"In X-Plane 12 everything feels more authentic."

[MrBitstFlyer 3,896]

2 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Seriously? Wow, that puts an interesting perspective on your frequent praise of XP12’s visuals…😅

I think the very first bug report I put in was the lack of ground scenery shadows.  they are only visible when very low, a few hundred feet. The lack of shadows made the buildings look like they were floating above the surface, not connected it.  This issue has been made much better by ambient occlusion improvements that help connect the building to the ground.  I do understand why baked in shadows are seen as a problem - I too would much prefer only dynamic shadows.  However, the baked in shadows do give a sense of depth to building & trees AND really make them look part of the surface, not above it.

Apart from that, I firmly remain an XP12 can't do anything wrong person 🤣

[FishBowlMan 56]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

yes.

https://gateway.x-plane.com/

but actually for flight planning Id recommend

https://airports4xp.info/

So its a similar resource to the file library on this site, or X-Plane.to then?

How often do the airports in the sim get updated from the gateway?

[mSparks 2,094]

18 minutes ago, FishBowlMan said:

How often do the airports in the sim get updated from the gateway?

each release (generally - not 100% sure if its always) includes the latest accepted airports from the gateway and a recut of the latest scenery against the current OSM data. 

You can review the history of the updates here

https://www.x-plane.com/knowledgebase_category/release-notes/

XP11 ran for 5 years with 23 updates, so roughly every 3 months so far.

19 minutes ago, FishBowlMan said:

So its a similar resource to the file library on this site, or X-Plane.to then?

kinda, its run and administrated by Laminar as part of their release cadence, most of the big/important airports seem to get done by LR employees (presumably because they can get new art assets into the sim, everyone else has to rely on the asset library currently provided by the sim)

[UrgentSiesta 942]

4 hours ago, mSparks said:

Yes... they were created by different people.... and that matters in the comparison because...I dont know.. reasons I guess?

Has the MSFS list changed since

?

It's up to 100 now for the Dlx Prem edition (-10 for Std)

Both sims still have their eye-sore airfields, and missing airfields, etc.

I will say that for X-Plane v12, the airport objects have all been substantially updated, and it makes "Default" airports look much better than they used to. So much so that I've basically trashed most of the freeware airports that were previously a great improvement over v11's.

I think what MSFS does very well is raise the quality of the worst airports to a decent level with autogen buildings and such, while there are those in X-Plane that are still just a runway/taxiway/apron on some default grass. Maybe that's different now in v12, though, I'll have to look around.

[kananesgi 6]

4 hours ago, Nixoq said:

It matters because you were trying to claim XP has 30000 hand crafted airports while MSFS only has 30, completely sweeping under the table that those are community created and MSFS relatively speaking has the same amount of community created airports.

Honestly, I think where you are getting hung up here is the idea that paid developers made the airports for MSFS while the XP scenery gateway are more like MODs or similar created by individuals for their own, and others', enjoyment. The thing here is, just because they paid a developer to "hand-craft" the airport doesn't mean it's done to any higher level than I could do sitting at my home computer. I am still hand-crafting the airport, I'm just not paid to do it. The fact that XP then includes a large number of those in the base sim means that the sim ships with a great many more "hand-crafted" airports (wish I could find and actual number here, but not sure where to look) as stock scenery than does MSFS. I don't care who created the airport. I don't have to go scouring file hosting sites looking for a decent representation of my local airport with XP, it's just there by default. Sure MSFS might have as many (though I doubt it myself) available for download somewhere, but you have to go digging through various repositories to find them. In XP, they are already there, and that makes them effectively "stock" airports to me.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,896]

19 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

while there are those in X-Plane that are still just a runway/taxiway/apron on some default grass. Maybe that's different now in v12, though, I'll have to look around.

Even the small grass airfields I know in the UK look better in default XP12 than previous payware airfields I purchased.

[jcomm 5,991]

Well, this thread goes long in considerations from users of both or one of the two platforms usually discussed here. I should say it's unfair, and I myself am guilty, because AEFS4 should also be brought to the discussion since it has , for sure, a very good flight, and in some default aircraft, also systems modelling !

But regarding XP vs MFS, the more I use both, the more it becomes evident what makes me keep both.

Yesterday I had some time to test the VSkyLabs DC-3 Airliner I had bought a couple days ago after having tried and tested against real world data and flight test reports the DC-3s in MFS, default and two mods from flightsim.to, as well as the IL-2 Great Battles recently released C47 module...

