mSparks

Sounds like you might still be using 2D? My flight sim usage has changed completely over the last few years. From 90% of the time fiddling trying to get stuff to just work even up to just a couple of years ago. To 100% immersed in the cockpit short and long flights with a dose of trying to get them recorded well like Today. Time wise I have xplane open far far far less than I did 5 years ago. Flight sim wise I am actually using xplane now more than I ever have before, but 2D is just as on ramp to VR.

https://github.com/mSparks43/747-400/releases/tag/3.8

Marketing

Steam stats and the new navigraph 2026 survey align pretty well: Steam MSFS2024: 4,077/8057 = 50%, Navigraph = 45% Steam MSFS2020: 3,165/8057 = 39%, Navigraph = 28% Steam XP12: 815/8057 = 10%, Navigraph = 11% So I think the "switching from XX flight sim" that just dropped are probably safe.

My new fun thing to do is watch movies lay down in the cockpit of the 744 (in VR). Headset plugged into a battery bank so it doesnt go flat. Flight test complete, matrix resurrections rewarched. Everything was great. Movie lasted longer than the flight so i shut the 744 down connected the causeway and finished watching. Very prophetic "unplugging" when it finished.

Excited and terrified. Excited, because a lot of the UI is fairly poor to interact with (e.g. opening the settings pages requires hitting a tiny button a long way away, starting in VR loses all the controller configuration), and that really, really needs an overhaul. Terrified because I only just got everything working pretty much perfectly, and for sure it will break everything... And maybe the UI doesn't even get an overhaul.

Really well, it's completely changed how I'm interacting with both my desktop and X-Plane. Just leaving ALVR/SteamVR running 24/7 now, the idle use is no more than without them and picking up the headset firing up ALVR (if needed) on that and double tapping B is far easier than ssh'ing into my desktop when I'm not at my desk in all instances. If the machine is busy working I can check progress, if it's finished I can immediately sneak in a quick X-Plane session. probably more time in X-Plane VR in the last couple of weeks than X-Plane for all of last year (lot of Population One as well, would be more Aces of thunder on the PSVR2, but apparently Sony have big issues with accepting credit cards online, so to buy it I need to buy gift cards from a retailer.. omfg).

https://developer.x-plane.com/2024/03/we-are-all-raster-farians-now/

Not gnome or kde, because it will be years (if ever) before they support https://github.com/zquestz/plank-reloaded That and show all windows are pretty much my must haves for my desktop now - which is why I can never go back to windows. Edit, and since I hate it when people just say "use this" but dont show what using it looks like, and I need a lot more practice recording stuff like this, plank and show all windows looks like this (saw it was missing in the earlier video)

There is more to it that that. Firstly, new users should really get a feel for the sim in default before loading up with addons. Especially as xplane is so fast moving that even the most popular addons break sometimes, while xplane default is mostly rock solid. But more importantly, its not just that existing scenery addons will be very obsoleted by the next gen scenery in a "soonish" timeframe (worst case less than a year, very likely longer). I have a fair bit of scenery addons. Free and paid. Some of which was bought fairly recently, currently not using any of it because default is in most cases better looking and always more performant. So for now, get used to default, play with some freeware. In terms of payware. Hotstarts CL650, Toliss getting highly recommended for next things to spend on. Sparky744 and Zibo essential freeware in my totally unbiased opinion

1. You should be fine 2. Should do 3. Freeware like simheaven will take you a long way. Not sure I would recommend buying scenery right now, there is some great payware for sure, but it will all be obsolete soonish, some older scenery has serious performance problems with XP12, and for the most part default is now good. There are some very very high quality airports coming out, but all the default airports are already very good thanks to the scenery gateway (nothing to do on your part unless you want to contribute, ships with the sim) 4. Xplanes addon ecosystem is enornmous. If you want it, its probably already been done, well

ALVR does wifi streaming for the quest 3 from steamVR WayVR is a steamVR overlay that lets you bring the desktop into the headset while VR apps like xplane are running. (So you I never have to go into the PC room). The "what I see" is recorded by casting from the headset to firefox on the desktop, and capturing that with OBS. Theoretically it should also work with monado/wivrn. But not tried them recently. Valve seem to have "fixed their word not allowed" with steamVR. And if you need MS office, it works far better on mac anyway. Very, very very satisfied with my linux PC, MacBook for mobile, PS5 PSVR2 for gaming trio. I currently want for nothing.

meanwhile, my cinnamon install is all like

https://www.sambent.com/microsofts-plan-to-fix-windows-11-is-gaslighting/

I have some bad news for you. Most of is here have spent years trying to get xplane to work properly, and that isnt constrained to one single OS, its all of them...

