X-Plane Creator Austin Meyer Talks OS X Development by Michael Flaminio Austin Meyer is the lead force behind the popular flight simulator X-Plane. X-Plane is a general aviation simulator available for Mac and Windows computers. Insanely Great Mac spoke with Meyer about X-Plane and the upcoming development for Mac OS X. Austin began development of X-Plane in 1988. As a personal pilot, he was looking to improve his instrument flying skills. X-Plane's roots grew from the need to find an easier way to accurately experience instrument flying without spending a great deal of time in actual airplanes. Meyer at the time was using Microsoft Flight Simulator for the Macintosh, but found it lacking for his needs. As a result, Meyer developed a specialized simulator called Archer-II IFR. Archer-II IFR evolved to include easier expansion for other planes. Meyer added the ability to import new planes by simply plugging blueprints for existing aircraft into Archer-II IFR, and the software would decide how the planes should fly. Moving beyond existing designs, Meyer decided to try building some of his own concepts into the simulator. Unfortunately, Austin's personal designs proved to be somewhat unstable and rather experimental for anyone wishing to fly. As a result of his creative design concepts, Meyer decided to change the name of Archer-II IFR to X-Plane, a reference to the series of storied 1960's experimental aircraft tests. X-Plane had always been available on the Mac, and with version 5.0, Meyer introduced OpenGL 3D rendering technology. Because of its cross-platform nature, Meyer was able to bring X-Plane to the PC platform, reaching an even larger audience. Currently Meyer is working on a Carbonized version of X-Plane to run on Mac OS X. OS X With a Carbonized version of X-Plane, Mac users will be able to run the flight sim in both OS 9 and OS X. Meyer told IGM that he's bringing X-Plane to OS X mainly so that those wishing to use Apple's new operating system can also use X-Plane. Currently X-Plane works within Mac OS X's Classic environment as a Mac OS 9 application. In bringing X-Plane to Mac OS X, the largest obstacle appears to involve handling input devices. The current version of X-Plane uses Apple's generic Input Sprocket technology, which can be used to control virtually all compatible controllers and joysticks. Mac OS X does not support Input Sprockets, leaving many Mac game developers with some problems. Apple instead is encouraging developers to use OS X's HID (human interface design) architecture for input devices, but unfortunately, Mac OS X's HID architecture is not fully implemented. This leaves game developers like Meyer two options -- wait for Apple to finalize its HDI technology or create their own interface software. The later option is less appealing to most developers, mainly because it's considerably more work, but also poses greater exposure for future input incompatibilities. Austin told IGM that without adequate HID support from Apple, X-Plane would not fully work in OS X as either a Carbon or Classic application. Bringing X-Plane to Mac OS X offers gamers a number of advantages. The largest advantage is likely stability. Running as a Carbon application, X-Plane will enjoy greater stability from the OS and other applications. Additionally, X-Plane may perform better with respects to other applications and the OS because of OS X's multithreading and multitasking abilities. In short, X-Plane should be able to run smoother now that the Mac OS and other applications can't completely monopolize system resources. In general, however, Meyer expects X-Plane to perform similarly in OS X as to OS 9. Meyer is also interested to see how OS X handles X-Plane on multiprocessor G4 system. With dual processors, OS X may be able to increase performance within X-Plane, once it becomes Carbonized. While X-Plane may benefit from dual G4 processors, Meyer said not to expect any significant performance from the G4's AltiVec engine. According to Meyer, adding support for the G4's AltiVec technology added nothing significant to X-Plane. In other areas of X-Plane development, Meyer noted that he looks forward to the release of the nVidia GeForce3 on the Mac OS. Meyer said that Apple will be developing the OpenGL drivers for the card, and once the drivers are released, he will have an idea of how well X-Plane performs. Meyer also noted that as Apple will be developing the GeForce3 drivers, he would have to wait to see how support for the new GeForce3 features are implemented. The GeForce3 allows developers to create customized renderings, and Meyer said that if Apple supports these features, he would explore these developments for X-Plane. Future X-Plane continues under rapid development with updates and new features frequently available. X-Plane also enjoys a large developer community, often adding new resources to the simulator. Austin doesn't have a specific timeframe for a Carbonized X-Plane release. Austin told IGM that he is working on carbonized builds of X-Plane, but the issue of controller device input remains a critical obstacle.