How detail is the ground?

[History]

Just got a budget gaming laptop (i7 + rtx 3050). Im in the crossroad to go with msfs or xplane12. I used to be very active during fs9 and fsx years but had a long break in 2018.

 

I have always been curious whether xp12 ground detail is accurate (roads, highways, lakes, major buildings not only the iconic ones) compared to msfs2020? My main interestnjs flying slow and low or shorthops.

Thank you very much.

[GoranM]

Default?  Not very accurate.  It has correctly placed runways and airports, and it does a decent job of the general geography, but don't expect to find your house.

The remedy for this is Autoortho. 

 

[tonywob]

On top of Autoortho, you can also use https://simheaven.com/ for free... This will add 3D buildings, roads, trees etc for large parts of the world that sit on top of orthos and can look very good

[mSparks]

big +1 for simheaven, fills in all the gaps  afaict, 

also depends where you are, UK with OrbX is basically about the best you can get from any sim and is due to get better

 

 

 

[History]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:57 PM, GoranM said:

Default?  Not very accurate.  It has correctly placed runways and airports, and it does a decent job of the general geography, but don't expect to find your house.

The remedy for this is Autoortho. 

 

You read my mind correctly :D, I am expecting to get a fairly accurate of my neighborhood, the city I live in and major roads connected to my hometown, reminiscing the old days when my dad drove us to some places. Thank you sir, will definitely check it. 

 

On 12/23/2023 at 5:01 PM, tonywob said:

On top of Autoortho, you can also use https://simheaven.com/ for free... This will add 3D buildings, roads, trees etc for large parts of the world that sit on top of orthos and can look very good

As long as it is freeware, will definitely try it out.

 

17 hours ago, mSparks said:

big +1 for simheaven, fills in all the gaps  afaict, 

also depends where you are, UK with OrbX is basically about the best you can get from any sim and is due to get better

 

 

 

😍😍😍

[Inu]

Compared to MSFS, much less accurate.

But for VFR flight, accurate enough, you have all the needed vectors, mesh comes from real world data, landclass data is covered as well, anything you see on typical VFR map, is in.

The ground textures are accurate in general as well for what they are trying to depict based on landclass, this includes different types of patterns for example in agricultural lands.

With that being said, the mesh itself, leaves a lot to be desired.

Those who remember aipilotx HD meshes, may recall that the more geometry X-Plane's mesh has the better the landclass is & ground looked more photorealistic even using default textures; that is because in X-Plane, landclass data is hooked to geometry to define what type of land to use.

A new mesh system will immediately make X-plane's scenery look 1000X better, good news, Laminar are painfully aware of that.

[History]

On 12/30/2023 at 10:52 PM, Inu said:

Compared to MSFS, much less accurate.

But for VFR flight, accurate enough, you have all the needed vectors, mesh comes from real world data, landclass data is covered as well, anything you see on typical VFR map, is in.

The ground textures are accurate in general as well for what they are trying to depict based on landclass, this includes different types of patterns for example in agricultural lands.

With that being said, the mesh itself, leaves a lot to be desired.

Those who remember aipilotx HD meshes, may recall that the more geometry X-Plane's mesh has the better the landclass is & ground looked more photorealistic even using default textures; that is because in X-Plane, landclass data is hooked to geometry to define what type of land to use.

A new mesh system will immediately make X-plane's scenery look 1000X better, good news, Laminar are painfully aware of that.

 

Hello. I just finished installing MSFS this morning, just realized the size is gigantic...

Just managed to play around with DLSS and I gain, wow, quite an increase in fps.

By the way, yes, that's what I actually need, the ground detail for low and slow flying. I notice the size of Xp12 is a lot smaller (and cheaper).

 

Thanks for the input. Can you confirm that the fps in Xplane 12 is 'friendlier' than MSFS?

[Daube]

8 minutes ago, History said:

Thanks for the input. Can you confirm that the fps in Xplane 12 is 'friendlier' than MSFS?

Not from my experience. Especially in VR. 😕

[Daube]

Concerning the ground details, it's a mixed bag.

While I much prefer the autogen and vegetation items/details in MSFS, I do love some aspects of the XPlane's autogen too, especially for flying very low.

I can illustrate this with two examples:

1- When flying at low/medium/high altitudes, I prefer the autogen of MSFS because it matches the local area much better, especially in the areas which were not so popular in previous generation sims (middle east, Africa, Asia etc...).