PS5 + PSVR2, all the way. I'm still on GT7 for a while yet Absolutely loving it. Just need a motion platform for the race chair now.... But I don't think anything comes close to that set up, really looking forward to getting bored of GT7 and switching to AoT. OK, it wasn't cheap, but the whole experience is significantly better than anything offered anywhere else, and PC is waaaaay more expensive. That said, this weekend I found https://github.com/wayvr-org/wayvr/ Combined with the Quest 3 its really an ideal solution for X-Plane VR. At any point, anywhere, just pick up the Quest headset, fire up the ALVR application in that, start xplane with wayvr (double tap the B key), straight into flying any aircraft, no hassle, 72hz/fps at close to max settings. Can sit reading firefox and watching youtube videos from the cockpit of the 744 while in cruise. Really close to my ideal setup now. The main reason I need the PS5 is the PC is actually a work horse, especially now all the AI stuff is mainstream, when all that is running - often for days - no PC for me, so the PS5 is an ideal option, sit play on that while the PC earns the paycheck. These are the glory days.

A lot of AMD bias. Short sightedness. And also click bait. E.g. all the time spent saying raytracing and gpu compute was terrible and a waste of money when their RTX range launched.

I dont particularly agree with this. On: "in a way that doesn't compromise stability" This wasn't so much the issue, and definately isn't any better. The main change was to filter out the cases when the user (or a users plugins) was pulling levers that break stuff from their "why is this stuff broken must fix" pipeline, 12.4.1 got a lot more strict on this, which is why so many plugins broke. However, these plugins were for sure breaking stuff already, so once fixed (its beta, that is what betas are for) we should all end up with even better stability. On the remove options thing: I wouldn't say so, the options are pretty much all still there, in fact with all the json api and websocket stuff that's been added, along with awesome options like 2D and VR specific preferences we have more options than ever. They have guarded the options which are well known to send your xplane to ground services, like a software version of drive disc buttons, but they are all still there afaik.

Beta1 did break both the Sparky744 and AutoATC (along with many other plugins) New releases with fixes for both went up yesterday.

And also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc.

Its very messy. Copywrite violations generally apply to the distributor - not the reciever. It's not illegal to buy bootleg CDs (although they can be confiscated, and it is immoral), it is illegal to make/distribute them. Bittorrent includes uploads, which counts as distributing, but distributing can be allowed under fair use conditions. The court case got very messy because it has already been settled that their use was fair use, whats left is was their redistribution a violation, and their argument is it can't be because it's already been settled that their use was fair use. The claimants lawyers than had a tantrum that couldnt be claimed now, because it wasnt claimed before, then meta pointed to their original defence documents claiming fair use. Last I heard, aiui. Also, to keep it on topic, metas position is relatively similar to Austins position on patents Neither is black and white. My take is technically the trained AI is a derivative work of everything it was trained on, so some type of agreement and compensation should be due, trouble is existing laws never considered the case of a single compute platform being a derivative work of the sum total of human knowledge, absolutely no one really believed that would be a real thing any time soon, let alone already.

They actually have a reasonable argument, the downloading isn't the problem in a legal sense afaik - the uploading is. They are basically saying at no point did they distribute full copies of the books, and anything less than that has pretty strong fair use arguments. Going to be a huge landmark case if they win, but yeah, they probably don't. I'm reserving judgement tbh, see where it goes, in the whole theme of the thread sometimes the unconventional way is best for everyone, but also a lot of times it isn't. I'm not a huge fan if gated access to knowledge, and that entire market drastically needs a rethink in this new era...

They trained them on ebooks they pirated from tpb. Meta is currently in court argueing how that is cool and normal: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/ https://torrentfreak.com/uploading-pirated-books-via-bittorrent-qualifies-as-fair-use-meta/

I took the plunge and got the PS5 and PSVR2, plus racing seat wheel and pedals. Phen Om In AL My first race share: Going to be a few weeks before I need a change from that. But Aces is next- the fact it is out and good is the reason it was worth getting the PSVR2, thanks for the heads up, been waiting so long I forgot I was waiting.

At the current pace. About a decade in the future, maybe 2. If and when xplane is a wayland application rather than an X11 application I'll take another look. Personally I hope Laminar dont waste any time on switching to it. Feels like its actually over for windows now https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-gaming-boss-resigns-replacement-promises-return-to-xbox Just so much to make fun of both there and with wayland.