garrettm30

That seems to vary according to card. Mine seems to vary 5-10 frames from off to complete. It probably depends on shader units, but I'm about to step off the cliff where my knowledge of hardware ends. Anyway, it's all worth trying to find the best compromise.

I just noticed two other things. One is that your lateral view is set to 71°. The greater the view, the more objects X-Plane has to draw. Play with that a bit. But as for the cause of all that fog, here is the biggie: you have minimum frame rate set to 39. That is rather high, and it is absolutely why you see fog. Let me explain. Let's say you are cruising along at altitude with nothing but the generic scenery floating under you. Your computer is then breezing through with plenty of frames per second because its load is relatively light. Then let's say you are making your approach at an airport with lots of detail. Suddenly the computer has a lot more to deal with, and objects are a pretty big job after all. With the greatly increased load, your frame rate falls well below 39. Then X-Plane says, "Uh oh, he told me to make sure I am putting out at least 39 frames per second. And now look at it, just 20 (or whatever) frames per second! I better do something about it, and quick!" So what does it do? Yep, it's fog. It uses fog to replace detail. It incrementally increases fog to reduce its load until it reaches a load that it can successfully render with at least 39 frames per second. In short, think of the minimum frame rate as this: the frame rate at which X-Plane starts introducing fog to compensate for a heavy load. It helps with your decision in the tradeoff between details and frame rate. If you think details are more important than frame rate, then move it all the way down to 19, the minimum. Then you can run more details before it increases fog. Otherwise, if frame rate is more important to you, you have two options: reduce options to a point where X-Plane can consistently draw them fast enough, or else turn on the details for you to see when it can handle it, and set the minimum frame rate so that it fogs them out when it can't handle it. It gives you a whole lot of control, but often more control means more complexity, and therefore, confusion. By the way, if you have successfully enabled FPS to display, then there is another figure just to the left of the frame rate in the same little box. I think it is called vis ratio; I could be wrong. Anyway, this figure is a ratio of the total visibility you have requested versus the visibility that you are actually seeing. 1.000 means it is showing you 100% of the visibility you have requested. Anything less, such as .870, means that you are only seeing a part of what you requested because the load was too great to maintain your minimum frame rate, in this case, just 87% of your requested visibility. That little tool can help your diagnostics. Happy flying, Garrett

Thanks for posting your settings. That is especially helpful in helping you. One thing I noticed is that you have texture resolution set to very high when you should be able to turn that up to extreme without any negative effect at all. As I understand it, that setting essentially has to do with the amount of video RAM your card has. You have said that your card has 1 GB, but the bottom of the screen reports you are only using 342.06 of it. You are supposed to be able to turn up texture resolution within the limits of your video memory without it having any negative effect at all. If you pass that point by very much, then you start to get a veritable slide show. The trick is to find the aspects your computer does well and cater to those, such as extreme textures in your case, and to turn down the aspects that give you bottlenecks. In my experience, it's the objects that really kill framerate.

As for external monitors, you can pick up the old CRTs for cheap. I got one at Goodwill for $14, and I use it to show all my navigation charts. I love it.

Hey, Andy brings up a good point. I didn't even notice. I didn't know X-Plane would do things like that. Did you have to do something special to get the reflections from outside on the interior?

I agree. That is what I was trying to say in my post, but I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't clear. I was trying to say that we should appreciate such efforts.

I'll agree that as it is now, I thought it not very realistic when I first saw it. I too noticed those things you mentioned. However, I was happy to see it because it is progress, and I always want to support progress. They are looking for ways to push X-Plane to perform better than it was designed, and that is commendable. Rain that interacts with the wipers in some rudimentary way is a good step in the right direction over wipers that have no effect. Why bother modeling wipers otherwise, except just for looks? It may be that this is the best that can be done with X-Plane as it is now, or it could be that they will figure out something even better. Either way, I applaud their efforts.

I'd be happy to help however I can. Check your messages, as I sent you a PM, or at least I think I did.

If you would like further help, I wouldn't mind chatting with you one day to walk you through it. It's the selecting of the appropriate route that is harder than programing the FMS. Of course, you could just get it to go from one airport to another. It's not realistic (until a fully GPS-based navigation takes over in IFR), but if you just don't care about IFR navigation, then that is fine. It really just comes down to what you want to do. That's an advantage of a simulator, after all!

