Trying to make the P3D vs XP11 Decision...

[Midcon113 9]

Hi Guys,

Okay first and foremost, I'm sure a lot of you have your opinions on which sim is the "better" of the two, and probably just as many of you probably think both sims have their merits and I should get both. I appreciate both opinions, but that's not really the point of my question. Here's what I want to know - if I buy XP11, what am I going to be missing out on from P3D? In what aspects do you think P3D outshines XP11? I want to compare out-of-the-box experiences here; I have FSX (and every other version of MS FS) and of course a ton of add-ons for FSX (though none of the Orbx scenery), but it seems to me that many of my FSX add-ons will need paid upgrades to make them compatible with P3D v4, so I think if I invest in either product, I'm going to have to start working through add-ons again.

Honestly, I had high hopes for FSW, but that product for better or worse is closed out. I am intrigued by PMDG's "announcement" in the forthcoming FS Expo in June but while the speculation is exciting I hardly expect a new FS platform. I don't know why a small team like that would be interested in jumping into that market and competing with the two other companies that they make products for. Help me through the thought process here - how should I be looking at the two platforms and why should I choose P3D over XP11?

Thanks!

Mark

[YukonPete 580]

Why don't you search the forums or google? This exact question is asked every week!

[Odepane 20]

I have both and enjoy both.  If you are an FSX veteran as per your post, then P3D will be everything you know, just on steroids.  AI, ATC, absolutely flawless addons in scenery, textures, planes, etc.  XP11 has some of the coolest flight dynamics I've ever seen.  Night flying is a real treat.  How about runways that you cant see the end of because of a geographic "hump" in the middle?  Sadly, out of the box, XP11 is you flying in your own little world with an F4 to dodge while taxiing.  Realism and immersion are just starting to get some attention, both from the developer and the addon community, but there is no ATC like you are accustomed to from SFX.  

All sales are final and no refunds with XP11... http://store.x-plane.org/About-Us-_ep_7.html

Seems there is a limited 60 day refund policy with LM for P3D...  https://www.prepar3d.com/support/refundpolicy/

I guess my question is ... Why make it one or the other?  Why not have both?  With both, you will discover over time what you want to invest more time (and money with add-ons) through that learning time.  To me, that is the best part!

Best of Luck in your flying adventures.

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by RavenC
left-handed spelling...

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Agree with the above.. try both and decide for yourself 

Actually, rereading your post... if you were expecting FSW to be "the next sim", maybe you should first ask yourself why FSX would not do the job for you.. why change at all?

Edited May 26, 2018 by Bert Pieke

[t4murphy 24]

Ditto here, tried both and love both of them. Each has its pluses and minuses. The IXEG 737- 300 in XP11 is one of my favorites. After years with the Wilco 737 this is heaven.  Couldn't part with my PMDG so P3D is a keeper.

[monica6211 172]

Ditto, Ditto, Ditto. What can I say. I have both as well and can no longer part with either. I cannot say which one I like better. It changes all the time. It depends what I am in the mood to do. Most of the time I like better AI traffic where P3D would win hands down, but P3D does not have photo scenery available for it that looks nearly as good as what you can get (for free) for X-Plane. I was never really satisfied with night lighting in FSX or P3D, but to me, X-Plane night flying is stunning. And of the two sims, I like the detail and realism of the aircraft in P3D/FSX much better than in X-Plane, especially with the GA aircraft. I haven't found a GA plane in XP yet that has a good start-up and shut-down sound. But again, it all depends on the mood I am in or what kind of flying I intend to do when deciding which sim I am going to fly. As stated above, X-Plane does not have a refund policy that I know of, but they do have a demo that you can try to get a feel for it. P3D does have a refund policy, so if you don't like it enough, you can get a refund. I honestly feel though that you will end up like alot of us who just can't tell you which one you should get and end up getting both and loving each for what they have to offer. There is no way I will ever part with either.

