BEFORE YOU THROW AWAY A DECADE OF SIMMING

[WingZ 547]

My current distraction, AFS2, is looking pretty good.
How good? I wondered, so I put it up against my beloved FS2004 at LOWI.
On the one hand, a state of the art 64 bit sim, on the other, a bit of software just about older than some flightsimmers.

Then on the other hand, a sim at the beginning of its development, vs a truly mature sim built up over many years of tweaking.

Mmm... in each case the AFS2 pic is on top.

 

[Joseph29 225]

Nice comparison shots. FS9 looks just as good as AFS2.

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

Yeah - I was a late leaver of FS9 - I completely skipped that whole FSX thing moving directly to P3Dv3 - and - really - the biggest draw for me was strictly the abundance of improved GA airports... P3D has more "improved" decent quality GA airports than I can ever expect to visit - literally hundreds - and in FS9 the picken's were pretty slim... Moving to Win10 had much to do with it as well as many of my FS9 installers stopped working... Had plenty of good use and enjoyment out of FS9 which certainly withstood the test of time for me... Sadly I had to leave some old friends behind as they were never ported... Nice comparison and you do it justice - now if only A2A would make a BEECHCRAFT !!!

 

Regards,

Scott

[zmak 331]

All these years and still no wow moment in the new sims. 

Well no ooms is a silent wow cause you can't  see it. 

[flyforever 267]

If one thinks about it, the new sims have only fixed the memory limit.

tony

[TurboTomato 90]

Not sure I agree that they look the same, I think the scenery looks vastly better in AFS2 when you start to look at the detail.

[dal330200 216]

Nice pics, and I'm contemplating the same question you are.  AFS2 looks fantastic, but for me, P3D is the most complete sim.  However, I'm not at all impressed with v4 compared to x-plane 11.  However, x-plane 11 lacks a lot of things that are found in p3d v4.  So now we seem to have 3 incomplete sims on the market...I guess I'll stick with v3 until more goodies show up.  If AFS2 would one day have real weather, traffic and commercial tubeliners, I'd make the switch in a heartbeat.  If x-plane would have decent aircraft sounds and a better weather engine, I'd head over there.  But, for lack of any better options, I'll stay where I'm at.

Happy Flying,

John

[dal330200 216]

1 hour ago, Venturi said:

All these years and still no wow moment in the new sims. 

Well no ooms is a silent wow cause you can't  see it. 

Yeah, not having ooms is lovely, but I never had them in v3 as I managed the sliders just right.  What surprises me in v4 is that if the sliders are pretty much in the same place, performance is terrible.  Granted, there's a lot more eye-candy, but I expected more, especially when compared with what X-plane can offer.  I wish there was a way to combine all three into one super-sim:-)

John

[bonchie 2,305]

2 hours ago, Joseph29 said:

Nice comparison shots. FS9 looks just as good as AFS2.

It's not even close.

AFS2 dwarfs FS9 in texture resolution (especially on the ground) and lighting + atmospherics.

Anyone that can look at comparisons #5/#6 and say that FS9 is just as good has gone sub-consciously blind to the deficiencies.

[swiesma 625]

AF2 und XP might look good... It still lacks a lot P3D / FSX have to offer and that's a pity.

 

Like it was said: they should combine those into one super simulator - that would be great .-)

[bonchie 2,305]

30 minutes ago, dal330200 said:

Nice pics, and I'm contemplating the same question you are.  AFS2 looks fantastic, but for me, P3D is the most complete sim.  However, I'm not at all impressed with v4 compared to x-plane 11.  However, x-plane 11 lacks a lot of things that are found in p3d v4.  So now we seem to have 3 incomplete sims on the market...I guess I'll stick with v3 until more goodies show up.  If AFS2 would one day have real weather, traffic and commercial tubeliners, I'd make the switch in a heartbeat.  If x-plane would have decent aircraft sounds and a better weather engine, I'd head over there.  But, for lack of any better options, I'll stay where I'm at.

Happy Flying,

John

We aren't that far off. P3Dv4 really helped themselves by upping the texture resolution limit for the ground and greatly increasing the LOD/Autogen radius. Developers will be able to make great use of that in the future. To me, those were the too biggest graphical deficiencies in v3.

And in regards to XP11, it's doesn't lack that much anymore. Seasonal textures, AI, and ATC are the big three areas it needs improvement. They are working on the ATC (including VFR flight), there's a major AI package on the way from a 3rd party, and maybe one day next decade we'll get seasonal textures lol. Active Sky has also announced a weather engine in the next 6 months to compete with Xenviro. Despite that though, you can load up a very high quality plane, fly over Ortho4XP + W2XP + overlays, and do a complete flight that results in one of the most realistic experiences you can have in a simulator.

I wish I could teleport to a year from now. The offerings for all the major sims are going to be pretty impressive.

I think AF2 will always be niche though because of how it's base scenery engine relies on photoreal and handplaced autogen. But it sure is pretty if you've got a good area to fly in. If Orbx starts releasing entire regions for that sim, it could become a good GA platform (assuming the developers improve the fidelity of the systems modeling). That's again questionable though because it'd require massive sizes of photoreal that probably aren't viable. 95% of an Orbx region is landclass based.

[HLJames 2,568]

Great looking screenshots of both sims.....love the Beechcraft Baron!

HLJAMES

[bthiago 8]

Looks great, but my only concern is that show too foggy or too transparent on picture. Does really show in the sim like that?

[dal330200 216]

3 hours ago, bonchie said:

We aren't that far off. P3Dv4 really helped themselves by upping the texture resolution limit for the ground and greatly increasing the LOD/Autogen radius. Developers will be able to make great use of that in the future. To me, those were the too biggest graphical deficiencies in v3.

And in regards to XP11, it's doesn't lack that much anymore. Seasonal textures, AI, and ATC are the big three areas it needs improvement. They are working on the ATC (including VFR flight), there's a major AI package on the way from a 3rd party, and maybe one day next decade we'll get seasonal textures lol. Active Sky has also announced a weather engine in the next 6 months to compete with Xenviro. Despite that though, you can load up a very high quality plane, fly over Ortho4XP + W2XP + overlays, and do a complete flight that results in one of the most realistic experiences you can have in a simulator.

I wish I could teleport to a year from now. The offerings for all the major sims are going to be pretty impressive.

I think AF2 will always be niche though because of how it's base scenery engine relies on photoreal and handplaced autogen. But it sure is pretty if you've got a good area to fly in. If Orbx starts releasing entire regions for that sim, it could become a good GA platform (assuming the developers improve the fidelity of the systems modeling). That's again questionable though because it'd require massive sizes of photoreal that probably aren't viable. 95% of an Orbx region is landclass based.

Yeah, I agree that being able to teleport a year into the future would make this transition a lot easier.  At the moment, I keep switching between v3 and v4, mainly because most of my favorite addons are not ready for v4 yet, and some of them keep getting pushed back and back and back.  My guess is that it will be 6 months to a year before each platform fills in their respective gaps as developers continue to deal with reality vs what was wishful thinking.  In any case, this is a great time to be simming as we have 3 platforms that have enormous promise, and each fills a particular niche. 

John

 

[Clutch Cargo 384]

FS9 holds up quite well.  The biggest difference I noticed right off was the lighting on P3D.