Navigraph Flightsim Survey results published

[dmarques69 316]

28 minutes ago, simbol said:

This is the difficulty, the SDK for XP lacks the power to allow 3rd party developers to push towards this end.

Unless LS do these things themselves, I don't see it happening.

Regards,

Simbol 

Not really Simbol, check how many devs moved to XP this year, most of the giants already started to develop to XP and with the increasing popularity of X-plane others will come, HiFI was the last one...

[Adrian123 1,015]

Before it turns into Alabama vs Auburn debate, for what one does good the other does bad and visa versa.

[downscc 1,327]

I saw the green bars for both XP11 and P3Dv4 just past the 50% mark, but then noticed that the bar that counts which is the dark green indicating use most of the time is significantly higher for P3Dv4 and XP11.  I cannot draw any conclusions from this other that to note that P3D remains the market leader among the population that responded to this survey.  I found it interesting that it is likely that most have both XP11 and P3Dv4 installed and they tend to use one more than the other.  I'd put the XP11 Wins banners away for now.

[RXP 2,338]

6 minutes ago, downscc said:

the bar that counts which is the dark green indicating use most of the time is significantly higher for P3Dv4 and XP11.  I cannot draw any conclusions from this other that to note that P3D remains the market leader among the population that responded to this survey. 

One may conclude on average people spend more time on P3D4 because of the type of aircraft they fly on P3D4, it just takes more time from gate to gate, compared to the type of aircraft and routes they fly on XP11.

Edited December 19, 2018 by RXP

[JasonW 32]

Not really surprised by XP numbers. Seems like everything flight sim related that I scroll past now on FB (news or new products) is for XP, devs seem to be flocking to it. 

[downscc 1,327]

1 minute ago, RXP said:

One may conclude on average people spend more time on P3D4 because of the type of aircraft they fly on P3D4 just takes more time from gate to gate, compared to the type of aircraft and routes they fly on XP11.

One may also conclude that XP11 advocates will use any rationale they can come up with to support their bias.

[RXP 2,338]

Just now, downscc said:

One may also conclude that XP11 advocates will use any rationale they can come up with to support their bias.

Which is true both ways, you are right, thank you for reminding!

[pracines 823]

Yea there were two significant participants in this survey Aero Fly AND Laminar Research.

Lockheed Martin either not invited, not welcome, or took the ETHICAL approach - and they still won! 

Amazing how XP was touted to be the winner when they were not.

[American 833 Heavy 132]

If you add up the percentages of people that use the core ESP platform, FSX, FSX Steam and P3D. Where mind you, there is lots of addon interchangability.

It still enjoys a healthy lead in share over XP. So I think it's a little misleading to say XP is even.

I think it's good that there is truly now more than ever legitimate competition out there. For P3DV4 XP11 head to head, I agree it seems to be close to even, but P3D is still ahead a bit for core frequent users. XP still seems to have less of that core loyal following. But it's clear that pretty soon it will be 50/50.

And that is fantastic for a vibrant and strong community.

Now, not to turn this into a XP debate but just a few of my thoughts on the sim in general. As someone who has simmed 20+ years and developed for last 15.

I have tried X-Plane a few times starting v5 (awful) and v10 and a little bit in v11. 

It has REALLY come a long way. But this is my PERSONAL opinion. P3D properly configured just blows it away in look and feel, completeness of scenery and the overall shaders and graphics. XP still has this very fakish look to it for me. Many of its airplane addons this is especially prevalent in VCs just the look of gauges, LCD panels just look "off" compared to a comparable addon VC in ESP engine. And for me they need to figure out the whole global scenery thing better. To have an integrated solution like P3D and FSX do with full coverage without needing 1+ TB and buying all those DVDs or extras.

While it does have some nice customization with flight models. Some stuff is outrageous even on large jetliners like the absurd soft shocks bouncing up and down on runways and exaggerated tipping side to side movement that looks like you are in a lowrider with hydraulics or an NYC Taxi Crownvic with 20 year old shocks! I have seen this behavior constantly in XP and XP airplanes in general. How people think that is realistic, I don't know, obviously that doesn't bother them. But to me it's a deal breaker in the realism factor. Large jets don't move around like that. While P3Ds ground physics (or lack there of honestly) is certaintly on the stiff side, it portrays something closer to reality as far as stability than XPs behavior in this area is like IMHO.

Other things though like the wonderful native implementation of sloped airports and runway and Taxiway surfaces in XP is simply FANTASTIC. Just the physics and bouncing on these surfaces, not so much lol. I really hope we see something similar with native slopes in P3Dv5. That sloped feature is a BIG deal and it's features like that will continue to draw folks to XP.  A big part of many airports around the world is there unique slopes on surfaces. Like Atlanta or CLT with it's raised taxiways and slopes on runways turns offs. Or famous elongated slopes like at Zurich. That is really cool stuff and major component missing in P3D.

Now the look of autogen, vegetation and especially in urban areas in particular looks more realistic and believable in P3D than in XP. XP though can look quite good in mountainous or desert areas. It's just the urban areas or suburbs that arent very compelling even with vector landclass.

