Anyone Using X-Plane 10 64 bit?

I just ordered a copy of it and I want to know what to expect. I read that it doesn't have any airports like FSX and that you can create your own? How can you do this? How is it with the extra help from the memory?

 

How much disk space should I expect to use? Is the free scenery enough to make the cities look more like they do? My order is coming from GB and I'm in the states so I expect it will take a week or more to get to me. In the mean time just trying to learn as much as I can about it so I will know what to expect. I'm going to install it on both systems if I can ... will I be able to install it on XP 32 bit?

 

Thanks for reading my post.

. I read that it doesn't have any airports like FSX and that you can create your own? How can you do this?

WorldEditor (WED) is an open source 2-D scenery and airport editor for X-Plane. http://developer.x-plane.com/tools/worldeditor/ But you can download a lot of airports others have made for you at the X-Plane Scenery Gateway http://gateway.x-plane.com/

 

. How is it with the extra help from the memory?

Sorry, don't understand. 8 GB of RAM is adequate, 16 GB is recommended for the most complex custom scenery packages. Highly detailed custom scenery can use as much as 4 GB of VRAM. It all depends.

 

.How much disk space should I expect to use?

Again, it all depends. Full scenery - I'd say about 75 GB of hard drive space. But you may need a lot more, depending on the add-ons you install (see next question).

 

. Is the free scenery enough to make the cities look more like they do? .

You can make X-Plane look ultra-realistic, but it requires add-ons and a bit of work. The good news is, many add-ons are either free or donationware.

Absolutely essential add-ons IMO are:

* X-Plane 10 HD Mesh Scenery v3 by Alpilot - http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/

* Simheaven OSM continent sceneries - http://simheaven.com/?page_id=23

* World2XPlane http://world2xplane.com/

and many more ...

 

. . will I be able to install it on XP 32 bit?

Yes, X-Plane comes with both 32 and 64-bit versions.

Thanks for those links and the info .... I was wondering if the XPlane 64 bit can be installed on my 32 bit OS? What is the file size for the HD Mesh ... I didn't see any info on that.

Sorry no, you need a 64-bit operating system (OS X 10.6 or newer (Mac), Windows Vista 64-bit or 7-64 bit, or a 64-bit Linux distribution)

 

The developer, Andras Fabian, is a regular visitor here - and he gave the following answer

 

99 GBytes (scattered over 98 distinct ZIP files, each covering a 10×10 degree area).

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?287317-HD-Scenery-V3-Download-Here-of-Files

Okay ... I went where you linked and downloaded the HD Mesh file and installed it, but I don't know if I did it right. I created the zzz folder and the sub folder and put the folder with the numbers in it ... all in the custom scenery file. How can I tell if it is working ok?

Hi there,

 

Which area did you download?

 

Cheers

 

Dom

OMG ... I went back to the link and saw all those torrents for the Mesh software ... I counted 46 for just N America! That is going to take a while to download. :O

Anyone know how big this HD Mesh V3 is??? I'm downloading 15 files and I'm sure it's over 20 Gb ... that's almost half of the extra space I have for the program. Can someone give me the heads up on this????

Who ever is able to download all those files must have a fast internet connection. Here in the US we don't unless you pay through the nose and even then it doesn't match the speed other countries have. It will take me at least a week if I load multiple files and I would have to give up some browsing and watching youtube videos because of the bite downloading takes from the speed.

 

My fastest download speed is 200 - 217 kb/s. Many of the N America files are between 1 and 3+ Gb. I probably would do better to download one file at a time to see if I can watch videos ... if so then it will take me a few weeks to get everything downloaded.

 

Dang ... yes I said it!!! DANG!

It's 99 GB, as I said previously.

 

And why would anyone want to download all files at once?

I used the torrent file method and I got them all downloaded overnight, a few weeks ago.

I'm using utorrent to download the files and it's going to take me a week to download just the N. America files. I have a very slow internet download speed.

