What do we all know and Think about X Plane 9?

PilatusTurbo

PilatusTurbo

members+, Fighter Fanatic
I've been thinking about this, too. Just seeing their new photo Phoenix and whole state of AZ, I'm now quite interested.

Can anyone give me basic info on what they think? And, what is included default? A whole world? Only certain areas, and must pay for new ones? Does Track IR work with it?

Thanks mates :ernae:
 
PilatusTurbo said:
I've been thinking about this, too. Just seeing their new photo Phoenix and whole state of AZ, I'm now quite interested.

Can anyone give me basic info on what they think? And, what is included default? A whole world? Only certain areas, and must pay for new ones? Does Track IR work with it?

Thanks mates :ernae:
Click to expand...


Hey Chris,

I want to get that too. So far, I believe its only on CD, so you must send in for it. I got the demo installed in XP9 and its nice, but very low resolution. Its not like FSX scenery. But once you are at 2,000 feet plus altitude, its awesome! You can fly behind Scottsdales mountains, see all the terrain, the lake, the highways. All the houses are there. Very well done package.

If you do not have XP9, its not like FS. Its so different to control and manage, that most FS people drop it after a week. Their keyboard controls are so far different, its like Chinese compared to English. One example is that they do not have a rotating 'view' key like us, in that S key doest take you through 4 views (VC, 2D panel, etc). They have 4 sepearate keys for those, instead of one. So you need to learn the new keyboard commands, or change the controls to your layout in FS. (I did that, worked great for me).

No AI traffic, most airports have no buildings, ATC sounds like a robot. Otherwise, its an awesome sim!



Bill
 
Hehe, the world of X-plane. 1st it comes 6 disk covers world terrain and some default Ac's like we have in FS. As to detailed Airport scenery ha none only seen a couple of great scenerys worth a look in Xplane in comparison to Fs9 and FSX. Also it takes time to get used to the FDE of Xplane and its many controls. Personally look at FSX and what it has. Thats one reason why FSX reqs a stronger computer due to its complex scenery and AC's. In balance Fs9 to me is seen the same way as FSX when I compare to X-plane. IMO FS series is 10x better then Xplane as Xplane to me seems lagging with times.
 
i bought it because i was told the FDE is better than FS. Well after 10 years MSFS it takes time to get used to it. Mesh, textures, sky and clouds are really good. Gauges and aircraft enviroment seems more "serious" than MSFS. Landclass is as bad as FS (at least in my good old europe). You need a strong machine, otherwise range of visibility will be automatically decreased to maintain fps. Airports do not have any buildings. The potential shown in e.g. KSBD (one of a few detailed airports) is amazing. Overall maybe X_plane 10 will be "the one". I have missed my Carenado, MAAM, Dreamfleet and Alphasims too much to permanently change. If you a looking for C172 procedure training - go for it.
 
First off, you have to go through about 300 CDs to get to the one that starts the X Plane program. Then you have to figger out what controls works what. I had a stroke so I can't remember a darn thing. But after all that labor, your stuck with a sub FS 2004. Your joy stick is practically useless.
I think I'll stick with FSX. - X Plane really sucks.
 
It took me long enough to get my X-52 setup for FS9 and FSX. I don't think I want to do it again.
 
So as you can see, people dont adapt to it well.


I think that if XP9 came with the identicle controls (keyboard and joystick) that FS did/does, that people would really enjoy it. They just dont get past the 'learning the keys' and the setup zone.


Also, which version has 300 discs? lol... I missed out. Mine only came with 6.


The main program comes on 1 'dvd' and the rest are the rest of the world (outside of North America), and are optional so you dont have to load them all up. You can even just select certain regions, such as Europe, Asia, etc. It can take you a heck of a long time to do the full unstall. Mine took all night.

I would wait for a Megascenery of Arizona. Hopefully Robert at MSE will make one soon. Goodness knows, I have pestered him enough on the idea. :d

Bill
 
Helldiver said:
First off, you have to go through about 300 CDs to get to the one that starts the X Plane program. Then you have to figger out what controls works what. I had a stroke so I can't remember a darn thing. But after all that labor, your stuck with a sub FS 2004. Your joy stick is practically useless.
I think I'll stick with FSX. - X Plane really sucks.
Click to expand...


