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RealScenery Island of Oahu Enhanced For X-Plane


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Hi folks,

This is a review of the RealScenery Island Of Oahu package

http://www.avsim.com...enery/Oahu.html

And a quick follow-up for the high altitude flyers:

http://forum.avsim.n...-high-altitude/

I hope you folks may find this useful. Especially you AH types running around the tropics!

Cheers

Ted

**edit**I just realized this forum area is titled for XPX. This was tested and flown under XP9.7 as I will not be running XPX on my system until it gets a bit more mature and I update my gfx card to accomodate better HDR. Apologies if this should not have been posted here.

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Looks very behind the times - especially when you compare it to the screenshots of MS Flight...

Would you mind clarifying what you mean? I would not be able to comment really as this is a released product on a legacy platform (XP9.7) and comparing Flight screenshots to live stuff would seem a bit apples-v-vodka?

X-Plane may not be for everyone; however, it really does have a ton to offer if given a chance. But I'm not here to convert anyone....heck mate I also fly and enjoy certain things on FSX on a daily basis :) . I would hope to be at least a bit informative and contribute a little bit in my own way to the knowledge base around here that far exceeds my own!

Now pardon me...I'm currently on VATSIM in a PC-12 about an hour from Calgary (departed Yellowknife) and the wind just went bonkers 28015G20-25...at least my planned runway is right on the money!

Cheers

Ted

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  • 1 month later...

i must admit that i downloaded the trial version of version 10 out of curiosity following all the broohaha of its release, as i can see lots of faults in fsx , it is very good but far from perfect. The last time i tried x plane I had bought it for my son and it came on quite a few cd's or was it cassettes? well it was a while ago! and my son a lot smaller, and my opinion then was it showed a lot of promise but wasnt up to the fsim of the day. This time round ,full of expectation , i installed the version 10, took hold of my joystick ( cut me some slack guys) and tried to fly the 747, well in all honesty i couldnt see any difference from the version i tried some 10 years or more ago, the plane carrered down the runway mostly out of control (the program didnt automatically use the default joystick properties that all games do so the rudder didnt work) and more by luck than judgement managed to get airbourne accompanied by the naffest tire screeching soundtrack that was reminiscent of the series dukes of hazard ( i dare any of you to admit having watched that) I had already set the visuals to maximum quality but when i looked outside the plane at the scenery i was bitterly disappointed it was nothing like the promo shots. Now I am sure there are a lot of well educated guys putting in masses of work to get x plane to be competitive and now is the right moment with Flight hitting the desktops (theoretically) but all i could do was groan, i then went and tried the phantom for about 5 minutes then gave up, i dont want to flame a lot of guys that are working with pride really hard, but there is something fundamentally wrong with xplane , there are no doubt loads out there who will say I am wrong but there you go it doesnt float my boat so was deleted and to be honest I am disappointed i expected it to match up to the hype and IMHO it doesnt get close. the phrase that was levelled at it all those years ago comes back to mind "it shows promise" sadly that is all it has ever done.

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Ok, I admit to the Dukes of Hazard and having a crush on Daisy Mae, however, this sim, although in its10th iteration, is built maybe with a different target audience? Not sure about that statement put they seem to push it towards the flight training sector. I must admit, I am out of my comfort zone being an avid MSFS nut since its conception, but they have a different angle on setup and controls so it is just a learning curve. Ok, you may not like it at the end but it's the way they do it. I think the 15 minute demo is far too short to get a proper feel.

Anyhow, I will be reviewing the Aerosoft release when I get it later this month from a perspective of a newbie and MSFS user so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Have tried the demo, it no longer exists on my machine such was my knee-jerk reaction.

Watch this space!

Cheers,

joe

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Anyhow, I will be reviewing the Aerosoft release when I get it later this month from a perspective of a newbie and MSFS user so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Have tried the demo, it no longer exists on my machine such was my knee-jerk reaction.

Watch this space!

Cheers,

joe

If I can make a small recommendation-perhaps hold off a wee bit on an actual review of XPX?

Personally I will not be reviewing anything under XPX for quite some time-namely until the scenery packs from my payware collection and Winterworld textures (yes its nice to have winter lol) are working and updated for XPX. I like what I see with the demo thus far and a ton of community effort is already involved in getting airfields populated and corrected but to my eyes it is not quite ready for prime time.

I have been under the weather for the last week...and only cranked up my PC for a quick 40 minute flight tonight for the first time in several days which is a drag as I have a couple of wonderful new payware aircraft additions to my X-Plane v9.7 hangar I was wanting to show off via screenshot-the Dash 8 Q400 and SU-100 SSJ....never mind my Tom Curtis Boeing Country (featuring KSEA and surrounds) and KLAX. I'll get to it in a couple days.

I am a fairly neutral individual in all the hubbub surrounding XP-v-FSX and ya'll probably are aware I review (most recently the magnificent A2A B377 COTS package) and fly both simulators. If I can provide any assistance to you folks in my own limited fashion I would be pleased to do so.

