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Games Entertainment

X-Plane Flight Simulator For Linux 155

Posted by timothy from the ich-fliege dept.
sho-gun writes: "It seems that Austin Meyer, creator of X-Plane, is going to be porting his simulator to Linux. X-Plane is an incredible flight simulator which models flight dynamics by using blade-element theory. Many big companies use X-Plane for development. Currently only the support programs (the programs that build the planes, scenery, airfoils) are available but the full application should be available soon, according to the website. Along side with the open-sourced Flightgear, this certainly is good news for flight simulator fans that use Linux."
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X-Plane Flight Simulator For Linux More

X-Plane Flight Simulator For Linux

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  • Along with PGP, flight simulators were used by terrorists in the horrendous attacks of September 11th. We should ban open source flight simulators unless they provide a special government backdoor to monitor who is using them and where they are flying in the virtual world.

  • Flight physics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @04:07PM (#2425007) Homepage
    The very coolest thing about X-Plane is the extensive set of flight physics. Land the Space Shuttle [x-plane.com], Fly on Mars [x-plane.com]. They sound cool, but are rightfully difficult! (but fun)

    Any word on the price of X-Plane? Is there a chance it may be GPLed? Or at least priced lower than the Win/Mac versions?

    • Re:Flight physics (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So they got their flight physics right. But what about the calculations for structural strength, metallurgy, etc. So that we can also use the tool to determine what amount of fuel to carry, and which height to aim for...

      • Re:Flight physics (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Owen Lynn ( 46218 )
        Flight simulators have to stop somewhere short of reality, or you'd need a whole cluster of computers to do the calculations. There's no good mathematical way to calculate turbulence, for instance. Check back in another 10 years, and perhaps you'll have what you want.

        But aside from the mechanics of flight is the human element of flying. Flight simulators are terrible (and I would say potentially dangerous) at simulating the real world flying environment. In the simulator, you don't have 10 different people in the traffic pattern, with a frazzled tower controller who gets confused every now and then. Or the terse language and procedures necessary for transitioning through 3 different airspaces.

        But simulator time is cheap, as opposed to $50/hr for an old creaky Cessna 172. You also get what you pay for.

        • Re:Flight physics (Score:3, Interesting)

          by AJWM ( 19027 )
          In the simulator, you don't have 10 different people in the traffic pattern, with a frazzled tower controller who gets confused every now and then.

          Actually, you can, depending on the sim software and the setup. Years back there was simulator software (SubLogic's? I don't recall) that let you see the other aircraft in the pattern if you networked the machines, and there was also software called something like ATC (Air Traffic Control) Simulator, which also tied into the same net and showed the aircraft on a radar screen. Don't recall the details of how the communications worked.

          And I can't imagine anyone playing air traffic controller for fun.

          (Oh, and speaking of physics, I've yet to see a PC-based simulator that could model a spin. Although I haven't looked lately.)

          • Re:Flight physics (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Chris Hiner ( 4273 )
            Actually, there are people that play air traffic controllers for fun. See http://www.vatsim.net/ for example.
            With the right equipment, you can even talk to the various ATC people as you fly your filed flight plan.
            Right now, according to the Who's online list from vatsim, at http://data.satita.net/who.html there are 43 ATC people (some just observers, some instructors and students), and 155 pilots flying.
            There are even virtual airlines out there...
            I was amazed when I stumbled across some of them a few weeks ago. Search google for "virtual airlines", there's enough of them that they've got their own directory category.
        • But simulator time is cheap, as opposed to $50/hr for an old creaky Cessna 172. You also get what you pay for.

