Joining the club.

[Keith Smith]

Chris, you might want to upgrade to 8.40 (or wait for 8.50 which is going to have much better water!)...

 

Let me know what kinda of stick/yoke you have and I'll post a suggested button [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ignment.

 

Keith

[Christopher Serio 823884]

First of all, you can't compare FS9 to X-Plane. FS9 is a game....even microsoft considers it a game. X-Plane is a simulator. That means that comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Games are usually very easy to control. You have a set amount of keys for a set amount of functions and you have some goal or criteria to meet at the end. Simulators are designed to recreate reality and any strange combination of things that are possible. Because of that, they're extremely complex.

 

Let me state some facts:

 

1) FS9 currently has airport scenery and X-Plane does not (that will change very very soon). So to come from FS9 and be dissappointed with X-Planes airport appearance is understandable....Again though, airport scenery was not the goal of the X-Plane design. Accurate aircraft modelling was. That's starting to change in the future but these things take some time.

 

2) X-Plane's default aircraft are not realistic. I've gotten into all kinds of arguments and disputes with X-Plane people about why on earth they ship with aircraft that are many many years old that DON'T display the sim's capabilities but I never can get a satisfying answer. The point is, they're default aircraft and they're not supposed to demonstrate what the sim is capable of...they will not knock your socks off for sure but don't judge the sim based on them. On the other hand, look at FS9's default aircraft. They're just as laughable and unrealistic. It takes authors YEARS to make aircraft that are realistic and that are pretty (LDS767, PMDG etc) but that's no thanks to FS9...that's because they are some talented programmers. X-Plane makes it MUCH easier to make realistic aircraft since the realism is built into the sim and plane authors don't have to build it into their aircraft.

 

3) X-Plane does not have a polished user experience. Pretty menus with organized and intuitive control are not something you're going to find in X-Plane. Again, it's getting better everyday but it's still poor in my opinion. BUT....it's not a game...It's a simulator. Have you ever seen the settings on a real LevelD simulator at Flight Safety? It'll make you sick it's so complicated? Why? Because it's a simulator designed to offer an enormous amount of flexibility and options. X-Plane is much more aligned with that. FS9 is more aligned with the common user....But then again, how many common users can actually tell the difference between a C-172's performance in FS9 vs. X-Plane? Not many! If you can't tell the difference then maybe X-Plane is not right for you.

 

4) If i haven't stressed this enough, X-Plane is designed to model aircraft performance, FS9 is designed to look real and attract a lot people who know very little about flying so they can make a lot of money. BUT, X-Plane is starting to catch up fast. Yes the airport scenery is quite poor right now but i think the default global scenery in X-Plane destroys the FS9 default scenery. The terrain mesh resolution on X-Plane is about 3 times finer than FS9. Check it out: http://www.global-scenery.org/index2.html that's all default scenery. As i've said, the tools to make great airport scenery are coming soon. Can't wait? There's tools to bring FS scenery into X-Plane. Try http://marginal.org.uk/x-planescenery/tools.html and http://www.fsimp.com/

 

5) X-Plane's CPU/Memory performance blow FS9 out of the water. X-Plane can literally run on on a lower power tablet PC. I know people are using it on 800MHz PC's as well. It's not something i recommend but it runs because it's extremely efficient. On my machine with add-on scenery in the boston area, i get ~30fps in FS9. With the exact same scenery in X-Plane i get over 70fps. I've even done tests for XTower where i've had addon scenery and about 50 aircraft in the airport area flying around and i was still about 50fps. Try THAT in FS9!

 

So here's the bottom line...FS9 and X-Plane are very different beasts. I own them both and I use them both. They have a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. Comparing them is not always fair because their reason for existance is totally different. Have an open mind when you use X-Plane. Try to forget everythign you know about FS9. Get some 3rd party aircraft and try converting some scenery. One is not superior to the other overall IMO however if you're a real pilot or you just like aircraft to fly to the numbers like their supposed to, X-Plane is superior. If you're just an aviation enthusiast and can't tell the difference anyway....and if you just want to load up a sim, hop in the plane and find your house....FS9 is going to give you the user experience that you want.

