Elvensmith

Likewise here. I have a lazy left eye (it can't even read the top letter at the opticians) which can't be corrected by glasses. I am okay to drive as the right eye compensates but I would imagine VR would not be very effective. In addition I am prone to severe optical disturbances if I focus on a close point for any length of time (possibly a variation on optical migraine, but unable to get an appointment at the hospital eye clinic to confirm due to ongoing Covid-19) so I am not about to try anything that might aggravate or trigger that. Finally my wife already complains about getting my attention when on the PC, so wearing a VR headset is unlikely to improve her view of that...

Don't we already have a release date thread? Anyhoo… almost certain I'm only buying the standard edition, can't really justify an extra £50 for a few prop planes and one modern tubeliner plus airports that will more than likely still look reasonable in their default version. At the moment as regards purchase, I'm inclined to wait and see if MS also release via Steam. Most of my current games (apart from EA titles) are on that platform and I really don't want another DRM jacket with associated passwords etc. on my PC if I can help it. If the boxed version makes an appearance on Amazon UK, I might be tempted by that, though.

My thoughts too, Iain. Is one out of the extra airports you are likely to use a few times and another modern tubeliner, worth another £50? I'm sure the default Heathrow will suffice for most purposes and my interest is more in older jets - 727's, DC10's, Tristars etc. Now if the bonus aircraft had included a L-1011 I might have been tempted! And while the images and video clips of the included aircraft look to be of a better standard than previous versions (with the Dyson vacuum cleaner jet spool sound), once the add-ons come out they will be left in the hangar.

The only advice I can give, is the crash model is so forgiving you can pretty much touch down anywhere. The autopilot is a joke, particularly when you resume a flight it is all switched off. The only thing I did note is that if you're doing an ILS approach you need to have both the Loc and App engaged, unlike FS where generally the App function tracks both the direction and glideslope. Quickest uninstall of a £36 piece of software I've ever done.

Actually Nels, give this kid his VR forum then he can go and talk to himself with his multiple accounts and stop spamming the rest of the board. Or better still, ban his accounts and block the IP address.

No interest in VR whatsoever here, Nels.

Personally I will be heading to the far north - Svalbard/Longyear. The scenery is really beautiful up there even in FSX with default land class. A nice flight in the A320 across to Kirkenes or Murmansk.

The Standard edition frankly will suit my needs, in terms of additional aircraft the only one outside that version I would have been interested in was the 787. Will be curious to see what $60 translates into for £sterling - probably £60 allowing for exchange rates and VAT. Hopefully it will be on Steam which is probably the most effective way of buying. Boxed edition is nice but I don't really fancy installing 90Gb of data from disc - been there done that once with GTA V and it was a long tedious process. August 18th is not that far away and my only concern is as the sim moves out of alpha, it doesn't leave much time for beta testing and the gold phase. Must admit I'm getting quite pumped for this. Edit: Just checked MS UK site and RRP for the Standard Edition will be £59.99. £109.99 for the Deluxe.

A little later than the 80's but there was some great stuff in the early 90's. I cut my teeth on F16 Combat Pilot and Thalion Airbus A320 on the Amiga along with some of the Microprose sims including Gunship 2000. Graduated to the PC and along came classics like Tornado, TFX and of course the various Janes titles (Longbow 2 being my favourite). Civvie wise I remember being so excited installing FS5 along with a UK scenery pack from FS4, the imagination went into overdrive with the 32 colour graphics and pyramids for hills. Today we are well served for civilian flight sims but not so good if you want a military game with a dynamic campaign.

That's the one... Somehow, I think I stirred a hornet's nest with what was to me quite an innocent question. At least part of the problem is that people don't seem to have actually read my comments and just assumed I wanted fireballs. Quite agree there are circumstances where you might need to land off a runway, but doing that in a heavy tube liner is almost certain to end in disaster. They got lucky on the Potomac, but in essence it was still a "crash" in that it terminated the flight and the aircraft needed a tow (!)...

