Future of X-plane

[Biology 1,347]

14 hours ago, GoranM said:

One thing, I think, the majority of the folks out there need to remember, is that all this hype surrounding MSFS scenery, as good as it looks (from the air), is nothing more than STREAMED photogrammetry...which, I might add, is made from 5 year old Bing maps.  2 petabytes in total, if you want to stream the whole planet.  Asking to have this as part of the installation, from a company with no deals in place with Google or Microsoft, simply won't happen.  

I can see this delving into another MSFS vs X-Plane discussion, but as long as people remember that they have an OPINION on where X-Plane is headed and what it needs, and that opinion is to their own personal taste.  Some people don't really care for that streamed scenery look, and are perfectly ok with having ortho scenery installed.

I believe it is not about streaming scenery at all. Even if X-Plane had all of the beautiful assets MSFS has, it still wouldn't look as good. And the reason is simple: Lighting and atmospherics. Textures or quality of assets themselves have no effect on that. Lighting, atmospherics, reflections etc. are what converts a scene that looks 10 years old to something modern.

Here's the greatest example of that: Prepar3D. As you might know, Prepar3D v5 has introduced new lighting, atmospherics and volumetric clouds, which changed the look of the simulator drastically, even though assets have remained the same.

Here's a screenshot from mostly vanilla (only Orbx ground textures) Prepar3D, with "Enhanced Atmospherics" disabled:

Here's the same scene, with "Enhanced Amotpshiercs" enabled:

Everything is the same, only lighting and atmospherics have changed, but yet still it looks like a totally different simulator. So I believe a completely new lighting, reflections and atmospherics with just slightly different assets would be more than enough for next X-Plane.

Edited January 26, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[Biology 1,347]

10 hours ago, GoranM said:

We're going around in circles here.  The fact is, for every positive someone can point out in MSFS, I (and I assume many others) can point out 5 negatives.  

And maybe for every positive I can point out in X-Plane, many people can point out several negatives.  

But this is where those positives and negatives are....MSFS has the scenery and lighting engine.  Outstanding graphics.  Some of the AI generated scenery is questionable, but overall, it looks great.  And that's where the positives end.  The flight model and several systems are completely off (Since when does a turboprop INCREASE torque as it gains altitude like it does in MSFS???)

This same debate can rage on in the Windows vs Mac vs Linux camps.  Ford vs Chevy.  Ferrari vs Lambourghini.

Why are there always a select few people who feel the need to keep coming in here and talk about how bad X-Plane is...FOR THEM?  I wish I knew.  Why does it bother them that X-Plane has an audience that actually prefers X-Plane over MSFS??  I wish I knew.  All I know is, personally, because of all this X-Plane bashing/MSFS praising, is I am so completely and utterly turned off MSFS, that I wouldn't even shell out the dollar/mth to even try it.  And only because it's now psychologically linked to the people who keep bashing X-Plane.

Just wanted to comment on a few things.

Flight model on MSFS is not "completely off" at all, same story for turboprop torque versus altitude. Many knows about the rule of thumb when it comes to creating flight models: "Garbage in, garbage out". Default aircraft in MSFS have many errors in their data tables, which obviously results in wrong behavior like torque gains with altitude. It won't be possible to comment on flight model before proper add-on aircraft (not quick portovers) start to come out for MSFS.

Lastly, I am frankly annoyed by X-Plane bashing part, but I'm also similarly annoyed by the MSFS bashing part. Maybe this is why many people started to become rather too vocal about issues with X-Plane: Since MSFS was announced many X-Plane people bashed MSFS to the oblivion, tried to discredit MSFS or anything about MSFS when possible, while ignoring the shortcomings of X-Plane. Even x-plane.org store made fun of MSFS in their email ads. Ah, also some of them still keep trolling MSFS forums *cough* Janov *cough*. This probably made many X-Plane users worried - if no one discusses the issues with X-Plane, they won't get addressed any time soon. Not only that, I wouldn't be surprised if many of them were probably similarly turned off by the gatekeeping behavior some people displayed.

I started to feel similarly turned off by X-Plane, just because of this hate towards MSFS. Which saddens me after spending so much time with it. I wouldn't make freeware Enhanced Cloudscapes just for the community if I hated X-Plane, or I wouldn't spend lots of money on it even right now. I still have a long wishlist of add-ons to get for X-Plane. I commend the developers of X-Plane for creating such a beautiful piece of software. But I also believe some people's behavior towards MSFS will only hurt flight simulation community in return.

