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7 hours ago, Medellinexpat said:

One of the things that is surprising me is how much payware does seem to require changes. The aircraft packages I was expecting but scenery seems to be impacted as well. Boundless have posted an update on their site about known issues with their sceneries in XP12 which they are fixing. If they are representative, and many of their sceneries are pretty new, making the transition if you have a reasonable amount of payware is going to quite an involved process

This was initially a concern of mine as well, but the more I fly XP12 the more I wonder how many of these payware sceneries I would even want back, as in many areas XP12 looks (and performs) significantly better out of the box (lack of orthos aside). I think developers have a much bigger task than just making their products compatible with XP12 - they will also need bring the visual quality up to match the current bar set by XP12 (like SFD has more than done with SFO Definitive), in order to not be left behind.

You called this one right, Stephen, it is truly spectacular. And I'm happy to report that even with my trusty old 1080ti I'm managing ~24-30 frames even with all graphics settings maxed out and lots of clouds, in XP12!

On 8/6/2022 at 5:13 PM, Stephen said:

The problem is with that in using the freeware SFO city objects , is that you are doubling up the objects by doubling up the sceneries, I noted a significant framerate drop by using Tom Curtis Golden Gate scenery package to do the same thing, on top of an already bombastic object count. I would look at as a short term fix, and a hopeful dedicated San Fran City Pack from ShortFinal.

The good news is that XP12 includes a version of SF City which, IMO, is the best yet. That is, until SFD release their "SF City Definitive"!

42 minutes ago, Medellinexpat said:

But if MSFS does make It more of a mainstream hobby? I’ve always believed that it is the wider audience on MSFS might not accept pricing that we’ve been used to. It’ll be even more interesting when MSFS starts to go on sale (Black Friday?) which will make add on prices, in terms of content for your dollar, seem even more distorted.

 

A lot of us Quietly rebel against that niche market pricing anyway. Take Orbx, and I’m a big fan and have plenty of their stuff, but for the most part I wait for the sale. When Carenado recently had a big sale I bought five aircraft that I wanted and generally I’m not that price sensitive. So we in a world of niche pricing have all learnt hoe to play the game.

 

Steam pricing is interesting as well. I live in Colombia and the local Steam store pricing, even without sales, tends to lower than in the US or Europe. For example Aerosoft’s fairly recent Ibizia is $23.95 on the Org store. it’s the equivalent of $13.95 on Steam here. That’s not a cherry picked item either, just an example. So niche pricing isn’t consistent. 

 

Perhaps VerticalSimulations might make a good interview to understand how they came to their new pricing. 
 

But you’re probably right, as a niche market pricing was never going to be that competitive but if MSFS now means we’re moving away from niche, maybe the dominos will start to fall. 

Yeah good point, but I wonder exactly what it is that MSFS will make mainstream, though? As Stephen has mentioned, at the moment it is more of a game than a sim, and it will be a long time before it becomes anything approaching "study-level". And how far will they take that? My guess is that most gamers won't go along for that ride - thus no more mass market. And MS is all about the mass market. I just think the number of people interested in real aviation will always be small, and the number of those willing to go through a lot of tedious study to become better virtual pilots even smaller.

I personally don't begrudge the more vertical pricing (as long as the product is good), because I know it's simply unavoidable with such a smaller market. Maybe not as much for the bigger multiplatform publishers like Aerosoft and Orbx, but a lot of our vendors are tiny shops or even one-man-shows, who do it mainly for the love of XP. I can't imagine a lot of them are making any real money in our market.

3 hours ago, Medellinexpat said:

I don’t want developers to starve (quite the opposite) but I’ve always wondered if the high price of add-ons, in particular scenery, was the real barrier to getting more sales and ultimately through volume more profit.

 

I think the real barrier is serious flight simulation itself - it will never have mass appeal so niche market pricing seems like a natural result (not the cause) to me.

MSFS is just a fling–who could resist her sexy charms? But at the end of the day I always come back to my first love 😁

18 hours ago, Stephen said:

What X-Plane users need to remember is that the release of Vulkan v11.50 is only half the transition, the other elements like the mesh/textures, weather will now be needed to be modernised for more gains and better efficiency, plus bringing the cores on line as MSFS already does, now the main code is in place Laminar can revolutionise the whole package.

