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Comment by Richard on February 9, 2013 at 15:35

Rick,

There have been many improvements in the area of airplane cockpits and scenery over the past few months.  I will admit that the scenery is not where FSX scenery is but it is getting there. Many software authors are adding new and improved airports and cities. As you know X-plane does not include any airport with the exception of a few. 

I believe the 747 that is included has a nice cockpit but there are others out there with much better graphics. Laminar is improving the airplanes that it supplies and, in time, I am sure they will be real eye-openers. 

Carenado has many add-on planes and as you know they do an outstanding job. Not only do the planes look sharp but the fly as true to life as possible IMO.

As for Digital Equipment Corp, yes I was with them for 18 years. I worked in Distributed and Mid-range systems in Tewksbury, Mass, and in their Educational Services group in Bedford, Mass. I worked with such products as the PDP-11/44, the MicroVax II and lots of VMS software development. I also taught Macro programming, VMS Internals and Data Structures and multiple hardware course including the famed PDP-8.  Thought I had a "leading edge machine with its 8 kb of memory, or an 11/70 with 64 kb of core memory (MOS memory was available but way too expensive.) running 8-16 users. Wow, times have changed.

Well I guess that's my 2 cents for now.  Take care of yourself and happy flying.

Rich

Comment by Rick Ulbrich on February 9, 2013 at 0:48

Ha! Ha! Percocet got me again. Should have read whether and buy instead of what my fingers typed . It sucks when you loose coordination between the head and fingers

Comment by Rick Ulbrich on February 9, 2013 at 0:35

Hi Richard;

Wow, DEC? believe it or not, I had heard of them before and actually knew some of the role that company played in the computer industry. A lot of history there. Well let me say that I am glad to know you take PC Pilot and can keep up to date on the changes taking place in our hobby.

I am going to keep this short and sweet since I am tired of typing and have just got over being under the weather for several days. I was not ignoring anyone, just did not feel up to getting on here. I understand all of your points and have to admit that based on FSX being 6 to 7 years old now, support from Microsoft would be be impossible to get but lets face it, they stuck around for 25 years in the sim business and now Lockheed Martin does support Prepar 3D from what I have read so far and due to the fact that addon's are available for it and Xplane both!

As far as being a Microsoft shunned software user, it seems to be the norm for a lot of software vendor's. Being in charge of the accounting department software at my old job, my boss gave me all of the crap that he no longer wanted to be bothered by, he was one of 2 owners of the company. But I hated the fact that I was forced to make changes every time I turned around because the software vendor said we had to do it in order to remain compatible with their product weather we used that part of their product or not. Very much a pain in the posterior to say the least. Our HP mainframe runs HP MPE and HP is phasing that out along with our main app called Growth Power and this will cause a 100K plus cost to make the changes that they tell us we will have to do so it is not only Microsoft that has a tendency to make costly changes for the end item user.

As for FSX, I feel I have got more than my money worth out of the product. I own 3 different sets of FSX Gold. The last copy I got for around $25 bucks sealed from Amazon and this copy is in my lockbox at the bank. This is in case of a Tornado or Fire. I have one copy of gold on my main sim and another copy on a separate win 7 64 machine for troubleshooting and file tweaking. Mainly to make sure that my multiplayer hosting is all working correctly back when I used to host weekly multiplayer flights. It is nice to be able to connect 2 different machines in the same house via the IP loopback feature in my router just as if the client machine appeared to come in via the wan side to connect to the host. You know for sure it is all working when you can fly one aircraft with your left hand and the other with your right and both appear on the host. Fun stuff.

I also still have my original stand alone FSX basic and stand alone acceleration running on a old XP Pro machine with a 3 Ghz P4 and a 9800GT video card. I suppose I could uninstall it but there is still plenty of room left on the 2 500 GB barracuda's so no need to uninstall. I used to use it to help people that had problems with FSX on XP. Once a tech support guru always one I guess? Although I have got burnt out on that as well. Nowadays, I just like to fly.

