Avcomware

Hi. I would purchase: 1-XP11 CDs 2-XP12 CDs if you can 3-XP12 Digital from Laminar

Hi Jcomm and everyone. Another issue for me is the visibility see trough when you fly towards the Sun set, and limited visibility due to bloom / haze whatever you want to call it. There are some good scripts to help, but I use a few DataRefs that you can place in a .lua file and place it in the ... \Scripts, Play with the values and see what you like. --From here set("sim/private/controls/scattering/override_turbidity_t",1.0) set("sim/private/controls/scattering/single_rat",0.1) set("sim/private/controls/scattering/multi_rat",0.2) set("sim/private/controls/hdr/bloom1",-8.9) set("sim/private/controls/hdr/bloom_exponent",3.12) --To here

Hi Jcomm and everyone, Yes, 1244 has improved loading time, less CPU grinding, and a better terrain rendering, still work in progress. The worst offenders, in my system, and I have afairly high end system, are Objects keep them Low to Medium, Clouds medium, Shadows, Acft only, 3D trees and AntiAliasing, Rendering dstance also but I like it and I keep maxed out, you can crack AF mostly all the way, and It looks OK especially if run 4K. If you run VR turn FF Off and use AF. Foe some reason LR likes to start with Objects very high (max) and if add Ortho, in particular if you are a real World pilot, you, like me, may like to keep the Tree, Objects.. low. I found that high in any of the things that cover the terrain / Orthos, make it less real looking and renders areas unrecognizable.

Hi everyone. I use 4K 90Deg FOV. C172 X1000 digital. When I expand the forward view to have the instrument fill the screen UDLR the upper most knobs / NAV switches become inactive / you cannot switch NAV FREQs... If you reduce the size to include the backup instruments / round gauges, that area becomes active again. This is for information only to make sure stay informed, the Mack / need not concern themselves with it. We use that size screen mostly when we use VR, to make sure we can get a better view / readability of the small print. I have a Voice Command called Zoom VR that sets that size screen. Others that have tested can duplicate the problem. My educated opinion is that the area may not be covered / active in that configuration, but it should.

Hi. I suggest that you also look in other locations to find complaints about 'Lost settings..." that is related / the same as to what I describe. Everyone I know has that problem, and I get it in every system that I had XP12 in, never have / had those problems in the prior versions. There is no Error or Warning about it, it just does what it wants. Sometimes it load a flight to some weird locations in Europe.... I sometimes get the the layers of Wind as in the initial download / install... Yesterday I got a message about the "wrong type.." of .sit of a situation that was just created 2 days before with absolutely No change to the sim. Lucky you. Edit: I just remembered you are one the few that were saying that the cockpit lighting was a non issue?

Hi everyone. Another annoying issue with XP12 is that it loads whatever it feels like on start up, sometimes it gets the wrong clouds, or worse it does not load your Memory views (Ctrl 0-9) saved configurations, joystick (controllers) settings... which can be very time consuming. My work around is to use a batch (.bat) file (included below) to start the sim. I use it from my Desktop, (make sure the locations are pointing to the proper Folder/Files you have your data saved). You will have to Save your Good (Wanted) Preference that you want to load with this Start. This seems to be random and I am not able to find the reason why, it just looks like poor code, sometimes it marks all .sit/s as Paused... It can be very time consuming. Everyone of the people I interface with, have that problem, and I get on any of the systems I use. I hope it helps some of you. >>From here Xcopy ...Your Drive:\XPlaneLocation\Output\YourSavedPreferences Loc\*.* ...Drive:\XPlaneLocation\Output\\preferences\ /E /I CD ...Drive:\XPlaneLocation\ start "" "..Drive:\XPlaneLocation\X-Plane.exe rem Pay attention to the "" <<To here As an additional note the Reflections, Low visibility, Bloom and Shadows are an absolute pain in the rear someone must really like the psychedelic colors, I do not think that any of those guys are old enough get get them the 70s experience. I need something to Kill the Sun, and the reflections.. A work around for the reflections in very low visibility and low Sun angle, I just make my windshield completely transparent which can be an issue for some, simpler procedure is to make your *glass more transparent if the modify the "glass_inn.obj" for that particular acft located in your ... ...\Aircraft\Laminar Research\Cessna 172 SP\objects in this case for the C172... Portion of the "glass_inn_G1000.obj" follows. This works for any "*glass*. obj" file. Start file: "glass_inn.obj" below >>From here A 800 OBJ TEXTURE glass_inn.png TEXTURE_NORMAL glass_inn_NRM.png GLOBAL_specular 1.0 <<<<<<<< change this line to GLOBAL_specular 0.2 (or something less than 0.5 as you prefer) NORMAL_METALNESS BLEND_GLASS ... << To here