That was a very interesting read. Thanks for the link. Also, only the last landing does not have a video, though I thought some of the supplied videos didn't show well what was difficult about it. This makes me want to go try a few of these landings.

Notice to all my fellow X-Plane friends: 9.5 beta 1 is now available for testing. This seems to be as good a place as any for talking about progress of the 9.5 betas. As always, you may read the list of what is changed from X-Plane's Beta page, though I will repeat them here in case you want to be spared a click:

If they have a heat pump system for their heating, the unit would run whether heating or cooling. A heat pump essentially just does the reverse of the cooling process. A/C condenses and expands a certain fluid to pull the heat from the inside of the house and release it outside via the unit you refer to. The heat pump essentially reverses the process, trying to pull heat from the outside in, rather than running an electric element. Edit: I don't know that it would be working in 10 below! The few units I've encountered have backup heating elements that turn on if the outside temperature drops below a point where it can effectively pull heat in.

The first place I always check is this Google Maps page that is a collection of X-Plane scenery. There were three items for New Zealand when I checked just now. Two of them are by a TheoGregory, which I assume to be the same as the TheoGregory on this site--but I probably shouldn't assume. Specifically, there are the Greater Auckland Area, Nelson Airport, and Milford Sound.

Haha! Same thing with shaving!

Of course, I never presumed to believe that the aircraft had to be designed just the way I wanted, and I hope I did not leave that impression. In this case, my concerns have been cleared up, but even if they weren't, that would still be the developers choice and I respect that. I appreciate (and applaud) your further explanation. Thanks for taking the time so that it makes sense to me.

I do not understand what is so "legacy" about the current X-Plane data. It is updated nearly monthly on http://data.x-plane.com/ for anyone who wants to download it, and each new X-Plane version comes with this latest data upon release. Am I missing something there? I ask because I want to know. I really could be missing something. And am I still understanding correctly that what comes free included with the aircraft purchase is from 2006? Wouldn't that mean that any changes since that time would therefore be inconsistent with the charts, and then it would only continue to get worse? The only charts I have available is what is current. The X-Plane data, "legacy" or not, manages to keep current with the charts I use. Again, if I can just forget the FMS and plug in the radio frequencies from the current charts, and let X-Plane data do its thing, then I'm happy. I'll leave the FMS stuff to the others.

Of course I respect the developer's right to release his product in whatever state he wishes. None of us are forced to buy the product. With that understanding, I offer my feedback as a potential customer who has sentiments that may be shared by an unknown number of other customers who are not sharing their opinion. I can say that as much as I was looking forward to this product, I am not interested in purchasing a subscription-like supplement just so I can keep flying with current information or else be stuck with something out of date. I am sure this Navigraph has some great features that interest others, but I am very happy with what X-Plane provides. I usually fly with the charts on a second monitor from the Internet, and X-Plane has never once let me down with a navaid that was inaccurate from what was posted on the most recent charts. I know that it happens sometimes, though they can be fixed and then updated for the good of the community at large. I'm really not a fan of using the FMS that much anyway, especially for SIDs and STARs. I don't want it to do that much flying for me. I would rather look at the charts freely available online and then use them myself. Watching a plane turn and change altitude, etc. all by itself on a computer screen does not interest me. I do often use auto pilot, but I want to control the radios and carefully follow the procedures. Well, surely others do like the FMS, and that's great that we can all pursue our own differing interests. It's just my 2 cents (or more properly $40 or $50, or whatever it will be) that I don't care to buy a plane that will require a subscription to stay current. I understand the features that the subscription has, but I don't want them. I am happy with what X-Plane has to offer on this matter. I offer this only as feedback, and the developers have the right to take it or leave it with no hard feelings. Now on the other hand, if all this affects only the FMS, then my concern is unfounded. If I can continue along with the latest updates as supplied by X-Plane by following the charts and putting in VOR/NDB, etc. frequencies in the radios as I always do, then there is no harm done on my end. In such a scenario, if I ever decided that an FMS with SIDs and STARs really is the greatest thing to ever come along, then I could change my mind about the value the subscription.

