Prepar3d V2, a better X-Plane 10, & a better FSX. Decisions, Decisions.
I'm getting dizzy turning one way, then another, and then still another!
Lets get the easiest out of the way.
FSX
No links needed for this one. We all know it. But with the add-ons it's getting better and better. Yes, in many cases we're buying a "new" slight sim bit by bit, and not without a considerable amount of money going out of our pocket.
But the more time that we spend "flying" the more we understand what we want. So we spend that money, only on what appeals to us.
We start off by buying flight controls; yoke, throttle controls, rudder pedals, et.
Then we get some really great scenery for the areas that we like to fly in. Then we buy some really great aircraft.
And don't forget the environment! We buy stuff like Orbx FTX Global , OpusFSX Live Weather or REX, terrain mesh, and on and on.
All together, this is almost making FSX into a new flight sim.
In fact you have to wonder if it's worth looking into the other 2 flight sims.
One of the biggest pluses for FSX is that it'll run reasonably well on most of the newer computers.
Prepar3d V2
Prepar3d V2 is the evolution of FSX. You can even copy & paste a lot of FSX stuff right into Prepar3d V2, and the interface is easily understood by anyone familiar with FSX.
It's also not restricted to most of the limitations of the 32 bit FSX, so although it doesn't seem all that impressive now, it will pass it's takeoff speed in time and far exceed FSX.
There are two problems at the moment. In my opinion they released it too soon. The problems are piling up and it'll take some time to sort it all out.
The other problem is more by design. They freely admit that, to run it well, it will take a lot more computer power than what most people have on their desktop. Prepar3d V2 is designed in such a way, that to some degree it'll be "future proofed".
It will be a great sim, and you'll probably want to take it into consideration when you get your next computer.
I do have it (even if it no longer runs on my PC). But I think that I'll have to do to Prepar3d V2, what I did to X-Plane 10 - forget it for now..
X-Plane 10
I bought it because it is 64 bit and has a lot of potential.
Every now and then (maybe every 6 months or so) I remember to start it up and look to see if anything worthwhile has been done to it.
Well, that day has arrived. I think.
Over all I wasn't too happy with it. They're were too many things to list. But the 2 strongest dislikes were the interface (which hasn't changed), and the scenery.
Where FSX might have some generic buildings on some of the small & minor city airports, X-Plane 10 would have absolutely NONE. Even on airports in many major cities!
You'd take off from a runway with no structures, and wonder if you were in a Stephen King novel.
As time went by it seems that X-Plane 10 aficionados would populate the airports, and Laminar Research would incorporate them into the next update. That's really a WAG on my part. It just seems that way to me.
Well, now we have a really big step up in that process.
Alpilot has released (as donation ware) X-Plane 10 HD Mesh Scenery v2.
This is about 55 GB of high resolution mesh, and will completely replaced the landclass data for some areas, as well as adding some new classes. It pretty much sounds like the main Orbx packages - Global, Open LC, and Vector. It just covers a smaller part of the globe.
But that's just my first impression, so I could easily be wrong.
FlightSim.com is the primary download source, and their servers have been overloaded. As most know, they have a two tier download system; Free - at dial up modem speed, and paid, which is supposed to be full speed.
I tried downloading one section to see what, if anything, it did. It said that it would take about 12 hours and then started the "free" download at 34.8k. Great!
Cancel.
After a bit of thinking I decided to pay the $30 for a full year of fast downloads. DON'T DO IT! Not if all you want is to quickly download this add-on. It says that the one section that I started an hour ago will be done in "Greater than 12 hours". AT 44.6k!!!
USE THIS SITE TO DOWNLOAD THE FILES
"There is now also a file mirror set up by ISDG:
◾http://download.isdg.com.au/downloads/xp10_hd_mesh_v2"
Here's a snippet from the FlightSim site;
It is an update to the older v1 HD Mesh (and a replacement of the default Global Scenery) and brings a lot of improvements to the simulator:
•It is a much higher resolution base mesh (more, smaller triangles) compared to the default Global Scenery which ships with X-Plane 10 (one could say: approximately 2-3 times more dense)
•The higher resolution mesh allows for a much more detailed representation of the elevation profile of the landscape
•The higher resolution mesh allows a much more detailed/exact representation of the underlying landclass data (because of the smaller triangles, which can follow landclass changes in the raw data more closely)
•It is based on a completely new Openstreetmap (OSM) data (approximately end of September 2013), which brings (compared to default Global Scenery) a lot of improvements in:
•water features (lakes, rivers, coastline) - many previously missing water features are now finally there
•roads
•railroads
•power lines
•urban park areas
More detail at the Alpilot site - X-Plane 10 HD Mesh Scenery v2
A few screen shots;
I'm certainly not an X-Plane pusher, but it is 64 bit and I think that a fair number of people on our site can run it with what we already have in the way of computers.
The biggest hurdle will be learning the new interface.
