X-plane looks much better than P3d and FSX!

[757 Fanatic]

Scenery is just a small part of a flight simulator. And for me, it's one of the lesser

worried about aspects, being I'm more worried about the flight dynamics, cockpit

fidelity and such. You also have to consider the real weather programs, which I

haven't looked into for Xplane, being as I don't run it. But as an example, I don't

recall ASN being able to run under Xplane. Xplane has built in WX, but I don't know

how accurate it is. How good is the ATC and such in Xplane?

 

It's taking PMDG a long time to develop planes for it because it's a totally different

animal than FSX/P3D. But they are developing them. The DC-7 will be the first PMDG

plane to run under Xplane.

And I don't really agree with the statement that the flight dynamics are more realistic

in Xplane than the other sims. Both platforms can be good or bad. It just depends on

how well the individual planes are set up and modeled.

IE: I bet the present PMDG 777 or 737 are likely just as or more accurate under FSX

than any of the large jets currently being run under Xplane.

 

I bet the A2A Cessna's are just as or more accurate under FSX than the ones being

run under Xplane. I've always felt the accuracy was more dependent on the individual

modeling of the planes, than the platform they are run on.

I'm not too dazzled by Austin's "blade element theory". It all sounds good on paper,

but I feel it's just as possible to churn out a bad flying artificial aircraft using it, as

it is with the methods used by FSX/P3D.

 

How is the user interface? I've heard some claim it's a tad clunky to get around as

far as views and such vs FSX, but being I don't use it, I couldn't say...

 

Myself, I have nothing against Xplane, and certainly no hate for it.

The main reason I've never used it is because I remember when he first started

the Xplane sim, and how far ahead the MS sim was when he did. MS had many years

head start on him, and as long as MS kept in the sim business, he had little realistic

chance of catching up. And it showed when comparing the two sims through the years.

It's only been in the last few years since MS bailed out, that he's caught up a little bit.

 

Has Xplane caught up? Some think so. Some think no, not yet. Particularly when you

consider the recent 3rd party stuff for FSX/P3D.

 

It's come down to user preference at this stage. Myself, I'm mostly worried about

airplane fidelity, and being I fly the artificial 737 a lot, at this point, FSX/P3D have

the most advanced and accurate 737's. Ditto for the 777, and some others.

So it's pretty much a no brainer which sim I'm going to stick with at this time.

 

Could that change in the future? Yes.. But being FSX is no longer stagnant with

Lockheed upgrading it, who knows what I will end up with after I finally ditch FSX.

This is the same reason why I never went to P3D after it came out. My usual PMDG

aircraft wouldn't run under it. They will now, but it will cost me three arms and a leg

to fully convert over to P3D, with the pro license needed to be legal, and then I have

to pay for the aircraft all over again. So I'm in no big rush to switch to P3D either.

And to be honest, I still don't see a large enough difference between FSX and P3D to

make it worth spending all that dough to change over. I'll still be running the exact

same airplanes with the exact same cockpits. Any graphic improvements is just minor

eye candy to me.

 

Anyway, it's just user preference these days. If you like Xplane, go for it.

 

BTW, this is a lot like the Windows vs Linux deal.. I have a friend of mine who

constantly pesters me about running Windows when I could be running his beloved

Linux.. :p

But I don't choose my OS first, and then the apps.. I choose the apps first, and then

run whatever OS is required to run them. Basically the same deal as the sim scenario

these days.