Well, the ASOBO DC-3 has all of the bells & whistles enabled regarding CFD and Modern FM as I could verify examining it's CFG files (engine and flight-dynamics ), as well as the two mods I downloaded and also tested, and I enabled that CFD visualization and the Dev Mode to obtain further feedback from the sim. 

Know what MFS + ASOBO's CFD + Modern reminds me of?  "The King Goes Naked"... It's such a mess, a pure show-off of nothingness that each time I spend some time looking at it my first temptation is to clean-wipe it from my disks for good!... Then, I went testing the LS8 ( again ) and... what a "word not allowed" flight dynamics AND effective soaring weather. It's so so so bad that I don't know if I should laugh or I should cry 😕  But then, it all looks so "word not allowed" gorgeous! And the details, like a small village in the middle of south Alentejo ( Portugal ) where I sometimes fly by in my RW glider flights is there, and since it's my mother in law birthplace I often go there IRL too and walk around the typical little streets with their typical houses ... Wow! How can that be possible !? It's there in MFS almost like IRL!

In XP12, while there's at least a small village around the same place, heck, it doesn't remind me most of RL, and surely not for VFR purposes. But in XP12, as I take that VSkyLabs DC-3 (which isn't probably the best example of a DC-3 for XP, as far as I can recall by the only other DC-3 I ever had for XP, and used all along XP10, created by the Great GORAN!... I miss that one !!!), I really have to take care and READ THE POH! and operate the aircraft as much per the POH as possible because otherwise I'm into trouble, starting with taxiing, or even worst during takeoff... You can't forget that there's going to be NO rudder effectiveness until you reach close to takeoff speed ! Taxi using differential braking and/or asymmetric thrust... This is the way you have to do it in XP, for the DC-3 and many other aircraft, like a great freeware Spitfire that mSparks pointed us too a couple months ago and is now one of my preferred ww2 aircraft models in X-Plane 12, but certainly not the way you can do it in the rather basic ground and flight physics model of MFS...

Then and although it's not the kind of avionics I like to use in a sim, I went testing the latest implementation of WT for the GNS 430 530, and, WOW! what a masterpiece! It makes the defaults in XP12 a toy, and not even a good toy.... Not to mention their WT G1000 and G3000 mods!  This is truly remarkable, and costs 0,00 euro !!! and YES it surely can be used for training!

Whenever I come from these testing sessions I see why 737NG Driver said what he said, not going to extremes as I usually do in my posts... and I can't agree more with him...

My thoughts are pretty much summarized by:

- MFS is a SCENERY and for some aircraft, AVIONICS too, simulator that offers for almost no cost what I have dreamed of having in a flightsim since ever, but it has a rather basic, even inconsistent, flight dynamics model, apparently very sophisticated, and the weather model while much more complex than that in previous versions, and that of XP12, is unfortunately full of inconsistencies too that render it useful only for not more than what I used to do with weather in FSX / P3D ( or even worst in some aspects that for instance Active Sky does more coherently );

- XP12, is a very enjoyable FLIGHT simulator, with a plausible World scenery that I would consider super if there had never been MFS, with a weather model that is truncated, specially if you fly airliners or bizjets and are used to cruise at higher levels, but also plausible for flights bellow, say, FL350 , depending on your latitude. With good addons ( which you usually have to pay for, with remarkable exceptions like that of the Ziibo 738 ) and topping with that UNIQUE CL 650, XP12 can also offer sophisticated systems simulation. Gliders feel more plausibly modelled than those in MFS, which are a joke, but still far from what I have for instance in Condorsoaring, a pity because I would like to be able to use gliders in XP12 with it's full World model.

And that's it... While they're both great to have and use, they both are a source of frustration for me too, because I really don't know where each is going with further development from their core devs, although I should say that FM and Weather modelling wise I easily believe more in the future of XP12 than in that of MFS...

I should probably give AEFS4 a fair try 😕

And, btw, as much as it may sound weird to some of you I often miss P3Dv5.3 and my FSLabs 319 and 320, and surely ActiveSky, and I have been very close to hit that "buy monthly license" button at the LM store ...

Edited December 18, 2022 by jcomm

[FishBowlMan 56]

7 hours ago, mSparks said:

each release (generally - not 100% sure if its always) includes the latest accepted airports from the gateway and a recut of the latest scenery against the current OSM data. 

You can review the history of the updates here

https://www.x-plane.com/knowledgebase_category/release-notes/

XP11 ran for 5 years with 23 updates, so roughly every 3 months so far.

kinda, its run and administrated by Laminar as part of their release cadence, most of the big/important airports seem to get done by LR employees (presumably because they can get new art assets into the sim, everyone else has to rely on the asset library currently provided by the sim)

It seems like a good system for keeping airports up to date as well as improving the defaults.

