Made the move

[b1bmsgt 207]

I have tried X-Plane on and off since XP9, and was never quite happy with it. Something always frustrated me, and I always ended up going back to FSX/P3D. Well, things recently fell into place when I discovered that there was a program that let me use Radar Contact from FSX/P3D! Then I found the Reality XP GTN750, and I found out what I was doing wrong with autopilots. I just spent the last week flying X-Plane exclusively, and loved it! Today I opened P3D for the first time in 8 or 10 days, and I have to admit that I really didn't like it! Stutters that I used to ignore were now so annoying, and I couldn't believe how bad the buildings looked. I never noticed it before! Wow! I don't think I'm ever going to be able to go back, but there doesn't really seem to be a reason to, does there?

 

Russ

[zmak 331]

Shame about PMDG and fsx2crew or  I would be over there in a flash

[jcomm 5,938]

FS 2020 will change your choice 🙂

But X-Plane is still 1st place among my two sandbox flight simulators, XP and DCS..., just not stable enough for serious development IMHO...

The new MS simulator will, almost for sure, bring back to the franchise most of the civil flightsimmers, and although I am so uninterested in civil sims these days, I have to admit I'll try it for sure, and who knows, finally find my MS FLIGHT energy back, after 7 - 8 long years of a walk in the desert of civil flight simulation.

Edited September 23, 2019 by jcomm

[b1bmsgt 207]

6 hours ago, zmak said:

Shame about PMDG and fsx2crew or  I would be over there in a flash

I have stuff from both of them, but I never use them anymore, so I don't miss them. There are some really great acft in XP that more than compensate. (Now that I know how to use the autopilot properly!!)

 

Russ

[leon310 26]

Microsoft 2020 may gain interest, but your are back to paying for all the addons. I spent a lot of money on FS9 and FSX. Then I switched to x-Plane 11 and I have saved so much money because of all the quality free scenery and the user friendly WED program (Free) to make your own scenery. The aircraft is much more realistic. In FSX or FS9 I never looked at the check list, but x-plane I had to look at the check list to get the engines started and not black out at altitude. As said in another post here, X_plane 11 is a true Flight Simulator.

X-Plane is my Flight Simulator for life, I will never go back to Microsoft. Yes I said NEVER and I mean it.

No matter what flight simulator you use, Have fun and enjoy. Flight simulation is my life in retirement. The only thing I do now, And the wife loves it too, I stay out of here hair. LOL!!!!!

Today is a good day to fly. Have a great flight and see ya in the air.

[leinsters 42]

MSFS 2020 may look stunning and I hope it's as ground breaking as it looks but I highly doubt it will come close to XPlane11 in flight model. Laminar is in a league of its own when it comes to this.

[b1bmsgt 207]

7 hours ago, leon310 said:

Microsoft 2020 may gain interest, but your are back to paying for all the addons. I spent a lot of money on FS9 and FSX. Then I switched to x-Plane 11 and I have saved so much money because of all the quality free scenery and the user friendly WED program (Free) to make your own scenery. The aircraft is much more realistic. In FSX or FS9 I never looked at the check list, but x-plane I had to look at the check list to get the engines started and not black out at altitude. As said in another post here, X_plane 11 is a true Flight Simulator.

X-Plane is my Flight Simulator for life, I will never go back to Microsoft. Yes I said NEVER and I mean it.

No matter what flight simulator you use, Have fun and enjoy. Flight simulation is my life in retirement. The only thing I do now, And the wife loves it too, I stay out of here hair. LOL!!!!!

Today is a good day to fly. Have a great flight and see ya in the air.

My feeling exactly!!

 

Russ

Edited September 23, 2019 by b1bmsgt

[Paraffin 2,197]

13 hours ago, jcomm said:

FS 2020 will change your choice 🙂

I'm very interested in the new MSFS (and why are we calling it 2020 when Microsoft is calling it MSFS?). What keeps my enthusiasm in check, is knowing that it probably won't release with the specific models of aircraft I enjoy flying, and it will take a while to build out the 1st party and 3rd party fleet.

The pickings were slim for years in X-Plane, but we now enjoy an excellent choice of high quality aircraft, both free and payware. It's going to take years for MSFS to match that. I'm not going to fly it just for scenery eye candy in an aircraft model I don't care about. So I think I'll be flying X-Plane for quite a while yet. 

