VirtualAviator

I've enjoyed the raw sound test—now I can't wait to fire it up and make some noise that might just get me banned from the runway!

I've never heard that Austin personally has ever had an issue with .org, so I'm not sure he'd 'disfavor' it. While not grabbing .org when he grabbed .com might be considered a missed opportunity today, the environment at the time was probably different. Austin focused on the core product rather than ancillary details, IMO. The environment has changed since then. MSFS has demonstrated the value of attaching a shopping cart to the simulator, and I can't imagine that some of the staff haven't heard or experienced some of the war stories surrounding the .org. I have my own war story with .org, so I'm personally delighted to have a place to purchase products that do not support .org. Plus, I might no longer have to deal with extracting .zip files into folders. However, I'll always opt to purchase a product from X-aviation.com even if it's available at X-Plane.com.

Sweet!

I've learned that when I'm having an issue with anything in life, I should ask, Not what X can do for me, but what I can do for X. Maybe an approach to identify your issues, and report them as a bug for the next update might be a better approach. Just saying...

@Jim Michael I am finally back to flying, and my machine is running better than it ever has. I wound up throwing enough money at the problem. First, let's address your suspected issue. Your CPU is apparently damaged. Don't get your panties in a bunch; there is a fix (I enjoy being long-winded some days. I realize I could answer in 2 or 3 sentences) You will need to contact Intel and RMA the CPU. Unfortunately, you'll have to jump through the hoops that they'll put in front of you. If you're lucky, you may be able to return the CPU to the store it came from. I'd had mine for 3 months before the damage got unbearable. Yup! That's the fix. A new CPU. Here's my take on the CPU issue. Intel's CPU overheat protection system apparently does a terrible job. It's supposed to throttle down to avoid overheating. Mine apparently did throttle down because the system felt much slower than it should have, but I kinda ignored it It didn't throttle down enough to avoid heat damage. Why did your CPU overheat, you may ask. That's a great question. I choose an air-cooler. I'd read good things about the Noctua NH-D15 cooler, but the heat from the I9-14900 family was apparently no match for it. I bought a 2nd I9-14900 (the KF version as opposed to the K this time) and was able to run X-Plane beautifully with the NH-D15 installed. Since Intel claimed the issue was heat damage, I decided to go with a water cooler, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360. To my astonishment, the computer seemed to run much, much faster. I can finally see 80 & 90 FPS with relatively high graphics settings (albeit in cruise only). I'd never seen more than 45 FPS with the air cooler and Vatsim was a non-starter since I couldn't keep 20+ FPS, Anyhoo, I finally got my I9-14900K from intel, swapped it back in the computer and I couldn't be happier. I should mention that it took about 3-4 weeks from start to finish with Intel. Seems their reply time, (in my case) was about 3 or 4 days. Each email was prefaced with an apology for the delay in responding. Maybe they've sped up the response by now. Here's the reply you'd hoped I'd given - Heat damage. RMA or return the CPU, get a good water cooler. Hope this helps and good luck!

Care to bring me up to speed? JF from Just Flight? Posted where? Converting what?

Agreed. My story is quite similar. In 2017, when I started X-Plane I, too, was impressed with Carenado's aircraft. Then I learned how light on systems it was. I abandoned Carenado's PC-12 and started flying STMA's PC-12, which looked more like an XP10 version. Nevertheless, STMA's systems went a lot deeper and worked closer to the real aircraft, despite the antiquated textures. Back in 2020, I did a comparison of the two aircraft which highlights how lacking the Carenado version is.

Wow. I like what you've done with the screens. You might want to drop a comment into Russ Barlow's YT channel. He's been working on solutions for AirManager for years.

Interesting issues. Please consider posting a bug report regarding your issue here: https://www.x-plane.com/x-plane-bug-report-form/. It may be a low priority but at least it's something they'll know to address.

Yup. Perhaps I should have choosen AMD . ASUS approved my claim so I should be getting the ASUS Maximus motherboard back soon. I would have purchased my own label rather than ASUS's shipping label. except I would have needed to add $500 worth of extra insurance. Anyhow, I've been working for days trying to RMA my Intel i9-900K processor. I think I have one more hoop to jump through before they'll take it back. In the meantime, I've purchased an I9-900KF CPU and the sim runs. The CPU was the root of my problems. My computer woes are costing me a fortune. If it wasn't for missing simming I'd waited. Guess I'll get in a flight now. Cheers.

Nice channel, Jordan.

Not only is X-Plane not dying, it's expanding. Laminar Research is busy adding features and human resources. XP12 is just now finding its footing (after a year or so major changes) The next update (12.1.0) ought to bear this out, but even then 12.1.0 it is just a starting point. I think it's going to be the ultimate flight sim. However, the other sim has some really impressive non-aircraft add-ons, at this moment in time. Some of those add-ons actually makes me envious. I'm smart enough to give props where props are due and, MSFS has earned some props because of these non-aircraft add-ons. Kudos to those devs. A side note should be Laminar's mention of its "modern collector" which I think it going to be the real game changer. From what I understand, it going to move the sim toward true multi-core processing. I tend to avoid conversation about which sim is better. Simply stated, each sim is different. The bottom line is that X-Plane is far from dying.

Ditto. You hit the nail on the head. For the record, I'm not a developer although I do play around in Python from time to time.

Yup. That's true of a lot of freeware and some payware. Nevertheless, there's still freeware that is worth the time and energy to explore. Remember, it's people like us, who develop the freeware and upload it. If you were to create and upload an airplane, you'd be under no obligation to maintain it. Personally, I grateful that I can find some great free stuff.

What a fiasco? Whew! So I RMA'd my ASUS Hero Maximus Z790 motherboard. ASUS received it, claimed it was damaged (which I can assure you, it wasn't when I shipped it) and sent me an invoice for $663.00. That's close to $70.00 more than I paid for the motherboard. The damage they cited is a corner of the wafer that is broken, something I find it hard to believe happened in shipping. The damage, IMO, is more consistent with mishandling. I ordered, received and installed a Gigabyte Aorus Z790 motherboard. To my surprise and horror, I got the same results. BSOD and frequent application crashes. Therefore, I concluded that I sent ASUS a perfectly good motherboard and the real culprit is the CPU. Perhaps this theory is part of an active imagination, nevertheless; I present this theory anyway. ASUS received the motherboard, tested it and couldn't reproduce the issue. The tech, decided to create a real issue, rather than return it as received. Yeah, I know this is wayyyy out there, but I'm trying to make sense of how the board got physically damaged. Anyway a tech, during a phone call, suggested that I allow ASUS to file a claim on my behalf for the damage (I purchased the shipping label from ASUS). That's where I stand at the moment with this... crap. At this point, I've replaced the SSD drive, motherboard, and finally the memory. The problem is apparently a faulty i9-14900K CPU. Yesterday, I started to process, with Intel, to RMA it. Wish me luck!

I'm still dead-in-the-water with my flight sim rig. I've concluded it's got to be a hardware problem so I'm going to try to RMA the motherboard. The issue I'm facing now is this: I've reverted to my old computer with runs a i7-6700K CPU and a 1080Ti graphics card. Both a licensed copy of XP11 & 12 runs on the computer. However, I have a ton of add-ons that are registered to the misbehaving (preferred) computer. I don't know if I can transfer the addons to the old computer and back to the preferred computer if I get it working. To make matters more complicated, I also have an i9-12900k CPU, a separate motherboard (the i9-14900K and i9-12900K sockets aren't compatible) and 64gb of DDR4, sitting around. Again, If I were to deploy that hardware, I'd still have the problem of using add-ons since it'll technically be a different computer. Kinda sucks simming without my favorite addons. I've RMA'd the 12900k motherboard last year and it took about two weeks to get it back. If you're wondering why I'm hanging onto all this hardware - I lend the hardware to my EAA chapter during our Young Eagle events (I need to finish the build on the 2nd computer).

Hi Rick, Welcome to the X-Plane community. While avoiding the debate over which sim is better, it is a common theme where people who genuinely give X-Plane a try tend to be super impressed with it. Even though I have no official affiliation with these forums, I invite you to use this resource for anything X-Plane flight simulation related. There's a wonderful and knowledgeable group of people here. I use the Logitech radio panel and originally, as @Pils mention, used SPAD.nEXT to power it. Xsaitekpanels panels is a much simpler solution.

I have a computer running an i-9 14900K CPU with 32GB of RAM on an Samsung EVO Pro SSD with Windows 11 Home. The power supply is 1200watts. For some reason the system became unstable. I started getting X-Plane 12 crashes to the extent I could complete every 3rd or 4th - 1 hour flight in the 737-800NG. BSODs went from occasional to 1 or 2 per day. This seem to occur over a period of a month, or so. MSFS would occasionally crash also for no apparent reason. I tested the RAM vigorously with MEM86+ and stressed the CPU and Motherboard. No BSODs. I concluded that the issue must be a failing M.2 SSD windows boot drive, so I replaced it. Same result. Today, I reinstalled windows on a new Samsung Pro SSD. I wiped the drive containing X-Plane, destructively formatted it and reinstalled X-Plane 12. Basically, Windows and X-plane are the only real apps on the computer at this point. Both are fresh installs. X-Plane 12 tries to load but fails. Digging into the Event Viewer reveals the following error under Custom Views>Administrative Events: Event 100, Application Error Faulting application name: X-Plane.exe, version 12.0.9.7, timestamp: 0x65a5667e Faulting module name: X-Plane.exe, version 12.0.9.7, timestamp: 0x65a5667e Exception code 0xc0000409 Fault offset: 0x0000000001bd4051 Faulting application start time: 0x01da647a0df0c9fc Faulting application path F:\X-Plane 12\X-Plane.exe Faulting module path F:\X-Plane 12\X-Plane.exe Report Id: 567fc31e-3285-42ae-86d8-14f83bc6944a Faulting package name: Faulting package-relative application ID: Log Name Application Source Application Error ... (there's more but I don't think it's germane to the issue) I've tried restalling X-Plane on Drive C: the SSD Boot drive - same result. So far X-Plane is the only program that has this issue. A different licensed copy of XP12 is running on my older computer without issues. My motherboard is under warranty but ASUS believe's it's a software issue. I'm at my wit's end. Hopefully, you can help me fix this. I'm desperate.

