Ms Flight looks like a joke. I am happy we have X-Plane as an option. And I am sure 95% of these people who say X-Plane is Crappy have never really spent anytime using it. They just buy a copy, load it up and fly around for 20min. They shut it down because it different the FSX-FS9 and say it is no good!The only thing FSX is better at in flight simulation is eye candy! That's it. I have owned every copy of MSFS since 95. I first purchased X-Plane 9 about 3 years ago and did what most MSFS Hardcore simmers do. I put X-Plane on the shelf after an hour of use because it was not MSFS so i didn't like it.When the Take command CRJ-200 was released 6 months ago I thought I would give X-Plane another try and after a few days I found myself flying more in X-plane then I do in FSX. I now only boot up FSX to fly the PMDG Aircraft. I really hope PMDG jump of the sinking MS ship and start production for X-Plane.

+1

Not sure about the "sinking MS" ship thought pattern, since MSFS is one of the best selling software packages of all time and tons of people continue to make tons of addons for it that address its weaknesses. I've heard the "eye candy" comment a hundred times too. Guess what? Eye candy is an important part of the simulation for many people. Now, that being said, the newest version of XPlane really looks nice and it's great to see some developers putting out products for XPlane. I'm glad you like to use it, but the "XPlane is great and MSFS sucks" attitude is old and won't win you any converts.There's room enough in this world for two flight simulators without resorting to bashing and fruitlessly badgering PMDG to "make" an XPlane version just after they spent 3 years building the NGX for FSX. I hope XPlane continues to do well, and I will most likely be checking it out at some point. Hopefully there will be someday be enough demand to make it worth PMDG's while.BTW I heard that CRJ was good--I loved flying the POSKY freeware version, but then went out and bought the Wilco payware and hated it. That alone could get me to pull the trigger.

In light of the latest info released regarding M$ Flight, what other options do we have?Continue to use (for us pilots) and develop on (like PMDG) a 7yr old product that's no longer maintained by the vendor and haven't been for years, countless limitations (obviously because of age) and numerous little bugs and idiosyncrasies that we continue to fight an a regular basis because well we have no choice(but we do!).OrStart the transition to something of this decade, that takes full advantage of our new hardware and software and has support by the vendor and actively producing updates. PMDG is the first that I've seen where they've hit the limitations of FSX and has caused OOM errors because of the 2GB DirectX 9 memory limitations.Imagine a product that "could" be developed for a sim that will use our full 8GB (or even 16GB) of RAM and "many" core/threaded CPU and GPU machines?? That would be an amazing experience! Whether it's with X-Plane or Prepare3D or whatever. FSX is not going to last. It's a catch 22, We, as pilots, need some big flight sim developers to start the move to another product and I'm sure the big developers are waiting for us pilots to choose the next big sim to develop on. Another obstacle is "CHANGE". Most users absolutely hate change! Being in the IT industry for +25yrs and supporting 3000+ users in an R&D environment, that's one thing I know for sure, they hate change.Like it or not, we really need a change!...Microsoft has left the flight sim building.

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by ViperXBR

Funny, but FSX being 7-year old, unmaintained code is actually a GOOD thing for developers like PMDG. It ain't gonna change. I'm no expert, but I wonder how different XP10 is from XP9 code-wise. Could you imagine PMDG doing their usual 3-year dev cycle and, 6 months from release finding out that their beta version doesn't run on the latest version of X-plane? This isn't Microsoft Office, where they sell 10 million copies--these are niche products, and there are no "big" developers out there. There's no room in the profit model for a major code change midstream.I could be totally off-base here, but I'm willing to bet that PMDG's bean counters know the market, and the potential for sales. They're not interested in X-Plane at this time for one really good reason--profit. Doesn't matter how cool or how accurate FS enthusiasts think X-Plane is.

Like I mentioned before, we are seeing the limitations of FSX being reached right now. What other option do the developers and us FSX enthusiasts have after they've exhausted the full potential of FSX. Add all those nice third party add-ons like highly detailed textures, scenery, airports and aircraft (ie NGX) and you can run out of FSX resources now in a hurry.IMHO, I really don't see "many more years to come" with FSX.

Good, now I would like to hear some specific details about why X-plane is better...

It's not. Would you pay $750 to unlock so you can have EFIS and so forth. Don't think so.

You do not have to pay $750 to unlock anything, beeing a private simulator user. Thats only for professionel simulators, Where you want Xplane to communicate with professionel hardware and the professionel Xplane EFIS.You can use 3'd party EFIS all you want or this: http://www.x-plane.com/mobile/ipad/efis_app/

Edited January 6, 201214 yr by Keld Winther Nielsen

I am not sold on Xplane,FSX all the way! :)

To be honest, I don't like XPlane 10 at all. In my opinion, the eye candy is better than in FSX, great scenery and lightning. But now the bad:- Unrealistic flight dynamics- Terrible user interface- Controls are hard to set up and don't work properly after it's set up- Without Track IR or something similar, it's extremely hard to look around in the cockpit like in FSX- Runway slopes look cool, but they're just way too exaggerated, it's a little bit like downtown San Francisco, lol.All that MS Flight needs, is the whole world in scenery! Flight dynamics are good, graphics are good, frame rate is good, UI is good, controls are plug and play, the game loads up really fast. All we need is scenery from the entire world!We need a combination of MS Flight's graphics, UI, flightdyamics, and XPlane 10's scenery, ATC, and other simulations.

It is amazing that a rather small team in case of Xplane 10 creates a full grown simulator and a huge company comes up with a "free console style kids game". I hope that the vast majority of true simulation enthusiasts like myself will support this new platform that offers an free SDK and does not cost 500 $ like Prepar3d.

With the announcement of Flight! there seems to be a plethora of opinions and topics on the matter.I don't know why we are comparing apples to apples throughout these debates.X-Plane vs. FSX yada yada - all plauged with there own issues.The reality is here we are still talking about simulators built on legacy coding and structures the predate our millennium. X-Plane 10 doesn't really build upon anything (I've seen) from X-Plane 7. P3D we know is ESP which is FSX. Maybe not in the strictest of sense but it's still limited by that vintage FS4 methodology. I doubt you'll see a reasonably priced Prepare3D license availible either - not as long as Microsoft continues to market Flight! or any other entertainment/consumer product - no matter what the boys say at the P3D forums. Play with the lighting and shaders all you want, the real challenge is developing a good performing realistic simulator with the capability to interface/model systems efficiently and accurately.Flight! we now learn is built on that same aged-history as well.The only way we've been able to see things like the NGX and other superb third-party addons is through really clever reverse-engineering of things and all sorts of backdoor wizardry when it comes to flight dynamics and systems. It's troublesome, puts heavy demand on hardware, and i'm sure it's a female-dog to get to work.Somebody needs to step up and work from square one. I had hopes with X-Plane 10 like many was pretty disappointed. 25+ years in consumer flight simulation and we still can't really get a PT6 right in the thing.It's a pity that the whole nerdy-flight-sim market we inhabit really is miniscule to the majority of entertainment products out there...and would offer some pretty negligible returns if someone wanted to step up.We hear tidbits from Aerosoft/Microsoft/Laminar/Whoever every couple years only really to be re-hashed the same stuff. I know these developers are limited and by god I'm sure everyone involved in any consumer flight simulation is working there &@($* off. But please, just trash the thing.Yes addon's we have wouldn't work. Yes initial adoption would be ######-poor. Yes, it'll never be as good as FS9 (hahahah :( )...etc...etc.

Thought of sharing this..

See all the four parts of the video..Mind blowing...

See all the four parts of the video..Mind blowing...

:( :(