Hi everyone. I am glad you guys enjoy the sim, for me it is still far from being a useful tool, that goes for both well known sims. Every time I want to do an actual practice I go to XP11. There are still too many things that I cannot get done properly, flight dynamics, Wx settings... I am still struggling to get a simple layer of dense fog and fly into the sunset without seeing the horizon, my system can handle the load. I can get around 80 FPS in the configuration / settings I use, but now they introduced the spider web jitters / delays that I cannot eliminate even if I limit the fps to 30. In my opinion there is still a way to go before it gets to the level XP11 as a useful tool. I am glad some of you are having fun with it / enjoy it.

Hi Bjoern. Thank you for you research, I do not get around much other than Avsim, Pilot sof America and a couple of other sites. >>You won't see that effect when you disable 3D vegetation.<< For me it does it on 2D trees, I never use 3D, and I use low Objects, Clouds... On RWY 24 KFUL 1:21 Z Feb 6 I see the orange trees on the left side at the end of the RWY, with default settings. As I start to climb I see them getting more visible. My system can handle it but I find the surface more credible / recognizable with fewer trees, objects..., but I do think that Ortho is mandatory, not necessarily to find your house, but to recognize the areas that I am familiar with, I think LR could benefit from creating Land marks, I did that for myself and the group, but it looks like that is not a priority. 1244 is getting better terrain wise, but still lacking the definition needed to recognize terrain features which is very useful to real World pilots for ground referencing. I was not able to turn the Sun off, I can mask it but there is still that orange halo around, the only way I can get low vis. during before sunset is to modify the windshield to white / dark, oddly enough you can still see the RWY light.. The idea was to create conditions for the pilots to contend with as I've encountered in real life, but a dark windshield would not work because it has to be loaded with the acft. I also tried Autohaze, which uses the same DataRefs I found to help, but but I am unable to create conditions that allow dynamic changes. Thank again, and have a great week.

Hi Bjoern and everyone. Yes, I have pointed that out to LR a long time ago and got no response. It is easy to duplicate the problem. Take off from an airport and fly towards the Sun. when the Sun is low. Example: take off from KFUL Rwy24, at around 1:10 Z Feb 6, no time offset, and fly below 1500 toward KLGB or KTOA. In my system all the trees look golden orange until after the Sun sets. I am unable to post a pic and would make it more easily understood. Thank you for your participation and interest.

Hello MrBits.. and everyone. I Download the AutoHaze and I am in the process of trying to see how I can configure it to give me different visibility and use it in local mode. It's interesting that the DataRefs are very similar to what I found out that may be usefull. It's a sign that there are not many others around that can be useful. Thank you for your help and effort.

Hi everyone. I want to use XP12 more but there are some things that are very annoying, see below. XP has had that problem as far back as I can remember and I never found a way to fix / change it. Flying during sunset the color of the leafs turns / is gold / orange. Looking behind and at time to one side or another in External view they look OK. One of the reasons that I use Time Stay script is to get away from this problem. I select a time when the Sun is low on the horizon to keep the color somewhat green. In my case I fly around LAX area and I have to select 1:26 Z on Feb 6 to get away from this problem. Does anyone know what is causing this (I assume is a texture they use?) and better yet what the fix may be? Thank you.

