Bought X-plane

[hanspetter]

First of all, I'm NOT leaving FS

I bought X-plane. Version 9 with the full world scenery cost me about 50 dollars, shipping included. The currency exchange is very favorable from my point of view these days -- this must be the least expensive major flightsimming decision I've made. I've always wanted to try X-plane. The FD model relies on airfoil / air interaction just as my old and trusty FU III. In other words, the shape of the aircraft (actually, the shape of a simplified model you don't see) interacts with the virtual relative wind. There's no "riding on rails" in X-plane. In fact, you'll have to tweak controller sensitivity quite a bit to achieve proper stability. I'll look into the FD format later. There's a "Plane Maker" utility that comes with the sim.

The X-plane world may seem a bit closed. It all hinges on one person and most forums / downloads are on dedicated sites. In other words, Flighsim.com or Avsim don't have much to offer as X-plane is concerned. There are some freeware addons available from X-plane sites and a lot of payware. Actually, it seems that most designers go for quite cheap payware rather than freeware or quite expensive payware.

[flaminghotsauce]

Ah, welcome the dual-sim club. You paid less than I did for X-Plane!

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I've been very impressed with the Cirrus jet, and so far I fly it by far more than anything else. I've had to turn down some stuff like turbulence to find a more realistic "normal" flight. I think the default settings are better on FSX than Xplane. Xp is way too bumpy, sensitive to control inputs, etc. out of the box.

I've found while Xplane does indeed show better frames than FSX, FS9 smokes it. Xplane will automatically drop visibility to retain frame rates, though the minimum fps can be set, while FS9 or FSX will allow you to turn stuff up till the sim croaks.
My typical settings give me 25-30 is on Xplane, 20-30 on FSX, and FS9 is locked at 60 and stays at 59.

FSX will run far better at 15 fps than FS9 or XPlane. Weird.

[hanspetter]

I'm interested in learning your choices of controller settings. There's three sliders to set for the sensitivity / damping and the X-plane developer claims that all the way to the left translates to highest degree of realism. Well, it doesn't. If I go full left all of the axes are quite jittery and all planes seem to lack any inertia. In fact, X-planes may tend to lack a proper sense of mass and inertia. With the sliders at about 25 percent it feels closer to correct. What exactly do these sliders set? Then there's the setting for input where "linear" is the default setting. FS has controller sensitivity settings. I find it a bit unclear what the X-plane settings actually do.

Still, I find X-plane interesting in that this sim is created by a flight physics enthusiast. That should vouch for a focus on realistic flight dynamics. FS on the other hand is a niche product within the "Microsoft Games" category. Every version gets prettier while it seems that the flight dynamics part stays untouched -- at best.

[Allen Peterson]

There are two sets of sliders, left - joystick control - and right - stability.
I have all three sliders on the left set set to 25%. On the right set I have pitch set at 25%, roll at 41%, and yaw at 30%. I set them early on and can't remember why I picked those numbers. I think I probaby had the right ones set at 25% also and then changed them for some reason. I need to do more testing.
Another thing that I have noticed is that the displayed horse power is low. If the engine spec is 200 HP, all a power gauge or the "banner gauge' - from settings/data in out - shows is about 180 HP at full throttle and at about 1000'. A note on the power gauge (in Plane-Maker) says that the HP is displayed in percent but that doesn't seem right. The "banner gauge" and the power gauge both read the same and the "banner gauge" is labeled in HP not % HP.All of the prop planes seem to read low in HP.
I haven't done enough testing yet to see if the speeds are about right. Now that I understand how to get the autopilots working I can do that.
Anyway, I don't see how to fix the HP.

[flaminghotsauce]

For what it's worth, I have a stubborn streak. I feel that the software should be set up correctly out of the box, and I am loathe to start tweaking flight dynamics of default aircraft, default controller settings, etc. I will do it if necessary, like the XPlane turbulence default setting. I'm going to have to turn down the wave height on the water, too. 3 foot waves might be normal out in the ocean, but not on the lakes around where I live!

Out of the box, the XPlane sim frustrates by not having standard assignments for, well, anything I use. CH yoke and pedals....? They lose points out of the box for that! I haven't adjusted the sliders you speak of yet, because I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.

Control inputs are too twitchy, but if that's how they set them in the original program, that must be how they want you to experience, right?

Okay, stubborn attitude off. Out of the box, FSX is the winner as far as control inputs feel. Is it accurate? Probably not, but in my opinion, compared to a real 172, it's very close. Especially on a cool morning when the air is as smooth as silk.

Xplane is based on better physics, so I expect more from the original settings. I have not altered the three sliders, but that's on my list after I settle on reasonable eye-candy/frame rate ratio, figure out the weather settings a little better, and a couple other things. Well, the sliders may have to be bumped to the top of the list.

This is like Linux versus Windows. Xp=linux, FS=Windows. LInux allows lots of tweaking, and mandates tweaking in lots of areas. Windows doesn't, but you get what you got. You can tweak, though, if necessary.

