So, after 2 years of using the other sim, I eventually decided to give XP12 a proper shot. I used to be an avid XP11 user prior to that. 
The reason being; last week I took a flight out of Budapest, and as I looked out of the window of the 737 max aircraft I was on, I thought to myself, which sim looks like this? 
My conclusion was XP12. Excluding the ground. That was MSFS. Everything else was XP12. 
Now I’ve discovered auto-autho, and well, I’m firmly back with XP now. The reason? Many! The feeling of inertia (XP realistic helps), The feeling of flight. The colours, the lighting. The road traffic. And now with Auto ortho, coupled with sim heaven,  I have proper ground scenery. 

Something about xplane just gives you that sense of handling an aircraft. Of being there. It’s hard to describe. It isn’t bulky? It’s ease of use. 
 

Couple of questions. 
Best traffic program? Currently I have traffic global running. 
Is the forest addon on orbx worth it? 
I also see a new atmosphere app, is that worth it? 
 

cheers! 
 

PS I was looking at mrbitsflyers images, and they looked like my view out of the window in Budapest. In terms of lighting. So thanks for those, you spurred me on! 

Edited March 1, 20233 yr by Ianrivaldosmith

Ianrivaldosmith. That was my experience as well. I like out of the way flying and I was repeatedly taken by how accurate and nicely detailed XPlane Scenery looked. Never used XPlane before having been welded to P3DV5 for reasons relating to years of collecting some wonderful models that were truly special but when XPlane 12 hit the blocks I was over to XPlane and that is where I will stay (The other sim is in cold storage now could not be bothered putting it back together). 

Now I use LiveTraffic for sim traffic it is a freeware or community thing available at the XPlane.Org, I really like it a lot you have to get an account or two with some real world traffic sites but that is no big deal in my view and you need to download a couple of large libraries of various aircraft and liveries. It takes live traffic data feeds, matches the locations and flight paths and airline or aircraft type and then injects it into the sim, high and low traffic both. Sitting there at an airport in XPlane and just watching what is real time traffic being reproduced just is stunning, I almost could become a plane spotter. Obviously there will be holes in various parts of the world (no relayed traffic data or dodgy feeds) but the reality of it catches me out constantly, sitting at my favourite local airport and seeing a Cessna or a Dash8 or a Grob come and go and knowing if I was at the airport for real that is what I would see. Highly recommended. 

The random nature of LiveTraffic is its best feature, if there is no traffic about there is no traffic, if it is a busy international or domestic airport, then it becomes a busy international or domestic airport. Makes you pay attention to the ATIS etc first, nothing worse than lining up for a quick jolly somewheres and realising your now head to head with traffic inbound or outbound because in the real world they are using the opposite runway! LOL

Not sure about the forest addon - I have to say very happy with the trees etc as they are and SimHeaven fixes up forests properly (for most areas) I really like the XPlane trees. No more carboard cutouts they bend and wave about in the breeze. Cannot see the need for it really. 

Again uncertain about the atmosphere app - seems to me Laminar is steadily and quite quickly refining weather and cloud display, seems pretty spot on with the latest update. Cirrus cloud still needs work but by and large I am more than happy with what XPlane is doing. Others may prefer it tweaked a bit more. 

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by coastaldriver

52 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Now I’ve discovered auto-autho, and well, I’m firmly back with XP now. The reason? Many! The feeling of inertia (XP realistic helps), The feeling of flight. The colours, the lighting. The road traffic. And now with Auto ortho, coupled with sim heaven,  I have proper ground scenery.

As you know, I was very active in the MSFS forum, but just one flight in XP12 in early release won me over.

2 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

As you know, I was very active in the MSFS forum, but just one flight in XP12 in early release won me over.

Took longer for me, but I was an avid xp11 user prior to msfs, and xp12 is winning me over now. 
 

PS do you use x-roads with auto ortho? 

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by Ianrivaldosmith

24 minutes ago, coastaldriver said:

download a couple of large libraries of various aircraft and liveries.

I found the best option is X-CSL if you haven't got it.  Easy to install and update. Just download, install then add the directory to LiveTraffic settings.

1 minute ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

PS do you use x-roads with auto ortho?