No I don't mean twisted metal and charred bodies everywhere... However I just had a debate which I think I lost over at XPlane dot org regarding the fight model of XP11 being far too forgiving of situations that in real world aviation would have crashed the aircraft, resulting in a partial or total loss of the airframe and in many cases the souls on board. I've been flying sims since F16 Combat Pilot (military) and Thalion A320 (civvie) on the Amiga in 1992. The one constant of all these sims/games is that if you mishandle the aircraft, accidentally or deliberately you will crash and lose the flight/aircraft. Heck the least forgiving was probably DI's Tornado, particularly if you hadn't dropped your JP233 runway perforator, if you touched down even slightly over the maximum FPM. With MSFS, we get a choice in the realism settings to turn crashes on and off and impose stresses on the airframe from excessive manoeuvring. However XP11 will not even terminate the flight if you come down tail first in a forest at >2000 fpm. The plane just carries on at 130 knots along the ground. Doesn't even have collision detection with buildings. Like I say, I'm not going to win the argument over at the XP forum so thought I would throw it open to wider debate here, in an arena that encompasses all branches of the hobby. I fully accept that putting an aircraft into an un-recoverable situation should be optional, but without that where's the incentive to do it right, or that white knuckle moment followed by the sense of elation when you make a particularly difficult visual landing and stop on a narrow short field?

I've been continuing to explore X Plane 11 since purchasing it in the Steam sale and while there is much to like - the default scenery and airports as noted above are much better than FSX. There's also no nightmare trying to optimise and run on Windows 10 and modern hardware, especially 4K graphics and monitor. However there are so many warts, IMHO it is more of a flight game than a simulation. Or to put it another way, in train sim terms it's the flight sim equivalent of Trainz, vs. MSTS or the DTG TS being equivalent to MSTS. There is just so much wrong with the default in XP11 that it really doesn't justify the near £50 full selling price - the wonky autopilot that doesn't resume on loading a save. Latest is the near non existent crash detection. Twice now I've come down short on a difficult approach and whereas FS9 or FSX would have rattled the joystick and given game over, XP11 simply continues along the ground passing through buildings and trees as if they weren't there. Frankly, that makes a mockery of taking landing seriously if you don't get those white knuckle moments as you approach the runway maybe slightly off, if you can just put the plane down anywhere and coolly taxi to the terminal from the city centre! :) Unfortunately it has taken well over 2 hours to appreciate this, so the option to refund XP11 has long since expired.

Duplicate post.

I just bought X Plane 11 due to increasing difficulty running FSX/FSX SE on modern PC, especially with a 4K monitor hooked up. Although initially out the box it impresses, it didn't take long to discover there are many warts and wrinkles under the hood. Whether it's not being able to tone down the P factor taking off in a hedge trimmer or the autopilot failing to load in its previous state when resuming a flight (plus if you start cold and dark the engines are off in mid flight), I find myself longing for the MSFS experience and beginning to think I wasted £31 on XP11. I certainly wouldn't rate XP11 as being worth the full asking price. I got as far as downloading the Zibo, but briefly looking through the instructions might need a Phd in something to set up, let alone fly. Generally there seems less community support for XP, the forums here are very quiet and while I created myself an account at XP dot org you have to tread very carefully over there and not be too critical (I got flamed for asking why the Zibo was only available on Google drive and not also hosted here and/or at Avsim). So I think, subject to not costing an arm and a leg and while probably not a Day 1 purchase, once FS2020 comes out, that will be getting pride of place and XP11 will be pensioned off to Stansted or even uninstalled.

I am new to X Plane 11 and this seems to be a bit of an issue - there is no obvious option to tone down the P factor as you have in MSFS. I've since switched to the jets but that brings a whole other list of little quirks to deal with!

Edit - solved. Paypal is for donation only. Has to be downloaded from Google drive as explained on the Xplane org forum.

Due to the Google file having exceeded its bandwidth, I opted for the Paypal method. However I didn't get a redirect to the file or an automatic email with a download link. Should I be worried or is the link sent manually?

Yep it's pretty nice, tried my first flight in the 737 last night and (IMHO) the night time graphics are much superior to default FS9 or FSX. Still a few wrinkles though - ground brakes don't seem to work on a press and release basis like the "." key in FS and attempting pushback I got warnings about trying a different airport or terminal! There seems to be a lack of (as in none) lessons for flying the heavy iron in the Tutorial secion.

