11 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Sure but where are the limits and priorities? It's the xbox and tr0ll crowd that drives the need for these higher fidelity terminal and cabin models. What a waste of time and developer effort. Though the glass itself would certainly benefit the acft externals, there is ZERO need to be able to peek into the terminal glass looking for a 3d model of a toddler smearing his nose on the window as you punch in your waypoints. None. Let alone the check-in desks and luggage carousels. Waste. What's really funny is the acft cabin demands. They throw tantrums about having high fidelity bathrooms and then immediately set a saved quick view of what?? THE VIEW OUT THE WINDOW LOOKING AT THE WING! Mind blown. Digital waste.

O.M.G. - we actually 100% agree on something.

I'm obviously not gonna say I don't appreciate the feature, but yeah - you hit the nails on their heads here. 👍

19 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Sure but where are the limits and priorities?

Right … this turns into my priority over someone else’s priority debate (plenty of those, everyone wants) … could even lead into a survey post of which LR may or may not see or even care about.  One thing I’ve learnt over the decades going in and out of XP is that Austin pretty much does whatever the heck he wants to do and we’re really just along for the ride and hope we get some of things we want.

22 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

He's just leaving the sharpness at realistic levels and waiting for XP AA to catch up

AA has actually regressed, it was better in XP11 with SSAA (brute force buy highly effective and can melt a GPU) … XP12 seems to moving away from performance expensive SSAA into other AA methods that are easier on the GPU.  I guess I need to investigate external methods for getting better AA into XP12.

5 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

Austin pretty much does whatever the heck he wants

I'm almost certain at this point that he's mostly out of the picture when it comes to scenery engine capability. LR makes the blue food coloring. It's the 3rd party devs making the meth.

6 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

AA methods that are easier on the GPU

They went to a deferred renderer which changes the "best" AA approach. It begs for TAA et al. algorithms. Coming Sooooon...

 

28 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

we actually 100% agree on something

We actually agree on a fair number of things.

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

e.g., z-Global Forests needs to be higher than X-America

For what reason?

29 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

For what reason?

perhaps not the most salient example, but IIRC, X forests can/should be deactivated when using GF, but the XF libraries still need to be available. 

GF needs to be above the other stuff. I.e., whatever’s higher in the list is what shows, within the same category of scenery (more or less 😉)

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

And I will say xOrganizer has been a TREMENDOUS help for me. I'd say it easily handles (or uncovers) more than 75% of any scenery issues, and fixes most of them automagically.

Got any tips?  

And why is xOrganizer and xToolbox separate tools when they really should be a single product?  

But I must admit, I haven’t made time to read all 59 pages of xOrganizer manual … I’m sure it’s detailed and excellent, but 59 pages for scenery ordering (that alone should be obvious flag of opportunity to improve XP for LR)?

EDIT: oh and 33 pages for xToolbox. 😉 

 

Edited January 8Jan 8 by SayAgain

48 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

perhaps not the most salient example, but IIRC, X forests can/should be deactivated when using GF, but the XF libraries still need to be available. 

GF needs to be above the other stuff. I.e., whatever’s higher in the list is what shows, within the same category of scenery (more or less 😉)

SimHeaven recommend Global Forests should be below SimHeaven with the forest layers deactivated.

On 1/7/2026 at 9:55 PM, UrgentSiesta said:

I would certainly hope so!

why doesn’t LR talk about this?

it’s a pretty big deal, and applies to all windows - including aircraft 

Talk about it to ruin people's personal "Woah, that's cool, I did not know XP12 did that!" moments?

 

8 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Sure but where are the limits and priorities? It's the xbox and tr0ll crowds that drive the need for these higher fidelity terminal and cabin models. What a waste of time and developer effort. Though the glass itself would certainly benefit the acft externals, there is ZERO need to be able to peek into the terminal glass looking for a 3d model of a toddler smearing his nose on the window as you punch in your waypoints. None. Let alone the check-in desks and luggage carousels. Waste. What's really funny is the acft cabin demands. They throw tantrums about having high fidelity bathrooms and then immediately set a saved quick view of what?? THE VIEW OUT THE WINDOW LOOKING AT THE WING! Mind blown. Digital waste.

I'm 120% sure no devs died of exhaustion coding these features.

