Biology

Who cares if it is technically classified as a game, what matters is realism, so it is anything but dumb. Flight dynamics of X-Plane 11 already satisfies me. What I'm not satisfied with is the add-ons, I desperately need a ProSim level A320. My biggest hope right now is Fenix A320 as it is literally ProSim, but it is still not out yet. I'm also still not happy with clouds overall - MSFS, DCS, X-Plane 12 etc. all have really nice volumetric clouds but they still look very artificial and lack many features of real clouds. Technology simply hasn't advanced to the point of rendering realistic clouds at real time. Hopefully it will be possible in next 15 years.

As a fun fact, gauge rendering in X-Plane and MSFS are not too different. X-Plane gauges are composited using OpenGL while MSFS provides a low level API with basic drawing functions which can be used for the same purpose. Therefore both X-Plane and MSFS can be used with various drawing libraries such as NanoVG and Cairo. Main difference between the two is the fact that gauge rendering in MSFS has to be done in CPU due to the sandboxing while in X-Plane it can be done in GPU (or any other hardware capable of rendering for that matter) as well, potentially improving performance. Another difference is the fact that MSFS supports HTML5 gauges which is very beginner-friendly and has lots of resources. In the end I would say neither is superior to each other, they are just different and have different strengths & weaknesses. Therefore I agree with your point - given X-Plane developers are already pretty used to the development workflow of X-Plane, it would be an awful idea to change that, especially given the fact neither is superior to each other. It takes a lot of time to get used to a new development workflow, which is another reason why MSFS airliners are taking quite a while. The same would very likely happen with X-Plane too, with all developers having to start from scratch.

Really like sky, clouds and atmospherics.

Dithering using a Bayer matrix helps a lot indeed. Just curious, what is the issue with this type of dithering in VR? As long as dithering matrix indices are kept separately for each eye the result should be identical.

This is definitely true, however banding caused by lack of precision is usually much less intense compared to banding caused by not enough raymarching samples or banding caused by textures, hence I assumed it would never be a concern. MSFS and other implementations have slight banding for the exact same reason you mentioned but it is very tolerable. While in the screenshot it looks much more intense which is why I thought it was caused by compression.

I think it is caused by the picture compression. X-Plane 12 uses physically based sky rendering, which typically produces much less the banding artifacts compared to bitmap based sky rendering. While banding is still possible with physically based sky implementations if raymarching steps are not high enough, it looks pretty different than the banding in this screenshot.

I might be joining you soon as The Uninstaller Jr. IL-2 looks very tempting but as a civilian flyer there isn't much for me.

Welcome to X-Plane, here are my visual add-on recommendations: ALES v2 and AEP for airport environment SFD Global for ground textures SAM 3 for seasons https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/70060-gandalfs-sky-preset/ for sky colors and https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/40952-cloud-art/ for clouds. I know that you are not a fan of tweaking but these are all very easy to install and gives a major visual improvement with no performance impact. For aircraft, I recommend: Zibo 737 and LevelUp 737, they both are great and for free. iniBuilds A300 FlyJSim 737-200 FlyJSim 727 Hot Start TBM Hot Start CL650, it is easily the best business jet add-on in any simulator. JRollon SF-260 Flight Factor 757

This is true, it is completely left to inNative to decide on using hardware specific features during transpilation, us developers have no control over it. As far as I know inNative tries to take advantage of SSE and AVX, but it is still not as good as having direct control over these features, which allows for really fast libraries such as https://github.com/xtensor-stack/xsimd

https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/intro/introduction.html?highlight=isa#scope From WebAssembly specification. This is how WASM is usually implemented, so you are right in that regard, but it is implemented completely differently in MSFS. MSFS uses inNative to directly convert WASM binaries into x86-64 binaries ahead-of-time using inNative: https://github.com/innative-sdk/innative Also mentioned in MSFS SDK documentation: This means some of the disadvantages you mentioned ("slower than native, limited by the capabilities of the virtual machine rather than the hardware it runs on") do not apply while the rest, especially "time loss from compilation requirements" do apply. In fact this is why some MSFS aircraft take several minutes to load for the first time, the ahead-of-time conversion from WASM to x86-64 is rather slow. It also makes debugging a nightmare. There are a few other reasons that if I had to choose between developing for MSFS or X-Plane for rest of my life, I would choose X-Plane without thinking for a second. But your understanding of how MSFS works is not correct.

What TE region is that? I really love how it looks.

This is an X-Plane 12 thread not MSFS so I will not go into more detail but you have several misconceptions on how MSFS' WASM implementation works. WASM code for MSFS does not run in a virtual machine, it runs entirely natively. In short WASM is an instruction set, just like x86-64, ARM or any other instruction set. However the way it is designed and the way it separates code from data makes it "safer" by nature. In MSFS code safety mostly depends on the fact that most "unsafe" code will not compile into WASM at first place. Other than that compiling for WASM is no different than compiling for x86-64 or ARM, in fact FBW uses automated builds on Linux for their A320. When the aircraft loads for the first time, MSFS transpiles the WASM code into x86-64 code using inNative and caches the results - from that point it runs as native x86-64 code with no virtual machine at all. Code safety comes from the fact that the code was able to compile into WASM at first place and sandboxing around system calls, nothing else. I also have my own fair share of criticisms against MSFS, but such criticisms should be based on facts shouldn't they? X-Plane is a great simulator and stays my favorite in most aspects thanks to its well thought out and polished design (not talking about UI, but the overall simulator) that reminds me of Mac OS, but this doesn't mean the rest are awful. SimConnect has its own set of really annoying issues like high and unpredictable latency, but none of these are directly related to WASM as they have been present since FSX. P3D does not suffer from that as much due to the fact that it has a custom interface called PDK, but developers still need SimConnect for handling of simulator and local variables. Not exactly sure though, as I only develop for X-Plane and MSFS. Assuming the 6 year figure comes from the fact that MSFS took 6 years to develop, this is a rather nonsensical comparison. The CJ4 itself did not take 6 years, the entire MSFS project took 6 years. This is really not a great example to demonstrate development for MSFS is much slower if this is what you aimed for. Also the CL650 took 2 developers - Saso for the systems and Goran for the art for the most part with some exceptions.