Hi everyone. As an additional statement, at the other end of the spectrum, there are days where there is visibility over 100SM. I've flown in days where coming from Big bear (L35) you could clearly see the buildings at Catalina (AVX), you get the feeling that you could reach out and touch them. We should be able to simulate all those environments. I included below a few DataRefs that users may want to try and see if they can improve their experience, try different values, make small changes, and change one thing at the time, just put all them in a .lua file and place the file in: Drive\:..\X-Plane12\Resources\plugins\FlyWithLua\Scripts --Copy From here: --ClearVis.lua set("sim/private/controls/scattering/override_turbidity_t",1.0) set("sim/private/controls/scattering/single_rat",0.1) set("sim/private/controls/scattering/multi_rat",0.2) set("sim/private/controls/hdr/bloom1",-8.9) set("sim/private/controls/hdr/bloom_exponent",3.12) --To here When I fly VFR, I only fly during Sunset time, 1:23Z Feb, 6, to keep that time where I want I use a script TimeStayMacro: --Copy From here --TimeStay.lua --[[ --Move Local Time back, TimeStay within the same minute. --Use if you only like to fly at certain times, like Sunset.. --Install the latest version of Lua --Copy the content of this file / text into any FileName.lua --Place that file into X:..\X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins\FlyWithLua\Scripts --To use: In XPlane 11 just start XPlane after you completed the above steps. The script will be automatically loaded. --The most accurate version is the local start_time = os.clock() --Accurate 1sec/ 10min set_back = larger goes forward, increases / later time. --Move Local Time back, TimeStay within the same minute. --Use if you only like to fly at certain times, like Sunset.. --Note: It may be system dependent change set_back= value if needed. --You can enable and disable the code via the FWL macro menu in XPlane>Developer... --]] local zulu_t = dataref_table("sim/time/zulu_time_sec") local start_time = zulu_t[0] local set_back = 30 --60 TimeStay = false function stay_time() if (TimeStay) then if (zulu_t[0] > start_time + set_back) then zulu_t[0] = start_time end else start_time = zulu_t[0] end end --do_often("stay_time()") do_every_frame("stay_time()") add_macro("TimeStay", "TimeStay = true", "TimeStay = false", "deactivate") --To here When I test I never use any Art scrips.... I have other Data scripts that show, Location, time, heading, VSI that are more extensive / longer and I do not want to take too much bandwidth.

Hi Bjoern. Thank you for the response. I do a have a layer of clouds, but is at 30K / Cirrus few. While you are correct that is what XP does, my hope was that someone has found a way around it it, the real life is completely different. I've been real life flying for over 50 years, and instructing for many years and I can tell you that you can be in the soup, no clouds, and break out at 4-5K to a totally clear sky around the coast. Many times pilots log .1 hr of IFR/ IMC in these conditions. There is also a problem with windshield / window reflections in low light / before sunset... and I have a solution for that. I just created clear windows, if any one is interested let me know. I pointed that out to LR before but they seem to think that reflections are more important. I appreciate your input but I am trying to simulate conditions that my group is having to contend with / fly in. It can be very disorienting when you break out in totally clear Wx.

