Some questions about X-Planes 10

[B52STRATO 215]

Does someone got the final version and tried it ?

Here, a friend told me that he has bought one to offer me for Christmas, and from all images and videos that I could watch for almost a year, I find X-Planes 10 really disgusting as its ancestors. So is that sim worth to be try ? Can we finally install real add-on like on FS9 or FSX ?

 

Thank you in advance.

[Marlatt 5]

        I have had Xplane since version 9. I'll give you the pros and cons of it:

 

     Cons: Xplane 10 seems to have moved more toward boxy, cartoony scenery (Xplane9 is much better). No matter what you do, the gamma is never really good and it causes the scenery to either wave as you fly over or shine like a reflector of sorts. The designers always make the argument that its more about flying than pretty scenery. And in their defense, I've flown in $40,000,000 sims that they use to train pilots and the scenery in those things is pretty sad. XPlane does beat them for detail. XPlane does not include any kind of real world landmarks. No London Bridge, no Statue of Liberty, no buildings accurate to the real world in any way. There are no buildings at any of the airports. Their stock AC are terrible. Even the best of them lack in cockpit functionality, or visual accuracy. When they make training videos, they have to use a Cesna 172 that is not included in the Xplane package as a stock AC, and when you watch the videos they tell you that the stock planes are not set up accurately enough to simulate their real world counterparts. That itself should tell you that they don't bother with realism. No radio chatter in game at all (Xplane9 does). IFR is very shawdy, works sometimes but more often than not.....no go. Same with many NAV functions. Night flying is not great. Stars appear in the water, on the ground, and the moon is never correct even though it is suppose to be. Sometimes the moon appears under the horizon, like in the ground.  And again, the gamma is so bad that you can never find a good setting for night. You seem to have to download countless plugins and add ons to get Xplane10 to work as it should have out of the box. After several months of people complaining and getting kicked from their forums for it, they should have had much of this taken care of. They say it's a work in progress but Xplane10 seems to be a giant leap backward. And this "work in progress" has had since Xplane7 to actually evolve. This leads to the last con of Xplane: The community is very unfriendly to those who question all of the above mentioned stuff and get pretty nasty about it. Many newbies I've seen have gotten kicked for inquiring about much of these same issues. It is a very clicky crowd over there.  

 

  Pros: You can download or design any airport on earth and make it as detailed as you like with their WED software. You can design, any aircraft you like with their plane maker software. You can go to their site and download any AC you like. But the issue there is that XPlane people ( meaning people who buy their software) do the designs and post them for download. This leads to kind of a crap shoot on the quality your getting. Some are just terrible and others are great. But even some of the expensive payware AC I've gotten from Xpane cannot hold a candle to DCS, and some of the other sims out there. And I should note that the WED and Planemaker software have a very steep learning curve. Planes and scenery are very time consuming to build. So for those who want to make their own airports or planes but do not want to spend hours making them......well your out of luck. You just have to download what some other person designed and hope for the best.  

 Xplane is pretty easy to fly for those who are just getting into simming. The roads and streets are accurate to the real world. Very versatile setup options that really make customizing your rig a pleasurable experience. The axis and control settings are among the best I have seen. Some of the payware AC put FSX to shame.

 

  The bottom line is that XPlane9 is a much better product. Many of the old timers don't bother with 10. People are still designing new AC and scenery for 9 rather than 10. I like 9 better also. Although Xplane is not perfect, it is on par with FSX in many ways and in some ways it is better. But that train travels both ways. It is still pretty fun to fly and is good for newer sim enthusiasts.  But I find myself getting further and further away from really wanting to fly it because there are sims out there that are much better for less money. I paid  $70 for 10. I paid $29 for 9. They should reverse those two numbers so far as I am concerned. I have invested well over $200 in payare AC that I found in much better detail and accuracy on other simulators.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Marlatt