Biology

Then there are the users of both simulators who visit both forums and all they see are people telling how awful both simulators are. I guess I will just use FlightGear as both X-Plane and MSFS are awful and bound to die if I go by what I'm reading here 🤷‍♂️ I'm also pretty tired of the same people downplaying X-Plane in every single opportunity, but some of the X-Plane people here are not helping either.

I think it is possible, however WASM modules still "link to" the inNative environment as inNative acts as a bridge between WASM code and the OS by providing "system calls", which means with every simulator update that changes the inNative environment, the compiled binary would need to be updated too, which is indeed the case for MSFS add-ons right now. If add-on developers end up having to provide pre-compiled binaries, they would have to do so with every update which is not developer friendly I guess. Of course Asobo can combine both approaches and allow add-on developers to provide pre-compiled binaries if they want, but I guess they didn't want to deal with possible complications. I'm not sure how much security plays a role in this case as Asobo could still enforce the pre-compilation to be occur in MSFS, maintaining the security provided by inNative. Also regardless a locally compiled binary could be replaced by a rogue software the same way if Asobo doesn't have checks preventing something like that from happening. It is an interesting topic indeed.

I perfectly understand and respect the value of X-Plane for designing aircraft from scratch with no known performance numbers. However you should realize that your initial comment pretty much sounds like you were talking about the realism of a procedural simulation setup (which is the case for home and pilot training) that can be achieved with both simulators. Your initial comment pretty much reads as "All you care about is visuals, simulation realism doesn't matter to you" when this is simply not the case. Simulation requirements of a home / pilot training environment is completely different than an aircraft design environment. For a home / pilot training workloads MSFS can be as realistic as X-Plane, while for aircraft design workloads ESP simulators have traditionally been unsuitable as the flight model in ESP simulators require a lot of empirical data about the aircraft unlike X-Plane, which is obviously not available until the aircraft design is finalized. However this doesn't mean that MSFS is all about visuals and doesn't offer a realistic simulation experience that can even be used for pilot training, like your initial comment implied.

Meh, I disagree with that one too. X-Plane 12 will feature a new shader-based sky, volumetric clouds, photometric lighting, 3D trees and water, weather effects like shader-based snow and water puddles, screen space reflections, improved night lighting, improved autogen, new default assets and much more. I wish both sides were more fair about strengths and weaknesses of both simulators.

You definitely have all the rights to mention what you like more! Just keep in mind that you are in the MSFS forum, which means you will encounter much more people who prefer / use MSFS, which also means there will be a lot more people who will disagree with you. My "backlash" only comes from your remarks (which were phrased more strongly than an opinion) about MSFS SDK and avionics, which are frankly simply inaccurate and some of the evidence like Leonardo MD-82 speaks for itself. There is nothing wrong with expressing opinions, but basing these opinions on facts is very important.

People "jumped in" not because you said something nice about X-Plane, people "jumped in" because you made inaccurate statements about MSFS to say something nice about X-Plane. I have lots of nice things to say about X-Plane, especially the upcoming X-Plane 12, but I can do that without repeating the same inaccurate "MSFS for visuals, X-Plane for simulation" stereotypes which are based on no facts whatsoever.

How can X-Plane be better at avionics when avionics quality is a property of an aircraft add-on and not the base simulator? Avionics quality is determined by how well it is implemented by the particular developer, it has nothing to do with the simulator. Have you even looked at the SDKs of both? I develop add-ons for both simulators and I would refrain from making a bold claim like that, both have their distinct advantages and disavantages. Also, given that you don't want to hear about "LMDG" 737, what about Leonardo MD-82? It is easily one of the most realistic (in terms of systems) airliners for any simulator, from physically based implementations of several systems and working circuit breakers to persistent aircraft state and maintenance. It is a great example of what can be done with MSFS SDK. I'm not even talking about the upcoming Fenix A320, which is based on ProSim, an A320 implementation that is used for pilot training by various airlines worldwide. X-Plane indeed has a better flight model, but this was pretty much the only thing you were accurate about. However quality of a simulation is not only measured by flight model, systems are as important for a realistic simulation experience, and both simulators are more than capable enough for simulating aircraft systems. In fact, if I had to choose between the slightly better flight model of Rotate MD-88 and much better systems of Leonardo MD-82, I would go with Leonardo MD-82 without a doubt.

LOL. You are not alone, I like very small and very large planes due to their uniqueness. So I will likely only get -600 (or -700 as it has cargo too) and -900.

The aircraft looks very exciting! How does it compare to PA-28 by JustFlight which also has a good amount of custom systems and persistence, maintenance etc. features? Lastly, will the aircraft be available through Orbx like other Milviz aircraft? If so, do you have a time estimate for that?

It must feel great when people are constantly speculating about everything from legitimacy of your company to who you are working with and what relationship the people you work with have with you, even going all the way to look for your company's shareholders. As a developer myself sometimes I feel bad for you guys, but I guess it is just the way things are when lots of impatient people are involved. Keep up the good work!

They work for me, they only work if you are on ground.

Thank you! Quite excited for it, do you have plans to bring it to simMarket too? If so, when?

