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Best Flight Simulator?

X-Plane 9 and those pesky on-screen data blocks

I tried X-plane 9, and dismissed it due to the four or five black boxes of engineering data that stayed on my screen the whole flight.

I just want to enjoy simulated flying, which requires realistic scenery and environment. I'm not a flight engineer.

Also, the airfoils were not as realistic as FS2004 or FSX. I guess each to his own taste.
 
macanaw said:
I tried X-plane 9, and dismissed it due to the four or five black boxes of engineering data that stayed on my screen the whole flight.

I just want to enjoy simulated flying, which requires realistic scenery and environment. I'm not a flight engineer.

Also, the airfoils were not as realistic as FS2004 or FSX. I guess each to his own taste.
Click to expand...

Many times what you start out with is what you'll prefer.
I think most Mac people prefer X-Plane because it is a Mac operating system flt sim.
I do prefer X-Plane over FSX.
The strange part is I use X-Plane with Windows 7 under boot camp. That's because I need the PC add-ons.
 
macanaw said:
I tried X-plane 9, and dismissed it due to the four or five black boxes of engineering data that stayed on my screen the whole flight.

I just want to enjoy simulated flying, which requires realistic scenery and environment. I'm not a flight engineer.

Also, the airfoils were not as realistic as FS2004 or FSX. I guess each to his own taste.
Click to expand...

hmm so how do you know that then? :confused:
 
I played 5 hours aerofly FS now. I didn't installed it on my iMac, I installed it on my MacBook Air late 2011. The settings are on medium and I get always around 30 fps. And the loading times are very fast. About 10 sec on startup. The graphics are really nice, it's very photo-realistic. There are 30 missions. I hope there will be more in updates included.
 
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Northwestern said:
I bought it today, downloading 17 GB right now :eek::D
Click to expand...

17 GB.... wow... for just Switzerland!

Northwestern said:
I played 5 hours aerofly FS now. I didn't installed it on my iMac, I installed it on my MacBook Air late 2011. The settings are on medium and I get always around 30 fps. And the loading times are very fast. About 10 sec on startup. The graphics are really nice, it's very photo-realistic. There are 30 missions. I hope there will be more in updates included.
Click to expand...

Do those medium settings look good?
If so, then having those settings on a MBA amazing! X-Plane 10 really needs a powerful grfx card (Radeon 4870 or better) to make it look good. No MBA can handle the grfx well enough.

BTW... I'm getting more and more errors in X-Plane 10 which seem to show that the 32 bits RAM limit of X-Plane 10 is getting found.
It may seem X-Plane 10 will get 64 bits pretty soon....!

X-Plane 10 FTW still though!
 
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decafjava said:
hmm so how do you know that then? :confused:
Click to expand...

Maybe he meant in design/graphics. Stock X-Plane planes are not that great looking and the cockpit isn't the same as the real plane.

Now third party planes are great.

Like x737(freeware).

x737-under-lighting.jpg


And the 787(payware)

820-787-pushback-truck.jpg
 
MacsRgr8 said:
Do those medium settings look good?
If so, then having those settings on a MBA amazing! X-Plane 10 really needs a powerful grfx card (Radeon 4870 or better) to make it look good. No MBA can handle the grfx well enough.
Click to expand...

Looks superb, like the screenshots on the Mac App Store Page. I have an i7 MacBook Air. Sometimes the game loads with some texture failure like textures are invisible. But with 1-2 restarts of the game everything loads perfectly. This doesn't happen often, but sometimes.
 
Northwestern said:
Looks superb, like the screenshots on the Mac App Store Page. I have an i7 MacBook Air. Sometimes the game loads with some texture failure like textures are invisible. But with 1-2 restarts of the game everything loads perfectly. This doesn't happen often, but sometimes.
Click to expand...

Tnx for the info. :)
I think I'll be trying it this weekend too!
 
Mad Men

macanaw said:
I tried X-plane 9, and dismissed it due to the four or five black boxes of engineering data that stayed on my screen the whole flight.

I just want to enjoy simulated flying, which requires realistic scenery and environment. I'm not a flight engineer.

Also, the airfoils were not as realistic as FS2004 or FSX. I guess each to his own taste.
Click to expand...

