4 hours ago, tonywob said:

Microsoft have supported and helped the OSM movement over the years, and without the bing imagery layer they provide, it wouldn't have progressed as it had.

Warm fuzzies for everyone! This certainly does not change my opinion of M$ and their marketing tactics.

3 minutes ago, mSparks said:

No, its because its a "unique" structure that stands out when you are 3nm away and visibility is 3nm.

Coming from Kapoanik you had to navigate 20 times for another three miles. How did you know where to go 5, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles away? 

And the VOR in MSFS is standing out from the landscape in a more realistic way, than the black ball from the moon-surface like landscape on your screenshot. The landscape there is not even scratching the "plausible"-mark.

2 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Ok so the VOR is the only VFR reference that missing in XP11 world for VFR pilots to navigate, worldwide? Otherwise they have all the other references? 

In other words XP11 is a VFR platform?

Note that I would ask the same thing about FSX or any previous gen sim platform, out of the box... 

Got me past my VFR pplh exam in deteriorating mvfr conditions.

With my first real life mvfr flight being my pplh exam, having previously only flown in fair weather, half expecting to call it off but my examiner being experienced enough that I trusted him to handle the weather. 

Where I found out the real meaning of

3.  Marginal VFR (MVFR): Ceilings 1,000 to 3,000 feet and/or visibility is 3-5 miles inclusive.

MVFR = 1000-3000′ and/or 3-5 miles

This is when VFR pilots kill themselves all the time. If you haven’t flown in MVFR, ask a CFII to take you up so you can scare the sh@*t out of yourself.

And just how phenominally realistic XP was.

And I couldnt even see the VAL VOR on that section because the entire area was covered 50 feet deep in fog.

 

23 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

How did you know where to go 5, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles away? 

Its called VFR navigation, the very first type of navigation you learn, you plan it like

the reason the VORs and NDBs are so "lovely" in that, is you cant mistake them for something similar but 10nm from where you thought you were, which is easy to do with churches villages, road junctions and other reference points.

One of the very few times I very nearly got lost while training was using a road junction between two villages as a reference point. found it about 5nm to my 10 o'clock. Only problem was the one I planned on was actually about 7nm away to my 4 o'clock. instructor pointed it out, using it would have put me near 20nm off course and I would have gotten "properly lost".

Edited June 3, 20224 yr by mSparks

By the way, unless XP12 is different in this respect, XP11 3D installation for Navaids are not overlays but part of the core sim. 

There was this NDB on a runway in an airport and I sent a few emails for LR to move it because the coordinates they used (part of the data they got), are not accurate because the NDB was 1 km away and obviously not on the runway..

I even had a pilot I know who uses XP and who knows the airport and who sent me some notes I forwarded to LR... Still they did not want to review the position of the NDB...

It is slightly out of topic but just to say that the XP 3D shapes of navaids are locked to the navaid position and not overlays... i.e: 3D automatically placed at the coord. of the navaid... And can not be excluded... as far as we tried...

However, we could override the Navaids in custom airports using a configuration we include in the addon... But this is certainly not recommended by LR... Yet, when the data has little inaccuracies we have no choice...

Edited June 3, 20224 yr by Claviateur

43 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

However, we could override the Navaids in custom airports using a configuration we include in the addon

And to repeat, losing the capability to fix default because its not perfect and run it offline because you are in a secure facility with no internet access are the top reasons streaming from a central server is a terrible solution for a professional flight simulator.

Regardless of how good or bad it is otherwise.

22 minutes ago, mSparks said:

And to repeat, losing the capability to fix default because its not perfect and run it offline because you are in a secure facility with no internet access are the top reasons streaming from a central server is a terrible solution for a professional flight simulator.

Regardless of how good or bad it is otherwise.

I would say anything related to the core sim features is better to be local... And if I am not mistaken it is...

I would presume the Navaids are local unlike the data driven scenery components.

 

58 minutes ago, mSparks said:

streaming from a central server is a terrible solution for a professional flight simulator.

I don't think many people would have liked 750 DVDs and a code wheel.

1 hour ago, rka said:

I don't think many people would have liked 750 DVDs and a code wheel.

Indeed... As far as my daily work environment predicts, this is not what the future of tech has in mind...

But again, whatever my neighbor has and I can't afford or have is bad bad bad...

1 hour ago, Claviateur said:

But again, whatever my neighbor has and I can't afford or have is bad bad bad...

I think some of you people can't understand that subjective preferences are, indeed, subjective.

If mSparks prefers the way XP scenery works for his needs and his priorities, can you actually say that he is "wrong"?

We could make many examples like that.

Aerowinx PSX has no scenery at all and only a 2D cockpit. The people who use it, evidently feel more immersion using it (and consider it more "realistic") than using the PMDG 737 in MSFS; would they be happy to have better scenery for the next version? I'd bet they would!

When Aerofly FS2 came out, there were several people, many of them seasoned simmers, who were enthusiast about it. Pretty much the only thing it had over other sims was the extremely high FPS (in relation to the displayed visual quality) and accordingly a very high VR usability (ok, it had orthophotos for limited areas, but you could already get that in other sims, with a little effort). They considered it the closest experience to real flight they ever had. Would have they been happy to have better weather and more complex systems? I'd bet they would!

When I first tried XP around 20 years ago, it had worse visuals than FS9. And yet, I noticed a myriad of little details that were missing in FS9 (and of which 99% of FS9 users were either unaware or uninterested), and FS9 suddenly looked to me a "fake" product and incapable of giving me immersion anymore, even if it looked better for 99% of people.