          If you're paying $50/hr for a 172, I might advise you to take that to heart. :)

          Addison
          • A lot depends on the airport. At my home airport, RNH [nrairport.com], I payed $53 an hour for a 172 this summer. It's a '67, but I know the guy I'm renting it from (he was my CFI, also the airport manager out there, among other things) and that the airplane is in good condition. It's flown mostly by him, and students doing supervised solos. On the other hand, at the airport near where I'm going to school, SGF [sgf-branson-airport.com], I pay $65 for a slightly newer 172 at the FBO. Of course, it's at a bigger airport with higher fuel prices, landing fees, etc. I guess all of which is to say that it's still possible to find a low price on a decent rental, you just have to look in the right spots. And yes, you do get what you pay for. The 150s at the FBO are $47.50/hr, and I sometimes wonder how they manage to keep them in the air for so little...
        • I wish 172's where $50 per hour. Where I'm getting my lessons, it's $65 per hour. A Cessna-152 is $52 per hour.
          I do agree that home simulators are kinda not cool, mainly because there's no feedback loop for your reflexes. Plus the fact that it suck to have to futs with the highhat button (or whatever) to see sideways. I've always wanted to have 3 monitors so I can get a 3 angle view.
        • Flight simulators have to stop somewhere short of reality, or you'd need a whole cluster of computers to do the calculations.
          Good point! I work in the flight simulation business, and there's a good quote relating to this: to build a completely realistic simulator would cost as much as the aircraft itself. This would probably hold somewhat true for operation as well.

    • Re:Flight physics (Score:3, Informative)

      by kingrat ( 25475 )
      Dont think it will be GPLed...Austin keeps a pretty tight rein on the development.

      The game is open to addons and creation of new
      scenery and aircraft which can be found all over the place. www.flightsim.com is a good place to start. Dont know about the Linux version, but the Mac/Win versions are very open, even having a real time 'dump' option of paramaters in the game to feed into whatever addon programs people make.

      The game also includes some pretty neat features, such as setting up a network of computers, having one be the cockpit and another
      being an outside view, or one computer computing the scenery and the other taking care of the rest.

      Austin has awesome support, for at least the Mac/Win versions to date, even answering support emails himself.

      He is also very open to users ideas and bug tracking. Alot of what is in the game was suggested by others. Another great thing is he also is constantly developing the game, patches appear very frequently.
    • Any word on the price of X-Plane? Is there a chance it may be GPLed? Or at least priced lower than the Win/Mac versions?

      The price won't be lowered... They are not going to sell even one tenth of what they do on the other platforms... Yet developement (or even just porting) has probably cost them quite a bit, and they need to recover the costs somehow...

      IANAL but perhaps if the price for the linux version was dropped, we would see Microsoft sue for anti-competitive pricing... :)
      • I might be mistaken.. but dont' these guys also do some real-world flight simulation for aircraft manufacturers, etc?

        Might there not be some additional long-term benefits they forsee in porting to linux? Scalability? clustering of extreme simulations?
    • I must say, flying on Mars is a lot of fun and very very different. Even with rocket assisted take offs and a REALLLY long runway you're still struggling to get enough airspeed to get you airborn, even though the ground underneath your gear is racing by at 600kts. And just try navigating your way to another airstrip to land. No last minute 45 degree turns to line up with the tarmac, to turn 90 degrees with on Mars it takes a good 10 minutes and you've gone 100 miles in that time... Lotsa fun.

    • What does the GPL have to do wtith price?

      "GNU Pricing Levels"

    • Re:Flight physics (take Orbiter) (Score:4, Informative)

      by Marsell ( 16980 ) on Sunday October 14, 2001 @02:28AM (#2426324) Homepage
      X-Plane costs less $60 US... it's right there on the web-site.

      However, if your are interested in accurate physics (at least in space), you ought to try Orbiter [ucl.ac.uk]. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet.

      The physics there are the most accurate I've seen for a PC space game. The graphics are spectacular, and accurate (at least for those space bodies where such data exists). For some bodies there are 8192*8192 bitmaps (heh, you'll _need_ a good graphics card if you choose that option!). Best of all, it's free.

      The only downside is it is not open source, nor does it run in anything but Windows.

