac it put the data folder directly into the plugins folder instead of into 124thatc folder. On launching XP later on, at the 'loading plugins' phase the sim CTD'd with no indication of any error in the log text. I'm no expert so it took me an age to work out why. (In OpenGL mode it would sometimes boot through to the Main Menu but then would CTD once the flight loaded). The trouble I had! Tried everything before I found it.

Windows 10 or not surely it would not be beyond the wit of man to have a line of code which would prevent the sim trying to load a plug-in which clearly is not a plug-in? And to let the user know?

Out of interest I put the Nav data folder into the community folder in MS2020 and it fired up just fine.

Edited by jarmstro

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7 hours ago, mSparks said:

Don't worry, I'm sure MSDOS will retain its throne on 486DX PCs forever more.

I'll also concede, that if you are willing to exclude 99% of revenue from computer gamers you will always be able coax the numbers to make windows the number 1 gaming platform, just don't expect a warm reception at the next shareholders meeting when you present it, most of them are smarter than that, I'd say everyone in Laminar is to, very very much doubt they will use such insane logic when planning their future.

Just look at how many PC games are in game shop,, nadda one

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7 hours ago, jarmstro said:

not be beyond the wit of man to have a line of code which would prevent the sim trying to load a plug-in which clearly is not a plug-in?

did you report it as a bug, or did you expect them to try this case themselves? They are good, but telepathy isnt in their skillset.

One thing I have asked for is that they make the plugin enable sticky over restarts, there are a ton of these small "quality of life" fixes I would love for them to add.

Time is the limiting factor here, regardless of the size of the wider development community there is only a very small number (3 or 4) people who can make these things happen, right now they are still on more serious issues - like fixing the last of the "reload aircraft" problems their side.

IHMO this is why playstation is the premier game platform, their quality control requires things like this to be sorted before Sony will let them into the club, dont meet those standards and at best case they reject the listing, worst case they will pull it

Lack of such quality control is my biggest complaint across the flightsim genre (and also why I lost interest in "gaming" on windows PC a very long time ago)

Edited by mSparks

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56 minutes ago, mSparks said:

did you report it as a bug, or did you expect them to try this case themselves? They are good, but telepathy isnt in their skillset.

No point in reporting it. Because I use active Sky the log.txt says Art Controls are Modified and I understand they just won't take any notice of it if it says that and the report is auto erased? Or so I was told?

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53 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

No point in reporting it. Because I use active Sky the log.txt says Art Controls are Modified and I understand they just won't take any notice of it if it says that and the report is auto erased? Or so I was told?

That was only for device loss errors aiui, and even that has new guidance now

https://developer.x-plane.com/2020/12/help-us-find-those-devices/

The most important thing for a bug report being useful is that it includes a reliable way to recreate it, this is important for two reasons 

first so they can quickly identify it is actually a bug - its not in their remit to fix third party problems (but they can refer clear issues to third parties if needed - this is why the slack group rocks), and there are probably 100,000 crashes caused by third parties to every one they can actually fix.

And secondly - most important of the important - so they can actually tell if its been fixed.

Quick example I had yesterday during testing.

General bug:after 30 minutes, if the mobile app is disconnected from AutoATC and not reconnected again the AI aircraft stutter every few seconds.

This is the kind of bug nightmares are made of, it takes half an hour each time an attempt is made to find the root cause, and then even when you think there is a fix, another 30 miuntes just to see if it is, what about if you disconnect after 25 minutes, is the 30 minutes important - before you know it days of dev time have been lost - arrrrgggghhhh,.

Found a quick recreate: clicking restart radio causes the AI aircraft stutter every few seconds.

suddenly the cause is obvious, tracked down to one line with a - instead of a + (start 5 seconds in the past instead of 5 seconds in the future), make it +, both fixed, make it - problem returns. job done -3 hours. Still 3 hours of my Sunday gone, but at least a step closer to a new release.

Same for yours, if put this file in plugins folder makes xplane crash can be easily checked (file there crash, file not there - no crash) - on an otherwise clean install (so not a third party reading the file and crashing xplane from another thread), this kind of bug report actually makes them happy, because it feels really good to kick bugs off the list.

Edited by mSparks

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4 hours ago, themose said:

Job descriptions, aka "The best source of information to find out what entities bound by NDAs and SCI clearance requirements are up to and investing resources on."

Quote
  • UI development
  • Low-level performance optimization
  • Improvements to the X-Plane SDK used by third parties
  • Networking
  • Rendering engine work
  • Platform-specific OS integrations

 


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On 1/31/2021 at 4:42 AM, Janov said:

 

Austin and the team certainly like to have X-Plane succeed in numbers and sales. They will not sell out their core belief in what X-Plane should be, though. They will certainly push the visual fidelity, but not at the expense of other features.

mSparks asked if being "a niche whithin a niche" is good or bad? Bad for sales, good for the people using that niche within a niche simulator.

Cheers, Jan

 

The niche in a niche will only go but so far. Some of the challenges that I see with the future of X-plane are their ability and willingness to adapt, their small / shrinking user base, 3PDevs migrating away, and how these factors ultimately impact their resources / development for X-plane.

As I touched on earlier in this thread, Devs for robust sims are taking a different approach (engagement / partnership / regular updates & patches) to ensure the longevity of their respective sims (DTGames, DCS world, MSFS).

These Devs have invested heavily in 3 areas to remain profitable and to ensure frequent development & interest…

1)     Feature Rich / Eye-Candy / Performance in the “base” product (no one is buying clouds for TSW2, DCS, or MSFS)

2)     Engagement / Partnering & Communication (live streams / feedback / frequent updates & improvements / forums / Roadmap)

3)     Residual Revenue (addons / store) to help fund continued development

How well does LR rank in the above areas for their desktop app? With regard to #3, I think that the Org has a lock on the store / revenue aspect.

Considering the above, it is not just as simple as saying sim Y is better than Sim X, so sim X is doomed. Folk are still flying FSX and FS2004….but the development is no longer there. And it is not just about what new features XP12 promises to deliver.

Beyond the challenges listed above, LR has additional hurdles to overcome (resources / continued funding etc.) because they lack the infrastructure (such as #2 and #3 above) to provide frequent updates / enhancements / fixes (beyond the original sale) at a pace that consumers are experiencing with other Devs.

·        How will LR ensure / fund “continued” development (much like the 3 Devs above) beyond the initial $60 - $100 sale price for XP12?

·        How many people will plunk down the initial $$$ without any roadmap or “expressed” commitment from LR regarding continued development (check the “pace” of updates for each of the Devs above)?

·        How many “niche in a niche” folk will stick with XP11 (and not upgrade because they really are not about “all that” eye-candy that XP12 may bring)?

Every DEV mentioned above is working on at least a half dozen new features / enhancements / improvements / fixes…and their users know what those initiatives are and have a pretty good idea when things are expected to be released (even if they miss a deadline). This is the future of “robust” sim development and longevity.

 

 

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