britfrog 180 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 well I finally succumbed and downloaded the XP10 demo from their super dooper, super slow servers . and fired up the demo following their very helpful hints sent by email on how to setup the joystick, despite their best help neither my joystick or I were in a state to go flying , why cant they just autosense the usb joystick like every other game can??? i was rather impressed with the enormous choice of things that you could make the joystick buttons do , but all I wanted to do was a quick flight. i managed to get the throttle to work so headed over to the very flash looking avanti and opened the throttle only to find it only worked on the left engine. After revolving around a dozen circles on the runway I crashed my keyboard with anger and managed to find a key which made the other engine go flat out, so i pulled back on the joystick but it turned left, i turned the rudder and it climbed, i wanted to look outside and looked left and that worked but i could not get it to look ahead, and this was after following their emailed instructions!! oh man by now i was near screaming so thought I would try to do a circuit, but no matter what i did the plane flew straight and nearly level. after a few minutes of trying to figure things out i realised that the demo disconnects the joystick after 15 minutes. it was so funny and so pathetic I nearly cried. I do want to try this GAME, a sim it isnt, but do I need this frustration? my p.c was cowering on the edge of my desk expecting to be launched into the garden. impressed??? so far not in the least. why is the setup so illogical? i thought computer devs were logical. This is supposed to compete with FSX ? not in a million years, unless they make it a whole lot easier to setup the joystick for one! i have taken a dozen valium and washed them down with a few whiskies and will look at doing battle with the THING again tomorrow watch this space ) Link to post Share on other sites
ddavid 149 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 Stick it out, Nigel - if only to make me laugh! Cheers - Dai. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 I feel for you Nigel, every time I try X-P again I wonder why I bothered! Link to post Share on other sites
Gunner 69 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 .... watch this space ) will follow closely! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 ..Could be fun?! Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 I can't wait for the reports. It's a dirty, thankless job but someone had to bite the bullet and confirm that X-P is still a PoS. John Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 Steady on John! We have an X-Plane aircraft review being published tomorrow Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 Oops, sorry - didn't remember that. I hope it's as "colorful" as bf's narrative. John Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted April 11, 2014 Report Share Posted April 11, 2014 It should be, it's written by Jess B! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted April 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 Well I awoke to a lovely morning, temps in low 20's a light cool mountain breeze, so really enjoyed the relaxing walk with the dogs, a quick coffee and I was in the right frame of mind to set up the THING. I went into the kitchen and fetched out swmb'os egg timer and put that in front of me. and fired up the thing and my email from Randy. Now Randy I will inform you is customer support at X plane , not some floosey from some dodgy internet dating site, well i hope not otherwise swmbo will have me for breakfast. Randy's email was headed, Your Guide to Setting up X Plane, so having failed so miserably yesterday I was determined to follow it to the letter. I followed items 1-11 at which point Randy informed me that my joystick is now ready to fly, well I hoped it was because I sure as well wasn't . the next heading on Randy's email was, Getting off the Ground . following items 1-6 , I had decided to use the c172 (to reduce the mental overload to something I could cope with) I opened the throttle and was immediately shocked by the weirdest noise a 172 ever made, it sounded nothing like a 172 , more like a helicopter , with the woop,woop noise, ok it sounded like an R22!!! but never mind i was here to fly. Item 4 enduces me to pull back at 60 knots and get airbourne whilst item 5 tells me to level off and accelerate to 80, and item 6 says simply "Fly Away!!!" at some point in this procedure, no doubt out of excitement, I had accidentally touched the roller on the mouse and my face was now squashed against the instrument panel , there had been no warning this might happen, but I managed to avoid crashing and climbed away, panic over. As things had settled down into the climb I took the opportunity to read What Randy advised me to do next, it said in capital letters , and i kid you not , Thats all you need to know to use X-Plane!! well call me old fashioned but at this juncture I had a few doubts, further reinforeced when I touched the top hat on my joystick to look for the airport and nothing happened , quickly followed by a touch on the central button to get an outside view , and you guesed it nothing happened, I began to think Randy was having a giraffe at me. his next paragraph was headed "Now about those free aircraft", Geez I could not control what I had in