X-Plane 11 Next Generation Graphics Vs Flight Simulator 2020

[Daube]

Just in case, I'm attaching here the preset I mentioned above.
That preset is made for an earlier version of Tomatoshade though, not sure if it will work with the current version. If not, you might just need to perform the same steps as in my message above to reach a similar result.
View attachment Daube.rar
This file contains a single file named Daube.ini that should be place in TomatoShade\tomato\ along with the other .ini files.

 

[warchild]

FS 2020 has released it's system specs. But if you want RAY-TRACING then you'll have to invest in an RTX level GFX card on the NVIDIA side. While I've heard that GTX 1080Ti can technically do RT, it's not optimized for it and may not work correctly. RT is what will make the final look. While many sims use PBR, I think FS2020 is the first to use RT to calculate lights angular reflectivity/refractivity/shadows when used within PBR on a scale like this. Ironic, I mentioned Ray-Tracing sometime last year or the tail end of 2018, IIRC, and was laughed to scorn about it making an appearance in the next FS or P3D iteration (can't recall that part). But, I think even RTX 2060 will do the job. Certainly RTX 2070. Anything higher, of course...

Heyyy.. Its wonderful too see you ..
Here's my thing on ray tracing..
It's too much of a fad right now to be worth following..
Microsoft has historically focused on CPU throughput, not GPU. Alll through FlightSim and P3D, your GPU was mostly just along for the ride.. Now we have ray tracing and everyone is in love with the new girl on the block.. Yes! It's been out for a few years, but it hasnt become a household utility yet. It's still in the realm of Bearded Ladies, Snake Women and the Circus side show.. Yeah sure, Microsoft is going to push this new technology and attempt to make it a household name, but are people really going to take it seriously at five hundred dollars a board, during the highest global unemployment rate ever recorded??? Ray tracing is Caviar in a meat and potatoes world. Give it a few years and lets deal with this attempt at global domination we're currently experiencing. The new girl on the block may be cute and sexy, but she cant cook or clean yet and we need cooks and cleaners with a solid history and a good backbone more than we need fantasies of our nights in bed with the new girl..
I personally will not live long enough to see the full benefits of ray tracing come to fruition. Thats not speculation, thats scientific fact, so for me, my little MSI 1070 Seahawk delivers amazing results when teamed with an AMD Ryzen and a moderate amount of ram ( 59 FPS solid in P3DV4.5 fully maxxed out. In X-Plane, not quite that high depending on the aircraft ). FS2020 will look fantastic. Microsoft may be the scum of the earth, but they arent slouches when it comes to making a sell-able product.. It'll look plenty fine to my old worn out eyes..
My biggest concern with FS2020, is that with data streaming in from scenery, meteorological sources, scenery servers and the like, Your not going to need ray tracing, Your going to need a bloody threadripper that can parallel process all of it.. Got an extra 2300 dollars laying around for a new CPU????

 

[warchild]

Just in case, I'm attaching here the preset I mentioned above.
That preset is made for an earlier version of Tomatoshade though, not sure if it will work with the current version. If not, you might just need to perform the same steps as in my message above to reach a similar result.
View attachment 76494
This file contains a single file named Daube.ini that should be place in TomatoShade\tomato\ along with the other .ini files.

Awwww, Daube! You truly know the way to my happy side.. I installed Reshade last night and am SO ready to rip it out. I saw Tomatoshade and must confess I never heard of it before, but i'm very curious..
I HAD intended on spending the remainder of the morning painting Miltons XP-47 ( an amzing little aircraft. quite fun ), but THIS presents a whole new realm of possibilities..
Technically, I want P3D and X-Plane to look the same.. Might take a bit of work, but should be fun..

 

[Daube]

Well I really hope you can achieve good results in P3Dv4.5.
The main thing I liked with that shader mod is that it brought that nice blueish tint to the atmosphere, giving a more realistic sense of distance when watching the surrounding terrain. You can see that on my screenshot with the Spitfire, the mountain in the background look a bit blueish, showing the distance.