Good to know. Looking forward to what's to come, but in the meantime will continue to enjoy what we have now, which is still nothing short of incredible.

Excellent and thorough analysis, Stephen. I would add one more critical area XP needs to play "catch-up" on: performance, especially if they have any aspirations of converging toward MSFS visually.

My feeling, for example, is that my system which has no problem getting a solid 30-40+ FPS in MSFS with Ultra-everything, will simply choke on XP12 if it manages to achieve anything resembling visual parity with MSFS. I don't pretend to be an expert on why this is, but I CAN see that while MSFS makes 99% use of my GPU (1080ti), XP utilizes around 50% at most. Similarly with CPU in that MSFS seems to use all my cores efficiently, while XP does not. I was actually quite shocked by how well MSFS performs on my system, which was high spec maybe 3 years ago, but much more moderately so by today's standards.

Vulcan has made a big difference for sure, but I think XP still has a long way to go in this regard.

While the 3D models look great, they seem very mismatched with the "vintage" (to put it charitably) looking areas they are tacked onto. 

I know this isn't intended as a complete traffic solution shootout but you missed an excellent (and free) alternative from your list: Live Traffic by TwinFan on the Org. It's great for people like me who have struggled with WT3 and find it to be way too much work. I'd rather spend my time flying! Plus I love the fact that all the flights represented are real world flights happening in real time.

Thank you for this honest review of Traffic Global. I have been tempted to try it, but at this point it doesn't seem far enough along to justify the $53 asking price.

Will be interesting to see how it compares to the Imaginesim version just released today

While you're calling up your inner Sonny Crockett...I'll call up my inner Dexter Morgan!

I think their innovative approach has potential but at the end of the day the clouds look like bubble-bath suds to me. And like everyone else has seen, it kills the frame rate on my high-end PC. So for now it's still UWXP + ASXP for me.

I am very excited about this release as now I will be able to do the KMRY - KDEN run in the exact aircraft and livery (E145, United Express) that I do regularly in real life (as a passenger)! So cool! BTW, yes the cabin is tight, but I love the fact that the left side is single-seat as I get the whole row to myself!

Are you considering an update to report if the developer's several updates have addressed the issues satisfactorily? Thanks once again for another incredibly thorough review!

Fantastic review, Stephen. I jus bought this last night (on faith, not having seen this review, because MisterX6). Looking forward to some EDDF (Aerosoft payware version) to EDDM runs this weekend!

You've flown it Stephen? How does she handle compared to the AFL and REP versions?

So, this comes with ONLY the G1000 avionics suite and no option for the analog instruments?

Not every day you see 2 payware versions of the same airport. I have the BC Sceneries version of LIMJ (I'm surprised no comparison mentioned here?) and it's excellent, imo (albeit sans SAM). Thanks for the coverage of LSZH...am going to pick this one up.

Great read, Stephen. As a relative newcomer (since mid-2016) I really appreciate the evolution to payware that has taken place. It is a just reward (and I hope profitable) for those who paid their dues in the early days, giving so much to the XP community, in which we all have a role to play. Mine may not be to create content, but to happily help support those who do as the products just keep getting better and better.

This is the craft John Denver was flying when he fatally crashed here in Monterey where I live. In his version the fuel tank selector and gauges were oddly positioned behind the pilot and nearly impossible to reach (without turning one's body 90 degrees and stepping on the right rudder pedal) which led to the crash.

I'm a veteran passenger of KDEN and very excited about this...can't wait to try it out!

Do you think the new particle system might eventually translate to better clouds?

On 8/22/2018 at 8:16 AM, sebas00 said:

Is there HD reflection on the runway or Tarmac?

Not sure exactly what you mean by "HD reflection" but the materials are PBR-based so they do seem to reflect (and scatter) light in a true-to-life way.

One thing that really stands out about this package (referring to the city scenery now) is the night lighting. It is spectacular and as far as I know currently has no equal in the scenery market.

Now I have all 3 KLAX versions and all I can say is the third time is the charm! Lately I've shied away from packages that are airport only with no city elements, but this KLAX is almost a small city unto itself. Superb work, Justin!