Poll: Your civilian simulator of choice and the future

[Murmur]

5 minutes ago, ErichB said:

 These forums are a small slice of total usage.  Although a good indication of what users here do,  there are thousands who don't visit these forums.

True. Some people are best left to their delusions. And more importantly, they only look at absolute numbers but are oblivious to the trends. 😉

[GHarrall]

2 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

To the poll author:

You are probably not going to get much traction on the Aerofly question because of the way it's worded. I dont know of anyone that's going to proclaim liking Aerofly exclusively over P3D or X-Plane.

You will likely find that Aerofly users tend to use a number of sims equally, as the mood suits them.

I didn't answer because the question for Aerofly, as worded, was not applicable.

 

 

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

 

 

The option wasn't about exclusive use of AF2, it was about preference.  I personally know 2 people who prefer it as a sim (and who actually use it exclusively because it suits their kind of flying)  - to mainstream sims.

It's a broad brush poll - not to be taken too seriously

 

This.

I use P3D and Aerofly FS2 but spend most of my time in P3D. The option to vote this way wasn't there.

[Guest John_Cillis]

For Photoreal scenery, P3DV4, and for most of my add-on aircraft.  For default landclass, autogen, mesh, I prefer Xplane11.  Flight dynamics are fine in both sims, I have my fav add on aircraft.  For clouds I prefer P3DV4...  For atmospheric haze, Xplane11.

John

[ErichB]

1 minute ago, Cactus521 said:

Flight dynamics are fine in both sims

That's fightin' talk for some (but that's a tongue in cheek comment).  

Both are great

[CB_Pilot]

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I remember a time (1999 to 2008) when I used Flight Unlimited 3 (and the Flight Unlimited 2 San Francisco scenery)

Happy days - now THAT was an excellent flight sim.

[dal330200]

I like and dislike P3D and X-Plane 11, and I think that both sims lack some serious features that would make them more realistic.  For X-Plane, the lack of a good weather program and seasonal textures are deal-breakers for me.  For P3D, the lack of an easy way to modify shaders and change the look and feel of the P3D world drives me bonkers because doing so with the resources that are currently out there is a tedious and very time-consuming process.  Hopefully Environment Force will live up to the expectation that many of these changes will be available in real-time, in-sim.  We'll see. 

On the other hand, the payware airports in P3D are generally awesome, and the level of complexity of the aircraft I have make flying an enjoyable way to waste my time.  Sure X-Plane has the Zibo mod for the 737, but it's still a work in progress, and there are limited other options available for tubeliners. 

I have to admit that much of my angst with P3D is that I've invested more in the sim over the past two years than I would have paid for a private pilot license.  With that reasoning, I just can't get myself to start investing in another incomplete sim, X-plane, that will frustrate me as I encounter limitations on that platform.  I own X-plane 11, but haven't used it in a year, and don't see myself spending a lot of time in the sim unless some kind of breakthrough addon entices me to whip out my credit card. 

At the end of the day, let's see what happens over the course of the next year or so, and whichever sim matures the most and provides the best immersion will most-definitely be the one I fly with in the future. 

Meanwhile, I decided to stop investing in sims and start investing in my R/W pilots license instead, and my first lesson will be in early November.

Happy Flying,

John

 

[shivers9]

It's a fun poll. It is always amazing how much "spin" all of us flight Simmers can come up with to support our own Fav sims.  It is just like politics. It does not matter what the numbers show, there is always that 5-10% who can come up with 20 reasons why the poll is not valid. My all time favorite poll found that 100% of births eventually lead to death.😜

[Guest John_Cillis]

3 minutes ago, CB_Pilot said:

Happy days - now THAT was an excellent flight sim.

I loved Flight Unlimited 2 and until photo scenery became avail for MSFS/P3D and Xplane, it was my favorite sim for GA flying even though today's photo scenery is so much better.  It was a cute sim--it even modeled wake turbulence, and if you crashed it had a "heaven" button and sound that whisked you up a thousand feet or so so you could resume flying.  I thought the weather was pretty nice too.  And who could forget the short lived Fly and one of my favs--Flight Assignment ATP.  Flight Assignment ATP was quite fun, I even "hacked" it to change the color of the city "textures" from bright yellow to gray, which was a nervously executed search and sometimes destroy mission using a backed up executable and DOS debug.  I did not share my first change to a flight sim, LOL...  Flight Assignment ATP was my fav sim until FS2002 came out......  When FS2002 came out I knew the die was cast, and that sims would be forever changed, it for me was a tipping point to the future of our hobby.

John

[ComSimPilot]

What about, "I use both sims equally" ? I'm in that category 😀

[overspeed3]

The Flight Unlimited 2 cockpit graphics were amazing considering how many years ago they were introduced - but I forgot which sim, Flight U. 2 or IFLY, but I remember the scenery in one of them looked like flying over a nuclear wasteland... 

[pmb]

Doesn't AVSIM make a more official poll every fall (including more sims and allowing multiple choices)? 

Kind regards, Michael

[MauB]

I fly both, PD3 a bit more, but I love X-Plane 11 as well. Both have great aircraft add-ons.

[SpiritFlyer]

Here I thought X-Plane must be gaining the momentum with a fast growing large minority approaching majority numbers based upon the noise levels of X-Plane evangelists here in AVSIM.

The future is cloudy and veiled, as all the future is, guessing aside, but for the present, P3D is still the overwhelming choice of the vast majority, many of whom can't be bothered getting into a spitting contest. 

Good poll with clear questions and very clear results. I like it.

P3D rules!

Kind regards,

Spirit Flyer 

[ErichB]

35 minutes ago, Daedalus said:

What about, "I use both sims equally" ? I'm in that category 😀

I considered the option, but secretly, everyone always has a preference 🙂

[Guest]

1 hour ago, GHarrall said:

 

This.

I use P3D and Aerofly FS2 but spend most of my time in P3D. The option to vote this way wasn't there.

This indeed. 😉 Every now and then I spend some time in AFS2, specially if I am in the mood for a quick flight with ultra smooth performance over extremely detailed (TE Netherlands) scenery, but most of my time is spend in P3D, simply because of all the addons I like to use. Active Sky, ProATC, UTL, SkyForce and above all the Majestic Q400. Add to that my favorite country (Norway) and ChasePlane and well... AFS2 simply can't touch that. I also found some P3D settings that work absolutely great for my kind of flying so I don't even miss AFS2's performance anymore.

I also own XP but apart from the great lighting at night and the awesome roads plus traffic it doesn't offer enough for me. As it is now it's also impossible (imho) to bring it on par with P3D (plus addons). Besides, it would cost me too much and what would I get...? An XP version of P3D? Neither can touch AS2's performance so P3D plus AFS2 is good enough for me right now.

Anyway, I did actually vote for 'P3D is definitely my favourite sim and/or i'm too heavily invested to change' because whenever I have to reinstall my PC I might not even reinstall AFS2 for quite some time. So clearly P3D is my favorite sim. Though not because of the investment to change! If something really better comes along I don't mind investing a few 100 bucks in it!