>X-Plane on the other end has one main developer which I guess>has a much better overview of his product. FS development crew>is certainly changing too often that someone could have a>closer relationship to the code.My feeling is that X-Plane also has something different that can be a benefit. Austin is the main programmer, designer and his own boss. X-plane is made by a small team where one man can make design decisions and plan release date's new versions etc. Don't take this as a negative because I don't mean this as name calling (I just lack a better word for it). X-plane is designed and build by a dictator. In comparisson FS-X feels like its designed by a commity.There is a general plan. THere are some milestones that have to be kept. Halfway new design goals are added by other departments (Vista showcase title BUT also WinXP compatible) and personel is reassigned to other projects (or leaves) which makes it difficult to keep development going according to plan. FS-X sometimes feels to lack direction.Changing program managers halfway doesn't help with that perception.Reading the old ACES Blogs I sometimes got the feeling that they would happily scrap the whole ATC in favour of doing ATC online (maybethey scrap it in the next version). If Austin ever felt that way over some X-Plane feature he would scrap it immediately in the next minor update and no complaining would ever bring it back.

>it's to see if your landing gear is down or notI thought maybe he meant the mirror too, but it's the mirror (reversed as in upside down) image of the star & strip on the right wing. The other models with red, blue, and white are correct. L.Adamson

>FSX - Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/172098.jpg>>X-Plane - Same area, no dam, and bridge sits at the bottomHope you catch this message LAdamson. I just came back from a FS friend that I help with tweaking. I installed FS-X SP1 for him (yup he did switch ;) ). For the test run I decided to take off from Page Muni and have a look at the dam. It looks just like your picture but when I aproached it from the other side I noticed nasty rock edges coming through the dam surface so I have to ask.What kind of mesh settings do you use?Do you have add-on mesh for the area?Can you make a screenshot from the other side of the dam?To solve the problem we did use various mesh settings but we could not get the dam to show properly. This one has me stumped. Is there something wrong with his mesh?BTW if you look closely in FS-X you do see the vector road on the valley floor its right beneath the handplaced bridge.

No, you're not being rude, and I'm glad you asked. OpenGL can handle much more than the DX API in terms of throughput. The problem with DX, and correct me if I am wrong, is the fact that they've tried to make DX into this API that does a multitude of things. Based on what I know, and again, correct me if I am wrong, it's almost like trying to squeeze 10 lbs. of s$*t through a 1 lb bag. Another thing, OpenGL has proven itself over and over again. If you really wonder how this is, I suggest you contact Rockwell Collins, or CAE. Obviously, I don't see those guys making the change to DX; if it's so superior to OpenGL, I believe the industry would have made the switch years ago, but they haven't, and I don't see it happening anytime soon. OpenGL runs faster, and is more optimized as a graphics API, without the bottlenecks of DX. The only reason why FS is DX based, is the fact that MS controls DX, and they won't implement support of OpenGL. It's purely a marketing ploy, and in the end, the consumer is the loser due to the fact we don't have the option to run it in OpenGL which I feel would cure a lot of the ailments of FS, as well as add features DX doesn't currently support, at least to my knowledge. The funny thing here is, I work with OpenGL based platforms, and the scene content is just as detailed as FSX, yet the processor power and GPU runs it much faster, and is smooth. It's not jerky, textures don't load slow, and runs features such as volumetric fog and clouds. You would think it would bring the system to it's knees, but it does not. However, try doing this with FSX using DX, and you'll have an entirely different outcome.

Hi Andreas,If it were the coding, I'd be very concerned. I don't think it is the coding. It's purely the graphics API. The problem is, we're under the gun when it comes to MS. They won't use anything other than DX; in the end, we all lose. If we had the option of running FSX in OpenGL mode, I think we'd see an entirely different outcome of performance and fluidity.

No, I'm staying away from Vista entirely, and the entire DX10 platform. That's another marketing ploy developed by MS to captivate end-users. :) I've heard that OpenGL isn't even supported in Vista, and if it is, they 'dumbed' it down so it doesn't run as fast. Which I can see why since it's their platform, but I like to have more options. The thing I see with DX10 is, it's just another way to make people pay more money for nothing. I don't buy the crap that they can't make a GPU backwards compatible with DX10; it's called a firmware upgrade. Going out and spending upwards of $500.00 for a decent DX10 'compatible' GPU is a ripoff. There's no justification for it.