[Ben Supnik]

Hi y'all,

 

I can only add two things to Chris's comments...

 

1. I don't think we will instantly gain custom 3-d airports in 850. We will gain the POTENTIAL to have 3-d detailed airports in 8.50, but how fast we get them depends on how fast these technologies are adopted. Jonathan Harris has provided some great tools - hopefully once 850 is out I can get ot writing some tools too.

 

2. In my experience X-Plane runs pretty efficiently...but tuning the settings make a big difference...so if you're using MSFS and try the default x-plane demo, you may want to experiment with the settings, including "world level of distance" (turning this down can improve fps a lot) and texture compression (turning it on saves a lot of VRAM).

 

*Cheers*

Ben

[Chris Gauthier 895085]

Chris, you might want to upgrade to 8.40 (or wait for 8.50 which is going to have much better water!)...

 

Let me know what kinda of stick/yoke you have and I'll post a suggested button [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ignment.

 

Keith

 

I actually upgraded to 8.40. With the single DVD setup that I have, does this mean I can't fly on Mars? I thought I saw scenery for Mars on the DVD/hard drive, but am not sure. If it's there, then I think I may have a problem with my setup as it cannot find that scenery.

 

I run a varying combination between the CH Flight Yoke (USB, but I never use the levers on top of the yoke...clumsy placement), CH Throttle Quadrant, CH Rudder Pedals (USB), and a Logitech Force 3D Pro. On occasion, I actually hook up my Nostromo N50, but again.... I have to actually figure out a profile for it.

 

For me, figuring out button [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ignments and profiles is mind-numbingly complex. In reality, I know it is not, but this is my mind....not reality .

 

Btw, if anyone has a profile they like for the N50 for Xplane AND/OR ASRC/VRC, please let me know. I'm all ears!

 

Keith--thanks for the help!

[Chris Gauthier 895085]

First of all, you can't compare FS9 to X-Plane. FS9 is a game....even microsoft considers it a game. X-Plane is a simulator. That means that comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Games are usually very easy to control. You have a set amount of keys for a set amount of functions and you have some goal or criteria to meet at the end. Simulators are designed to recreate reality and any strange combination of things that are possible. Because of that, they're extremely complex.

 

I disagree. I consider both programs simulations AND games. I don't get on FS9 to practice my real-world flying. I start FS9 so I can go screw around and just have fun. I enjoy GA flying, so I am rarely in anything that would require a type rating. I fly on VATSIM, but I almost never fly IFR or visit the busy, busy airspaces. I'm there for a social experience than reality. The two products can be compared, as long as the comparison is done carefully and with regard to specific aspects of each, such as flight modeling and scenery details. That being said, I do agree that they do have different target audiences. I bought X-Plane primarily for two reasons: 1) Reportedly improved flight modeling. ("Reportedly" because I have not had a sufficient chance to experience it myself, but a lot of evidence to support the claim.) 2) X-Tower - I want to be able to visually control at a tower.

 

 

Let me state some facts:

 

So here's the bottom line...FS9 and X-Plane are very different beasts. I own them both and I use them both. They have a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. Comparing them is not always fair because their reason for existance is totally different. Have an open mind when you use X-Plane. Try to forget everythign you know about FS9. Get some 3rd party aircraft and try converting some scenery. One is not superior to the other overall IMO however if you're a real pilot or you just like aircraft to fly to the numbers like their supposed to, X-Plane is superior. If you're just an aviation enthusiast and can't tell the difference anyway....and if you just want to load up a sim, hop in the plane and find your house....FS9 is going to give you the user experience that you want.

 

Thank you for the insights. I (so far) don't necessarily agree with the performance issue because I'm having performance/crashing problems. I believe, though, that a lot of this could be resolved by tuning the X-Plane config and verifying video driver compatibility.

