I'm sure this topic has been beat to death, but I'll ask anyways.I'm a long-time FS9 flyer with more than a thousand hours both online and offline. I stopped flying while I went to Paramedic school. Now that I've graduated and have a full time job, I actually have some free time to resume flying. In the intermening time during school I got a new computer. This new computer does not have my old flight sim software. Therefore my question is, what is the general avsim opinion on the topic of re-installing my FS9 software or purchasing (for cheap) FSX and installing that. I've never used FSX so I have no experience with it. Would the avsim community recommend installing FSX over FS9 and if so, why? What would I expect to gain for my small investment and time? I am a flight sim veteran, and flew for Avsim twice in the the 'Round-the-World race as kickin_chicken so I'm pretty excited to get back into the hot seat :)-Derald kickin_chicken

I'm sure this topic has been beat to death, but I'll ask anyways.I'm a long-time FS9 flyer with more than a thousand hours both online and offline. I stopped flying while I went to Paramedic school. Now that I've graduated and have a full time job, I actually have some free time to resume flying. In the intermening time during school I got a new computer. This new computer does not have my old flight sim software. Therefore my question is, what is the general avsim opinion on the topic of re-installing my FS9 software or purchasing (for cheap) FSX and installing that. I've never used FSX so I have no experience with it. Would the avsim community recommend installing FSX over FS9 and if so, why? What would I expect to gain for my small investment and time? I am a flight sim veteran, and flew for Avsim twice in the the 'Round-the-World race as kickin_chicken so I'm pretty excited to get back into the hot seat :)-Derald kickin_chicken

FS2004

To paraphrase the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz . . . "FS2004. Of COURSE, there are those who are of a mind that FSX is better. And there are those that think both . . ." well, you know. I've tried them both, and for me (I fly commercial jets only) there is no further discussion: FS2004.And yes, this discussion has been beaten to death. If you just do a search here, you will find many opionions on the topic.

You will find proponents for both - of course posting this in the FS2004 forum will give you answers biased towards FS9. If you post this on the FSX forum you will get a different answer. :)

I'm sure this topic has been beat to death, but I'll ask anyways.I'm a long-time FS9 flyer with more than a thousand hours both online and offline. I stopped flying while I went to Paramedic school. Now that I've graduated and have a full time job, I actually have some free time to resume flying. In the intermening time during school I got a new computer. This new computer does not have my old flight sim software. Therefore my question is, what is the general avsim opinion on the topic of re-installing my FS9 software or purchasing (for cheap) FSX and installing that. I've never used FSX so I have no experience with it. Would the avsim community recommend installing FSX over FS9 and if so, why? What would I expect to gain for my small investment and time? I am a flight sim veteran, and flew for Avsim twice in the the 'Round-the-World race as kickin_chicken so I'm pretty excited to get back into the hot seat :)-Derald kickin_chicken

It would help us give you a better answer if you post your system specs...DJ

Simple answer...High End machine/FSX, "normal" one/FS2004. Without High End PC, you can't enjoy in all things that FSX offer.

You should definitely install both.Then load up FS9 with as many addons and upgrades as can go on your system.Then start FSX, and look at it.Then uninstall it, and put it on eBay.

Simple answer...High End machine/FSX, "normal" one/FS2004. Without High End PC, you can't enjoy in all things that FSX offer.

It's a shame we're almost into 2011 and a sim released in 2006 still needs the highest end machine money can buy today to run it decently.

Welcome back.You can try both and see which one you like better - you already have FS9, and FSX is pretty cheap now. For me, I prefer FS9 - works very well and I have a ton of remarkable add-ons for it (most of which do not work in FSX). With FS9 there is an unbelievable choice when it comes to quality freeware add-ons, FSX on the other hand doesn't have a lot in that department (nearly all the quality stuff is payware only).With the right add-ons FS9 can be very impressive and can compete with FSX. However without any add-ons FS9 can look pretty plain - FSX does offer better graphics in comparison. The main difference is in the graphics really. There's no real difference in terms of simulation realism between the two sims. Also an important point is that a lot of payware developers have now chosen to provide solely for FSX.Like many people you may decide to use both. I myself did that, but found myself using almost exclusively FS9. That is entirely due to the lots and lots of fantastic scenery, enhancements and the many really remarkable realistic aircraft I have in FS9. If you don't want to use many add-ons, you might prefer FSX.Be aware that you do need a powerful system to enjoy FSX fully.

