Wonderful experience.

[Brian Mackie 123]

Anyone trying to run XP12 on a 10XX or less deserves a virtual medal for effort. My 1080ti struggled, and it took a 3090ti with 24gb of VRAM to get anywhere near acceptable performance that sort-of matched the specs of the rest of our kit. It's a real problem, because to get a satisfactory experience you have to to throw serious money at the video hardware - and that cash is getting harder to find and justify (to The Management in particular) for many people. Performance improvements have historically come towards the end of the version's initial development, and that will doubtless happen with XP12 - if that's any consolation to cash-strapped users with older hardware.

AutoOrtho sounds like a great solution for people flying in large land areas. I fly in New Zealand (just a bit bigger than the UK in area) and a guy called Lyndiman built orthos for the country a few years ago. The file size is manageable and the quality is good, so for us at the other end of the world, it's more than adequate. Mind you, parts of NZ have been seriously rearranged by a mighty cyclone... so it's not as accurate as it was before Feb 13!

Edited March 2, 2023 by Brian Mackie

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, Brian Mackie said:

Anyone trying to run XP12 on a 10XX or less deserves a virtual medal for effort. My 1080ti struggled,

Big+1

I think the part of the story that can be easily missed is that for all the shiney graphics XP12 is leveraging silicon that first released to the public with the rtx2000 series cards at the end of 2018/start of 2019. high end AMD followed slightly after and then the cheapest rtx3000 series card had better specs here than an rtx2090.

This silicon was available before that, in GPUs that cost $10,000 a card.

This isnt "raytrace" which got all the marketing love, it was the GPU compute components (openCL CUDA) that were the reason they sold out so quickly.

There's an RTX3060 in the managements laptop, while I have not tried it much yet (I leave windows testing to the very last moment), what I have tested seemed to work fine.

2018 was also 5 years ago now.

It will run on hardware older than that, kinda, and they are making some headway into improvments in that respect, but there are no downloads available to install silicon in a graphics card that is missing it.

Anyway, dont want to ramble to much, just to reinforce the idea that actually having the hardware to run XP12 well vs not is a major factor between having a wonderful experience vs not.

Edited March 2, 2023 by mSparks

[jcomm 5,928]

Thanks for sharing your experience, which is also my own experience.

I was, for a good while, doped by the scenery detail in MFS, not even the weather rendering which, in some aspects I also find better/more realistic in many aspects in XP12, but the totally arcadish feel of flight provided by MFS's poor flight dynamics modelling and even the way, even with many resources, weather and some of it's features are modelled, eventually opened my eyes and brought me back to XP!

XP12 still has it's basic flaws, but the dynamism put into it's development is remarkable, and the latest patches have brought some of the features I prize the most, like weather, up to very acceptable and plausible levels for me...

I used SimHeaven sceneries for a while, but decided to revert to XP12 default scenery only.

I like the detail at the airports I fly from / to, some to actually make me feel like being there a lot more than in MFS. I like the simplistic but more plausible way soaring weather is now being modelled, I like picking my Toliss A319 or Zibo 737 and feel it like none of the MFS similar addons were able to make me feel...

I would love to see HiFi coming back to live and offer ASXP12, but I believe they need LR to offer a proper SDK for that.

Meanwhile the only payware plugin I am seriously considering is VisualXP, but I need some answers from the developer(s), so I posted at their forum a few basic questions that I linked in a post here at the AVSIM XP General forum: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/284650-visualxp-weather-injection-and/

Ah! And I also look fwd into: Project PSXPL (aerowinx.com)

Edited March 2, 2023 by cagarini

[efis007 884]

7 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

I just don't think you can really enjoy a 2023 sim with a 9 year old card.

I am perfectly aware that my hardware does not allow me to fully enjoy XP12.
But the point is not this.
The point is that XP12 is not giving me the stimulus to justify the purchase of an expensive hardware new.
If in the year 2023 I have to fly by having the dark panels of XP11 still I do not use xp12, I use XP11 which has the same bug as the dark panels but does not cost me 1 dollar in hardware.
If I have to fly with a bad AA I don't need XP12, I use XP11 which has a better AA.
If I have to fly with unnatural skies overexposed by the blinding white color I do not need xp12, I use XP11 which (thank God) does not have the overexposed skies.
The evidence of the bugs that I am mentioning independently from the hardware used because they are bugs inherent in the simulator and in its lighting engine.
And the evidence of these bugs are everywhere, even on this forum, you just need to know how to observe them.

Here we have a perfect example of dark panel and overexposed scenery, it is so evident that even a blind man sees him.

An other example of dark panel.
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/23517-what-plane-did-you-fly-today-maximum-2-shots-per-post-one-post-per-day-please/&page=3320#comment-2512602

I analyze the problem of the dark panels of Xplane for several years, and I discovered that the bug is generated by several factors (primarily the lack of "radiance", that is, the ability of light to interact with the elements found within the cabin).
But the most serious problem concerns shadows.
Xplane simulates the "Nasa Apollo" style shadows, that is, it makes them too black, as if we were on the moon!
It is these unnatural black shadows that compromise the whole panel and destroy the realism of the human eye.
I explained it in detail in these topics.

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/278307-its-too-dark-to-operate-the-panel-even-in-the-middle-of-the-day/&do=findComment&comment=2460597

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/279591-the-cockpit-is-too-dark-sir/&do=findComment&comment=2504811

There are also demonstrations/photographic comparative of how XPlane generates unrealistic shadows compared to MSFS.
We have the same plane, in the same condition of light, and with the same direction as the shadows (the sun is on the left in both photos).