 

I am a real-world private pilot and an aviation enthusiast. I don't think you intended for them to be exclusive in your above statement, but that's how it came out. I also (because of my low-time and limited repitoire(sp?) of aircraft in my flying club [C-150M, PA-28-140B], I can't really tell you about the differences in many of the flight models bwtween the products. However, I do understand there are marked differences (esp in stalls, spins, helicopters(?) in some areas. Much of the time, I am just wanting to pop in a sim and fly around, look at some of the scenery, etc. I totally agree that neither is a superior product, but that they are just different prodcuts.

 

Thanks again,

 

Chris

[Chris Gauthier 895085]

2. In my experience X-Plane runs pretty efficiently...but tuning the settings make a big difference...so if you're using MSFS and try the default x-plane demo, you may want to experiment with the settings, including "world level of distance" (turning this down can improve fps a lot) and texture compression (turning it on saves a lot of VRAM).

 

I would be most interested in finding a really good tutorial on tweaking the settings. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 installed in an Asus A8V Deluxe w/2 GB dual-channel, matched corsair memory, 2x120 GB SATA Raid 0 HD, XP Pro SP2, SB Audigy Platinum. I have a good system for both FS and Xplane. I just need to tweak each programs configs better.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Since I've started this thread I will now hijack it back with my second opinion.

 

So I had X-plane 8.40 for some week now and I am both in love and a bit disapointed.

 

First of all there was this scenerything. I did buy the complete package with 60gig (that is alot) of scenery.

These dual layer DVDs did however "only" cover the earth. Mountains, some buildings and generally gave me a wonderful view when high up in the skies.

What they didn't provide (which was never announced) was airports. That means that not even big airports like LAX did have any scenery what so ever. Just a couple of runways. Not even taxisigns.

 

To solve this one had to download a freeware package called NYEXPRO which (atleast for the US) added scenery to many, many of the bigger airports. LAX was easily recognizeable. Just like in FS2004.

Also there is other downloadable scenery but so far I've noticed that there are alot less free software avaible for x-plane.

One big question remains tho - will I be taxiing on the taxiways or on the gr[Mod - Happy Thoughts]? Will I taxi trough buildings or stay at the correct gate? (From the FS9'ers point of view)

 

Why did I consider X-plane in the first place?

Well, I am a huge fan of realism. It's really that simple. And this is were my love comes in. It DOES simulate airplanes alot more accurate. I wouldn't say it's 100% but certainly alot better than FS9 which feels more or less like a game after flying with x-plane now for some week.

There are some projects going on for x-plane. Unfortunately it seems like they are spread out between individuals and it will only confuse new x-plane users. Take this apt.dat file as an example. They say it will add taxisigns to all airports.

I am not conviced. These kind of projects should be lead only by official instances. Laminar Research seems to not even bother. I mean, not even a link from the official site - www.x-plane.com. As of now I haven't installed apt.dat cause I simply can't find it. Laminar Research actually doesn't provide any information of anything. Which scenery would they recommend? What are the "must have" addons? They still brag about their shuttle (yeah how interessting).

 

Flying online? Yes, it works. I must however say that xsquawkbox feels like the normal squawkbox for FS9 while it was in version 1.0! I've also come across some bugs. Also annoying things like the server IPs wasn't provided as in SB for FS9.

But that is easy to find out with servinfo. I'm actually happy it worked as good as it did.

 

When flying online you are obligated to place yourself at a ramp or gate. Ok, that is possible at the bigger airports but on small ones like KAVX you are simply placed in the middle of the runway. Gee! You'll have to open the map and drag your plane to the gate. Not very impressive. Also this thing with pushback. Oh yeah - it doesn't exist! A basic and needed feature on vatsim. You have to download yet another privatly made addon just to be able to pushback. Kind of scary!

 

Back to the great things about x-plane.

* Smoothness. Oh my it's smooth. As I mentioned in another post I am soo amazed by the gagues. INSTANT update. No lag, no delay. They move all the time as if they were real. Oh I love the gauges. I can't explain this. But imagine FS9 gauges seems like Commodore 64 style in comparison.