It's 99 GB, as I said previously.

 

And why would anyone want to download all files at once?

 

Oh I miss that part ... Wow that's a huge file ... don't you need all the file in order for HD mesh to work???

Well no, the idea is that first you try out one or two preferred regions and see if it works for you (e.g. framerates may go down). You still use the default scenery for all other regions. That way you can gradually build your own XP world.

 

This is what the developer has to say:

 

Please only download a smaller ZIP file at the beginning! Then test if it works for you and only then continue downloading other tiles! Do not unnecessarily overload the hosting providers! If possible, use the BitTorrent option at flightsim.com!

You might need very long time to download all tiles. Single file sizes go up to 3,6 GBytes! In the map you can see the size of each tile.

Oh I see ... well tell me is the +50-080 the Ohio region? That's where I would like to start. Where do you see that info from the developer Rat? I don't see it.

Oh I found it Rat. I found the installation info ... so am I reading the map right ... my region is +50-080?

Found the info about the regions too ... well I'll try it out after I get it downloaded and let you know.

 

One thing I don't know if you or any one else can help or not, but my 64 bit computer crashes at times when I try and open x plane or try to go to full screen. I updated my driver for my video card, but it didn't help. No problem with the 32 bit, but the 64 bit can be trying at times. It locks up the whole system and I have to hit the reset button to get out of it. Just wondering.

Ohio's latitude ranges from 38° 24′ N to 41° 59′ N and its longitude from 80° 31′ W to 84° 49′ W (or so says Wikipedia), so the +30-090 (3293 MByte) and +40-090 (2032 MByte) tiles should cover the whole area.

But I guess you figured that out by now.

 

Diagnosing crashes in X-plane (or any other software for that matter) is notoriously hard.

 

X-Plane Developer has some advice http://developer.x-plane.com/2014/11/diagnosing-crashes-in-x-plane-10-30/

I suggest you use X-plane's bug report http://dev.x-plane.com/support/bugreport.html

 

FOR ALL CRASH REPORTS include the .rpt file in Output/Crash Reports if the automatic crash reporter came up, and please do submit the bug automatically with the report form.

But don't expect miracles ! X-plane team is understaffed, alas ...

The above is all good advice, and I may well take some of it myself. I can give you the perspective of a real world pilot with few if any computer skills other than turning the machine on!

 

I have XPlane 10 64 running on Win7/64 pro, on a Dell XPS with an I7/3770 and 16gb of ram. Unfortunately, I have only a GeForce GT 620, which sounded good when I bought the machine refurbed from Costco, but which apparently is not robust enough to run XPlane 10 with higher end scenery. In my experience it is more of a frame rate hog than FSX when using the add-on sceneries which are essential to having a realistic experience. The basic scenery, while good in terms of terrain, has absolutely no signs of civilization other than the runways, ramps and taxiways of airports and roads and railroads, along with (curiously) power lines (and it does these things well). Just about any decent add-on scenery, like the one available for JFK (not the new Drazweicki scenery) drops my fps into the mid single digits.

 

I have long ago learned to fly successfully with frame rates in the low teens with MSFS, having gotten accustomed to the jerky motion, but XPlane handles low frame rates differently, so it seems. The motion is somewhat smoother than the jerks in FS, but the time line slows down! For example, all indications on final to JFK show a speed of, say, 140 knots but the ground is moving by at a stately pace more representative of the 70 knots of the small airplanes I fly now that I have retired from the faster stuff! I can't say which is better, jerky but real time motion or slow-mo, but from what others have said you really need a relatively high end video card (at least in the late GTX series with lots of VRam, or so it is said) to get decent frame rates out of XPlane 10 with high detail scenery.

 

That being said, such scenery is indeed coming out, and it will do for XP what it did for FSX/FS9.

