ORIGINAL: wind junkie
Has anyone noticed that when you fly the plane far away the roll rate seems to slow down? I don't know if it's my computer or not, but if I do rollers in a big circle, by the time I get to the far side of the circle, I'm really rolling in slow motion compared to the near side.
It's so bad that I lose the "connected" feel that I get on other sims like Aerofly or G2.
It was so annyong, that I lent the XTR to a friend who's just starting out. Another friend just got an update disc in the mail today, but neither of us know if this was one of the bugs that got fixed, or what the occasion was.
After reading this I just had to try it myself. I tried it with both the MS Composit 3D foamie and the large Exclusiv Hulk aerobatic model. I can't see any difference in roll rate at all between far away and near by or anywhere in between. I also tried rolling from the camera position and away.
I have used the first RealFlight and G2 before and have both G2 and XTR installed on my PC now. I never liked how the helis flew in G2, and I never thought planes acted right at low speed and particularly high alpha. XTR feels very correct to me. I never even once changed the cameraposition except for when I tried onboard camera in RF 1. I don't see a need for that function at all.
I have years of 3D modelling experience, both CAD design and realtime scenery and car models, and the G3 screenshots I've seen look very dated and basic to me. The way the XTR engine combines the invisible 3D terrain and scenery models to fit the panoramic photo works seamlessly. You can fly behind objects, land on tables and even fly behind transparent glass and it looks perfect. They did a good job. It's the first time a simulator has felt immersive to me. Knifeedge might introduce a similar photo technique to G3 in a free patch later so I'm curious as to how well that works if it's released. XTR has a non-panorama 3D scenery as well where you can change the camera position but I havent' tired it yet.
The only negative point about XTR is that the Kyosho M24 heli is horrible, and that after three hours of constant fun the simulator seems to run out of memory and starts swapping so I'm forced to restart my computer (happens on both my PC's).
I don't consider it a problem.
My $0.02
I am considering getting Aerofly Pro Deluxe as well. I have only seen screenshots of it so far and it looks interesting. Shadows are better in XTR though but whadows aren't everything.
EDIT:
I have downloaded a lot of good helis and planes from
http://www.rc-sim.de but all the sceneries I have downloaded have been useless.
Regards,
Tor Arne
Norway