Edited January 26, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[Biology 1,347]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:30 PM, mSparks said:

I think, potentially this has been tracked down

To windows 7

I believe also many people are overclocking their hardware without even noticing. In fact, I was one of them. I was having weird crashes with both X-Plane 11 and P3D v5. Turns out my graphics card software (GPU TweakII) was automatically overclocking my GPU, even when I was not aware. Changed the overclocking profile and I don't have crashes in either simulators now.

[GoranM 3,764]

32 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Flight model on MSFS is not "completely off" at all, same story for turboprop torque versus altitude. Many knows about the rule of thumb when it comes to creating flight models: "Garbage in, garbage out".

Ok, I'll bite.  Just a little.  I mean, we could have discussed this in Discord, but whatever.

I have yet to see a single add on that makes good use of the flight dynamics and systems.  Not to mention the fact that MSFS cannot replicate anything other than single wing aircraft.  (Forget heli's and bi planes).

I really don't want to list all the shortcomings, but there's a reason the established developers refuse to make complex aircraft for MSFS.  As it stands now, they simply can't do it with the tools/SDK provided.  So it's not as cut and dry as garbage in, garbage out.  It's trying to pour something into a jug that's already full.

 

32 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Lastly, I am frankly annoyed by X-Plane bashing part, but I'm also similarly annoyed by the MSFS bashing part.

This will ALWAYS happen.  I'll bet money on it.  And it doesn't annoy me...if the X-Plane bashing is done on the MSFS forums or dedicated MSFS subreddit.  They can say whatever they want there, because I don't go to those forums.  And if it makes them feel good about it, so be it.  What I find annoying is when I choose to go to the forums I'm actually interested in, that is frequented by like-minded individuals, that actually is labelled "X-Plane discussion", and has people who share a common interest in X-Plane, only to be faced with "X-Plane is garbage, and it'll never be as good as MSFS!!!" posts.  Austin isn't going anywhere.  Do these people think that by simply bashing X-Plane is going to make X-Plane go away and LR go out of business?  If anything, it motivates the staff at LR to squeeze even more juice out of X-Plane.  These people are bashing a product made by a man who decided to spend $2 million+ fighting patent trolls in court (and winning!) rather than settle for $340 000.  

I know about the posts at x-plane.org, but I don't read those posts, because I want no part of the MSFS bashing.  I read what is interesting to me.  I came in this thread because the title of it interested me.  Was it a question or a statement?  That's what I wanted to find out, and maybe throw in a few things that may shed light on the subject.  (I am privy to some information about X-Plane's future).

Is it wrong to bash MSFS in an X-Plane forum and vice versa?  Only if it's incorrect information.  Making statements like "X-Plane is garbage because of how it looks!".  Well, hang on.  What about the flight model?  What about the PBR?  What about the systems fidelity of the top tier add ons?  Judging an entire platform, that has so much more to it than just scenery, is pointless.  I already mentioned above, criticisms are good...if they are backed up by evidence.  Even Austin has welcomed people to critique X-Plane's flight model...as long as they have the PROOF that in it's current state, it's incorrect.  Otherwise, he's not interested.  And this is 100% understandable.
I can make a list of MSFS problems that makes it hugely inferior to X-Plane.  But I CHOOSE not to.  Personally, I think it's a waste of my time to do that.  It's got the eye candy.  That's about it.  
As far as X-Plane's shortcoming, does it need a better lighting engine?  Of course.  Does it need seasons?  Of course.  Does it warrant someone coming in here, and saying "X-Plane will never catch up to MSFS...not in 5 years, 10 years, never...and Austin is dreaming if he thinks he can catch up to it!"  No.  It's unproductive.  It's a heavily biased opinion, based on X-Plane being MSFS' chief competition.  Austin has been competing with Microsoft for about 30 years, and has never closed up shop.  Microsoft has shut the door on MSFS TWICE.  That has to count for something.

Edited January 26, 2021 by GoranM

[mjrhealth 820]

When you have airbus pilots on xplane raving about the models in xplane I cant see what the problem is really, just watched one with the Tolis 319 may be my next purchase dont have an airbus yet.

[Janov 2,383]

55 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Ah, also some of them still keep trolling MSFS forums *cough* Janov *cough*.