my inventory let alone download more. So Randy for the moment was consigned to the bin. I paused the simulation (yes "P" does work) and went back into the joystick settings, this part actually works quite well you hit a button on your joystick and the settings shows a number, and you then assign a function , very staright forward , even for me. So as I will need flaps I hit my normal flap button and look down the list, the first choice is "nothing at all" the second, fadec toggle! no I dont think a 172 has a fadec , not at least when I flew them, likewise TOGA power, eventually I found what I thought might work and moved onto the view button. "Orbital man rockets up" now this choice must mean something to someone but being a bit thick it meant nothing to me so presumed it had nothing to do with flap settings, this was followed by "orbital man right" what was all that about? was i supposed to High Five someone??? I managed to set the forward view to "forward with panel" the other choice was "view sunglasses" but decided against this due to my earlier skirmish with the mouse roller and the panel. At this point I felt sufficiently confident with the ways things were going that I would attempt to complete my first circuit so un paused the sim and turned left and DING!! ding??? the egg timer had gone off , sure enough there on the screen was the confirmation , come in number 9 your time is up!!! Drat and darned and arghhhhhhhh I so wanted to complete my first circuit, but that will have to wait for another day, I was suffering from information overload, I swear my p.c has crept closer to the door. Link to post Share on other sites
ddavid 149 Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 I guess the demo is time limited? Can you save a flight and continue it or do you have to 'cold start' the X-Plane demo each time? By Golly, you've got me on the edge of my seat, Nigel! Cheers - Dai. Link to post Share on other sites
hifly 925 Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 Keep at it Nigel, not for your sake but for our amusement. Try to think of it as character building. I see you have changed your avatar to a graphic of a 146. I recall you had problems with it when new. Is it now your favourite little runaround? I have the JF 146, didn't like it at first, now I love it, it's great for dropping in to London City or quick and dirty little hops. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted April 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 Keep at it Nigel, not for your sake but for our amusement. Try to think of it as character building. I see you have changed your avatar to a graphic of a 146. I recall you had problems with it when new. Is it now your favourite little runaround? I have the JF 146, didn't like it at first, now I love it, it's great for dropping in to London City or quick and dirty little hops. yeah I will keep at it a bit longer but only to give it a fair crack of the whip , and of course amuse you guys! I can already see it is not in the same league as FSX, sadly. As for the 146 , well I guess I was expecting something along the lines of the ngx or airbus or even the Q400 but it also isnt in that league. However it isnt too bad and flies nicely but is let down by things that will hopefully be corrected in a service pack. the main visual let down for me were the 32 sided engines which they didnt even use on the 757 which was made 3 years previously. But hey ho its a lot better than some others out there, the problem is we are spoiled by the likes of PMDG and co so expect all new planes to be at that level. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,284 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 I think I would of liked to see a video of this voyage into XP Nigel. We could have posted it on youtube. Link to post Share on other sites
hlminx 301 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Nigel, I can feel your pain.... that is, when im trying not to give into a fit of giggles at your narrative and at the total banality of the situation. I agree with hifly...keep with it a little longer, not only for our amusement but to reinforce what had stopped me trying it out in the first place. im guessing the only way to get it going is to throw the FSX manual out the window (before your shiny pc of course) and un-learn anything and everything about FSX, settings, shortcuts, flying habits, the lot. Good luck on your mission, Nigel, if you do indeed choose to accept it...me, it would have been sent back to Amzon looooong ago Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted April 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 ok, round 3, seconds out!!! Todays mission if I choose to accept it is to complete a circuit!!! YEAH bring it On!!! Yesterday whilst re-reading Randy's email I saw at the bottom of the page "This is the first email in a month long course" --- Deep Joy !! but sure enough there in my inbox were several more to read. Oh well If they help me get to grips with the Thing ,I may as well read them. No2 commences with The CFI's guide to flying an approach in X-Plane , well I think I will give that a miss for now , I am still trying to complete a circuit . The next heading Choosing an airport is more pertinent as the last time I took off I could not find the airport again and I know the area around KSEA quite well , however this was an instruction on how to choose an airport to start from. Why is it I