coastaldriver

Just while J Comm returns -XP gets updated again to 12.4.4.b2.See how it goes back to things Airbus for fun.

JComm returns to the world of never never - flight simulation. I see your back with Windows understand why . My hardware means I remain a Linux system. Never mind as for XP 12.4.4 - Runs smoothly I get 50 FPS consistently. Only using default scenery and weather. Live Traffic as dynamic addon and Navmap now and then. Yeah there is a bump on load times but not that bad say 45 sec to load XP and then to load a situation, aircraft place and time - maybe 2 mins. It is all up front. Only Thranda chokes on it and wants more RAM. Once the sim is up and running smooth responsive and consistent. I am not a fiend for hardware temps etc and basic FPS counter does it for me! Moving on not sure where they are going with XP lots promised as being for scenery etc and it is dribbling through I guess. Models - more more of what? You can get any tubeliner and then some, basically any general aviation class aeroplane (Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft) good turboprops Airliner and GA. Mil stuff in short supply and classic aeroplanes so other than the DC-3 and the B314 or the Catalina maybe also the Lockheed L10 and 12 and 18, Ford Trimotor not much. Mil stuff short few classics thats all. Fast jet nuts are not well catered for. Welcome have fun again keep your sanity - its all good

I find the handling benign - no bad faults I can discern. Needs a fair bit of power to roll on the ground but otherwise it feels like a big widebody to me. Autopilot is quirky - this is 1st generation kit the ASSP model reproduces all the systems and displays well. Control it with speed and the autothrottle providing you have the engine management system correctly selected will do the rest. Follows nav systems ground or GPS correctly and loaded and flew a plan in the fms. Still to finess the arrival phase and empty this Airburs climbs like a rocket, loaded very sluggish. One has to take the time to read the manual to see how it works and what your target speed etc should be. Fairly simple though. Has a nice EFB at the AVITAB location to fix a few systems and setup and there is a master control panel for doors etc at the FE station. Not difficult just different. Approach and Landings will be tricky to control speed and get to min speeds for flaps etc. Overall got a handle on it reasonably quickly thought its handling was good but trim control a little slow nothing serious though. You can be very comfortable with this Airbus quickly - I like it a lot and amazed at how accurate it is systems etc. I give it a gold star Plus! Cannot compare to the INI as it is a Windows only model and the ASSP is linux compatible and is not the A300-600 but more the A300B4.

Sloppysmusic. yes thanks, have updated to the latest version and runs nicely on XP12.4.4 Linux. Maybe the textures in the VC seem a little dates but systems wise they have nailed the A300. Not 100% but a few missing functions does not subtract from the overall authenticity. Not sure but I think ASSP may be a bunch of programmers from Asia or thereabouts. The texture mapping for the skins externally is a bit weird and can produce strange unexpected results when painting them. Otherwise straight forward. I am about done with the following paints: TAA Original, Australian Airlines, Qantas and Fedex. Alas no freighter plug or mod for the A300 so the windows remain.

Progress via the manual - system setup and engine start successful. Takeoff, Climb ok all instrument indications correct. Lot of work to do with the AP and early FMS which is not your set and forget variety - clunky would be an apt description. The A300 flies beautifully with no weird control responses and behaves as I would expect at 247000lb take off weight aeroplane to behave.

Long story - purchased this model from ASSP some time ago. Roundabout route because it is Linux compatible and learnt the hard way that the other A300 by INI Builds was not and only a MS WiN model. Why the A300 - the first Airbus - and it was a success due to the capacity it had for loading standard containers below deck and later as a freighter conversion. Fedex operate some 65 of them. Australian Airline TAA bought 6 moved them eventually to Qantas when that was all put together. So the A300 was a goer just the predecessor of the A330 really. Back on topic had the ASSP languishing in the hangar until I started to redo liveries using Linux (That is a whole topic on its own). Loading and reloading the model in XP12 I began to tinker with systems but suffered badly from lack of online help or feedback. A mere terse reference to read the manual from ASSP and a link to get the A300 manuals (originals). In this process I have come to the preliminary view that this is indeed a study level simulation. I have had to work through the Airbus manuals and operational notes to see what does what and how to make it all work/ The systems are faithfully and accurately reproduced including all the early Airbus quirks of blue, yellow and green systems and the need to drive the AP using speed as there is no altitude control provided other than alt hold in cruise. Have I flown the beasty yet? ah no - got all the electricals and hydraulics and thus instrument displays etc so that is a major win at the moment. Getting the engines started will be a challenge with blue, green and yellow systems and you must have the APU on to provide bleed air and starting is basically cranking them over until them get to a correct RPM and then fuel as per all turbines. Simple it seems not alas. See why they carried a FE for these old birds. There may not be many liveries about for it but the default skins provided do the job - I might get a few additions out the door at a later date. FWIW - this is a real sleeper and caught me by surprise.

Bumped this as it is now nearly October and no imminent release suggested or offered for any of the above. Just shows you how time consuming new model development is.