      I really recommend it to anyone who likes all the nice physics stuff, and the eyecandy, but isn't scared off by a _steep_ learning curve. At least go take a look at the purty screenshots.

  • For instance (just because this is the one I'm currently addicted to) MS flight sim- it's got practically the whole country modeled. Does this thing have any landscapes included, or is it just the a few places you can fly in?
    • http://www.x-plane.com/descrip.html

      "X-Plane is the world's most comprehensive, powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.

      Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier.

      X-Plane comes with subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter and Cessna 172 light plane to the supersonic Concorde and Mach-3 XB-70 Valkyrie. X-Plane comes with about 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry (and history), and several hundred more are freely downloadable from the internet.

      X-Plane scenery is almost world-wide, withs cenery for the entire United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan on the CD, and more scenery downloadable from www.X-Plane.com. You can land at any of over 18,000 airports, as well as test your mettle on aircraft carriers, helipads on building tops, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs."

      "X-Plane also has detailed failure-modeling, with 35 systems that can be failed manually or randomly, when you least expect it! You can fail instruments, engines, flight controls, and landing gear at any moment.

      While X-Plane is the world's most COMPREHENSIVE flight sim, your purchase also comes with Plane-Maker (to create your own airplanes) World-Maker (to create your own scenery), and Weather Briefer (to get a weather briefing before the flight if you use real weather conditions downloaded from the net).

      X-Plane is also extremely customizable, allowing you to easily create textures, sounds, and instrument panels for your own airplanes that you design or the planes that come with the sim."

      It comes with
      Part-Maker (to make airfoils for your aircraft if you would like to make your own planes).
      Plane-Maker (to make your own planes and helos if desired)
      World-Maker (to make your own scenery to fly in if you like)
      Weather-Briefer (to get a weather-briefing before your flight if desired)
      X-Plane (the actual flight simulator)

      It's pretty amazing, I just got it after a cousin who is a laid off Airline pilot (Mesa - CRJ) bought it for his G4 and was amazed by it. I'm pretty amazed too, I've be doing touch and goes with B-2s and B-1Bs out of Edwards and Ellsworth AFBs for the last two days...drop the temp to 10 F, add snow and gusts to simulate South Dakota in the winter...gobs of fun.

      Oh and your wings can ice up, imagine the fearful looks, hunting for the de-icer button when the icing warning pops up on your screen.
    • How does this compare to the other flight sims?
      The best flight sim comes from IOCCC [ioccc.org]

      (Here [ioccc.org] is the code and
      here [ioccc.org] are some clues.)

  • why dont US military/air force have open sims ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by johnjones ( 14274 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @04:40PM (#2425101) Homepage Journal
    question why don't the US military/air force open up their simulators ?

    I thought in the good US of A that all projects that the government does the people of the US of A had access to the source

    Unless
    It was deemed that it was endangering security of the nation
    Or
    It was contracted out to a company and then they had all the IP

    I don't see how a simulator could fit into any of the above
    The dynamics of a fighter plane YES but not a Cessna
    The military airports YES but not civil airport where the data is already published

    Since the MS flight sim is ahead of most things what have you got to lose in asking ?
    (Politely since the Military don't like question right now)

    regards

    john jones

    p.s. I am not a citizen of the USA so am just wondering
    • "p.s. I am not a citizen of the USA so am just wondering"

      That line right there probably answers your question as to why the Air Force doesn't open up their simulators. That's the very essence of National Security right there. To have Military Airports in a game, even if they aren't the exact replicas or layout, is a huge threat.Enemies have to get their knowledge from somewhere, and something like this (even though it would be very cool) could easily be used for harm.

