I havent touched XPLANE since MSFS2020 released, but i've always had the itch to try the hotstart challenger, and with the new weather and lighting enhancements that have come to xplane recently I am thinking more and more about buying XP12 and the challenger.  I want to dig into the systems and fly that puppy all over the world.  Its a big investment in time and money, if it weren't for the challenger I would be perfectly happy and busy sticking with pmdg and fenix on msfs2024.  Not trying to start and xp vs msfs thread, but I only have so much time and Im happy with what I have currently and don't want to spend too much time tweaking the sim.   So I have a few questions about certain features that I don't really want to live without.

1.) I need to have photoscenery with accurate cities and building placement, WITH seasons, including ortho textures and trees.  I want to be able to fly all over the world like I do with msfs without having to build terrabytes of otho scenery and have it look correct for the time of the year and wx conditions.  Can this be achieved with map enhancement alone + simheaven?  

2.) Accurate snow cover that works with live wx and photoscenery streaming

3.) Is night lighting at least on par with msfs SU4?  I have bad memories of night textures popping in with distant cities being invisible in xp11.  Do cities illuminate clouds from below?  This effect is very apparent IRL and well done in msfs.  I do know the darkness level and overall night lighting is more realistic in xp but dont want the light popping.  

4.) I only fly in VR, i tried the demo version but couldn't get it to work.  Can I use the pimax crystal light without steam vr in xplane?  In msfs it works flawlessly with only the pimax software.  I really dont like steam VR.

5.)  I have a beefy system but in VR its always a struggle, can expect similar performance to what I get with PMDG aircraft in fs2024 without having to lower my settings too much?

6.) Does xplane have water colors or masks yet for tropical areas?

7.)  Is it stable?  Since SU4 I haven't had a single crash in msfs, even with the sim running for 48 hours + with multiple turns.  

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

1.) I need to have photoscenery with accurate cities and building placement, WITH seasons, including ortho textures and trees.  I want to be able to fly all over the world like I do with msfs without having to build terrabytes of otho scenery and have it look correct for the time of the year and wx conditions.  Can this be achieved with map enhancement alone + simheaven?

Not sure if any of the ortho streaming programmes have seasons-enabled ortho tiles, but you can try the entire scheme yourself in X-Plane 12's demo (= retail with a 30 minute time limit and without global scenery) by using this fork of AutoOrtho, which essentially does the same as MapEnhancement: https://github.com/ProgrammingDinosaur/autoortho4xplane

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

2.) Accurate snow cover that works with live wx and photoscenery streaming

Snow on ortho depends on the tiles being XP12 native. If they are not: No snow, no seasons. Automatic snow cover requires this plugin: https://github.com/hotbso/xa-snow

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

3.) Is night lighting at least on par with msfs SU4?  I have bad memories of night textures popping in with distant cities being invisible in xp11.  Do cities illuminate clouds from below?  This effect is very apparent IRL and well done in msfs.  I do know the darkness level and overall night lighting is more realistic in xp but dont want the light popping.  

Can not comment on popping, but city ights does not illuminate clouds. This may change in some future release though.

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

4.) I only fly in VR, i tried the demo version but couldn't get it to work.  Can I use the pimax crystal light without steam vr in xplane?  In msfs it works flawlessly with only the pimax software.  I really dont like steam VR.

From a web search, the PCL seems to work with XP12 for quite a few people. Could be that they use OpenXR though.

Apart from having to run Steam in the background, I have no issues with SteamVR and find it a lot improved compared to a year ago.

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

5.)  I have a beefy system but in VR its always a struggle, can expect similar performance to what I get with PMDG aircraft in fs2024 without having to lower my settings too much?

No. VR performance in XP12 is absolutely dreadful if you want to run the same settings as in 2D. You can set up a different graphics preset for VR though with a lower rendering distance and less AA.

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

6.) Does xplane have water colors or masks yet for tropical areas?

Default scenery? I think yes.

 

1 hour ago, Pilot53 said:

7.)  Is it stable?  Since SU4 I haven't had a single crash in msfs, even with the sim running for 48 hours + with multiple turns.  

Stability depends on how many add-ons you run.

4 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

1.) I need to have photoscenery with accurate cities and building placement, WITH seasons, including ortho textures and trees.  I want to be able to fly all over the world like I do with msfs without having to build terrabytes of otho scenery and have it look correct for the time of the year and wx conditions.  Can this be achieved with map enhancement alone + simheaven?  

