So, inspired by @filou's recent posts, I thought I'd have a play with XP12. I had initially tried it out when it went live, and at that point just symlinked it to all my old XP11 aircraft and scenery folders. Generally seemed to work ok from what I remember, but thought maybe I'd start working on it as a new install, and just add stuff in one bit at a time. No real idea what's supposed to work and what isn't, as I'm not really sure of the differences between XP11 and XP12 in terms of how things are handled internally. I shall certainly keep trying various of my XP11 addons as firstly I have a lot of them (surprise surprise) and secondly I had some nice environments going in XP11.

At this point I plan to experiment with all the TrueEarth stuff I have (which is most of it), and possibly the Spain UHD package. But I won't bother for now with all the ortho4XP stuff I created - I wasn't that impressed with a lot of it anyway. I'll check out some of the airports I had within the TE regions as well, once I've re-familiarised myself with how to do stuff. And that will take a bit of time, for sure. Struggled a bit just on thes first few test flights.

It seems like a lot of the scenery stuff might work ok in XP12, but the aircraft less so, which is both reasonable I guess, and a shame, as the aircraft are a big part of why I'd like to have a workable system again. The four aircraft in these shots are all certified XP12 capable.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this exercise today. I am not planning to abandon MSFS by any means, but XP continues to excell for me in one main area, and that's the roads and railways. And I like to be down at that level - it's why I sim. MSFS just can't cut it (yet?) in terms of the ground transport stuff for me. I was also quite aware of the lack of pauses in XP, whereas I was having one of those stuttery spells yesterday in MSFS - but then I often find that over the weekends - server side stuff I suspect.

So this is not a "one sim better than the other" kind of post. I just felt like I wanted to re-connect with XP. Personally, I think it's pretty unbelievable that we've got both of these sims available now at the sort of quality level they are. And I'm not forgetting AFS2 either (but I am ignoring AFS4!)

Anyway, here's a bunch of randomish shots testing out in TE So-Cal and No-Call. All 4k as ever, everything set to max, no other tweaks. Generally well pleased with the look of it, apart from the sky and cloud environment. I may have to investigate further in that area.

First few with the A350 out of KSAN and up towards LA. I got an email telling me a free XP12 upgrade was available for this and that is what triggered this whole exercise.

And then I just picked up this A319 in a sale yesterday for around 11 dollars, some 70 plus dollars cheaper than normal. Pretty impressive

JustFlight emailed that the Duchess was also just updated for XP12, which is good as it is one of my favourites

and is perfect for my "I Follow Roads" thing in XP

KSQL just out of sight!

And thinking of "IFR", I picked this up as well. It drives and flies so I shall be having some real fun with this beast

And lastly, a stock aircraft but a favourite too

Edited May 28, 20233 yr by andy1252
incomplete post

Awesome shots Andy...the scenery are ultra realistics! 😉 

Looks very good. And not just down low! 🙂

An extremely realistic crazy charm!

They look nice but I'm spoiled on photogrammetry which ain't perfect but looks great.

Nice to see that you are using XP again, Andy and your shots really look superb. One thing I noticed though, at least to me the ORBX TE scenery in your shots look a bit too brownish (I guess that you have them installed, otherwise it would be that the default scenery looks too much on the brown side for me). 

On 5/28/2023 at 6:10 PM, Alaska738 said:

Awesome shots Andy...the scenery are ultra realistics! 😉 

Thanks Will. There is something about the light/atmospherics in XP12. Not necessarily saying better, but it has a different vibe to it from MSFS. Nice to feel that I have both options again now.

On 5/28/2023 at 7:42 PM, John F said:

Looks very good. And not just down low! 🙂

Cheers John!

10 hours ago, filou said:

An extremely realistic crazy charm!

Thanks Filou, glad you like them. I've been checking a few things in MSFS as well but I'm really enjoying seeing my TE stuff back in use.

9 hours ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

They look nice but I'm spoiled on photogrammetry which ain't perfect but looks great.

Hi Jack, and I love PG when it works - it's pretty magnificent then - but I hate the melties, of which I seem to have seen a lot lately. Still can't figure out if it's all server related or if there are just some areas that are pretty poor. I suspect a bit of both.

2 hours ago, bernd1151 said:

Nice to see that you are using XP again, Andy and your shots really look superb. One thing I noticed though, at least to me the ORBX TE scenery in your shots look a bit too brownish (I guess that you have them installed, otherwise it would be that the default scenery looks too much on the brown side for me). 

Thenks Bernd, and yes, I agree about the red tinge in some of the TE stuff. The fact that I'm running on a big HDR monitor and these grabs are sort of converted by the capture routines probably doesn't help, but they are quite striking on my live system too.