37 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

According to WT:

"...It uses NASA orbital ephemeris data along with actual orbital mechanics solutions to place all of the real GPS satellites currently in orbit into their real 3D positions in space at the current time, and correlates those locations into an actual sight picture for the GPS receiver of the currently viewable satellite constellation. GPS signal strength based on angular horizon distance is simulated and each satellite is tracked separately by the receiver up to the number of available receiver channels.

In addition, the system is loaded with the geostationary positions of the regional SBAS satellites (WAAS, EGNOS, GAGAN, and MSAS) as well as the coverage areas of the ground portions of those systems. As such, it also computes your SBAS availability based on the geostationary SBAS constellation...."

And why this is cool for instrument flying for us in northern Europe

Due to the SBAS satellites being geostationary over the equator, they will drop too low on the horizon at very northern latitudes - such as Icelands Isafjordur Airport - making LPV-approaches impossible here. Despite Iceland having at least two monitoring/range stations, so accuracy is absolutely fine but the availability is atrocious.

Full message for posterity by WT Matt Nischan:

 

This is great to know.

I believe I had never read it before, anyway, I read it now, and it proves that in fact everything WT has been doing for MSFS is very important to the sim, as I wrote above in another post of mine 🙂

If only they could do the flight dynamics too...

Let's not turn this into a "who's better at coding" debate.  It's inevitable that we'll get some immature folks who'll reply with laughing emoji's while defending their favorite flight sim.  There's enough of that in the MSFS forums.  

Let's just agree that WT and Toto all know what they're doing, and they're extremely good at it.  

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by GoranM

Simple! 

Austin should hire both 😁

3 hours ago, SAS443 said:

they will drop too low on the horizon at very northern latitudes - such as Icelands Isafjordur Airport

We use geostationary satellites to communicate via CPDLC and Inmarsat and it only becomes a problem north of 85 deg north when we fly back from Japan to Europe.

I just read up on the Icleand situation, and while they are in the area of the EGNOS system, it is actually the mountains blocking the view to the geostationary satellites needed to transmit correction signals that creates the problem at some airports.

Does the WT system actually take terrain features like mountain shadowing into account when calculating satellite line-of-sight?

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by Litjan

There's another thread with screenshots, but as this one is about clouds:

 

 

Busted! 😄 The above is from a YT video - the northern coast of Sicily somewhere close to Palermo.

Also from the northern coast of Sicily - in XP12.2 beta (I tried to even get the God rays, but you need - a lot of - luck to find the exact angle, and I have a real life, too 😉).

5 hours ago, jcomm said:

If only they could do the flight dynamics too...

seriously, again? I thought this was about x-plane clouds, the good, the bad and the ugly. 

but as long as some xplainers repeatedly abuse xplane threads and see a necessity to re-ignite the sim wars and spread false information re. MSFS how about some facts instead:

"If the flight model designer has not input the correct parameters into the model, then you get a ■■■■■■ simulation, both in MSFS and XP. It’s why the default 172 in XP flies like it has no idea what longitudinal stability is, while payware offerings are much better: that doesn’t mean XPs flight model overall is garbage, just that the configuration of it may be for a given airplane. .....

In the right hands, the MSFS modern engine is going to produce some seriously accurate aircraft. How do I know that? Because our Working Title CJ4 does actually hit those book values at all regimes, with correct N1s, fuel flow, climb rates, over various altitudes and ambient pressures. Not only that but we have stall speeds within a knot of two of book, proper approach angles, correct bank rates, etc.

Is the MSFS simulation completely perfect and without limitations or quirks? No, but neither is XPs, by a long shot. These strange questions and tests are apples and parsnips."

Matt Nishan, working title lead programmer

 

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by turbomax

23 minutes ago, turbomax said:

seriously, again? I thought this was about x-plane clouds, the good, the bad and the ugly. 

but as long as some xplainers repeatedly abuse xplane threads and see a necessity to re-ignite the sim wars and spread false information re. MSFS how about some facts instead:

"If the flight model designer has not input the correct parameters into the model, then you get a ■■■■■■ simulation, both in MSFS and XP. It’s why the default 172 in XP flies like it has no idea what longitudinal stability is, while payware offerings are much better: that doesn’t mean XPs flight model overall is garbage, just that the configuration of it may be for a given airplane. .....