 

* Realistic runways. Oh I like these too. There is a setting to make runways more life like. That means that they might slope or have bumps etc. This is really a feature I would like to recommend all to use for realism.

 

* Flight dynamics. Yeah. Like them. Not really 100% as I said but still amazing. FS9 users have nothing to say. Trust me I know now.

 

* Night fly-ins.. When approaching a big airport (with NYEXPRO installed) they actually feels more realistic than FS9. FS9 has better scenery, no doubt, but in this particular case I would say the opposite. Really nice lightning in x-plane.

 

Would I recommend x-plane? Yes, I would. If you have the money and are a huge fan of realism.

At this point (only my second opinion) I would not recommend it for the average vatsimmer tho if you are about to choose between buying FS9 and XP. In short you are paying $69 for flight dynamics - nothing more. You'll get so much more in FS9. Flightschool, huge information library, almost every airport and scenery with it and the most important thing:

AN ENORMOUS world of free software. Hundreds of planes, thousands of sceneries.. You name it! Also well developed addons like SquawkBox 3.1 and FSInn. (I wouldn't say xsb is bad but it's a bit behind for obvious reasons)

 

As of now I will certainly use X-plane when flying online, atleast for general aviation VFR flights.

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Or just download NYXPRO from x-plane.org, that's what i did.

I would not recommend NYEXPRO at this point IF you are a happy owner of the new Scenery DVDs.. I noticed today that NYEXPRO did overwrite much of the beautiful scenery around the airport itself.

I was checking the screenshots for San Diego and "hey. It doesn't look like that for me!?".. I removed the NYEXPRO directory from my addon scenery and *poof* I had nice, nice scenery around the airport. No terminal buildings tho.

 

I did however find some smaller scenery addons for some of my favourite airports.

[Peter Larsen 885332]

Sadly you can't use the smart airports (like overlays) without Global scenery and i do not have that .

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Sadly you can't use the smart airports (like overlays) without Global scenery and i do not have that .

Enlighten me.. "Smart airports"? I have the global scenery and those 2 words gave me a big smile.

[Keith Smith]

The VA I fly with, California Airlines, has a modified copy of NYEXPRO that's designed for V8, such that it doesn't 'remove' your surrounding scenery. The 'removal' probably occurs if you're using NYEXPRO for v7.

 

I agree with most of what Peter has posted in his review, although I don't agree with the taxiway situation. There are some very clever people working hard on the problem, and xplane WILL have improved airport/taxiway support in the near future.

 

X-plane IS rough around the edges, that was explained at the very start. That means it takes time to learn how to upgrade the various subsystems that make up the sim (the core engine, the apt.dat, nav.dat, fix.dat files, aircraft, custom scenery, and plugins).

 

Give yourself PLENTY of time to learn it all, and keep tinkering with your video settings. For example, I have two monitors and an NVidia GeForce 8600 GT OC. When I first upgraded, the framerate was actually worse. I then learned that by default, 3d acceleration is enabled for both monitors. I disabled it for my 'charts' screen and saw my framerates increase by more than 100%.

 

Also take the time to play with the control sensitivty about all 3 axis. I generally use about 50-75% on each axis, rather than the default 100%.

 

If you have any specific questions about how to do things, let us know. In the mean time, have fun, and wait for 8.50, which will introduce the taxiway support. The best place to keep up with what's going on in the X-plane-tech list, and Ben's scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/

 

In the past, x-plane was essentially written by a single person, with a handful of volunteers who unofficially helped with artwork and the plug-in system. This has now changed, such that some of those ppl are officially on staff. Give it time, and I think you'll find things will continue to improve.

 

Few ppl LOVE x-plane right away, but it DOES grow on you.

[Peter Nolin 954217]

The VA I fly with, California Airlines, has a modified copy of NYEXPRO that's designed for V8, such that it doesn't 'remove' your surrounding scenery. The 'removal' probably occurs if you're using NYEXPRO for v7.

