Free Flight, Free Speech

N3266G wrote:
And i believe that FG is the only non-proprietary Desktop Simulator.

Sadly

I'll be the devils advocate for a moment.

AFAIK, in other sims you can build addons around the core, like planes, scenery, etc ... What is Fgmembers doing? Building planes, scenery, etc ... As far as i can see, we can all go to another sim and do exactly the same as in flightgear.

Yes, the core is then proprietary. But we know so little about the flightgear core, that it could be propriety as well, and we would not even notice.

Will we win or lose with a switch? I think win, because other sims show at least as rich scenery, clouds, etc ... at a much lower penalty on frame rates. They must have some smart algorithms, which do not render stuff that can not be seen anyway. Contrary to flightgear, which seems to have very basic straightforward rendering, that must be rendering unnecessary stuff, else it would not take such a hit on frame rates.

Now, let's all switch to x-plane, and do exactly the same as we do now

Kind regards, Vincent

KL-666 wrote:Now, let's all switch to x-plane, and do exactly the same as we do now

Kind regards, Vincent

Uhhhhhhhh........ What?

Devils advocate means that i defend a standpoint someone could have, which is not necessarily my own standpoint.

Kind regards, Vincent

I know. I'm confused as to why you said what I quoted.

KL-666 wrote:Now, let's all switch to x-plane (or P3D), and do exactly the same as we do now

You won't be disappointed

Early morning flight from EDDM (Munich) to LTBA (Istanbul)

At the gate






Taxiing




Cleared for TO


Climbing out


Cruise


ETA for LTBA - 0600Z

SHM wrote:

KL-666 wrote:Now, let's all switch to x-plane (or P3D), and do exactly the same as we do now

You won't be disappointed

You might not be disappointed, but I suspect you might end up financially disappointed.

Do you know roughly how many $$$ you need to spend to get P3D that is not to be disappointed with? Scenery, weather, aircraft etc. Last time I looked the list was long and seems to keep getting longer. I do fly in P3D (mainly military, mainly Tornado) but for me it's not really that much better than FG[1]. P3D v3 stability is ok; performance seems about the same (although hard to compare as the rendering is very different). I'll be installing P3D v4 once it's downloaded.

I've also tried FSX (Gold, cost me $20) and X-Plane demo (10). FSX was to unreliable; X-Plane was better but not good enough to purchase.

The other thing about P3D is that largely their own licencing conditions prevent most non professional users (i.e. most of us) from using it.

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[1] It might be that I don't have enough addons, scenery, and other things installed.

@Richard
That's not true, you can have academic since you are "learning" about aviation.

Kind Regards,
Josh

PS: I my core stuff for P3D V3, PMDG MD-11 and Active Sky. Total around $100, not counted P3D. I also have a few other paywares, but don't use them as often. Recently I got a few sceneries as well. Its of money, so most airports I still use stock. I think people sometimes go overboard with it, causing much more costs (or torrents)

N3266G wrote:I know. I'm confused as to why you said what I quoted.

Other sims looked like an equal option. It is not that i contemplate to switch, but it is more like a question: Why did we choose flightgear, and not the another sim, if the only difference is a proprietary core and 50 dollars or so? Such amount should not be a huge hurdle to people who can buy computers.

Richard gave a good argument why switching is not an option. If you want to have another sim equal to flightgear, you have to buy a lot more separately. Let me make a short list of things needed for equality to flightgear:

- At least one aircraft with a good fdm in every category. That amounts to some 4 or 5 aircraft
- Scenery for the entire world
- Live weather with realistic clouds, x-wind, turbulence and gusts (when in the metar)

I wonder what this amounts to. Hundreds of dollars? Thousands? In that case the sims are not equal anymore. They exclude people who can not pay such amounts.

it0uchpods wrote:That's not true, you can have academic since you are "learning" about aviation.

I think you have to compare standard prices. Academic is only for a few people. There are many who are also not rich, but have to pay the full amount.

Kind regards, Vincent