      • I can see why they might be hesitant about releasing it, but like mentioned, why not get rid of the military airports and re-release it? Besides, it's not hard to get plans for military airports, I just did a quick look and came up with the plans for Hickam AFB in Honolulu, HI - a major Air Force base. I think they should be more worried about that before they worry about harmless video games that _might_ be used by terrorists. We can't just lock up everything that may be used by terrorists; what next, ID needed for Diesel and Fertilizer?
      • can you read ?
        (insulting I know but I'm sick of this)

        read my comment and pay attention to what I say about military airports and planes

        I have got sick of people on slashdot recently unable to read comments and have the feeling that VA Linux staff do 98% of the moderation

        did you not read the part about F18 simulation and Military airports being classified ?
        but civil NOT being

        its sad that the people of the US say they are open but in fact the government agencies contract out all the work and so then it cant be open

        regards

        john 'bad mood' jones

        p.s. oh and I stuck in the citizen of USA bit so that fools would not complain about me not being and harp on about national security but that failed didnt it !
    • Well, all the simulators I worked with either ran on custom or near custom hardware (anyone remember the Harris NightHawk?), and/or used REAL hardware to 'simulate' subsystems. That is, the simulation porvided the external world, fed the simulated sensor inputs into an actual flight control computer.

      For one example of the current art, see dsix [bihrle.com]
      • Well, all the simulators I worked with either ran on custom or near custom hardware (anyone remember the Harris NightHawk?), and/or used REAL hardware to 'simulate' subsystems.

        Nighthawk code is fairly portable to other posix unix systems. The interface hardware isn't really important, since it's the flight and systems models that matter. Port those and add an X display interface and visual scene generator and you've got a high-fidelity sim based on real flight data.


        These days I work on commercial flight sims (the full-motion FAA-certified kind) running on linux computers. You can run the simulation on any old off the shelf pc. Not that anyone could afford to pay upwards of $1,000,000 to license the software for a single flight model.

    • Because the US DOD doesn't use PC's to train pilots on. It uses much larger more sophisticated systems running on high-end hardware connected to large physical simulators.

      These multimillion-dollar simulators are built and supported by contractors who own their internals. It's not unlikely the US DOD has access to the code but the developers have no interest in giving it away; particularly when other governments are also willing to pay for this technology.

      Honestly I can't imagine who would be suprised by this or how the originial question got scored so high.

    • Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Sunday October 14, 2001 @12:48AM (#2426179) Journal
      (Sorry in advance for the long post.)

      I thought in the good US of A that all projects that the government does the people of the US of A had access to the source [u]nless [i]t was deemed that it was endangering security of the nation [o]r [i]t was contracted out to a company and then they had all the IP

      Both of those things is usually true.

      For two years I worked as a consultant for a company that built training simulators for the USAF, the Air Force Reserve, and several foreign military services (countries like Denmark, South Korea, Jordan, Egypt, and so on). This company's two big products were an F-16 tactical simulator and an F-18 mission simulator.

      Some fairly significant parts of the simulator runtime code are classified. As an example, some configurations of the F-16 can be equipped with the AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided missile. The code that handles the capabilities of the AMRAAM, and its interactions with the mission control systems, and its dynamics in the air is all classified.

      (The details of this code is classified; the existence of it isn't. At least, I hope not. Otherwise, I'm in a shit-load of trouble right now.)

      So obviously classified code can't be open-sourced.

      The code that wasn't classified (a lot-- if you replaced classified modules with stubs, it was possible to run the whole F-16 load in unclassified mode; we did that a lot for visiting suits and stuff) was proprietary. In some cases, it was highly proprietary.

      My example here is the F-16's mission control computer. The source code for this computer's programs was provided to us by Lockheed; we translated it line-by-line, mostly by hand, from assembly language into Ada-83 and compiled it to run on the sim's SGI Onyx host computer. This module was basically the core of the simulator, and it was of course a closely guarded commercial secret, even though it wasn't technically classified by the DOD.

      We did something similar with the F-18's mission computer programs, but instead of translating them, we ran them natively in a Motorola processor emulator on the SGI host. This was kind of a cluster f*ck; it took 17 MIPS CPUs to emulate the two Motorola processors and the one 1553 mux bus controller in the MCC in real time. But somebody decided it was cheaper to throw hardware at it than to translate Boeing's code.