I think its been proved many times that, given all things are equal, there is not much difference in using D3D9 and OGL 2.0.Even the opengl.org site states this, at http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/ So lets not start the D3D-OGL wars all over again. Please.

Hi Phil,I have a question regarding that. With a lot of the work I've done, why is it that the OpenGL platform seems to have a much better handle on things and is much more fluid in terms of FPS and scene content? Not trying to knock DX, but it just seems that 'maybe' DX might not be the best platform to get people where they want to be in terms of performance/features. One thing I'd much like to point at directly is, the volumetric fog/clouds in OpenGL. There's no performance degradation at all, and the GPU used is actually slower than the one in my PC at home. There's something that just isn't making any sense at all. Lightpoints are much clearer and sharper as well, but I would attribute that to using a calligraphic projector versus a raster based system.

>Hope you catch this message LAdamson. I just came back from a>FS friend that I help with tweaking. I installed FS-X SP1 for>him (yup he did switch ;) ). For the test run I decided to>take off from Page Muni and have a look at the dam. It looks>just like your picture but when I aproached it from the other>side I noticed nasty rock edges coming through the dam surface>so I have to ask.>If I cross back and forth enough, some extra rock ledges will quickly "morph", and then disappear. And flying all over this area, texture swapping is still nearly a non-event! :) At least we get the dam, and the bridge...I do use FSGenesis, and settings as in pic.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/172219.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/172220.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/172221.jpg

What eye candy in X-Plane?? You must be joking, lol.

Wow!I never considered 10m mesh res settings! I'll try those settings and see if we can get the picture quality up.I hope his machine can deal with it though.Thanks for your swift help!

>What eye candy in X-Plane?? You must be joking, lol.Come on man, sure there is a big difference in details and quality of models that FS-X provides that I agree. But when you judge the whole picture and throw in fluid movement, high consistent fps and the bluries it kind of evens out. You then get to the point that FS-X is beter in situation X but X-Plane can handle situation Y so much beter.Its apples versus oranges and never just black vs white.I somethimes think X-Planes advantage has to do with the limited graphics settings and the fact that there are no secret fsx.cfg settings. You quickly run out of tweaking options in X-Plane so you just go flying while in FS-9 / FS-X you just are just about finished tweaking then hear about an ew sup duper CFG tweak an there you go again ;)

>>What eye candy in X-Plane?? You must be joking, lol.>>Come on man, sure there is a big difference in details and>quality of models that FS-X provides that I agree. But when>you judge the whole picture and throw in fluid movement, high>consistent fps and the bluries it kind of evens out. You then>get to the point that FS-X is beter in situation X but X-Plane>can handle situation Y so much beter.>>Its apples versus oranges and never just black vs white.>>I somethimes think X-Planes advantage has to do with the>limited graphics settings and the fact that there are no>secret fsx.cfg settings. You quickly run out of tweaking>options in X-Plane so you just go flying while in FS-9 / FS-X>you just are just about finished tweaking then hear about an>ew sup duper CFG tweak an there you go again ;)Well, i accept your opinion, maybe because you have problems with FSX or a not so powerful machine. On my system FSX runs very fluid with high consistent FPS and some blurries just appeared after SP1 (which i hope to get a fix for). For me, X-Plane's only advantage is the more realistic aircraft behaviour. The rest is trying to compare the uncomparable. ;-)Cheers.

I have to admit I'm also a bit dissappointed that FSX on my machine just looks like a blur - but I think there may be more at play than performance. I've heard of people with very similar systems having sharp textures for miles even when flying at speed so maybe there is something that is being mishandled by a lot of the hardware out there, that somehow wasn't picked up during beta testing...Oh I should mention my comp is running Vista 32, specs as follows:P4 3.0 GHz with HT1GB Geil PC3200 RAMATI X800XT PE 256MB Card with Catalyst 7.4Western Digital 80GB WD800J HDD with 8MB cacheIntel 865Perl MoboJames