Tough to say. It is definitely an improvement..for sure the 3D objects and things of that nature are (in my opinion) vastly improved. The terrain and terrain graphics seem better. Particularly from mid to high altitudes. Down low, you will of course see some pixelation, but overall the terrain is fantastic. Not many of the above screens were taken much above 3 or 4,000' above the ground..so that is pretty good resolution. It will be interesting to see what the terrain looks like on the DVDs that ship with the full product...

Meantime..here are some more shots...

The B-1 is fun to fly around in. It's nice to map the wing sweep to the HOTAS to manage the wings (and lift) on the fly... Roaring around down the valleys is cool..and running across a flock of birds can be pretty eye opening!





And yes..you can actually drop dumb bombs out of the bomb bay. Here I run a stick across the home airfield.. All it does is create little black poofs on the ground..but I did find out you can get fragged by your own bomb apparently since I lost a couple engines during this run...



I took a crack at importing some Version 8.x models in. It is really hit or miss.. Some you can just dump into your Version 9.beta directory and they load and run just fine. Others have messed up panels or messed up aerodynamics. Here is one of the coolest Version 8 aircraft..an Osprey that replaces the default one..



One of my favorite user created planes for 8.x..the Evenblade. As you can see, the cockpit doesn't load properly in the 9.beta...



The 3D model does fine though..and it flies pretty good, although the trim response seems slower than it was in version 8.x... Don't know if trim speed is a new or different variable in 9.beta..



Nice 3D pit in the Pilatus Porter...fun airplane to land on short runways. With full flaps it has a nice steep approach and can stop on a dime...





Taking off in a CASA from a dirt strip...another successfully imported aircraft..



I also imported a great A-7 from version 8.x...and sure enough when you land the tailhook engages. Unfortunately after you stop there is some sort of script or something that takes you to the catapult or something. Once on the catapult my screen went dark like I was under high-G so I had to exit out of the plane... I will say though..that with X-Plane's excellent feel of flight, the carrier approaches and landings are the most realistic "feeling" that I've ever seen in ANY sim. The only possible contender might be LOMAC's Su-25T when doing practice approaches to carriers (no tailhook though..!)...







The carrier and water in X-Plane are vastly improved over prior versions. Great job with them...

BeachAV8R

(I promise to quit soon..just enjoying running around in new and old planes.. )

SLipping a 172 with full flaps!!!! tck tck tck Beach, you should know better

Hehe

Beach, now that you've got me hooked I can't wait for a more stable release! I'm definitely buying this thing when it's finished, what a superb sim it is!

But the question remains... Can other aircraft be shot down by the missiles that can apparently be shot from aircraft?

Also...

Is there a gun? If so, can it do damage to other airtcraft and structures?

Are the avionics in the particular military aircarft modeled?

If it is strictly a civilian sim, I have FSX for that role...

-Skater

Skater, it is designed as a civilian sim. X-Plane has always been a little different than the Microsoft Flight Sim. The design focus seems to be on the 'feel' of flight which it does IMHO better than FSX etc. Instrument flying is far smoother in X-Plane too (the instruments update very fluidly as opposed to the Microsoft offering). Graphically MSFS has always held the edge (although the new screenshots from the X-Plane V9 Beta would suggest to me that the gap has closed a lot).

Yeah..what Paul said.. X-Plane is not a combat flight simulator. It has some military airplanes in it..but the avionics and systems are not realistic. If you are looking to blow stuff up..you still need F4 or LOMAC or similar for that. Personally, I've always felt X-Plane was a better training tool than FS2004 or FSX. I do feel that the stick and rudder movements are more realistic and the weather, visibility, and gauge update rates are more realistic. MSFS will always be far ahead for add-ons and complexity of both scenery and add-on aircraft..

BeachAV8R

I forgot about that prohibition! You can see it has been about 10 years since I last exercised my CFI certificate..

I do remember forward slipping a 172 a few times back when I was a new pilot..just to see if it could be done.. I remember the tail buffeting like crazy during the slip..which is (I think) why it is prohibited..you blanket the tail and can lose elevator authority. Ah..the stupid things I did in my teenage years....

BeachAV8R

Dusting off my 172P manual (for the 1986 model), all I can find is a passage that states "Steep slips should be avoided with flap settings greater than 20 degrees due to a slight tendency for the elevator to oscillate under certain combinations of airspeed, sideslip angle and center of gravity loadings."

