FloB

Maybe. Maybe not.

Thanks Frank, I wasn't aware of that. My impression was that IF using XP's default RW weather the connector would just allow skymaxx to represent it accordingly. If you do your own parsing and interpolation of metars and own cloud placing - it's something different entirely. "Real Weather Connector" might be a little missleading in this regard, don't you think? I'll safe the dozen of new questions that your post brought to my mind. Looking forward to the release. Best Flo

Hi Cameron, I'm not questioning the hard work that went into this, but to me it seems a little bit odd to pay for a plugin for skymaxx that (if I understood correctly) basically "fixes" a limitation that only exists when using skymaxx itself. It's a different story when using 3rd party weather plugins like NOAA or FSGRW together with skymaxx, but such an additional payware plugin should not be needed if you want to bring XP's default RWW functionality to Skymaxx. I can see the dilemma, though. And at least I appreciate the opportunities. Regards Flo

What about thread-freezing? Flo

Not sure what commercial license means...but you are too old to get into a regular airline education programme. At least with the airlines I know. Most big airlines have FAQ websites on that matter. Just look up some of them. If you have a lot of money possibilities are probably unlimited, no job guarantee though. Flo

Thanks everybody for your feedback! And insight from a real Saab pilot is always very much appreciated. I think with all that I have all I need to improve my descend/approach planning and management. Now it's on me... Best Flo

Glad to be of any help. Unless you are very unhappy with the aliasing or the lack of shadows a GPU upgrade won't do much on your system (adding a second or bigger screen (higher-res) might change that, though). A new CPU will let you chose much higher tree & object settings and that changes the sim quite a bit IMHO. And some of the quality payware aircraft eat CPU time too. I was in a similar situation a few months back and I'm very happy I dropped the GPU upgrade (GTX 970 now and then) in favor of an i5 6600k. Cheers Flo

Hi Def, I would definately go for a new CPU, but it depends on what you want within the sim. AA, shadows, HDR rendering, clouds rely mainly on GPU-power, objects, cars, reflections, view distance eat CPU time. You should consider an i5 6600k in case...(runs very well with XP10 and has a huge overclocking potential - mine runs cool and stable with 4 cores@4,4 and I'm no expert in oc). 32 GB RAM is enough, even with a lot of addons and features enabled. You could even start with 16GB (2x8) and see how far that takes you. Add more if you really need it. Summer will bring the NVIDIA Pascal generation which will probably be a huge step forward in performance. I would postpone a GPU upgrade until then. Price-performance ratio will be much better then. My 2 cents Best Flo

From your question I conclude that you do not understand a lot of hardware, system configuration and X-Plane performance. And since this is a VERY complicated matter and can lead to serious trouble this is not something that can be helped with via forum chatter. Best Flo PS: You can read up on system building, XP-Performance/tuning, bottlenecks, drivers, rendering options etc. in numerous forum threads and other sources, though. And if you come up with a more "qualified" and specific question and the appropriate information, a lot of people will happily try to help you, including me.

This question makes me think that you should leave everything as it is. Flo

I think the problem is that the rudder flaps like crazy even with very little wind or turbulence. Looks a little bit stupid from the outside, minor annoyance, though. I stopped to care about it. Flo

Stare at a wing? Bores me after one sec. Passenger cabin? Until it comes with real drinks I will not miss it. No offence. Flo

Thanks guys, this helps. Half GS * 10 (for 3° approaches) will have to do, anything more complicated will fail to be "constantly adjusted" in my head for now. I guess I have to be more strict about my approach speed to not mess things up. Will give it a try. I also came up with the idea of descending faster until the next restiction is hit, but that would require a lot of thrust adjustments und thus add a new source of mistakes and stress. Best Flo

Great, thank you Jim. F.

