boshar

Did a quick recon flight after updating. Ground textures look worse (more seams/differences in quality between areas). More stutters. Most annoying is there are now water textures on top of bridges. My default flight is from EHRD. Almost every bridge is covered with shine through water. Maybe the fact that the land lies beneath sea level is triggering something in the scenery engine? It looks horrible.

That is the simple crux of this kind of debate. Not agains you personally Helo_Head but there is a motivation when one is still on the FS-X side to want to rationalize the amount of $$$ invested in the system. It creates a gut feeling in which you don't want the other sim to be just as good OR beter because of that invested amount. Its great that you are honest enough to mention this yourself.

Strange, I really want to love FS-X (if only to justify all the add-ons I bought) but I have come to the conclusion I'v become a 100% X-Planer now (eeeh make that 90% still need my steam gauge a300 fix very now and then). I just can't stand the blurries. The tweak, get it right then fly somewhere else and start again dance is tedious. I've never been able to hit a consistent sweet spot in FS-X. X-Plane give me a sharp beautiful view and a constant 30+ frame rate every single time. Of course it also helps I'm not interested in AI (one of the first things I turn off when tweaking FS-X). Just last week I discovered a website that has free X-Plane photo sceneries for practically the whole of Europe. (see http://simheaven.com/?page_id=1335 ) . I tried some of my preferred flying area's and was blown away by the effect. We are talking hires photos, no blurries and the autogen is aligned (due to x-planes OSM roads match the photo scenery and the autogen is aligned via the roads). This is what a 64 bit modern program can do for you and it doesn't cost 1 Euro to explore it. I can understand that if you love your boxed AI and ATC you hate X-Plane. But writing this program off because you don't like the UI? How about the FS-X UI, you can't even set the all important HIGHMEMFIX using the UI. It takes a while before 'you get' X-Plane but at the moment there are exciting developments. The new GPS in the BETA is so much beter and most airplanes are easy to update. To me as 'oldtimer' this feels like the time I upgraded my FS by getting RealityXP's Garmin add-on but even beter because its in the default program, there to be used by all the add-ons. If you have X-Plane 10. Leave it on your HDD and play with it from time to time. It might grow on you an who knows maybe one day you will be like me and leave 100's of Euros behind... (getting a bit depressed now).

Converting to X-Plane certainly took me a while (as in years I started when version 8 was the current release) but at the moment is the main simulator I use. For my intents and purposes I rate it an 9 (to leave some room for improvement). The thing that is the hardest to get used to is the changes that are rolled into a new major version over time. X-Plane 10 has had unbelievable changes for the better but with that there are always some add-ons ore little things we have to leave behind which kind of sucks but in general the changes are good and give us an ever improving program.

That would be a good sign. Like Ghandi said: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

I would love to have an FS-X thats is screamingly fast and doesn't suffer from the blurries. I made a bootcamp partition on my brand new iMac i7 with GForce GTX 680 MX 2 Gb graphics card in order to have access to my Windows flightsimulator collection. Everything I throw at that machine looks amazing and runs blazzingly fast but FS-X is still the tweak fest that it always was. I installed my ORBX PNW add-ons, apply the ORBX reccomended tweeks and up close and the first few minutes it looks amazing. After those first few minutes you start to notice the blurries and pop up. As always the blurries spoil the experience for me. Large amounts of tweaking can get rid of them for a while but then you switch to another area or add-on and it becomes another tweak party. I'm used to the sharp X-Plane look. I never liked AI and artificial ATC (not even in FS-X) so those things I don't mis. I just want to enjoy my virtual flying, tweaking feels to much like work. I think the ORB-X guys are way to quick to dismiss X-Plane. The thing that is never mentioned is the format that is used for X-Planes add-ons. X-Plane add-ons are pretty open and models, textures and ACF's can be opened, converted and used by a more technical user. I wonder if this is the real reason for developpers to steer clear of X-Plane add-ons.

Flight was never created for this community. They went for the first time sim flyer / online gaming crowd. They misjudged the market and didn't find their audience. They already judged the hardcore market as not large enough to get the profits they need so (thats why they made Flight!) Microsoft has left the simming market. A shame because they made magnificent simulators (FS9, FS-X) but it will be interesting to see what it will do to the hobby. There are plenty of sims (free, commercial, corporate) and we still have a vibrant add-on community. There will be new sims and new add-ons in this post Microsoft era.

