NZ in X-Plane

[Alex]

Hi all,

I stumbled across this link just now, looks pretty cool. Just out of interest, do we have any X-Plane users here? Or ex-users?

Alex

[ZK-Brock]

One word: WOW!!! How come we don't get FSX looking like this?!

[ardypilot]

Hmmm... that scenery isn't very impressive for me at all, sort of looks like a Halo or Unreal Tournament enviroment- the mountains are far too spikey. I'd rather stick to FS2004

[Alex]

The main differences between the two sims (MSFS and X-Plane) is that MSFS has better scenery, and that X-Plane has better flight models (i.e. more realistic).

Maybe you would want to see where I got this from, here.

Alex

[JonARNZ]

Thats pretty impressive Alex. I ran X-Plane for awhile some years back, was always impressed with the aircraft dynamics and the effects, I distinctly remember the snow squalls being blown in the wind, blew me away. Agree with Trolly re the spikey mountains, having said that I've seen some like that during my travels around our fair land.

[Zöltuger]

yes, i used to use x-plane. there are pros and cons- it lacks the graphics grunt, virtual cockpits, an oral ATC, proper AI and a big add-on community that MSFS offers.
but it is more realistic and i found that for the most part, frame rates are better. you can fail anything on the aircraft, including wings. and that NZ scenery doesn't look half bad, tho i think its about $200
download the demo if you're interested

[JonARNZ]

X-Plane definately out performed FS, I also liked that you could go to outer space. In some respects MSFS has been in catch-up, as you say though, the FS community is where the real strength is.

[SteelBlades]

A quick catchup on X-Plane.

The latest release of X-Plane Global Scenery (for X-Plane 9) has made all the difference in the world to the spiky mountains - they are no more - they're now good and accurate (Fiordland was not flash in Version 8, now it's beautiful). The price of X-Plane is about NZ$120 (incl. shipping) if you buy it online and get it shipped from the US. Although I'm a member of this forum, I'm an X-Plane customer (as I run Macs, I can't even run MSFS/FSX) but I can use the scenery posted here thanks to a conversion tool I'm experimenting with. X-Plane is as barren with respect to airports as the shipping version of the MS flight sims, so the work of the NZ FS community here is very much appreciated by me too!

In regard to the X-Plane community - it's very active. There's much less scenery available to X-Plane users than MSFS/FSX users, but probably more aircraft (www.x-plane.org), most are free too - although the eye candy isn't usually as good. X-Plane went through a major scenery system update in version 8, and the tools are only now maturing (version 9 is 100% backwards compatible). The good thing is that the default Global Scenery is so good, there's little demand for add-on meshes like those from Geographix.

X-Plane has had full support for 3D (virtual) cockpits since version 8, the AI is constantly improving - although not as good as FSX's, and version 9 now includes reflective water and 3D trees all over the place.

Other things worthy of note are that all aircraft, including AI ones, fly with the same flight models as user controlled aircraft. This means that when you fly next to a refueling aircraft for example, it's bobbing around just like you are! X-Plane has combat (since version 8.5), although it's rather rudimentary, nothing like LOMAC. Combat is excellent for WWI and WWII and Korean era dogfights though - it's designed around a Red Flag type training scenario, with no actual damage, just smoke (plus engine failures in X-Plane). Joystick buttons can be user-programmed to control almost any part of the sim (and the keyboard controls are 100% user manageable too - you can even make new controls).

X-Plane 9 uses multi-core computers to the full. The first core runs your plane (graphics + flight modelling). The second core looks after most of the scenery, keeping things as quick & fluid as possible. For a long time, X-Plane has used DLLs in a plug-in format to extend the sim. This makes a large number of extra things possible, like custom FMCs, links to hardware, and more.

Cheers,

[benwynn]

The only thing putting me of Xplane would be the scenery compatiabity. How many scenery companies make scenery for XPlane??