Hi everyone. Goal, create a script that can change visibility for low visibility practice. I created a script, for the pilots that I interface with, included below, that can cycle through multiple visibility values. The problem I am having is that the Sun keeps showing during before Sunset... It can only be used at night with no moon. Tested in default 1244 no addons. I was able to work around that in some prior versions and XP11, but I cannot find a good procedure to get it to work in XP12. I've tried all the Data refs that I could find and none of them were able to mask the Sun, see pic. If any one has a better way to accomplish this, please let me know. I am unable to post a pic, but you can test it in Wx>Manual>Visibity 0.5 SM and go to above 3K Ft during Sunset. Thank you. --ChangeVizUseTV.lua file starts here. Nrs. 1720,450,90 Standard day S.L. Ver0311248 --Note: This Function is also now included in "ViewData_sf24IDdispyLODVIS.lua" --Use when Sun and Moon is NOT in view, see through XP12 problem. --Settings / change to low Visibility can take a while, see your settings in --Flight configuration>Wx>Cutomize>Visibility --Use at night, when Sun out of view / horizont is not visible --Assign a Key or button in Settings>LUA>Views>Key to Cycle viz. --Set for 4K resolution --local visibilities = {100, 1609, 16100, 40234, 160934} --in meters (328ft,1sm,10sm,25sm,100sm) can change seq. and add as many as needed local visibilities = {0.5, 1, 5, 10, 25, 100} local nextVisibility = 1 local tv_xPosOfviz = 120 --Location where X axis "Vis." word is displayed change if not in view local tv_yPosOfviz = 710 --Location where Y axis vis value is displayed change if not in view local tv_xPosOfviz1 = 230 --Location where X axis vis value is displayed change if not in view set("sim/weather/region/visibility_reported_sm", 35) --to start set("sim/private/controls/stars/gain_photometric", 0.0) --kill stars 16000 is bright --set("sim/private/controls/lighting/E_sun_lx", 0)--add kill Sun not possible? function cycleVisibility() set("sim/weather/region/visibility_reported_sm", (visibilities[nextVisibility])) if nextVisibility < #visibilities then nextVisibility = nextVisibility + 1 else nextVisibility = 1 end end create_command("FlyWithLua/Views/CycleViz", "Key to Cycle viz", "cycleVisibility()", "", "") --You can disable this code if you do not ewant / need to view your Vis / Distance --From here dataref("Distance", "sim/weather/region/visibility_reported_sm", "readonly") function displaytviz() --Displays Viz set in SM --draw_string_Times_Roman_24(tv_xPosOfviz, tv_yPosOfviz, nextVisibility-1, "white" ) --tv_TrimAbbr, visibilities={} Distance = string.format("%03.2f", Distance) --added --draw_string_Times_Roman_24(tv_xPosOfviz, tv_yPosOfviz, "Vis.-SM", "white" ) draw_string_Times_Roman_24(tv_xPosOfviz1, tv_yPosOfviz, Distance, "white" ) end do_every_draw ("displaytviz()") --To here

Hi Everyone. Have any of you (CFI) found a mod and or a complete 172 model that has the proper behavior when performing Commercial / Ground / Flight maneuvers, using Jstick and Rudder pedals? I am unable to find a good mod to get the XP12 to perform properly, by book / practical test standards . I was able to the X11, X10, X9... to get a credible behavior but unable to get good results on X12. Some of the problems are on the ground in Xwind with full power, over banking in left turns and many others.. I've attempted some wing mods, ground friction.. Thank you.

Hi GoranM. I like your picture. You must be part of the fabulous team that developed XP10? I think I am beginning to understand who / what you guys are. Can you post a picture of your whole group? I bet you get a lot of looks when you go out in public? TV

Hi Donald, and everyone. >>..either they may not have thought about the problem, or didn't really think it was that much of a problem.<< I am sure it's both, and that is exactly why people like I am try to help with constructive feedback. All the problems that I have pointed out are fairly easy to fix and would greatly improve the simming experience. One can easily analyze the models, if you look at details that are lacking, when compared to a real life model, and come up with hundreds of inaccuracies. My goal is to point out the biggest deviations that can be easily fixed. The problem becomes, gets compounded, when you see individuals that behave as if they may be involved in the development process that should be thankful for the feedback, they instead try to justify the short comings by attacking the individual that is actually doing them a favor. This is the most difficult part to fix. When one is not willing to take the time to understand, and accept the facts, the issues may never be resolved. As it stands right now, what I see in the present release, and the response, there is little hope of having a credible sim. These individuals don't only disrespect themselves they also insult their customers. I would hope Cessna will look closely to this representation and take action. If a real C172 would behave like the model they have to date, nobody would be buying / flying them. It would scare me right out of aviation, if I did not know any better. TV