For example....in setting up XPX the best thing to do initially is knock EVERYTHING off in the rendering and AI segment to the absolute lowest setting and then build it back up one section at a time to squeeze the best performance out of a given rig. It really does work and on my modest system I can achieve 20-30fps with very nice AA and eye candy settings at the default KSEA (which in the demo is rendered as the absolute worst case scenario for CPU/GPU/RAM loading.

I can also show you how to configure your flight controls in less than 5 minutes. Its just different from what you may be used to. That default 747 is actually quite decent and during my fooling about with the demo did not get the tire screeching in that or any other aircraft. Better to explore the demo in something smaller like the Cirrus jet/C172 to appreciate some of the new features though.

XPX is a work in progress and given a chance to improve with time (its only been live 8 weeks or so) should prove rather exceptional.

Anyway...if I can help in some way please let me know. And I will post some screens from v9.7 that you folks may find of interest....the two airliners I just bought are pretty darn cool and I am not much of an airliner type!

Cheers

Ted

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Hi Ted,

Thanks for your very kind and informative response.

I agree with the prime time comment. However, the pack I will be reviewing will be the Aerosoft scenery enhanced version. I intend to look at it, as is, on release. All enhancements can be reported on seperately in the future. I could hold off for six months but any simmer old or new will still have to start with the base pack, learn how to set it up and upgrade to the latest version, whether beta or RTM

I have no history with X-Plane except for an iPhone App which I had ages ago. Other than the demo I have no pre-conceived ideas and decided that the hype around a lot of these products obscure what is good for me so I will form my own opinion.

I (We) would welcome any help and feedback to whatever we report or what our members need advice on, as an established user you are streets ahead of us!

Regarding the set up, I did manage to get the demo working pretty much as I wanted, i.e emulating what I was used to in FSX but I will take you up on your offer and PM you if I need guidance, I hope you are ok with that?

All the best,

Joe

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I don't know about being an "established" user but have been enjoying X-Plane for a little over a year.

As mentioned I will be more than pleased to provide what assistance I can and point you (or anyone) in the right direction for whatever I cannot answer. Ditto for useful plug-in support if the good ones from XP9.7 have been ported.

X-Plane does involve a learning curve....but once the initial setup is understood (rendering and flight controls) it does become literally "fire and forget" with no further tweaking required.

Also one hugely important note to remember is X-Plane is not OS-specific.....it works equally well under WIN/Mac/Linux systems which I think is a highly underrated accomplishment.

I will probably have the Aerosoft version at the same time you do. In any event I can at least point you towards a freeware EGLL/EGKK scenery pack so testing in the UK will have some life to it :thum:

Cheers

Ted

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Ted I also am not blind to another sim, in fact i wanted to be blown away whilst fsx is good it has it down sides as well which is why i tested the demo .

sadly i deleted it through disgust and as i have a very slow internet access i shall have to download it again overnight and give it another go. When i have it again i will bend your ear a bit to get it set up properly

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Ted I also am not blind to another sim, in fact i wanted to be blown away whilst fsx is good it has it down sides as well which is why i tested the demo .

sadly i deleted it through disgust and as i have a very slow internet access i shall have to download it again overnight and give it another go. When i have it again i will bend your ear a bit to get it set up properly

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Much of the problem with X-Plane is that Austin Meyer's idea of UI ergonomics does not mesh well with anyone else's or established metrics. The rest of the problem is that they release incomplete betas and call them a completed product. And then release a string of updates. So any review you do will be a snapshot of a work in progress, whether you do it this month, next, or wait till the Autumn.

Now, if you install *any* new sim expecting to be blown away, you'll be sorely disappointed. They all have flaws and shortcomings; they're just different.

Oh, and I will not hear a word against Miss Daisy! :thum:

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I was just going to say something regarding being "blown away" but Tim took the words outta my mouth :P .

XP is a different sim with quirks...but once you get past the setup (which really is not hard) you will like the scaleability and smoothness. If you love tweaking FSX you will be disappointed in that regard lol.

Here are some XPX demo hints to get you started:

-If you download the beta again make sure you run the updater to the latest version.

-Defrag. While XP just parks and runs happily off the desktop (I love not having my registry and file structure invaded like FSX does) it is still a pretty big chunk and chances are it will be fragged to hell and gone.

-Once the sim loads...ignore temptation to start flying. Set up flight controls through settings. Basically you push a button or move an axis and assign the action required. Job done. Its not plug n play like FSX in that regard but should still take no longer than 3-5 minutes to get sorted depending on control complexity. And you can always go back and add the minutia you prefer.

-Once controls are there....dial back every single rendering setting to lowest. Kill off the AI too. Then start adding things back one at a time and note the effects as you go. This process took me roughly 20 minutes or so to find the bottleneck on my modest system and still provide 20-30fps at KSEA with very nice AA/effects as mentioned in an earlier post.

None of the above has any effect on demo time by the way.

Feel free to bend away as needed. Also...I know the .org site can be a bit...ummm....lets just say....not-fun to navigate and read through but some very useful stuff in the general and troubleshooting sections that will be helpful.

Cheers

Ted

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