PSX on Mac scenery options

[Martin Baker]

When running PSX on a Mac are there currently any options to have added external visuals (also on a Mac), such as a connection to XPlane? If not, is anything likely to be developed in the coming months?

If not, what about a 50/50 Mac/Windows option: run XView on a Windows PC which also runs XPlane but is connected by a network to a Mac running PSX - would that work? Or will XView only recognise the Windows version of PSX, or must it run on the same computer as PSX? (Hence PSX would have to be on a Windows platform.)

I hope these questions make sense!

Thanks for any comments.

M

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I am not aware of a 100% Mac option, as the connector PSX-X-plane isn't running on Mac at this moment (and likely will never, Mac does not support the programming language used for the connector). However both PSX and X-Plane do run on a Mac. Given that X-Plane will want its own computer, for performance, you definitely can run PSX on the Mac and X-Plane plus the X-view connector on a PC.

There is no such thing as "the Windows/Mac/Linux" version of PSX. They are all 100% identical. As in, ditto, item, equal, binary code similar.


Hoppie

[Hardy Heinlin]

... you definitely can run PSX on the Mac and X-Plane plus the X-view connector on a PC.

Can XView, running on a PC, drive an X-Plane version that runs on a Mac? I'm surprised. I didn't know that.

Martin, if you're asking whether PSX on a Mac can drive XView and X-Plane both running on a PC: yes, it can. As Jeroen said, PSX is platform independent; all add-ons connect to PSX via platform independent TCP/IP links.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[mikeindevon]

I may do a Mac version of  XView in the autumn, but I need to buy a Mac first.  XView runs on a PC as Hoppie says, and it detects automatically whether PSX  is on a PC or Mac. No changes are required.

Hoppie says "XPlane will want its own computer". This isn't necessarily true: it depends on the PC. I run both X-Plane and PSX (plus the development environment) on one machine and get an fps of 72 for PSX,  and anywhere between 40 and 150fps  on X-Plane depending on the scenery complexity.

Mike

[Martin Baker]

Currently I have a 2011 11" MacBook Air and a 2013 21" iMac. My thoughts were to use the MBA to display just PFD and ND, and have everything else on the iMac, including Xplane for external.

In order to make this work I'm considering buying a cheap touchscreen windows laptop to run Xview and possibly some of the PSX panels to make it worth while. Does that sound sensible and workable?

I suppose another option would be to find another mac of some sort but boot it up in Windows.

M

[Roel Raeven]

Why don't you run VirtualBox (with Win7) on OSX and let it handle Xview? No need for another notebook.

Roel

[Martin Baker]

Why don't you run VirtualBox (with Win7) on OSX and let it handle Xview? No need for another notebook.

Roel

Didn't know this was possible. I'll look into it. Thanks for the tip!

M

[bkray1]

Hi,

Martinbaker have you made any progress on OSX setups? I have an iMac that has PSX and X-plane on it. I'd like to use X-view for the connection, but its PC only atm. I also have a macbook pro but it is retina. I may try and pop the instructor window over to the mac book if I can figure out how (Very bad at networking anything) and hope that the one screen will be ok with the retina display. Were you able to get VirtualBox to work?

Thanks,

Bryan

[Will]

VirtualBox is a good idea. I'm using it for flight planning with PFPX (with Windows) and flying PSX on the Mac, all on the same machine. I worry that I'd need a bigger monitor to use X-plane for scenery... or an additional monitor, one for VirtualBox and one for the native Mac... Hmmmm...

[Martin Baker]

Hi,

Martinbaker have you made any progress on OSX setups?

Sorry no - I'm travelling right now and won't be able to open my copy of PSX for a couple of weeks yet. Will report back when I do.

[Martin Baker]

OK, I've got PSX set up on an iMac - only opened it earlier today and it's as brilliant as everyone here says it is!

I've also got Virtual box and installed Windows 7. However, as far as I can see XView is not a stand-alone program that can run in Windows but a number of files which need to be put into various directories of XPlane/PSX running on Windows - or have I misunderstood?

If it's as I think it is, then Xview can't work with Mac versions of PSX/XPlane, even with Virtualbox.

[mikeindevon]

XView is essentially a library that X-Plane calls.  It only works with the Windows version of X-Plane at present.  However, it talks to PSX over the network and will work with whichever OS PSX is running under.

[Martin Baker]

XView is essentially a library that X-Plane calls.  It only works with the Windows version of X-Plane at present.  However, it talks to PSX over the network and will work with whichever OS PSX is running under.

Thanks, so to clarify, XView will work if PSX is on a Mac and XPlane on a PC, but it won't work if PSX and XPlane are both running on Macs, even with the help of virtualbox.

[Martin Baker]

An update on the mac side of things. I am running PSX on both a MBAir and a 21" iMac. The frame rates on both are maximum. Indeed, the biggest attraction of PSX for me (and I attribute this to Hardy's interest in music) is the complete fluidity of the flying experience. It's like nothing I've experienced in FS before - not even the tiniest hint of a stutter - ever. It's absolutely brilliant and I find, therefore, the most satisfying aspect of PSX, all the amazing high-tech features notwithstanding, is the experience of hand-flying the plane.

For the external views, XPlane/Xview will connect to PSX running on a mac, but XPlane/XVIew need to be run on a windows platform. I tried this with virtual box but it was too slow to cope with the load even before trying to install XPlane so I have used bootcamp to start the iMac in Windows 7. On this I run PSX (in Windows) and XPlane with XView. In order for Xview to work properly, I needed to download and install this: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555

Inside Xplane, Xview needs to have the PSX server IP addresses for both main and boost servers. So far I can only get it to recognize them if they are both on the same computer as XPlane, so I start PSX in Windows as the main server and then add the MacBookAir one as the client. XView should be able to see both servers if they're on the mac side, but I'm still looking for a way to make this happen.

PSX, however, runs superbly in the cross-platform environment, exactly as it did on an all-OSX network.

XPlane is a bit slow with view properties set to maximum so I've reduced it to about half power and am getting smooth rates now. However, even with XPlane running at highest res (and at therefore less than 10fps over NYC, for example) PSX on the same machine was running at maximum frame rate. It's a work of genius!

Do I have the perfect set-up? Not yet - I'm looking to get one more iMac (I was planning to get one anyway!) and then across 3 screens (and with the possibility of getting extension monitors too) I'll have enough space to see PSX adequately (it's so detailed I want to see it at fullsize) and have a full screen for external views, running just 1 of the 3 macs booted into Windows.

I hope this is helpful for anyone trying to use the PSX/Xplane combination on a Mac network.

PS - as a Mac user for 11 years, the enforced return to using Windows has only confirmed my hatred of the platform. Looking forward to an XView version for OSX...