Now, from my side I'm now looking to get something like that in XPlane 11.50.
I know that the payware XVision was providing good results until XPlane 11.41, but if I understood correctly, it doesn't really work so efficiently anymore in Vulkan... Or does it ?
Also, it's a payware.
I don't know if any freeware shader mods have been updated to work in Vulkan yet ?

 

[warchild]

I have X-Vision.. I turned it off.. I turned off sky maxx, all of them.. What I use these days is a combination of:
Vivid Sky ( sky textures: free )
CloudArt Cloud textures ( Free )
AActive Sky XP ( Pay)

I've also used FlyAgi Tweak Utility ( https://forum.thresholdx.net/topic/251-flyagi-tweak-utility/ ) which is extremely powerful..
Reshade is also loaded with a contrast preset to tone down the brightness..
Skip reshade for now and concentrate on the two texture sets and Flyagi.. it;ll help you dial it in to perfection..

OH!!!! Almost forgot.. Your going to want THIS!
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/49749-livetraffic/

Throw away the AI ( but not the Planes ).. Who wants to watch AI when you have real world traffic landing, taking off and parking all around you?? Plus Live traffic doesnt impact your frame rates.. its a zero weight program..

 

[Daube]

Thanks a lot for these recommendations, I'll take a look today !
Concerning Active Sky, I bought it a long time ago for P3D and was very satisfied with that product (especially for the "historic" mode).
I'll buy it as soon as it is in sales

 

[warchild]

I love Active Sky in X-Plane.. Coupled with the cloud art clounds it delivers a jaw dropping experience.. i wish i had the videos i just made to upload.. sad I cant seem to wrap my brain around these new programs anymore..

 

[warchild]

There is a pause for about a minute right after the two minute mark so skip ahead to 3 minutes and you should be fine.. sorry for no music and sorry for bad quality.. It still shows off those specific addons to maximum advantage, though in real life, directly in front of you on your screen, theyre amazing..

 

[warchild]

Part 2 let the magic begin..

 

[Daube]

Thanks for the videos
The three sisters are these volcanoes south of Mt.Hood, right ? Back when I was using OrbX PNW in P3D, I loved taking off from Hanel Field and fly south, passing near Mt.Hood then heading to the three sisters, and finally turn right (west) to land at Oakridge State.
Now in XPlane 11 I use True Earth Washington and the area south of Mt Hood isn't covered anymore :/ Maybe I should buy True Earth Oregon to solve that problem...

Anyways, I followed your recommendations and installed "Vivid Sky" in my XPlane11. I have to say I'm very pleased with the results so far, it's much before than what I had originally.
I tried to download SkyArt but the archives I get seem to be corrupted... But that's no issue, I'm quite ok with the default clouds for the moment.
What do you use for the water ? Currently the water in my XP11 looks good from a distance, but from very close it's not so nice...

I'll try to take a few screenshots to post here.

 

[Daube]

Quick take off from Hanel Field just to test the colors.
The current results are nice, but I noticed the cockpit shadows disappear once reaching the orange evening sunlight... I think I have seen some mod to rectify this problem, I'll investigate a bit more about this later...
Of course it looks good in VR as well, but the VR screenshots look terrible because of their specific format, so I'm posting regular 2D screenshots instead.
To keep in line with the title of this topic, despite this satisfactory result, we're still far from the lighting effects of MSFS... I'm curious to see of the developpers will try to improve that, or if any third party dev will give that a try...

 

[Bjoern]

At the beginning of my X-Plane "career", I hunted down all visual add-ons I could find. Nowadays, I just run stock, because life's too short to worry about compatibility-breaking updates. And Laminar will tend to disregard your bug reports if you mess with their "private" type datarefs (which most visual tweak scripts do).