 

I just can't get over the fact that FSX/P3D are 32 bit. If I were to buy the GTX Titan X and the Intel® Core™ i7-4790K Processor, 8M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz, I feel like 90% of the GPU will be wasted, while the processor will still produce 20FPS with all the addons and other junk I've installed over the years. I don't like this bottleneck and it's enough to keep me from playing both platforms however realistic the PMDG airplanes are. X-plane, however limited, is fresh and new. It's graphics aren't as good as those in ORBX but at a distance I find X-plane to be much more enjoyable to look at - especially how the auto-gen is arranged into realistic looking grid patterns. For the same visual detail, X-plane gives at least 20 more frames than FSX. I got a steady 50-60FPS on the trial maxed out. It feels liberating to have the eye candy without having to tweak all the time. The only thing that's keeping me playing FSX is like you said, the PMDG aircraft and some of the ORBX airports/scenery. As soon as PMDG make their NGX/777 compatible with X-plane, and Laminar fix the draw distance issue that produces blurry terrain at high altitudes, I won't look back at FSX (Apparently this will be fixed in the next patch however) The joys of playing on a 64bit application far surpass the constraints of a 32 bit one in my opinion.

[757 Fanatic]

Right now, I have FSX. FSX-SE and Prepar3d and I use FSX and P3D almost all the time....I have taken the advice of many on this site and paid lots of money to get a computer professionally built that can fly flight sims.....people on this site are right...I cannot put the sliders at max and be successful as the sim will either crash or something during a flight.. but I am happy with the aforementioned sims and that is it for me.... plus the addons for them seem to keep coming as I get emails daily from places about new products....al v

 

This is precisely the reason why I'm moving to X-plane. It would be sickening to see a GTX Titan X and intel i7 4.4GHZ produce 20 FPS in FSX or P3D. What a waste. Not even the BEST GPU and CPU is good enough! And all for what? A PMDG aircraft? I'd rather play the X-plane 777/757 at 60 FPS on a 64 bit application which runs butter smooth - both are study sims like the PMDG, though their textures aren't quite as realistic. The PMDG planes would be better served in X-plane which has better flight model than FSX anyway.

[757 Fanatic]

I apologize for my previous post if I came across like an ass. I should learn not to post on a forum when I haven't had adequate sleep...Lol.

 

Whichever version you prefer is fine. I've been a MSFS user since 2002 so that's where my loyalty lies..

 

I did not sense any hostility in your reply. I just interpreted it as a typical 'laid back' American persona. I can remember playing MSFS 98 way back when I was 6 years old. I have phases with flight sims. Sometimes I don't play at all for months, but other times I can play for weeks at a time. Same goes for other games I guess.

[loki]

The PMDG planes would be better served in X-plane which has better flight model than FSX anyway.

 

No, the flight model isn't better. Different yes, but neither is a clear winner over the other. Both can be used for very accurate flight modelling, and both have their problems. It really comes down to the aircraft developers rather than the underlying sim engine.

[757 Fanatic]

No, the flight model isn't better. Different yes, but neither is a clear winner over the other. Both can be used for very accurate flight modelling, and both have their problems. It really comes down to the aircraft developers rather than the underlying sim engine.

 

You may be right. I don't know myself. I'm only repeating what's been said about the model of X-plane on YouTube.

[loki]

You may be right. I don't know myself. I'm only repeating what's been said about the model of X-plane on YouTube.

 

That's like listening to, and believing, a car salesman tell you how great the cars he's selling are. :)

 

Each sim approaches flight modelling from different directions, but both are still approximations of the real world. No computer, let alone a desktop PC, is capable of modelling flight with 100% accuracy.

 

To elaborate a little, many people get caught up with X-Plane being FAA certified, without fully understanding what it means. First, accurate flight modelling is actually not a top requirement for FAA certification, and secondly, there are FAA certified sims based on Microsoft's ESP and Lockheed's Prepar3D, which are based on the same sim engine as FSX.

 

http://simulators.redbirdflight.com/

[ftldave]

I think a better representation would be some screen shots at lower altitude in X-Plane.

 

Hasn't Saint Austin himself said that X-Plane is a flying simulator, not a "flight environment" simulator, and that's why stock urban scenery has the single houses and 1-city-block size yards? I flew XP 8 and 9, enjoyed the variety of concept planes, but FSX scenery and the amazing third-party support plus abundant freeware made me switch. As I've griped before, I find the whole cult-of-personality thing with X-Plane's creator to be tiresome. It seems that if Saint Austin doesn't think it's important, it doesn't get fixed or changed in X-Plane. The labyrinthine user interface comes to mind.