X-Roads does not recognise the folder naming convention of AutoOrtho, so does not pick up the roads.  In a little while I'm going to rename the AutoOrtho folders to start 'zOrtho', run X-Roads and then change the names back.  Found this utility for batch renaming.

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by MrBitstFlyer

4 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

X-Roads does not recognise the folder naming convention of AutoOrtho, so does not pich up the roads.  In a little while I'm going to rename the autoOrtho folders to start 'zOrtho' and then run X-Roads.

Let me know how it goes and how to do it, I wouldn’t mind trying it. Thanks! 
 

PS, does seasons with with auto ortho? 

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by Ianrivaldosmith

I will only upgrade to XP12 when:
- Dark panels bug permanently fixed
- Anti-alias bug permanently fixed
- - Elimination of that stupid function called "eye automatic exposure" which, in addition to being not at all realistic - contributes to aggravating the bug of dark panels and overexposed scenery / sky environment.
If XP12 doesn't fix at least these 3 serious problems I won't give Laminar a penny.

33 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Dark panels bug permanently fixed

Fixed.  May get refined.

33 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Anti-alias bug permanently fixed

WIP...although I'm not sure what "permanently fixed" means.  Do you think it'll spontaneously go back to bugged AA?

33 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Elimination of that stupid function called "eye automatic exposure" which, in addition to being not at all realistic - contributes to aggravating the bug of dark panels and overexposed scenery / sky environment.

Not going away.  Testers and developers were pushing for it, and it's here to stay.  It's definitely, 100%, realistic.

33 minutes ago, efis007 said:

If XP12 doesn't fix at least these 3 serious problems I won't give Laminar a penny.

I'm fairly certain Laminar, and everyone here, is fine with that.

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by GoranM

31 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

34 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

X-Roads does not recognise the folder naming convention of AutoOrtho, so does not pich up the roads.  In a little while I'm going to rename the autoOrtho folders to start 'zOrtho' and then run X-Roads.

Let me know how it goes and how to do it, I wouldn’t mind trying it. Thanks! 

It works ok.  Rename the AutoOrtho folders to start zOrtho_ instead of z_.  Run xRoads then change the folder names back to start z_

25 minutes ago, efis007 said:

I will only upgrade to XP12 when:
- Dark panels bug permanently fixed
- Anti-alias bug permanently fixed
- - Elimination of that stupid function called "eye automatic exposure" which, in addition to being not at all realistic - contributes to aggravating the bug of dark panels and overexposed scenery / sky environment.
If XP12 doesn't fix at least these 3 serious problems I won't give Laminar a penny.

Is the black sun fixed for you? That's still a major issue when I test w/ my 980ti. Sidney did say over on org that this issue has been triaged though, so fix is on the way.

25 minutes ago, efis007 said:

- - Elimination of that stupid function called "eye automatic exposure

A realistic depiction of light if you ask me - why do aircraft/pilots have sun shades to block out the glaring sky?

26 minutes ago, efis007 said:

- Dark panels bug permanently fixed

No dark panels here.

27 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Anti-alias bug permanently fixed

This is vastly improved over previous versions, especially shimmering on the trees.

27 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Is the black sun fixed for you?

Negative, I also have the black sun bug (in addition to all the other bugs already mentioned)

23 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Negative, I also have the black sun bug (in addition to all the other bugs already mentioned)

I only just noticed your system specs.  You are on the border for minimum systems requirements. Your GPU is in it's 9th year.  Your CPU is even older than that.  Released in 2014.  

In which case, Laminar recommends...

If your system is borderline, we encourage you to try the demo first. The full version of the simulator will perform exactly the same as the demo—neither better nor worse.

https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-12-system-requirements/

Minimum specs are suitable for X-Plane 12 running with all settings at minimum.  Still unpredictable.  Pushing anything up will risk further unpredictable results.  

Edited March 2, 20233 yr by GoranM

1 hour ago, efis007 said:

Negative, I also have the black sun bug (in addition to all the other bugs already mentioned)

I tend to agree with Goran on this one.  I was running a newer CPU but with my 1080 Ti and it just wasn't running that well.  And to be frank a 1080 Ti is a lot stronger card that a 960.  I just don't think you can really enjoy a 2023 sim with a 9 year old card.  MAybe with min settings at 1080p?