Wondering about X-Plane 10

[alaskancrab]

I wonder how much Jeppesen charges for 27,000 airports with buildings? My understanding is the number is going down in the real world too... less ga airports and more international..

So yeah .. that's not cheap for the data.... but certainly cheaper than DIY. Imagine flying out to 27,000 fields to collect that data.

[csefton]

OK...after many years of flying MS flight sim from fs5 all the way up to FSX i have often tried the various x-plane demo's out and decided it wasn't for me..xp10 included....

HOWEVER after giving the X10 demo more attention and testing i have seriously started to like the sim!..BUT it still has LOTS of negatives...like rubbish cityscapes that make NO attempt whatsoever to include obvious buildings and landmarks that distinguish one city from another...this is lazy programming and to rely solely on the default autogen algorithms to place repetitive unrealistic scenery objects that look ridiculous where one expects to see famous buildings and landmarks.

All airports apart from a few chosen example ones are rubbish and very basic....though i do much prefer the lighting at x-plane 10's airports over FSX...

World scenery is ok and can often look very realistic but once again in many places it often lacks in distinguishing landmarks and other immersive features.

LIGHTING!....now night-time flying can be very realistic with highways and roads correctly placed and lit with fancy HDR features that bring everything to life!..but a cost!..you will need powerful pc to really enjoy and take advantage of all this eye candy...

All in all i can see great things for X-plane....taking off vertical in a v22 osprey or other VTOL aircraft is very realistic and rewarding...night flying, dawn/dusk lighting is very realistic and often a beautiful feeling..

X-Plane still has a long way to go but it is now starting to impress me with V.10...So much in fact i have purchased it....FSX apart from orbx is starting to feel a bit stale and limited, though i still love it...but am seeing the potential in XP10....and believe me i was one for slagging the sim off only a few wks ago!...try the demo....give it a chance and am sure you will also find it a great sim.

[jomni]

All airports apart from a few chosen example ones are rubbish and very basic....though i do much prefer the lighting at x-plane 10's airports over FSX...

Take note that if the Airport is ported from FSX or XP9 (like most available freeware are) they will not look as spectacular as a XP10 native airport.

[csefton]

Take note that if the Airport is ported from FSX or XP9 (like most available freeware are) they will not look as spectacular as a XP10 native airport.

I wasn't referring to any add-on airports!..i was referring to all of XP10'S default airports which lack any details or structures....its the same with all famous cities and other expected world landmarks which are just NOT there in any shape or form...Austin has used his basic Autogen to represent even Manhattan which am sure most will agree is rather uninspiring or realistic!.. am sure the youtube vids have exposed a lot of these shortcomings as a joke!....most XP10 airports are extremely very Spartan, unrealistic and basic compared to FSX defaults...yet like i said i prefer XP10's night lighting, with realistic roads and lovely airports...

Whilst i am getting more interested in XP10 i still fail to see why its so huge in size! the world textures and autogen along with the mesh dont seem that impressive to be demanding such a huge hard drive space!...whilst i do admit some scenery areas seem very well represented and immersive many others are just lazy and unforgivable in their omissions, bugs or shortcomings...still i have overlooked these negatives for now and am concentrating on XP10's positives at the moment...lets hope the updates establish X-plane as a real alternative to the now ageing FSX which is being propped up by Orbx and other add-ons....which am sure if where applied to XP10 would look equally as impressive....


Like i said X-plane default airports are all rubbish....apart from a few selected ones that have had any effort put into them to look realistic...the rest are lazily just plopped onto the terrain with about as much skill or care as a dog depositing its daily excrement on the neighbours lawns!

[gizmosells]

Notice in Canada like in cities like Saskatoon and Regina that there are still old buildings from X-plane 9 series. Night-Time in Xplane is harder, but if you know where the Mountains and the buildings are you will be fine. Road system in X-plane 10 far above FSX and plausible makes majority of auto-generated cities look better than the FSX cities. Still, Xplane needs 4 seasons cant fly North Dakota without snow and cold. Think improvements will be made hope to see more planes in the sky like GA ones and more plausable buildings and layouts.

[pinworm]

I have just purchased and intstalled XPX after using MFS since the 1980's and FSX since it was released in 2006.

There are good points and bad points. FSX is simply more user friendly and flexible. And it runs faster on my machine of course...I am running a 1TB quad core with Win 7 64 bit. FSX can be turned all the way up to max settings and run smoothly. XPX on the other hand, is full of crappy frame rates during the day and it slightly improves with night graphics.

FSX beats XPX on most scenery fronts with two notable exceptions: Default land scenery is amazing in XPX, especially at high altitudes and it shows distance better. The lighting effects of XPX blow FSX out of the water as landing lights reflect off of and light up objects. Night over cities is as close to reality as you can imagine...I only wish I could import them into FSX! FSX however, has actual season changes and winter textures out of the box, and it has actual airport buildings. Gamma light (ambient light, darkness) is better in XPX.

Flight dynamics are better in XPX. Failures are more versatile. Navigation is better in FSX.

What really bugs me about XPX though, is the physics. It seems either too slow or too fast. I can start down a runway at full throttle and see an indicated speed of 100kts..but it looks as though I am doing 6kts. Time seems stretched too, although I may just be used to FSX..an hour long flight in FSX seems to take more than an hour in XPS.

Installation of after market aircraft is easier in XPX. It really IS drag and drop..no seaparated gauge folders, effects folders etc...and the files are smaller so it does not take as long to download.

My vote still goes to FSX though...easier to use, better performance on todays machines, and a better physics.

[MdMax]

Hello and welcome.

What really bugs me about XPX though, is the physics. It seems either too slow or too fast. I can start down a runway at full throttle and see an indicated speed of 100kts..but it looks as though I am doing 6kts.

Very very bad settings. It's like trying to max settings in FSX during the year 2006 with hardware that was available in 2006. Change your settings and make sure you have at least 40 FPS.
http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/12...me-rates-pt-1/
http://wiki.x-plane.com/Setting_Up_X...st_Performance
http://www.x-plane.com/subject/confi...ering-options/
http://www.x-plane.com/?article=conf...dering-options

Then, increase the "Flight model per frame". 1 is bad, 2 or 3 is a lot better.
http://wiki.x-plane.com/Chapter_5:_X...s_.26_Warnings

In X-Plane 9, when a user was unable to make the right choices in his rendering options, he was "punished" by the famous "grey wall of fog". Frame rates and physics where always good, but the graphics and visibility distance changed if the hardware could not handle the settings.

This has been modified in X-Plane 10: no more grey wall of fog, but you can now have situations where the frame rate becomes very bad. You have to choose. More eye candy or more FPS ?

X-Plane 10, Intel Core 2 @ 3.00GHz, GeForce 8800GT, GNU/Linux, 60FPS (VSync locked):


Did you try a new beta of the 64-bit version of X-Plane, or the stable 32-bit version 10.11 ?
http://forum.avsim.net/topic/391361-1020b2-is-out/

[alaskancrab]

Actually both sims do a terrible job when it comes to convincing acceleration effects. without some kind of motion blurring it's just not up to other vehicle simulators.

[callmecapt]

Actually both sims do a terrible job when it comes to convincing acceleration effects. without some kind of motion blurring it's just not up to other vehicle simulators.

Turn the sound off (sound adds to the effect.)
Looks pretty similar to both FSX and X Plane to me.

[alaskancrab]

You do realize how to setup a proper A/B test right? Yes video cameras capture motion blur, I concur so does film. FSX/Xplane render none of it, never have.

Actually watch the trailer below.. you might see how it works.