have to start a flight at the end of the runway not at a parking gate? The titles that followed were also not of great interest although one Flying the Approach Visually , did hold out some hope , that is until I read it and I quote it here in full, see what you make of it. "Flying the approach visually At this point, you should be 10 nautical miles out from the airport, in line with whichever runway you chose. Your goal is to slowly descend down to ground level, while keeping your airplane lined up with the runway. If you’re in a small, general aviation airplane (like the Cessna 172SP), you want to keep your speed a bit above stalling speed. (For the 172, stalling speed is about 50 knots, so aim for 70 knots or so, lowering your speed as you get closer.) By the time you get to the runway, you want to be right at stalling speed, with your power at zero and flaps at full. Follow a shallow glide path in to the runway—that is, point the nose down between 3 and 5 degrees. Right before the craft reaches the ground, raise the nose up to about 7 degrees for a gentle touchdown.Did you make it?! If not, just reload your approach (using the Select Global Airport dialog just like before) and try again!Now I dont know about you,but that seems to me to be a great recipe of how to end up as a pile of smoking ashes at the end of the runway, but what do I know? However none of this was really helping me with my problem of seeing around the a/c whilst in flight or inside the a/c . So for today's attempt at a circuit I chose their Beech 58 which again one can make a comparison with the FSX version. So there I am happily ensconced at the end of the runway with engines running (can I start with a dark and cold cockpit? I have no idea! Randy didnt mention that.) Having resigned myself to the fact that X-Plane does not recognise the fact that most joysticks are fitted with a POV top hat button I spent quite some time trying to configure some better way of looking around but the stock, left/right /panel/empty rear seat drinks holder, was all I could manage. Whilst sitting on the runway my eyes fell on half of a GPS on the right hand side of the instrument panel, but there was no way I could look at it, pov to the right ah yes right wing , left wing (still there) and the rear drinks holder (still there), but a 30 degree off-center look seemed impossible . In frustration I started tapping every key on the board and low and behold I found that the direction keys worked . By trial and error I realised i could move my view of the panel downwards and was rewarded by a whole mass of instruments and switches that I had never seen before wow that was good hit the up button and amazing, my view moved upwards , so It was only logical that if I hit the left or right button my view would move in those directions as well. WRONG! the left and right button have no effect at all, so still could not find a way of moving my gaze from straight ahead unless I wanted to look at my toes.. Another thing I noticed as I was looking around my new found panel was that there were a lot of switches hidden behind the control column but try as I might I could not get the column to disappear to activate them, so I fathomed out to turn on the landing light one needed to to a full barrell roll at a thousand feet with one hand whilst manfully reaching with the mouse to turn on the light, I wonder if Randy would approve of this manoeuvre? So It was back to trying to perform a circuit with limited vision. So reboot the XP again and start the egg timer, tick,tick tick. The hump backed KSEA runway is nicely represented (if it is actually humpbacked I have no idea) but it is something fsx cant do properly. so set the DI. and open the throttles 90 knots pull back and wahoo we are airbourne! legs up, flaps up, things are starting to look good, turn left 90 degrees , look left and the airport is still in sight, things are really looking up , count 60 seconds and turn 90 degrees left again, look left and yep the airport is still there . OK downwind checks , brakes off, undercarriage down, (a whine seemed to confirm something happened) mixture fully rich and prop in fine (Randy never mentioned how to move them so as we took off in that state they must still be there) , DI, Altimeter and instruments set and checked, hatches and harnesses checked ok we are good to land. a quick glance to the left to confirm that KSEA hasn't disappeared from the face of the earth and left 90 degrees for base leg, followed by another 90 degree turn and would you credit it ?there was the runway, OK! Randy hold on to your hat the next item on the checklist is landing light , its a doozy!!, power back to 17" gives too slow a speed but 22" seems ok and plonk the wheels kiss the tarmac and crash all of a sudden I am looking close up at the panel again WTF? Randy did you touch the mouse roller???? but no the fault was mine when setting up the brake button on the J.S. i selected toggle brakes on and off , WRONG! a quick visit to the settings put that right so open up the throttle and lets have another go. this time the circuit was better so climbed up merrily to the cloud base To infinity and beyond!!! came to mind, and was happily burbling along downwind when I realised that I had a load of height to get rid of so throttle closed and point the nose downhill, strange i thought the engines are revving up further , a glance at the instruments confirmed the throttles were closed but the noise was still rising, weird! anyway I was again reaching circuit height so levelled out and opened the throttles again , wahayyyy where did that squadron of Lancasters come from ??? I felt as if 617SQ had just formated on me , but I remembered as my heart rate started to get back to normal levels that the sound in XP is not all that, maybe that will be fixed in SP32.6. well i suppose i must do the downwind checks and prepare for DING!!! yep you guessed it! Link to post Share on other sites
