P3DV4 or XP11?

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I was forced to replace my old desktop with a new one.  My new rig is from MSI, 3.6 GHZ, 8 GB ram, 1060 GTX GPU.

I ran the Valley Benchmark and received 70 fps, almost triple the fps from my old system.

I'd like to know which sim to get?  I am leaning towards XP-11 now but P3dV4 is also of interest.  One thing I did not like about Xp was the user interface.  I prefer FSX style keyboard commands, old habit I guess.  But XP11 looks nice graphically, a little more realistic than FSX.

Any thoughts about these sims?  FSW looks to gamey to me, no third party support, too early in its development.

Simming is my main computer hobby.  I would also consider FSX steam but P3D seems better.

 

Also, if I go P3D, what license should I buy?

 

John

 

[Captain Kevin 586]

Are you going to be sticking with default stuff or are you planning on getting add-ons. If so, what add-ons would you want. I have no experience with X-Plane, so I couldn't help you there, but for me personally, I wouldn't want to get it as I primarily fly the PMDG Boeing 747-400, so for me, P3D V4 is a no-brainer.

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

37 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

 

Also, if I go P3D, what license should I buy?

 

John

 

John,

Licensing questions are against the Avsim TOS. Read the license options on the P3D website and pick the one that applies to your situation. We can discuss it further than that on Avsim.

Aside from that, while I like the look of XP11, I'd go to P3D mainly due to the payware addon market having more choices, namely the PMDG planes since that's what I fly primarly. Plus XP11 is still lacking the seasons and AI isn't quite up to P3D standards yet.

Better yet, try both. XP11 has a demo and P3D offers a refund once you purchase it.

[Paraffin 2,197]

How much would it stretch your budget to fly both sims, each for their own advantages? It may not be that big a financial hit, because X-Plane is relatively inexpensive unless you add a bunch of payware planes. There is no need for major expense in scenery since so much is available free, and you can make your own orthophoto scenery if desired. Keep X11 fairly slimmed down with just a few payware planes you might be interested in, and you can spend most of your budget on building up P3D to the point you want it.

Aside from that, I think the conventional wisdom is that P3D is currently favored if you mostly fly airliners (due to PMDG planes and currently better ATC options).

X-Plane has some advantages with the aforementioned scenery options (aside from seasons... grrrr). It has many great payware planes available (and a few great free ones), and is especially good at modeling helicopters. I fly XP11 exclusively myself, because I have no interest in modern airliners, and as a sim bush pilot I don't need much (or any) ATC interaction. Otherwise I might fly both sims.

Note: if you do decide to pick up X-Plane, you currently have just the minimum spec for system RAM at 8 GB. You'll probably want more RAM to take full advantage of the sim. You can try the free demo to see how it runs on your system.

[Guest]

I have flown P3D, XP11 and Aerofly FS 2 and currently I am back to P3D v4 as my main sim. I do keep Aerofly FS 2 for some quick VR fixes. XP isn't installed right now. The choice does indeed depend on what you want to do with the sim and if you are planning on getting addons for it. One of the reasons I went back to P3D is that I have quite a few quality addons for it already, like A2A planes and AS and Orbx scenery from my v2 and v3 days, and I do think there simply are more interesting addons to get for P3D than for XP.

I can't really say which sim is the best: I've been a one-sim-man for decades and only last week I changed religion and became someone who simply uses the sim that offers what he wants at any given time. The fact that XP isn't installed is simply because I didn't come around to installing it since the last time I reinstalled Windows. I have to add though that I flew XP only for a short time. The lighting can be totally awesome (at night) but the amount of payware planes and scenery and other addons (weather) leaves to be desired. Right now I fly my A2A GA because the airliner I want for v4 aren't compatible yet but I really missed those planes: I bought one plane for XP but it didn't come close to A2A imho.

Concerning XP looking more realistic than FSX: I found XP to look a bit too computerized. It has lots of awesome details though when flying low but somehow it looked to clean. One of my biggest problems with XP was that a lot, if not most, airports were completely empty out of the box. It is great so much freeware is available for it but it takes a lot of time and effort to get things looking a bit better. Everytime I wanted to fly to a new destination I had to check if it had any scenery or not. Didn't like that.

Aerofly FS 2 is nice for quick flights: it is getting better and better (and it's the best for VR) but too much is lacking, really. The fact that I bought and installed P3D v4 was due to IPACS posting they wouldn't be working on a weather engine for the time being which is what imho should have been a priority. It has some GREAT default planes but well... too much is lacking in other departments and progress is extremely slow.