[jimelder2 3]

I finally went for P3D v4.  I'm was a longtime FSX user looking to go a 64 bit program.  I checked out X-Plane 11.  You can download a demo version limited to 10 minutes.  What was there was impressive but limited. I then thought about  FSW, which is just about at the end of the line.  The complaint about them nickel and diming users to death for a beta version seemed justified.  They wanted $5.00 just to join their forum to find out about the program.  This left P3D.  The scenery is good, but nowhere as stunning as X Plane 11.  However I was able to use many, not all, of my FSX add-ons. Some of the P3D scenery is better than some of the FSX downloads.  Also, I lean more to GA, smaller Airliners and classics.  X Plane seems more oriented toward the Big Iron.  This is a personal choice I don't Regret.

Jim Elder

[Guest]

Yes, it's all very personal. It all depends on your kind of flying, the kind of planes you like, how important weather is for you, clouds, ATC, AI, night lighting, available scenery, etc. I myself prefer P3D 4 over XP (I own them both but don't have XP installed) but also own Aerofly FS 2 (mainly waiting for TrueEarth Netherlands before I start using that one again) and I personally can't WAIT for Deadstick Bush Flight Simulator...! My main reasons to prefer P3D over XP are Active Sky (and all other things which are weather related) and the Majestic Q400 (plus the A2A Comanche). I also used to like Orbx scenery but lately I am done with landclass, specially since the release of TrueEarth. In the end only you can decide what's best for YOU but it's a wise decision nevertheless to ask for opinions. (Take note that this is the P3D forum though... 😉 )

Edited May 26, 2018 by Guest

[Bobsk8 12,492]

Over the years, I have tried to warm up to XP multiple times, flying it on a friends PC and trying the demos. I never could get into the no change of seasons, weird looking clouds and weather, bad AI, lack of aircraft like PMDG, A2A, Majestic, no good ATC programs,  and much more. Only thing that impressed me was night lighting. Try the demo and judge for yourself. 

[b1bmsgt 206]

For a long time I said that if I could only get the GTN750 and Radar Contact ATC in XPlane, I would give it a real tryout. I use both of them extensively in P3D and really can't get along without them. Well, a couple of weeks ago I came across a little addon called RC4toXPX. This is a LUA script that basically fools RC into thinking that XP is P3D or FSX. Right around the same time I became aware of the fact that Reality XP has a version of the GTN for XP!! Got them both running now in XP11 and it's great! I have been using XP a lot more and like it more every day! There are a lot of free addons available that really enhance it, so I am also having a great time exploring those. I haven't opened P3D in quite a few days, although I will never abandon it completely. It's just so much fun to have a new world to explore!!

 

Russ

[ryanbatc 12,773]

Another I use both user here.

I pretty much agree with everything said here.  Though I'd say XP is more suited towards general aviation and P3D towards airliner (more high end addons like fsl majestic pmdg)

The overall looks out of the box in XP11 is better than P3D and with freeware addons you can make XP11 look the best.

AI doesn't bother me as I'm more of a GA guy.  ATC doesn't bother me as I fly on pilotedge for super realistic experiences. (You can do that on either sim).

But weather generation is still a big downside of xp.  And overall cloud and atmosphere look is lacking.  There's an addon that is helpful for the look but nothing comes close to Opus/AS etc that we have in P3D 

I will say you've got to take some time to setup the XP11 demo- you'll want to spend multiple sessions with it.  Remember how long web experience spent to tweak FSX and set it up when we first got it.

[PWJT8D 446]

I'm another user of both P3D and XP11. So a little while ago I wanted to do a comparison. Now mind you this was for completely default simulators, no add-ons, no nothing. Just pure out of the box installations. I came up with a lot of categories and then decided which one I thought was better. Here are MY findings, of course it will not be what everyone thinks.

