X-Plane anyone????

[gera]

I have been checking X-plane 9 for the last two days and am very surprised. Have you all seen the addons they have??, lots of terrain stuff, the Washington State Scenery is beautiful and many others....the French have all the French Alps as an addons too. There is a pilot making Alaska scineries and flights with animations, lots of planes with very nive VC panels at low prices and many freeware.....nice, real nice.....you know one to have on a separate disk and take a flight of fancy after a hard days work in FSX................anyone using it???..your comments??? recomendations???.....hummm, hummm, I just ordered one!!!!!!:jump:...........Its on sale at $39.00 in Amazon...

Look at this...
http://www.x-scenery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=6

[MCDesigns]

Hi gera, there have been a few threads about the new X-Plane. While a big step for X-Plane, it still lags behind FSX in many ways, BUT it is definitely coming into it's own and should be a formidable sim with continued support.

[deimos256]

too bad you ordered already i would have sold you my copy real cheap

while it looks very impressive to me it still doesnt "feel" as real, plus im so familiar with MSFS and its ins n outs id rather stick with this.

[gera]

too bad you ordered already i would have sold you my copy real cheap

while it looks very impressive to me it still doesnt "feel" as real, plus im so familiar with MSFS and its ins n outs id rather stick with this.

Oh....am not changing, no way!!!!! but I think its getting much better than what it was and for a change once in while it looks fine......I have version 8 and I agree that it feels "funny"....I flew for 16 years and even though they say it "feels real".....it sure doen not!!!!!, I should have asked here before I ordered.....hummm. hummm.......:kilroy::kilroy:

[Lionheart]

Hey Gera,

I actually like it alot but dont use it as much as I my own birds and investments in FS are in MS FS. I have the new X9 and love it though. The Cessna 182 and the Avanti are awesome and the gauge work is extremely crisp and almost photographic. The resolutions on the gauages and panels are 'extreme'.

There are a ton of settings, perhaps 10X more settings then FSX has, and includes the same things that FSX and FS9 have, such as Autogen Houses, Autogen Flora (trees, bushes, etc), roads, trains, ships, clouds, etc. There are some cool weather settings that have dynamic wind settings in them as well. You can really do some wild stuff with weather.

Also, check the maps. You have a regular map view, one with a aerial chart view, and several other views as well including a tilt-able 3D map view similar to Google Earth.

There is a good article on making your own freeware photo real scenery by Gene Davis in this months new issue of Computer Pilot.

There is a payware Beaver that you can get for X-Plane that is pretty nice. I think a Piper low wing as well.

I find that X-Plane runs far more stable then FSX, and you can load up the Autogen much more and not get too many gitters. But.. I can tell you that Autogen in X-Plane is far more dense then FSX can ever dream to be. (Try the 'rediculous' setting, you'll see what I mean).

My only issue I have with it is that in VC mode, it feels like your nose is against the panel. You have to move around sideways to see everything, then up to see over the panel. I hate that. I did fine a way to cheat though and move the seat back. Tilt to the side, move sideways (which is to the rear when you are turned) and rotate back to the front and you are back away from the panel and can now view things normally like in FS9 and FSX.

Also, you can change all the X-Plane controls to match FS9 / FSX. I can send you my config file over that will do that for you. Its only about 75% done though.

Also.... One last thing. If you ever get so fed up with issues with MS OS such as vista, you can get an Apple and X-Plane runs fine on it. :d

Below are some screenshots of a flight over Phoenix in Deer Valley traffic pattern near 7th Street. If you know Phoenix, you will know that area right off the bat. The scenery is very 'VFR' friendly and you can see the various terrain land marks and recognise your area. The ramp photo was taken at dusk. Thats why its so dark. The VC panel show was done by my technique of moving away from the panel. I am almost sitting in the back seat area, but it helps to see the panel better. (It doesnt zoom out very far). I should write Austin about that. He might be able to tune the platform for that.




Bill

[gera]

Hi Bill..........
Wonderful photos......yes I have noticed the crisp panels, very unique. Thanks for the tips I will keep this post for reference on setting up the VC since I really like to fly that way. You know it´s always nice to get to know new things and I think I will delve into this a bit. But always expecting the new stuff of FX11. There are many planes around I think I will order two or three bush planes since I know I´ll be around mountains. Have you seen the freeware " Madagascar Bush Airfields" ?.....looks pretty nice, since you have the sim, here is the link....http://fb-artwork.de/MBA/mada.html
Hope you enjoy it...:ernae:

[Lionheart]

Thanks Gera,

I'll check that out.


Bill

[Peter SWE]

Hey Gera,

................

Bill

Have you tryed changing the setting for lateral field of view? Under rendering options, down on the left.