MyPC8MyBrain 273 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 although the thread has been very entertaining so far you must be getting paid for this abuse or you’re simply a masochisticwhich one is true? Last time I checked XP; on my maiden flight I was dropped into a rainy stormy night in a heavy 747 I couldn’t figure out anything; not the main menu, pause or let alone the controls It was 30 seconds later I was back in my FSX never to come close to XP again It was beyond confusing; nothing made sense or had a logical flow to it I don’t understand why the creator thinks this is the best way to introduce you to XP Link to post Share on other sites
phil white 274 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 I personally find X-Plane 10 a great sim. It does take some getting used to I must admit. Link to post Share on other sites
Gunner 69 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Good read, love it! Just a little help...if i remember correctly, for the cockpit lookaround, you have to press a certain key (don't know which one) on the keyboard, it will transform your mouse in "look" mode. You have to press it again to return for whatever you were using it. Have a look at the menu, i think the keys are shown there. Again, if my memory doesn't fail me. I was trying the xplane demo about 3 years ago. Link to post Share on other sites
phil white 274 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Good read, love it! Just a little help...if i remember correctly, for the cockpit lookaround, you have to press a certain key (don't know which one) on the keyboard, it will transform your mouse in "look" mode. You have to press it again to return for whatever you were using it. Have a look at the menu, i think the keys are shown there. Again, if my memory doesn't fail me. I was trying the xplane demo about 3 years ago. Right mouse click for cockpit look around. Either hold it down or double click does the job. Link to post Share on other sites
ddavid 149 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Nigel, are thre any helicopters with the demo - people say X-Plane does these better than FSX? And thanks for lifting my spirits again. You really must write a book... Cheers - Dai. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted April 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Good read, love it! Just a little help...if i remember correctly, for the cockpit lookaround, you have to press a certain key (don't know which one) on the keyboard, it will transform your mouse in "look" mode. You have to press it again to return for whatever you were using it. Have a look at the menu, i think the keys are shown there. Again, if my memory doesn't fail me. I was trying the xplane demo about 3 years ago. Right mouse click for cockpit look around. Either hold it down or double click does the job. Thanks Phil I could find no mention of this anywhere i suppose it is a case of RTFM my omly problem is that whenever I attempt to RTFM I get past a couple of pages (yawn) And the eyes get heav y then I miss a couple of lines and before I know it zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz so any help is appreciated ! Dai ! watch this space! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted April 14, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 14, 2014 Thamks to all of you who enjoyed my light hearted and pathetic attempt to get XP to work. It was not my intention to ridicule or take the Michael out of XP from the start, I wanted it to be an honest attempt to use it and reproduce some of the great things I have seen posted on Mutleys, however the temptation to criticise became stronger the more you played with the game. I really did want to get into this game , but there is so much that is so different to what we are accustomed to it makes it very hard work. It is almost as if Austin Mayer wanted to emulate Steve Jobs and Apple and create something totally different to anything else, owing nothing to existing prog's including joystick setup. If I start up the motogp game or F1 or many other things the stock joystick settings will work , yes you can change them if you wish but the basic joystick and its buttons work, not the case with x-plane and this major annoyance sets the tone for the rest of the game. Having seen some fellow members of Mutleys post fantastic pictures of what can be achieved with x plane I was tempted to really give it a go but the over complication of simply getting airbourne saps virtually all the enthusiasm out of you. I dont want to appear overly critical because some people have clearly given it the time and progressed to the point where they enjoy it , but to attempt to do this in the 15 minutes the demo gives is virtually impossible. There are a few fundamental problems that kick my remaining enthusiasm virtually into touch. The first is the sounds of the airplanes, they are abysmal, we had better sounds in FS5 why cannot they take a