Tony

a couple of comments :

i've been an x-plane user for years.

it should be noted that this review was done with 8.21. X-Plane is currently at 8.40. In the x-plane world, minor version increments can make big differences. Also, right around 8.21, was when Laminar made some big changes to the scenery system to support the next-gen scenery, which is awesome.

a few nits with the review :

loading time of the sim from start can seem bad. it's loading alot of data, especially with the next gen scenery installed which has some really awesome textures and models.

the "pausing" issue has been a complaint with x-plane for years. i hardly notice it. it drives other people crazy. x-plane loads scenery in "tiles" and this is a blocking operation in the sim. Laminar is working on this, and they have recently done more work on this to make it less noticeable, and to tune the behavior, using threading and some user defineable options, such as "locking" scenery in memory.

the complaints about panel buttons and information on the panel about what the button does isn't really a Laminar issue.

X-Plane is only the engine, it is up to the plane designers to create useable panels.

X-Plane has a "plane creation" tool included with the product that allows anyone to create aircraft in x-plane, or to be able to modify the ones they have, including modifying panels.

i also have a nit about some of the comments about bugs.

i've not personally noticed land that acts like water, or floating airports. I probably use x-plane 3-5 hours a week, flying on the west coast and in the north east. The article makes it seem like this is a common problem, which hasn't been my observation.

And as far as crashes, I will say this. I'm a programmer by trade, so I understand software bugs. X-Plane is one of the most stable pieces of software I have ever used.

I personally cannot remember the last time x-plane did a hard crash on me in the middle of a flight.

I also don't fly supersonic or "X" aircraft.

I do know that the x-plane flight model can go crazy, under certain types of "edge of the envelope" simulations, on slow machines.

Said a different way, if you get low frame rates with x-plane, and you try to fly at Mach 6 pushing the envelope of the simulated aircraft, the sim can go out to lunch.

This is the nature of complex simulations/state machines and poor runtime conditions for the simulation.

It is also worth mentioning the Laminar has boatloads of big name aerospace, DoD and aircraft firms that use x-plane for all sorts of projects and prototyping, which is a testament to the quality and fidelity of the simulation, hands down.

Tony