Sounds like you have to do it just right to induce the oscillations. It's been a long while since I had to do a real forward slip :D.

I used to give beach rides at Myrtle Beach in 172s.. They were 10 minutes each..so we could do 5 or so an hour. By the end of the summer I had done hundreds and hundreds of them..and they got to be so boring that I'd try to spice it up a bit by forward slipping or doing soft-field takeoffs, etc.. Passengers always thought the forward slip was nuts...I'd intentionally do it toward the right side so that they'd be looking out that right door window at the pavement rushing up at them..

BeachAV8R

With that, I will have to try out this...

Check out this video I made of doing some carrier stuff with the F-14 in X-Plane 9...(12 MB)

http://www.mudspike.com/f14.avi

BeachAV8R

I'm gonna need a more stable release. If i try to go to a different location I get a warning that the game found an area with no scenery. All I'll see is water. Beautiful water, but water none the less.

What I've seen I like a lot.

It's funny. I can't quite explain it, but it's like the difference between IL2, and BoB:WoV. I love them both, but I am so much more comfortable in IL2. There's something about the cockpits, or feeling that makes me want to fly IL2 more.... though they are both fine products.

I get the same feeling in X Plane and MSFSX. I like MSFSX but already feel more comfy X Plane.

Was it you who posted the video clips of X Plane 9, Paul? Beautiful.

I'm gonna need a bigger PC. or at least a better vid card. ATI 1650 with 512 DDR2 ram. Not bad, since I needed the 512 buffer for editing on Avid Liquid. (The program isn't NVIDEA friendly.... at least the 88xx series)

I think the demo only has the area around Innsbruck if I'm not mistaken. If you wander outside of that area..the rest of the planet is covered with water. The airports outside of the demo area are there..but they will be sitting on top of water instead of terrain. The full version has 6 or 7 DVDs of scenery that you install to properly give you the terrain around other regions of the world.

And yeah..it crashes a lot..I have nVidia cards in both of my computers and both have issues with the beta...

I don't feel so bad then if you're crashing too. I'm pretty happy with the way the demo looks, but what I've seen in your screenies and movie is phenominal.

Has the world scenery been redone...I just bought the whole world last year

Thanks..it hasn't been without pain and frustration though.. I get crashes and freezes just like everyone else. But the more I've experimented with it..the more I've been able to pin it down on the rendering options. In particular it seems like the trees are the most problematic. Wish I could jack up the trees, roads, and objects to the high end to check it out..but my system can't deal with it.. Still...what I've shown thus far the FPS are smooth as glass..so that isn't too bad!


I *thought* I had read on the X-Plane.ORG site (http://www.x-plane.org) that the world scenery had been improved..but I wouldn't quote me on that. If I can find the reference I'll post it...

Had the chance to fly the "The Jet" (such an odd name) up to higher altitudes and I wanted to check out the cloud rendering. The clouds are really nicely done..very realistic looking although the thunderstorms I thought should be a bit more vertical and towering (might have missed where you could set that in on the options page..)...





The default King Air 200 model is a bit rough looking compared to some of the higher quality 3D models..but it does alright. The panel is actually fairly nice looking and very functional...



Last night I set the conditions to a nice and gloomy 1/2 mile vis and 200' ceiling and took off in the King Air to check out instrument approaches. I flew the entire flight from just after takeoff to touchdown using the autopilot controls and it worked really nicely. My only two gripes..and they might be related to the aircraft model rather than the sim...was that when I put out approach flaps at 190 knots the plane ballooned unrealistically about 400 feet or so. The AP in the real aircraft can easily deal with such a configuration change. It came back down onto the proper altitude smoothly and crisply..but it wasn't "right". I'll have to try it again at a slower airspeed and see if it wasn't just an anomaly with that particular aircraft. The other gripe was that the HSI glideslope indicator was constantly flagged "OFF" with red flags although the glideslope was clearly working. It captured both the LOC and GS just fine though and flew a great approach down to minimums. Very realistic feeling and realistic visuals breaking out and seeing the "rabbit" sequencing toward the runway.

