captain_alligator

I agree entirely about the freeware stuff for X-Plane - Lisboa is one of my favourite destinations especially for a sunset landing with all the landmarks lit up in HDR glory. Also some of the US airports like KSFO, KSAN, KLAX and the newly released KBOS are amazing.

Another flight today, EGPF-EGGW, same problem and this was using Navigraph 1602. VC clickspots stopped working during the descent (they would work again for a few seconds each time I went into the 2D panel and back to VC again). FSX then crashed after landing, as it seems to do on most flights in the NGX, on this occasion it was just before I was about to turn onto the stand at EGGW. AppCrashView can't see any crash data for today's crash. NGX is basically unusable at the moment, has been since I bought it. I am running Windows 10, Saitek radio panel with SPAD drivers, FSUIPC, ASN and EZDOK, and using VPilot to connect to VATSIM.

Interesting topic because I am also having issues, I am also a new NGX customer and running the Saitek radio panel with SPAD drivers, and running Navigraph AIRAC data. I have so far been unable to get the NGX running reliably, in stark contrast to the 777 which runs like a Swiss watch no matter how much I abuse it. The NGX seems to have a penchant for crashing completely, usually after landing, or suffering VC clickspot failure at some random time fairly near the start of the flight, after which the flight is a write-off and I either reboot the PC and try again, or throw something across the room and go for a beer instead. Navigraph AIRAC 1601 caused merry hell with PFPX and the Aerosoft Airbus X, which for the first time ever seemed to be unable to calculate LNAV (or whatever LNAV is called on a scarebus) on a SID that I fly often. So, maybe there was an issue when they complied 1601. I Thanks for the tip, next time I get a crash I'll use this to investigate.

It seems to be affecting routes to destination alternate, rather than actual destination. When I set EGPH set as the destination alternate for a flight into EGPF, it picks a route to EGPI (Islay) instead of EGPH. But it picks the route without being prompted, something it never normally does. If I try to make the alternate EGPK, the route goes to EGPL (Benbecula) instead of EGPK. Try EGPD (Aberdeen), it picks a route to EGPE (Inverness). Try EGNT (Newcastle), finally it actually picks a route to EGNT. Also, if I make EGPH the destination and try to pick EGPF as the alternate, the alternate route goes from EGPF to EGPI. Something is wrong in the nav data or in the way PFPX is parsing the data. Rolling back to AIRAC 1513 Rev1 fixes the problems. This is not the first time a Navigraph AIRAC update has caused this kind of issue, same thing happened several months ago. I am not impressed considering the money I am paying for this service.

Still not OK even with v2 of 1601 cycle, try setting EGPH as the destination airport and see what happens.

Well I took a gamble and bought the 777 even though I'm running Windows 8.1, almost no problems other than an occasional unwillingness to save preferences when exiting. 8.1 was a disaster for FSX when it first came out but FSX:SE seems to work very well, and Dovetail do say that Win8.1 compatibility was one of the key issues they addressed in the Steam edition. Check out the X-Plane developer blog for some interesting opinions on major OS upgrades!

Flightfactor need to decide what "professional" really means. To me, it means being able to very rapidly set the aircraft up for a particular flight without needing to click a load of buttons to make ground power units and passenger stairs and fuel trucks appear, and not having comedy suicidal flight attendants interrupting you during critical phases of flight. It also means having freedom to position the camera and set up view presets. With the latest 757 update it's not even possible any longer to fly the camera outside the aircraft through an open cabin door to set up an unobstructed wing view. In fact, with the randomly closing blinds and the fact the cabin doesn't display when the flight deck door is closed, realistic cabin wing views are also impossible. Have they never heard of EZDOK? This was an expensive and IMHO quite clumsy payware add-on for FSX, aimed at letting you have proper control over your views. X-Plane can do it out of the box - until, that is, a developer sets up glass walls and restricts the camera movement. Words fail me. I find this kind of thing enormously frustrating. Under the surface, the 757 is an immensely capable simulation and there has clearly been a huge amount of effort put into making all those systems work as they do on the real aircraft (or as close to it as makes no difference to the average flight sim hobbyist). If they keep what was great about the 757 and leave the silly stuff behind, the 767 could be a really amazing aircraft. I hope so because I won't be buying it otherwise.

Don't forget Skymaxx Pro completely replaces the X-Plane cloud rendering, its major limitation is the very basic weather data it can get from X-Plane which I believe is why it has to render the same weather in every direction, and change the whole sky abruptly as X-Plane reports a change in the weather you're currently flying in. However, even though I dislike Skymaxx Pro for that reason, it does prove a point. Similar rendering technology driven by an external weather engine like ASN could easily bypass X-Plane's weather system altogether, the only problem might be getting things like turbulence, weather radar and windshield rain effects to work in harmony with all the available aircraft. PMDG could rely on ASN for their weather radar but existing aircraft using the built-in weather radar module might have a problem. Not sure if XPUIPC could inject some parameters directly into the sim to overcome this... Austin Meyer did say in an interview a while back that weather & clouds are on the list for X-Plane future development. Glad to hear it because not only is the weather engine basic, the cloud rendering performance sucks since the 10.30 update. http://xplanereviews.com/index.php?/topic/201-interview-austin-meyer-the-man-behind-x-plane/ Also, Aerosoft haven't given up on their free Skytools project which brought attractive cloud textures and sky colours to older versions of X-Plane 10. http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/81749-sky-tools-free-with-x-plane-1030-and-higher/ So, when it comes to weather and clouds in X-Plane, I just think we need to bide our time, plenty good things will happen one way or another.

I'd recommend adding the free HD scenery mesh for the areas you fly in, and if you want an old airliner to keep you going until the DC-6 arrives, either of FlyJSim's 1960's Boeings are worth looking at. They are not near PMDG level of depth, but they are still quite complex and come with simple tools to make loading, fuel planning and V-speed calculation really quick and easy - and the flight models are fabulous. And they're not expensive either.

I enjoy flying FlyJSim's 727 and 737-200, but I think this will be a whole new challenge!

Yes, very common problems - caused by Skymaxx. That's why I don't use Skymaxx even though I paid good money for it. On the other hand, the problem with X-Plane default clouds is that they are plug ugly and kill your frame rates if the weather is bad. One day, maybe, the developers of Skymaxx and X-Plane will get together and make something that looks good and works properly. We live in hope.

I really am astonished at the lack of gratitude towards some flight sim developers when they add new content for free. It's not just PMDG, the X-Plane developer Flightfactor recently added the -200ER and new Rolls Royce engines to their 777 - for free - and all some people could do was moan about the virtual cockpit not being very nice. When was the last time Microsoft added a new app to Office and gave it away free? I agree devs have a responsibility to update and support their products to work on the latest hardware, OS, and flight sim platform. But adding new content like weather radars, aircraft variants and engine options are above and beyond the call of duty.

Active sky is only required because FSX a is a dead platform. It's more likely that Laminar will update the X-Plane platform to give PMDG the weather output they require, and that could benefit other aircraft and also products like Skymaxx as well.

Worth also considering X-Plane as PMDG products are branching off in that direction and there are other very promising projects in the pipeline. X-Plane is very demanding on graphics hardware and I have seen a video of the 980 struggling to hit 25fps with all the options turned up but no clouds in the sky.

Pleased to report FSX:SE is running well, a few hours of flying default FSX aircraft followed by the purchase of Aerosoft's Airbus bundle, and a full flight in the A319. All without any major issues, so I'm certainly happy with what DTG have done so far. Alistair Brown (why isn't my signature working?)