In the right hands, the MSFS modern engine is going to produce some seriously accurate aircraft. How do I know that? Because our Working Title CJ4 does actually hit those book values at all regimes, with correct N1s, fuel flow, climb rates, over various altitudes and ambient pressures. Not only that but we have stall speeds within a knot of two of book, proper approach angles, correct bank rates, etc.

Is the MSFS simulation completely perfect and without limitations or quirks? No, but neither is XPs, by a long shot. These strange questions and tests are apples and parsnips."

Matt Nishan, working title lead programmer

 

It's quite well known that X-Plane has the better flight model.  Austin even made several videos detailing the differences, with numbers and facts.  

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by GoranM

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

seriously, again? I thought this was about x-plane clouds, the good, the bad and the ugly. 

but as long as some xplainers repeatedly abuse xplane threads and see a necessity to re-ignite the sim wars and spread false information re. MSFS how about some facts instead:

"If the flight model designer has not input the correct parameters into the model, then you get a ■■■■■■ simulation, both in MSFS and XP. It’s why the default 172 in XP flies like it has no idea what longitudinal stability is, while payware offerings are much better: that doesn’t mean XPs flight model overall is garbage, just that the configuration of it may be for a given airplane. .....

In the right hands, the MSFS modern engine is going to produce some seriously accurate aircraft. How do I know that? Because our Working Title CJ4 does actually hit those book values at all regimes, with correct N1s, fuel flow, climb rates, over various altitudes and ambient pressures. Not only that but we have stall speeds within a knot of two of book, proper approach angles, correct bank rates, etc.

Is the MSFS simulation completely perfect and without limitations or quirks? No, but neither is XPs, by a long shot. These strange questions and tests are apples and parsnips."

Matt Nishan, working title lead programmer

 

43 minutes ago, GoranM said:

It's quite well known that X-Plane has the better flight model.  Austin even made several videos detailing the differences, with numbers and facts.  

In sum, both of the above are true, and neither is absolute.

And don't forget that both of these sims generally muck up Fast Jet flight models (i.e., military jets). This seems to me to be the result of the civ sims focusing on common aircraft designs rather than the significantly different physical designs of .mil aircraft. To get representative FM's there, you need to go to DCS World (and from what I hear, DCSW is a horror show when it comes to highly refined FMs and physics).

I think the key thing to understand is yes, the addon developer is a BIG part of the physics fidelity across ALL simulators (especially DCS World).

AND X-Plane, due to it's raison d'etre, has a predictive FM output engine that is designed for "fast" and "accurate" results with "minimum" input parameters. MSFS seems to be in transition to something similar with v2020's CFD, NPS, and SBS, but these features that enable more accurate FM's are NOT yet Automatic, and thus it requires far more work to get the same results than with XP, and there are still quite a few addons which have still not adopted even v2020's version of same. And perforce, even fewer that have been adapted to v2024's even higher "resolution" FM & physics. But the ones that have...? They're definitely in the same league as XP.

For e.g., if XP were truly "perfect" (and Austin has never come close to claiming so, and seems in fact to be constantly working on the overall Aero Engine), then companies like SimCoders wouldn't exist - RIGHT? 😉

And if MSFS' physics were truly "perfect", then companies like A2A Simulations wouldn't exist - RIGHT? 😉

Which one is "better" or "best"...? I'm not qualified to say, and I refuse to believe ANY definitive assertion that isn't the results of instrumented test flights for the exact purpose of comparison, all performed by a healthy cross section of IRL test pilots with current Type Ratings.

To me, this is very much like the occasional Mac vs Windows vs Linux debates that pop up. It's as much experience, familiarity, and specific purpose as it is anything else.

To put it simply, we've never had it better than now, and the pace of improvement is faster than ever.

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

11 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

 

In sum, both of the above are true, and neither is absolute.

And don't forget that both of these sims generally muck up Fast Jet flight models (i.e., military jets). This seems to me to be the result of the civ sims focusing on common aircraft designs rather than the significantly different physical designs of .mil aircraft. To get representative FM's there, you need to go to DCS World (and from what I hear, DCSW is a horror show when it comes to highly refined FMs and physics).