The first photo is by Ukflyer user (whom I thank) and comes from the topic "631340-Wonderful-Experience/".

The second photo is by the SP2472 user (whom I thank) and comes from the topic "631305-Ibiza-to-Madrid/".

Do you see the difference?
The XP12 shadows are too black, they seem the shadows that are generated in the space on the moon!
It is that black excess that causes the bug of dark panels.
XP12 would have transformed the cabin into this:

This is not the way the eyes see the world.
No airplane pilot in the world will ever see such black shadows in his life.
Only the astronauts of the Apollo missions were able to see (with their eyes) totally black shadows; But they were on the moon! 😄

However, apart from jokes, the dark panels have represented a big problem also with XP11, so the problem exists, is widely known, and documented for a long time in many topics.
And there is also a possible solution to fix the problem: change the shaders of the shadows, modify the HDR aggression with which these shaders generate the "NASA Shadows".

[GoranM 3,764]

45 minutes ago, efis007 said:

I am perfectly aware that my hardware does not allow me to fully enjoy XP12.

(snipped for space saving)

Shadows look fine to me.  As a matter of fact, they look just about perfect.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9x3191yn1jah0e/Screenshot 2023-03-02 at 11.15.28 pm.png?dl=0

But let's not derail this thread.  I think it's a popular opinion that it'd be a good idea if you upgraded your hardware to something that isn't classified as obsolete.  Of course, if the budget allows for it.  If not, then by all means, exercise your freedom of choice and use whatever you find most appealing.

Edited March 2, 2023 by GoranM

[mSparks 2,086]

26 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Shadows look fine to me.  As a matter of fact, they look just about perfect.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9x3191yn1jah0e/Screenshot 2023-03-02 at 11.15.28 pm.png?dl=0

if anything that cockpit looks far too bright to me vs the first few seconds or so of:

(but on balance practically perfect.)

1 hour ago, efis007 said:

It is that black excess that causes the bug of dark panels.
XP12 would have transformed the cabin into this:

I'd say, tbh, your perception of what it "should" look like has been warped by spending to much time looking at completely fake cockpits vs comparing what the real world looks like depending on where you are looking. That's fine, you have plenty of alternative options where the developers cater to user expectations rather than doing the best they can to deliver a highly realistic simulation based on matching real world experience.

What's not fine, and you are very much barking up the wrong tree, is expecting xplane to deliver you a highly entertaining, beautiful, wonderful experience when the real world would blind you before spreading the body parts of you and your passengers halfway accross a state.

Xplane has a huge roll to play in aviation safety going forward, that has meaningfull benefits in preventing events like

Matching the expectations of arm chair pilots has zero roll to play in that future, and while the community aggression towards those suggesting otherwise is sometimes a little excessive, before feeling insulted, take a step back and consider the potential consequences of getting it wrong. 

[soaring_penguin 428]

Efis, I would suggest that you open your own topic in the forum to describe your problem, instead of hijacking a positive one. 
 

Each and every discussion here is taken over by someone who has to say something negative about xplane.

I don’t say there are no issues, but I do have an issue when someone else’s topic is hijacked to repeat the same complaints over and over.

[Murmur 3,941]

I have a very positive experience with a 10xx card in XP12, namely a 1660ti. Although I'm running at 1920x1080.

I have all the GPU rendering settings maxed, except textures to high (due to 6GB VRAM) and low AA.

CPU settings are almost maxed as well, except shadows and distance one notch lower, and no 3d vegetation (which I actually prefer).

I get 60+ fps in the C172 over the Portland area, with high visibility, heavy cloud cover and rain. I think XP12 has made great advances in performance in the last few months, and I'm sure it will get even better.

So it's definitely possible to get a good experience in XP12 with oldish GPUs (although a 960 is definitely not enough), if the resolution used is not excessive for the card.

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

Well I am running a 4090 with a 7950X in XP12 at 4K, seems fine to me so far. They could do with getting some more frames out of it at airports but in the air it's fine. Hits between 60-100 fps. (And thats with traffic global running)

I just cant wait until the shimmering is fixed a bit more and we get  some decent AA. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Ianrivaldosmith

[MrBitstFlyer 3,873]

15 hours ago, efis007 said:

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

I could imagine you in a race full of Porsche cars. You spend ages complaing to the engineers about lack of acceleration, poor cornering, overheating brakes and much more.

Even when somebody points out your driving a 1000cc mini car, you still complain about the engineering of that car, and how Porsche have done a better job.

[Murmur 3,941]

Looks like the black sun bug is fixed in the just released update?

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

11 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Looks like the black sun bug is fixed in the just released update?

Yes.

But I’ve a terrible orange glow above buildings and trees

[2reds2whites 827]

18 hours ago, GoranM said:

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

What lmao? No it's not. It's only realistic if your eyes were made of cameras and their associated dynamic range.

To say it's 100% realistic is absolutely laughable.

[mSparks 2,086]

24 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

if your eyes were made of cameras

Which bit do you believe deviates from

https://www.skybrary.aero/articles/vision-oghfa-bn

https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/healthy-vision/how-eyes-work#:~:text=The iris (the colored part,light correctly on the retina.

when they simulate the light coming into your eye

Are you using VR or some flat monstrosity of a digital wall painting?

Edited March 2, 2023 by mSparks

[Bjoern 1,157]

XP12, especially with Zibo's 737 and X-World Europe has me seriously considering upgrading to an AMD 7xxx series CPU. From a 5800X, mind you.