Another nice feature I discovered, which I can't recall seeing in version 8, is that on the LOCAL map, there is a stack of your primary instruments to allow you to reference. Kind of a nice touch. Also, the map has some great features like multiple overlays to let you look at instrument approaches, vertical profile, textured overlay and 3D depictions. Really cool stuff. In addition..there is a nice feature that allows another person to fail things on the plane and generally act like an instructor (IOS station) as one would at a real simulator.





Took the NASA Space Plane up and of course lost control of it once I hit orbital altitude..hehe.. I didn't have my joystick hooked up at the time..I know I could have salvaged it with my X52 hooked up...



I was always a big fan of version 8..and I'm really liking what I'm seeing in version 9. I'll definitely be getting it (soon)... It has stability problems..no doubt about it. It is, however, a beta..so hopefully the reports back to Austin will be dealt with and I'm guessing it will all be worked out.

BeachAV8R

Trees give me the issues too. The rest is fine.

I like the render warning I get when I set the options high and a flock of birds come by. It warns me to turn down the options so I'll have smooth framerates.

I'm thinking, "I can't get MSFS to work this smooth and X Plane calls this stuttering?" LOL I do seem to get artifacts in the distant sky when I crank the render options up to insane levels. It's minimal but noticeable.

Just visited the X-Plane site to research this a bit further..and here is the company line about scenery in version 9:

Major Scenery Improvements:
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Upgraded global scenery package! All new scenery files! That's 18,008 new DSF files! These new scenery files come with refinements in the grid and about 20% MORE polygons to refine the terrain detail a bit further! So, these new global scenery files have 20% detail and complexity to just push the envelope a little further.

Now, the more exciting features of this new scenery are that this new scenery comes with European buildings and forests, as well as higher-accuracy terrain! As well, the version-8 scenery only went up to 60 degrees North Latitude... The new Version-9 scenery goes up to 74 degrees North Latitude for more Alaska and North-European flying!

We now have better flattening around airports (especially coastal ones). This means that runways always have gentle slopes and gradients, just like real runways!

Alaska, Hawaii, and some US territories now use high-detail road data, for more accuracy in roads and the buildings that sit near them.

As well, roads are now auto-generated in non-US cities to create high detailed cities... this gives countless thousands more buildings for you to fly around!

We also have more regional scenery detail... we have European-looking buildings in the right places, and the red soil of Australia, for example!

Now, to render these cities more accurately, World-wide cities now use smaller objects - means they look better on sloped terrain, and means the US or European object sets can be used anywhere in the world! (And users can make new looks for cities using the library system!) Look closely, and you will even see the occasional TRAIN running on along!

Also, be sure to turn on some level of FORESTS in the Rendering Options screen... the forests are now pretty amazing, and truly 3-D!

Water reflections! Get in the Canadair in the SEAPLANES folder and go to KAVX. Then do a SEAPLANE TAKEOFF from the LOAD SITUATION menu, then go to an external view... not too bad!

Smooth fog! This allows nicer rendering in almost all flight cases.

Earth orbit rendering much better, with auto-generated orbital images to perfectly match the low-level scenery, and bump-mapping as well!

So, the new scenery offers more detail, accuracy, variety, with everything from reflective water and new fog (turned on in the rendering options screen!) to smoother transitions all the way out to a hi-detail bump-mapped orbit! This really starts to show off what the new X-Plane scenery engine can do.

-----------

That's from their web-page...so I can't vouch for any of that...

BeachAV8R

Well, you can now call me an X-Plane owner. I went ahead and ordered it. For some reason, there is something very right about this sim. I don't know if it is the gauges updating as smooth as glass, the way the planes "bob" around, or the fluid frame rates, but, something about this thing caused me to purchase a BETA! What am I thinking?? If Austin can pin down the scenery freeze and the rendering issues, this may very well be a pretty big hit.

I was cruising around the demo area, looking out the left side of the plane, and as the wife walked by she glanced at the screen for about 1/10th of a second. She asks, "who sent you those pictures, and where is that at?"

Sold....

-John

This thread prompted me to fire up V7.63 for the first time in months. I flew a series of ILS approaches into Zanesville (KZZV) which is my home field. I set the weather to minimums with lots of precipitation, some turbulance and to make it interesting it was night. Very tense stuff, lots of concentration required and there was a genuine feeling of relief to see the runway lights come out of the murky darkness just as I reached decision altitude.. phew. And this is with version 7. I will be trying V8 soon, and if my rig can keep up with that then I'll look into V9 sometime in the near future.