Just "plain simple" airport visualization ( ? )

[cagarini]

I tried PSX with both XView and VisualPSX...

FSX is lausy when there are rw slopes, and a lot of them are modeled in PSX now...
X-Plane 10  stutters like a hell in my system, has poor weather rendering, the high alt blurr, consumes a lot of space in my disk, specially if i want to use some worth looking photoscenery, so...

No way for me to use either FSX or X-Plane for the out-of-windshield views... :-(

Anyone working on some sort of Taxiway for PSX?

[JRBarrett]

I tried PSX with both XView and VisualPSX...

FSX is lausy when there are rw slopes, and a lot of them are modeled in PSX now...

Not sure what you mean regarding sloped runways? As I understand it, VisualPSX sends the FSX ground elevation to PSX - so even if a r/w runway is sloped, PSX should treat it as completely flat, when linked to FSX. I've done landings takeoff and taxi at several FSX airports with no issues...

[cagarini]

Just try, as an example, the ZMUB "Ulaanbaatar - Extreme uphill runwau situ..."

[John Golin]

Google Earth?
http://aerowinx.de/forum/topic.php?id=1811

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It's more complex than just sending ground elevation to PSX.

The FSX-generated ground elevation is basically only used to detect ground contact during landing or other terrain impact. It drives the indicated radio height.

During takeoff, PSX remains on its own ground until it detects air mode, and then starts picking up the FSX elevation.

During landing, it is FSX elevation until touchdown, and then PSX.

Uphill and downhill rolls will influence PSX accelleration/decelleration.

There is a difference in how PSX paints runways and approach lights. Sloped runways are not vertically in line with their approach lights. I forgot which one is flat and which one is sloped.

Garry will have the details. But you don't get FSX vertical motion when you are on a sloped runway.


Hoppie

[Hardy Heinlin]

jcomm, what exactly is lousy? FSX always showing flat runways? Or FSX not showing the slopes displayed in PSX?

FSX is not lousy. FSX is flat. When PSX is connected with VisualPSX, and PSX is on the ground, PSX's ground is flat too. That's intentional, to achieve a geometric agreement. Edit: I'm not sure anymore (I think there was a change during the development of VisualPSX, so that the FSX scenery is smoothly raised to PSX's local elevation when near a runway, so that PSX gets its elevation back -- but I may be wrong. FSX's runway view will remain flat anyway).

Jeroen, to be precise: FSX does not drive the indicated radio height in PSX directly.

See page 16. PSX has an elevation modulator. It gets data from PSX's global terrain database and PSX's global runway database. The modulator uses certain algorithms to smoothly interpolate terrain points and runway threshold elevations. The modulator may also get injected elevation data from external scenery generators.

The output of this modulator drives these models:
- Radio altimeter models (they model attitude dependent indications etc.)
- Aircraft ground roll model
- Aircraft aerodynamics model
- Weather model
- Instructor's vertical profile plot


Regards,

|-|ardy

[John Golin]

It's worth noting FSX / Prepare3d are DirectX applications, and XPlane is OpenGL, so they use different graphics engines.

XPlane and Prepar3d are more heavily dependent on the Graphics card, while FSX is very dependent on the CPU.

Having said that, all of the system resources affect these applications - both XPlane and Prepar3d run spectacularly with PSX on my Core i7 with NVidia 580 Graphics card.

[Phil Bunch]

It's worth noting FSX / Prepare3d are DirectX applications, and XPlane is OpenGL, so they use different graphics engines.

XPlane and Prepar3d are more heavily dependent on the Graphics card, while FSX is very dependent on the CPU.

Having said that, all of the system resources affect these applications - both XPlane and Prepar3d run spectacularly with PSX on my Core i7 with NVidia 580 Graphics card.

John,

Your PC rig sounds about like mine in terms of CPU and GPU power.

Based on your experience so far, as a general statement would you recommend XPlane and/or Prepar3d instead of FSX, for PSX users?  

For myself, the most important considerations are:  (1) stability with PSX (on a single-flight basis *and* longer term as XPlane and P3D evolve); and (2) efficient use of PC resources.  I don't plan to use any of the scenery generators on a standalone basis.  