Richard, I have to ask, after last night, I finally got around to running the PC Pilot CD from issue 82 that has the X-Plane 10 movie/video on it and they said it was stunning and I have to admit, that it certainly was to say the least! I remember downloading the trial version of 10 and I do not remember seeing anything close to that. That 747 default had horrid sound and the cockpit looked child like and I deleted it all from my drive. I will give them that it is easy to uninstall Ha! Ha! Just delete the folder. Does your X-Plane look anything like that for real? I seem to understand that it only looks that way in a few select locations but that is only what I have heard. After seeing that movie, I need to do some looking around at the reviews to see what I did not get on the trial version that required a set it and forget it download since it took a long time even on fast Internet. My wife won some money at the casino last night and shared some with me and if I had not got stung so bad on version 8and 9, I would by it but it would have to be truly like the video. They can do some amazing stuff when putting together a video like that and I just do not want to get burnt for $70 bucks this time. Let me know if it really is that good and I will buy it one last time? Ok got to go so happy flying Richard. Not responsible for typo's cause I did not proof this!  

 

Comment by Rick Ulbrich on February 8, 2013 at 23:25

To Tim W;

Well, I have been under the weather for a while now and have not had a chance to respond to you and your post about the student that crashed the simulator. The print is a little small but readable and what a story it is!! That's a good one Tim! Wow and they shipped him off to Guantanamo bay as a possible terrorist! I bet he is pretty sorry about that day now!

Tim, I guess I can see your point about running on more than one operating system but that would be for those of you that like to tinker with new stuff maybe? My problem is that I have been there and done that already and I just want my software to work when I want to use it. I have found XP Pro and Win 7 32 or 64 to be the best OS'S to ever come out of Redmond WA. You know, I have had my share of problems with FSX over the years but have actually got it tamed down finally on my i7 950 and the pair of GTX 570's.

I used to have the crash to desktop thing all the time when doing multiple things like not starting completely over when at my destination on the va flights. If I closed and opened different windows and moved stuff to other monitors and then went back to full screen to go on to another destination in the va, it was almost impossible to get it to work without screwing up.

I read some of the post about Nvidia Inspector and got rid of all of the Boote tweaks and I have to tell ya that Nvidia inspector has allowed for me to have the best fluid like flowing video I have ever acheived without any weird stutters or other artifacts that would pop up and take away from the realism of the flight.

The crashes to desktop seem to have been fixed by the UIAutomationCore.dll being placed in the root folder of FSX. I have seen post's about this in various places on the web and here at FSN by Bruce Bailey and Widar. I had seen where some of the post made reference to just placing it in the root of FSX, so decided to give it a try. I have no longer experienced any crash to desktop when you do more than 2 or 3 things in a row. I can now go from destination to destination in repetitive flights and only taking on fuel as needed and away we go. So for me, FSX is the best I have ever had it run between these 2 item's, it is like it made a whole new version of FSX.   

I made some new blog post to show you why I stick by the fact that I can easily do VFR in the Carenado 182Q. I have to also comment on the fact that the default aircraft are pretty poor and that is why I have spent big bucks on good quality addon aircraft and for GA, you can never go wrong with Carenado. Ok I have other things I need to do so take care Tim and take a look at my new blog post if you want to see what my default scenery looks like after a little UTX, GEX and some FS Global Ultimate. Since I do not have a fancy boat, Harley or a giant 5th wheel camper, I have been able to throw a lot of money at FSX over the years and it is now good enough that I think I can fly it until all of my hardware breaks and I can not find anyhing in the new stuff they come up with that I can no longer install win 7. Later dude! 

 

Comment by Richard on February 1, 2013 at 1:02

Rick,

My final thoughts.

I do have a subscription to PC Pilot, in fact I have had one for about 3 years now. I started by buying it at Barnes and Nobel but that got expensive.  The mag is good but geared toward MS based flight sims, mostly FSX, not much in the X-plane arena.

I wasn't trying to "one up you" or try to convince you x-plane is better then FSX. I was just interested in your thoughs about the future of the product.  As you know the hi-tech computer industry changes at a rapid pace. When I worked at Digital Equipment Corp we were designing systems that we knew would be "technically outdated in 18 months". That timeframe is so much shorter now, products getting upgrades and updates in 6-12 months. Just look at the cell phone business.

As for my support question, it wasn't about phone support or technical "I can't get it to work" support, it was more about the future of the product. With the ever changing world of hardware and software there will come a time when the products just won't run on the new architectures.  MS has no plan to support some of their products over time, just like many companies.

Finally, look at how many times users of FSX had to rebuild the log file or config file because of some problem.  That, and the fact that MS wasn't going to produce another Flight sim product, is what made me leave them.  They basically said to me " screw you customer, there is no money in it and we're dumping you, it and the programmers". The same thing they did with the short-lived Microsoft Flight.

Bottom line, I am NOT comparing the products for what they do, I am comparing the companies and their future support for me and what I paid for. I feel that Laminar Research is in it for the long haul.

