X-Plane looks horrible. How to improve it?

[mSparks 2,086]

56 minutes ago, GoranM said:

and saying X-Plane looks "horrible" will not get you anywhere.

A gentle reminder for those who have been using xplane for long enough they have forgotten, that out of the box it typically looks like this

I'd say calling that horrible is putting it mildly, I personally used many swear words after a reinstall a few months ago reminded me just how ####ing absoutely ### d##n sh## xplane 11 looks out of the box. 

Out of the box xp11 makes your eyes bleed worse than an excel spreadsheet. Sure, with some love and attention and time its pretty easy to get it looking better than msfs.

But pretending you can just give someone the xp11 demo and it will blow msfs out the water definitely gets no one anywhere.

Edited May 30, 2021 by mSparks

[jarmstro 2,402]

8 hours ago, mSparks said:

Mind you, if a certain forum tasked with running the public XP beta discussion didn't regularly ban anyone who found a bug in X-Plane, and insult anyone trying

 

Bugs? I am constantly being suspended on another forum for the hideous crime of saying MSFS is quite good and defending it against an onslaught of hate? Cancel culture is rife. 

[mSparks 2,086]

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Bugs? I am constantly being suspended on another forum for the hideous crime of saying MSFS is quite good and defending it against an onslaught of hate? Cancel culture is rife. 

My last ban was for saying XP12 wouldn't be released in May this year, the one before that for wanting and expecting Vulkan to fix the horrible stutters that ruined the experience for me.

That's very different to "defending" an "update simulator" that

As a game MSFS looks boring as ####, landing challenges have all the replay-ability of a game of chess with half the pieces missing

As a sim they charge $120 for a few airports and "planes" that are so far from airworthy it's getting labelled a scam: No, FBW doesn't "make that right"

This is flight sim, flying aircraft is hard, absolutely nothing else ever requires circa 200 hours of training and ground school before you can play the game, but anything that tries to skip that will never be accepted by those who take it seriously. 

You want to drag this into a topic on X-Plane looking horrible, thats easy, Ortho is not a good solution, its just the best solution we have until XP12 does something better. Baked in clouds, buildings and other "shouldn't be there" photo stuff has been ruining the experience for X-Planers well before those sucked into the MSFFS hyperbole discovered its not a good solution. MSFS default Ortho or X-Plane with Ortho, both look as bad as each other, better than the default textures that ship with XP11 - yes - a long term solution, good grief I hope not. 

Edited May 30, 2021 by mSparks

[FlyBaby 659]

On 5/29/2021 at 12:22 AM, Janov said:

I think the OPs post is insulting to the developers of X-Plane that spent an incredible amount of effort to make it not look horrible. Just like telling a cook that his food tastes awful, or an aging lady that her age...shows. I raise my children to be polite and to honor an effort, even if it falls short in comparison to other results, but maybe not everyone has an upbringing like that. It is a skill to utter criticism while saving someones face.

.......

Now the internet is not always a place of subtelty and politeness, but if you come in swinging like the OP, don´t expect us X-Plane fans to just turn the other cheek 🙂

This is a stretch....an old lady isn't selling a product...LR is. And to that extent, some  people find that XP looks horrible...dated.

"I raise my children to be polite"....."don´t expect us X-Plane fans to just turn the other cheek"

So then you admit that how you raise "your" children have nothing to do with how you (or anyone else) actually respond on a forum....

On 5/29/2021 at 2:31 PM, aleex said:

Because I have the same opinion as him. XP looks outdated and ugly.

 

There is nothing wrong with harsh criticism. But there are folk in the XP forum who apparently don't want opinions shared that they don't agree with.

 

On 5/29/2021 at 3:32 PM, Janov said:

....

As Asobo has found out, there are many facets to making a comprehensive and well rounded flight simulator. And even their vaunted forte, the visual aspect of aviation, is still lacking some aspects that one would certainly expect from a AAA title, namely the particle effects and full seasons (not only snow).

There is one other thing at play - a lot of users complain about X-Plane looking "faded" or "hazy" or "washed out". The truth is that this is the way the real world looks like most of the time when flying a real plane and I believe that X-Plane catches this hue quite well. But many folks prefer a brighter, more saturated colorful look (especially those coming over from FSX), and you need graphical tweaks to achieve that with X-Plane.

So does X-Plane look dated, compared to other games? Definitely. Is it ugly, awful or horrible? I don´t think so. Maybe at times - just like MSFS´s photogrammetry when the bandwidth goes down or when you look up close 🙂

Cheers, Jan

 

It seems odd how the "same" people who don't want anything "bad" said about X-plane.....find a way criticize the one sim (as a comparison) that has over 2 million pilots.

With respect to the DEV....

What Asobo has found out (through feedback channels / live chats etc), they look to address, put it on the roadmap, and then execute. They don't sit back for years doing nothing about the weaker aspects of their sim. Over 7 major updates (including VR) in less than a year.

And here is a thread where the XP graphics have not advanced much...over several years...

9 hours ago, mSparks said:

As a game MSFS looks boring as ####, landing challenges have all the replay-ability of a game of chess with half the pieces missing

As a sim they charge $120 for a few airports and "planes" that are so far from airworthy it's getting labelled a scam: No, FBW doesn't "make that right"

 

As a game...

MSFS can appeal to more people (apparently over 2 million), have an X-Box expansion, and the "store" to fund further development.

That further development will bring more features to the sim itself. FBW, WT etc will get there eventually, I just heard that PMDG made some official announcements regarding future releases, and a GTN750i addon recently released.

The criticisms of today most likely won't be there 1 or 2 years from now because they are constantly developing / improving. It's like pointing at a newborn saying that he can't walk knowing that he will get there over the next year or so.