Terrain = X-Plane
Terrain Resolution = X-Plane
Autogen = X-Plane
Roads = X-Plane
Car traffic = X-Plane
Elevation = X-Plane
Water = P3D
Shorelines of lakes/rivers (vector data) = X-Plane
Clouds = P3D
Weather = P3D
Reflections = X-Plane
Physically Based Rendering = X-Plane
Lighting = X-Plane
User Interface = X-Plane
Sounds = P3D
Aircraft = X-Plane
Avionics = X-Plane
Airports = X-Plane
Colors = P3D
Rendering Settings = P3D
Joystick Configurations = X-Plane
HDR = P3D
Seasons = P3D
Flight Dynamics = X-Plane
AI Traffic/ATC = P3D
User Map = X-Plane
Camera Views = X-Plane
 

X-Plane 11...18 points

P3Dv4.... 9 points

 

Now of course when you start throwing in add-ons this changes things. Sure P3D has the larger customer base and more or less better add-ons to choose from but as of late, things being released for X-Plane 11 have definitely been catching up. My opinions show that X-Plane 11 is a better default simulator, but I use P3D 66.66% of the time, why is that? Add-ons. It's hard to compete with the sheer amount of add-ons available for P3D vs X-Plane. As of right now, I'm enjoying a flight in the QualityWings 787, but later on I may do a JustFlight C152 flight in X-Plane 11, the Ortho4XP really makes X-Plane a wonderful GA simulator. 

 

[Midcon113 9]

Thank you all for your replies! I appreciate the input! To answer a few of the questions here, I have installed the XP11 demo and it was a much better experience than I anticipated - enough so to cause me to pause going forward with P3D. I watched a number of XP11 videos as well as P3Dv4 videos, but you can only glean so much from videos. Next step in my evaluation was to come here, and I appreciate everyone's time and thoughts.

With that, I have a few responses:

13 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Actually, rereading your post... if you were expecting FSW to be "the next sim", maybe you should first ask yourself why FSX would not do the job for you.. why change at all?

I've asked myself this a bunch of times. I think the answer comes down to the feeling that support for that platform from add-on developers is probably going to dwindle now with everyone moving to the 64 bit platforms, as it should. Regardless of your feelings on DTG (and I don't want to dive into that here) FSW showed great promise in some areas to elevate the default sim to new heights. Reminded me a lot of Fly! before it started falling apart.

12 hours ago, monica6211 said:

Most of the time I like better AI traffic where P3D would win hands down, but P3D does not have photo scenery available for it that looks nearly as good as what you can get (for free) for X-Plane. I was never really satisfied with night lighting in FSX or P3D, but to me, X-Plane night flying is stunning. And of the two sims, I like the detail and realism of the aircraft in P3D/FSX much better than in X-Plane, especially with the GA aircraft. 

Monica's on point here with my feelings, at least from what I've been able to review so far. XP has some stunning visuals especially at night. Thank you for confirming however that AI traffic is not one of XP's strengths. That is important to me. Seeing regional European aircraft parked at the gates at KLAX kills a lot of the immersion of airline flying for me. The comments on detailed GA aircraft are interesting - thanks for that insight!

Again, thank you all! It does seem that P3Dv4 is the direction to go in at least for now. I'm kind of doing the same type of evaluation as PWJT8D did, but for me, more options are coming up for P3D than XP, and your replies are helping to confirm that decision.

Thanks!

[signmanbob 592]

Used to be that there were a lot of dedicated XPlane users and the same with (was FSX) now P3Dv4.2.

Sometimes I may fly a whole month with XP11, then switch and fly P3Dv4 for a month or so.

I love both simulations.  Each have their outstanding features and each have awesome and amazing aircraft to fly.

My favorite right now is FlightFactor A320.  I'm just hooked on it.  But next week it may be the TFDi Boeing 717 or Leonardo Maddog or Majestic Dash8 or PMDG NGX that I'm hooked on.  Or maybe I might go back to GA and fly JustFlight's new C152 for hours on end.

I can't picture myself just using one of these beautiful sims.

[ryanbatc 12,773]

@signmanbob

Ditto - before 64bit P3D I was basically XP11 only (FSX only prior to xp10's release)

Im not sure I could leave the lovely assortment of high quality addons in P3D.  And once the OOM issue was solved I happily also reinvested in P3D v4.