XP12: the good, the bad, the ugly

[abrams_tank 7,424]

29 minutes ago, tweekz said:

But the best is the B737 FMC in the Aribus. And that's the hyped A330? I thought the ASOBO A320 was bad... well it was... but at least they had a Airbus FMC.

I know this is early access, but IMO, using the B737 FMC in their A330 is a sign that LR may have rushed XP 12 out the window a bit too early. Just my opinion though.

Edited September 6, 2022 by abrams_tank

[skipph 82]

Well, I was hesitant to buy this version, so I watched a few streams and videos put out by my particular favorite sources and there is a mixed consensus from all. Not surprising to say the least. So I purchased the download and flew a couple of circuits at a local airport that is familiar to me and I just could not get over what I was seeing for vfr scenery. XP-12, vanilla flavor, is just horrible for low and slow, and I mean I was not expecting the quality of MSFS, but neither was I expecting the low quality of scenery that was on parade in front of my eyes.  It was not even close to being a fair representation of the scenery in real life. I know there are other plus factors to 12, but I do not see the pluses making up for the minus things that are important to me. But I paid my $60.00 to support the effort and maybe Laminar can turn this part of the sim around before this goes to final release. I really want this XP 12 to succeed as I have a lot of recent addon purchases in 11 as well as future planes that I want to use in 12. Come on Laminar!  P.S. The new beaches around the ponds and lakes look like word not allowed. Not every body of water has 100% beach front around it. What are you thinking?

[UKflyer 630]

42 minutes ago, steve310002 said:

Agreed. But also because it hides the ugly ground textures 😁.

They did do a good job on the snow though and the winter trees (though the trees are far too sparse). It's a pity they didn't add procedural grass on the ground textures to at least hide them at low altitude and make VFR flying a far more realistic. That's my biggest gripe (or at least have better ground textures). I can't imagine procedural 3D grass would be that complex.

haha i got orbx installed and works well 👍

[UKflyer 630]

Landing into Southampton (+ orbx) 😍

Gotta say this sim with orbx is pretty awesome

Edited September 6, 2022 by UKflyer

[jarmstro 2,403]

1 minute ago, UKflyer said:

Landing into Southampton (+ orbx) 😍

So is that the OrbX XP 11 version.? How do you download it into XP12?

[AUA425 130]

34 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

(I've got shimmering clouds?)

yes all the time - in the distance the clouds look completely pixelated shimmering all the time, have seen screenshots here where it does not look like that - all settings on very high !!!

[UKflyer 630]

2 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

So is that the OrbX XP 11 version.? How do you download it into XP12?

i already had it installed in XP11 so just copied the shortcut from XP11 to XP12 folder. Not sure if the orbx installer will do it directly

[Sethos 4,344]

I honestly have no idea what people are talking about when they say the lighting hasn't improved or is the same as X-Plane 11. It's a huge difference in both vibrance and realism, not that drab, washed out look that X-Plane 11 had that was screaming for ReShade to put it out of its misery. 

 

[rka 916]

Just now, Sethos said:

I honestly have no idea what people are talking about when they say the lighting hasn't improved or is the same as X-Plane 11. It's a huge difference in both vibrance and realism, not that drab, washed out look that X-Plane 11 had that was screaming for ReShade to put it out of its misery. 

 

True. The clouds are pretty disappointing though and the rain effect is not great too. But the lighting has definitely improved a lot.

[evaamo 549]

19 minutes ago, rka said:

True. The clouds are pretty disappointing though and the rain effect is not great too. But the lighting has definitely improved a lot.

Clouds I don't know how much they can polish, I would hope so, of course. But I'm not sure if it's a design decision that will be hard to change during the life of XP12. Let's wait and see. 

Like Asobo, I hope LR balances the cloud types and include high clouds. 

Precipitation in general (snow on windshield in the current form isn't spectacular either) is something I'm sure they'll get right. Last night I was approaching JFK with clouds and scattered rain showers, and it was very nice to hear the effect of the rain showers on the Citation. Very immersive. Once they make the rain effect somewhat better, it'll be hard to beat.

Edited September 6, 2022 by evaamo

[abrams_tank 7,424]

19 minutes ago, Sethos said:

I honestly have no idea what people are talking about when they say the lighting hasn't improved or is the same as X-Plane 11. It's a huge difference in both vibrance and realism, not that drab, washed out look that X-Plane 11 had that was screaming for ReShade to put it out of its misery. 

The lighting has improved from XP 11 to XP 12. It's very noticeable. Not sure why people are saying it hasn't improved from XP 11 to XP 12.

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

Have you guys tried water takeoffs and landings?

I see no 3d water (as in, with waves developing vertically in height) when i increase the wave high. Does it happen to you too or maybe i need to play with other settings?

 

I think overall they did a good job, BUT the autogen part of it all (especially regional sceneries) seems to be the part that took less love so far. And it's one of those things that, without orthos, photogrammetry or regional scenery addons, really stands out in a ugly manner 😞

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

The lighting has improved from XP 11 to XP 12. It's very noticeable. Not sure why people are saying it hasn't improved from XP 11 to XP 12.

it's not that it hasn't improved by daytime is still weird. Night time has been great improvement around the airport.

 

[abrams_tank 7,424]

20 minutes ago, evaamo said:

Clouds I don't know how much they can polish, I would hope so, of course. But I'm not sure if it's a design decision that will be hard to change during the life of XP12. Let's wait and see. 

This is a guess only.  It was always a challenge for LR to crank out as many frames as possible in XP 12.  The reason is, when the graphics get better, the FPS will drop.  This is just how software works - better graphics, generally demand more computing power, which takes longer to process, so the FPS will drop naturally, all other things being equal. This is where a developer of a game would have to optimize a game further, so that the game runs more efficiently and runs faster, so that the level of graphics can be raised, to maintain the same level of FPS as before.

With respect to the clouds in XP 12, I am wondering if it was a deliberate design decision from LR to leave the clouds as they are now, because further enhancements of the clouds can lead to a drop in FPS (assuming they are using the same cloud rendering algorithm, no matter what you move the cloud rendering slider to).  I suspect if LR figures out a way to optimize XP 12 further, or if hardware improves over the years, then they can use a more sophisticated cloud rendering algorithm to generate better clouds.  But for now, with today's hardware, and if LR can't figure out how to optimize XP 12 further, this may be the best that they can do for clouds at this time.

Edited September 6, 2022 by abrams_tank

[rka 916]

Agreed. I get fps in the 30s at KPDX with a rather powerful Windows PC. Would be interesting what a Mac with a midrange GPU can achieve there.