Which Sim ?

[Deleted]

We've had an itch lately about leaving FSX and going for another system.  The problem for me is, is the number of systems out there.  FXSteam, XPlane etc etc.  

     Thought I'd ask you fellow simmers what system you use and why---the benefits over FSX. or why you stayed with FSX or FX9.   Any of your thoughts would be appreciated.  

      Thanks.
                       Carm        

[Deleted]

I have had FS2 thru FSX, X-Plane and P3D v3. I left FSX when I completely lost the sim after a fatal system crash so I tried X-Plane. It is a good sim where the tech side forms the basis for the platform which I found enhances the pilot experience. I like to fly low and slow so I did find the scenery to be lagging behind FSX so I checked out P3D and found that to be more to my personal liking. Of course, that is subjective. On balance, I like P3D and plan to stay with it. I look forward to 64 bit but will hold off upgrading to the latest version from LM until late next year. The pace of advancements is moving along quickly these days and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. The fact is, the cost to remain on the cutting edge is and will remain expensive. I could be wrong but I don't think you can go too far wrong with either X-Plane or P3D. Others have their personal choice and mine is P3D.

[olderndirt]

With the advent of 64 bit, the playing field is leveling but, when my patience with FSX expired, I went with XP and so far, so good.  I also have Aerofly but development there is a bit slow.  XP has had the reputation of a more realistic flight envelope but I suspect there's little actual flying experience at the helm - it's certainly more of a challenge to keep things straight.  Lots of wonderful freeware but, if your system's not in the big leagues, accept that you'can't max out the settings. 

[penzoil3]

P3D 4 is great, and all your OrbX scenery will work, free of charge. Most of your other scenery and planes will also work. X plane 11 is good too, but nothing you have will work, you have to start collecting planes and scenery all over again. Both are 64 bit, and want an 8 gigabyte video card, at least 16 gb of ram, and a 4 ghz quad core cpu or better. You can run with less, but you'll have to dial back on things and lose a lot.
FSX Steam is good, a bit better than the old boxed edition, but it is still 32 bit, and suffers those limitations. It is the cheapest of the three, price wise, and of course everything will work.
I use P3D4 for my OrbX scenery, FSX-SE for everyone else's scenery, and X Plane 11 for fun. I have a lot of storage space.
Sue

[spud]

For those that are curious about addon scenery for PFJ/Alaska area here's a link to some Return to Misty Moorings (RTMM) videos that show some quality scenery to fly in for low n' slow bush flying. There is a lot of required base scenery/programs to make it all work but once you have it installed it is compatible with ORBX and P3D. We are undertaking a large re-do for P3D v4 to increase the compatibility with that new version as its 64 bit as Sue says.
If your interested in back country aviation I can't recommend a better scenery site.

return.mistymoorings.com/mistys/#videos

I'm still with FSX as I QC RTMM scenery for that platform
Spud

[Bushpounder]

I still have FSX and I like it as it is. I have not had any major problems in almost 8 years with it. I have a lot of $$$ tied up in it, so I don't feel like moving. I tried P3D and didn't care for it. I couldn't see the advantage to moving. I guess to each his / her own!

BP;)

[Deleted]

I'm getting some good info--thanks.   Now-- what is the worthwhile advantage of P3D4 over my current FSX if both are 64 Bit  and I have a quad cpu, 8 gig video, 16 ram. ?

     Decisions, decisions, all the time decisions.

                                                                       I guess I have to ask myself; why ??                  Carm.

 

[Deleted]

It is P3D4 and XP that are 64 bit and if you have 4Ghz plus with your cpu and vid card you may be good to go.

[Deleted]

Tough one to answer. A newer rig will just have to wait until 2ndQ 2018, so I'm constrained to running FS9 (fully maxed out) or FSX &/or FSX SE moderately okay (kinda chokes a bit on FSAddon's Tongass Fjords but handles FTX NZ North & South Islands like a hot knife thru butter).

Really waiting for the specks for Deadstick - Bush Flight Simulator to be posted (1stQ 2018?), that will guide what I need to build next.

Regards,

[scottb]

I'm running exclusively P3D v4.1 right now. I like it pretty well so far. I decided to go with P3D since it gave me the most compatibility with my purchased FSX add-ons.  I had to pay to upgrade Active Sky, my Flight 1 GTN, and FSUIPC.  If you are a heavy user of A2A planes, they require a full re-purchase I believe.  All of my ORBX stuff, my Carenado, Alabeo, Flysim, were upgraded at no cost.

Although some old stuff can work, trying to shoe-horn old stuff into the new engine might cause problems.  I've tried to stick with add-ons that have been released with v4 compatibility or upgraded with official v4 installers.  Most of the big players are making their stuff compatible so with time things should work.

The graphics improvements are nice, the shaders, shadows, and dynamic lighting look good, although you need good hardware to run.  Rain and snow look much better out of the box.  I've also found much less need to tweak settings so far.  I was getting occasional out of memory problems with FSX with complex add-ons and scenery, but that is not an issue with P3D v4 and the 64 bit engine.

-Scott

[olderndirt]

I think XP may be revising their thinking and going with a multi CPU core operation.  Currently using just a single core, a lot of hardship is placed on the graphics card to pick up the slack.  Because of this FPS is in a very vulnerable position so the plan is to create some wiggle room by switching to a system (Vulkan) that uses all the cores.  FYI I have an i5 3570k OC 4.2 with a GTX970 and it runs very well - not maxed but definitely on the plus side.

[Deleted]

All things considered, I'm going to go Don's route I think.
Thanks for all the Info Guys and Gals.
Cheers, Carm.

[penzoil3]

XP 11 is multi core. There is no 64 bit FSX !

[Deleted]

Oh !

[olderndirt]

Dec 2, 2017 16:38:30 GMT -5 penzoil3 said:

XP 11 is multi core. There is no 64 bit FSX !

This is what I meant to say. 

"One other thing to consider too... are you checking individual CPU core usage or just the overall performance? X-Plane is not currently optimized to multi-thread (with the exception of some miscellaneous tasks) so it runs predominately in one core. This will be addressed in future updates as they switch the core graphics from OpenGL to Vulcan, but the bottom line is that if you're seeing 30 - 40 percent overall that is probably one core completely or nearly completely maxed out. All it takes is one process (e.g. "glass cockpit" moving maps updating map data from the drive and recalculating the data to update the map itself) to slow it way down and this can happen for a relatively long period of time (a few minutes is an eternity for compute processes) on lesser machines."