ProSim doesn't come with its own flight model either. They are indeed "only" using ProSim systems, but the rest of the modules are not relevant for home flight simulator users anyway - we don't need an instructor panel or a professional cockpit hardware interface.

Do you have any evidence or demonstration showing this is the case? Have you even tried MSFS SDK or do you make add-one for it? Do you know what aspects Goran was talking about? I have a high suspicion that answer to all of my three questions is no.

Did you really just try to incite a fight between two developers? I develop for MSFS. I know what can be done and what cannot be done. I also develop for X-Plane and have payware and freeware add-ons released for it. Goran is a highly respected and skilled X-Plane developer with lots of add-ons under his belt and he also knows what can be done and what cannot be done in MSFS. What cannot be done in MSFS for the CL650 had absolutely nothing to do with my point, unless you think an FBO (and a few other things) is essential for simulation.

This is basically the case for any simulator, so P3D is not any better than X-Plane in that regard. You just need to find a good third-party implementation of the aircraft you want - as Bjoern pointed out Reality Expansion Packs all go into that level of detail. Sadly for you though, there isn't a REP (nor any other good alternative) for Cessna 182 Skylane, so the A2A version is still your best option. In short, simulation realism comes from the aircraft developer, not from the base simulator (which is why I always find the MSFS is not good for simulation comments funny) - in fact the most realistic aircraft like Hot Start CL650 use X-Plane as nothing more than a scenery generator and flight model engine. So just like in P3D a good rule of thumb for finding high quality aircraft is looking for custom-made systems. P.S. Other than REPs you should definitely check out Hot Start TBM 900, if that kind of aircraft is your style you will absolutely love it.

It's a great airliner, I'd argue that it is among the best airliners for X-Plane systems wise. Congrats!

I hope so too. There is nothing positive about this thread, it is basically a compilation of people who harshly criticize X-Plane and people who go as far as calling Asobo developers "incompetent" because seemingly one can't be an X-Plane fan without belittling others. Seriously, I was expecting some truth / middle ground but no, it is still the repeat of inaccurate stereotypes about how X-Plane looks bad and how MSFS is bad for simulation. I know Austin and his enthusiasm about things which makes me feel really bad for him - I can't help but think to myself, is this really the community he deserves?

I wish I had time to fly - life responsibilities including double major combined with an add-on I need to maintain means I basically had no time to do any proper flights in last few months. If I had time though I would love to fly Hot Start CL650, iniBuilds A300, Felis 747-200 and FlyJSim 737-200 for X-Plane, along with Leonardo MD-80 and FSLabs A320 for Prepar3D. PMDG 737 for MSFS also seems to be very close to release, so I will add that to my wishlist too. Lastly as a huge MD-11 fan I would love to fly Rotate MD-11, but currently it has significant navigation system deficiencies which is rather disappointing.

Really love the work going into the flight modeling and visualization of forces.

There is one important thing to point out, what Austin did is not just a mere tweak of the .acf file, but instead it is a rework of the flight dynamics engine to make the F-4 fly accurately when accurate data is fed. In other words, he is not simply tweaking the F-4 .acf file until it flies right by using inaccurate values, instead he is improving the flight dynamics engine using phyiscal principles so that the results are accurate when accurate data is used. Therefore this will improve the experience for not just the F-4 but all aircraft. I think airliners will especially benefit from that as they tend to fly at transsonic region and X-Plane has been using an approximation called Prandtl-Glauert transformation for compressible flow effects, but it gets rather inaccurate as Mach number approaches 1 and eventually leads to Prandtl-Glauert singularity at Mach 1. Given Austin is working on supersonic flight, he likely made that better too.

FBW A320 is getting really good these days indeed. I have been following their GitHub since the project begun and I need to say that they write really clean and effective code, not even mentioning the fact that they have really skilled people such as Andreas Guther who implemented an entire autopilot and FlyByWire system using Matlab Simulink. I'm personally an A320 "nerd" who loves to experiment with all sorts of interesting procedures and non-normals, which is why I'm still quite excited for Fenix. It has everything I can dream of - dynamic interacting physically based systems, endless amount of non-normals and even circuit breakers. While FBW also plans to get there eventually, implementing such things from scratch take a lot of time. I also need to mention that A320 is the aircraft that got me into P3D last year as I wasn't happy with X-Plane alternatives (I have tried both FF and ToLiSS, but neither had the systems completeness or depth I hoped for) and now it will likely be the aircraft that will get me into MSFS.

I would definitely go with the Fenix, I already have the others for P3D while Fenix has the potential to be the most realistic airliner in any simulator thanks to its ProSim base.

Ignoring the fact that this thread is made to mock others, here is my take: I love the stability and polish of X-Plane. I use many other simulators and I am happy with all of them, but X-Plane manages to shine with its simple, intuitive and straight-to-point architecture where everything just works, both from a developer and user perspective. So I am with @Bjoern on that one.

Enhanced Atmospherics is one of my favorite implementations too, but it suffers from the same issues with other implementations I mentioned - lack of detail and inaccurate lighting.