      The other distinctive thing about US military flight sims-- at least the two I worked closely on, and also the F-22 tactical sim with which I worked a little-- is that they're not generic flight-dynamics simulators. Rather than taking the programmed characteristics of a wing or an airframe, like it sounds like X-Plane does, these sims were built with the full knowledge of the aircraft's flight characteristics. So it would be completely impossible to take the F-16 Block 30 code, change a data file, and have an F-16 Block 42 sim, much less a space shuttle sim or a 767 sim or whatever. These apps just weren't built like that.

      A lot more goes into a tactical or mission training sim than just flight dynamics, anyway. I'd guess that maybe one out of five modules in the F-16 sim dealt with flying the plane; less than that in the F-18 sim. The rest was cockpit interface drivers (we had a real cockpit, with hundreds of individual hardware devices, wired into the sim; the serial mux control code was impressive) and inter-sim communication (DIS [defense information systems] and HLA [high-level architecture] protocols) and image generation and tactical DCS (distributed coordinate system) databases and the operator/instructor interface and it goes on and on and on. These things would only be relevant in context of a military tactical or mission sim, flown by military pilots in training, in a military installation with military instructors and other military sims connected over the military's encrypted wide-area training network.

      I hope that answered your question, at least in part.

  • More details (Score:5, Informative)

    by ppetru ( 24677 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @04:42PM (#2425107) Homepage
    I'm the guy doing the port. I'm not sure whether Austin had plans for this but I guess he gave up after the repeated requests he got to give me the source to port on it. Some details:

    1. It won't be open source.

    2. It won't be free (I don't know what Austin's plans are but I guess the price will be the same as the Win/Mac version).

    3. I'm not getting any money for doing the port -- as I told Austin, I'm doing it for the sake of having a good flight sim for Linux.

    4. The file format, network data and outputs will be compatible with the Win/Mac version.

    5. The port uses libSDL (before you scream bloody murder about license violation, have a look and note that it's dynamically linked).

    6. Since it's SDL-based, a FreeBSD port should be easy enough to do once the general *nix porting issues are solved. I don't know what's the status of OpenGL on FreeBSD; X-Plane *requires* OpenGL and you probably don't want to run it in software emulation. Until a native FreeBSD version will exist, the Linux binaries should run just fine using the Linux compatibility mode (but see the OpenGL notes above).

    If you want to see the full app happening, here's how you can help:

    1. Download the beta, test it, and send me feedback.

    2. Email austin@x-plane.com and tell him that you think a Linux version of X-Plane is great. This is needed because I only got the subprograms source so far, and he doesn't seem 100% convinced yet to send me the main source too.

    • I'll buy it! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by steve.m ( 80410 )
      I got 5.x a few months back, and upgraded all the way to 5.66 (which i'm happy with). I wasn't too impressed that even though I'd only had 5.x for a few months, there was no upgrade path to 6 (gotta pay full price) - so it's the only reason I keep Win98 around.
      when 6 gets released on linux, i'll be buying it and trashing my 98 install.

      go petru! go austin!

    • I will be buying it

      bit of advice on porting it

      test and code it on more than one arch say PPC and x86 running linux and maybe even have a go at getting it to run on solaris
      (alot of uni hardware is sparc solaris so think of all the profs willing to play ;-)

      you can download Solaris for x86 for free or get it on CD for shipping costs
      (this reduces the amount of hardware that you need)
      once its running on this the sparc is just a differant set of compile switchs in that big ol makefile

      oh and have a go with gcc3.01 just for fun (-;

      thanks again

      regards

      john jones

  • Now this is cool. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by trilucid ( 515316 ) <pparadis@havensystems.net> on Saturday October 13, 2001 @05:22PM (#2425176) Homepage Journal

    From the page [x-plane.com] on Mars sims:

    ... The result? If you take off with 60 knots on the airspeed indicator, your REAL speed is SIX HUNDRED KNOTS! (about Mach 1) Take it from me, Mach-1 takeoffs are quite a thing to behold, when the plane will barely leave the runway at that speed.