2- When flying around Seattle or other major american (or European, to some extend) cities at very low altitude with an helicopter, I prefer the autogen of XPlane. I haven't done it much in XPlane12 yet, but back in XPlane11, I remember my first flight from Boeing Field at dusk with an helicopter was quite a slap in the face, especially when coming from P3D 😄

Addons like the SimHeaven XEurope provide very accurate autogen placement. I consider these as mandatory addons.

[peroni]

2 hours ago, History said:

By the way, yes, that's what I actually need, the ground detail for low and slow flying. I notice the size of Xp12 is a lot smaller (and cheaper).

Cheaper? The standard MSFS edition is 59.99 USD (it is all you need) versus 79.99 USD for X-Plane

 

2 hours ago, History said:

Thanks for the input. Can you confirm that the fps in Xplane 12 is 'friendlier' than MSFS?

The advantage here is that you can get the free XP12 demo and see how your system copes with it. 
With the free autoortho and x-world addons you can get some pretty good level of details, at times comparable with MSFS with the advantage of the greater flight model accuracy

[History]

3 minutes ago, peroni said:

Cheaper? The standard MSFS edition is 59.99 USD (it is all you need) versus 79.99 USD for X-Plane 

The advantage here is that you can get the free XP12 demo and see how your system copes with it. 
With the free autoortho and x-world addons you can get some pretty good level of details, at times comparable with MSFS with the advantage of the greater flight model accuracy

 

I stand corrected. It turned out it is indeed the standard is 60 usd.

It is well known the FD of Xp birds are arguably more realistic although I havent tried any of them. If I may know, what's the total disk size XP12+ the two addons you mentioned in your rig? If you can also comment on the fps, it would be much appreciated.

[History]

2 hours ago, Daube said:

Concerning the ground details, it's a mixed bag.

While I much prefer the autogen and vegetation items/details in MSFS, I do love some aspects of the XPlane's autogen too, especially for flying very low.

I can illustrate this with two examples:

1- When flying at low/medium/high altitudes, I prefer the autogen of MSFS because it matches the local area much better, especially in the areas which were not so popular in previous generation sims (middle east, Africa, Asia etc...).

2- When flying around Seattle or other major american (or European, to some extend) cities at very low altitude with an helicopter, I prefer the autogen of XPlane. I haven't done it much in XPlane12 yet, but back in XPlane11, I remember my first flight from Boeing Field at dusk with an helicopter was quite a slap in the face, especially when coming from P3D 😄

Addons like the SimHeaven XEurope provide very accurate autogen placement. I consider these as mandatory addons.

Noted. Thank you sir

[peroni]

47 minutes ago, History said:

If I may know, what's the total disk size XP12+ the two addons you mentioned in your rig?

XP12.09: About 85 GB once installed with all the global scenery continents. 
X-World: North and South Americas are about 15GB once installed
Autoortho: North America is about 30 GB once installed + all on -demand downloads depending on the areas you fly to
Keep in mind adding autoortho will increase XP startup time dramatically, it could take 6-7 minutes just to load the flight.

 

47 minutes ago, History said:

If you can also comment on the fps, it would be much appreciated

This is really depending on the user pc configuration, in my case MSFS is a bit more friendly FPS wise compared to XP12 but not that much. 

Edited January 11, 2024 by peroni

[Daube]

One nice thing about XPlane is that you can choose, upon installing the sim, which areas of the globe you really want to install on your disk. For example, in my case, I use XPlane 12 mostly in the northern-eastern part of USA (for the TrueEarth WA scenery from OrbX), so I only installed that part of the USA. I didn't install any other area of the globe, which helped to save space. 🙂

Of course, these areas can be installed at any point in time later on. You simply need to relaunch the install program and choose the option to add an area. You won't have to fully reinstall the sim at all 😉  

 

[Randall]

Not much more to add here. I would just point out that deciding between the two sims comes down to what you want. If you just want the experience of flying around looking at scenery, you have plenty of other games you equally enjoy, and you aren’t into learning all that much about aviation and aircraft systems, then MSFS is a fine choice. In addition, if while you enjoying flying around and looking at scenery you find yourself bored after a while and wish there was something else to do , then again, MSFS is a good choice with its game elements.