[Charl]

Interesting post...
I suppose the potential of X-Plane is what attracts users, casual simmers woud prefer the look of MSFS.
It's a good formula - interest the developer crowd, and the product improves beyond the original.
Isn't this what happened to Falcon 4?
I especially like the notion of utilising multi-core! Where did MS have their collective head when they developed FSX for one core only?
Given the problems with MSFS over the last year and a half, be interesting to see where X-Plane goes.

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (benwynn @ Jan 21 2008, 12:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only thing putting me of Xplane would be the scenery compatiabity. How many scenery companies make scenery for XPlane??

Scenery is, unsurprisingly, a big issue. To answer your question simply, only two or three companies make scenery for X-Plane (and they're not that flash). However, X-Plane is about to receive a lot of benefit from a new, official (and free) tool from the X-Plane team that will change this. World Editor (WED) makes scenery design possible for mere mortals again (we lost it after X-Plane 7, two to three years ago). Currently WED only does the airport grounds, but it's about to be extended to other tasks such as mesh manipulation and land class changes. We've already had OverlayEditor for a year or so, and that's allow us to place buildings and other 3D objects anywhere within X-Plane. Creatiion of such 3D objects can be done in Google Sketchup, AC3D or Blender.

I guess, asking what companies make scenery for X-Plane is kinda the wrong question to ask, as it's not companies who tend to make scenery, but a few individuals. Tom Curtis has made utterly spectacular scenery for the southern end of Alaska (the panhandle) and more recently the Inside Passage of Canada (he's also done Las Vegas, Southern California and a few other smaller places). Take a look at these:
Final Frontier (Alaska): http://www.xplanefreeware.net/tom/Final_Fr...l_Frontier.html
Inside Passage: http://www.xplanefreeware.net/tom/InsidePassage/Home.html

These come complete with object animation, etc. every bit as advanced as FSX. We also have a lot of the Swiss airports available, plus many British and Irish ones. The USA Is pretty well catered for, with at least basic scenery from Ted, at many major US and numerous international destinations:
http://x-plane.org/home/tdavis/scenery8/xp8scenery.html

We also have good coverage of Kaitak (Hong Kong) Paris, Belgium & Corsica (http://baugras.club.fr/xplane/Site/france.html, http://www.xplanefreeware.net/forums/index...owtopic=5224url]

The entire reason I'm here in this forum is to see what New Zealand MS Flight sceneries I can convert to X-Plane. So far I've had good success with Kaikoura and mostly good success with other locations (Christchurch, Dargaville, Hamilton, Gisborne, and more) - but I've only been trying since Friday last week. My main problem with the conversions is that I don't have FS9 - FSX, so I am missing some of the default library objects. The good thing is that I can easily download and install all of the 3rd party add-on libraries (like Runway-12 & the EZ sceneries) and as long as a scenery package uses these, the sceneries convert pretty well. A bit of tweaking is always required as X-Plane doesn't normally flatten an airport. It doesn't need to as runways can and do follow the natural contours of the land. Consequently a few buildings need fine adjustment. I can usually place default X-Plane objects to the gaps left by incomplete conversions (fuel tanks and the like).

I'm still learning how best to do all this, but it is wonderful to have 90% successful conversions of most NZ airports.

To see what X-Plane 9 looks like, have a look here: http://www.xplanefreeware.net/forums/index...?showtopic=5031 Note: X-Plane 9 is still in public beta, and since its initial release, RAM requirements have dropped nicely and frame-rates climbed back to normal speeds.

To see what sceneries are available, take a look through here: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?automo...&showcat=80 At the end of the day though, X-Plane can't compete with the sheer number of MS Flight sceneries, but X-Plane has traditionally focused more on the flying that the view (but that is now changing as computers gain power). Oh, and yes you're right Charl, X-Plane doesn't really attract casual simmers. It does attract a particularly large number of professional pilots though, a few engineers and almost every Mac and Linux user who want's a flight sim ('cause it's almost the only choice!).

Cheers,

[AlisterC]

Wow!! Makes me think I should look at getting it someday.. Thanks for the link, and Steelblades for his info.

