Hello AVSim users,

I `m likely one of many users who visit Avsim everyday to read any news about MS FS2020. I have visited AVSIM from the beginning when FS 2020 was showcased and I knew this site when I ran FSX in 2009.

So finally I decided to register, especially because there is one point that I am asking myself. I couldn ´t resist after such a long time to try the demo of X-Plane 11, after watching so many impressive videos of FS 2020 for bridging the time. It was a real sad moment after FS development was stopped.

So after running the demo of X-Plane 11 I decided yesterday to install FSX just for fun. But there was one thing I never expected.

For my feelings, the X-Plane 11 physics are way way ahead of FSX. I thought both sims would be on the same level, at least from my memories. I tried to change sensitivity settings, checked the simulation settings and other things. But I couldn `t manage to get a better feeling of FSX .

X-Plane has so much greater physics than FSX. The controls are much more direct and give instant feedback. It `s not that FSX isn`t responsive. But somehow I don`t feel any difference if I steer only a little or very much in FSX. In turbulences, there is a much better feeling of how to correct the plane in X-Plane, every little movement feels very direct.

Add-Ons like PDMG are of course a different story and I haven`t tried them yet.

Do you feel the same when running FSX and X-Plane?

As far as I have red now, the developers aren`t flight professionals. There was a scene in the discovery series where they talked with professionals, but the devs are not professional themselves, as far as I know right now.

Also, some videos lacked of essential skills, for example the IFR video, how in the world they didn`t land the Airbus centerlined?

And also, there was in my eyes an essential posting, in the thread "Anyone catch the leak post on Reddit" from user fogboundturtle - page 2:

"... They will expect this FS to be as mature of the 17 years old FS 2003. I think everyone has to temper their expectation."

Somehow there was no reaction to this post, altough it feels like a good clue for me.

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In the end of course, it`s simple, we will all see the answers when FS 2020 is released. So patience is actually the only right thing.

Asobo has done an amazing job so far from the only thing we can judge right now: The visuals. They are stunning and certainly not in only one aspect.

It`s weird to see that P3D or X-Plane have relatively high hardware requirements themselves and as it looks like, FS2020 offers double or triple better visuals with on-par hardware requirements.

 

X Plane has numerous weaknesses but the flight physics and ground handling are quite good by now. But if you use X Plane I highly recommend getting the newly updated XP Realistic 2.1. It's a must have. You need to tweak the immersions to your preference, for example some stuff like sneezing I have disabled. Other immersions like touch down effect need toning down. Once you have it setup right it greatly improves the experience.

Greazer.

18 hours ago, BigDee said:

It`s weird to see that P3D or X-Plane have relatively high hardware requirements themselves and as it looks like, FS2020 offers double or triple better visuals with on-par hardware requirements.

 

Have you flown a real aircraft in real life?

Explain how X-Plane compares with that?

Edited June 25, 20205 yr by n4gix
PLEASE STOP QUOTING THE ENTIRE LONG POST!!!

1 hour ago, BigDee said:

I `m likely one of many users who visit Avsim everyday to read any news about MS FS2020. I have visited AVSIM from the beginning when FS 2020 was showcased and I knew this site when I ran FSX in 2009

Seems to me the FSX vs X-Plane 11 comparison (and also if compared to P3D) it would be like comparing apple to orange. IMHO, FSX is an already obsolete sim, technically speaking, even if surprisingly to me, a lot of people are still using it.

Just my opinion, sorry.

Cheers, Ed

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by edpatino

38 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Have you flown a real aircraft in real life?

Explain how X-Plane compares with that?

I already did that in my first post:

"The controls are much more direct and give instant feedback. It `s not that FSX isn`t responsive. But somehow I don`t feel any difference if I steer only a little or very much in FSX. In turbulences, there is a much better feeling of how to correct the plane in X-Plane, every little movement feels very direct. "

 

No, I didn `t flew a plane in reality.

I also quoted an interesting message from an Avsim, to my surprise there was no reaction there, altough the message might be kind of NDA breaking.

"... They will expect this FS to be as mature of the 17 years old FS 2003. I think everyone has to temper their expectation."

Quote

it would be like comparing apple to orange. IMHO, FSX is an already obsolete sim, technically speaking

Well, graphicswise yes, but regarding the simulation aspect I don`t agree. There was no technical limitation at that time, the power was there. I played in 2003 a car simulation game, which has really impressive physics, even the best car simulation games of today cannot compete with it.

 

 I really wish FS2020 will deliver the same experience in physics.

Edited June 24, 20205 yr by BigDee

In before the lock!

Anyway, from the info we have so far, the new Asobo Flight Simulator should have a flight model that is quite similar to X-Plane conceptually (and hence very different from FSX one, although apparently it will have a legacy mode for backward compatibility).

4 hours ago, BigDee said:

Do you feel the same when running FSX and X-Plane?

Default airplane of course! FSX it's an old code since 2006, X-Plane 11 is a newer code. In FSX payware airplanes where FDE it was tuning and well modeled, differences is not so big.

6 hours ago, BigDee said:

 I played in 2003 a car simulation game, which has really impressive physics, even the best car simulation games of today cannot compete with it.

 

 I really wish FS2020 will deliver the same experience in physics.

What car game?  

Beam.ng has some pretty impressive physics.

Beam.ng looks really interesting. The game I mentioned is called LiveForSpeed. www.liveforspeed.net

It is an independent game development by 3 developers, altough it had some little attention, as Intel, Formula 1 BMW and others sponsored some content.

 

Unfortunately the progress is delayed to eternity. The new physics modeled has been anounced before 10 years.

