X-Plane looks horrible. How to improve it?

[FS Professional 7]

17 hours ago, ShortFinal said:

Hello all, 

I have owned X-Plane 11 for a while now, but rarely fly it. The biggest reason I don't fly it is for the graphics. It just looks Awful, with my FS2004 install looking better (it's had ton's of graphics improvements). With that said, Could you put together a list of the must have addons? yes there are tons of them on youtube but they don't seem to make a big change. I am looking at the Sky environment, clouds, airports, etc. The clouds have always been the worst part of X-Plane to me, which is now amplified as I am a big MSFS2020 flyer, and a real world pilot. any input is appreciated. Thanks!

I use the following programs in terms of visuals and weather and the sim looks very good, surpassing P3D in my opinion. It actually looks “realistic” and not cartoonish as P3D. Most of the time the outside world looks bland and not always fully saturated with colors and bloom all over the place. 

- xVision 

- ASXP

- alpilotx HD Mesh

- SFD Global

The clouds that the presets of xVision bring with are superb, volumetric and look nothing like the default clouds. X-Plane is very moldable and you can set pretty everything to your liking.

[Biology 1,347]

Yikes, seriously, just chill. "He posts in MSFS forum so he must be a troll", really? If you had bothered to go back just one more page, you would see that rest of his posts are indeed about FS2004. Ironically, it's always the same two people who derail threads with unnecessary comparisons, not OP. But yeah definitely OP is the troll 🤣

[jarmstro 2,402]

In order to enjoy X-Plane you have to get passed the 1990's graphics. Once  you do it's an experience MSFS cannot match yet. Especially in view of the fact that it has a superb  portfolio of really good add-on planes. You can spend a fortune on add-on visual enhancements but they won't really get you anywhere as it's never going to look up to date.

Beware plug-ins such as X-Enviro for which you need a super computer. I think these sort of addons should have some sort of free trial available before you buy. And I very much doubt they will work (or be necessary) in XP12 so the money you spend may only give temporary solace.

Edited April 27, 2021 by jarmstro

[jarmstro 2,402]

3 hours ago, FS Professional said:

The clouds that the presets of xVision bring with are superb, volumetric and look nothing like the default clouds.

You must have a different version of XVision to me? No way are the clouds volumetric. I think they look far worse than even the default clouds. I disable the cloud effects.

Edited April 27, 2021 by jarmstro

[ThrottleUp 617]

I love X-Plane 11. I know it cannot match MSFS in the graphics dept but thats not why I fly it so much. Using tweaks and ReShade it can be made to look good. Some shots of mine:

[GoranM 3,762]

8 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Yikes, seriously, just chill. "He posts in MSFS forum so he must be a troll", really? If you had bothered to go back just one more page, you would see that rest of his posts are indeed about FS2004. Ironically, it's always the same two people who derail threads with unnecessary comparisons, not OP. But yeah definitely OP is the troll 🤣

The OP stating that X-Plane looks worse than FS9 with add ons?  yeah.  My bad.  Definitely a legit post. 

You don't think he could have just asked how to enhance X-Plane without the pointless, exaggerated, negative and untrue comparison?  Do you have any common sense?

(You don't have to answer that.  I know what you're going to say.)

Edited April 27, 2021 by GoranM

[mSparks 2,086]

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

You don't think he could have just asked how to enhance X-Plane without the pointless, exaggerated, negative and untrue comparison?  

(You don't have to answer that.  I know what you're going to say.)

My first thought was "well, xplane out of the box, depending on where you fly can look pretty awful".

but then I checked

And the only conclusion I can draw is the OP has definitely been smoking some microsoft, and probably hasn't even tried the free xplane demo.

But at least MSFS2004 has some planes that actually work, which is more than can be said for those trying to compare MSFS2020 to xplane with pointless, exaggerated, negative and untrue comparisons.

Edited April 27, 2021 by mSparks

[CFIJose 5,485]

Please don't remind me of FS2004 or FSX. They were absolutely the worst sims. I'll now add P3D. I honestly thought that P3D was a great sim if only one day I could get rid of the pauses and stutters and floating houses, yada yada. MSFS does have some pauses and stutters here and there, but it's so dam beautiful that I can live with some pauses here and there. X-Plane 11 is a different animal. It's so smooth now and rock solid. I'm so glad that I decided to try it again.

Edited April 28, 2021 by DJJose

[Greazer 1,320]

Add all the ortho and add-ons you can find. I just wish the Ortho4xp guy would add an option to use existing mesh and then not generate the mesh if selected. Would save a tonne of disk space.

