Again like my recent FSX vs FSW Piper Cub comparison vid, this is not the most scientific of comparisons either, since one is in early access and the other one is a released product, but kind of fun to check out anyway.

So... Here is a video of P3D V4 Academic Version (and yup, I do own a training school where I teach people on software, so I am legit as far as that EULA goes in having the Academic version lol) and FSW Early Access (with the third update). Both show a quick flight from EGCC to EGCD in the Virtavia UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter (the one in FSW is my payware version, the one in P3D is a default aircraft which comes with the sim). Both sims are on broadly similar settings (mostly with the sliders around the 20 percent mark). In both cases, they have an operational EGCD airport (the real one closed down six years ago, so both have a database which could do with updating). The weather setting is the same default setting for both sim flights (Fair Weather preset). Both sims were getting more or less the same frame rate of around 30-50 fps.

Notice that the extremely bright lighting in FSW makes the chopper's rotor blades all but invisible, but they are there in the sim, just very pale, also notice that the default FSW terrain, buildings and airports are a bit nicer than the default P3D ones, as you'd expect, since there is a bit of third party stuff going on in the default FSW. Neither sim has those buildings right though, the buildings near Manchester airport are nothing like that at all, not even close.

Also notice my crap helicopter flying lol, I am no chopper pilot, I've had a go at the controls of a real Bell JetRanger once, and I was rubbish at it, but as far as both sims go, choppers fly exactly the same.

 

Aren't you putting your thumb on the scale?  You write, "notice that the default FSW terrain, buildings and airports are a bit nicer than the default P3D ones, as you'd expect, since there is a bit of third party stuff going on in the default FSW"-- but "that third part stuff" IS default FSW.  In short, vanilla FSW is better looking than vanilla P3D and without the paranoia-inducing EULA.

You've probably already checked out the screenshot thread over at Flightsimworld where there's a whole lot of very good looking shots of default FSW. 

 

Tim

Not really, I was just pointing out that there is some stuff in both sims which is not done by the regular in house developers, i.e, you will note that I also point out the Virtavia UH-60 is default in P3D but not default for other sims including FSW, so that would be the same with regard to any add-on scenery for P3D if you put Orbx scenery in P3D which of course you could. Now, you could argue that if this is the case, why have I put a payware chopper in FSW, but it seemed to me that it would be the easiest way to compare the sims directly, by using the exact same aircraft in both sims with everything else on default. And as noted, I did point out that it was not intended to be a particularly scientific comparison, just an interesting one.

It's worth pointing out too that the default FSW (at present) is not really 'better looking than the vanilla P3D' in many regards which don't crop up in my video, for example, there are no cloud shadows in FSW (at least not yet anyway, nor is there as fancy dynamic lighting or anything like that, though this too may show up). What is interesting, is that performance is not too dissimilar for both sims, and this is on the current EA FSW version (third update) which people have been saying is not as good on frame rates as it had been, presumably as a result of not being optimised yet, so that is actually a good sign for FSW in the future. In any case, when it comes right down to it, they are both tweaked up 64 bit versions of ESP, so really, how truly different could they end up being from one another? I guess we'll see.

24 minutes ago, Chock said:

Not really, I was just pointing out that there is some stuff in both sims which is not done by the regular in house developers, i.e, you will note that I also point out the Virtavia UH-60 is default in P3D but not default for other sims including FSW, so that would be the same with regard to any add-on scenery for P3D if you put Orbx scenery in P3D which of course you could. Now, you could argue that if this is the case, why have I put a payware chopper in FSW, but it seemed to me that it would be the easiest way to compare the sims directly, by using the exact same aircraft in both sims with everything else on default. And as noted, I did point out that it was not intended to be a particularly scientific comparison, just an interesting one.

It's worth pointing out too that the default FSW (at present) is not really 'better looking than the vanilla P3D' in many regards which don't crop up in my video, for example, there are no cloud shadows in FSW (at least not yet anyway, nor is there as fancy dynamic lighting or anything like that, though this too may show up). What is interesting, is that performance is not too dissimilar for both sims, and this is on the current EA FSW version (third update) which people have been saying is not as good on frame rates as it had been, presumably as a result of not being optimised yet, so that is actually a good sign for FSW in the future. In any case, when it comes right down to it, they are both tweaked up 64 bit versions of ESP, so really, how truly different could they end up being from one another? I guess we'll see.