Hi wb5okj and everyone. >>...however it is very hard to get this view on a small 2 dimensional flat monitor and still fly. << It is actually very easy to implement. I designed an 182RG, in GMAX for FS9 about 8 years ago, that does that, and I don't even consider myself to be an aircraft designer. See pics below. Here is another example and I can show you many more if you like. The problem is that you get these "experts" defined as "one that knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing" that are allowed, and believed as being right, and the people that actually try to help, and actually know something get edited / pushed out. TV

Hi SF. >>Personal attack removed by Mod. No more of this please. SF<< >>So your perception of both the REAL world, FS and XP all seem to be terribly missled.<< I am not sure I understand how was my statement different than the one you alowed from Morten? I would have approached you on private Email but I do not know How? Who you are. Have you seen other posts directed at me? TV

Hi MortenM. Personal attack removed by Mod. No more of this please. SF

Hi Antlab. I did not want to take too much of my time to get into this, I will for the ones curious and want to learn. I am fully aware that there are some that all they want is to antagonize and or create trouble or look smart, they will never learn and in my opinion will die dumb. I am fine with that. If MS would still be around I would not bother to post here because if I post it is my hope someone listens, learns and maybe something good comes out of it. Since Laminar's is the only sim that I still use, and still around it's my hope someone does something about it. >>..Get a model where I can see the wing tips from a normal flight position,<< I will try to elaborate, for the non pilots this may require more information, here it is. When I, or most pilots unless you are very short and cannot see the cowl, sit at the controls in a Cessna 172 you normally see the top of the top of Instrument panel and part of top the cowl as a normal position, without moving my eyes or any other part of my body. For the ones that think the size matters, I've had a pilot for Flight review 6ft.6in. 340 lbs that needed a seat belt extender and he also was able to see the wingtips. Why do I think it's important? Many reasons but assume your windshield gets full of oil, bird splatter, all instruments fail, just to name a few, your ability to fly using external references will save your life After you get a some experience you get to notice / see / sense any movement and or change in that area. While the pics can not represent exactly the proper position it's close enough to get the point across. Now try to do the same in XP10 Cessna 172 in VC mode and look at the wing tips. To Tom K. I was able to get some variations of your RV, to work in XP10, see some pics below. I have some problems with the jitter / shaking / flutter with respect to the Horizon, about the Longitudinal axis of the aircraft, at around 140KIAS, similar to the Cessna 172 at 110, but I do not save time to track down now. I use it when I just want to play, too bad I cannot do more often. Great fun bird. TV

Hello everyone. I see that a number of people have decided that when faced with facts they turn to personal attacks, sign of a lack of data to support their replies / opinions. My only goal is to give feedback based on verified facts, my experience, and with the intention of improving the overall experience of everyone involved. It is my hope that someday I can sit at my computer and experience a sensation of flight without having to get in a real aircraft. >>I have the strong feeling that you have either not flown any recent version of X-Plane, posted in the wrong forum, neven flown a real plane yourself or simply have other motivations to slander X-Plane. Or maybe all of the above. Jan<< There is no slander, everything I said is verifiable and a fact. On the other hand your post and your statement can be interpreted as slander and has no basis, or proof of what you are stating. I will give you one bit of advice, keep your remarks focused to the topic at hand and keep your personal remarks to yourself. I presently have XP9.7(Ver. 9.7.0.0), XP10 ( Ver. 10.0.3.6; 10.0.4.3; 10.0.4.4 ) demos, in the past I had XP8, involved with some sort of simulation since 1976 when I wrote my own Navigation / VOR / ADF simulator, and owned just about every PC simulator on every micro platform since. I also spent many hours in the C130 full motion simulator and was advocating to FAA, and everyone else that would listen, the merits of the PC simulation long before some of these young bucks were even born, and apparently don't know the difference between a Cessna 172 and a low wing aircraft. Every aircraft that I give my opinion on, I have flown in real life and spent a lot of time comparing, analyzing and verifying specified data vs real performance. >>....Now if I had to choose the interpretation of a flight instructor over an 8000+ hour airline captain for xwind experience, I'm going with the captain. Do expect these forums to stay hot at long as people post their interpretations with no concrete data to support the claims. Tom Kyler<< Tom, I think you have / had? good intentions, I still use your low wing release for the XP9, which I had to modify before it became useful, see some of the older posts, and I had to modify again and again with every new ver. of XP9 to make it acceptable / credible. Did you ever finish that? I think you are one of the good guys, don't let art get in the way of facts. You do not have to take anyone's word, get the C172 at KSEA, on the runway, set up the Wx to get about 12 Kts of Xwind, yes I am sure you know what Xwind is in spite of you playing dumb, and see what happens. In addition I forgot to mention, that I get this oscillation about the horizontal axis at about 110 KIAS that gives me the sensation of riding a dragon fly. Is it just me? In regards to captains, they are all humans, I've flown with some that did not know how the Rate of turn if influenced by airspeed, or they could not hand fly a simple acft without the autopilot and many other strange and unbelievable issues. They all knew it at one time, but if you don't use it you loose it. Good luck to all. TV

