End of Development for Xplane platforms:
For some time we have been watching market metrics with the Xplane platform and evaluating our own development schedule in order to find a gap into which we can slide a dedicated Xplane development cycle. As part of our strategic objective to simplify our development agenda, we are pivoting to dedicate all of our development resources to our Prepar3D v4 product lines and to our upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator product lines. Effective immediately, we are no longer evaluating an Xplane development cycle at any point in the current five year window, nor do we see any active XPlane development time being allocated at PMDG.
I have to say that I felt somewhat let down by PMDG’s lack of willingness to bring their DC6 up to date for XP11. They have displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for X-Plane, which I can only guess was caused by disappointing sales figures.
Short question: how does that plugin influence frame rates?
Asking because the stock X-plane clouds for some reason seem to have a heavy impact on performance, at least on my system.
I’m sure that there is some impact, but it still seems smooth on my system (i7 9800X, 32 Gb RAM, RTX 2080Ti). The only negative is that it does funky things in VR. So, if I am going to fly in VR I use Active Sky and Ultra-Weather which work and look great together. X-Enviro looks great on a monitor though and seems to be on the right track again…
Yeah, it’s disappointing, but as a small business owner, I can’t see a flaw in this decision. 2020 is shaping up to be a very interesting year in simulations, to be sure. The sleeping 400 lb Silverback in the corner has stirred, sending the rest of the troop scrambling for loose bananas - in earnest.
Edit: Prediction that Austin will hire Forkboy and orthophoto scenery will be included with X-Plane 12.
It’s discouraging but not really surprising. Now that the VR “wow” has worn off a bit, I am becoming more and more disappointed in XP and Laminar. Their latest update is a case in point. They are all excited about introducing a handful of trivial aerodynamic tweaks yet do nothing about atrocious ATC, comms, AI aircraft, etc. All the things that MSFS did and did well enough going on two decades ago…that’s like 140 dog years and something around 2,000 computer years. So yeah, PMDG is abandoning ship, and while I’d hate to see it, I wouldn’t be surprised if A2A and/or Just Flight follow.
In the mean time, I’ll stay on the XP11 train-and stay tuned to this thread-until something better comes along.
I think abandoning ship based on an Alpha is kind of premature. I don’t think a lot of 3rd party devs are going to cease support of what is now a very well established sim. PMDG just don’t want to develop for X-Plane. I don’t think they ever really did to be honest.
Besides, I am still very leery about going all in on a sim that requires an expensive server to get the best out of it. Who controls the on/off switch to that server? The bean counters, that’s who. It is going to be a beautiful sim, no doubt about that. I just hope I am wrong about it’s longevity.
I refuse to buy any more PMDG aircarft. The only one I bought so far was the Jetstream JS4100 for FSX - and it was great, and is awesomeness in VR. But I can’t fly it.
Why? Because of their draconian attitude to “DRM”. I have been unable to activate it for 3 years now, and when I found out that if you don’t deactivate (or uninstall in a particular way), you lose your activation. I sent them an email, explaining and asking for them to reset my activations and got a reply saying they had done so. But it still wouldn’t activate and they just ignored my further emails reporting that and requesting help.
As far as I’m concerned, they stole my money, and I will never buy anything from them again. Their recent response to some complaints about this by someone else was along the lines of “what’s the worry? We’re making a new one for P3D”. And they honestly expect those of us affected to buy it?
Wouldn’t surprise me if their attitude actually encourages piracy of their products, rather than discouraging or preventing it. Not quite as bad as FSLabs, but bad enough.
I don’t think this is sad for X-Plane, it is shortsighted for PMDG. I am proud to say that I never bought a widget from those guys. And I will further offer, “Don’t let the door hit your better half on the way out!” When the MS product releases, X-Plane will return to the spot it held before, least pretty/most accurate. Whether a developer wishes to continue to support XP or not is, of course their choice. But it says something to me about the type of product they wish to develop. When I want to repeat within my cave the experience I enjoy outside of it, there will always be just one place to go.
I had never thought about it that way about XP. I’d say your analysis is correct. As visual “less pretty” I think they have passed FSX on the visuals, especially when you consider Ortho scenery.
For me the “less pretty” part of XP is ATC comms, and I would call them downright ugly. If they just fixed that to include VFR stuff - taxi, TO and landing clearances - I would never look at another flight sim.