I think the entry first time flighsim market already moved to the smart phone / tablet market before Flight came to market. Apps like Inifinte Flight and the different X-Plane offerings give a cheap first experience and if successful there are in app add-ons to expand these light flight civie flight sims. So from a X-Plane perspective this is probably o good thing for the X-Plane apps. The apps act as an appetizer for the full desktop version so we might see some growth there as well. I don't know if my experience is typical but I to tried some X-Plane versions and always returned to the Microsoft side. With version 8 however my X-Plane sessions became more serious. With version 9 I began buying some of the add-ons. When version 10 came around I realized I rarely used the Microsoft sims anymore. My gaming PC with FS-X and FS9 is still packed up (moved house a few months ago) I fly X-Plane on the iMac and don't want to go through the hassle of setting up the gaming rig for a few scarce MS flightsim sessions. I'm satisfied with X-Plane 10 and still have to find me some time to tinker with the local airports and WED. X-Plane has so many tools and for my flightsim use it has become the program that is the perfect fit.

Thanks for the suggestions but I tried all the usual tricks (restart, closing programs, different devices) but it doesn't help. I tried a lot of different starting locations but haven't found a fps friendly spot. Reducing visibility doesn't help. I guess i'll have to wait for an update. I'll let you know if this gets fixed.

Just bought the game and played it on a new iPad an a iPhone 4s. Don't get me wrong I like the retina graphics, the UI and the controls but even at low visibility settings I get occasional stutters that ruin the flying for me.It looks like reducing visibility doesn't help with the frame rate are there airports in the scenery that are easier on the framerate? I think the UI, controls and detailed models are the best you can get on iOS if only the framerate could be more consistent.

Unless what they are offering is target drones and a combat add-on :(

Problem is there are already lots of flight games in the market and they fail to be big money makers. The consoles have the Ace Combat series and that franchise struggles to make money its audience is shrinking. Nintendo's Pilot Wings (now there is a title that has a lot of idea's borrowed by Microsoft!) only has a modest market share.Probably the best current example of a flight game finding new customers is the X-Plane apps for iOS and Android. Relatively cheap, Small gamy flightsims that act as advertising for a larger Desktop flightsim. I think that the free/cheap online game model like Flight wants to be is quickly superseded by this game on mobile / tablet model.

Trees where switched off. The scenery demo is made near the 1 detailed airport that wil come with X-Plane 10. FPS with this Beta was between 15 and 40 fps. Austin was honest about this and the demo is about the new scenery engine.I was impressed with wingflex and wing condensation effects. Austin demoed the standard 777 from X-Plane 9 and these effects where added automatically.Again the emphasis of this demo was the believable world scenery and that part was impressive. The clouds, environment lightning looked impressive. The street lights and moving car lights also where amazing.I haven't seen any Prepar3d setups. There where FS-X, X-Plane and Flightgear groups. Aerosoft was pushing X-Plane hard. The X-Plane X demo was on the large screen at the entry point of the museum.

I think we can safely assume that Mathijs and his contacts have a clear idea on how large the serious FS market is. They can see it in the sales of their add-ons. Flightsims will have to innovate and change to appeal to the current day market. FS-X +1 will only appeal to us addicts so the flightsim market is stagnating. Its like many of the old big genres/pc sellers. Adventures, combat flight sims and wargames once they where big genres and there were many releases per year. Now there are only a few specialised developers and most releases are download only. A basic flightsim with good community/chat options might be just what we need. Give it some detailed area's and a fun mission structure (cargo hauler, sightseeing, forest fire spotting, etc). Make tie-ins with TV shows like Flying Wild Alaska via a scenery and mission pack. Younger gamers need structure and fun in their games. After they get hooked they still have the option to upgrade to prepar3d.

For me to buy it, it has to be totally new. Optimized 3d engine. Some GA aircraft. Maybe a few small passenger jets. Social online network play (think MMO for flight simmers). In this enviroment you could ship cargo, ferry passengers, do rescue missions, etc. You would have simple voice chat comms with aircraft the are in visual range so you can join in in rescue missions and other 'quests'. I guess they could do a realistic world server for the hardcore FS-X er. But there is no need for MS Flight to be an FS-X ++++ You can fly al those complicated add-ons in FS-X already. We need something new. Most flightsim users fly for their entertainment. Realistic fuel calculations, ATC, SIDS, Stars can be nice to study but nothing beats 30 minutes of sightseeing after a busy day at the office.