 

[warchild]

At the beginning of my X-Plane "career", I hunted down all visual add-ons I could find. Nowadays, I just run stock, because life's too short to worry about compatibility-breaking updates. And Laminar will tend to disregard your bug reports if you mess with their "private" type datarefs (which most visual tweak scripts do).

::: God aint that the truth,,, Screw em..

 

[warchild]

Quick take off from Hanel Field just to test the colors.
The current results are nice, but I noticed the cockpit shadows disappear once reaching the orange evening sunlight... I think I have seen some mod to rectify this problem, I'll investigate a bit more about this later...
Of course it looks good in VR as well, but the VR screenshots look terrible because of their specific format, so I'm posting regular 2D screenshots instead.
To keep in line with the title of this topic, despite this satisfactory result, we're still far from the lighting effects of MSFS... I'm curious to see of the developpers will try to improve that, or if any third party dev will give that a try...

Damnnnnn Son, Your lookin gooood!!!

Welll, We're certainly nowhere near the richness of color that FS2020 appears to have. Thats part of why i like vivid sky. It's quite dramatic. On the other hand, FS2020 may be just a wee bit overblown color contrast and saturation wise.. X-Plane tends to go for more realistic combinations of the three and I kinda like that too ( though its hard to tell from my screen shots ), but my eyes are old and damaged and dim so lord only knows what I'm actually seeing as compared to what you or someone else is seeing anyway. The world is an amazing and incredible feast for the eyes and is always changing, so who knows, perhaps FS2020 is dead on target, perhaps its not?? I think my greatest wonder is if you get it only in its pre-fab form like a model A Ford where you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black.. I would certainly hate to not be able to tone things down or pick them up here and there when I wanted..
Now, I ran across this Yesterday after I posted. I downloaded and installed it and frankly I'm bloody impressed.. It weighs nothing FPS wise as its just a Lua Script, but my gods does it make a difference.. Check it out.. Its a great weapon to have in your graphics arsenal:: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/54892-all-in-one-enhanced-x-plane/

Regarding True Earth Oregon, it will be interesting to see.. I'm most curious about central oregon where I live.. I've made three airports for here ( KBDN BBend Muni, 6K5 Sisters Eagle Air and Sun River Airport ) all of which are "Mostly" realistic, and it will be interesting to see how close OrbX comes..

So without further Adieu I give you this mornings Romp around the mountains, and KBDN and Sisters Eagle Air.. Oh Yeah.. Indeed the three sisters are active volcanoes located just thirty miles west of me.. At this time Only South Sister is Worrisome as she is warm (as is Newberrfy) and has developed a bulge on her western flank..

OH!!! Just a mention.. I have no AI running. The other aircraft in the bottom picture is a real person coming in for a landing.. For some reason I still get a kick outta that.. Nothing like really not being alone..

 

[warchild]

 

[MZee1960]

MSFS2020 will surely be like no other.
Beautiful and complete out of the box, ..... no tweaks, no fancy addons, no headaches.

FSX has taught me to be a good software programmer, .... hoping MSFS2020 will teach me to become a better virtual pilot.

IMHO, .... life's too short to spend it on the ground tweaking, ..... rather spend it in the air flying.

 

[warchild]

MSFS2020 will surely be like no other.
Beautiful and complete out of the box, ..... no tweaks, no fancy addons, no headaches.

FSX has taught me to be a good software programmer, .... hoping MSFS2020 will teach me to become a better virtual pilot.

IMHO, .... life's too short to spend it on the ground tweaking, ..... rather spend it in the air flying.

Welllll, Dont get me wrong. I'm not saying its a bad thing, but ya knowwww...
The best meal in the world is two eggs over easy with just a touch of lace on the edges and a side of well cooked but not too crisp bacon.. You just cant beat it, unless you have it for three meals a day, seven days a week, in which case, it gets old.. The same can be said for FS2020. It's gonna be SO good, hot off the griddle, but in time, it's going to tire you out and youll want something more..