The fact that you say it's in 300 disks speaks phenomenally of the fact you're speaking only for hearsay and never actually tried X-plane. The joystick is useless if you don't take the three minutes to configure it correctly (by the way, this is true under FS as well). And for last... of all things you have FSX (the inheritor of FS2000) compared with X-plane... :pop4:

Only about mesh, FSX loses. About performances FSX LOSES. About FD FSX does not even compare... :monkies:

The different keyboard command is a great problem... for all those with an attention span of a kangaroo and the willingness to learn of rabbit. I adapted to the different key layout, in X-plane 8, in less than 1 hour, and I am far from a genius (this is really something I don't understand about the complains on X-plane). :blind:

For last, the real weakness of all the versions of X-plane is having less defined airports than the FS franchise and way less support by payware planes, but this last is all fault of Austin Meyer and his habit of revolutionize the code of his sim, and between a lesser release and the other no less, (the differences in code between the 9.22 and the actual 9.31, to make an example), is just too troublesome to bridge sometime (I have a friend who has made some freeware planes for X-plane 9, and it is a pet peeve of his as well). :kilroy:
 
About performances FSX LOSES. About FD FSX does not even compare...
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As far as performance for me, X-Plane loses out to FSX. I'm about the only person I've ever heard say this though.

My computer will not run either one well, but X-Plane auto-reduces detail much more harshly than FSX, and I get about the same rates. And, at the same rates, FSX is smoother... X-plane's attempt to reduce processor load means that it will not go over 1 mile visibility for me - I can just barely see the other end of the runway, and that is with all the details reduced to minimums. I don't enjoy flying in permanent fog, so until I built a better computer, I'm saving the disk space for FSX add-ons...

But, I will say that it doesn't take that long to remap X-Plane's controls to match those for FSX - then there isn't the re-learning required.

FD - I've heard and experienced both, and there are better FDs in FSX. There are also worse. FSX means you can make any aircraft behave like you want, within the limits FSX sets. X-Plane (when designing) has finally decoupled the FD from the visual model (there is, or can be, a separate, invisible model that is used for the FD). X-Plane offers some (unusual) configurations that require massive code manipulation in FSX to achieve.

Perhaps Helldiver doesn't keep his X-Plane DVDs separate from all his other CDs, and since X-Plane requires a DVD in the drive, he has to go through his other CDs? There were similar complaints about FS9 (or whichever version required the unauthorized "patch"), IIRC.

Brian
 
For last, the real weakness of all the versions of X-plane is having less defined airports than the FS franchise and way less support by payware planes, but this last is all fault of Austin Meyer and his habit of revolutionize the code of his sim, and between a lesser release and the other no less, (the differences in code between the 9.22 and the actual 9.31, to make an example), is just too troublesome to bridge sometime (I have a friend who has made some freeware planes for X-plane 9, and it is a pet peeve of his as well).

Ashaman
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Thats good to know. Thanks for sharing.

I long for the day that Gmax models could be somehow converted to Blender or Aircraft Creator format and converted to XP9 models. We would still need aerodynamics models created though to replicate the flight characteristics. That is a real chore.




Yep, two totally different sims. Thats for sure.


On learning Keyboards, that was a main problem for me with CFS. I was always hitting the wrong keys, lol.. I guess FS is burned into my brain like breathing is, lol...
 
The 300 cd thing reminds me of some the last games that came out for DOS. 20 or 30 floppies LOL! :icon_lol:
 
Lionheart said:
On learning Keyboards, that was a main problem for me with CFS. I was always hitting the wrong keys, lol.. I guess FS is burned into my brain like breathing is, lol...
Click to expand...

Not only yours. :d

In fact I'm not ashamed to admit that my absolute first experiments with X-plane (back in the V8, while my friend, that only recently began coding planes for X-plane 9 from V7 [he is the coder of the Ansaldo SVA 5 for X-plane recently gone on share] as he is allergic to Windows) were a cultural shock. :isadizzy:

But I saw a lot of potential in that sim, and persevered, and I am today a proud user of both FS9 and X-plane 9.31 (the first I use for IFR, the second for VFR), while I am allergic to that abort called FSX (the inheritor of the great failure called FS2000 and a perhaps even greater failure itself) and never was able to try flightGear because I couldn't get to download their scenery without getting a splitting headache. :cool:

It helped, I guess, that I began in those times to get supremely tired of half-a**ed FDs and began searching the BEST under FS9, to get me acquainted well with the sometimes alien behaviors (if you only pilot half-a**ed coded FD planes, that is) of planes under FS9, and my beginning to recede from jets to the actual prop gems (almost all form the great guys at Calclassics) in my personal virtual hangar. :wavey:
 
