For Anyone On The Fence

falcon409

falcon409

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I took an Ultralight excursion last evening that took me from the Temple University area of Philadelphia, over to the downtown area, over KPHL and into South Jersey where I grew up. The only critique I have is that while the scenery level is heavily populated in and around Philly, it isn't very representative of that area as there are many points of interest that are not modeled. . .basically they have rendered a generic cityscape. Also, there are two main bridges going to and from Philly into South Jersey, The Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman. Neither of those bridges is correctly rendered, instead there are just two elevated highways crossing the Delaware River in those areas. I have not checked to see if there is anything in the way of "addons" that might correct those problems though.

Aside from that, as a comparison. . .if I were to fly anywhere close to an area this heavily populated with autogen I would be reduced to a slide show. . .I know that from experience (both FSX and P3D (64bit)). However with my rig (see my specs in my sig) I was able to fly in and around the city and still maintain double digit fps. So these shots are done just to give anyone who might be thinking about X-Plane, an example of what it's like. . .enjoy!

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Ed, recently I built a very mid performance build i5 6500, 4GB GTX 960, 8GB DDR4 1866 3.2GHz (he did not want an overclock) rig for a member of the Eagles. He was a Flight Gear enthusiast and had no plans of buying a flight simulator. He said that was all the computer he was ever going to need. A couple weeks ago he emailed me to thank me for the build quality. Apparently, he got X-Plane 11 from a relative for Christmas. Here is a part of his note to me: "I can't believe the incredible sights I have seen in X-Plane 11. It is so good that instead of flying tube-liners, I have become a low and slow pilot just to see what I have never seen in Flight Gear(without stutters). I had tried FSX in my old system but it was like flying with a constant stutter and I tried P3d when it came out...I won't go into all the distaste I have for these products. Anyway, I have X-Plane 11 on mostly highest settings on this unit and I could not be more pleased with it. Thank you so much for all the care you put into building a fast unit for such a piddly price."

I didn't post this to say what a great builder I am, but I want everyone to know that X-Plane 11 is nothing like X-Plane of old. It is quick, relatively easy to setup, and no stutters even on high settings for mid level computers and yet the graphics are AMAZING! Thanks for posting your pics, Ed.
Ted
 
That's awesome Ted. I was able to find an updated KPHL and Cityscape addon for X-Plane 11 and just completed an extensive flight from KPHL, over the city (all major buildings, Sports Complex and both bridges done) across the river and out to Cape May and then up the coast to Atlantic City. The only thing it lacks is the Ortho ground texture which I'm working on. You're right, X-Plane is nothing like the other Sims. Really very pleased with what I'm seeing.
 
I am also really thrilled by the entire country of Japan released as freeware by the incredible Mr. X. Although I have never been to There nor really able to recognize land marks, it looks like Japan should. Love the Bullet train.

great scenery for the low and slow flyer.

Bob
 
I'm baffled by this Ted I have never gotten jaggy shadows in over 50 builds. On my next build I will try to duplicate it...
 
flyAGI tweak utility

The tweak utility from FlyAGI is really effective on my i5bgtx 1060.
It controls shadows, fog, reflections, LOD, and saves a sync file for each plane.

I use it in combo with the 3jfps utility.
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/43281-3jfps-wizard11/

This allows instant inflight dataref changes and really sweetens the look and performance of any flight scenario.


And don't forget the fabulous free mesh HD4 from alpilotx, Andras Fabian
A radically effective hi-rez upgrade of the default xp11 mesh.

http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/

Have fun!:mixed-smiley-010:
 
I've just downloaded the demo and very impressed. I miss the traffic of FSX but considering it's a basic install, it's pretty good out of the box. I'm tempted to reinstall my FSX for now too as I had this set up pretty nice with some payware addons.
 
txnetcop said:
This will make a huge difference guzler: http://jardesign.org/x-life/www/

Enjoy,
Ted
Click to expand...
Excellent Ted, thanks :)

A few more questions if I may (if there's a place that you can point me too, I'd gladly take the hint!!)

As well as traffic, REX is a huge boost for FSX. The clouds and water textures in XP11 are pretty disappointing, how are people addressing this part of the sim? I've done some reading and I believe that until the Vulkan update is done, addon weather packs seem to be using the default clouds.

Also, during the day, the textures look pretty washed out but come alive at dawn and dusk. I've seen screenshots with the textures looking much deeper (darker shadowing). how is that achieved? I know on FSX there were shader addons, but again, not sure how this is addressed in XP. I read that Laminar aren't supporting shader tweaks in 11.3 so not sure if its possible without changing the gamma settings in NVidia but don't want to change my whole PC look, just XP.

Neil
 
guzler said:
Excellent Ted, thanks :)

A few more questions if I may (if there's a place that you can point me too, I'd gladly take the hint!!)

As well as traffic, REX is a huge boost for FSX. The clouds and water textures in XP11 are pretty disappointing, how are people addressing this part of the sim? I've done some reading and I believe that until the Vulkan update is done, addon weather packs seem to be using the default clouds.

Also, during the day, the textures look pretty washed out but come alive at dawn and dusk. I've seen screenshots with the textures looking much deeper (darker shadowing). how is that achieved? I know on FSX there were shader addons, but again, not sure how this is addressed in XP. I read that Laminar aren't supporting shader tweaks in 11.3 so not sure if its possible without changing the gamma settings in NVidia but don't want to change my whole PC look, just XP.

Neil
Click to expand...

Patience Grasshopper this is now past the consideration stage and should be available in March. As for freeware texture addons: https://youtu.be/u8t53x8VIQI there are a ton of them out there now and most are even better than these demonstrated and they are free!
 
txnetcop said:
Patience Grasshopper this is now past the consideration stage and should be available in March. As for freeware texture addons: https://youtu.be/u8t53x8VIQI there are a ton of them out there now and most are even better than these demonstrated and they are free!
Click to expand...

Well, I have been searching for Patience Grasshopper to no avail so just re-read your sentence and now understand that you're on about REX :stupid: That's great news and worth waiting for, the credit card agrees!

Thanks, I'll have a gander through that link :)
 
txnetcop said:
Patience Grasshopper this is now past the consideration stage and should be available in March. As for freeware texture addons: https://youtu.be/u8t53x8VIQI there are a ton of them out there now and most are even better than these demonstrated and they are free!
Click to expand...

Ted, thanks for the YouTube link!

I just finished installing EddieSkyPack, Airport Environment HD and "TheULTIMATE" MOD and my already great looking X-Plane looks even better!
 
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