[Biology 1,347]

12 hours ago, GoranM said:

The OP stating that X-Plane looks worse than FS9 with add ons?

You have got absolutely no idea how good FS2004 can look with lots of add-ons such as Orbx Global, REX and other shader modifications.

Especially given that OP seems to be obsessed with clouds, his claim makes perfect sense to me - even FS2004 clouds with some texture modding look better than X-Plane clouds. FS2004 is also much more capable of showing large-scale cloud formations. Reading the paper about FS2004 clouds, I can't help but get impressed.

So I'm sorry, but it's not exactly an untrue comparison.

Edited April 28, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[mSparks 2,086]

10 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

even FS2004 clouds with some texture modding look better than X-Plane clouds.

i think that's overly fond memories of years gone by there nano.

Its one thing to read what is written in a paper, something else entirely to see it "in the flesh".

There is absolutely nothing better visually in anything i can find in the "make msfs2004 look great" vids, orbx or otherwise. the 2d cloud art is sparse and spins around while you move, the lighting makes xplane look positively flawless and the cockpits are a 2D texture slapped on quad.

The planes mostly work, which already puts it in a league above msfs2020, but nowhere near as well as even default xp11 planes, and functionality wasn't something the op even commented on.

[Biology 1,347]

10 hours ago, DJJose said:

I honestly thought that P3D was a great sim if only one day I could get rid of the pauses and stutters and floating houses, yada yada.

The experience is sadly becoming the exact opposite for me. I'm increasingly shifting more and more towards P3D, especially after it got trueSKY out of the box - new lighting, sky and clouds look so natural and so far I can't find anything matching it in X-Plane, other than xEnviro. Combined with much more realistic airliner add-ons, being able to have nice ground textures without spending hours and gigabytes of disk space on orthophoto scenery, it's becoming a much better choice for me.

Hence my constant struggle to make X-Plane look as good as P3D instead of just giving up on it, so I can keep airliner add-ons I love to fly, namely FlyJSim 737 and FlyJSim 727. And of course helicopters, which goes really well with X-Plane's flight dynamics engine.

I still think X-Plane has the potential to look as good as P3D, it just needs right art assets and configuration. I already developed a custom sky for X-Plane, but it's no use as it overrides default clouds and I don't like how Enhanced Cloudscapes looks.

[mSparks 2,086]

8 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

I'm increasingly shifting more and more towards P3D

Sure, P3Dv5 is only 6 months old now, XP11 is 5 years old, and if you are willing to spend $100s on it (or fish in the sea of pirates...) P3D can of course look better than XP11 100% legit.

But a little birdie tells me you haven't even tried the 744, which is very confusion for me 😞

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by mSparks

[Biology 1,347]

24 minutes ago, mSparks said:

i think that's overly fond memories of years gone by there nano.

Its one thing to read what is written in a paper, something else entirely to see it "in the flesh".

There is absolutely nothing better visually in anything i can find in the "make msfs2004 look great" vids, orbx or otherwise. the 2d cloud art is sparse and spins around while you move, the lighting makes xplane look positively flawless and the cockpits are a 2D texture slapped on quad.

The planes mostly work, which already puts it in a league above msfs2020, but nowhere near as well as even default xp11 planes, and functionality wasn't something the op even commented on.

Well, sure, but my point was about clouds:

If the OP is obsessed with clouds, these clouds are probably more than enough to prefer one over the other. For the rest, I main issues about FS2004 can be seen in the video - lack of anisotropic filtering which causes terrain blurries, flat lighting and more.

About cockpits, isn't it a matter of add-ons? Sure, default aircraft are from 2004, but more modern add-ons should still look pretty well. There are shader mods which will improve lighting and add rayleigh scattering, making it even better. FS2004 also looks overly contrasty and colorful, which some people prefer even though it isn't exactly realistic.

Would I use it over X-Plane? Nope, it looks like it's from 2004. Would I use it over X-Plane if only things I cared about were clouds, contrast and saturation? Yes, absolutely. And believe me, I encountered such people a lot, so OP's claims aren't too surprising to me. I still don't think he's a troll.

Edited April 28, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[Biology 1,347]

7 minutes ago, mSparks said:

But a little birdie tells me you haven't even tried the 744, which is very confusion for me 😞

 

Well, the birb might be wrong, because I already tried your 744, which impressed me a lot. You immediately got me by adding takeoff configuration warnings.

Edited April 28, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot