For those of you who are not totally into flying cattle cars.................like me, X-Plane is without doubt, the best when it comes to depicting rough terrain, such as mountainous areas.  Scenery is half the sim in my mind. I live and flew around mountains most of my life. XP just does certain items better. Unlike the title of the thread, I never moved to X-Plane. I use both.  If you don't you miss out. 

I also don't understand why it is considered "bashing" when someone expresses what he doesn't like about the one or the other sim.

 

Each sim has its pros and cons.

X Plane for me personally lacks (like for Erich) good modern airliners. I am interested in simulating real world, as it is now, aviation. And if I take a look at my homebase EDDM I cannot find a 737 classic or a DC-6 there. Sorry :-) There are Airbuses from 19 to 21, 350, 380, Boeing 737 NGX, 747, 777,787, Bombardier E-Jets...

Then the absence of good weather depiction - in my eyes one of the must have things for a flight sim. Especially with ASN and now AS16 in mind.

 

I really want to like X Plane. I like the graphics, especially the night flights... But there are so many small things in P3D which you can get - I would just miss them in X Plane.

 

So I do not switch to X Plane because I am a hater or however kiddies call it nowadays... I just don't see that it is ready for MY needs.

For those who have other needs and demands: Have fun with it.

 

Simple as that :-)

 

Give me the X Plane engine with AS16, PMDG 777, FSLabs A320... here we go!

Give me the X Plane engine with AS16, PMDG 777, FSLabs A320... here we go!

 

Is that all you need?  That's it??

Is that all you need?  That's it??

 

Yes. The rest of X plane seems ok to me like sceneries etc.

Well I would need FS2Crew and stuff for the aircraft too ;-)

 

I cannot really see what you are laughing at?! 

Give me the X Plane engine with AS16, PMDG 777, FSLabs A320... here we go!

You're a cheap date. I'm much more demanding.

 

Kidding aside, that's a good start

I need my GTN 750/650 as well, can't fly without them.

Yes. The rest of X plane seems ok to me like sceneries etc.

Well I would need FS2Crew and stuff for the aircraft too ;-)

 

I cannot really see what you are laughing at?! 

 

I think what he is getting at, is that this discussion is ongoing for as long as x-plane is existing. And it is always been "give me that and I switch" attitude. The line has been constantly moving though. Once a feature is in x-plane, you see new threads "but now this is still missing, add it and we switch"  I know this is not you, but this is something that you see here so often.

 

This is the thing people need to understand: X-plane never tries to be FSX/P3D or make it as similar as possible so everybody will switch. E.g. for me FSX UI is completly unlogical because I am used to x-plane. I can't understand why you need to buy ezdock to do so simple things with the camera. Yet everybody that has never used x-plane always comes around and says "this is all wrong it needs to be this way to be correct" Its all a matter of perspective.

 

All i am getting at is, if you come into x-plane with the mindset of it to become your P3D/FSX, you will never be happy with it.  It is not P3D/FSX nor does it aim it to be. You have to be willing to learn something new and not be as static and stubborn as the 10 year old code of FSX Are there problems? Yes  Are there things missing? Yes  Are there things that are superior to FSX/P3D ? yes.

 

At the end of the day, it is 30$ for x-plane on steam sale and that is all the budget you need to get started (ok maybe another 30$ for a good GA e.g and some free HD space).  Start with it like you start with a complete new game and learn its quirks and get used to it. Then you will realize that it has a place alongside P3D/FSX or vice versa.  Noone can tell me that they are heavily invested into P3D and can not shell out 30$ for x-plane  (that is nowadays only 50% of a crappy carrenado plane in p3d)

You're a cheap date. I'm much more demanding.

 

Kidding aside, that's a good start

 

:-)

You can satisfy me pretty easily ;-)

 

I really like the graphical engine of X plane and I would LOVE to fly a high quality modern airliner with nice weather and nice airports there - but at the moment this is not possible.

 

All i am getting at is, if you come into x-plane with the mindset of it to become your p3d/FSX, you will never be happy with it.  It is not P3D/FSX and it does not aim for it to be. You have to be willing to learn something new and not be as static and stubborn as the 10 year old code of FSX Are there problems? Yes  Are there things missing? Yes  Are there things that are superior to FSX/P3D ? yes.

 

 

I can really understand what you say - but elementary things like good modern airliners... or WEATHER! :-)

 

I am not demanding much - really. But what I can get is not enough for my needs and is at the moment better done by P3D. But I hope this changes in the near future as I am tired of P3D.

Budget is no issue here - I bought a graphics card for 800€ and a monitor for 1200€. Until now my government / minister of finance did not kill me - so I guess the "peanuts" for X Plane should not be the problem.

And if the X-Plane 11 release is similar to how it was with X-Plane 9 and X-Plane 10, it will again be a product that will feel unfinished to the majority of potential new users.

One could also argue that a stock P3D or FSX release feels unfinished. In fact, they are horrible. The difference is, and always has been, the aftermarket participation.

I can really understand what you say - but elementary things like good modern airliners... or WEATHER! :-)

 

I am not demanding much - really. But what I can get is not enough for my needs and is at the moment better done by P3D. But I hope this changes in the near future as I am tired of P3D.

Budget is no issue here - I bought a graphics card for 800€ and a monitor for 1200€. Until now my government / minister of finance did not kill me - so I guess the "peanuts" for X Plane should not be the problem.

