I have been an avid simmer since 1995 at least.. all within the Microsoft world from FS95' FS98', FS2000', FS2002, FS2004, FSX Acceleration... Alot of time and $ invested. I am looking at the new sims out there, P3d, Xplane 11, Ifly, etc... I simply don't know which direction to take moving forward. I cannot make up my mind and was hoping in the forum I could get some help and suggestions from fellow simmers that have taken the plunge one way or the other.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Clay Collins

claycollins1atgmaildotcom

Edited April 7, 20188 yr by Jim Young
Edited e-mail address. Members should use PM's to communicate between members. There are actually evil people who have equipment to skim every email on a site and then send spam.

 Welcome to AVSIM!  My first thought would be a new Sim that would be able to use your payware addons.  Good luck with that.

Could you please remove your email address from your first post?  That will help prvent you from being spammed.

 

I own all of them so it is easy for me to figure out which one is best for me.  X-Plane is very difficult for me and I have problems configuring so, even though I owned it since the first day or release, I have not gotten past all of the configuration screens.  I did get to fly the tutorial with my mouse and kept going in circles so shut it down.  FSX and P3D I can install, start up and start flying w/o much more configuring.  Why someone developed a simulator that requires one to configure completely first before even thinking about flying is beyond me.  You would think they would have the technology to look at your system and configure it based on what you have installed as hardware like FSX (which was developed in 2006).  So, if you need a choice right now from me, I would recommend P3dV4 (not V3 and below) and FSX/Acceleration second.

As a suggestion, I would go to our Video and Screenshot Forum and check out the videos and screenshots produced by our members.  You can also go to the respective forum for each simulator and start reading the various comments from each member.

3 hours ago, Jim Young said:

X-Plane is very difficult for me and I have problems configuring so, even though I owned it since the first day or release, I have not gotten past all of the configuration screens.

I've owned all of the MS sims since FS95. Currently I just have Prepar3d V2.4 and X-plane 11 on my PC. Personally, I find X-plane 11 easy to configure, although I never really had much trouble with previous versions either. X-plane 11 has a brand new UI with far less settings to contend with. While I still use Prepar3d because of the many great addons I have for it, X-plane has, by far, become my sim of choice.  I believe LM still offer a full refund period on Prepar3d so you can give it a try with no risk and X-plane has a free trial for the Seattle area that you can play around with. It is a bit difficult to get a full impression of what X-plane is capable of, just using the demo as there are so many ways to enhance it, most of them free. I'd definitely recommend spending some time trying out both, as you have nothing to loose.

7 hours ago, Jim Young said:

I own all of them so it is easy for me to figure out which one is best for me.  X-Plane is very difficult for me and I have problems configuring so, even though I owned it since the first day or release, I have not gotten past all of the configuration screens.  I did get to fly the tutorial with my mouse and kept going in circles so shut it down.  FSX and P3D I can install, start up and start flying w/o much more configuring. 

I really don’t understand how this can be the case, especially for someone who runs a flight simulation forum and is obviously quite experienced in configuring and troubleshooting sims. 

In XP11 you basically need to configure your inputs to start flying, something that is expected and quite easy to do with a visual representation of your joystick, a very helpful feature that P3D does not offer.

In general, XP11 is much easier to configure and maintain and something like setting a different control scheme for different aircrafts is possible out of the box, without having to buy external plugins like FSUIPC.

The only explanation that I can find for this is that you are so happy with P3D (or so used to the “perks” of the FSX/ESP platform) that you are not ready to invest some minutes, if not seconds, to bind your hardware controls...

To the OP, I would recommend XP11. There is a growing trend in adoption of this simulator in all aviation communities that I follow for a reason. It is much, much more satisfying to fly an airplane in XP, the graphics are better, there is a plethora of quality freeware available and most high-end developers like Orbx and FlyTampa are already supporting the platform. 

The only reason that I still keep P3D is due to the heavy jets (aka PMDG 777 and 747). With the Zibo 737, I have not touched the NGX for months. Same for the FFA320 in comparison with the FSLabs. In fact, from about 10 hours spent in XP, I use P3D for 1, even though I have thousands of euros invested in the platform. 

Do some research, watch some videos on YouTube. Check the Flightsim community on Reddit. The choice should be more or less clear...

Edited April 8, 20188 yr by GCBraun

51 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

I really don’t understand how this can be the case, especially for someone who runs a flight simulation forum and is obviously quite experienced in configuring and troubleshooting sims.

Not me either, I was setting up my controller in no time.. I also have them all, and belive me,MS and P3d sims had cost me10x more time to setup to get running smooth than I have used on X-plane.
I find that comment from Jim strange actually... 

As a "new"simmer I also will recommend you to go for  X-plane.. Lots of free stuff and lots of fun.. :-)

 

Edited April 8, 20188 yr by Olmba