    To me, this is the best reason I've seen yet for creating sim software that uses real-world physics and modeling. I don't know of any other sims in existence that offer this level of "playability"; am I wrong here?

    These guys have gone to great lengths to make this thing "the real deal", and I applaud their decision to make it usable under Linux. I stopped messing around with Windows-on-Linux type stuff months ago (well, partially due to the fact that almost everything I use runs under Linux ;-] ). The biggest thing I've been missing is stuff * I * find fun, which generally isn't the usual FPS games.

    I can tell already I'm gonna be spending entirely too much time modeling new plane designs (and consequently flying them into the ground, d'oh! ).

    Are there any other projects out there that focus this heavily on the physics modeling side of things for sims? Please tell me some of them run on Linux :-).

  • Who? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @05:24PM (#2425185) Homepage Journal
    What's the name of the new flight simulator for Linux?

    X-Plane.

    Explain what?

    Just X-Plane.

    I want you to tell me what the name of the new flight simulator for Linux is.

    X-Plane!

    Look, i don't know how i can be any clearer here.

  • Uhm, redundant? (Score:2, Informative)

    by fm6 ( 162816 )
    The site claims the Windows version runs fine under Wine.

    • Re:Uhm, redundant? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ruszka ( 456169 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @05:44PM (#2425217)
      There is no redundancy. Just because the Windows version may run fine under Wine means nothing. The very thought that Austin is looking into creating X-Plane for Linux is tremendous all on its own. It's a big step and it's too bad more people aren't considering doing it.
  • Unfortunately, doing Linux ports of games months or even years after the Windows version has been released is a really poor business model.

    The people who really wanted to buy X-Plane already did -- months ago, when it came out initially. These people aren't likely to go out and buy it *again* -- even though it'll now run on their favorite OS -- unless they're TRULY dedicated to the game.

    X-Plane came out in Feburary for Win32. How many games do you know of that you like so much that you'll buy it *again* after eight months? Not many!

    If you want people to buy Linux games and buy them in reasonable numbers, you're going to need to release the Linux version at about the same time as the Windows version -- otherwise, only a few people are going to buy your game.

    Suppose you've got your average gamer -- he dual boots between Linux and Windows. He goes into the computer store, and sees X-Plane for Linux -- $50. He then sees X-Plane for Windows in the bargian bin for $10. Which is he likely to buy?

    The same applies to Mac ports of PC games, but to a lesser degree -- after all, outside of something like SoftPC, a Mac cannot run the same software as a Windows box -- where a x86 box that runs Linux box could also run Windows and therefore Windows games.

    In any event, since Austin is doing the port for free, I guess they're not going to lose much on this one, even if nobody buys it.

    • Ooops. X-Plane came out in Decmber of 2000, according to Gamespot [gamespot.com]. -- not Feb 2001 as the other review said.

      And it hasn't quite made it to $9.99 yet (at least not via mail order) -- EBWorld.com seems to sell it for $19.99. Not sure how much it is over at the mall ...

      • Um, no- X-Plane came out well before 1997. That was back in the days before 3D cards- at the time, it sold for $249, as as an engineering simulator for homebuilders, an IFR trainer and a VFR trainer all in one.

        It's still all that and a bag of chips, but please don't get the impression that X-Plane comes from gamer land.

    • Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @06:36PM (#2425314)
      Sorry.

      X-Plane 6.0.4 came out on the 10th of October for Mac and Windows.

      http://www.x-plane.com/

      And you won't see it in the bargin bin, because the developer has gone to distributing it himself.

      http://www.x-plane.com/order.html

      "X-PLANE 6.00 IS NOT BEING SOLD IN STORES! IF YOU WANT X-PLANE 6.00, ORDER IT HERE!

