Sure Denco, but our time and money is also not limited And seasons is something that the flight sim series has for what, more than 15 years. The weather engine is also one of those things on which X-Plane is not on par with the other sim

Trust me I know what you mean. The weather was the biggest disappointment coming from P3D, but sometimes a little patience doesn't hurt

Yes, there was a camera on a tripod on the seat next to me. This isn't the video because the video I saw was head on. It will be up at some point, but I have no idea when. There were actually a lot of people filming and taking photographs, I was just surprised to see LR didn't actually record it theirselves

Someone ( 63 Degrees Right ) is uploading them as we speak

 

 

Well, like I suspect many other current X-Plane pilots, I'm very disappointed to see no fundamental change to the weather engine. C'mon Austin, you know this is important! There is no excuse for a weather upgrade languishing this long in the dev cycle, and instead pushing mainly eye candy in this new version. We don't buy sims like this just for eye candy.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Also it seems they are not porting to Vulkan but instead adding new eye candy to the already CPU bound, aging OpenGL engine. Isn't it going to be harder to port later after adding new fancy gfx stuff?

I guess our CPUs will be busy calculating geometry for years to come (i hope i'm wrong).

 

Not that the new fog or reflections doesn't look good, but ...

And seasons is something that the flight sim series has for what, more than 15 years. The weather engine is also one of those things on which X-Plane is not on par with the other sim

 

What? MSFS has seasons? :wink: I mean ... SIMULATED seasons ... X-Plane has this for many years.

 

Seriously: People usually refer to "seasons" as "seasons textures", but not to "seasons simulation" because you can't SEE when seasons are SIMULATED, you can only feel it when e.g. falling from the sky due to icing on the wings or having long braking distance with contaminated runways (not perfectly matching reality, but well ... this is "only" a simulator on a flat screen in your home).

 

There are addons for seasonal textures, but people seem to already have forgotten this. Of course you could say, this should be part of the base simulator, but you could say such for so many things. One step at a time ...

 

Apart from that, I'm eagerly awaiting the new version, and don't forget: you will never be able to satisfy everybody, there will always be someone who says "but THIS is the most important part ..."

 

So - lean back and enjoy what we already have, and be positive about what is still to come

 

EDIT: I remember when FSX came out and the majority of the users said things like "what a disappointment, only a graphic update". And what happened? Many people bought it, and it is still there, 11 years after release (although the base sim is unchanged since then). Imagine what X-Plane will be in 11 years of constant updates ...

 

I'll buy it anyway, of course. But this is an underwhelming announcement. 

 

 

Same here. I'll gladly support LR for the continued development of XP, but I can't help thinking that they have their priorities mixed up.

 

People often praise XP for being under development and regularly getting improvements. But the thing is, the old, 32-bit MSFS based sims are in many ways getting ahead despite being "dead" for years. One prime example is weather, where we've seen tremendous improvements in the past five years (all thanks to 3rd party developers). If XP11 can't do the same, it's in serious danger of becoming a dead end.

 

I'll buy XP11, but I hope LR will reconsider developing the things people have been wishing for all the time - better weather, functional AI traffic and usable ATC, and perhaps even seasons.

By the way, there have been some very good community made appoaches to season changes. One of them is the winter texture package, another is a set of seasonal trees which are changed by a script. These measures are simple but effective, so I'd hope that LR could implement something similar in the not too distant future.

What? MSFS has seasons? :wink: I mean ... SIMULATED seasons ... X-Plane has this for many years.

 

Seriously: People usually refer to "seasons" as "seasons textures", but not to "seasons simulation" because you can't SEE when seasons are SIMULATED, you can only feel it when e.g. falling from the sky due to icing on the wings or having long braking distance with contaminated runways (not perfectly matching reality, but well ... this is "only" a simulator on a flat screen in your home).

 

There are addons for seasonal textures, but people seem to already have forgotten this. Of course you could say, this should be part of the base simulator, but you could say such for so many things. One step at a time ...

 

Apart from that, I'm eagerly awaiting the new version, and don't forget: you will never be able to satisfy everybody, there will always be someone who says "but THIS is the most important part ..."

 

So - lean back and enjoy what we already have, and be positive about what is still to come

 

EDIT: I remember when FSX came out and the majority of the users said things like "what a disappointment, only a graphic update". And what happened? Many people bought it, and it is still there, 11 years after release (although the base sim is unchanged since then). Imagine what X-Plane will be in 11 years of constant updates ...