Right now P3D v4 imho offers the most complete experience which is why it is my main sim at the moment. Nothing beats flying the A2A Cherokee through real time or historic AS weather above FTX Norway! In the end it's all very personal, of course.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Thanks Jeroen

The licensing is confusing.  I am a retiree and I don't seem to fall into any of their brackets other than I am an undergraduate.

John

[captain420 3,099]

Definitely P3D v4, The only nice thing about XP11 is the night lighting and orthoscenery, but other than that, its lacking. If you want a full fledge flight sim with all the bells and whistles, I would definitely invest in P3D.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I bought P3D Pro, I fit into that license.  I am downloading it now, it will take about an hour.  It is too bad I lost my photoreal scenery but I might buy some of the photoreal add-ons.  I would only buy two aircraft, the Mirage and the Cardinal, possibly the Citation depending on my fps.  Since these sims are cpu bound I should see good performance.  My old comp clocked in at 2.3 GHZ, the new one clocks at 3.6 GHZ.

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I will at least download my Colorado scenery from Avsim, LOL

[AviatorMan 253]

I think P3Dv4 is great, and think you have made the right choice. Since I mostly fly GA at lower altitudes, I don't think any of the main sims have decent default scenery. Would recommend as a minimum that you get Orbx Global. 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I want to get Megascenery for the photoreal coverage.  That makes the sim so immersive.  I won't rebuy all my add-ons.  Three AC come to mind, the Carenado Mirage, Maybe their Premier One, and the Alebeo Cardinal.

John

[Murmur 3,941]

Hi Cactus,

please don't believe those who say that "the only nice thing about XP11 is the night lighting and orthoscenery", it actually has a lot more than that.

In general terms, it depends on the type of flying that you do. For airliners operations, P3D has an advantage for various reasons, among them better ATC and AI. But there are many people who regularly fly airliner ops in XP without issues.

For GA flying, the playing field is more leveled between the two for various reasons. You'll find P3D is better for some things, and XP for others.

One difference is that XP has a lot more freeware available. In other words, it can be significantly expanded and improved using only (or almost only freeware). So if money is a significant factor, that's one thing to think about.

If you're interested in photoscenery, adding photoscenery in XP for every part of the world you like is just clicks away. It can also be easily integrated with 3D buildings from OpenStreetMap.

The rendering engine of X-Plane has some differences compared to P3D. In my opinion, it's much better not only at night, but also during daylight. One difference is that in X-Plane you _can't_ have blurries. Stutters reports are also much rarer in XP.

Its aircrafts feature a realistic GPS 430/530 as default. A realistic G1000 is also expected in the near future.

Some limitations of XP:

.no seasons

.rain and snow depiction is very poor

.sometimes water has repeating patterns visible

.crosswind operations are unrealistically difficult for most aircrafts.

Should you be curious to try X-Plane in the future, you can download the demo at www.x-plane.com. You can even install most addons in the demo (except for scenery outside of Seattle area).

Keep in mind that there is a big optimization work going on behind the scenes for the next year or so, so X-Plane performance (in terms of fps and smoothness) is going to improve during the following releases in the next months.So, should you be dissatisfied with the performance of your simulator of choice at any given time, this is another thing to consider in trying X-Plane.

Have nice flights!

 

 

[Murmur 3,941]

1 hour ago, Cactus521 said:

I want to get Megascenery for the photoreal coverage.  That makes the sim so immersive.  I won't rebuy all my add-ons.  Three AC come to mind, the Carenado Mirage, Maybe their Premier One, and the Alebeo Cardinal.

Photoscenery + GA is a perfect combination for X-Plane. This is default X-Plane with photoscenery added using the freeware tool Ortho4XP (plus a plugin similar to Reshade to enhance colors):

http://i.imgur.com/CrUexN0.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

So far so good with P3DV4.  I am flying thru the Bay Area in the Mooney Acclaim.  Performance is very good, no stutters, sharp scenery, very smooth feel to the sim, it's like FSX on steroids.  Since it's made off of FSX it feels like "home" to me.

[VeryBumpy 272]

25 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

So far so good with P3DV4. .... it's like FSX on steroids.

For the price you pay, at the very least, I certainly hope so. I'm surprised price did not weigh more heavily on your choice. Of course, you still have the return option yet, so your choice may not be final.