      X-Plane 6.00 is $59.99 +$10.00 Domestic or $30.00 International shipping.
      This CD includes both Macintosh and Windows versions of X-Plane, as well as your choice of scenery CD.
      Your purchase allows free updates through all 6.x versions."

    • You obviously don't understand how Austin's business model works - when you buy his simulator, you get a cd that serves to verify you paid for his sim - you can then download free updates from his web site until the next major version. If you pay for the sim, you can download it for win32, macos and now linux. You don't have to pay for each individually. I bought x-plane a while ago, and previously used it only on windows. Now I can use it on linux without paying a cent.
    • Suppose you've got your average gamer

      This isn't really a product for your "average gamer"...
    • The X-PLane 5.0 CD I purchased had both a mac and a pc version on it. They both require the cd to be inserted so you can't play them on different machines at the same time. I guess that the Linux version will funktion the same way.

  • This rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Saturday October 13, 2001 @07:05PM (#2425338) Homepage Journal
    I just wanted to say for anyone who's not familiar with this sim that it is THE geek flight sim bar none. I've been running it on the Mac since it was $200, and it was worth it even at that price.

    It's never perfectly debugged but it's also never stopped adding cool details, features and stuff. These get divided among flight model features and eye candy. In the former category, Austin (yes, this is all ONE GUY coding it) added support for gyrocopters. (It's _always_ had helicopter support, which is rare). In the latter category, he's been enhancing the clouds and scenery hugely- even 5.66 (not the new version) already has very impressive 3D clouds, which don't even eat the frame rate that much.

    The true geek factor in X-Plane is not even flying the planes- it's designing them. Using all the tools like Part-Maker, Plane-Maker (and these need to be included, 'scuse me for stating the obvious) you can literally design just about anything, right down to designing your own _airfoils_, using various third-party stuff to determine lift/drag/moment of the foil at various angles of attack, and then entering that into Part-Maker to bring the airfoil into X-Plane for use. Plane-Maker is about placing wings and elements anywhere, NOT about punching in 'stall, top speed' etc values: the utterly amazingly geeky thing about this sim is that it builds the flight model from just analysis of the plane parts, ten times a second, relative to things like AoA and speed and propwash and ground effect. So when you put something together in Plane-Maker, and it doesn't exist in the real world, you're actually using X-Plane as an aeronautical design tool, and instead of working out on paper whether the CG is too far aft, you save the plane, fire up X-Plane, 'get in the drivers' seat' and take the bastard up and see if it kills you ;)

    That's about as cool as virtual reality gets, right there- and it's the heart of the geek appeal, to me: if you play with the sim this way you have to _be_ capable of interpreting behavior like a test pilot. The planes behave in amazingly unexpected ways. I've had a high-speed jet show a nasty tendency to pitch up sharply at a certain speed- puzzling until I realised that it was hitting Mach 1, and the shockwave was interacting with the wing geometry (!) Try _that_ in MSFS or Fly...

    I've actually taken ideas from Slashdot into X-Plane: some time ago there was an article about Japanese ground-effect flying trains, so naturally what do I do? Go fire up Plane-Maker, and try to build a ground-effect vehicle that maintained a consistent ground height all by itself. Didn't quite succeed, but I did manage to make the most forgiving aircraft I've ever seen for zooming about really close to the ground... and now there's gyrocopter support, there's lighter-than-air support (and the Hindenburg), and the helos (and the SoloTrek- yes, the two-ducted-fan thing that you stand on), and whatever neat aero thing turns up next year on Slashdot, I am sure X-Plane will be able to handle modelling it. Hell, there's even an entirely fictional Japanese Anime Plane to play with. I flew it straight up into space and the stars came out, in a perfectly black sky, as I passed escape velocity. Now if we could model something _real_ that does that, we'd really have something...

