I greatly respect all the responses so far. I'm also on the cusp of getting XP11. I've only ever used XP8/9. Didn't like them too much at the time. But I've heard that 11 is major improvement and so far it actually looks like it is. One thing to remember, just because you can get the X-plane key to make your sim a certified FTD with the appropriate hardware, doesn't mean it's superior. If you've ever used a FRASCA instrument FTD you'll know that certified doesn't mean realistic. One other thing to consider, P3D is being used in simulators as well. Adam Breed (LM P3D project manager) said everything other than "The F-35 simulators are powered by P3D" in his latest interview. It was completely inferred. And honestly P3D if you are talking more accuracy is capable of being more accurate, because it employs more data points than XP and has the ability to draw on more tabular data. According to my aero-engineering buddies and my developer pals the actual ranking in terms of most capable/robust Flight Dynamics Engine is the following:
1. DCS World
2. P3D
3. XP
I was surprised, but my developer buddy informed me that DCS is capable of more because they employ the MOST data points across a larger number of calculated variables. So, you can really nail the finesse of a flight model with all the quirks "better" than the other platforms. What does that mean for the end user? Well, honestly, to the uninitiated, probably not much. Unless you know the airframe in question you'll likely not be able to tell the difference. The one thing that DCS does better than all the other sims out there IMO, is sensation of motion at low level. I think the scale of of objects (I'm not sure how) is better? I've always thought that FSX/P3D trees were the wrong size.
As far as it has been explained to me, I know XP with it's real time flight dynamics is very cool. But it's like having 40 yarn tufts out on the old P-51 wing and saying that you've got a robust data set for calculating a flight model (I'm sure XP uses more than 40) but you get the idea. We only have so much computing power and running those calculations real time is a major deal. Pam could probably enlighten us further about that...
My $0.02...
Rick
I'm not so certain that i can provide anything "enlightening". And, topping that, I have no contradictions to state. Thats in part due to the fact that i know very little of the inner workings of either dcs or XP. I DO know that after looking at XPs FDE worksheet just one, I flat out refused to ever attempt and fde for it, and that still stands.
I'm amazed at your timing Rick, specifically in the realm of getting to know an aircraft. I was just now working on the X-3. Now heres a plane that can only be described as a work of madness. No one who just flies it will ever understand, just how mad it is. Like any man made monster, it borderlines on absolute genius. The way its designed, indicates that after the X-1, the X-3 was designed to allow a plane to fly at mach two, without any of the effects seen on the X-1, and i dont just mean it has a "flying" tail. As a plane enters trans-sonic speeds, the center of gravity ( CG ) moved backward. In this plane it moves to 22% mean aerodynamic cord which places it about a quarter of the way down the wing. This causes the tail to drop and the nose to lift. This would be fine normally, because the pressure wave from going trans-sonic is also moving backward along the wing. So youve effectively got the majority of the plane, hanging out in space ahead of the pressure cone. Douglas angled the engines by ten degrees. That angles the thrust from the engines also by ten degrees, BUT, its being kept entirely inside the engine tunnel because at the last three feet o=f that tunnel, it makes an ubrupt turn upwards to zero degrees ( just before the annular rings for the afterburners ). No wonder that whole section is made from titanium. The resulting thrust angle vector is around five degrees extenally, which is enough to counter the after moving CG. You still dont have any trim authority above mach 0.95 but at least you wont be aiming for the moon.
You see, Most people would never see that, until they remove the plane from its flight envelope, and then, it swat's you real hard. All these sims can do this, IF the engineer enters the correct data in the correct place. Which one does it best is whichever one had the best engineers building the planes. Me?? I'm a crackpot. I dont know calculus. I barely know any trignometry. Plane algebra, that I know. However, most of these guys are amazing.
As for computing power?? I dont know DCS so I cant say. Both ESP based sims and XP make use of both the CPU and GPU. FSX and P3D assign the textures to the GPU while the model and all the math is dont by the CPU. ODDLY, or maybe not, it takes just as much computing power to fly the default cessna in FSX as it does the default 737. it's when uou start adding in systems with specific xml that the weight starts getting added on. textures can drag you down too. The higher the resolution of the textures, the more power it takes to drive it. A 4K display has 8 million pixels it's displaying. Those have to be redrawn 60 times a second to satisfy most people. Thats 480 million pixels redrawn every second. Thats a lot of work. needless to say, the more power you can put behind your sim regardless of which sim it is, the better, with the exception of FSX which is 32 bit, and limited in what it can access.. Naturally, the 64 bit applications are capable of a much finer granularity of processing and texture display, and both P3D and XP are fully capable of some amazingly realistic renditions. However, 64 bit is new, even for XP. I personally dont feel its been fully explored yet, especially with the advent of DX12 and Vulkan/Open GL. The future for both of those sims is going to be amazing.