 

Ease-of-use factor is a pitfall in X-Plane, too. Configuration and adjustments in X-Plane require much more effort and tech savvy, and surely that's limited its popularity. For example, I bet I spent over 2 hours just setting up my Saitek gear in X-Plane, and I don't think I ever got it all set quite right. With FSX, it took all of about 15 to 20 minutes.

[757 Fanatic]

I think a better representation would be some screen shots at lower altitude in X-Plane.

 

Hasn't Saint Austin himself said that X-Plane is a flying simulator, not a "flight environment" simulator, and that's why stock urban scenery has the single houses and 1-city-block size yards? I flew XP 8 and 9, enjoyed the variety of concept planes, but FSX scenery and the amazing third-party support plus abundant freeware made me switch. As I've griped before, I find the whole cult-of-personality thing with X-Plane's creator to be tiresome. It seems that if Saint Austin doesn't think it's important, it doesn't get fixed or changed in X-Plane. The labyrinthine user interface comes to mind.

 

Ease-of-use factor is a pitfall in X-Plane, too. Configuration and adjustments in X-Plane require much more effort and tech savvy, and surely that's limited its popularity. For example, I bet I spent over 2 hours just setting up my Saitek gear in X-Plane, and I don't think I ever got it all set quite right. With FSX, it took all of about 15 to 20 minutes.

 

Hello there - Well I disagree with Austin somewhat. While the stock autogen is limited to a few houses and trailer parks, the fact that they take on structure and organisation in the sim is what makes them look more convincing and realistic (In my opinion) than the random smattering of autogen in FSX. I do know ORBX Europe improves upon the stock autogen by arranging towns and cities into more orderly and convincing assemblages, but even so, there is something particularly striking about the arrangement of the X-plane stock autogen that I find aesthetically pleasing. I play a lot of city builders and am used to building in grid patterns and linear patterns as seen in X-plane, which could perhaps explain my fondness for its autogen.

 

That said, check out this project developed by an X-plane user (for free of course):

 

I think it's in BETA and is unfinished, but will hopefully give more variation as well as providing an authentic European aesthetic when flying over Europe.

 

http://world2xplane.com/

[BS616]

When I decided to get back into flight simming, I checked out both P3D and X-Plane. Ultimately I went P3D:

Because to me it looked better than XP at low and slow which is what I do much of the time.

Because P3D looked to have a more active development cycle.

Because I've been flying FS since pretty much the beginning so I could get back up to speed with it fairly fast.

Because P3D was cheaper since it had good whole-world scenery built into it already.

 

The main thing I thought X-Plane had going for it was it had already been converted to 64 bit and I hope it gets more work from the developers. I can't see spending money on x-plane now, but sometime in the future, sure, if it improves. It's good there is an alternative to P3D (and FSX) hopefully the competition will keep both development teams on their toes, though technically they are for different markets in reality they do compete.

 

To really compare the scenery of P3D and X-Plane you would need screen shots taken from the same locations but even then it's going to be a subjective opinion as both are quite good and a long way from the old blue sky/green ground CGA days.

[BenMAHOO]

The reason I have not considered switching from FS to X-Plane is because familiarity. I have been a FS user since FS98, and since I have been a user for that long I have became familiar with the sim in general. My transitions from FS98 all the way down to FS2004 have been smooth because of my experience with the files and the sim. I love the ability to have Activesky, REX, ORBX and many great developers who create great stuff for the MSFS community, although these developers create their products for MSFS, we have seen some developers such as Carenado create products for X-Plane as well. So, am I saying that if you are using X-Plane, you are using a sim that nobody uses. No, im not saying that. All of us use the sim that we prefer. And that is the great thing about this community. Thats what i believe.