I like to watch my own Karma. Today I noticed that my Karma has gone from 4 to 5, and it made me feel so good. Ah, the little things in life! I try to use the Karma feature when reading other posts, and I often follow this guideline: However, I am not sure about the smite feature. I am hesitant to use it because of how I feel about my own Karma. If I can get so excited to see my Karma go up a point, I wonder how it might hurt someone if I click a smite and they see their Karma go down. For that reason I try to use it sparingly. On the other hand, I also try to be objective with each post I read. I don't mean that I mark every post I read, but posts that stand out to me as fitting what I quoted above I try to applaud. But as for smiting, I haven't seen any guidelines for what a smite is to be used for in this forum. I have to just kind of feel it out for myself. Thus far, I just smite posts that are either character attacks or one of those that relentlessly asks for another post about when an upcoming aircraft is going to be finished. My own system seems reasonable enough, but that's just the problem: it is MY own. The forum is not my own. It would be nice if we can get a general understanding of what a smite was intended for. I don't mean set rules, so much as a guideline in the same vein as I quoted above for applauds. Or else, maybe a consensus. What do you guys think? Oh, and friends, please don't hold your applause. It might make someone smile!

Hey FlyingJackal. If there were a mailing list, I would sign up as I'm sure you would. But even so, you can enable notification for this topic (and perhaps a few others) and essentially accomplish the same thing.

Welcome to X-Plane, Martin, and welcome to X-Pilot.com. While you are waiting for your DVDs to arrive, you may want to install the X-Plane Demo if you haven't already just to get an idea of the program. None of the default aircraft are going to approach the level of the upcoming CRJ200, though a few of them are still pretty good. Others seem to have been neglected for years. A number of developers who post on X-Pilot.com are setting the bar for what promises to be a bright future for X-Plane in terms of the quality of addons. You have joined us at an exciting time!

I think it isn't fair of us to expect something different from someone than what he set out to create himself.

Thank you for your integrity. We need more of it in this world.

I very much recommend skyvector.com. That is the only site I use. I build my flight plans with it, and I can click on any of the airports and have all the official documents including SIDs and STARs. Those of you who have looked at skyvector.com in the past but not recently, I recommend looking again, as they have greatly improved it in the last couple months. I used to use airnav.com in conjunction with skyvector.com, but now I use just the one site.

Since you are debating this with yourself, I would like to add that I would be interested in such a thing if it were to be implemented. The more like the real thing in terms of systems, the more I'm interested. That's my input anyway, though I will be pleased with whatever you give us, as I am with what you have already produced. Your MU-2 is my first pay-ware plane, and I don't regret it. I love how you share with us the progress of the updated model. We are all very eager to fly your latest updates, but certainly we don't want to rush you. A little anticipation and drooling over the latest screenshots won't hurt us any.

Thanks for the video post. I see these things and it never ceases to amaze me. The whole thing is just so fascinating. It makes me wish so much to be one of them. Or even the lucky guy working the camera. I wonder how he was allowed in the cockpit. I think it's sad that interested passengers aren't allowed to visit the cockpit these days, although I do understand the security need. It's just too bad. I was just finished with my first year of high school when my family took a trip to see some friends in England via Air Canada. At some point during en route, a flight attendant asked me and my younger brother if we would like to visit the pilots in the cockpit. Oh, we very much WOULD like to! I didn't know much what I was looking at, but I sure wanted to learn. The pilots were very kind and friendly, apparently eager to show us young fellows a piece of their world. They were good to answer whatever questions we had, which of course were basic. I don't recall what aircraft we were in, and I wouldn't have known much about it at the time. The flight was from DFW to Toronto I think, and if memory serves me, I think it was an Airbus. I wish I could remember what it was specifically. At the time, the concept of "autopilot" was interesting [funny, it's more on the boring end to me these days]. I arrived in the cockpit in time to watch the FMS bank the aircraft to a new heading when it reached one of the waypoints, and it was doing it all by itself. The pilots told me it could even land by itself (Cat. III? or were they just referring generally to approach?). "Even in bad weather?" "Even in bad weather! In fact, we have to use the autopilot during bad weather, but when it's nice like this, we like to takeoff and land it by hand because it's more fun." It really is too bad the current generation of inquisitive youth are being denied that opportunity. Thanks Airbus for bring back these memories!