Mikkel

Japo32: I respect that, of course. People continuously asking redundant questions... well, glad you don't get annoyed with it. The best of luck with the project

MatthewS, I'm going to tell you in a lot less kindly fashion, what Cameron just did: shut up, and find some other quality in your life than whining about people who owe you N O T H I N G!

... targeted at military training, academics and professional pilots: http://www.prepar3d.com/ Hopefully they've optimised the code so that it can actually run smooth - considering the rather critical user group they target this product to

True, but he also mentions that one will really need all the cores one can get. So I wonder what XP10 will look like with my "poor" quad-core pc. Time will tell...

Indeed, I bought a new computer 3/4 of a year ago and I already fear the consequences with Austin going nuts with cpu cores with XP10 to realize his virtual world.

If your alternative is the I7 920 I'd buy the AMD considering the marginal differencei n performacne. Price/performance-wise it is a better buy and I have no issues with that processor under Win7. If you go for max performance the i7 is the choice to make - I would step up a bit from the 920 though. For me money is the show-stopper. That is why I ended up with AMD and ATI - and with both X-Plane and FSX they work great. I did at some point have some problems with my ATI 4890 graphics card and X-Plane but driver updates solved the problem. That said, I'd probably buy nvidia today. Only reason I didn't was that the ATI had more VRAM and I figured that was a bonus when running X-Plane, which is quite VRAM-intensive.

I don't really have anything negative to say of any of the three simulators. I've only used X-Plane until a few month ago where I bought FSX and the MD11 to satisfy my need for flying advanced airliners. However, I still think the texture quality is much better in X-Plane even with many FSX aircraft. Not that it matters, 'cause each simulator satisfies different needs for me so... Mikkel There is no doubt some add ons for FSX and FS9 are extremely high quality and are much better than X-Planes 3rd party add ons. However, what struck me was peoples comments that when making a true comparison between the simulators, take out all the add ons and just compare them straight out of the box. And I remember more than a few people say in various forums, that when this kind of comparison is done, FS9 leaves X-Plane "in the dust". In no way do I want this to be a X-Plane vs FS9 thread. I was simply making an observation based on other peoples comments. I have all the MSFS's from FS98. But imho, FS9 does not leave X-Plane "in the dust" when comparing straight out of the box.

FS9 and most FSX addons don't seem to match X-Plane in texture quality - even if we say the XP9 C172 is reference. I have the PMDG MD11 and it is a hell of an addon but the texture quality isn't near X-Plane as far as I can tell. EDIT: I have FSX installed if you need some sort of comparison screenshot (let me know if you do)

For the sake of everybody's extreme curiosity feel free to elaborate

I can get very good frame-rates out of FSX, however, as you point out, its "stability" is breathtakingly poor. It's pretty, though, and it does have some nice aircraft addons, which is why I finally bought it some weeks ago until the more detailed aircraft from here hits the digital shelves at X-Aviation.

Great news!

This will be very cool. I have REX 2 for FSX and it looks damn nice!

And according to most countries' copyright laws you can do whatever you want (including modify it as much as you want) with something you've purchased yourself as long as you do not distribute it. From the Navigraph forum, please note the second sentence: "Any copies of the Navigraph FMS Data other than for personal backup is illegal duplication of the data and against the terms of service you agreed to when charging credits. You may not re-parse or convert the data to any other form than what is provided on the Navigraph website. If the data originating from our data provider is circulating outside of a license agreement this means that our data provider is not getting anything in return on distributing the data through Navigraph. This reasoning, taken to its extent, can lead to that the data provider decides to cancel our possibilities to get data from them since we are not able to control piracy and see to that our end of the license agreement we have with them is met. In short: Circumventing the license agreement, where possible, is not only unlawful, it is also counter productive as Navigraph serves to represent all flight simulator enthusiasts towards a larger enterprise that normally would not devote resources to make relatively small business with individuals. This is the comment we have for now on whether convering to X-Plane format is a solution. We will return with further comments on the development for X-plane users a bit later on. Regards Magnus" http://forum.navigraph.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=181

It's better than nothing and paying the few dollars for a whole year of updates isn't going to ruin most of us.

I own the A330. For the price it is ok. The flight model is as good as possible within X-Plane. The panel and system modelling is, well, generic - which is sort of reasonable within the price-range. Even with an exterior model as the A380 including perhaps what-ever upgrades the panel would get to reach A380 standard I still wouldn't pay 65 $. Thing is: to simulate the systems you'd need a plug-in. Otherwise it requires work-around after work-around... which leads to a rather unsatisfying and not really realistic flying experience. That is, if you are looking for a realistic flying experience. Otherwise you may not care too much. The A380 doesn't come with a 3D-cockpit. Taking into account the generic simulation of the airbus systems and the overdone exterior model with just as poor a paint as the A330ies I'm amazed people are defending the product. It is overprized compared to its features. For 10 $ less you could buy the very realistic PMDG B744 (FSX), which features most if not all systems, a very precise FMC, airac updated navdata (via navigraph) with full P-RNAV SIDs and STARs incl. approach procedures for each rwy at each airport. As well you get fantastic documentation including performance charts for all phases of flight, checklists etc. etc. (I haven't flown MSFS since 2002, so no reason to start an X-Plane-MSFS war-thread) The A380, I'm sure, is probably still an entertaining product (even at that price). It's just very poor value for money. Following the developers on this site shows hope that we'll see MSFS-quality like products (or even much better) within X-Plane very soon. I'm looking forward to it. Keep up the good work.