X-Plane v5.6x by Laminar Research

INTRODUCTION

Great weather, add-on aircraft, and more variety than you can imagine.

I have never had a harder review to write. I said that same thing last year. X-Plane is a constant battle with me. Overly exciting and fun, yet frustrating too. I have never known a piece of software to give me such a love/hate relationship before. One day I love it. The other I hate it. It clearly fulfills needs all the "other" sims do not. Yet the others provide a lot more than we see here in many regards. As you'll see below, I keep coming back, and I suspect other flightsimmers out there do the same.

In a year's time a good amount new has been introduced to us, from Mr. Austin Meyer, a very bright, energetic, and clearly brilliant young fellow (gosh I sound old, I am about his age I believe). For those of you that know X-Plane, you either love it or hate it. Well, I do both! Actually, the hate part honestly is small, confined to mostly re-occuring Windows and graphic cards bugs that don't get fixed, or are a fault of me trying to run X-Plane 5.6x on the now sadly defunct Voodoo 5500 video card.

Once again I have sweated doing a review on X-Plane. There has never been a more in-depth, feature-rich, flexible, and massively huge flight simulation product contained in one box, in the history of flightsimmerkind. Never. As I have said in my other reviews, even with months of use, I still can only report on the parts I know, and that is the simulator portion. I can not comment on the Part Maker, Plane Maker or Scenery Maker that are all included in this program. And now you can get it all for ten times less cost than it was originally marketed at. Years ago, I used to tout X-Plane was worth the $250+ price tag. And, I still do! If you have been putting off X-Plane until the price drops to rock bottom levels, now is your time. You can buy it in the stores for less than $30.00. If you're homeless and have a laptop, get X-Plane.

For that price, you can buy two. One to keep. One to stomp on furiously next time you loose your Windows icons, desktop arrangement or screen resolution. That is bug numero uno that never gets solved ! Austin has told me a zillion times its a fault of Windows, .dlls, drivers, video cards, etc. I am not going to beat up on the guy. Anyone that has made this sim what it is today, after all these years, and continues to do for all of us, deserves some immunity from frustration. He may just be right. It's a real pain in the Wahoo. I do wish it would go away. But, that is that.

A nicely done USAir A320 - just one of the examples of free aircraft at an add-on airport.

I cannot leave X-Plane. For months, I'll stop using it, caught up in the world of FLY! or FS2000. But then, after numerous new versions have come out (all for free download), I am "called" back to its world of great physics, fluid graphics, really cool special effects, and the most realistic weather generation and real weather renderer I have ever laid eyeballs on. All of these features seem to improve with every new version. My favorite features of the 5.6x series are the new waterspray effects, touchdown smokes, engine exhaust and reverser moisture visuals, 3D clouds that are better than anyone's, contrails for other traffic, added multiple cloud layers, improved thunderstorm rendering with new lightning features, and auto-weather that will "wet" or "ice" your runways when the conditions warrant. In addition, you can run in very high resolutions making for some very fine external views on aircraft and runways. So fine, in some views it make FS2000 look old! And, all that at frame rates that are off the chart.

The things that annoy me about X-Plane are the solid lockups that my computer gets when exiting the program, the need to reboot before starting another session of X-Plane, blurrier fonts on the panels than there used to be (video card specific?), the fairly weak sound quality and number of effects, lack of aircraft systems, lack of 3D detailed parts on aircraft exteriors, and lack of detailed scenery.

I believe for every item that doesn't get improved, fixed or redone, there are at least two more new features, parts, or fixes that do occur. Every new version contains great new features, and some new broken ones. You get a surprise bug in every new release! But, you may not notice it for a while, because of the great new stuff he includes.