We also have XP12 to look forward to, sometime in the near future and possibly a beta/early access release around the time MSFS goes final. It will be fascinating to see whether Austin & Co. feel a need to ramp up their game in response, or continue on the current roadmap (whatever that is). I doubt that Austin sees MSFS as direct competition, but maybe it will light a fire for some improvements we've been asking for like better weather, ATC, etc. Maybe even seasons. 

[olderndirt 2,295]

What keeps my enthusiasm in check is that it's Microsoft - I think they peaked with FSX and it's 'Caveat Emptor' time again.  These guys just wan't a favorable bottom line and I don't think 'sharing any of the wealth' is part of that.

[jcomm 5,938]

Austin, LR as a whole, have here a good reason to wake up... and move fwd with a revolutionary XP12 - one that finally includes Moon phases !, Seasons!, Missions! and / or a true environment of traffic around you, preferably not simulated the ( rather heavy ) way it is right now, allowing for tens of traffic elements flowing and interacting with ATC.

 

 

[GoranM 3,764]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

Austin, LR as a whole, have here a good reason to wake up... and move fwd with a revolutionary XP12 - one that finally includes Moon phases !, Seasons!, Missions! and / or a true environment of traffic around you, preferably not simulated the ( rather heavy ) way it is right now, allowing for tens of traffic elements flowing and interacting with ATC.

 

 

As soon as I saw your first comment in this thread, I was actually wondering if FS2020 will have moon phases.  (No joke)
We'll see.  

😉

[jcomm 5,938]

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

As soon as I saw your first comment in this thread, I was actually wondering if FS2020 will have moon phases.  (No joke)
We'll see.  

😉

Well Goran, I surely hope so - since fs9 MSFS has introduced a perpetual calendar, with proper Moon phases / ephemeris and also precise daylight for any spot in the World.

We do not yet have any of these features correctly modelled in XP11: No perpetual calendar, no precise daylight as a function of date/time and geographical location, and no precise Moon phase / ephemeris … 

We desperately need it 🙂 !!!

Edited September 24, 2019 by jcomm

[leon310 26]

Please explain why the ATC and the moon phases? I never have used ATC in the simulator, I do fly on IVAO all the time, but avoid ATC like a hot potato. I know ATC is a must in real world, but in a simulator?

I am a hermit, loner and do not like being told what to do. Some people like realism in these areas.

I hope LR waits on X-Plane 12 for at least another year. Gives me time to buy a bigger computer.

Great day to fly, see ya in the air.

[jcomm 5,938]

Well Loner,

.) The Moon because if a simulator is meant to simulate "Fying on Earth" than representing the Moon, and it's phases makes it closer to real, just as it does IRL, and ends up being a factor for instance when you do night VFR. What good is to have it represented when it doesn't anywhere appear in the skies like IRL ?

.) The proper daylight effects, by the same token. I really get irritated when I am trying to simulate a departure from LPPT at sometime in Autumn / Winter and it's still a lot of daylight outside my office while in XP it's pitch dark 😕

.) The ATC because I do not use VATSIM or IVAO, or even less payed services, and I would like to have a decent ATC robot, which is something I believe would not be that complex to implement... Heck, I had a very nice one already in my good old Flight Assignement ATP ...

 

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by jcomm

[Paraffin 2,197]

4 hours ago, leon310 said:

Please explain why the ATC and the moon phases? I never have used ATC in the simulator, I do fly on IVAO all the time, but avoid ATC like a hot potato. I know ATC is a must in real world, but in a simulator?

I am a hermit, loner and do not like being told what to do. Some people like realism in these areas.

I'm a loner too, basically role-playing a bush pilot for hire whenever I'm in a civilian sim. So I don't care about automated ATC. It wouldn't exist in the real world for many of the places I fly, and I turn off AI aircraft for a better frame rate. Without other aircraft around, there isn't much point in ATC even when I'm flying into a major airport. The runways are mine, all mine! 😉

But it's an important feature for some folks who want a more realistic air traffic and communications environment. Whether a full-featured automated ATC should be part of the default sim or an add-on is debatable. I do think the default sim should at least have something basic that 3rd parties can build on. 

As for moon phases, it's not just the moon but sun angles for realistic daylight, reflections, and shadows. I tried a few days ago to make a comparison view in XP11 to one of the new MSFS screen shots in New Zealand. But I couldn't match the sun reflections on the water. The MSFS shot had the sun at a low angle in the northern sky in Winter, while XP11 had the sun moving overhead. No way to adjust it, because XP has no internal calendar year that would change the sun's track in the sky.

If we ever get seasons in the sim, that would mean XP has a calendar that can be used for more realistic sunlight at higher and lower latitudes, and an ephemeris for moon phases.