I downloaded trial of X-10, and no more black boxes of data interefere. Actually looks pretty good, but gawd! at the virtual plethora of settings one faces setting--just to get the blasted thing to throttle up and take off.:eek: I figure if I'm already whining at this early stage, I better just as well forget X-10 for the time being (unless I just get slammed against the wall with NO other direction to go!):(:mad: -and by BTW,that's my prerogative. They're here to please me--not the other way around. Did I mention not being a flight engineer? Oh, yeah, I see it up there now. Well...
 
macanaw said:
I'm not a flight engineer... ...the airfoils were not as realistic as FS2004 or FSX. I guess each to his own taste.
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As someone who trained as an Aerospace Engineer and a pilot... X-Plane "airfoils" (aka aerodynamics simulation) is *MUCH MUCH MUCH* more realistic than Microsoft Flight Simulator. In fact, it's actually based on reality. To the point that if you create an unflyable airplane in X-Plane, it will be unflyable. Whereas you *CAN* create an unflyable airplane in Microsoft Flight Simulator and tweak the 'behind the scenes' settings so that it flies.

macanaw said:
I just want to enjoy simulated flying, which requires realistic scenery and environment.
Click to expand...

For this, I will not dispute that Microsoft Flight Simulator is easier to enjoy than X-Plane for a non-professional.

(I have been a Microsoft Flight Simulator user since 1983, and an X-Plane user since 1996.)
 
Also, many seem to say that iMac machines are not really games machines.

Therefore, unless one has a top range mac with say 16gb ram, will this game run to a spec much lower than on a £1000 pc with a decent GPU?
 
If you're serious about flight simming, might i suggest one thing (it's what I do).

Run X-Plane or any PC based flight sim through bootcamp (pref wind 7 64 bit). The only reason I'd choose PC vs MAC XPLANE is TRACKER IR. Head tracking device for $124 that completely changes the flight sim experience. The sims run natively through bootcamp so there is no performance hit. Just need to pick yourself up a copy of windows 7.

My personal favorite flight sim ever (and I have been simming for a LONG time) is the DCS Series (Digital Combat Simulator).

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/

Flight model is bar none the best on the market, although it's military based so your machines have teeth.

They currently have the KA-50 Black Shark Helicopter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITrCeAau2_s

A-10C (straight from the military training version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUu4SV3GjVw&list=UU3TveouV6D2BWVIey36qIOQ&index=4&feature=plcp

P51D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQbey-Um1c&list=UU3TveouV6D2BWVIey36qIOQ&index=1&feature=plcp

and a strategic ground element:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0yXV4cFYpU&list=UU3TveouV6D2BWVIey36qIOQ&index=2&feature=plcp


They are all MP compatible under one umbrella: DCS World (FREE DOWNLOAD and comes with the Russian ground attack craft: SU-25T)

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/world/



All that said, these are "hardest of the hard" combat flight sims (although I spend the majority of my time just flying around because the flight dynamics are so bloody amazing)

I think the entire package would come in to just over what you'd pay for X-Plane 10, but IMHO worth every penny. They are working with a number of third party developers doing a ton of other air frames. MIG 21 will be released this year.

That said XPLANE 10 is a great addition to the civilian community.

HAPPY SIMMING.
 
karla23 said:
I just found out about this game and Im pumped has anyone else ever played this game or heard of it? Its a flight simulated 3D virtual video game.
http://virtualpilot3d.com/pid.php?offer=klsmv0413&pid=4
Click to expand...

The above is a rip off of "flight gear". Same exact product just renamed.
Get the real-deal here: http://www.flightgear.org

Now that this thread is alive again, one question: What controls do people like? Flying an airplae with a mouse is not close to realistic. One needs pedals and either a joystick or yoke.
 
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I ran Flight Gear yesterday on my MacBook Air late 2011. It runs well, but has texture problems. I think this is because the MacBook Air has an integrated Intel HD3000. The Cessna has only half of its textures. It was worth the try :)

I am still looking for something like MS Flight. FSX and X-Plane 10 are to complicated for me.
 
Is my Mac suitable for x plane?

Just bought a new iMac with a 2.7 Ghz Intel Core 15
8 GB memory, 1600 mHz, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 512 MB
SystemOS x 10.8.2
 
exupery said:
Just bought a new iMac with a 2.7 Ghz Intel Core 15
8 GB memory, 1600 mHz, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 512 MB
SystemOS x 10.8.2
Click to expand...

Yes, that will work just fine.
You'll have to learn how to customize the renderings so that X-Plane runs smoothly with your computer.
 
Thanks

Topper:
Thanks for the quick reply. Thought it might but just wanted to know before I ordered it
 
Enjoying X Plane for the First Time

Just finished installing X Plane regional North America and I am really enjoying it so far. Don't even have joystick hooked up yet. Seems to work fine.Have a lot of learning to do but having used early versions of Microsoft FS on low memory computers and now with X plane installed on a new IMAC that has 8 gigs of ram (my old mac mini had 512 megs) and a terabyte of storage it is a delight.
 
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