Hello everyone. In my opinion the technology, by itself, will not fix aviation. What needs to be done is have governments like the EU / read France, stop meddling in the Aviation industry and keep making new rules and regulations that basically destroys aviation. To fix aviation we need to have France split between Switzerland and Belgium. We can come up with any technology but without having pilots and ability to learn and fly there is no aviation. TV

Hello everyone. I, personally, look at an aircraft model as the flight characteristics / model being the Most important part of any simulator, and I compare them to the real world flying / feel sensation / performance. I look at them as tools and how useful the item may be, I don't really care how fancy looking something is. I will restrict my comments to the Cessna 172 in the following statements, unless otherwise noted. As others have mentioned nothing is exactly like the real thing, including the multi million dollars full motions sims. Since I see some of the "old" guys around, I am trying to get a better understanding as to why is it that every time a new version, especially in the XPlane world, they make changes that Drastically affect the flight model? While I do not consider myself an expert I am able to, most of the time, get most of the flight models, in most of the sims, to get the right response / feel of the real aircraft. There are limitations in all, FSX I cannot get the model to fly in slow flight with the horn on, something we practice everyday, without butchering the flight model where most of the other parameters are way out of tolerance. No Adverse yaw, only the original Fly! had that ability, adjusting the in cockpit view in the position of normal flight, see part of cowl and the 6 pack, not sitting in the back seats, to see both wings when you look to the side, very important in teaching someone visual flight, ground effect slightly perceptible in the FSX with RYoung's model. This post is getting way too long to be informative and I will just try to summarize my frustration / feedback to all. All the above said, and considering that XP9-10 cannot handle any xwind condition I am finding that the most useful model for me, as a tool is an 11 years old model, the FLYHAWK from Fly!II with terrascene scenery, next is FSX with Real air configuration, then FSX MS model, then FS9 Real air, XP8-9 self modified model, XP10 but just about useless in Xwind, and remains to be seen what the Fly!Legacy will behave like when they release it. Yes, I know that is not exactly apples to apples but I can live without the VC in the Fly! because it acts very much like the VC in the other sims. Yes, I know that the XP10 has the ability to get most of the things done right, but will it? Remains to be seen. Laminar comes across, to me, as an immature teen that does not care what happens next, they live in the moment. Before I will recommend, or purchase, any of the XP versions again they will have to fix: Ground handling / xwind problem, Allow / implement the Null adjustment for All axis, Get a model where I can see the wing tips from a normal flight position, Fix the see through clouds, Fix the upslope view sensation on flat terrain / runway, Stable platform where the models can be at least used within the same release without mods, right now you cannot even load some of the older models from XP9 like the C162 without having the system hang up, and some other less important things that I am willing to live with but it would be nice to get them done right. With all the short comings that I see it's hard to see why anyone would want to get XP10, other than supporting an active, and hopefully responsive to customers company, when others sims are available offer more flexibility fewer problems and more stable simulators. TV