

The journey through flight sims that I’ve been one has taken me from wire frame models running at 1 FPS to where we are now. I mean, I’ve been simming since before the Commodore 64. Even though I’m a few weeks into the VR experience at this point, the feeling of being in a VR cockpit always leaves me giddy with how incredible the technology is. Once X-Plane is running FlyInside recognizes the fact and plops you into the virtual cockpit.
Skymaxx pro demo windows#
It talks to X-Plane through some magic and while you are in the Rift you see two virtual windows open while X-Plane starts up. FlyInside for X-PlaneįlyInside for X-Plane launches in a similar fashion to the FSX/P3D version. For some reason, I was expecting that the FSX/P3D program ported over to X-Plane was going to be kind of rough – like banging a square peg in a round hole. (I haven’t broken it to my six year old son that he is promised to Matt Wagner, but hey, a Hornet is worth something amiright?) Dan was kind enough to set me up with access to the FlyInside beta for X-Plane and I’ve spent the last few days lost in the X-Plane VR world.

() Upon hearing of the FlyInside work toward X-Plane integration, I contacted Dan Church and sold my next child to him for access to the beta. The reasons are manifold, but I really love the fluidity of how X-Plane feels, and I really (really) love the way the aircraft feel in the air, and how they feel very dynamic on takeoff and landing. While I like FSX and P3D, my heart lies with X-Plane. When word hit the street a few weeks ago that FlyInside was working on an application for X-Plane, I was thrilled to pieces. It takes some experimenting with both the sim and FlyInside program settings to find the sweet spot, but when you do, the results are fantastic. Whatever FlyInside is doing (and it is doing a lot) – it just works. If the CPU or GPU starts to choke, you are going to get what is referred to as “juddering”.or a very tiny lag and choppiness which can ruin the VR experience and actually feel quite unpleasant when in the headset. Again, speaking non-technically, you need to have fluid FPS in VR to provide a good experience.
Skymaxx pro demo software#
With sims already pushing both CPU and GPU processing power, we come up against both software and hardware challenges. It isn’t hard to imagine the technical barriers though – not the least of which is that you have to render two different scenes for each eye. In general terms, FlyInside is sort of a front end that interacts with the simulation software to provide access to sim menus, VR settings, and of course it also has to do the grunt work of making two different images to project to each of your eyes. Yes, it’s that good.Īfter doing a short demo period with FlyInside for P3D, and seeing how brilliant it was, I purchased the software. And with just a few exceptions, I’m in the camp that will find it very hard to keep playing on a 2D monitor after having experienced how immersive VR simming is. Sure, there are some issues, but compared to a lot of technologies, the current crop of VR gear is pretty far along. The experience is impossible to describe – you really just have to go demo VR and a flight sim to truly understand the way it transforms our hobby. For my first experience, I slipped on the Rift and fired up DCS World and was instantly blown away by the fidelity that had been hidden in plain sight all these years. With X-Plane though, I was able to really push up the scenery and graphics settings, and fly even the most complex aircraft through the densest of scenery with very nice fluidity.Ī month or so after I bought the GTX 1080, I doubled down on my early adopter bet and purchased an Oculus Rift. And while FSX and P3D did show improvements, being mostly CPU bound the improvements there had more to do with fluidity and quick loading of textures. The primary reasons I upgraded was that I wanted to push my DCS World and X-Plane framerates up.

You can read a bit about my GTX 1080 impressions HERE.
Skymaxx pro demo upgrade#
A few months ago, for the first time in my life, I went full on early adopter mode and purchased a GTX 1080 video card – quite the significant upgrade from the trusty GTX 760 that had been getting me through the last couple of years. I’ll start this article with a bit of light recent history. Somewhere out there on the internet, someone is probably making you a very nice Excel spreadsheet. I just give impressions and shoot from the hip – so apologies if this article doesn’t appeal to the more hardcore, driven by data and analysis types. Note – Once again, I’d like to emphasize that I’m not a hardware guy. We take a quick look at an exciting development in the Virtual Reality arena – FlyInside has brought their popular VR software to X-Plane and the results so far are extraordinary…