I already own FSX, but don't mind buying another one if it's significantly better.  I worry a lot about changes in these packages messing up PSX-based stability.  I have the impression that both XPlane and to a lesser extent P3D have caused problems for add-on users.  My impression is that XPlane is more of a perpetual Beta experience, based on my attempts to use it over the years.

I would greatly appreciate benefiting from your (and others') experiences, even though "YMMV" probably applies to most peoples' assessments.

[cagarini]

HH

when I wrote "lausy" I was referring to the way that "rise" of the terrain occurs. In some situations the end result is weird, like for instance in that default situation of an approach to a rw with a high uphill slope.

Today I re-installed XP10 and I am using Xview, just for the PSX visuals. I will not be able to tune XP10 with some scenery for specific areas of my like, including Lisbon, until two weeks from now, but so far the perfromance looks ok to me, although I am sometimes getting the image in X-plane's window going black for a fraction of a second every 5 seconds or so...

[edit: typo...]

[John Golin]

Phil;

Short answer, Absolutely.

Prepar3d is light years ahead of FSX in terms of performance and quality you get for that performance.  It is MUCH MUCH  smoother - by default it locked the frame rate to 20fps for me, and I could have sworn it was much higher as it was so smooth.

They fixed a lot of bugs to do with Autogen, and now offload a lot of processing to the Graphics card where possible, including support for DirectX11 if your card has it.

XPlane again is very smooth - however the scenery annoys the hell out of me as all buildings look like Chicago and it  has no automatic seasonal scenery...

Xplane & PSX Autoland from an Alpha build: http://youtu.be/cuPvzgkjeWk (watch in HD)

You can download the demo of XPlane for free and check out the performance..

(note seems a bit more stuttery than it looked - probably due to the load of Fraps )

[Phil Bunch]

Phil;

Short answer, Absolutely.

Prepar3d is light years ahead of FSX in terms of performance and quality you get for that performance.  It is MUCH MUCH  smoother - by default it locked the frame rate to 20fps for me, and I could have sworn it was much higher as it was so smooth.

They fixed a lot of bugs to do with Autogen, and now offload a lot of processing to the Graphics card where possible, including support for DirectX11 if your card has it.

XPlane again is very smooth - however the scenery annoys the hell out of me as all buildings look like Chicago and it  has no automatic seasonal scenery...

Xplane & PSX Autoland from an Alpha build: http://youtu.be/cuPvzgkjeWk (watch in HD)

You can download the demo of XPlane for free and check out the performance..

(note seems a bit more stuttery than it looked - probably due to the load of Fraps )

John,

Thanks for the discussion and details.

BTW, your video link is to a Cessna-based comparison of XPlane vs FSX, which was interesting in terms of scenery comparisons, weather comparisons, etc..  I didn't see any references to anything related to PSX, though.

[John Golin]

That's strange - try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPvzgkjeWk&feature=youtu.be

[Phil Bunch]

That's strange - try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPvzgkjeWk&feature=youtu.be

Yesterday, your original link took me to a comparison of XPlane vs FSX, based on a standard Cessna flight from Innsbruck.

Today, both the original link and the alternative link contained in the above quote, take me to the same night landing video (without sound).

The text title of this video is:

"X Plane 2013 06 23 17 32 56 70"

The youtube user shown is: hobber69.

I can't think of anything I'm doing that might cause such issues, and I haven't noticed any other youtube issues, so I wonder if Google has transient bugs in their system somewhere.    

FYI, I use a VPN full-time, but I haven't seen any issues re misdirecting links.  My VPN service does provide its own DNS service.  I have a lot of anti-tracking and security add-ons in the Firefox browser that I am using.  I get the same results if I use the latest IE (which doesn't have much add-on security).  I am using Windows 7, 64 bit.

Here's the URL both your links now take me to - it was copied and pasted from my browser's address bar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPvzgkjeWk&feature=youtu.be

Both links now take me to this URL and to the same night landing video, whose text is summarized above.  I can make a screen copy of the youtube page if that would help.  

I wonder if caching of your youtube web content on my local PC is causing some of this apparent instability?

Just let me know if I can be of any further assistance.  I very much look forward to enjoying your PSX-based comparison video!

[John Golin]

Well that's the correct video now.... not sure why the original link had problems, very strange...

That video is just one I shot during Beta to show Xview /Xplane when linked to PSX (off camera)