I have taken flights to and fro, far and near. Mostly airliner stuff. Always using real weather. Real weather works great and in flight, you're going to experience the best winds aloft, turbulence, thunderstorms, cloud covers, icing, temperature changes and visibility variables of any flight simulation on the market today! Neither FS2000 nor FLY! can come close to X-Plane's weather renderer and intelligence factor. And now, with the improvements of the 3D clouds, and lightning effects, I must say I prefer X-Plane's entire sky experience over any other simulator! Yes, that means better clouds than FLY! folks. It is true! See them, and you'll believe. As I type this my Airbus A319 is climbing out of FL220 into a bright blue sky, after leaving a rainy morning in Seattle with broken clouds and wet, slick runways. Ooooh, it's so beautiful up here! And, what's that? My god, it's another airliner up high shootin' a contrail miles and miles long. Wow. If I were closer, the onboard TCAS would issue a verbal alert. Cool stuff. No way to describe it all. The sky is alive in X-Plane!

That's the key to X-Plane. That's the magic that keeps me coming back. It's the sky, the weather and the realistic way you can fly through it all. The big picture of what it's like to fly in a changing atmosphere. Real pilots may be the biggest afficianados of the X-Plane weather system.

747-400 default airliner shown under the great cirrus cloud effects.

The sky is alive, the scenery is dead. Honestly, the scenery is really boring. I have often wanted to take off and explore the rest of the world, which you certainly can do, but what is there to see? I cannot take much more of "green cities", sandy beaches in the arctic, and the same buildings everywhere. Airports have the same warehouse style buildings everywhere, and few other structures. Is this the reason frame rates are so unbelievabally high? I don't have the answer to that. I fear that eventually Austin will bring forth another scenery engine, at the risk of the performance that has set X-Plane apart from the competition in its fluid flight experience. One other big thing. After flights of more than an hour or so, you'll notice after landing the entire earth is shaking, vibrating annoyingly so. Austin knows of this problem, but has yet to solve the earthquakes you'll experience. So I guess for now, you can't fly very long. To reduce the number of CD accesses during flight, I suggest copying the entire scenery folders directly to your X-Plane directory. That's a big help in realism, no CD pausing. It's the only pausing you'll ever see in the X-Plane world. Unless your wife learns the [P] key, but that's why mine has been removed (just kidding).

Default 777 panel - looks great, still limited to X-Plane simplicity however when it comes to aircraft systems and panel functionality.

However, as in the other clouds, you will get foggy transitions into and out of the soup. X-Plane will model low clouds very well. If the bases are just a few hundred feet off the ground, you'll be fogging in and out to a varying degree on your approach. It's very effective! At various times of the day, and different visibility, clouds will change in color and often bathe the horizon in pink hues.

Where the scenery may still be bland, the runways are not. We have the best looking slabs of pavement anywhere. Most airports, while incomplete in terms of accurate layout, are abundant with realistic taxiway lighting. In general, the terrain rises and falls where it should, and especially out in the Rocky Mountain states, the topography is quite pleasing with nicely textured terrain, appropriate for the area. This is where in some ways, I actually prefer the X-Plane scenery over FLY!, where the world still seems flat in those areas. We sure could use roads, highways and moving ground lights to spruce up things a bit. Again, could it be done without sacrificing our frame rates? There we go again. At any one second you're slapped in the face with THIS IS GREAT, OH WOW, OH WOW, then another second a big slap to UGLY UGLY.

Adding aircraft has never been easier. Just drop a new airplane's complete folder into your appropriate aircraft's directory and you're done. You have complete control over that new aircraft's sounds as well, which make configuring the semi-weak sounds, to your liking. I have done this a lot, and have enjoyed the ease of replacing standard wav files with my own, enhancing things such as touchdown sounds, louder wind noise and ground proximity warnings. Each aircraft will use the sounds that come in its folder as the primary source, then if certain sounds are not present, will use a default sound set in the root sound directory. I just wish engine rpm ranges were as good as other programs, especially FS2000. I would think it would be easy for Austin to progam in a better sound system. The open architecture could really make this the finest sounding flightsim with a little help. Sounds are the one form of feedback sim pilots need most, until full-motion platforms are present in every home.