Well I have concluded I have maybe some memory lag in general with the sim but nothing that is a problem. So my 16GB RAM is coping ok and so is the NVIDIA 2070 Super at 8GB. I can get the sim to load in less than 45secs generally about 35 secs. Once stabilised that is time for textures addons etc to load if selecting a flight - maybe about 1.5 mins max then I see nothing less than 45FPS - regularly 60FPS with all my graphic sliders for everything set on max and no sim system warnings about lack of memory. That may suggest maybe some more RAM would speed things up on loading but that is all I would get. I get no stutters or freezing and can run any model I like from Felix to Tolis and even a said developers models which should have failed all load and run correctly. FWIW it is a Linux box now - seems good to me.

Should be interesting wait in hope my old one the RW Designs is still working fine but a bit long in the tooth. As usual no shortage of Otter nuts waiting for it!

No biggies but will be filing a bug report - they added a change for joystick controllers - it seems to have wiped out or locked out the jsons for the pics of the joystick that you use in settings. Otherwise performance is same for me and no major hiccups.

Very early on with XP12 ans NZ simmer republished basically every airport in NZ from large to small strips by updating his massive collection from XP11 to XP12 standard. The downloads are still about but you will have to look for them and then it is place by place or airport or airport by airport as far as the download data goes. Worth the time and trouble the author also advised no more after this for what it is worh. Good luck have fun

Ok and thanks - always interested just harding getting past the crowd at the bar sometimes.All tips and views appreciate.

my rant is lOOKING LIKE A dead horse now!

Easy to over diagnose the problems - still it is only me I guess. Checked my physical hardware - no issues. RAM limited - maybe. Not up todate GPU driver from NVIDIA? Well the outcome is simple - running XP12 on my 16GB RAM and 8GB GPU in either full screen or windowed modes - with all sliders for graphics at max except shadows results in the sim running at 50 FPS no stutters, no antialiasing visuals, clean clocking and time keeping. So I actually do not have a sim or PC issue. Leave it at that for the time being. As for the developer - their choice to load up the sim models with junk!

Interesting responses and issues. It seems that after a few years of XP12 what was a good system with lots of memory buffers has been eroded away. Depends on who you read as to the culprit there seems to be a view that LR need to do more the way XP uses RAM and multicore chips. The again the developers merrily coding away - which is what I came up against - need more RAM go get it and it will work. Checked as much as I can and as I can get very good performance with my most complex models (multi-engine and lots of screen displays all synchronised) like bad weather, complex scenery and model still gives ,me 50-60FPS with Xp12. So bit more checking showed no serious bottle necks between CPU and GPU but yes the RAM side of things could be a bit stressed (now and then never longer than for about 1 sec) So closer look showed that to run a single engine piston with no advanced electronics with particular developer meant doubling my RAM but continuing on with a GPU and aged NVIDIA card that struggles not at all and performs beautifully with a quarter of the memory of the CPU. Yep all those beautiful textures and ways of setting them up comes with quite a memory penalty so I guess the point was do I really want to go and spend a heap of cash on upgrading a system that is running beautifully as I see it to merely load the best and greatest . MY point was that the RAM issue had become so severe with the developer that the model does not load, floods RAM and hangs the PC. (Not CTD). Apparently with hundreds of happy customers I was the only malcontent complaining (Main question was why does the upgrade bust a model I have used for years and not the others?) Note not seeking refunds or anything else just to get the thing working was all! As I said hardly impressed because the developer should make clear that what they are doing is likely to need a major system upgrade to work for me not let me go through countless hours and back and forth with them as well to be told - cannot fix it your systems is stuffed get a new one. Then I looked at 16GB of RAM on the CPU and 8GB on the GPU and thought so if the main CPU is that bad how come not the GPU? It just means really that this developer has lost a good customer for the time being. Maybe in a year or two I may upgrade but in the meantime I will live with what I have got - works fine for all the other stuff!!

Interesting perspectives - I reside in the less is more camp and see that yes if the processes are more complex then more memory is the answer but what sort - when I look at the CPU readout I see 12 cores all being utilised to some degree total memory demand with XP12 on Linux does not exceed 40% that is not a stressed system. Core operation is always smooth therefore the NVIDIA RTX 2070 with 8GB is more than capable of handling the graphics demand and does so at similarly useage levels again not stressed. I see no blurries, get no texture stuttters and overall on screen presentation is smooth - now and then I may have to wait a few millisecs for a change but no show stoppers. My only issue is a developer script that overloads the CPU and is careless with core threading. That is a common issue with multi-factor identification scripts web wide. Would more memory improve disk speed? NO I/O times are core and unlagged. So it may be suggested I go to 32GB of RAM but I would regard that as 16GB of wasted RAM not to mention the cost. LR still maintain only 8GB of RAM is required for XPlane -more good but not essential. I have no outdated O/S file issues and my dist is perfectly up to date. So I guess once a developer publicises that their product is suitable only for a 32GB processor then we part company as customers thats all. My system is not in need of continuous improvement either - runs well, looks great, handles all the complexity I need and well it is a flight simulator and word not allowed nice one at that