I think the key thing to understand is yes, the addon developer is a BIG part of the physics fidelity across ALL simulators (especially DCS World).

AND X-Plane, due to it's raison d'etre, has a predictive FM output engine that is designed for "fast" and "accurate" results with "minimum" input parameters. MSFS seems to be in transition to something similar with v2020's CFD, NPS, and SBS, but these features that enable more accurate FM's are NOT yet Automatic, and thus it requires far more work to get the same results than with XP, and there are still quite a few addons which have still not adopted even v2020's version of same. And perforce, even fewer that have been adapted to v2024's even higher "resolution" FM & physics. But the ones that have...? They're definitely in the same league as XP.

For e.g., if XP were truly "perfect" (and Austin has never come close to claiming so, and seems in fact to be constantly working on the overall Aero Engine), then companies like SimCoders wouldn't exist - RIGHT? 😉

And if MSFS' physics were truly "perfect", then companies like A2A Simulations wouldn't exist - RIGHT? 😉

Which one is "better" or "best"...? I'm not qualified to say, and I refuse to believe ANY definitive finding that isn't the results of instrumented test flights for the exact purpose of comparison, all performed by a healthy cross section of IRL test pilots with current Type Ratings.

To me, this is very much like the occasional Mac vs Windows vs Linux debates that pop up. It's as much experience, familiarity, and specific purpose as it is anything else.

To put it simply, we've never had it better than now, and the pace of improvement is faster than ever.

Agree to disagree.  

I think this addresses your jet engine concern.  But also, don't forget that Austin also fixed critical mach and wing sweep issues, as explained in this video.

I do agree with you, however, that X-Plane's flight model is in a constant state of refinement, and will never be "finished".  

But back to my disagreement, X-Plane's flight model has far more elements that are not included in MSFS.  

Here is one (of many) of my favorite videos, that I believe prove my point.

 

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by GoranM

22 hours ago, flying_carpet said:

If I compare that with the 'myriads' of simulated failures in the XP default planes ...

The dataref tally is around 550. If anybody is curious about which particular failure types are supported: "Resources/plugins/DataRefs.txt" has them all. Look for the "sim/operation/failures" prefixes.

Looks like a majority of users prefer the general feeling of X-Plane flight model, just like a majority of user prefer the general visuals of the competitor sim scenery. Why does the former irritates people like turbomax and the likes is a mistery to me.

2 hours ago, uwespeed said:

Also from the northern coast of Sicily - in XP12.2 beta (I tried to even get the God rays, but you need - a lot of - luck to find the exact angle, and I have a real life, too 😉).

...

If you need more contrast for the clouds: Decrease "sim/private/controls/scattering/multi_rat".

2 hours ago, turbomax said:

re-ignite the sim wars and spread false information re. MSFS how about some facts instead

That's 110% your fault. You are re-igniting any "war" by trying to "correct" the facts. 

 

2 hours ago, turbomax said:

Working Title CJ4 does actually hit those book values

FSX/P3D can do this too. What's his point? FSX is still at the core of asobo's model too. It's simply much easier to screw up their new way of doing things. If LR was more precise with their default 172 model (I don't know why they aren't, for that matter), this discussion wouldn't be happening.

45 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

If you need more contrast for the clouds: Decrease "sim/private/controls/scattering/multi_rat".

I'll look into it the next time 😉. So, this will be one of the datarefs used by future cloud tweaks. I tested one of these tweaks with the new beta but it was shifted by XP automatically into the quarantined scripts folder as it recognized that old datarefs were used.

4 hours ago, turbomax said:

In the right hands, the MSFS modern engine is going to produce some seriously accurate aircraft. How do I know that? Because our Working Title CJ4 does actually hit those book values at all regimes, with correct N1s, fuel flow, climb rates, over various altitudes and ambient pressures. Not only that but we have stall speeds within a knot of two of book, proper approach angles, correct bank rates, etc.

 

Maybe so, but their controls are still a mess! How do I know this.... I've spent hours upon hours in full motion multi million dollar simulators and use real Boeing yokes and rudder pedals in my flight deck and I cannot get the same or close to response in Microsoft than I do with XP12. XP12 gives me the response that mimics that of the multi million dollar sim, Microsoft/Asobo just doesn't deliver in that area! Not yet anyway.