[benwynn]

SteelBlades-

Not nessacary in that regard- But for example RNZ Wellington and Fly tampa scenerys of exceptional quality would almost never be produced for XPlane..

[victor_alpha_charlie]

QUOTE (SteelBlades @ Jan 21 2008, 11:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A quick catchup on X-Plane.

The latest release of X-Plane Global Scenery (for X-Plane 9) has made all the difference in the world to the spiky mountains - they are no more - they're now good and accurate (Fiordland was not flash in Version 8, now it's beautiful). The price of X-Plane is about NZ$120 (incl. shipping) if you buy it online and get it shipped from the US. Although I'm a member of this forum, I'm an X-Plane customer (as I run Macs, I can't even run MSFS/FSX) but I can use the scenery posted here thanks to a conversion tool I'm experimenting with. X-Plane is as barren with respect to airports as the shipping version of the MS flight sims, so the work of the NZ FS community here is very much appreciated by me too!

In regard to the X-Plane community - it's very active. There's much less scenery available to X-Plane users than MSFS/FSX users, but probably more aircraft (www.x-plane.org), most are free too - although the eye candy isn't usually as good. X-Plane went through a major scenery system update in version 8, and the tools are only now maturing (version 9 is 100% backwards compatible). The good thing is that the default Global Scenery is so good, there's little demand for add-on meshes like those from Geographix.

X-Plane has had full support for 3D (virtual) cockpits since version 8, the AI is constantly improving - although not as good as FSX's, and version 9 now includes reflective water and 3D trees all over the place.

Other things worthy of note are that all aircraft, including AI ones, fly with the same flight models as user controlled aircraft. This means that when you fly next to a refueling aircraft for example, it's bobbing around just like you are! X-Plane has combat (since version 8.5), although it's rather rudimentary, nothing like LOMAC. Combat is excellent for WWI and WWII and Korean era dogfights though - it's designed around a Red Flag type training scenario, with no actual damage, just smoke (plus engine failures in X-Plane). Joystick buttons can be user-programmed to control almost any part of the sim (and the keyboard controls are 100% user manageable too - you can even make new controls).

X-Plane 9 uses multi-core computers to the full. The first core runs your plane (graphics + flight modelling). The second core looks after most of the scenery, keeping things as quick & fluid as possible. For a long time, X-Plane has used DLLs in a plug-in format to extend the sim. This makes a large number of extra things possible, like custom FMCs, links to hardware, and more.

Cheers,

Watch out.. I've nearly been converted.. My computer can't run FS looking good with good frame rates, it's one or the other. X-plane looks like it's more for me

The aircraft don't look half bad either- check out this link.

[Q300]

I do agree X plane looks great!
But I dont think ill ever leave the MSFS series...

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (victor_alpha_charlie @ Jan 22 2008, 01:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Watch out.. I've nearly been converted.. My computer can't run FS looking good with good frame rates, it's one or the other. X-plane looks like it's more for me

The aircraft don't look half bad either- check out this link.

The aircraft is the Piaggio Avanti P180 owned and operated by Ferrari and used by VIPs (i.e. it's a real aircraft). The P180 is the fastest production turboprop in the world (what else would Ferrari fly eh )? Interestingly, it is the only production aircraft to have three lifting surfaces (forward wings, main wings and tail wings). This aircraft comes with the default X-Plane 9 install, but it's only a taste of the fun aircraft available for X-Plane. X-Plane also has something mostly missing from MSFS, experimental/sci-fi aircraft, and very old or rare aircraft for which there is no data on how they flew. Because X-Plane uses blade element theory, it doesn't need look-up tables from existing aircraft to work out how an aircraft should fly. Consequently, there are some amazing aircraft available for X-Plane.

--

QUOTE (Q300 @ Jan 22 2008, 02:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I do agree X plane looks great!
But I dont think ill ever leave the MSFS series...