Flight models continue to be tops. I don't know if they are as precise as my favorite PMDG airliners for FLY! are done up, but then again with all that "blade element theory" at work that Austin has dedicated his life to, maybe they're better. Certainly, anyone whom flies an X-Plane based aircraft will appreciate some great physics. The fluid frame rate will only better emphasize how good the flight modeling appears to be. Austin has always claimed that X-Plane was built smart enough to calculate the exact lift, drag, momentum, and reaction a real aircraft would have. So, if he includes an A319 in the simulator (which is one of the default airliners), then due to its exact dimensions, engine thrust, and weight, plus other factors, it will fly exactly like the real A319. Sounds good to me! I cannot find any bones to pick with his flight modeling. As a pilot of a real Cheyenne, I can tell you his multi-turbine flight model is closer to the real thing when it comes to engine failure and adverse yaw, than any aircraft I have flown in FLY! or FS2000. It's scary as it should be.

Brasilia EMB-120, shown as a nice add-on you can get.

Aside from flight modeling, autopilots are fairly crude. They jump the airplane when engaged, no matter how carefully you try to get them ready. Once locked on however, the autopilots are quite smooth and react quite well. Again, some rough spots to work on.

In case you don't know, X-Plane is also a simulator of many light general aviation aircraft, NASA rocket planes, experimental jets of the 60s and 70s, the Space Shuttle, and Area-51 based UFOs and aircraft from sci-fi books. And, if that's not enough, you can fly on Mars, the real Mars, over real Martian terrain, using "real" technology style aircraft that can operate in its rarified atmosphere. Once again, SEVEN simulators in ONE. Unbelievable! Someone ought to review this entire aspect of X-Plane. But, being the realist I am, I cannot. Unless FlightSim.Com springs for an actual Mars mission. I went to MicroWINGS last year.

Without writing a book on the subject of X-Plane (which would quite easily be done I might add), I will conclude this follow-up review. For the most detailed review on this simulation, please refer back to last year's edition.

In summary, here's a quick list of GREATS and GAD ZOOKS to keep in mind when using this current version. This is based off my PIII850 with Voodoo 5500 graphics, the latest OpenGL drivers and things like that. The version in the stores as of today's date is 5.54.

GREATS

• Flight modeling
• Best real weather
• Awesome instant replay mode
• Configurablity
• Eye candy
• Open system for add-ons
• Free updates online
• Good customer support via the author
• Customers have input to what new versions should have

GAD ZOOKS

• Crashes when exiting
• Unable to hold desktop resolutions
• Unable to take screen shots with Voodoo Cards (that's why I don't have many to show)
• "Shaky" scenery after a long flight
• You can see ground objects through broken clouds (new bug, that wasn't there until now)

Note: I just spoke to Austin and he assured me he is busily working on the crash bugs, desktop resolution issues and see-thru clouds. He answered my email right away on these issues, as he always does.

X-Plane proves to be one of the most advanced simulators in flight dynamics and atmospheric effects on flight. It's the best on special effects, ease of use and quick fun. With all the new versions, great support, huge plethora of add-ons and the unrelentless development behind the product, any flightsimmer who doesn't use X-Plane ought to have some grease thrown in their eye. If the X-Plane world wasn't so promising, exciting, and filled with new stuff all the time, most of us would really be annoyed with some of the bugs and issues I find really nagging. That's why I keep coming back, and just cannot stay away. I just can't. It's an annoying addiction. There a magic with X-Plane you'll not find in the other sims, just as there are major parts of X-Plane that are missing, that you can only get in the others. Maybe that's the idea for continued long-term success. Whatever it is, the flightsim community should be greatful for what Austin has built us, and what he's going to be doing for all of us in the future! Just nudge him a tad to tidy up some of the loose ends, and and you'll have no need to "stomp" on that second boxed version you're holding on to!

X-Plane deserves an 90 out of 100 possible points.
I took a few points off due to some added bugs, and the fact that the scenery is now getting tiring and old, compared to how I felt about it last year at this time.

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