Yep. It's no. 7.. I actually found your airline AND the new package some day ago but was unable to download it. I got the impression you must be an approved member of the VA to be able to download it. Too bad - for me!

 

X-plane-tech list, and Ben's scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/ [..snip..]

Few ppl LOVE x-plane right away, but it DOES grow on you.

I found that site too and I do understand now the situation about the taxisigns. And to make things clear - I DO love x-plane but as you say it needs polishing. Atleast for us who wish to be on VATSIM.

Yesterday I noticed at KLAX that my worst fear came trough. An FS9 user did taxi on the gr[Mod - Happy Thoughts] and he also floated about 1m above ground.

[Keith Smith]

Turn off sloped rwys, it will help with the 'floating' aircraft problem.

 

Yes, you need to join the VA to get access to our customized scenery. That's not entirely unexpected

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Turn off sloped rwys, it will help with the 'floating' aircraft problem.

No, realism before .. ..realism! I can cope with some planes floating. I've seen it in FS9 aswell.

Yes, you need to join the VA to get access to our customized scenery. That's not entirely unexpected

Is there no way you can slip them to me? Nobody has to know.

No, seriously. Does it cost money to be in your airline? Otherwise I cannot find any reason to keep it private in the name of making x-plane more popular.

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Evolving by the day. I've made my first plugin - 2 weeks after I ordered x-plane. It might be some kind of record but the SDK is really neat. Also delphi was supported. \o/

 

I made a very simple pushback tool. After some reading and digging I found out that virtually all possible data can be found out and altered very easy.

The only problem was remembering how cos and sin worked. Long time since school.

 

A few bugs remain but as I said. x-plane really gives people possibilites to change whatever they want.

[Peter Nolin 954217]

...and there it is! Simple Pushback v0.1

 

It became rather good after all with messages and smooth start and stop.

Also some logical tests which prevents pushing if you are moving or simply flying ofcourse. Should be rather simple. Put it into your pluginsfolder, start x-plane and press F12 for a push.. F12 again to stop.

No turns avaible. That has to wait a while.

 

Please test it. I haven't figured out yet why people make a special .xpl file for mac and frankly, at this point, I have no idea how to compile a .xpl for mac.

 

(You might wan't to disable Xpushback if you have it since the default key is the same)

 

http://snigelserver.mine.nu/x-plane/

 

Edit: As it turned out you have to compile one .xpl for each operatingsystem and at this point the only .xpl I can produce is for windows. Working on the rest!

[Keith Smith]

Peter,

 

It's always good to check what's out there before starting to write a plugin:

http://www.xpgoodwayteam.org/site_xpushback/WhatIsXPB.html

 

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Peter,

 

It's always good to check what's out there before starting to write a plugin:

http://www.xpgoodwayteam.org/site_xpushback/WhatIsXPB.html

 

Yeah. I knew about this one. But I don't like it. Sometimes the truck is in the air. I wanted a simple pushback. I am pretty sure there must be tons of pushback plugins out there cause it has to be *the* simples idea ever if you wan't to learn how to do plugins - as I did and thought.

 

While you're on the subject, do you know what happened to http://www.xplanefreeware.net ?

[Peter Larsen 885332]

XPB dn't work on my Comp. XPlane crashes on startup with XPb.

I'll try yours Peter .

[Peter Nolin 954217]

XPB dn't work on my Comp. XPlane crashes on startup with XPb.

I'll try yours Peter .

Hehe. It only works on PC tho (as stated). And I did a lazy trick. It's pushbackspeed depends on your framerate. I'm already in the progress of fixing that. Just imagine you have a top notch computer. You'll push trough europe before you react!

[Peter Nolin 954217]

Wooh. v0.2 is finished. Totally rewritten. http://snigelserver.mine.nu/x-plane/

Still windows only tho.

 

Edit: Now Mac and Linux versions aswell!!