I don´t have enough breath to cough enough all of the names that troll X-Plane forums...😂

[Biology 1,347]

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

I mean, we could have discussed this in Discord, but whatever.

I didn't find your post personal at all, and my post wasn't personal at all either, so I don't think we needed to discuss this in Discord. I just wanted to comment and provide another perspective.

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

I have yet to see a single add on that makes good use of the flight dynamics and systems.

This one is really not surprising, given that MSFS has been out since 6 months and creating a good add-on takes a lot of time. Most of the current add-ons are made by Carenado and other developers who are known to be quite lite on systems and flight models. Given that a good add-on takes at least around 3 years, we still need to wait. I don't even have MSFS installed anymore on my PC because of lack of add-ons.

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

There's a reason the established developers refuse to make complex aircraft for MSFS.

Indeed there's a reason, but the primary reason is not limitations of MSFS, but how different the SDK is compared to Prepar3D. Even newer add-ons for Prepar3D seem to use GDI+, Windows APIs and other sorts of stuff which are simply not available in MSFS. However, the same add-on behavior still can be achieved using a good combination of HTML/CSS/JS and C++ with nanoVG. This would require developers to rewrite major portions of their add-ons, which is simply not time-efficient. And it's mostly unnecessary, given that Asobo is already working on a "compatibility layer", which will have bindings for old APIs like GDI+.

About MSFS limitations... When it comes to SDK, most of the "limitations" are not actually "limitations" but just different ways of programming.

The limitations with the flight model is a bit more complicated: Unlike X-Plane (excluding airfoils), the 3D model in MSFS does not represent the flight dynamics of a model alone. So the fact that you can't have a bi-plane configuration in 3D model doesn't mean you can't get the flight model right. You will just need to "revert" to the tables to fill in the gaps. Afterwards, the normalization algorithm should take care of the rest to combine both. This is why 3D model in MSFS is so simple compared to the one in X-Plane: Unlike X-Plane (other than airfoils), MSFS uses the data tables in FSX/P3D to fill in the gaps using its "normalization" algorithm, so it doesn't require a 3D model as complex. Overall, the better 3D model matches the actual aircraft, the less table data is required.

Is MSFS flight model perfect? No, not at all, I still prefer X-Plane's flight model. But it's definitely much better than FSX/P3D flight models and a huge step forward.

Another limitation is default avionics like G1000, which are quite simple compared to their X-Plane counterparts. At least Asobo realized that not only the default aircraft will use these default avionics but many third party ones too. All third parties having to make their own implementations for those avionics like G1000 would be really wasteful (and maybe this is why P3D doesn't have much GA planes with G1000), so a huge default avionics update will be released with Sim Update 3, which is planned for next month.

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

Is it wrong to bash MSFS in an X-Plane forum and vice versa?  Only if it's incorrect information.

I think our definitions of bashing are different. Pointing out issues with something is just discussing, so I wouldn't call it bashing. I'm perfectly fine with discussing both X-Plane and MSFS. I don't find talking about MSFS in X-Plane forums or vice versa wrong either, as long as they are civil. Many people have multiple simulators, have expectations from all of them and therefore follow multiple forums. However, the tone is what makes it bashing instead of discussion. There's a huge difference between simply pointing out an issue and making fun of something with immense hate. Like "X-Plane will never be as good as MSFS!11!1" versus "X-Plane lacks many improvements of MSFS" and "MSFS is just a dumb game made for kids by evil corporations!1!11!!!11" versus "MSFS still lacks some important aspects of flight modeling", I think you get the point.

I love both X-Plane and MSFS, and I'm pretty much sure both of their developers have poured their heart and soul into them. I hope they both succeed.

 

In order to not to derail the thread further into a X-Plane vs MSFS debate, here's a few more wishes for future X-Plane:

• Weather simulation. Turbulence effects are really overdone, to the degree that they're utterly unrealistic. Also, weather is just a small bubble around the plane, making weather radars inaccurate and microburst, windshear and other a few natural phenomenon impossible. Winds are also not affected by topography of the terrain (unlike MSFS) and thermals are missing.
• Flight model. Improvements to transsonic and supersonic flight would be welcomed. Also, many pilots have commented X-Plane flight model is a bit too "unstable" sometimes.
• Lighting, atmospherics and reflections. My previous post about P3D showed the huge difference better atmospherics & lighting can make.
• Ground textures. I'm not a huge fan of orthoscenery due to its imperfections (color and season mismatches, CA, lack of seasons, ...) so all I want is good ground textures. I'd happily take a perfect procedural world than a photoreal world with lots of issues. At least Austin thinks the same, so I'm lucky 😛

Edited January 26, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[mSparks 2,086]

2 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Everything is the same, only lighting and atmospherics have changed, but yet still it looks like a totally different simulator.

