sidfadc

Thanks for the replies guys very interesting seeing others opinion. In addition to my OP I just get a smoother more consistent flight experience with XP right now compared to P3D. The only paid for add on content I have spent so far is the following.... FFA320 Aerobask Pipistrel Panthera Flytampa LGKR UK2000 EGCC and EGKK Every other add on is free and like I say if you compare that to the thousands I’ve spent on FSX P3D it’s quite a stark contrast. As mentioned before XP is seriously missing a decent weather engine and I am prepared to pay for that. I also have my wallet open ready for ORBX TruEarth regions so the expense will increase further.

Hi guys I don't want this to turn into a flame war but over the last month or two I've been using XPlane for most of my simming and this is why... I only started simming in 2015 with FSX Steam Edition and converted over to P3Dv4 since its release. Spent thousands on aircraft, addon's, sceneryetc. I guess since the switch over to v4 I was expecting more from the sim. Performance for me wasn't increased that much more from FSX. Irritatingly P3D stutters more then FSX ever did with the same CPU (i7 4790k) but an upgrade from a 970 to a 1070, particularly coming into payware scenery when the airport and custom autogen loads into view. Other niggles with shadows dancing around and autogen constantly flickering. The terrible flickering night lighting (admittedly could be an ORBX problem) which makes my eyes bleed at night. Not to mention the introduction of Dynamic Lighting which is a serious performance hog but is mandatory on the PMDG 737, turning off DL means lights aren't cast on the ground which makes flying at night into detailed scenery nigh on impossible. Some of you guys are probably thinking well that's just user specific but I've seen enough threads around here to know its affecting lots of other users. I bought XP11 when it came out but never really gave it a chance because of all the money invested into the P3D platform. The first turning point for me was buying the FlightFactor A320. Having previously used the FSLabs A320 I could make a direct comparison between two identical aircraft across two different platforms. Straight off the bat the A320 performes so much better, granted its still BETA and some features are missing but they are coming. The 2nd turning point was the performance, I fly on Pilotedge a lot. With Ortho covering SoCal flying the FFA320 into LAX my frames were rock solid at 30FPS with not a single stutter! Man that is impossible using ORBX SoCal and the FSLabs A320 in P3D. In P3D its a stuttering mess (certainly my experience) The 3rd turning point was the announcement from ORBX. I mean seriously the video showing their TruEarth England is absolutely mouth watering. Yes the TruEarth series are coming to P3D but I think the XPlane videos look so much better. Even better ORBX are covering the Pacific NorthWest which is part of the PilotEdge coverage, another plus. The 4th turning point was FlyTampa LGKR. I bought this the other day and its absolutely amazing, I own this scenery for P3D and the XPlane version is on another level in my opinion. The 5th turning point was covering the UK (I'm from England) in Ortho + X Europe and marvelling at just how more realistic it is looking out the window. The one thing I am really really missing in XPlane is a decent weather engine. I believe Active Sky have said they are porting their stuff for XPlane, when they comes oh boy will I be happy. So right now I have two sims to choose from, best of both worlds but I am seriously leaning towards XP. I honestly believe its the future, once Active Sky come across and some of the other big players I think more people are going to switch. I've been wanting to write this post for a while now just for others to look on if they are in the same position as I am. I don't want a flame war, its just merely my observations of both platforms. Thanks

As you know if your an XPlane user there are many airports with just hard runways and no buildings. Within LittleNav map is there a way to disable these airports so I don't land and find no scenery? Sometimes I like to just VFR and land in new locations but an immersion killer when I land with no airport buildings. It appears there are two options to display airports 1. Force Map to show add on airports 2. Show airports with hard runways on map Option 1 appears to display scenery I have in my Custom Scenery folder (ie airports I have downloaded either freeware or payware) Option 2 appears to show all airports in the XP database (buildings or not) because they all have hard runways. This obviously displays airports with hard runways but no buildings as well. Any ideas?

Ok will do some more investigation and come back with specifics thanks.

Thanks for the reply. on further investigation some airports show the taxiway identifiers and gate numbers and some don’t. Is this to do with the scenery in use for those specific airports?

Hi guys I don't know how this has happened, it never used to be this way. In XP11 I can no longer see the taxiway lines and gate numbers zoomed into the airport diagram. If I change to P3D in the Scenery Library menu I can see all taxiways and gate numbers. I've tried to reload the XP11 scenery library but no change. I'm really confused because it "used" to work just fine. I saw another thread which suggested don't select "navigraph for all features", I currently have selected "navigraph for navaids and procedures". I can back this up with screenshots if needed. Any ideas? Thanks Sid

This is about night lights flickering/shimmering...

That is exactly what I see it’s really off putting and makes me want to never fly at night, hurts my eyes. High SSAA setting, x4 or higher will fix it but this comes at considerable performance cost with dynamic lights. You can turn dynamic lighting off in the sim but then your PMDG aircraft lights don't illuminate the ground so your blind around the airport. I have also found it’s linked to your zoom level, I use ezdok and most of my cameras are set to 0.70 zoom level. In your video if you zoom in to say 1.00 or higher whilst looking at the lights on the horizon the shimmering will stop. so you can set your cameras in the VC to 1.00 or more but this upsets the field of view and for me personally I can't use it. One thing I do know is it’s really annoying, whether it’s an ORBX issue or LM issue I don’t know.

If you are referring to the street lights then sadly there isn't much to do to cure this. If you use SSAA x 4 or higher it will be less pronounced but of course you can't use SSAA at night with Dynamic lights enabled unless you have a NASA powered graphics card. Coming from FSX myself I have found the night lighting in P3D absolutely horrible and it definitely needs a rewrite. It hurts my eyes to fly at night, to be honest if I want to fly at night I use XPlane.

In my personal opinion P3D is prone to stutters, I have certainly had my fair share since switching over from FSX:SE where I didn't really know what a stutter was. My most common stutter is 10-15 miles out when the airport loads in, this can be a little stutter or a big one if the sim is trying to load in multiple airports at the same time. It might help if you post your scenery settings within P3D as well and be a little more specific about where the stutters occur and during what stage of flight.

Is this bird compatible with the Flight1 GTN 750?

Hmm interesting...

Looks like this might be resolved by disabling collision detection according to the FT forum.

Nope 4.2, first time I have had any issues installed scenery in v4 period.

Spent most of the night trying to make it work, I get a CTD loading the airport in. There is a thread on the forums about it no resolution in sight yet.