I agree with a good example is the window rain effect in FSW they nailed it, LM didn't listen to the simmers  .

Never quite sure why everyone is obsessed with a rain on the windows effect in flight sims, and that's especially the case in FSW, where most of the aeroplanes are prop singles. Prop singles gnerally don't even need wipers because the prop backwash blasts almost all the water off the windshield. Sure it is nice to have the effect, but I'd prefer them to develop an icing on the windows effect, because that actually has a bearing on flight operations and is a useful visual clue in real life, whereas most prop and jet aeroplanes are not adversely affected too much by rain, unless it is really very heavy indeed. Rain is only really an operational issue with gliders in my experience, where having wet wings can be a bit detrimental to lift, so I always wipe the wings and tailplane down on a glider before taking off if it has been rained on, and I will sometimes do a high speed dive to get it off the wings if I've flown a glider through some rainfall.

My biggest take away is both are lacking stock in the visuals department (which is well known).  The biggest question to me is not how similar they are out of box, but what can you achieve with the available quality addons?  After all, I look at flight simming like a train set or lego set meant to be expanded.

Compare the best of what FSW has to offer versus P3D and you are talking two different experiences completely....

I own both, I like both, but FSW can't touch what my P3Dv4 install is capable of in aircraft quality, visuals, or scenery unfortunately.  Maybe in a few years, but not even a race at this point unfortunately imho.

That's true in terms of the included default aircraft and a few add on aeroplanes, but really, there actually are not that many P3D V4 compatible payware aeroplanes available at the moment. You can see that by the fact that quite a lot of people are buying the Virtualcol CRJ for P3D V4, and whilst I quite like Virtualcol add ons, I wouldn't say they are normally that hugely popular with many simmers of the kind who would buy P3D V4.

But when your parked and not moving the rain should be on the windshield.

When playing this video click on the full screen icon.

 

3 hours ago, hypercide said:

Aren't you putting your thumb on the scale?  You write, "notice that the default FSW terrain, buildings and airports are a bit nicer than the default P3D ones, as you'd expect, since there is a bit of third party stuff going on in the default FSW"-- but "that third part stuff" IS default FSW.  In short, vanilla FSW is better looking than vanilla P3D and without the paranoia-inducing EULA.

You've probably already checked out the screenshot thread over at Flightsimworld where there's a whole lot of very good looking shots of default FSW. 

 

Tim

It's got better ground textures coloring out of the box, yes. Better looking? Meh. FSW's more limited autogen radius, blurry LOD ring, weird atmospherics, lack of expansive shadowing, low resolution textures, etc. all still leave a ton to be desired from the base engine graphically. The blurry, low resolution of the ground textures in both sims really kills them visually in this test.

Rain on the windshield

Is that something FSW does on its own and will happen with every plane? or is it something a third party dev will have to add to their planes?

9 minutes ago, laserit said:

Rain on the windshield

Is that something FSW does on its own and will happen with every plane? or is it something a third party dev will have to add to their planes?

I think they confirmed it's model specific after most initially thought it was a global feature. But I could be wrong.

The rain effect is available in FSW, but the aircraft developer has to write that effect into his model code for it appear in the sim.

2 minutes ago, A32xx said:

The rain effect is available in FSW, but the aircraft developer has to write that effect into his model code for it appear in the sim.

So, in principle, like P3D v4...

4 hours ago, nthabti79 said:

So, in principle, like P3D v4...

Yes. Except no one has activated it in P3D v4 yet to my knowledge after discovering it.

In previous versions, I think developers had to code the rain from scratch. In FSW and P3D v4, it's in the base sim but still has to be added and worked to each model.

15 hours ago, Chock said:

 

Notice that the extremely bright lighting in FSW makes the chopper's rotor blades all but invisible,

Chock - are you serious here?  Do you think the appearance of one addons (not made for FSW) blades equates to "the sim is too bright"?  Do you think the addon might need an update?