 

What makes this game so special is the input and output model, driving an F1 car in Grand Prix 3 feels like driving a train on rails when you have tried the Formula 1 car in Live For Speed.

 

Although I thought to remember the physics of FSX to be the same as in X-Plane 11, I was wrong. The differences are very much considerable. I cannot actually judge it as I don `t fly in reality. But I really hope to see a good level in FS2020.

 

And in worst case, PMDG and others can fix it, as you have thankfully stated here that third party content offer better physics than inbuilt FSX content.

12 hours ago, BigDee said:

I already did that in my first post:

"The controls are much more direct and give instant feedback. It `s not that FSX isn`t responsive. But somehow I don`t feel any difference if I steer only a little or very much in FSX. In turbulences, there is a much better feeling of how to correct the plane in X-Plane, every little movement feels very direct. "

No, I didn `t flew a plane in reality.

Without meaning to be difficult - if you've never flown a plane, how can you say that "X-Plane 11 physics are way way ahead of FSX?"

I've got several thousand hours in aircraft and personally don't think X-plane is any better in that regard.

15 hours ago, BigDee said:

X-Plane has so much greater physics than FSX.

Obviously. That's no mystery. FSX / P3D are known for their "on-rails" like feeling.

 

15 hours ago, BigDee said:

As far as I have red now, the developers aren`t flight professionals.

They don't have to be. They just need input from professionals. Their job is to implement it in the software.

A recent tweet from their CEO indicates they actually do know a thing or two about flight dynamics.

 

15 hours ago, BigDee said:

Also, some videos lacked of essential skills, for example the IFR video, how in the world they didn`t land the Airbus centerlined?

The guys producing the videos might not actually be the ones doing the flight dynamics... But yeah... those landings could be better.

 

 

15 hours ago, BigDee said:

And also, there was in my eyes an essential posting, in the thread "Anyone catch the leak post on Reddit" from user fogboundturtle - page 2:

"... They will expect this FS to be as mature of the 17 years old FS 2003. I think everyone has to temper their expectation."

Sounds like someone not willing to adapt to changes.

 

 

To sum it up:

As @Murmur mentioned, the flight model appears to be potentially able to compete with X-Plane. How it actually plays out will depend on how they improve it (it will not be perfect from start) and how 3rd party devs are making use of it. Also don't forget the good weather simulation of MSFS that XP can't compete with (there are 3 layers of wind natively - ground - low altitude - high altitude).

Even X-Plane can't entirely compare to reality. Just think about the lack of sense of motion, which is essential in real world flying. To me it's sometimes harder to land a plane in the sim than it is IRL.

So if you ease off on focusing on details of the flight model, I think there is nothing speaking against MSFS once it's released. It outplays its competition on almost any other topic.

Edited June 25, 20205 yr by tweekz

Blade Element Theory (BET) is not Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD.) 

BET is taking a couple of samples of the surface and applying the aerodynamic factors to those sampled parts. 

CFD on the other hand puts the entire object to include all of its movable parts into a virtual wind tunnel and produces a simulation of the object in an air mass. It is as close to putting an object into a wind tunnel as you can get.

However, neither in and of themselves make a great flight simulation. For that you always need outside processing to add factors such as mass, thrust, inertia, etc. 

Below is a good example of what CFD software does. However, the multimillion-dollar Full Flight Simulators (FFS) that we use to train pilots use an advanced system of the Lookup Tables that Bruce Artwick used in the early versions of Flight Simulator decades ago. It is easier to input the certified training data into the computers, perform the objective QPS, and adjust the feel of the simulator based on the subjective feedback of the certified pilots. 

Also realize that in the FFS we control everything. In desktop simulation you have people with cheap thousand dollar controllers to people with an Xbox controller commenting on how realistic the simulator feels.

 

 

Great post @KenG.

It backs up some of my assumptions.

As far as I know, blade element theory was originally used to compute forces on propellers. It sure is no CFD. It also does not have to be with personal computer flight sims.

I can imagine that for full flight sims it is better to use lookup tables as you can tweak them to exactly match the behavior you want instead of having a good approximation.

Edited June 25, 20205 yr by tweekz

To be true, even using the old FSX physics FS2020 will be very impressive to fly because of the new visuals.

I have also seen the third episode of the series, Aerodynamics and yes there are a lot of things they are factoring in.

 

Quote

They don't have to be. They just need input from professionals. Their job is to implement it in the software.

A recent tweet from their CEO indicates they actually do know a thing or two about flight dynamics

Actually in my opinion they need to be good mathematicians and physicists. The theoretic part looks good at the moment. The link you have showed using a Shaderlanguage looks indeed good.

In the end FS2020 has to compete in my opinion against strong competitors.

 

Two questions here: I realized when using rudders in FSX, the plane changed its yaw orientation to approx. 20 degrees or say to a certain value, but the plane changed its actual position very slowly to a value of 0.5 degrees per second. It was impossible to steer the plane in the air just by using the rudders. In X-Plane it was the exact opposite. When I used the rudders, the plane changed its direction instantly. So which one is here right? I strongly guess X-Plane?

 

Second questions: I`ve searched here topics, searched the web, but couldn`t find directly an info about the fact:

- What makes FS2004 a better simulation than FSX? I`m just curious, as I didn`t have used FS2004.

 

 

2 minutes ago, BigDee said:

It was impossible to steer the plane in the air just by using the rudders.

Back in FSX I once flew an entire pattern around an airport, takeoff to landing, using just the rudder and throttle.  I had the elevator trim set properly on the ground before taking off, and never touched the yoke until I flared for landing, and if I did the same today I wouldn't need to do even that as I've gotten better on the throttle.

I think this was the Carenado Cessna 337.

Hook