Thanks for that. You're absolutely right and you've pointed out some things I hadn't considered. I don't think I've seen the hi-fi 737 in MSFS's store.

I hope I wasn't misconstrued. I think competition is a wonderful thing. I'm already reaping the benefits of it. And I get that ultimately XP seems to cater to a more serious crowd of simmers (at least IMO). I hear the arguments that XP's flight model is attractive, while MSFS's graphics model is attractive. I also believe MS's reentry into the space is driving more sales to LR ("Thus, LR is benefiting from MS marketing."). And just like the coffee shop analogy, both have value and, yes; both excels in different areas. By competition, I don't mean there will be winners and losers. There's Coke and Pepsi, GM and Ford, all winners in my book (albeit I prefer Ford and I don't consume soft drinks). What I meant earlier is that I'm not so sure that MS and LR are not competing. Actually, I think they are. Both would like to have the very best flight sim. As long as I don't get both sims when I buy one or the other, there's competition. If you'll indulge me for a moment, I've heard rumors that P3D's sim is being rebuilt using the Unreal Engine. If that's true, then we may ultimately get 3 major players in the space.

Let me explain. I'm making assumptions. I'm assuming developers from all sites will want to add their wares to X-Plane.com as well. Therefore, X-Plane.com might become the largest repository of payware and thereby become the store of choice for simmers, including those who currently purchase wares from X-Aviation. We know that sales are a major revenue source for 3rd-party sites. My concern is that sales for 3rd party sites will take a hit. There may be some things that 3rd party sites can do to mitigate loss of sales, like build loyalty programs through promotions and discounts. We'll see.

X-Plane.com recently announced that they are opening a store. I'm assuming the model will compete with sites like X-Aviation and X-Plane.org. I'm excited to see the store open but also concerned about X-Aviation. I support the X-Aviation to the extent that I've purchased aircraft that I never intended to fly. I do this to support the site and the developers who sell on the site. On the other hand, I've avoided buying aircraft from the .Org site that I want to try out. That's because I do not want to support that site. You'll find my reasons here. Nevertheless, I am compelled to buy aircraft there. That leads me to why I support X-Plane.com opening a store. I'm hoping the new store brings some humility to the guy (you know who you are) who runs the site. At the same time, I'm hoping it'll minimally affect X-Aviation. Unfortunately, I know I can't have it both ways. At least people won't confuse X-plane.org with Laminar Research's site since X-Plane.com sells aircraft. I initially made that assumption without reading the fine print. Since LR is competing with MS I appreciate the need for the additional revenue stream. Austin still publicly denies it's a competition and claims X-Plane occupies a different space. I'm not so sure about that. I do believe XP12 will to continually peel off simmers from MSFS. Thus, LR is benefiting from MS marketing.

The Saga continues. The Honeycomb website which was down when I posted the reply above is back up with a note buried in there that says, they will refund money or ship the Charlie Rudders at the end of June. I really want the rudders so since I've already mentally written off the $350.00, I'm going to wait. I'll be at FSExpo 24 on the 24th, so if I don't get a shipping manifest then I will shout loudly to anyone who'll listen on June 25th. Blu and XP released a video on the subject (below). I think they are giving Nikki too much leeway. I believe Nikki's side of the story but I believe there is a lot more to it than he's telling. I believe he knew HC was in trouble back during FSExpo 23, perhaps not to the extent that he'd lose the company. FSElite and Threshold are following this story. Let's see where this saga goes.

I guess by now, you've heard the story of Honeycomb and their demise. At tempted as I am to publish the email I received from HC I am not. I will, however, provide a search link that should guide you to the letter. Here is my take: Sh!t happens. It's how you clean it up that matters. A long letter of apology is nice but doesn't replace the hard-earned deposit I paid. I saw nothing that guaranteed that HC is going to make each and everyone who paid for the Charlie Rudders whole, no matter how long it takes. It does look like they'll try to make everyone whole. The mistakes that were made shouldn't ultimately be borne by the customer. That's just wishful thinking. The reality of the matter is that it is the customer who loses in more than one way. HC had the potential to be a great supplier of high quality affordable flight sim peripherals. It's more than just the money I am losing. I genuinely liked the owner and the story of why he created HC. Maybe he'll pull a rabbit out of the hat.

That's not what I meant when I said, jump seat.