Isn’t Bing the engine behind the landscape and map data? Isn’t MSFX:OLD the base aerodynamic engine that drives MSFS:NEW (at least at initial release)? It would seem that Redmond has earned more than just publisher rights.
That thing wasn’t even close to state of the art when it came out > 10 years ago, so, meh.
It’s true that it’s their height map and orthophoto data, but that’s just about it.
I tried…I really did…I was excited about the early release and jumped in head first!! 
But after 2 days of tweaking/changing/adjusting/fiddling with every setting imaginable in game/Nvidia control panel/HMD VR headset I cannot find a compromise to make the sky look acceptable in VR.
I went on “The Org.” Forum and it seems I’m not the only one who has a Pimax headset with this issue.
One solution mentioned was to use OpenXR instead of Steam as your VR gateway,But VR runs perfectly for me in DCS and IL2 so I really don’t want to make any drastic changes.
I think I’ll hang tight and wait for a new beta to see if it improves my issue.
I think I heard one is in the works for nxt week.
Hmm. Ok. I trust you as all I know is only what I’ve read on this forum. The history is a jumble and I apparently got the story wrong.
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Beta 3 is up.
Also, here’s the first Developer Blog for XP12 Beta…
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ATC
I am walking back my initial bad marks on the ATC. It’s actually capable of being quite convincing. But one has to use it within the logic of the sim and maybe not so much based entirely on real life expectations. My initial poor experiences were due, I think, to the fact that I was flying rotary VFR and that’s not how most players fly. Fixed wing IFR is the target audience and that’s how LR designed the logic. To test fixed-wing, I flew a short flight from my old base of Iraklion (LGIR) to Santorini (LGSR). I filed IFR off RWY 12 to LGSR via GIVIS and STR at FL150. When I picked up the clearance I was given RWY 27 up to FL130 with an initial heading of 270. A couple of minutes after takeoff I was turned to a heading of 040 and an unrestricted climb to FL130. That’s as high as they would let me go which makes sense given the short distance. There were only a couple of handoffs and they all made sense (no odd sectors and no spurious squawk changes). The final cleared altitude was 2500 feet with a heading of 010. This set me up nicely for the visual to Santorini’s RWY 33. Approach asked if I had the airport in sight to which I answered in the affirmative. They then switched me to tower. Tower cleared me to 500 feet. That would NEVER happen in real life. Tower rarely assigns arrival altitudes and NO ONE would ever ask for one so low. You’re either cleared to LAND or to CONTINUE. I was cleared to land and once I did, I was asked clear at the first available left, pretty much exactly as would happen in real life. (And, uhhh, a UFO kept me company most of the flight!*)
I am really enjoying the CitationX. Laminar has done a very nice job with the model. It’s a delight to fly and real hot rod. Nothing could touch it when it came out in the 90’s.
*A known easter egg.
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Among other bug fixes reported, “XPD-12893 Extremely jittery pixellation in clouds in VR.”
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VFR ATC was my major complaint with XP. I should not have to file IFR everywhere to hear the chatter.
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You hear the chatter even if you don’t have ATC turned on. Certainly no need to file. You can get VFR flight following as well. But that feature needs work.
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yes, anyway i’m glad that now the atc is much better comparing with v11, specially, because it works, the older for some reason not triggered and also it can works as adhoc vfr, so it can vector to a runway even without a fpln preplanned before takeoff.
Its not perfect (neither all other ATC from other sims are), but its a big big step in the right direction.
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I know that I’ve said that I want to keep my XP12 install clean, meaning no mods. I am walking that back a bit and keeping a region where I can try stuff out. Global Trees v2 has a free sample region which covers roughly eastern Europe, including Greece. So I’ve made Greece, specifically Crete, my test region. I can report that Ortho4XP works identically as it did with XP11 and Global Trees does seem to be a slight improvement in tree placement, regional accuracy and variety, over stock X-Plane. Coastlines work nicely with the new water. Sim Heaven really seems to be the best and easiest Ortho solution (thanks for the heads-up @NEVO!). I wanted to stay focused on a smaller area and still haven’t tried it.
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…and that’s why I bought that 10TB HDD…
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EVGA: “With the Ethereum merge, the majorly of crypto miners have nothing profitable to mine. We are getting out of the GPU business.”