[flaminghotsauce]

While posting on the Colorado fling, I was thinking about X-Plane. I'm basically flying the fling in two sims, I wonder if anyone is doing the fling in Xplane?

My Xplane has been sitting mostly unused lately. I might have to drag out the "sit in the tray" disk and fly a leg of the fling in the Laminar flavor.

[Allen Peterson]

Hey, Coleman, good to see you back. I sure would like an update on how you are doing with X-Plane. I downloaded 9.02 but haven't done much with it lately. Been busy flying and tweaking in FS9.

[bgak011]

Hi Allen, I am enjoying X-Plane very much. I have removed everything from my computer, that was connected to Microsoft. I am using Ububtu 8.04 (Linux) as my operating system and I have not found anything that I could do with Windows XP, that I can't do with Linux. X-Plane's aircraft were a lot more sensitive than FX9, but I have found my way around all of the differences, that I ran into. If anyone flying X-Plane needs any help, I will try to help them.

I have been looking in on the forum from time to time, but since I am using X-Plane, I have not had a lot to post about. Bluegrass will always be one of my favorite hangouts!
Coleman

[Bill Von Sennet]

I'd like to see some screen shots of planes and panels.

I googled X-plane DC-3 and found a payware version.

It doesn't have a 2D panel. Is that normal? Except for my Waco I prefer the 2D panels and modify them myself with FS Panel Creator.
Is there a similar function in X-Plane?

Is my computer sufficient?
I have a Pentium 4 GPU 2.8 ghz
1GB Ram
Nvidia GeForce FX 5500
25.7GB available on C:\ 80 mb hard drive
24.1GB availavle on F:\ usb 80mb hard drive

[bgak011]

Hi Bill, Your system might be on the low side, of what is needed. One way to find out is to install the DEMO and see if it will run for you. The DEMO will also let you see a lot of aircraft and panels. Here is a link to their aircraft download page.

forums.x-plane.org/index.php?autocom=downloads&showcat=1

Scroll down until you see the X-Plane 9 and X-Plane 8 headings. They are broken down into different categories.

My System Specs.

Computer : Dell Dimension XPS Gen5
Operating System : Linux 2.6.24 (Ubuntu 8.04)
CPU : Intel Pentium 4 (3.2 Ghz)
Graphics : NIVIDIA GeForce 6800 with 250 Mb Memory
Memory : 2.0 Gigs DDR2 SDRAM @ 533 MHz
Monitor : 19 inch flat screen

My system runs it with most settings set at default and some of the " eye candy " turned off. If you want to install the DEMO, I will call you and help you with any questions you have. If you do not want to install the DEMO, I will try to post some screen shots for you.

Coleman

[Bill Von Sennet]

Forget the demo. I ordered X-Plane 9.0 today. $39 plus shipping.

I don't have a DVD so I will try to install it from the DVD on Mary Ann's computer.

If all else fails, I might buy a new computer.

Does FS9 work on Linux? I would hate to part with FS9 as I have a lot of aircraft.

Do you use "open office".

[bgak011]

No, FS9 does not work on Linux. I struggled with that problem for a long time, but I finally gave it up. I felt like the advantages of Linux outweighed the lose of FS9. For the time being I do not have to worry about the viruses, spy ware and etc. that plagued Windows. I am sure that in a few years (down the road) that the hackers might try to put their wares on Linux. I do not have a Firewall installed, but Linux does come with them if you want to use them. I have been running Linux since June, 2008 and the only problems that I have run into was cause by me!!!

Yes, I use OpenOffice and have come to like it. It will read and write the files from Windows, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Access.

If you have any questions about Linux or X-Plane, email me your phone number and let me know when would be the best time to call.

Coleman

EDIT: I am using the Comcast Digital Phone system, so the call is free.

[flaminghotsauce]

I completely agree about the linux security. I have yet to turn on a firewall or any other filter on any of my Linux machines. It's been over a year. They just don't get viruses.

I'm looking at the two machines you guys have. Bill, if you upgrade your memory and video card, your computer might just work alright. But if you're seriously thinking about a new computer, think as big as you can afford. If you read up the thread, you'll see my quad core machine doesn't exactly scream along on XPlane.

As far as running FS9 under Linux, the only way I know to do it would be to run Windows in a virtual machine with FS9 installed as a Windows application. This would work if you have a big enough processor and memory to run BOTH operating systems. My big machine would do it if I had XP instead of Vista. Vista takes over a gig of memory to idle. But that's a pretty hard-core solution.

[Allen Peterson]

Bill, here are a couple of panel screen shots from X-Plane 9.1, one is for a RV-7A that I made in Planemaker from a RV-7 and the other is for a Beaver that I downloaded. The RV-7A panel is based on a panel by Coleman.
Good luck with X-Plane, the learning curve is fun but a little steep.





Actually, they are screen shots of screen shots (I did that to get them down to 800x600), just to give you an idea of what panels looked like. I've got to get X-Plane 9.2 set up so I can get some better shots of some panels and planes.

[Bill Von Sennet]

Thanks for the pics Allen.