Thats a huge stretch.

What do you think is being simulated completely differently?

To me it just looks like a different time of day & weather on the same simulator........

[Biology 1,347]

11 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Thats a huge stretch.

What do you think is being simulated completely differently?

To me it just looks like a different time of day & weather on the same simulator........

I said it looks like a different simulator, not became a different simulator 😛

Weather is the same, time of day is the same, the only difference is trueSKY. You can see the difference in lighting, shading, sky and aerial perspective.

Edited January 26, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[BigDee 119]

I still visit MSFS forums in here because it is an interesting and entertaining place to visit. Just see right now how many negative threads there are:

-Hard stutters

-Top immersion killers

and so forth.

Many of them dominate. Take for example the newest thread: Aircraft flight aerodynamics, that contains the official MSFS aerodynmaics part 2 video: The chief developer is happy to anounce they have hired/are coworking with real Boeing pilots, aircraft engineers. But in the end he asks for feedback from customers regarding the physics. Come on, they are working with real engineers/pilots and still require feedback from a typical MSFS customer (Xbox joypad owners)? This place keeps beeing a funny place.

Or take for example the updates, up until the newest update (buildings and terrain issues), they do mess every time something up. The graphics are great in MSFS, but look at the other home made videos, terrain issues, terrain irregularities, greatly blurried distanced textures. It`s a feeling between great visuals (official videos) and "it looks the same in FSX" feeling (some fan made videos).

X-Plane is built primarly as a simulator, the physics are great, but still with orthos or scenery add-ons you can get great visual results, not as good as MSFS (at least the official videos), but it is a top quality product.

[jarmstro 2,402]

I think MS2020 caught Laminar Research off guard. Complacency is a common mistake made by many a software company.

[jcomm 5,929]

7 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

 

About MSFS limitations... When it comes to SDK, most of the "limitations" are not actually "limitations" but just different ways of programming.

The limitations with the flight model is a bit more complicated: Unlike X-Plane (excluding airfoils), the 3D model in MSFS does not represent the flight dynamics of a model alone. So the fact that you can't have a bi-plane configuration in 3D model doesn't mean you can't get the flight model right. You will just need to "revert" to the tables to fill in the gaps. Afterwards, the normalization algorithm should take care of the rest to combine both. This is why 3D model in MSFS is so simple compared to the one in X-Plane: Unlike X-Plane (other than airfoils), MSFS uses the data tables in FSX/P3D to fill in the gaps using its "normalization" algorithm, so it doesn't require a 3D model as complex. Overall, the better 3D model matches the actual aircraft, the less table data is required.

For me this is where MFS's approach, but I am probably being a "victim" of the lack of proper documentation ( ? ) looks like it amalgamates concepts of the two approaches, maybe as a way to affirm it's advantages over X-Plane's long term approach to flight dynamics, maybe because it was a requirement "imposed" by MS ( to integrate parts of the Legacy FM ), I really don't know... All I know is that so far the end result is far from being satisfactory in many aspects, and each time I try to play MFS, it's becoming more and more evident that for the time being I am much more happy with what I get in XP, IL2, DCS...

There is a lot more to it than simply using tables from the Legacy FM, although we really don't know which exactly and how they can be properly used because there's a huge lack of information, in order to complement MFS's simplified 3d reference model approach and get to the level of detail / sophistication possible in X-Plane.

Things are changing yes, and ASOBO appears to be receptive to critics and suggestions, so, I give MFS the benefit of doubt for the time being...

Quote

In order to not to derail the thread further into a X-Plane vs MSFS debate, here's a few more wishes for future X-Plane:

• Weather simulation. Turbulence effects are really overdone, to the degree that they're utterly unrealistic. Also, weather is just a small bubble around the plane, making weather radars inaccurate and microburst, windshear and other a few natural phenomenon impossible. Winds are also not affected by topography of the terrain (unlike MSFS) and thermals are missing

Well, X-Plane does model thermals, and some improvements were actually added along the XP11 evolution. For instance, sink between thermals is no longer ridiculously proportional to the thermal intensity, and thermals "cant" with the prevailing wind... 

