64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

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Medtner
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Re: 64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

Post by Medtner »

SkyPilot_32908 wrote:
Dogsbody55 wrote:It's about the ability of third party developers to manipulate the sim for their addons at the sim's core. XP is not written to allow such manipulation of the sim at that deep a level.

Cheers,
Mike

So it was a conscious decision made by LM, allowing only certain developers to the 'inner circle' ? Or are there no developers allowed at that level? That's pretty sad considering there is nothing better out there than A2A!! :D

Yes I have found one C-182 I would purchase for XP but it's G1000 based. YUCK! I'm sorry. Even in the real world, and I can say this because I worked at Rockwell-Collins (RC) for 20 yrs, it looks cheap. Too much like an Atari game! (I'm showing my age now, right?)
In fact, :wink: true story :wink: , when RC first developed an Electronic Flight Display they had to revise it to incorporate 'jitter' in the movement of the needles and gyros to mimic real instruments. The pilots complained about their 'too perfect' movement and considered them, and I quote, "too much like a video game."

I'm old school. Give me all those gauges all over the dash!

Roger
I don’t even think it has to do with being old school. It’s a matter of esthetics. I’m “no-school”, and I prefer steam gauges all the way. And paper charts, E6B, stopwatch, slant alpha/uniform.

Glass is too much magenta line for my taste. :)
Erik Haugan Aasland,

Arendal, Norway
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All the Accusim-planes are in my hangar, but they aren't sitting long enough for their engines to cool much before next flight!

Dogsbody55
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Re: 64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

Post by Dogsbody55 »

SkyPilot_32908 wrote:
Dogsbody55 wrote:It's about the ability of third party developers to manipulate the sim for their addons at the sim's core. XP is not written to allow such manipulation of the sim at that deep a level.

Cheers,
Mike

So it was a conscious decision made by LM, allowing only certain developers to the 'inner circle' ? Or are there no developers allowed at that level? That's pretty sad considering there is nothing better out there than A2A!! :D

Yes I have found one C-182 I would purchase for XP but it's G1000 based. YUCK! I'm sorry. Even in the real world, and I can say this because I worked at Rockwell-Collins (RC) for 20 yrs, it looks cheap. Too much like an Atari game! (I'm showing my age now, right?)
In fact, :wink: true story :wink: , when RC first developed an Electronic Flight Display they had to revise it to incorporate 'jitter' in the movement of the needles and gyros to mimic real instruments. The pilots complained about their 'too perfect' movement and considered them, and I quote, "too much like a video game."

I'm old school. Give me all those gauges all over the dash!

Roger
No. That's not what I said at all, and definitely nothing to do with LM or A2A. No one is limiting any developer, and there's no "inner circle".

Your question was asking for an explanation about "open base". I said that FSX and P3D was more conducive to addon developers going deeper into the sim than XP, that's all.

The fact that there may or may not be anything better out there than A2A is down to other developers not making the same effort to develop their offerings to the same level of fidelity as A2A. There are notable exceptions, however, such as PMDG. Most of the market does not cater for such study level addons as it would probably frighten off most users. Also, you can pump out addons much quicker if you don't develop your offering to anything much beyond a superficial level.



Mike
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CAPFlyer
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Re: 64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

Post by CAPFlyer »

SkyPilot_32908 wrote:So it was a conscious decision made by LM, allowing only certain developers to the 'inner circle' ? Or are there no developers allowed at that level? That's pretty sad considering there is nothing better out there than A2A!!
You're confusing things here.

Laminar Research is the one who has closed their platform, not Lockheed Martin. Lockheed simply licensed ESP (which is an offshoot of FSX) from Microsoft and continue to develop it as a Commercial platform. Anyone can have the same level of access to the P3D platform that A2A has if they purchase the Developer License. However, Laminar Research, for whatever reason, do not allow the same depth of access. They don't even allow access to the base navigation system. All of the "FMS" systems you see in X-Plane are re-skins or overlays of the base default FMS. The necessary parts of the program required to build a full independent FMS simulation simply can't be accessed. Similarly, the autopilot behavior can't be modified beyond certain ways, making it impossible to properly model many older autopilots. In FSX/P3D, you can simply "shut off" the base AP and program your own and have it run your airplane without any problems. You don't even have to necessarily modify anything in FSX/P3D itself, you just shut off the default behavior and then program a gauge that replaces it, no external program required.

This lack of access to the core program for mods is what has kept most major FS aircraft developers from really developing for it and why none make XPlane part of a single license package because about the only thing that can transfer between the two platforms is the graphic model, and even then it usually requires tweaking because XPlane doesn't handle 3DS models the same way as FSX/P3D do.
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Stafford Brown
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Re: 64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

Post by Stafford Brown »

My personal belief. Lockheed Martin seems to be more and more aware and accepting that the general public is using their product. If you look around the P3D website and the flight sim con announcement "Prepar3D has become the go-to platform for serious flight simmers, and developers creating top-tier add-on products for at-home simulation"

AM General said they would never ever, ever, ever, sell a Humvee to the general public. By 1992 they started to sell them to the public.

Perhaps we will see a new license and pricing structure in the future.

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Alan_A
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Re: 64 Bit Revisited.. new topic.. old subject..

Post by Alan_A »

I think there's also the history that P3D has its roots in Microsoft Flight Simulator, which from the days of Aircraft and Scenery Designer was written to be open to third-party development. Whereas with X-Plane, Austin has always wanted it to be his way - it's very much his personal creation - so through multiple versions, it's been less open to modification.

There's nothing really wrong with either approach - each has advantages and disadvantages. It's roughly similar to the difference between Windows and Apple OS - Apple has traditionally been less open to tweaking, which makes for an operating system that's either smooth-running and bug-free, or closed-off and limiting, depending on your tastes and what you want to accomplish.
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