 

Another consideration is that XP was, at least for me, very irritable with my old joystick - the airplanes were anywhere from difficult to impossible to control. Originally I thought it was just XP, and wondered just how most people seemed to be oblivious to the problem. But when Santa was good to me this year and I got a new joystick/throttle, things improved considerably and I now find that XP is about as good, in terms of flying characteristics (for certain airplanes that I have, in fact, flown in real life like the B-727 and B-757 as well as the C-172) as FS9 and FSX. So if you find the airplanes difficult to control in roll and pitch, you might want to evaluate your input device, because XP seemed to me to be unforgiving of an older, perhaps failing device.

 

The other thing that XP lacks thus far is a single piece of software that would tune it for peak performance on your machine, along the lines of Fiber Accelerator or the similar programs that exist for FSX. XP allows you to tweak a great many things, but this adds a requirement for computer based skills and the time to implement them that some of us do not have. I would venture to say that, at least for me, it is much less of a "fly right out of the box" program than the MSFS series.

 

As for that new freeware scenery that you have to download using torrents (whatever that is!), I have some of it and it is a bit better than the default, but probably of greatest impact in mountainous areas. I only got it for the Alps and the western USA. The Grand Canyon is very good, as is the area around Colorado Springs. Well worth whatever time it takes to download.

 

I think that XP has a lot of potential, and now that third party development is occurring that potential will likely be met.

 

Tony Vallillo

Howdy Rat ... X Plane seems to be doing a bit better as far as crashing with I deleted an ini file in the custom scenery to get my airports back when I installed HD Mesh V3, but I must say I can't tell the difference in Ohio or Montana in Missoula. I will try it in the areas Tony mentioned. Do you know how to install the winter package by any chance?

 

Hello Tony and thanks for your input. I fly helicopters myself in the FS and I am finding the default bell in XP is not very accurate. I can have the torque at 40% and have an air speed of 87 knts ... not very realistic going by the DodoSim in FSX which real world pilots tell me is very realistic. I had to do some adjusting of the null zones for the pitch and roll to 21% and the yaw to 11% to get the helicopter to behave itself. But it is still a bit shakey. The stick is way more sensitive in XP oppose to FSX.

 

XP is something to get use to. The are parts of the scenery that I do like such as the trains, car traffic, seeing the wires on the high voltage towers ... stuff like that. I don't like the fact there are no seasons in X Plane. I would like to install the winter package but am not sure how to do it correctly.

 

I also don't like that I can't use my three monitors as I can in FSX. I'm hoping I can get some kind of IR tracking going so I can use that in X Plane. When you are use to having a 3 screens to view going back to one is a big let down.

 

Thanks for your input.

Installing the winter package is a pain in the ***

My suggestion is to closely follow the manual instructions given here http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=25044&st=40#commentsStart

Installation requires a software tool called a Generic Mod Enabler, e.g. this one http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Miscellaneous/Generic-Mod-Enabler.shtml

Other than that, I'm afraid you're very much on your own.

 

Apparently there are two reasons why Laminar have not (yet) integrated the winter textures:

 

1) X-plane in its current manifestation simply doesn't have the technology to allow user friendly texture switching

2) Laminar are contemplating a more modern approach to incorporating seasonal textures (rather than simply swapping), but as always it will take a lot of time to develop something entirely new ....

You're right Rat ... it is a pain in the *** I couldn't do it. I will just have to wait until they make improvements.

 

Question ... they say when the 1st disk is not in the machine X Plane goes to demo mode ... what is the difference between the two with or without the first disk?

The demo mode only comes with scenery for the Seattle area and it will ignore joystick input after 15 minutes. Otherwise, demo and full version are identical.

 

That said, X-plane only asks for the DVD every 10 days or so, so most of the time you can use the full version of X-Plane, even without the first disk.

I was wondering why it never ask for the disk. Well that makes it nice when you have it installed on two different machines like I do. I'm trying to set up a IR Tracker with FreeTrack but so far no luck. I'm having trouble setting up the software and getting it to work. I think I saw some kind of IR Tracking for X Plane on sale I have to check it out.