 

Again, happy flying my friend.

Comment by Tim Woodward on January 31, 2013 at 9:42

Yeah, I haven't been overly bothered about my controls for the time being...I need an income to support decent hardware setup and I'm very fortunate to be able to work towards an income derived from airplanes :)

Rick, it's a good point about the different OS's a program can run on...you use what OS you want/like/feelcomfortable with/don't get sickof/etc ... lol, like what simulator you want/like/feel comfortable with/don't get sick of/etc.

For me, realism isn't important in the sim itself, and actually this sort of relates to Tim's port about whether we are Sim Pilots or gamers etc, because it's what limitations on operations we give ourselves that makes it much more real, it's a hobby and the passion creates an environment not unlike actual operators...I mean, a virtual airline operates closely to real life, VATSIM is a prime example of how real it gets and that allows both the sims talked about on this forum.

But for a realistic feel of flight in a simulator - you can acheive the most amazing things i.e 360 degree projector, buy an insturment panel (or for the frugal at heart -rip one out of the old 'crapper' left on the edge of the airfield) there's so much available nowadays you can really have yourself immersed in a cockpit MORE real than what real pilots get trained IFR on! If you want a full motion simulator, like the one that student pilot crashed, put a few tricky see saws underneath.

FSX is maddeningly unreliable for me, hardly seems to run for more than 2 months in a row without problems but it looks and feels so shit hot when it's going :)

Xplanes 6DVDs of ultra bland scenery is a bit of a mystery but I do love spending hours building aircraft out (Plus the default C172 looks way better! And has wheel spats!)

Airplanes are so much fun :)

Comment by simmo w on January 31, 2013 at 9:14

Tim, yes a reasonable JS is important in xplane, if you lower the sensitivity the controls feel so wooly. And Helis are nigh unflyable without a good stick like my X52. I'd still kill to do real flying though!

Comment by Rick Ulbrich on January 31, 2013 at 9:14

Pardon my typo's, I did not proof my typing since I was to afraid of losing all I had typed as a Gentleman with reference to your querie Richard. The percocet mess's with my fingers and brain and are no longer being in complete sync all the time. Believe it or not, I am no longer able to handle all of my thoughts as well as I did in my Engineering days! 

Comment by Rick Ulbrich on January 31, 2013 at 8:43

Well Richard, I had a lot typed up and was going back and forth between pages and closed it accidently looking for links so here we go again.

1. First let me make some suggestions for you. All of your questions have been answered in the pages of PC Pilot magazine. The subscription cost is somewhat high but it is a top quality magazine in every respect. http://www.pcpilot.net/   Also Computer Pilot magazine but they have been having some issues under new owership but they might be getting the bugs worked out finally.   http://web.computerpilot.com/ 

A. The future of FSX is completely supported by the addon market vendors and will be for several years since they do not have to contend with Microsoft Flight which has already been shut down due to not enough kids were interested in it's complete devotion to being a true game product. Microsoft also had meetings with major players in the addon market and they were basically told to lump it or leave it and they made Flight so limited in area and aircraft that it was not cost effective to purchase by the simmer market compaired to FSX. It lasted maybe a little over a year before they made a statement about no new development but would support what they had released so far. They pretty much shot theselves in the foot on this product and no pun intended but didn't fly! this was all covered in PC Pilot mag.

B. The addon market has exploded due to the fact that they now know where they stand, no new Microsoft code that completely requires them to support another totally different product like the difference between FS9/2004 or FS10/FSX. The addon market now has time to make products for Xplane and they are. Between FSX and Xplane they are extremely busy now. This also has been hashed out in PC Pilot and Computer Pilot. I find it hard to believe that if you are serious about simming, that people do not subscribe to these magazines. PC Pilot even supplies a cd with freeware in each mag and some is good and some is not. At times you can get some amazing aircraft or tools to help you do things with FS2004 and FSX that are real keepers.

2. Microsoft is out of the game now so no additional support from them and no 64 bit versions either. To be fair FSX runs fine on XP, Vista 64 and Win 7 64. I have ran my 2 copies of FSX Gold and my stand alone FSX Basic and Acceleration on all of these operating systems. I have written a paper on Benchmarking FSX that explains a lot that may be of some interest to you.

 http://api.ning.com:80/files/*sgMAQiTra0LixVwKAPHBkgv5ZRylATRwML2mY...