tape recorder into one of Austins planes and make a recording it doesnt take rocket science..The Cessna 172 was a case in point compare the XP version with the FS original version , the difference is quite clear. Another thing that disappointed me were the instrument panels, now I haven't looked at them all, but the 747 is pretty grim , as is the exterior and the wing waggling is simply comical. I no longer have fs2002 but it certainly reminds me of that period of time. also some of the panels look very much like those stylistic panels in Flight, ie it sort of looks like the real panel but more like it is in a game not a simulation. Neither the Baron nor the 172 recreate anything like real life performance (I have flown both in real life) , there is a reason for guages to have green bands , if you increase the throttle to the top of the greens and do the same with the props and mixture , the speed of the plane also will be at the top of the green, the Baron refuses to do this, likewise the 172 struggles. There is so much wrong with this sim it overcomes the bits that are brilliant and there are some brilliant things , but no sooner do you see something that makes you go Wow! you are back on your head again cringing from something else that is so badly wrong. I have gone on record as saying XP is about 5 years behind FSX but in reality it is further than that because fs9 was a better and more rounded program. For me the game changer came in 2 forms , firstly the non-abilty to look around easily, Yes as someone kindly pointed out to me if you put the cockpit view into 3D mode you can then use the mouse whilst pushing down the right button to look around in the cockpit, but sadly when in 3D mode although the guages do appear to have some depth in them they also become blurry, plus the moment you touch your top hat to look left or right it immediately kicks you out of 3D and to get that back you have to use shift-9 or go to the drop down menu. Unlike Apple who didnt seem to be able to make a success of things without Jobs, I think the opposite is the case with XP , they really need another person to show them the way forward , they certainly have the know how, but what is the point of including space travel when you cant even create AI aircraft properly? It almost appears that whenever they have a direction meeting someone will come up with a new superfandango idea and they will put all hands to developing this idea rather than fixing the old problems that have been there all along. Every review I have read refers to the potential of XP , and there is no doubt that it has huge potential , but not under the current management, unless they have a real change of direction. Going to 64 bit was certainly a major step in the right direction, as P3D will not climb out from the shadow of FSX until it also goes 64bit , so the underlying engine is fully capable of doing whatever you want. "The world's most advanced Simulator" is how it is advertised and it may well be but the aircraft and virtually everything you see is not very advanced at all, at least not in my eyes. I would love to have the opportunity to go to their offices and knock some heads together because with fsx and P3D currently going nowhere fast, they could have the world at their feet , I think if you made 2 lists up having played with XP , one headed what is wrong with XP the other what is good, you would have a very long list of what is wrong and a short list of what is good, however if you then analyse the wrong list I am sure that 80% of the items there could be moved to the other sheet very easily, with just a better understanding of what the customer wants instead of what they perceive he needs. As I said earlier I am going to try to get further into this game but I am fast coming around to what Joe (HWMBO) said earlier on in this thread (see below) I feel for you Nigel, every time I try X-P again I wonder why I bothered! Needless to say having done battle with the demo for quite some hours now, I do not feel inclined to put my hand in my pocket to buy the full package, I would rather buy the PMDG T7 Link to post Share on other sites
PCAviator 30 Posted April 14, 2014 Report Share Posted April 14, 2014 X-Plane was never designed to be a home flight simulator. It has evolved over time to be somewhat of a home simulator. It was initially constructed as a test-platform for certain wing and aircraft designs. Have a look at this interview with the X-Plane creator, it will offer some insight: Agree totally that X-Plane is certainly not as user-friendly as FSX. Wonder what someone's experience would be going straight to X-Plane having never seen or used FSX before though. I don't know or will never know as I started with MSFS first too. Would be interesting to hear from someone who has only used X-Plane however. I've not had any issues setting up controllers in X-Plane. Just a different method for doing so. Sort of like going from a Boeing to an Airbus. Things are done a bit differently... Better? No, just different. Hang in there, and you will get it... if your patience doesn't give out first Link to post Share on other sites
MyPC8MyBrain 273 Posted April 14, 2014 Report Share Posted April 14, 2014 nice Dean sound nice and good comming from him; and im buying what his selling in his sim vision but it doesnt help if you cant get off the ground with XP Link to post Share on other sites
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