Q300, you don't need to make an either/or decision. Both is allowed . Try the demo http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html and then see what you think. For what it's worth, I'm currently converting some NZ sceneries for X-Plane, and the ground mesh is much, much more accurate by default in X-Plane, so you don't miss anything out in that department. Oh, and you might like this: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?automo...p;showfile=2756 - a wee update I did on an X-Plane favourite (I've done a lot more on it since posting it too).

[ardypilot]

QUOTE

The aircraft don't look half bad either- check out this link.[/quote]
Very cool, the photoreal Canyon is amazing too!

Does X-Plane include autogen buildings on the ground by the way?

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Jan 22 2008, 11:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very cool, the photoreal Canyon is amazing too!

Does X-Plane include autogen buildings on the ground by the way?

Heh, heh. The photoreal canyon isn't photoreal - that's just std. X-Plane computer-gen texture. It is in fact the Grand Canyon - and those photos with the Ferrari P180 pusher on the front page at http://www.x-plane.com/ are all version 8 screen snapshots - version 9 is even better (see http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html). It is because of the pretty decent computer-gen textures that most X-Plane users tend not to use orthophotos on the ground. I do think that there are too few land classes though.

Does X-Plane include autogen buildings on the ground? Yup. In the major US cities, they've been arranged with extra care though, meaning places like New York look really good. I think the last photo on the home page is of the southern tip of Manhhatten.

For the best view of version 8 scenery, look here: http://www.global-scenery.org/GLOBAL_PICS/ - in X-Plane, US roads are accurate to about 1m. Traffic always drives on the correct side of the road, no matter what country you're in too. The autogen trees make things look that much better in version 9.

[ardypilot]

Far out SteelBlades, that's almost too good to be true!

What sort of spec PC do you need to run version 8 and 9?

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Jan 24 2008, 12:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Far out SteelBlades, that's almost too good to be true!

What sort of spec PC do you need to run version 8 and 9?

I have a (late) 2003 model Macintosh. It's a dual processor model running the on the old PowerPC CPUs (1.8GHz - which I guess equates to a 2.4GHz P4, depending on the task). I use an ATI Radeon 9600/256 PC & Mac Edition video card. With this now modest system I can run X-Plane at about two-thirds to three quarters full settings, depending on city complexity - having building density up pushes it a bit too hard. The std. features that really push the sim are those buildings, clouds set to very large and dense (you can have up to three layers of them) and the new version 9 features of reflective water and volumetric fog at the horizon (to blend ground scenery seamlessly into the sky). The other new version 9 feature that taxes the system is the 3D forests, but I'm working closely with the X-Plane scenery designer on how best to implement these for mid-range computers like mine.

So basically, a 3-4 yr old computer will perform pretty well with either version. X-Plane 9 is actually more efficient with the basics than version 8, so if you choose not to turn on the new graphics features (they are completely optional) your computer will run faster with X-Plane 9, not slower. There's really little reason for a newcomer to go with X-Plane 8 now, especially as all scenery and the majority of v8 aircraft work fine in v9.

The additional features of version 9 depend mostly on a video card with programmable pixel shaders, meaning any video card from mine on will cope. Basically, if your computer is no older than a couple of years, its CPU will do pretty darned well, but dual CPUs or dual cores makes a big difference (X-Plane doesn't support SLI video cards). The very dense cities will however still sap even the newest computer! Because my older Mac is dual processor it is much more capable than most Windows based PCs of the same age (which weren't often dual processor). Nevertheless, most PC owners flying FS9 or FSX will have a more recent and pretty decent machine. X-Plane always performs more fluidly on the same hardware (meaning higher fps) than FS9 or FSX. X-Plane will use up to 3Gb of RAM - this is a Windows limit. If X-Plane wasn't restricted by this is could easily use more for better performance on Mac OS X and Linux (but as X-Plane is cross platform it needs to be the same for all). I use 1.5Gb RAM and it's okay, though I intend to increase this to 3.5Gb shortly. Minimum RAM requirements are the same for both v8 and v9 (1Gb).

The best thing to do if you want to try X-Plane is download the demo: http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html In all likelihood, X-Plane will work well.