Coming back for flight simming

[PapaRomeo 40]

Hi all.

I have been away from flightsimming for severel years.
Last time, I used FSX with tons of addons.

I feel that FSX is outdated, and no longer the sim I want to use.
I have been looking at 2 new sims, Prepar3d and X Plane.

I have several saitek panels, and the pedals plus yoke, the ones almost all others have.
Ofcourse it would be nice to use that hardware again.
I care about graphics, realism, and a fairly userfriendly flightsim, i know simming isn't always easy, but i kinda growing tires of fooling around with ini files.
A LOT of that i did with FSX.
A little tweaking is ok, but the sim must be somewhat ready out of the box.

I am ok with spending some aditional money, but not over 200 dollars, IF I can awoid it.
But we all know how it is with flightsimming 🙂

So come with your input, help me get into simming again, tell me what's up and down on all this in 2019.
Thanks in advance.

[mpw8679 428]

1 hour ago, PapaRomeo said:

Hi all.

I have been away from flightsimming for severel years.
Last time, I used FSX with tons of addons.

I feel that FSX is outdated, and no longer the sim I want to use.
I have been looking at 2 new sims, Prepar3d and X Plane.

I have several saitek panels, and the pedals plus yoke, the ones almost all others have.
Ofcourse it would be nice to use that hardware again.
I care about graphics, realism, and a fairly userfriendly flightsim, i know simming isn't always easy, but i kinda growing tires of fooling around with ini files.
A LOT of that i did with FSX.
A little tweaking is ok, but the sim must be somewhat ready out of the box.

I am ok with spending some aditional money, but not over 200 dollars, IF I can awoid it.
But we all know how it is with flightsimming 🙂

So come with your input, help me get into simming again, tell me what's up and down on all this in 2019.
Thanks in advance.

I always recommend X plane for people on a tight budget.  Much better scenery out of the box.  Buy Active Sky for XP, install the excellent freeware ZIBO 737, and go flying.

[kowen 64]

Agreed, 200 bucks excluding P3D will get you Orbx, Active Sky and one of the two camera tools which are requirements IMHO. You might have some left over for a payware aircraft if you budget well. You will get more bang for your buck with x plane. You can try it for free too. 

[PapaRomeo 40]

Thanks for feedback, the 200 was just to name something a new I would do.
Over time I might spend more money.

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Since you have been away for so many years, you may want to first find out if your PC is also outdated.  May want to put that $200 to use there first. 

[G-RFRY 1,706]

All my FSX scenery went strait into P3D zero cost.

You could then afford a PMDG aircraft,

Edited April 4, 2019 by rjfry

[Simicro 247]

35 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

Since you have been away for so many years, you may want to first find out if your PC is also outdated.  May want to put that $200 to use there first. 

Right, he posted his rig in the XP forum and it is okay 😉

 

19 hours ago, PapaRomeo said:

Here 🙂

i7 7700k, 1080ti, 32gb ram, 512gb ssd and 3TB standard HD

[Simicro 247]

Hi PapaRomeo,

First, welcome back mate!

I was in your shoes last november.

If we are real flightsim enthusiasts, life can divert us temporarily from our hobby but sooner or later we come back to it.

You know, you come back at a new golden era for flightsim, and whatever your area of interest (civil, military, space), there is no really wrong choice within the major sims.

I have both P3D and XP installed on my SSD but I tend to prefer P3D. I mostly use XP for helicopter flying. In 2019 XP is no more a 'niche/minority' as it used to be in the golden FSX days, and quite competes with P3D.

Generally speaking try to google 'P3D vs XP' and alike to form your own opinion.

Now budgetwise, for 200$, you get more addons on XP IMHO.

Whatever your choice, happy flying!

EDIT: P3D or XP, it seems to me that we can now spend more time flying than tweaking files...

 

Edited April 4, 2019 by Simicro

[PapaRomeo 40]

Yeah, I really want to get back into it, so I listen to all what has been said.
Anyone knows if there would be a problem with the Saitek panels?

 

Thanks.

[fluffyflops 1,845]

I also have both. Xp11 and P3Dv4. 

They both have pros and cons. 

In short Xp11 looks good, but most of the addon aircraft are  💩 compared to the high end pmdg/fsl/ q400 you have in prepar. 

This is apart from the zilbo 737 which xp11 users can't seem to shut up about, why?

A. because it's free 

B. The only half decent other one is the ff767 which you have to buy. There's nothing more  xplaners hate, it's spending money. 

However, the other pull to xplane is on a whole its more smoother than P3Dv4, there's no messing around with affinty masks, fibers or looking at pages and pages of tweaks charts and graphs which P3Dv4 users seem to love.  For me and alot others  it's alot more fluid and less stuttery than P3Dv4. 

The other draw to xp11 is the addon scenery and plugs ins.  Theres no malarkey like on P3Dv4 with dropping files in effects, elevation files and all that jazz,  with xp11 they will go in one folder. Which when you get a update or you reinstall you just put them back in.. Nice and simple. 

On a whole the scenery, both payware and freeware looks better and more 'alive' than what it does in p3dv4. 

But.... And here's the but and its 2 fold theres no seasons and there isnt as much addon scenery as P3Dv4 

Now if you bring up the 'no seasons' debate with xplaners they turn into 'computer game vegans' and get very very uppity and defensive.  Reason being they got to live with flying in summer all year round. No way around it, and they hate it when you mention it to them because their buggered. 

Secondly there isn't much payware addon scenery as there is with P3Dv4. 

However if you can get scenery or the flight you are planing to do its alot more enjoyable than P3Dv4. 

For example if I doing a Gatwick to marrakech I'll use xp11.  London is smoother and there's no decent marrakech scenery in p3dv4. 

But if I do a London to vancouver I'll use P3Dv4 as there's no decent long Haul aircraft I cab use in xp11.  But the proformance out of London will be 💩 because its P3Dv4 

There's pro and cons for both xp11 and P3Dv4 

Edited April 5, 2019 by tooting

[PapaRomeo 40]

I hope that xp, soon will have seasons.