[757 Fanatic]

When I decided to get back into flight simming, I checked out both P3D and X-Plane. Ultimately I went P3D:

Because to me it looked better than XP at low and slow which is what I do much of the time.

Because P3D looked to have a more active development cycle.

Because I've been flying FS since pretty much the beginning so I could get back up to speed with it fairly fast.

Because P3D was cheaper since it had good whole-world scenery built into it already.

 

The main thing I thought X-Plane had going for it was it had already been converted to 64 bit and I hope it gets more work from the developers. I can't see spending money on x-plane now, but sometime in the future, sure, if it improves. It's good there is an alternative to P3D (and FSX) hopefully the competition will keep both development teams on their toes, though technically they are for different markets in reality they do compete.

 

To really compare the scenery of P3D and X-Plane you would need screen shots taken from the same locations but even then it's going to be a subjective opinion as both are quite good and a long way from the old blue sky/green ground CGA days.

 

My only problem with ORBX FTX Global and OpenLC is that despite maxing out the graphics, there is always a 'dead zone' in which there is no autogen - only blurry textures. Sure, if you rotate the camera and look at the scenery from above, it is stunning... However, the scenery just fades out prematurely despite having detail radius set to large when you look at it from the horizontal plane.

[regnaD kciN]

"A zillion times better"…??? Give me a break! Screenshot 5 in your original post is the dead giveaway -- I live in the Seattle area, and can say with absolutely no doubt that screenshot 5 looks NOTHING AT ALL like the Seattle area, while the same area in screenshot 1 (FSX) looks quite accurate.

 

In general, it strikes me that X-Plane tries to make areas look "prettier" than they actually are, generally by making them look more rural with lots of deeply-saturated greens That's fine if your favored area is out in the country, but, if it's near a large city, X-Plane's scenery will look utterly unrealistic. I prefer the area near where I live for most of my casual flying, and, even if everything else about X-Plane was perfect, the experience of flying around my home area while always being confronted with it all being so laughably wrong would keep me far, far away. (And, from what little I've been able to see in terms of X-Plane add-on scenery for Seattle, it's still got a LOOOOOOOONG way to go.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[RatRace]

Hasn't Saint Austin himself said that X-Plane is a flying simulator, not a "flight environment" simulator, and that's why stock urban scenery has the single houses and 1-city-block size yards? I flew XP 8 and 9, enjoyed the variety of concept planes, but FSX scenery and the amazing third-party support plus abundant freeware made me switch. As I've griped before, I find the whole cult-of-personality thing with X-Plane's creator to be tiresome. It seems that if Saint Austin doesn't think it's important, it doesn't get fixed or changed in X-Plane.

 

Ben Supnik is in charge of developing sceneries these days, or rather, the tools (like WorldEditor and Meshtool) that help others to build XP sceneries.

 

Ben does a lot of hard work and does listen to users, and although it's true that Austin still feels that it's up to others to provide stunning sceneries (which is exactly what ORBX is doing for FSX/P3D anyway), one should give Ben Supnik the credit that he rightly deserves.

[lefu]

I took a look at the forum web page seconds ago

 

XPLANE 10 viewing

FSX 205 viewing

 

Just saying...

[mmann]

And, from what little I've been able to see in terms of X-Plane add-on scenery for Seattle, it's still got a LOOOOOOOONG way to go.

 

This is the unfortunate thing about flying in an area that you are intimately familiar with. I know and love Vancouver Island, yet it pains me to fly it with Orbx PNW in FSX. Orbx may have got most of the coastline and roads right but all the cities and towns are 100% generic. All the airports have only generic buildings and there are some small heliports and airstrips that are missing completely.

 

I think I'm going to have to fly in New Zealand, which I have never visited in real life!:)

[davidjones]

I guess, before this gets locked, I've got to wonder why it isn't in the X-Plane forum?