My 2 cents on X-plane:


X-plane is an exelent sim and xp9 is slowly evolving to a serious contender to fsx.
I dropped msfs totaly a couple of months ago when i got totaly fed up of the constant tweaking and the everloosing fps battle.

X-plane has a really nice flightmodel that give the feeling of floating on air, msfs aircraft feels like a big heap of metal on rails in comparison. The weatherengine is superb and the global scenery is sooooo much betterlooking than fsx.

Gaugesystem is ultra smooth and in some addons photoreal.

The graficsengine runs on open GL and on my singelcore 3,4 P4 xp9 runs smooth with no stuttering on high grafic settings. Fsx is more or less a slideshow in higdef airports and over urban areas.
I have flown FSX more or less dayly since the day it hit the shelves adn have spent way to much mooney on add ons so i have tryed every tweak avalible but my old system is just not up to it. X-plane runs fine.

On the other hand, x-plane ATC is a heap of junk.
Great aircraft add ons are few and far apart.
There is no AI traffic.
There is no buildings at default airports.
The learningcurve is steep, newcommers to flightsimming is better of with msfs.


I do fire up fsx now and then but it dont take more than a couple of minutes for me to get frustrated and switch to x-plane.


Im really not english speaking so please forgive any miss spelling or if i get something backwards.

/Peter.

Edit: A review said, msfs is a aviationsim and x-plane is a flightsim. I think that pretty much sums it up.

[IanP]

I actually found X-Plane's latest demo to fly a lot less like a real aircraft than a decent package in FSX. I felt totally disconnected from what was happening to the aircraft, like I was flying a model from a mid-80s combat game rather than supposedly the most realistic representation of flight available. It looks fantastic, but that's all it did - looked nice. In a very small area of the world, where you have to pay through the nose to get more.

I'd consider getting it as a novelty, if a cheap box set came up in a shop. Even then, I'd think twice after the demo crashed, reported a graphical error on restart and there's no way to reset your settings from outside the sim (the way you can by deleting/editing fsx.cfg, for instance).

Nope. Sorry. I'm still not that impressed by it.

Ian P.

[Lionheart]

Hey Peter,

Roger that. My XP9 runs smoothly as well with moderate settings.

That Avanti is one nice looking bird!

:ernae:


Bill

[empeck]

X-plane has a really nice flightmodel that give the feeling of floating on air, msfs aircraft feels like a big heap of metal on rails in comparison.

My feelings were just the opposite... In X-plane I couldn't feel the inertial forces, and planes were just 'moving' forward...

[txnetcop]

Hey Peter, wellcome to the Outhouse and you are welcome to practice your English here any time you feel like it.

I have X-Plane 9.20 as well and the Global scenery which I think is fairly good. Having been a real world pilot I have not been impressed with the flight handling of their aircraft except for the Cessna which seems to be the one Austin and his team has spent the most time on. They also have no change of seasons and for the most part it seems they are moving more and more into the outer space simulation rather than concentrating on flying on mother earth. I have had every new edition of X-Plane since the original and I am still waiting for them to model and aircraft that feels as good as FS9 or FSX.

I hope they take their SIM more seriously for the guy flying at home. It is not the X-Plane simulator that the US Navy and US Air Force fly. They also have a simulator that cost several thousand dollars for certification but again it is not the same simulator as the one a guy flies at home. For the most part, I have been very disappointed with X-Plane as a pilot. If I were an engineer it would fun to make your own and see if it will fly, but that, so far, seems to be the only real enjoyment I get out of X-Plane.

You are correct about FSX...it is a tweak monster! However it is the most realistic under $1000 flightsim I have flown to date. Lionheart was pushing for an X-Plane section in the Outhouse I do hope that happens some day.

Again, glad to see you participate here. Feel free to disagree my friend.
Ted

[Lionheart]

By the way,

If you have iPod Touch or iPhone, you can get X-Planes for it. Its a mini version that sells for $10.00 through iTunes.

Bill

[deimos256]

By the way,

If you have iPod Touch or iPhone, you can get X-Planes for it. Its a mini version that sells for $10.00 through iTunes.

Bill

yea i tried to start a thread about this elsewhere here and mostly got jokes in return, however i have it on my iphone and for a handheld game its very impressive, its butter smooth, 3 airports, and it has a view that is instrument only, for 10 bucks i can now fly when im not at my computer

[heywooood]

nothing wrong with that :ernae:

[Gdavis101]

For the most part I enjoy it, especially with the photo scenery that I have done. True it isn't as juicy looking as FSX, it is fun for what it is. I just built a new computer, took my X plane drive out of the old one and popped it into the new one and Xplane still loaded! I was amazed, especially since the drive I stored all my payware backups on had died.. I was able to continue to use the old installation.

Thanks for noticing my article Bill!

[Major_Spittle]

How will X-Plane run on a Quad Core and 8800gt system? Is it smooth, does it scale physics processing at all with hardware?