 

:Applause: 

 

So - lean back and enjoy what we already have, and be positive about what is still to come

 

 

 

 

But I want to have it all ... NOW !!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

:Big Grin: :Big Grin:

I assume they did not want to re-write the weather system again after they did it for X-Plane 10. Instead they focused on some of the other areas that one could also call "extremely sub-par" depending on your own priorities, such as X-Plane's bad user interface or the lack of European autogen.

 

The lack of roads and airports with buildings in the US is one of the reasons I do not fly XP10 anymore... that and a terrible AI traffic system.   I said this in the past but it feels like XP10 caters scenery wise more to European flyers than North American flyers.   I don't know if that is the same case now but its how I felt back a year ago... the OSM data was way incomplete in the US, most airports had no buildings...   I would be delighted to hear if it is more robust now.     XP10's sloped runways and that night lighting engine CANNOT be beat yet.    I want to believe!    As far as that video, great looking improvements but that FPS on some of those sequences was in the teens.  @_@  Ouch.   

but that FPS on some of those sequences was in the teens.  @_@  Ouch.   

 

Austin's rig is not a great one... MacBook Air ?

I try one more time:

 

Does XP11 have seasons? Ignoring this is no option.

I try one more time:

 

Does XP11 have seasons? Ignoring this is no option.

 

NOP.

 

But the seasonal weather changes are there in XP10 already like icing which I have noticed a few times, but the icing simulation is very very fast which I doubt would be the case in a real world scenario.

 

There are seasonal trees if you want

Also it seems they are not porting to Vulkan but instead adding new eye candy to the already CPU bound, aging OpenGL engine. Isn't it going to be harder to port later after adding new fancy gfx stuff?

I guess our CPUs will be busy calculating geometry for years to come (i hope i'm wrong).

 

I highly recommend you to read Ben Supniks very detailed analysis of the state of Vulkan, and how it will / might play (in the future) a role in X-planes future as it might open your (an others eyes) on this topic a bit:

• http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/03/what-vulkan-means-to-developers/

 

 

Does XP11 have seasons? Ignoring this is no option.

 

 

X-Plane 11.0 ? No. It is imposssible to answer this better. As an example X-Plane 10.0 was not a 64 bit program, but they were 64 bit aware. This means that the developers knew that 64 bit might be an upcoming feature.

 

In the same manner better weather effects and seasons are on the table for some time, but it wouldn´t be sensible to release them before they are ready. Will they be ready within X-Plane 11? Idon´t think Ben or Austin could answer this with certainty.

Icing simulation is poor in XP10, but also in MSFS for that matter...

 

In XP, as debated with Austin sometime ago ( by version 9, if I coorectly recall ) it's rate is directly proportional to wing area, meaning that a B744 will get "fully iced" a lot faster than a C172...

Nothing really interesting besides the limited eye candy stuff. Still no decent weather, ATC or AI which is extremely important for commercial flying. I'm happy to see some kind of improvements, and of course I'll try it out, but still sad to see the path X-Plane is headed. The only thing X-Plane has going for it is the night lighting, and that's to some degree, still looks horrible when flying in pitch dark and you can see where the lights cut off in a square radius around your plane. The moon and the sun overlaying on top of the horizon are 2 very simple things that haven't even been fixed yet, and I've mentioned this to Ben many times. I'm sure he's aware of this.

 

The new UI is a welcoming change, but until I see weather, atc and AI being implemented, I'll only see X-Plane as a casual sim thats missing vital features.

I feel like I've been late to a huge party, but better late than never.  I read a couple of days ago that the possibility of XP11 would be released, so i held off getting XP10.  This morning, I saw the announcement vie an email, so i went to LR's website, saw that the cost went back up to $60, but I took a chance, and I have to say, I am glad I did.

 

After installing the whole enchilada, I fired up a test flight from KSEA in the default C172 and needless to say, my jaw dropped.  The visuals alone were worth it and the framerates were actually better than I ever have with FSX and P3D.  I am running my settings a little high as well, but I will say it may be hard going back to P3D.

 

With the release of XP11, I look forward to it (and thankfully it'll be a free upgrade for me now) and I look forward to much more stable flights, much better visuals and of course, grabbing all of the great freeware for it.

 

I'm probably a one-percenter here, but I for one am very satisfied with XP and has gotten me excited to fly again.