Ashaman said:
Not only yours. :d

In fact I'm not ashamed to admit that my absolute first experiments with X-plane (back in the V8, while my friend, that only recently began coding planes for X-plane 9 from V7 [he is the coder of the Ansaldo SVA 5 for X-plane recently gone on share] as he is allergic to Windows) were a cultural shock. :isadizzy:

But I saw a lot of potential in that sim, and persevered, and I am today a proud user of both FS9 and X-plane 9.31 (the first I use for IFR, the second for VFR), while I am allergic to that abort called FSX (the inheritor of the great failure called FS2000 and a perhaps even greater failure itself) and never was able to try flightGear because I couldn't get to download their scenery without getting a splitting headache. :cool:

It helped, I guess, that I began in those times to get supremely tired of half-a**ed FDs and began searching the BEST under FS9, to get me acquainted well with the sometimes alien behaviors (if you only pilot half-a**ed coded FD planes, that is) of planes under FS9, and my beginning to recede from jets to the actual prop gems (almost all form the great guys at Calclassics) in my personal virtual hangar. :wavey:
Click to expand...


I hear yah on the culture shocks.. Both with OS and FS, lol...

I want to write Austin and tell him, 'design a system that will 'activate' in XP9 and have a very similar keyboard layout to FS9 and I think you will sell a ton more'.

On OS culture shock, having purchased an iPod Touch to replace my aging HP Jornada PDA, I was amazed at the OS in it. I went to a Mac store and fell in love with the huge iMac 24. Got it, and glad I did. I really wish FS would run in the Mac OSX OS side. I have WinXP in the Bootcamp mode to run it in. I am massively impressed with OSX. Crisp, fast, clean, animated, artistic, high detail... Reminds me of my iPod. (Now in the latest iPhone, iPod is gone now.. ).

Maybe someday I'll design a plane for XP. It is certainly a nice sim platform. If it had as many followers as FS has, it would have as many bells and whistles in Addons..



Bill
 
I'm still tempted to drop some money on it someday soon, here. I want the Arizona state scenery, and/or at least the Phoenix photoreal, as it's simply the best photoreal I've seen (FSX Megascenery Included).

Thanks for the input, guys :ernae:
 
AckAck said:
As far as performance for me, X-Plane loses out to FSX. I'm about the only person I've ever heard say this though.

My computer will not run either one well, but X-Plane auto-reduces detail much more harshly than FSX, and I get about the same rates. And, at the same rates, FSX is smoother... X-plane's attempt to reduce processor load means that it will not go over 1 mile visibility for me - I can just barely see the other end of the runway, and that is with all the details reduced to minimums. I don't enjoy flying in permanent fog, so until I built a better computer, I'm saving the disk space for FSX add-ons...

But, I will say that it doesn't take that long to remap X-Plane's controls to match those for FSX - then there isn't the re-learning required.

FD - I've heard and experienced both, and there are better FDs in FSX. There are also worse. FSX means you can make any aircraft behave like you want, within the limits FSX sets. X-Plane (when designing) has finally decoupled the FD from the visual model (there is, or can be, a separate, invisible model that is used for the FD). X-Plane offers some (unusual) configurations that require massive code manipulation in FSX to achieve.

Perhaps Helldiver doesn't keep his X-Plane DVDs separate from all his other CDs, and since X-Plane requires a DVD in the drive, he has to go through his other CDs? There were similar complaints about FS9 (or whichever version required the unauthorized "patch"), IIRC.

Brian
Click to expand...
X-plane is actually a bit more Video card orientated than CPU, the exact opposite of FSX. Read this... http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=14730
 
Lionheart said:
On OS culture shock, having purchased an iPod Touch to replace my aging HP Jornada PDA, I was amazed at the OS in it. I went to a Mac store and fell in love with the huge iMac 24. Got it, and glad I did. I really wish FS would run in the Mac OSX OS side. I have WinXP in the Bootcamp mode to run it in. I am massively impressed with OSX. Crisp, fast, clean, animated, artistic, high detail... Reminds me of my iPod. (Now in the latest iPhone, iPod is gone now...).
Click to expand...