I like the idea of approved content getting regularly brought in with the updates.

[UrgentSiesta 942]

4 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Even the small grass airfields I know in the UK look better in default XP12 than previous payware airfields I purchased.

I flew over a handful that I know IRL. From small munis to regionals to intl's in the Western US.

a. they all look substantially better than they ever did in XP v11.

b. they look at least as good as MSFS2020 with one exception:

KDEN, which is an MSFS Handcrafted airport. It's substantially better than XP. OTOH, the Flightbeam payware KDEN is substantially better than the handcrafted...

None of them were payware grade, even going back a year or so before MSFS.

Out of alll of them, the only one I didn't like was a USAF base, and it looked substandard in both sims.

Not a representative sample, but much different than I expected and glad to see both sims doing good jobs with some relatively out of the way airfields.

[UrgentSiesta 942]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:20 AM, OverTheEDJ said:

Its clear that XP12 is behind everyone else, including its predecessor and a sim released "16" years ago...and that's a bad thing for LR.

Surely, you must be joking...?

It's clear that XP v12 is a HUGE upgrade from v11 and has "fixed" all the issues I had with its predecessor (sky/clouds, water, weather) and even the already excellent v11 flight model is significantly improved, along with lighting and all the other 1st Principles stuff. Even the ground textures in the General Release version I flew just today have been substantially improved.

FSX/P3D don't hold a candle to XP v12.

If visual immersion is your thing, then yes, XP is in second place.

But if flying similar to IRL is your thing, then MSFS is in second place.

[UrgentSiesta 942]

On 12/16/2022 at 9:28 AM, mSparks said:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-sold-13-7-million-copies-in-21-days-30000-people-got-refunds/1100-6490486/

Times ~3 for IOS

Both examples are false equivalence.

cyberpunk isn't even close to the same genre 

XP Mobile is a free flightsim on mobile (i.e., vastly higher user base), and has been available for over a decade vs MSFS' 2 years...

[UrgentSiesta 942]

Quote

Will XP11 users move up to XP12, or continue to stick with XP11 as the steam stat shows?

The Steam stats for 12 are irrelevant due to it being a Beta with a huge amount of new/re-written code, and all the problems that come with them.

Even long-time XP supporters were advising to stick with v11...until v12 went stable release. And now it has...

 

[UrgentSiesta 942]

14 hours ago, Nixoq said:

What he's saying is his opinion from his real world perspective. You may disagree with some of it but that has nothing to do with being biased.

It's the unintentional bias of a Professional/Expert speaking to amateurs. He operates in a completely different world than the vast majority of flight simmers, and while desktop flight sim is as close as most of us will ever get to PiC, it's the inverse for him: it's about as far away from his daily life as can be.

[mSparks 2,094]

46 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

cyberpunk isn't even close to the same genre 

However CD Projekt Red and Asobo are pretty much identical sized studios, Asobo possibly larger, and bean counters only care about one genre - Profit Margin.

49 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

XP Mobile is a free flightsim on mobile

Most if not virtually all of MFS's tauted 10 million numbers come from gamepass users, and I would bet a fairly large portion of those gamepass users on last gen consoles.. 

The point I was making is, MFS and Xplane are pretty much on par right now in terms of userbase size, and that userbase size looks nothing like what the bean counters want and expect from a AAA title.

Dragging that back on topic by the skin of its teeth, those numbers, how authentic each sim is, who has "the best" - are very much what will determine how COTC flightsim will change over the next decades.

[psolk 3,057]

18 hours ago, mSparks said:

its barely marketed at all tbh, never needed it. Paid advertising is only an absolute necessity when a product isn't good enough to be generally recommended by its users to other people....

When its really bad, such as most products microsoft has published ever, many even resort to paying marketting agencies to troll interest groups and reddit....

Which is generally why, with xplane everything feels more authentic, including the conversations by people who like and enjoy it.

honestly, this is the internet, its not possible to delete anything ever from the internet. 

Plus I have notifications turned on.

Yes, but most people are not SO obsessed with being right that they sit there and argue a redacted statement within 2 minutes of it being posted with baseless ridiculous commentary post after post after post after post until the thread eventually gets locked....  And 3 pages later you are still going.  

OF COURSE you have notifications turned on, you are a bit OTT with your need to be right in every conversation on this forum.  

Yes, even the conversations about X-Plane are more authentic.  Of course they are... 

Edited December 18, 2022 by psolk