Okay well I took the plunge as with the £5 voucher plus Steam Sale it was a snip at £31. To answer my own questions, yes it is 64 bit, in fact I believe it is only 64 bit. No issues with menu size or font scaling on 4K monitor running at 3840 x 2160 resolution. Performance wise, most things turned on or fairly high. A couple of times I got warnings about being unable to achieve target frame rate, but seemed nice and smooth to me. At the moment I've just played a few of the tutorials and a bit of free flight in the microlight and C172. Certainly enjoying it though a couple of (minor) niggles which I'm sure is just a case of transitioning from MSFS ideology to Laminar philosophy... No built in flight planner is a bit of a PITA but a bit of detective work found a couple of external sites that will generate plans which can then be imported to the GPS or presumably FMC on the jets. Joystick configuration is a bit tricky as is taming the sensitivity. Still a work in progress finding the sweet spot. Along with that, seems no option to tone down the P factor which makes taking off in the propeller planes a bit hairy. At least while learning the game, it would be nice to have this as a choice. No pilot log or career record (unless I haven't found it yet). On the plus side, I found manual/visual landings much easier than in the various MSFS versions, at least the few I've attempted so far.

Getting increasingly frustrated trying to get FSX:SE running on modern hardware and as my sim flying is for recreational (fun!) not educational purposes I don't qualify for P3D, was thinking of grabbing X-Plane 11 while it's still on sale. However before dropping +-£37, could anyone clarify on the following? How optimised is it for modern hardware? Is it 64 bit and therefore take advantage of my 24Gb RAM? How does it run on a 4K monitor, namely does it suffer from the fixed size menu and fonts which make FSX extremely difficult to use at 3840 x 2160 resolution and make the start menu box tiny? My system spec is I7 4770 @3.5Ghz (stock), GTX 1650 with 2Gb RAM Windows 10 and as mentioned 24Gb system RAM. Can I expect reasonable performance? Any answers (sensible if possible!) appreciated, please.

That's more like it, Rob!

200 £, $ or whatever is not going to get MS many customers, regardless of how good it is! It needs to be pitched so that not only veteran and hardcore simmers are their only customers, they should be looking to expand the user base. Not forgetting we are entering a period of great financial uncertainty following the (still ongoing) Covid-19 pandemic when many people are likely to be losing their jobs or finding themselves in lower paid jobs. That is not really the right time to be releasing a £200 game (or even an £80 game)!

Actually I did toy with putting £100 in my OP but thought, no even MS wouldn't pitch at three figures. Maybe my £80 will be about right which I would in all likelihood pay, though as a one off not with any caveat of ongoing subscription. It may be they will sell the core sim cheaper but keep a tight hold on DLC, to bring in the extra revenue. People will come, to quote Field Of Dreams. After all, a large number of Trainz customers parted with £55 for N3V's latest regurgitation of their software (TRS2019), myself included! Hopefully we will know more in a month or two.

Watching some of the latest clips on You Tube showing the Flightaware plug in and the stupendous graphics I nevertheless started to get a sinking feeling as to what this is likely to cost. I just cannot see how they can offer all this for a conventional game price of around £40 (US$50) that the higher end titles tend to go for. My smart money is on a minimum of £60 (around US$70) but wouldn't be surprised to see it come in around £80 or more for a deluxe version with all bells and whistles. Bigger sinking feeling is that they will want some sort of ongoing subscription. The rub of it is, they know we will pay it too, in order to get an up to date flight simulator that runs on modern hardware without having to play around to get it working or squint at tiny menu boxes (FSX launcher!) on a 4K screen. And as regards Flightaware, great idea but what happens down the road if/when there is a falling out or one of the parties decides they no longer want to continue the service. We already had that in existing FS9/FSX with the Jep real weather, so could happen again.

Not sure. Anyway it runs quite well, albeit at 3840 x 2160 it kind of still suffers from the same UI issues that FSX and FS9 do in UHD/4K - some of the on screen detail is just too small to make out. I will have to experiment with a slightly lower resolution - obviously something DTG never got round to sorting. Good for pottering around as a scenery viewer in GA, particularly over the more detailed areas.