    Think of it as a commercial aviation design simulator for less than $50. There are in fact a _number_ of people using it to rough-draft real-world planes being built in real life... suffice to say, X-Plane getting a Linux port is _totally_ news for nerds, and if you're an aero nerd it is very much stuff that matters. It's probably the single coolest program I have, of any description. If you want a specifically opensource flight sim, Flight Gear has a lot going for it- but if your interest is strictly aviationgeek and not coder, X-Plane absolutely maims anything else out there, by a wide margin, even given that it's usually kinda quirky (5.66 was running nicely for me, though).

    • Re:This rocks! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mimbleton ( 467957 )
      "the utterly amazingly geeky thing about this sim is that it builds the flight model from just analysis of the plane parts,"

      Flight Unlimited, commercial fs was one of the first on the market to use this kind of model instead of state machine which was common back then.
      It was around 1995 or 1996.
      I fail to see what's so great about this X-Plane.

      • Go to x-plane.com and work it out instead of whining here :).

        Really, X-plane had a lot before FU and did it better and to greater detail, however the price tag was $200.

        Just go to www.x-plane.com I was totally amazed by the detail. I fail to see what why you cannot find anything amazing in x-plane. Maybe its because its going to be ported to Linux?

        StarTux
        • I just played it and it is ok but nothing out of ordinary.
          In fact there is no view panning, controls sucks.
          This product suffers from lack of polish and finish which is understandable considering the fact that it was create by one dude.
          Reasonably fun simulator but nothing that I have not seen before.
          PS.
          I am not flight simulators fanatic or pilot and therefore it is entirely possible that I might have missed something that stands this product apart from everything else.
          Just talking about "fun factor".
          • Played it too, thought differently. Guess thats apples and oranges :). Its says joysticks are optional, I beg to differ though.

            The eye candy is actually a lot better than MSFTFS 2000, which is something I did not expect.

            One thing that does stand out is the fully "rendered" Mars, check his website on flying on Mars. I followed some links and found that you can orbit Earth also, not bad.

            StarTux
            PS Turn indicators on cars as they turn, well not accurate for California I guess :). Take your time, there is a lot in their.

  • For those who are interested the author also write a program called Younge's Modulus [youngsmodulus.com] which is essentially a Mech Combat Simulator that uses the same realistic physics engine as X-Plane does (of course were more concerned with walking, rather than flying in this case).

    If you want to try it, there is a demo version [youngsmodulus.com] available (MAC/Windows only).

  • ...I hate how they advertise their product with all those pop-under ads.
  • I dunno - after I took off I was doing manuevers I'm used to in fighter sims with a British Airways Airliner - like aileron rolls, and cuban loops - and I'm serious. Although I've never flown a real air-liner I doubt one would do this as willingly as the game made it seem. I could pull turns that one would use to evade missle locks without even stalling.

    If I had a bit more power I probably could have pulled off the bell manuever (where you fly straight up - let the jet stall, and come straight down at some attack angel)

    Keep working on it guys :).
    • A loop is not a manouver that strains the plane a lot. Its a positive G only thing, and most - if not all - planes should be able to do it.
  • Tried the demo, 48 meg download but its worth it.

    In fact to beta test the modules this was the only way I can get them to work. Although the plane maker one will not load with the demo as it needs "cockpit:standard:aoa".

    Not bad, actually it seems like a lot of fun. Especially with lots of planes already available. Just wish setting up joysticks on Linux didn't suck so much.

    StarTux
  • For those who asked: as I said in the previous post, I don't know what Austin's plans are, but I believe that it will be the same as with the current Mac and Win32 versions: if you have the CD, you can play on any platform.

    Thus, people who already bought the CD can simply download and run the Linux version with no extra money to pay.

    PS: (the shameless plug part) I'd love it if I got a job working on flight sims, I'm sick and tired of web development :)
  • I'd like to X-press my X-treme X-huberance at another X-game for X-windows. I'm in X-stacy!

    I just hope it's as good as X-pilot!

    Signed,
    X-bill
  • I have no idea if the s/w is acurate on that level, or if such things scale, but it seems like you might be able to come up with some impressive party favors.

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