I think that we are way beyond comparing sims at this point, there is a business strategy in place to ensure consistent and frequent development going forward, and that is what the community (for all platforms) have been wanting all along.

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by FlyBaby

[mjrhealth 820]

2 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

I think that we are way beyond comparing sims at this point, there is a business strategy in place to ensure consistent and frequent development going forward, and that is what the community (for all platforms) have been wanting all along.

Maybe so, but I am still wondering how MS$ is going to get its return for the millions of dollars it put into this, Wait for the movie release, "When Investors Scream, We want our money".

[mjrhealth 820]

11 hours ago, mSparks said:

My last ban was for saying XP12 wouldn't be released in May this year, the one before that for wanting and expecting Vulkan to fix the horrible stutters that ruined the experience for me.

That's very different to "defending" an "update simulator" that

As a game MSFS looks boring as ####, landing challenges have all the replay-ability of a game of chess with half the pieces missing

As a sim they charge $120 for a few airports and "planes" that are so far from airworthy it's getting labelled a scam: No, FBW doesn't "make that right"

This is flight sim, flying aircraft is hard, absolutely nothing else ever requires circa 200 hours of training and ground school before you can play the game, but anything that tries to skip that will never be accepted by those who take it seriously. 

You want to drag this into a topic on X-Plane looking horrible, thats easy, Ortho is not a good solution, its just the best solution we have until XP12 does something better. Baked in clouds, buildings and other "shouldn't be there" photo stuff has been ruining the experience for X-Planers well before those sucked into the MSFFS hyperbole discovered its not a good solution. MSFS default Ortho or X-Plane with Ortho, both look as bad as each other, better than the default textures that ship with XP11 - yes - a long term solution, good grief I hope not. 

I rarely notice, its a SIM I fly planes, too busy to care.

[GoranM 3,764]

Here we go again.

Edited May 31, 2021 by GoranM

[mSparks 2,086]

7 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

It seems odd how the "same" people who don't want anything "bad" said about X-plane.....find a way criticize the one sim (as a comparison) that has over 2 million pilots.

MSFFS got one thing right so far, it has great first impressions. I'd say The OP is fairly typical of the average user coming into xplane having seen what it can do:OMG this looks awful how do I get it like the videos.

Users who haven't seen what it can do just give up quickly.

7 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

MSFS can appeal to more people (apparently over 2 million), have an X-Box expansion, and the "store" to fund further development.

At this point I'm reasonably sure the xbox release is going to be delayed by a fairly significant amount. If you think a few grumpy old men can up with ingenious ways to criticize things that annoy them, you aint seen nothing yet; they are babies to the xbox crew spending mom and dads credit card expecting perfect instant gratification and the flawless graphics they were promised. 

You are talking about people who will make 1+ hour videos dedicated to how bad the latest aaa title is for having moments where for fractions of a second its under 60fps..... Asobo know this, which is why DX12 is now seems to be a prerequisite for the console launch, I doubt they will get that working any time soon (Conversion to a modern graphics API took LR and eagle dynamics some 3 years to get out of the test bench, Eagle still dont have vulkan working)

XP is written by people with a passion for aviation, for people with a passion for aviation, a genre where neglecting an oil change can kill half a city block is never going to go down well with kids burning 10minutes when they should be doing their homework, no matter how much fancy graphics you wrap it in, which is why it was never the highest priority for Laminar, and mostly left to the community.

Edited May 31, 2021 by mSparks

[jarmstro 2,402]

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

XP is written by people with a passion for aviation,

My wife's old Fiat which she bought in 2002 was made by people with a passion for cars. And she loves it and wouldn't part with it for the world. But times and technology change. Her car is garbage except as an historical novelty.

Edited May 31, 2021 by jarmstro

[mSparks 2,086]

7 hours ago, jarmstro said:

My wife's old Fiat which she bought in 2002 was made by people with a passion for cars.

Other than maybe wanting me to point out that Asobo chose a graphics API from a similar era, which only supports the historic garbage that is windows - which I'm pretty sure wasn't your intention - I'm not sure of the connection.

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by mSparks

[Scottoest 1,561]

18 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

Maybe so, but I am still wondering how MS$ is going to get its return for the millions of dollars it put into this, Wait for the movie release, "When Investors Scream, We want our money".

Microsoft's games business in 2021 is more complicated than releasing a game and expecting a certain direct ROI on sales of that game.  They're more interested in widening their subscriber pool for Game Pass.  A "service-based" product like MSFS getting updates and expansions over months and years is also a good fit for a recurring subscription service, not to mention the 30% cut they take on all of the third-party stuff sold through the in-game marketplace. As long as they can capture a sizeable chunk of the core flight simmer market in the long term, the business model will be fine.

[mjrhealth 820]

18 hours ago, jarmstro said:

My wife's old Fiat which she bought in 2002 was made by people with a passion for cars. And she loves it and wouldn't part with it for the world. But times and technology change. Her car is garbage except as an historical novelty.

They still drive model T fords, I wonder when you wont be able to get parts for your car. We have 25 year old transmitters that are more reliable than the crappy new solid state ones we are replacing them with, Yes they may be old, but you can still fix them.

[mjrhealth 820]

21 hours ago, GoranM said:

Here we go again.

It was getting quiet

 

[peroni 541]

23 hours ago, mSparks said:

At this point I'm reasonably sure the xbox release is going to be delayed by a fairly significant amount.

I wouldn't speculate if I was you, you've been wrong many times before. 

Why don't you tell us more about this XP public beta forum you mentioned before? And who said the next version would be out in May? 

[mSparks 2,086]

19 minutes ago, peroni said:

you've been wrong many times before. 

really? such as?

I love the ex-post analysis when an estimate comes out wrong, but not had any to do for a few years, so if you really know of even one that'd be great.

Edited June 1, 2021 by mSparks