Honestly, my first computer with graphical interface has been the CBM Amiga (my absolute first was the CBM PET 3032), and I KNOW what you mean. :bump:

I, in fact, use WinXp only out of a mixture of laziness (having to format an fully working OS, when you don't need to, only because you only want to go straight to another OS just makes me want to go getting a beer), need to have determined programs only made for Windows (or more easily obtainable for the Windows platform) and, honestly, superior familiarity on how WinXp works, if compared to, say, Linux. :redface:

As you can well see, I am not talking about MAC because, even with some friends of mine, I really get into arguments on the matter. :icon_lol:

"The MAC is cuter" "The MAC is better" "The MAC works faster"... :a1310:

Nowhere EVER do they really stop to think that with the money needed to buy a MAC, I would by 3 or 4 PC (or obviously a way better equipped single PC) with the same hardware Windows or Linux ready. :p:

...and the hardware upgrades? Thanks to the proprietary almost-Palladium settings on the MACs I have those friends I'm talking about (2 of them, both :italy: like me) paying for a outdated Ati with 256Mb ram enough to buy a crossfire of Geforce 1GB 9600 GT under Windows... :eek:

I'm not saying MAC-OS cannot at times be better, but you have to admit that all that comes with it comes with a heavy price tag attached (I'm talking monetary price), if compared to other solutions. An heavy price that not always (make it almost never) is justifiable. :)

If taken only for what it can do, the MAC-OS is quite better than whatever Microsoft EVER did or (sadly) will do, but because of the... I could almost define it closed minded bigotry... of Apple always manages to bit its own tail. ALWAYS. If they had made their OS available for common PCs, instead of wanting to sell a complete package of good-enough software plus debatable hardware at outrageous prices, they would have reached a better penetration of the market... as they are, they are far behind Linux and not gaining any on those in front of them. :monkies:
 
Some good points.


I approached Apple on the OS issue for computers. I wanted it on my hp laptop and asked 'seriously, why cant I put this on my computer?' and the ansere was that they wish to have the OS tuned to the hardware. Ok, fare enough. But I still want it on my existing computers, lol..

A huge group of people actually do that, but the warranty on your OS is voided of course. Doesnt stop them.

Someday, I might try that. But in the meantime, I am loving my utterly awesome iMac 24" UniBody desktop, and hope to add a 17" UniBody MacBookPro Laptop to the office. My sister has one, and it is AWESOME!!!! Thinnest laptop I have seen aside from the MacBookAir...


Bill
 
Lionheart said:
I approached Apple on the OS issue for computers. I wanted it on my hp laptop and asked 'seriously, why cant I put this on my computer?' and the ansere was that they wish to have the OS tuned to the hardware.
Click to expand...

That's a load of BULL**** that only people with almost no experience in how a computer works (the main kind of target Apple sells their systems to), but only able to use a mouse and a keyboard with some proficiency can really buy... :pop4:


Lionheart said:
Ok, fare enough. But I still want it on my existing computers, lol..
Click to expand...

It's not impossible... just look around... only problem (another friend of mine told me about) is that you'll have problems configuring the sound card. Cannot say more without falling in the "Gray Zone" of software. :monkies:


Lionheart said:
A huge group of people actually do that, but the warranty on your OS is voided of course. Doesnt stop them.
Click to expand...

It's not enough to have the OS to make it boot-able on a common PC. It necessitates some... software black magiks... see above for further details... :monkies:


Lionheart said:
Someday, I might try that. But in the meantime, I am loving my utterly awesome iMac 24" UniBody desktop, and hope to add a 17" UniBody MacBookPro Laptop to the office. My sister has one, and it is AWESOME!!!! Thinnest laptop I have seen aside from the MacBookAir...
Click to expand...

For fairness, I only spoke about desktop systems, as I really don't need a laptop and never looked into it. Remains though the habit for the Apple to make you pay dearly the same hardware you can find elsewhere cheaper (and, if I'm not wrong, among the laptops this prices delta is even more pronounced), and I'm talking from 3 to 5 times more, not quite a little thing.

Sorry, not for me. :gameoff:
 
I have to say that I tried out X Plane 8 and never adjusted to it, I also much preferred the FS9 systems and graphics to it. The plane maker was also a very good idea done badly, you'd think that you would be able to import a universal file type, say .dxf, to obtain verticies. From what I have seen XP9 is a huge advance on XP8 but for me it is just too much of a hassle to set up, not to mention my pc has problems with FS9 (15-20fps average, generally the lower end).

I think that Macs, to join the other debate, are much more affordable in the US than they are in Europe, I know for a fact that the average MacBook is 30-50% more expensive in th UK (taking into account currency conversions) than the identical system is in the US.
 
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