Regarding the cabins, you've obviously never developed flightsim add-ons. When you need a break from the monotony of modeling, animating and coding individual circuit breakers because you just know that the nitpickers will tear you in half if the cockpit is anything less than "study level plus a veteran captain's experience", i.e. the dreadfully plain, obvious, 100% defined, boring, assembly-line standard BS, you do something to give your mind a break and actually get creative for a change, like trying to come up with a credibly flushing lavatory, credibly modeled and animated FAs to walk about the cabin, engine covers that visibly react to wind force or else. Without these musings and wandering minds, we would not have half the cool features we do in flight sims.

 

5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

SimHeaven recommend Global Forests should be below SimHeaven with the forest layers deactivated.

This. Exactly this. GF below X-W and the X-W forests are disabled. UNLESS you prefer X-W's forests (e.g. in Europe), in which case the forest layer of that X-W region may remain enabled.

Edited January 9Jan 9 by Bjoern

2 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

you do something to give your mind a break and actually get creative for a change

Bit like doing WED airport upgrades, have moments when brain says enough so find silly things like fuel points, Firefighting nozzles, and the most obscure marking line you can find that no one will notice.

23 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

I'm 120% sure no devs died of exhaustion coding these features.

Just 20% over? Inadequate! No less of a waste of resources, regardless of whose idea it is. 

 

37 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

you've obviously never developed flightsim add-ons

Now there's an interesting conclusion. And your paragraph of "exasperated hobbyist" obviously means that you've never tried to make a living off of it.

5 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Talk about it to ruin people's personal "Woah, that's cool, I did not know XP12 did that!" moments?

you mean like letting everyone figure out how great the physics are instead of talking about it…?

Austin disagrees. 

I would likely never discover this myself:
if I’m flying tubeliners, it’s cargo. 
otherwise it’s GA of some sort, usually away from the FBO building. 
and even then, is this an automagic materials feature? I doubt it just due to all the variables of glass…

 

11 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

SimHeaven recommend Global Forests should be below SimHeaven with the forest layers deactivated.

I had screwed up my Beta and didn’t even realize it - so thanks for making me look!🙏

interesting thing came of it, tho: I ended up ditching X-America and going with my old copy of SFD Global instead. 
for my area, SFDG ends up giving far more believable buildings!

still using GF, and still using ortho. Great combo 🤙

16 hours ago, SayAgain said:

 I guess I need to investigate external methods for getting better AA into XP12.

AA limitations is a known problem for X-Plane and the "usual" solutions are not so easy because it is using Vulkan to help with compatibility on three different OSs.

LR is exploring solutions, like TAA for example, which should improve things. 

For now a possible solution is to run at 4K, the higher the resolution, the less obvious aliasing effects are (by definition). I realize that this comes with added GPU requirements, but ironically running 4x MSAA is about as "expensive" as going from HD to 4K, performance-wise...but looks much better.

Edited January 9Jan 9 by Litjan

On 1/7/2026 at 8:55 PM, UrgentSiesta said:

I would certainly hope so!

why doesn’t LR talk about this?

it’s a pretty big deal, and applies to all windows - including aircraft 

How do you think he found out? 🙂

10 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Just 20% over? Inadequate! No less of a waste of resources, regardless of whose idea it is.

Fortunately, that's just your opinion.

 

10 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Now there's an interesting conclusion. And your paragraph of "exasperated hobbyist" obviously means that you've never tried to make a living off of it.

Very fortunately, no, lest it would have meant dealing with customers of payware flight simulation add-ons and their hidden "Stop fooling around and give me [aircraft/scenery y/feature] now!" agendas.

Here's food for thought: If every add-on was done to a prefixed standard with no deviations allowed, there would have never been something like a Hotstart Challenger or Flightfactor 777, both of which have features that are extremely superfluous to daily flightsimming requirements, yet sell like hot cakes. On the other hand, developers known to do add-ons to a prefixed standard witout deviations have exited the (X-Plane) market.

 

4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I would likely never discover this myself:
if I’m flying tubeliners, it’s cargo. 
otherwise it’s GA of some sort, usually away from the FBO building. 
and even then, is this an automagic materials feature? I doubt it just due to all the variables of glass…

That's a "you" problem then. X-Plane has lots of nifty little details or jokes only waiting to be discovered.

I think somewhere in the X-Plane community, there is an old screenshot of mine that shows nothing but an urban park with its trees, benches, lanterns and waste baskets, all courtesy of the XP12 default scenery. Which I discovered by idly messing about with the free camera. While I would not hold up as a modern city sim or GTA clone, it was nothing short of impressive for a flight simulator.