AFAIK there's no integrated thermal model presently available in MFS.

Topography influencing the windflow is yet another feature that has long been modelled, and actually very acceptably, in X-Plane. You can actually experience ridge currents, up and down depending on being on the good or the lee side of a hill... Not bad at all, although probably not as sophisticated as the visualization I have seen a few times in MFS internal Dev videos...

Quote

• Flight model. Improvements to transsonic and supersonic flight would be welcomed. Also, many pilots have commented X-Plane flight model is a bit too "unstable" sometimes.

Transonic effects, Mach tuck and some more have long been modelled in X-Plane. It all depends on how sophisticated the model is. Actually Austin introduced along XP11 the chance to set variable Reynolds number simulation associated with an airfoil do better adapt the airfoil characteristics to the speed regimes...

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by jcomm

[1st fltsimguy 466]

https://imgur.com/a/1rCf1I9

Amazing scenery is possible in XP11.5+.  I am currently building my ortho, overlays and freeware addons for Spain.  Here is a random shot from yesterday.

This is what I'm talking about in terms of "out the window".  It's all possible.  I would rather have XP "step up their game" so I don't have to spend countless hours to make this possible and yet at the same time I can enjoy the amazing flight dynamics and complex aircraft available in this sim.

[Bjoern 1,157]

 

8 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Here's the same scene, with "Enhanced Amotpshiercs" enabled:

That looks just like XP11 with Enhanced Cloudscapes.

[VFXSimmer 1,310]

14 hours ago, mSparks said:

Have you done any actual VFR navigation in MSFS yet? - no moving map, no GPS, no pulling over to ask for directions, only headings, air speed and time to judge where you are (I've probably spent more time in XP practising this than anything else).

Because if you had you might have noticed how bad the MSFS view at a distance is.

Tons.  Just yesterday recreated a flight from Manassas, VA to Danbury, CT that I flew IRL many years ago.  Followed the I-95 corridor past DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia then up the Hudson past the Mario Cuomo (formerly Tappan Zee) bridge then the Saw Mill Pkwy through Westchester.  It looked exactly as I remember and landmarks were easily viewed well into the horizon.  And what was so cool was that the buildlngs were the real thing - my old house in Rockville, MD was my house, not just a generic box.  Its interesting that you'ld knock msfs for VFR navigation.  If anything THAT is what it excels at.  Maybe you just need better hardware?

I love this flight and did it many times in xplane as well.  I had setup the sim with gigabytes of ortho and custom built world2xplane scripts (was a lot of fun - actually had OSM tagged big box stores like home depot, walmart, etc tagged and represented by bespoke facade buildings that looked like the real thing, same with universities, hospitals etc).  Was also using a world tree database to replace xplanes generic tree layout.  It looked pretty good and was as close to reality as I could get at the time, but punished the system, it was frustrating to put in all that work and have to dial it back in 3jfps in vr.  And it was still not as good as what msfs had out of the box.  My point is that if you want to get a true apples to apples comparison, you have to add a lot more to xp and you wont be getting the 60fps you're fond of.  Xplane's autogen is efficient and if you are good with that then thats all that needs to be said.  Autogen will be fast, but its not a fair comparison if you're talking about framerates.

There is also a difference between opinion and arguing over things that are just plain wrong.  Deciding which looks more like a photograph is opinion.  Critiquing draw distance is not.  Just looking at the two images of NYC from before its pretty easy to see that MSFS is drawing detailed and correct buildings well into the distance - well beyond the x-plane photo you like.  The LOD of these are reduced (as they should be), but they aren't even there in the xplane photo.

That said, I respect the feelings of others here.  This is an x-plane forum and the thread is about how to improve X-plane in the future.  I'm not try to disparage it in any way.  In fact, I hope you can tell that I poured a ton into the sim over the years and really enjoyed it.  I for one hope that LR can find a way to improve its visuals for those of us who value it.  I dont have brand loyalty ... I just want to use the sim that best fills the things I value.. as all of us do.  Right now its MSFS for me, but that could change in the future if XP12 brings something great to the table.