But you have to realise something else:  You fly a matured sim

 

FSX was released 2006,  PMDG released the 737 in 2011 afaik?  and 2013 for the T7.  So it was 5 years / 7 years after release of FSX before you could fly those planes. Before that you did not have them.

 

X-Plane 10 was released in 2012  and now we have the 737 in 2016. So we are not so far off.

 

If you realize that FSX has (according to steam) about 10x the userbase of x-plane you only have 5 planes that are considered top notch  PMDG T7, 737, FSLA320, AEROA319/20, q400. (yes leaving GA out)  That is not a spectacular huge list considering you have a market share roughly 10 times bigger.

 

At the end of the day, it boils down to time. Spectacular add-ons come out maybe every 2-3 years on each plattform. If you have 6 years advantage, then you have 2-3 more planes. Quite simple

One could also argue that a stock P3D or FSX release feels unfinished. In fact, they are horrible. The difference is, and always has been, the aftermarket participation.

 

Not as unfinished as X-Plane in the bare basics. You have seasons, working ATC and believable AI that does not just consist of max. 19 aircraft out of the box in FSX. This can influence how potential customers judge X-Plane, and this can influence if more developers will be willing to put more effort in it than currently.

Not as unfinished as X-Plane in the bare basics. You have seasons, working ATC and believable AI that does not just consist of max. 19 aircraft out of the box in FSX. This can influence how potential customers judge X-Plane, and this can influence if more developers will be willing to put more effort in it than currently.

 

Well that's ultimately Austin's choice.   He knows the deal.

 

 

I am not demanding much - really. But what I can get is not enough for my needs and is at the moment better done by P3D. But I hope this changes in the near future as I am tired of P3D.

 

I think (I'm interpreting here) what you're saying is what a lot of people are voicing, "give us a quality alternative to P3D/FSX!". X-Plane's learning curve is probably one of the stumbling blocks when it comes to evaluating it's potential. Many people will never realize how good it really is, because they are not willing to sit down and learn X-Plane.

 

X-Plane is not P3D and anyone expecting it to be will be disappointed. If they were the same, why on earth would there be a need to switch?

 

Choose either or all of them, go flying!

Wow I am late to the party lol

 

I ran FSX DX10 for quite some time and was pretty happy with the results and thus invested a fair amount in payware. I always felt it was on a knife edge and if for whatever reason something catastrophic happened I wouldn't have a clue what I had tweaked or installed to get it back there.

 

Little over a year ago I brought X-Plane and I don't mind saying it it was horrible at first but I persevered and today I have a very nice smooth sim and I run my HDR settings on max with extended DSF at a solid locked 30FPS. I still marvel when I am flying over mountainous scenery such as the Alps or the Rockies. It is simply stunning. Do the same flight in the early morning or late evening and it is incredible. I know ATC & Weather are currently behind the options available for FSX but they are definitely improving very quickly. The payware aircraft are also improving rapidly, I know everyone compares to PMDG products (I owned both the NGX & 777) but I really do not miss them. My main daily driver is the IXEG 737 but I also spend time in the JAR A330 (So many people hate this bird but I do not think it is that bad)  and the FF 767. There are also some great GA options available too.

 

I recently decided to switch to Windows 10 and although I did make an image of my FSX install I now only have X-Plane installed. I am also finding that I have also reduced my overclock from a maxed out 4.7 to 4.2. This has brought lower temps and is rock solid and given that the rendering settings I can run are way higher than I did with FSX I am pretty happy. Did I mention that the platform is also 64 bit lol

 

Oh and one more thing, now I have a setup I am super happy with what happens when things go wrong .... Well I just copy the folders from my backup to a fresh install and bang I am up and running again. Hell I can even have different versions running for testing. No more praying every time I start the sim that nothing has broken and instead of flying I would then spend hours trying to work out what broke. I can even disable plugins on the fly and see immediate results. The way 3rd party plugins are dealt with in X-Plane are very flexible.

 

X-Plane is a evolving product which is improving constantly, the community is just awesome and some of the freeware scenery & aircraft are worthy of being payware.

 

In summary I think a good analogy would be that I now spend way more time flying than I do tweaking. This is important to me as my time spent indulging in my hobby has to be carefully balanced with home life. 

 

For the OP I would stop sitting on the fence and give it a try. You don't need to immediately get rid of your FSX but if you stick with it I think you will be happy.

 

Happy Flying

 

Richard

Many people will never realize how good it really is, because they are not willing to sit down and learn X-Plane.

 

X-Plane is not P3D and anyone expecting it to be will be disappointed. If they were the same, why on earth would there be a need to switch?

Marketing 101 teaches you that the more accessable/user friendly you make a product, the more people will use it. People want to fly virtual aircraft, not fumble their way through a clunky, unintuative interface first.

 

So what you are contextualising is that Austin is saying to his potential userbase: 'Hey simmers, I have the best flightsim on the market! But you'll only be able to get to the good bits once you've figured out the REALLY difficult bits first (which have nothing to do with flying an aircraft at all). And by the way, you may become bored figuring out the difficult bit first, in which case, you lose.

 

You are in fact totally correct. That's precisely the situation. That's exactly why the uptake is so slow and the aftermarket backing so sparse.

 

But I guess, the beginnings of Xplane started with a man who became so fed up with the lacking features in MSFS, that he created a flightsim all by himself.  There is alot to be said for that.