EVGA: “With the release of XP12, we are announcing a new line of high capacity SSD drives.”
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yeah, lol … found this quote on xp forums. somehow I understand your initial feelings to stick with default XP12. I have the same, once you start to customize it you wont end until it looks … like MSFS 
[from XP forums]: I get very little time for simming and want to use that precious time for flying with the best addons rather than tweaking and experimenting…
got same sentiments after trying Cowan’s H125. it can fly believably, but I really had to tweak that joystick curves. by default I found them good for R22/R44 but not for this bigger bird. tend to believe that I will also rebuy this bird after DreamFoil shows up again.
still wondering if the high rotor inertia of XP helos (in autorotation) can be ‘customized’ by particular developer.
and one more thing. have a feeling that mixing of control inputs and the effect on helicopter is much more smoother in default XP12 R22 than it was in XP11. its noticeable for me at the phase of entering autorotation.
hopefully this will be implemented also by 3party devs. because I feel like this was quite ‘rough’ in XP11.
so these are my more detailed impressions 
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I do all my flying using VR controls. There is a slider for sensitivity. I use “1.2” for helicopters, making them a little more responsive. The slider goes back to “1.0” when I fly fixed-wing. Also regarding helos, I’ve been mostly sticking with stock. The default S76 really flies quite convincingly EXCEPT that its power pedal is the right when it should be the left. I went into planemaker and found that they added anti-torque with collective (pre-mixed, if you will). I changed that value to “0” from “11” and now it’s great. (I only wish someone would clean up the artwork. It’s so 2005.)
I too will definitely buy DMO’s H125 should he decide to pull the trigger. So glad to hear that he’s not walked away entirely.
You are certainly onto something regarding rotor inertia. I find that it is easy to overspeed the head in bottom-collective descents. Then you have to be careful when the needles rejoin or it can get a little sporting. Also, it seems like ground-effect is either off or very low for helicopters. In real life, I have to lower constantly to land. In XP12, whatever slight down collective will start a slow descent at 20’, will work all the way to impact.
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Beta 4
Beta 4
XPD-12423 Boat wakes should replay.
XPD-12513 Mismatched 3D water wake on replay.
XPD-12542 Many frequency changes upon vectoring to visual approach.
XPD-12628 Planemaker dialogs lag behind when dragged.
XPD-12794 UTL_art_asset and other classes delete resources under lock.
XPD-12825 Can get short silence at the end of some transmissions.
XPD-12826 Restored joystick axis label symbols.
XPD-12867 Crash checking in with area controller (after landing).
XPD-12868 Better carrier ops for old planes, too!
XPD-12871 When using the “show air traffic paths” option, altitudes are wrong.
XPD-12873 ATC should hold FMOD’s m_continuation_group during preparation for playback.
XPD-12875 Engine and transmission temperature model is incorrect and inconsistent.
XPD-12886 Don’t allow a FISO to provide “request heading” or “uncertain of position”.
XPD-12889 Background image in Planemaker stuck in zoom relative to geometry.
XPD-12898 Request Frequency Change had inverted logic.
XPD-12901 AI stuck in a loop missing final.
XPD-12904 Excessive approach revectors due to route checking.
XPD-12915 Crash on error exit in boat manager.
XPD-12923 Liberty Island lights fixed.
XPD-12925 Improvements to ground-ops window, always give feedback.
XPD-12931 Initial magenta NaN pain relief.
XPD-12945 VR system left handles in place after a window was popped out.
XPD-12947 San Francisco Landmarks update.
XPD-12949 A330 flaps not controllable by an analog joystick AXIS.
XPD-12952 Thread shutdown crash.
XPD-12953 Citation X FMC Causing Crash entering STAR.
XPD-12955 Crash after requesting taxi to stand from hold-short point.
XPD-12958 Have the taxi route stay on the actual route but still show the way back to it.
XPD-12966 AI can end up in the wrong state after an approach revector.
XPD-12976 Dynamic objects small update.
XPD-13001 Marked X-Plane 11 as an “old key” in X-Plane 12.
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Does the ATC in XP still say things like Boeing sevenhundredandfourtysevenminuseighthundred?
? Umm. No?
Oh I get what you are asking now. I haven’t heard airline callsigns yet. But GA stuff is called correctly.
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