---

What does "can't afford" mean anyway? Of course any of us here has the money to buy both products if he wants (around 60$ each), so if people here are using X-Plane (exclusively or in combination with other sims), it means that they consider it for some reason the better (or most realistic) product overall. Would they be happy to have improved scenery in the future? I'd bet they (we) would. Would they welcome streamed satellite scenery in the future? I'd bet most of them would.

 

Edited June 3, 20224 yr by Murmur

50 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I think some of you people can't understand that subjective preferences are, indeed, subjective.

If mSparks prefers the way XP scenery works for his needs and his priorities, can you actually say that he is "wrong"?

We could make many examples like that.

Aerowinx PSX has no scenery at all and only a 2D cockpit. The people who use it, evidently feel more immersion using it (and consider it more "realistic") than using the PMDG 737 in MSFS; would they be happy to have better scenery for the next version? I'd bet they would!

When Aerofly FS2 came out, there were several people, many of them seasoned simmers, who were enthusiast about it. Pretty much the only thing it had over other sims was the extremely high FPS (in relation to the displayed visual quality) and accordingly a very high VR usability (ok, it had orthophotos for limited areas, but you could already get that in other sims, with a little effort). They considered it the closest experience to real flight they ever had. Would have they been happy to have better weather and more complex systems? I'd bet they would!

When I first tried XP around 20 years ago, it had worse visuals than FS9. And yet, I noticed a myriad of little details that were missing in FS9 (and of which 99% of FS9 users were either unaware or uninterested), and FS9 suddenly looked to me a "fake" product and incapable of giving me immersion anymore, even if it looked better for 99% of people.

---

What does "can't afford" mean anyway? Of course any of us here has the money to buy both products if he wants (around 60$ each), so if people here are using X-Plane (exclusively or in combination with other sims), it means that they consider it for some reason the better (or most realistic) product overall. Would they be happy to have improved scenery in the future? I'd bet they (we) would. Would they welcome streamed satellite scenery in the future? I'd bet most of them would.

 

Of course subjective preference is up to the individual no question about this...

I designed scenery with a couple of friends since 1998, starting for FS98... When MS stopped developing FS (FSX), we moved to XP... The users of my scenery asked me: why did you abandon FSX? And my answer was very simple: FSX is dead while XP is alive and healthy and later told them that XP11 was way better than FSX in so many things ... And we started working on scenery for XP, and we did this for many years..

Then MSFS was out... Never seen before data driven world coverage (not mentioning other part of the graphic engine)... Newer possibilities and tech were there, in-sim dev mode etc etc... So I started developing scenery for it... 

Now XP12 is coming, I look forward to seeing what can I create for it... And what is possible to do scenery wise more than what we could do for XP11 in terms of terrain tech etc...

I also have DCS and I use it for fun... Obviously no scenery dev for it...

So this discussion I believe is about Ground Scenery and Autogen in XP12......

Yet I am sure I am not the only one felt that while we try to talk tech common sense, answers drift to irrelevant strange frustration to deny simple facts... And my analogy of the neighbor is precisely a reflection of this... I was not referring to anyone buying anything...

The discussion is not about what each prefers because no one is arguing about it... My friend's car has so many advanced safety features, very impressive high tech stuff... My car does not have those but I still admire the fact the tech is evolving... I never come up with far fetched arguments to diminish the importance of the tech in his car... It's not subjective, it's a fact... His car is more advanced...

To go back to XP... When I saw the preview of XP12 with the cemeteries, I started to laugh... Not because I was making fun of them, not at all... I laughed because I wanted to render them from OSM data a few years ago... But back then, when I asked on XP forums what is the best way to do this to cover a specific area with cemetery assets, I was told something like: in a sim you do not need these eye candy, this is not FSX... That was a fair subjective opinion i believe... Not a tech one indeed...

So just to repeat that I develop scenery for both platforms and I am always interested to talk about how the engine handles scenery on each side and what was evolving here and there...

So I am no sure about the subjective preference as being the issue of this discussion... And again, pretty certain the moderators here could feel it is not about this...

All this to say that I respect everyone's opinion and I have nothing to sell here... I am a user or customer of many software and I am happy that I can stay in the middle and admire when innovation happens on any side

 

 

Edited June 3, 20224 yr by Claviateur

2 hours ago, Claviateur said:

... I am a user or customer of many software and I am happy that I can stay in the middle and admire when innovation happens on any side

 

 

So much this.

Competition and innovation keeps all sides honest and striving for better.

As a potential XP-12 customer, what I'm looking forward to is video of a plane doing ground operations then a flight to another field, showcasing XP's innovations in 3D volumetric clouds, weather depiction, flight dynamics, the new trees and foliage, the new water and reflections, the new ATC...and the new scenery and autogen.

Anyone have any ideas when we might be able to see this?

1 hour ago, OlliePen said:

So much this.

Competition and innovation keeps all sides honest and striving for better.

As a potential XP-12 customer, what I'm looking forward to is video of a plane doing ground operations then a flight to another field, showcasing XP's innovations in 3D volumetric clouds, weather depiction, flight dynamics, the new trees and foliage, the new water and reflections, the new ATC...and the new scenery and autogen.

Anyone have any ideas when we might be able to see this?

Yes when they post a video.

Judge yourself

Taken from a post on x-plane.org - the screenshot itself is showcase material.

Edited June 4, 20224 yr by tweekz

Those screenshots look good.

But I asked if there is video. 😀