_

I fully intend on running my machine on Windows 7 64 bit with FSX till the day I die or hardware changes will no longer allow us to install Windows 7? I do not see a day coming that will not allow for this With UTX USA, GEX USA, REX 2.0 with Over Drive and FS Global Ultimate for the America's, Europe/Africa and Asia/Oceania, I could not ask for it to be anymore realistic. This machine was built to be my once in a lifetime dedicated FSX Dream machine! I have upgraded the video to a pair of EVGA GTX 570's and a different closed loop cooling system. I do not use SLI on the video cards since FSX does not support it. I do run  3 monitor's and have a spare DVI port left but no room to set a 4th monitor. I think I have seen FSX on Windows 8 already but based on Maximum PC and CPU magazines, I will not be going down this road. The simulator can dual boot between Win 7 64 and Vista 64 and I have made images of the 1.5TB barracuda drives that I update once every quarter to a internal 2TB barracuda drive and the external 2TB usb drive that is kept in my lockbox at my bank. Pics are here if ya want to look.

http://flightsimulatornetwork.com/profiles/blogs/rick-u-simulator-s...

3. Yes yes it runs on all 3, so what? I actually would be surprised that it runs on UNIX but how about LINUX? They are different you know, similar yes but still different and I have seen no claims for it on UNIX. I set up a REDHAT LINUX 7.3 Samba server at work because my boss thought this would be a good idea. He bought me the books I needed and I had it all working for about 1.5 years.

I finally got upset enough that I setup a Windows server. I have tried the UNBUNTU live cd and even Installed it on a fresh partion. Let me tell you, they are still light years behind Windows. The user GUI is still a joke for me and then you have all the variations of the distributions and they are all a little different flavor of the kernel core. I need software that works for me and not have to dig in a book or forum somewhere. Oh I think you might have meant 32 bit instead of 16. 16 has been gone since the days of Windows 95! 32 Bit FSX runs fine on XP 32 or Vista 64 and W7 64 but it still runs as a 32 bit program. Yes we have a 4GB memory barrier on FSX but guess what, I have looked at memory useage and have never seen my 6GB machine even come close to loading up 4GB when running FSX however, I am not running Media Player or surfing the Web and have 5 or 6 pages open and editing a Excell spread sheet of making a DOCX file all at the same time. I have a laptop running W7 64 and the wife has here own doing the same thing. I have a XP Pro machine that runs Plan G to do moving map over my Wireless G network and when signals to the basement are not good, rarely, I switch the basement machines over to the power line network. A couple of keystrokes in less than a minute and both machines are on the power line.  

4. Let me tell you, none of us old timers have used Microsoft for support. Their support is just like a lot of it, farmed out to INDIA. There are great places for FSX support via the web and most of the addon vendors can answer your question from their knowledge base or FAQs. Yes a lot of it is in variorus forums and Microsoft made the SDK ( Software Development Kit ) available with a good manual for FSX as well. Granted, it is not the place for newbies but if you have FSX Gold, it is on one of the DVD's. I have it installed but still have to refer to this website.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/    This is a great site for support but I just hate forums, but addon developers have to cut cost in the highly competive market. http://forum.avsim.net/

I would suggest you get a free catalog to see how much FSX stuff is out there and keep in mind this is just one place! www.flightstore.co.uk   No I am in the USA but PC Pilot is Published in Europe. Here's a few more links for ya. http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=SDK_Installation_(FSX)

http://www.pcaviator.com/      http://www.flight1.com/    http://www.simstop.com/

http://www.precisionmanuals.com/    http://www.carenado.com/CarSite/Portal/index.php

http://www.fspilotshop.com/

5. Please no more of my time wasted trying to prove Xplane is Superior to me! You say you want info and I have been kind enough to provide it. When you pointed out that Xplane runs on three different operating systems and one of those and the 16 bit thing leaves me believing I am being duped by your post! I will not answer any additional questions about this subject. If yoy are serious, subscribe to PC Pilot as fast as you can. Oh I forgot to mention a great book on the inner workings of FSX    http://www.pcaviator.com/store/product.php?productid=17600&cat=...

Done Done and done some more!!!!!!

Comment by Tim Woodward on January 31, 2013 at 5:14

Simmo, I mentioned my horrible joystick, it isn't a brilliant control input device it stuffs up MSFS too, in fact it stuffs up games I don't even use a joystick for so I have to unplug it to play Oblivion etc

XPlane does have a greater amount of (internal)flexibility in terms of how you setup your hardware but I haven't bothered because of my cruddy joystick

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