Night lighting out the box stock sim with airports does look a little nicer in XP11 than P3D. But with proper addons with nice DL and improved lighting effects... not to mention airports like Latin VFR KMIA or DD EBBR this lighting effect is available in P3D now.

And lastly the lack of a NATIVE truly dynamic sound engine is also a downside. XP needs to use custom software for each airplane i.e. FMOD to get FSX/P3D style fully dynamic engine sounds. XP sound engine only allowed 1 engine sound each for inside and 1 for outside. With no control SDK. The XP sound engine would just take that 1 sound and modulate the pitch over engine rpm.

On the scientific front of utilizing the latest hardware potential and overall optimisation I think XP enjoys a big lead here. Partly due to the very inefficient and poor coding LM has had to slowly tear away over the years of the base FSX engine. That still to this day does not properly utilize hardware like modern games do. I have high hopes for P3Dv5 and ideally DX12 that is not so single threaded dependent and greatly shifts that workload to use the GPU and multithreading on CPUs. Especially important as thanks to AMD Ryzen, Intel reacting to this, the main stream is now 4 to 8 cores and increasing fast. Soon over 10 cores will be normal for most. So DX12 is important to work with this properly.

In the end this great for our hobby. For us P3D developers and users alike. It will push LM to innovate and put out the best possible product. I think in 2-3 years as XP matures more and works out some of the grievances I have with it, it will be extremely compelling to try again on a personal level. But as veteran long term MSFS and P3D user/developer, I will always wait and see what my beloved and familiar platform has to offer first.

Thanks to Navigraph for conducting this survey. They did a great service to all.

[beechcaptain 105]

Unless I missed it in the survey results, I would like to see the actual number of users responding for each version used, as in number of persons using P3Dv4 regularaly and number of persons using XP11 regularly.  This would give me a better idea of which is more popular. Not just percentages but actual number of respondents. 

[anden145 2,285]

2 minutes ago, beechcaptain said:

Unless I missed it in the survey results, I would like to see the actual number of users responding for each version used, as in number of persons using P3Dv4 regularaly and number of persons using XP11 regularly.  This would give me a better idea of which is more popular. Not just percentages but actual number of respondents. 

Agreed! It's difficult to infer or derive anything from this survey, when we not know the full statistics and usage counters. For all we know, there's a skewed number of participants - for either platform...

[GCBraun 2,392]

I think trends are more important than raw numbers. If I am not mistaken XP11 had 10% of users in 2016, 20% in 2017 and about 50% now. P3D has 30% last year and 50% now, so both platforms are growing, but XP seems to be growing faster.

[Adrian123 1,015]

3 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

Agreed! It's difficult to infer or derive anything from this survey, when we not know the full statistics and usage counters. For all we know, there's a skewed number of participants - for either platform...

"Primary flight simulator  and How often do you fly" All one can go by is the respondents 15006 took the survey. 20% Xplane (all versions)=3001 and 16% P3d(all versions)= 2400. 60% FSX ..still the king by far.Then on down of Various other sims.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Adrian123

[SKEWR 364]

2 quick thoughts:

1) Why does either platform need to be the "winner"? Enjoy what you enjoy. Still seems like some folks still need to be validated that their choice of sim "won". It isn't a competition. Add on devs will move to where the money is.

2) IMO, I don't think P3D is in it for the money. As a multi billion dollar defense contractor (LM), I don't think P3D moves the needle for them. That said, I think they (P3D devs) have the luxury of ignoring competition and completing their specific tasks.

[Gabe777 132]

Totally biased imho, and should be interpreted with caution.

1. Sponsored by Navigraph..... how many of the respondents were NG subscribers ? Probably a high proportion: many people didn't know about it.

2. If it was advertised on AVSIM for example, clearly a larger proprtion of respondents frequented AVSIM, and the same can be said for 1. Above.

Why no Mutley's Hangar ? Very popular I believe... but not mentioned.

 

3. If a disproportionate amount of respondents, subscribe to Navigraph.... they have spare cash for luxuries.... AND they are serious simmers.

 

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the gist:

To say the average or (presumably "typical - no definition is given), earns 50 grand and has a bachelor's degree, is absurd. Many have probably exaggerated their status, and if it WERE that 'typical' flightsimmers are in this economic/social class,  and were serious simmers, they would probably spend a lot more than 500 bucks per year.

I would proffer, that a small proportion of big-spending, serious simmers, fit into this category. They are educated and relatively wealthy. The 25% of respondents being RW pilots, is again suggesting that the respondents were biased towards this class. No way are 25% of flight simmers, RW pilots. The former will spend more than 500 bucks, the majority, maybe a tenth of that.

And, if I may finish in a rather glib fashion: the typical grammar / spelling, that litters the forums, is testament to this fact, even withstanding the fact that many people speak another native language (a fact that is usually pretty evident).

So, take these numbers, and certainly the dubious conclusions, with a pinch of salt.

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Gabe777