WingZ's answer really made me laugh - pretty much what I did 2 years ago, although I haven't gone as far as putting FSX on eBay yet..I have both installed, but fly FS9 99.9% of the time, FSX the rest.. With all the hundreds of scenery and aircraft addons I have in FS9 it looks better than FSX and performs far better too.Martin

Well, I use 'em both for their relative merits, which can change, for example, the shiniest new Boeing 737 is currently an FS9 bird, but in a few weeks it will be an FSX one. Even so, I'll still use 'em both so long as there are things FS9 can do that FSX can't; i.e. the best Yak-40 is currently still only available for FS9. So if you look at them as being tools for what interests you, then you can make an intelligent choice, which in my case is: Both.FSX has some features FS9 cannot have, such as the mission capability and shared cockpits, which if you like those things would make FSX your weapon of choice. FSX does feature better sound, better graphics, more realistic systems modeling, better built-in ATC, better weather modeling and a few other such trinkets, although most of those things are not vastly better than FS9, and many of them can be 'tacked onto' FS9 via add-ons.Although FSX can be run on a moderately decent computer, FS9 will go like greased lightning on even a fairly old machine, which might be a factor if you like having several other things running alongside FS, or even if you like lots of things installed into FS. Thus if your idea of flight sim heaven is a line of thirty super detailed AI Boeing 747s stacked in the hold over a photo-realistic Heathhrow with the graphics on full throttle, you're probably going to want FS9.Back on FSX, there are more developers making new stuff for FSX than FS9, so if you are thew kind of simmer who likes the latest thing in add-ons, FSX will float your boat, but then again, there is already a vast array of stuff available for FS9, and you could still spend a lifetime (and a lot of cash) buying them all, so that's a bit 'swings and roundabouts'.What I'm driving at here is that they both have merits, and it's entirely dependent on what your own preferences are as to which one will suit you personally.Al

FSX does feature better sound,........... more realistic systems modeling,........

Not really - I dare anyone to find anything more realistic that the Project Tupolev Tu-154M, which is FS9 only. There's a vast selection of other extremely realistic aircraft, which are FS9 only too.As for the sound being better - that's news to me. Is it really?

Simple answer...High End machine/FSX, "normal" one/FS2004

If you think it is so simple, remember it is so for you. I for instance prefer FS9 just because I prefer it, not because I cannot use FSX. I did use it and I didn't fall in love with it. And I know many others who share my thoughts.And yes, this topic has been done to death. In my view there is no point in rewriting all the arguments people have one more time.And that is a very good point:

I prefer FS9 - works very well and I have a ton of remarkable add-ons for it

I also have a lot of addons which made my FS9 an excellent platform, so I feel no need to move to FSX and start from scratch. The only pain I happen to feel is when some great addons are released exclusively for FSX (like OrbX sceneries or SimCheck A300 for example).It hurts not to have them in FS9, but I am so happy with the ones I do have, that I can happily live with it. :wink:Having said that I do understand those who moved to FSX and I am happy with their happiness.You have to try for yourself, Derald, to see which sim suits you best.

Not really - I dare anyone to find anything more realistic that the Project Tupolev Tu-154M, which is FS9 only. There's a vast selection of other extremely realistic aircraft, which are FS9 only too.As for the sound being better - that's news to me. Is it really?

Well, I agree that Tu-154 is impressive, but it's not as impressive as the Accu-Sim engine modeling on A2A's latest efforts such as their B-17G and Boeing Stratocruiser, and they are both only available for FSX. Part of that is because FSX added some further engine modeling capabilities with the Acceleration pack, which you will see if you compare a standard version of FSX to a version of FSX with Acceleration, although in the case of A2A, they found a workaround which means it is not required to have Acceleration to benefit from their Accu-Sim system, since it now runs as a separate entity which is linked to FSX as the host sim for it. But regardless of that, it is a fact that FSX does have more sophisticated engine modeling capablities when Acceleration is added to it, and we are talking about the host sim here and not which add-on is the best.Yup, FSX sound is indeed better from a technical standpoint. Specifically it supports 5.1 surround sound, which means it has the sound cone effect which you will notice are in FSX versions of commercial add-on sound packages and not in the FS9 equivalents. You can see a list of most of the things which are different in FSX here, and as you can see there are quite a lot of differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_XAl

I was Mr.FS9, until I got a new system with a duo core and better vid card. Much to my surprise I was able to run FSX very well (that is until FTX came along), and I do fly it quite a bit. But I still have both installed, and use FS9 when I want to fly into a big airport with full autogen, traffic, the works.