I'm not a X-Plane user, and I really have never tried it, but recently I knew from this site (see below) that ortho textures are not needed anymore when using this very well known app in MSFS2020/2024:

https://www.aiflygo.com

Probably X-Plane people should take a look at it.

 

4 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

Can this be achieved with map enhancement alone + simheaven? 

It looks good enough, at anything but the lowest altitudes. 

Night lighting is exceptional.

22 minutes ago, The_Flying_Potato said:

It looks good enough, at anything but the lowest altitudes. 

Night lighting is exceptional.

Does that include seasons too?  I think Simheaven changes tree colors, but will map enhancement shade the ortho tiles different based on seasons?

23 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

Does that include seasons too?  I think Simheaven changes tree colors, but will map enhancement shade the ortho tiles different based on seasons?

I'll experiment tomorrow. 🙂

2 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

Does that include seasons too?  I think Simheaven changes tree colors, but will map enhancement shade the ortho tiles different based on seasons?

One reason I don't use Map Enhancement anymore is that it disables seasons. If you were to fly out of Chicago today, trees are green. Completely ruins it for me. I rather do default XP12 than the nonsense.

19 minutes ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

One reason I don't use Map Enhancement anymore is that it disables seasons. If you were to fly out of Chicago today, trees are green. Completely ruins it for me. I rather do default XP12 than the nonsense.

Oh no!  Thats a big problem.  Is there any way to get streamed ortho like msfs with xplane and not lose seasons?

6 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

Does that include seasons too?

Map Enhancement does not.  But AutoOrtho does:

Combine with Sim Heaven 

 

4 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

Oh no!  Thats a big problem.  Is there any way to get streamed ortho like msfs with xplane and not lose seasons?

If you combine map enhancer and previously mentioned plugin xasnow then you will have proper snow coverage

4 hours ago, Beardyman said:

If you combine map enhancer and previously mentioned plugin xasnow then you will have proper snow coverage

Snow coverage has nothing to do with trees though. 

9 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

Oh no!  Thats a big problem.  Is there any way to get streamed ortho like msfs with xplane and not lose seasons?

Yes, and it is in the manual too.

 

o4xp_Seasons_Manager: seasons on top of O4XP https://forums.x-plane.org/files/file/87701-o4xp_seasons_manager-seasons-on-top-of-o4xp/ This plugin solves the problem. Install in Custom Scenery, perform o4xpsm_install.exe. In the plugin menu, enable Orthophoto Mode.

 

https://github.com/derekhe/xplane-map-enhancement-release/issues/328

 

https://github.com/derekhe/xplane-map-enhancement-release/issues/210

Edited January 20Jan 20 by Ianrivaldosmith

8 minutes ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

Snow coverage has nothing to do with trees though. 

including trees

Long time XP12 user here, I’ll tell you what you shud do….. buy the Challenger, install it and fly it with default scenery … that’s all you need to enjoy theeeeee best aircraft out of all of them, it is amazing 4 years on and I fly nothing else because I can’t because none of the others can touch it…. It’s a phenomenal simulation of an aircraft…. That’s it….  Nothing else to say. And by the way …. I have fs24 with the fenix, pmdg … got em all… they’re very very good but none of them are on par with the Challenger for XP12. 

if want scenery you’ll have to fly FS24. 
 

 

On 1/19/2026 at 6:55 AM, Pilot53 said:

I only have so much time and Im happy with what I have currently and don't want to spend too much time tweaking the sim. 

Based on your extensive scenery criteria and this comment, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. 

I still fly in Prepar3D because there are a handful of great addons there that aren’t available in other sims at a similar level of fidelity. 

I have the Orbx scenery full stack, plus True Earth where it’s available. 

I make do with the old scenery because I'm there for the aircraft rather than touring.

I do much the same with X-Plane, though v12 has fantastic atmospheric graphics, but still only flying over True Earth or a few locales where very good ortho coverage is available. 

I don’t really care about seasons either, only live weather, so I’m not bothered with snow, etc (since it rarely looks like it does IRL anyway).

the C650 is a fantastic addon, but if you really need all the scenery eye candy to enjoy it, best to stick with Fenix, methinks. 

my advice is to download the free demo and bebop around in the Citation X before you spend any money. 
here’s a free demo of Orbx True Earth to with it, too: https://orbxdirect.com/product/gbr-south-demo-xp11?srsltid=AfmBOoqJIri04HAL7np9S24PsUMmX-ZbJ4eoGFP-0p-7tKbO64ONCjUl