I was about to say that - one really does not need to have the aircraft to admire the work went into it. I have purchased the Challenger 650 almost the day it was released, but never had a chance to fly it due to my development responsibilities (of course talking about ES) and neverending exams. However even seeing the "debug" screens alone gives insight on how complex its systems are.

I completely agree with that, default systems should definitely be more comprehensive. My point was just that X-Plane is not much better in that regard, at least it is still not good for more complex aircraft. It is better than other alternatives though, that's for sure. I still hope for graphical block-diagram-based default systems one day, something like Simulink. Such a thing would allow for developing arbitrarily complex systems while still being intuitive.

If you are talking about default systems, of course, X-Plane is still unmatched in that regard. My point was that most developers do not use default systems as they are simply not detailed enough for more complex aircraft.

Yes that is true, BGLs used by FSX & P3D are compressed.

While I understand and agree with the issues regarding flight modelling, I am really confused about the systems modelling part - what exactly are the issues with systems modelling? At least for me systems modelling isn't even an inherent property of a base simulator but third party add-ons, hence it is confusing to me when one says it is not good enough for systems modelling.

You really deserve the nickname "The Uninstaller" 😂 I really love how IL2 and DCS looks and behaves, too bad that military flight simulation has never been my thing. Back to the A330 - the level of detail they are going for a default aircraft is quite exciting. I normally don't fly default aircraft but this might be an exception - does anyone know if there could be a way to replace the FMC (essentially Zibo-ifying it) while keeping other systems intact?

Bad analogy - one poses actual threat to human life, one doesn't. A better analogy would be kids fighting and when they are confronted one of them telling "but they started the fight, not me". Everyone should quit it at this point and everyone is at fault.

In most places - sometimes here, sometimes elsewhere. Either case it was just to make a point about how toxic the "community" has gotten these days as the only thing they can agree on is how bad another simulator is. The fact that you aren't doing it doesn't mean no one else is doing it. Absolutely. It is not only the leading the upcoming new aircraft, but looks like it is going to be the flagship aircraft of X-Plane 12 too. They even added (proper) failures and related ECAM messages, which is something they usually don't do with their aircraft, this time they are going for a surprising amount of detail for a default aircraft.

There is a saying in my country - "do not act like kids to kids" Or here is a universal one - "two wrongs do not make a right" So my question is simple, why "the usual suspects" keep spreading negativity about X-Plane in every thread? And why "the other usual suspects" keep retaliating with the same behavior thinking what they do is justified? There is no right here. Oh believe me, yes, absolutely yes. As said, this is likely the only thing both X-Plane and MSFS community agree on and like doing 😂

Well yeah, but at least it is not in a daily basis there. While here every single word not allowed thread is being locked and derailed. It has been almost 2 years since MSFS was released and the drama is still going. I just hope FlightGear and its new HDR pipeline draws more developers into the platform.

It has been exactly 0 days since another thread was derailed. I finally lost my faith in this "community", I swear I have seen less heated fights in PCMR community and other heavily divided groups. I am not going to name names, but it is either people who gain a huge satisfaction by calling MSFS an inaccurate "game" (they use the term "game" in a derogatory way) and downplay Asobo's work or people who gain a huge satisfaction by downplaying Laminar's by making people "admit" whatever aspect of flight simulation is more important and having a sick interest in them going out of business. If there is ONE thing these extreme X-Plane and MSFS followers agree (I know sounds impossible, right?) and be really happy about, it is likely P3D's death and its developers going out of business, which really says a lot about both sides. I always want to think that there is no way this is how the entire "community" is and that there must be a silent majority who appreciates all sides but I started to lose my faith in that too. Sometimes I regret getting into other civilian simulators and not staying in FlightGear, at least they had a proper community.

Hi, Is this true? This is something I have been requesting for weeks and I am really glad that LM is at least considering it. So many things can be done with Enhanced Atmospherics is if LM exposes these trueSKY parameters: https://docs.simul.co/Tutorials/Sky/skyvariables.html

It was in .org forum, I don't exactly remember who said that but it was from someone credible. I don't think there is anything wrong with removing the experimental flight model, as its purpose was to not force developers into implementing the changes made to the flight model during X-Plane 11's run into their aircraft, so they could use the flight model that came with X-Plane 11.00 instead. X-Plane 12 is a completely new simulator and hence comes with a brand new flight model out of the box, without any opt-in experimental flight model. I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an experimental flight model during X-Plane 12's run though, containing changes made to the flight model since X-Plane 12.00's release, just like X-Plane 11's experimental flight model.