captain_alligator

Have you tried the freeware mods for this aircraft by Zibo and AudiobirdXP? Check out flightdeck2sim Youtube channel - as well as loads of NGX videos he's started doing Zibo 737 videos as well now so you can see (and hear) what it's like. It's not NGX level but it is still pretty good, and the developers are improving it all the time. And those FMOD sounds effects... 😎

There's lots that could be done with AI technology to take flight simulation to a new level. How about a virtual training captain sitting beside you on your first flight in a new aircraft? How about training scenarios where the virtual pilot does something wrong? How about a virtual check ride, a virtual type rating examination, etc, etc.? It could be something along those lines. Or I could be completely wrong like everyone else on here... Anyone interested in why I think this, it's because I'm reading "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Max Tegmark. Well worth a read - scary, interesting and fascinating book.

I am not sure that the size of the X-Plane market is the sole reason for PMDG holding back. The market hasn't suddenly collapsed since they took the decision to spend time and money launching the DC-6 project, the objective of which was to learn about the X-Plane platform and develop their own code base to support complex airliners in future. In fact, quite the opposite, with X-Plane 11 launching, the platform has improved a lot and has the confidence of other developers like Hi-Fi and Milviz. I think the DC-6 experiment has probably brought up a few problems with the X-Plane platform, and since Laminar have been busy developing X-Plane 11, maybe not so much attention has been paid to 3rd party developers' needs. As X-Plane 11 settles down I hope that changes. Oh and - quite unrelated topic - I recommend getting Zibo's freeware mod for the default XP11 737. There is also a free FMOD sound pack which sounds pretty amazing, and a freeware terrain display plugin which integrates seamlessly. It isn't "NGX quality", but the 3 mods together make a solid aircraft that is easily good enough for flying online. Now that I think about it, it would be interesting to have a go at the NGX tutorial flight into LOWI to see how well it handles a challenging approach.

I thought FlyJSim's silhouette pushback tool was clever, but this is on another level. Really great work and a great addition to X-Plane!

One factor might be that all the good aircraft for X-Plane are either quite old or very old in the real world - as well as the DC-6 we have good 737 classic, 757, 727, 737 twinjet; maybe the 767 and MD-80 as well. Although some are still flying, most are now out of production and the one that remains (the 767) is now a different beast from the old one you can fly in X-Plane. The more modern aircraft in X-Plane, by comparison, range from disappointing to, frankly speaking, terrible. I would still take the good old JRollon CRJ-200 over any of the crop of Embraer E-jets currently on sale for X-Plane. The selection of Airbuses is lamentable and the modern glass-cockpit Boeings are virtually non existant. I think some developer needs to address this if X-Plane is going to really attract people. This is what I really hoped for with PMDG coming to X-Plane - the NGX, the go-to aircraft that you pick up and fly on VATSIM when you've got a couple of hours to kill on a Thursday evening. I can do that in the 737 Classic but it's always a case of using it on a route and airline that would normally operate a -700 or -800. I love it, but I do understand that people want to pilot the actual aircraft that they flew on in real life, or the ones that they see flying in and out of their local airport every day. I'd really like someone to build a really good A320 or 737NG, and do it within the lifetime of X-Plane 11. Too much to hope for? Do you know what? I wouldn't put it past Laminar to develop their new default 737-800 into a mid-range payware level aircraft. I am genuinely astonished at the complexity of the FMC in the X-Plane 11 default aircraft - it is already superior to the custom FMCs in some quite expensive payware birds. If they can do that, it is really only a question of time, manpower and priorities as to whether they take the rest of the aircraft all the way to payware level.

I suspect we will need to wait for a stable release of XP11, then the DC-6 will need to be updated, tested and released for XP11. Some time beyond that, I guess we'll hear which of the big 3 airliners will be the first one to come across to XP. It remains to be seen how many people actually switch from XP10 to XP11 - the system requirements are not exactly modest and some people might try the XP11 demo and conclude their hardware isn't up to it (I haven't tried it yet myself so I can't comment). So, PMDG might end up needing to support XP10 and XP11.

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.

For me, the clickspot problem can develop at any stage of flight - sometimes before takeoff, today it happened during the descent (annoyingly, just after a cheery VATSIM controller came on line and started barking orders at me). Starting with the default panel state or loading the short turnaround state doesn't seem to make a difference. I think until somebody on the PMDG developer or beta test team can reproduce this issue we won't get anywhere. In my line of work, we would look at all the variables and see which ones are always present when the problem occurs. By that logic, you can rule out the simulator platform being the root cause if the problem is happening on both P3D and FSX:SE. Other "variables" for me: - 737NGX Base pack only, and have so far only flown the 738 variant FSX:SE Windows 10 EZDOK FSUIPC ASN SPAD drivers (Saitek radio panel) VPilot Running similator in full screen mode (not borderless window) Navigraph AIRAC data (problem seen on 1601 and 1602). Maybe if other NGX users with the problem can confirm what they're running, one common factor might emerge? More importantly, factors can be ruled out very quickly if others have the same problem on a different setup.

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?)

Well it's nice to hear some positive and sane comments about FSX SE, elsewhere on the internet I think some people are getting ready to cut their wrists over the Dovetail thing. Kind of ironic really, FSX has been dead for several years, so even if Dovetail did nothing good, we'd be no worse off. Why all the despair now that there is actually a chance of FSX getting a few old bugs fixed and some developer support going forward? Anyway, I am quite interested in getting the Steam edition because of the claimed improvements under Win 8.1. I never got the boxed version of FSX to work properly after upgrading to 8.1 a year ago. I just got constant crashes so never invested in any add-ons for FSX. It's probably the biggest single reason I now fly in X-Plane but I would like to enjoy the best of both platforms. I sent Dovetail an email about the Windows 8.1 situation, and got a very quick reply which just said they had made some small changes and believed it now works well on 8.1 - which makes sense as most new PC's are shipping with 8.1 and that's what a lot of Steam customers will be running. So, I was wondering if anyone else has actually tried it under 8.1 yet? Has anything improved in terms of stability? Alistair Brown

I will be interested to see how the 777 weather radar will work in X-Plane, with no Active Sky available. I expect it will need some development of X-Plane itself which will benefit not only PMDG but other developers as well. For example, the Skymaxx Pro cloud rendering engine could be improved a lot if they could find a way of placing those stunning clouds accurately in the sky at a distance from your aircraft. Interesting times ahead, I'm sure... Alistair Brown