X Plane

[Guest]

Embarrassed to say it

[Guest ftessler]

Andy,You can learn about X Plane at www.x-plane.com, where you can also download a demo (you'll need a broadband connection - it's > 90MB!)I've played with it a bit. Performance is excellent, but it doesn't convey quite the same sense of realism as Fly! does for me.-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator

[Guest]

In terms of realism, I find Fly! II and X-Plane are each more realistic in their own ways.X-Plane, IMO, is more accurate in terms of modeling the physics of flight. (It also has historically given me a much better frame rate.)Fly! II, on the other hand, has a more graphically accurate cockpit and voice. X-Plane voice is terrible, and the chatter in the background is the same thing over and over again.Anyway, now that I see people are reporting some performance improvements with Jaguar, I'll pull out the Fly! II CD again and see if it helps. Even with my G4/667 with a gig of RAM and a 32 MB GeForce2 MX card, it was a horrible slug, and at least marginally usable with booting into OS 9.

[Guest Allan Jones]

Ziggy,Prepare to boot into 9 again. Jag performance on a eMac 700 was no better than on my G3/500 and arguably worse. However, Fly rocked when I booted in 9. VERY Fly!able. We think that Jag installation did something to 9.2.2 that really helped. Our eMac came with 10.1.4 but had the Jag disks in the box. I installed Jag before trying Fly, so can't testify to how Fly II did before the upgrade.

[Guest]

Andy,As an X-Plane user (and a former Fly! through Fly2! user, still pain in my hard that the support has ended) I could tell you great things about X-Plane. It is a nice sim, but as others said, there are some lacks in this.Indeed Radio is bad and the default textures ar not that good (better said, boring).But the great thing is, the support for this sim is hot! Almost every 3 months i can find a new update of the program, with new features and improvements.And comming back to that radio, there are going to be a lot of changes at this subject. Donno wich version it's gonna be, but Austin (the programmer) is busy with it.And another great thing about X-Plane is that it is verry easy to create costum sceneries and edit tracks and planes. (even for mac)When you are used to Fly! (or Fly2!) you have to think totally different, but after an hour flying and experimenting, you know the app and the way to get along with it.Well I can go on and on abot it but you have to see it for yourself.On thing I would like to add is : It works great with Jaguar (10.2.1) and high frame rates aswell.Cheers everybodyKoenP.S. Another feature that is comming up (well it's not beta yet, but it will be soon) is XSquawkBox. The same as SquawkBox for fly. Only the difference is that this version WILL work on mac!

[Guest Allan Jones]

I have hundreds of hours in Fly and Fly II, but only a limited amount of time with X-Plane via the demo. Therefore, I can't give as fair a comparison as those here who own both. After Fly!ing, the X-plane panels are a step down, but it gave rocking rates even before I upgraded the processor. Landings are a lot prettier at 25+frames/sec!I need a bigger monitor to read the X menus at 10x7 resolution. These eyes have too much mileage!Call it preference, but the external models in X seem to have some strange perspective. Things never look quite right, but this seems improved in later versions. The a/c textures aren't as nice but Fly! is paying for nice textures with a performance hit.I will buy X-Plane for this reason:AUSTIN'S CONTINED SUPPORT OF THE MAC PLATFORM!!!!(pardon the shouting) If I can't shake his hand, I'll send money (when I get enough HD space to load the new texture packs :-hah )

[Guest ftessler]

Allan,I'll probably end up doing the same thing as a holiday present to myself. :)It's been a while since I poked around the X-Plane site. The section on Austin's "secret weapon" is especially interesting... notice the computers they're using!-Franklin------------------------------Franklin TesslerDP 800Fly! for Mac Co-moderator

[Guest Allan Jones]

Ah! The secret titanium weapon! May the Force be with him!Funny!