Been having an interesting discourse with a developer re their products and updates. Have a number of products but one in particular got updated and will no longer load. Least we got to activation. Long and short of it developer gets back to me saying you do not have enough RAM. Now I am running a Linux system and this product for over 5 years. Said I have 16GB RAM and LR only require 8GB. So more RAM yes may solve the hung system issue but them again - why should it - how much more RAM do you need . I made the argument that every other developer will regularly update their models some are very complex and yet they all work - in fact overall I get excellent system performance using Linux and XP12. So the point is the developer now says I am the only customer with the issue (welcome to business my friend) despite being a repeat and multiple buy customer I basically was told to stop wasting their time and go and get more RAM on my motherboards. My argument is that if the Felix B747-200 (4 engine jet) can function normally and without problems then why is this basic piston engine GA model such a problem, it cannot be the textures or other fancy stuff. My position is simple - I moved to a linux system to conserve resources and make do with less - not basically through fixing a problem by adding more physical resources at a problem that exists for only 1 note only one, of some dozens of payware models across a range of some 6 or 7 payware developers. IT seems that the developer who has tracked correctly there is a RAM issue happening cannot tell me whY or how to fix it! Thats my whinge - cannot be addressed so the model goes in the bin and as always the case in economics I found a suitable substitute to go with - Done problem solved. Always amazed this simple concept escapes the thinking of lots of people - if I cannot get the product I want - what is a suitable substitute - In this case a freeware model of identical RW Performance characteristics does the job nicely and no activation issues and no memory problems -

Well never flown a 737 so I guess the question is now WHICH is the most authentic Boeing 737 in XP12 - A Level UP Beast or the Zibo or the FJS 200. Then again absolutely nothing wrong with the Laminar Defaul B737-800 either so over to you guys what do you reckon?

So no shortage of the Boeings - so thanks to the Default Laminar 800 #1, then the Zibo 800 #2, then the level up 600, 700, 800 and 900, thats #3.#4.#5.#6, plus the FJS 737-200 thats #7. Which one and when is the what therefore - just cannot make up my mind some days, 7 different versions of the 737 - who'd thought!

Nicely made vid even if in French. JComm I get that sort of quality as a matter of routine on my LInux O/S on a Intel CPU with an NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super GPU. I run Linux and XP12 all on a single drive not spread across drives - maybe that helps too. Either way makes me realise how goo XP12 has become and apart from the odd plugin clash (generally older scripts) keep the install basically clean apart from the odd addon which picks the scene up - like Portugal scenery - not a great deal to be had. Will be interesting to see how the major scenery updates by Laminar flow and the changes that result. Some stuff you have to get to addin as default is well basic at best. Thanks for the link always interesting to see other rigs and what people are doing with them. Can't say I get too excited about better pushback at all and have avoided that.

For those curious or interested - on a Linux XP system I have 2 Navajos - the SimCoders REP of the Carenado PA31 and Jetstreams PA31-350, essentially same aeroplane one a bit longer than the other - remained the Navajo. Reliable and economical. Performance wise numbers are the same - this is a 180kt unpressurised hauler, wider cabin made it passenger friendly. Standard PA31 got 8 seats, 350 PA31 got 10 seats and bit more power. Visually in the sim I cannot differentiate them - both are excellent texture wise and VC cockpit detail. SimCoders rework of the Carenado is more user responsive the Jetstream needs some guidance somehow! Yeah and like Q8 keeping away from the doors on the Jetstream version, can get em open cannot find a way to get em shut either.

Yep - had a look at the Q8 vid offerring short but sharp . Liked it. still getting used to it in the sim to comment, liked the unstretched Navajo the PA31 as well. A fairly staid aeroplane but like all twins don't get behind the power curve, fly the numbers - generally pretty respectable low and high speed. Fly the wing - what you got sharp planform tapered wing. The Navajo liked to get around using a little power thats all! Other than that stable, solid ride in the sim.

Well I guess first things first. The PA31-350 Chieftan is quite a work for an XPlane Model Basically incorporates Realism ala REP with their own work. In other words a temperamental beast in RL and so in the sim - not handling no Pipers were always mild but the engines the fuel injected turbocharged aircooled 8 cylinders of cantankerous grunt. Model demands you do the checklist and include a walk around - leaving engine covers on good way to get a start fire (LOL), Need to crank em a lot to get them to fire but RW trick was to catch the fire sequence with mixture introduction. Hated being HOT no matter what could make you sit it out awhile till they cooled! Enjoyin this one a lot never mind the installation glitches. Basically it is a 10 seat Navajo got a lot 3rd level use about the place because of that.

Not I in CAPS - must be another customer (Internet etiquet #1- no CAPS)

I guess so - Thranda got it sorted eventually and the Bonzas are up and running nicely in XP12(Linux). Keeping the sim stock standard at the moment.