I'm thinking of getting back into short-haul flying again :( since I don't have too much spare time on my hands to really give the the PMDG 744 a good run. I'm not sure if I should ask, but is it worth it?

Alaister,Be sure you do a search for some of the past Ariane threads. After you filter out the flames from the bystanders who don't own the product, you can probably get most of what you're interested in and comparisons, both good and bad, to PMDG's product. I haven't seen many screenshots of the Ariane product in the screenshots forum, but I believe Staffan and/or Jeroen (jwenting) may have the product, and you may want to send either or both a PM seeing if they can post some screenshots for you.I don't have either product, but if I were shopping for a 737, unless I saw several enthusiastic posts saying the Ariane product was twice as good as PMDG's, I suspect I'd go with PMDG's product for value per dollar spent. I don't know if any product gets the cockpit perfect, so ultimately the decision may have to be yours and yours alone vs. what your gut instincts tell you.-John

Thanks for your quick response. I own the PMDG 737's, unfortunately I didn't install on my laptop and i've left my back-up disk in the UK :-( I just don't know what to believe of Ariane, there are so many 'this and that' threads.Cheers

Do a search under my screen handle. I just posted a series of screenshots of what the Ariane cockpit REALLY looks like on your computer screen.ricardo

I haven't seen many screenshots of the Ariane>product in the screenshots forum, but I believe Staffan and/or>Jeroen (jwenting) may have the product, and you may want to>send either or both a PM seeing if they can post some>screenshots for you.Hi,I will purchase both the 600 V2 and the new 800 V2.5 as soon as I have got everything inorder after my second dreadful HD crash, which wiped out just about everything FS related. :-mad :-erksGuess I will post some screens as soon as FS is up and running again. ;-)http://www.scandicair.com/images/sa_banner.gifI :-erks on DELL,...And that is an understatement. :-hahMy specs are:Dell Dimension 4600 P4/2.8 at 3.0 Ghz1024 Mb DDR333 Dual channel memory (2x256,1x512)256 Mb ATI Radeon X850 Pro ViVo, flashed to a X850 XT PE. Catalyst 5.9ATITool V0.24DirectX 9.0cW XP Home with SP1E171FPb Flat panel monitor 17"370Gb HD (120 GB Maxtor, 250GB Samsung) 7200rpm ATA Lacie 250Gb Extern HD

For the record, I own the 700 VCe version, so you can also take my advice in those Ariane threads into consideration as well.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but what makes the Ariane 737 worth almost $100? I have the PMDG version, and it's great for less than half the price.

"I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but what makes the Ariane 737 worth almost $100?"I think thats what Alaister came to find out by opening this thread, and hopefully he can without anyone stepping on anybody's toes.-John

I use the 2D PMDG 737NG panel mostly. I did purchase the 600/700 and 800/900 as packaged by Aerosoft on CD with printed manuals, and a small service pack from their site. The reason I have both suites is that the 800/900 implements more features into the 600/700 (like TCAS).I have been very pleased with the flight model and panel operations using Mike Ray's 700 PC sim book (www.wutem.com) which compares these 700 type sims to real world ops as a guide.Search under my handle and you'll find a few responses regarding this.If you are only to get one of these variants, go with the 800/900 CD package and also I recommend the CDs to avoid download headaches (based on another thread here). The 800 is extremely popular real world for medium to "stretched medium" haul legs such as US west coast to Hawaii.

Yup, I have the BBJ and overall I'm quite pleased with it.Sadly my machine isn't quite up to running it at the kind of performance I'd like to see but then it's a rather old machine and I knew it would get slow when I bought it (mainly to see what the fuss and flames were all about, I'm still wondering today).Comparing with PMDG, I'd say Ariane wins on visuals easily.Cockpit implementation for both is good, but Ariane wins there too albeit by a smaller margin.If you like your navdata up to date at all times PMDG wins, as Ariane doesn't have at this time an open format that is updated regularly (mind that neither is complete, and PMDG don't deliver their own updates rather referring you to a third party for them).As to FDEs, I'm no 737 pilot in reality but both seem pretty smooth. If anything I'd call the PMDG a bit too smooth in places. With the Ariane you really get the shakes and stuff you get in the real one in rough weather and during takeoff and landing far more realistically than with PMDG.None of these points would for me make me sway one way or the other, combined I'd choose the Ariane if I had a computer powerful enough to run it smoothly.That I guess means something at over 3GHz with at least 1GB of RAM and preferably a 256MB videocard.The main culprit in that is the lack of a 2D panel in the Ariane model (though the higher polygon count for the aircraft overall doesn't help to make it perform nicely), when flying the PMDG 737 in virtual cockpit I get poor performance as well.Neither product is perfect, neither company is perfect.But both products are very good indeed and I've not had problems with either company or their support systems.

The immersion factor is far better with the Ariane bird.Nothing to really put your finger on but there's a lot of small details that together make this thing worth the investment.Different engine ratings for each operator depending on the REAL engine ratings they purchased for example, combined with the correct cockpit layout and instrumentation for all of them (so you jump into a KLM aircraft and you get different MFD layout and engine power than you would in a RAM or THY aircraft as appropriate, for example).With Ariane you get several different -800s (for example) in a single package, not just different paintjobs for the same aircraft (which is the way every other addon group works).So if there's 5 liveries you get 5 models, 5 panels, 5 FDEs.With PMDG you get 2 aircraft (4 if you count the winglets which from what I've seen in their product seem purely cosmetic in their implementation though I may be wrong) for $50.Is that worth it to you? Only you can decide.If you only ever fly a single livery, it may not be worth it to get it implemented to the level of accuracy provided rather than some generic average of all 737s of that model. Again, only the buyer can decide.I can say that if my machine were up to running it smoothly and I didn't have the PMDG bird already I'd not hessitate to buy it were I interested in flying 737NGs (which I am though not as much as a year ago, I'm flying more classics right now).For both groups I can only say they have excellent products and good (though sometimes a tad slow, in no small part due to time zones and business hours causing delays) and professional support.