 

DJ

[RatRace]

I guess, before this gets locked, I've got to wonder why it isn't in the X-Plane forum?

DJ

 

Yup, we could sure use the traffic LOL

[sford]

Yup, we could sure use the traffic LOL

 

Have someone start the thread: "FSX looks much better than X-plane!" ;)

[DominicS]

Hi chaps,

 

I've moved this post to a more appropriate forum. Nice to see the different views being posted here, lets just keep everything nice and pleasant though;)

 

Cheers

 

Dom

[evm]

This is precisely the reason why I'm moving to X-plane. It would be sickening to see a GTX Titan X and intel i7 4.4GHZ produce 20 FPS in FSX or P3D. What a waste. Not even the BEST GPU and CPU is good enough! And all for what? A PMDG aircraft? I'd rather play the X-plane 777/757 at 60 FPS on a 64 bit application which runs butter smooth - both are study sims like the PMDG, though their textures aren't quite as realistic. The PMDG planes would be better served in X-plane which has better flight model than FSX anyway.

 

Err. 64/32 bit has nothing to do with hardware utilization. A true simulator is by definition CPU heavy, as it is not a pretty-pictures-generator. No GPU oh so mighty can help when the simulator has to calculate the flight paths of 100s of AI planes plus the ATC guiding them plus the whole weather situation including wind plus a very complex flight model of your own plane plus a myriad of interconnected systems while providing voice controlled FO's and ATC while... and do this convincingly. Know what I mean? If you want something simulated, then you need to provide raw processing power, nothing else counts (except code optimization of course). 64 bit can help, because you can keep inifinite amounts of data in the fast RAM for your calculations, but necessary it is not. Those Titans help with the modern games that are more like movie generators really. They draw pretty pictures of things to look believable, and most don't claim otherwise.

 

The deal breakers for me were, that X-plane has no seasons, the ATC is beyond terrible, the weather does not look real and I just hated those 747s taxiing to takeoff in LIEO. Plus I didn't get it to work really well with my three screen setup and TrackIr. And - try to use that UI with a trackball - I got the cramps. So the XP10 DVDs are sitting comfortably on the shelf.

[rwelch]

If you are still looking for scenery for x-plane go to x-plane.org,flightsim.com,a sim.They have planes and scenery down loads.

Also check out CAX virtual. The oldest X-plane Virtual Va.

[ScatterbrainKid]

..FSX is like a mix of different melted ice-cream. It's all blurry and muddy at a distance..

 

Natural haze on the horizon is realistic anyway, but if you don't want it you can get rid of it easy enough in several ways, for example by upping the visibility slider.

Here's an FSX default scenery screenshot on my monitor, it looks alright to me-

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub2/FSX-fps45A_zpszhkuzmgk.jpg~original

[DominicS]

Hi chaps,

 

This is a discussion which (by experience) will simply go round and round:D

 

Everybody expects different things from their sim, so with that being the case, I'd spend your time in the air rather than trying to persuade others that this sim is better than that.

 

Far more enjoyable and....relaxing;)

 

Cheers

 

Dom

[Bobsk8]

After almost 30 years flying flight sims and a licensed pilot, I tried x plane and was sadly disappointed. especially if you like flying GA planes with the quality of the A2A C 172 or Cherokee. Nothing in X plane comes close. I just switched to P3D and really like the stability of this program, pretty good scenery, airports that look like airports, and a good choice of excellent flying aircraft.

[GoranM]

After almost 30 years flying flight sims and a licensed pilot, I tried x plane and was sadly disappointed. especially if you like flying GA planes with the quality of the A2A C 172 or Cherokee. Nothing in X plane comes close. I just switched to P3D and really like the stability of this program, pretty good scenery, airports that look like airports, and a good choice of excellent flying aircraft.

 

Assuming you tried payware in both sims. And you weren't comparing FSX payware to X-Plane default.

I'm sure we'd all be interested in what add ons you used in X-Plane.