My problem: How to perform a (smooth) descent/approach and meet the altitude restriction. I'm frequently in trouble (mostly flying too high and thus beeing too steep on final) if visibility is restricted or when flying approaches that require turns > 100° during descent. How would, for example, a pilot calculate his V/S for an approach like https://skyvector.com/files/tpp/1513/pdf/00545RRY13R.PDF with IAF PSP and without an FMS (LES Saab340A) What is the general idea and procedure for calculating V/S during approaches? How do I compensate for upwind / downwind? How for KIAS changes? How to use the GPS's VNAV best? Any hints appreciated. Flo

After a lot of trial and error-testing and some reading up on vram the whole matter seems to me a very, very complex one. Laminar advises users to set their rendering settings so the size of loaded textures is about the size of the vram on the card (http://www.x-plane.com/?article=setting-the-rendering-options-for-best-performance). That means the total ram demanded by the driver will be much higher. And actually I found that sometimes I can run just fine (stable 30 FPS) with a vdrivers' ram usage that is much higher than the vram on my card (3.5GB / 4GB, GTX 970). Obviously not all the stuff that the driver loads is needed to be kept in the card's vram to maintain performance. Some might sit on the "slower" system ram without harm. (This is part of the explanation that NVIDIA gave for it's 3.5 GB (fast) + 0.5 GB (slower) vram-design on the GTX 970). So while it is mandatory not to exceed the card's vram in terms of loaded textures this is not true for the total ram usage of the driver. That means you actually have to test different resolutions in order to find the sweet spot. Don't go by the numbers, neither those of the total texture size that x-plane reports, nor by those the driver reports. Check the real FPS/frametimes instead and see what difference the different textures resolution make (don't forget to restart the sim!). At least this is the bottom line for me. Flo

I concur with your opinion about getting it right or not doing it at all. I have never seen a pilot in any flightsim that didn't look stupid in one or the other way. Same goes for the scrollwheel support that I've seen so far - too many tradeoffs. There are often "features" that you get tired of after a week because they actually add nothing except an "ohh, nice". However, all the best for the initial release! Flo

Important as well is the installed scenery and the area you actually fly in. W2XP or U/HD mesh can easily half your FPS in areas with good OSM coverage and/or Mountains, the same goes for large addon-airports. Screen resolution is also a factor with some settings. Most FPS comparisions are worthless because not all factors are considered. No problem to run XP on high rendering settings with 60 FPS in a rural area with default scenery. Add W2XP, HD Mesh, a 4k screen and Paris to the mix - voilà: Triple the loading time and 10 FPS. Flo

Probably the baseline of 90% of the FPS topics... F.

Well, maybe you let the others know... Flo

Well, the X-Plane world isn't turning that fast. And real/major news will pop up at all forums eventually. If you want inside information about X-Plane's developement (Laminar Research) you should track Ben Supnik's developer blog: http://developer.x-plane.com/ It's the closest you can get to X-Plane developement and is usually a good read even if you are no developer. BUT mind: It's NOT a support page for customers, NO bug reporting page, and fishing for information about upcoming features is No good and will NOT work. Updates vary from weekly to monthly. Flo

As far as I understand the matter there is a long history behind that, eventually growing into an (personal and "political") animosity between some of the main developers and vendors for a couple of reasons. Now there are kind of two different ecosystems and that's going to be permanent. There are also X-Plane forums over at AVSIM and aerosoft, which are not involved in that hassle. Best illumination I can offer is: Go and see for yourself where you like it most, or just use both or all of them. You'll get used to it. Flo

Thanks for the link, interesting read. Are there any pictures or videos showing a city/urban area, agricultural area etc. It seems like outterra is all about mountains/woodland, sometimes showing a random village. Is that beyond the scope of outterra or just not_done_yet? Flo

I don't know which quality settings there are available for outterra...but my X-Plane installation with HD mesh v3, W2XP, some minor artwork tweaks (all freeware) and Skymaxx looks way better than this. And XP visuals are even limited by my rendering settings. What would be the benefit of outterra then? Flo

Wow, that was quick, thanks. Your're right, it works as you described it. Not sure though if this is any good during approach. Once you're at flight idle you won't get out of it and then things will start to get messy...well, I'll find out soon enough. Will look into buying a new throttle quad anyway. Thanks again Flo