PMDG 737NGXu First Impressions and Review!

[KevinMM 22]

Has anyone tried vr yet?

[Pilot53 544]

10 minutes ago, KevinMM said:

Has anyone tried vr yet?

yes, its great in VR.  Feels like a 737 now with the corrected cockpit dimensions.

[regis9 4,014]

2 hours ago, Alti said:

China, Scandinavian, American, Delta, Flair, KLM, Mango,Norwegian, Quantas Ryan, S7, ´Turkish, Airmexico, Sunwing, Swoop, United, 
Alaska, 
Some of these with verifyed cocpit option, like in the old NGX.

Great to see Sunwing and a more obscure Canadian carrier Flair included.    Surprised that Flair would have been chosen over WestJet but I’m sure that repaint will be here in no time.

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

Yes  on the new NGXu engine buzz fades as you climb. That was one of the first things I checked after downloading

That’s really exciting, looking forward to checking it out.

[Arklight1 140]

30 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

yes, its great in VR.  Feels like a 737 now with the corrected cockpit dimensions.

 

How do you deal with the GSX popup screen? I LOVE VR but the popup windows are a pain to see/move/find. lol

[C2615 319]

After some test fly and one small route, here is my feeling:

Very first impression: (-)The VC feels cartoonlish....

 It seems PMDG trys to use more P4D's effection to do the cockpit materia, but to me ,it doesnt feel as metal as the NGX's photo feeling texture.

That a side, I go thought the CDU setting part, Yes,(+) there are many new Hardware upgrade option, BUT, (-)not much on software side.

(-) No selection of solid magenta Go-Around Route, no selectable SPEED/PATH decend on DES page, no Speed tolerance range for VNAV path decent, no non-SPD/ALT INTV config for MCP...a long list... So a point back for iFly one I think.

(-) Oh, and still same Navdata so no RF-legs, one more point to keep my iFly around for a while...

While FMC IDENT page now don't show the real FMC version, I feel overall is still U10.8A(-), not updated to U13

Engine N1 setting seems buggy, I have it reported on PMDG's forum.(-)

Low speed 90-degree turns are now far better(+), and LNAV lines now will not jump around on some circumstances it used to be(+).

Still some annonying bugs here and there(-), reported, hope it'll get fixed.

Overall, as a new product, I feel it could be better with few patches, as PMDG always did. But for now, I feel a little bit too early to make a full switch,consideing there are some annoing bugs even for a normal routine flight.

I'll then test it's systems and failures to see if that's really improved as they claimed.

Edited November 8, 2019 by C2615

[Kevin_28 164]

Oh that's a shame. I thought they would have included RF legs as well. Guess they're going to save that for NG3? I have the plane but haven't flown much on it yet. I agree with the VC look. It reminds me of when I had the zibo. There are some nice touches such as dirt, etc on the interior and exterior views.

[Vali 83]

Why I get the impression that the VC on the previous NGX was better than this one? I do not know, but it seems more like a freeware VC for me, I checked several videos already with it on YT and my impression remains the same.

 

[Jude Bradley 659]

6 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Which airport is that? The shadow of the aircraft vanishes when it passes over sections of taxiway between grass areas

I think it's MMUN 

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

I am on my first flight. One thing pops right out and that is performance. To me it's way worse than the old NGX. Sitting at the gate at ORBX ESSA I am fighting to keep FPS over 20 at times (unlocked frames, would probably be getting twice that in the old NGX)...

 

[DaveS 144]

1 hour ago, Vali said:

Why I get the impression that the VC on the previous NGX was better than this one? I do not know, but it seems more like a freeware VC for me, I checked several videos already with it on YT and my impression remains the same.

 

I got the same impression. I thought maybe it didn't install correctly and was missing textures or something. There is just something about it that looks off 

[Evros 310]

It seems that long gone are the days where performance was one of the major considerations for FS content developers.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

Finished my first flight and restarted at ORBX ESSA in the NGX.

Man... what can I say..? Yes, the NGXu is better looking imho. However I get about twice the performance in the NGX. At the gate with my current settings in the NGX I'm at about 55-60 FPS whereas in the new one I would often dip down to the 20's and even teens. 

Kind of bummed out to be honest.

[Kevin_28 164]

How much of that is caused because of pbr, advanced lighting, high res displays, etc?

[Johnny19 344]

I can’t say I don’t like the new ngxu. But I have the same thought about the feel of VC. Some parts really remind me of even default 737 from fsx. But that’s just me 🙂

performance during the day is okay, but totally crappy at night with all lights on.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Johnny19

[Benjamin J 751]

6 hours ago, micstatic said:

-Like having the one click time compression ability.  I know a lot of you guys hate using it.  I fly without it on most flights.  But I'm not super in love with sitting there at cruising altitude doing nothing.  

HALLELUJA

Well, I for one am thrilled about that. I was going to ask, but then I already bought the aircraft so I figured I'd look at it tonight. But seeing you mentioning it is a giant relief. The fact is that, these days, especially outside Europe, there are hundreds of 737 routes that last over 2 hours and I just don't have the patience or time to sit through 2+ hours of a flight. Time compression a la PMDG  is a GOLDEN feature to me. It has enabled me to do several longhaul 747 and 777 flights that I would NOT be able to do otherwise. So glad to see it implemented in the 737 now. Take OrbX's AYPY, for one. Been wanting to fly out and into this place since forever, but very few routes are short enough that I'm able to fly them, and those that are don't utilize a 737. But, now I can finally do AYPY-YSSY in a reasonable time. So excited!

Also thrilled to hear performance is not too different from the NGX. It is currently my best-performing plane, which is excellent given that it's so widely used. For example, the likes of LAX are NGX-only airports for me due to the better performance I get with the NGX. It's great to hear I can expect performance to not be much worse with the NGXu.

At any rate, I was going to do KATL-KBHM with the Maddog tonight, but perhaps I'll go for a quick KOAK-KBUR to test the NGXu!

I'll add that I'm normally not one to jump on a plane instantly, usually because of the cost (I've been considering, and still refrain from buying, the FSLabs A320 for well over a year now, mostly due to its cost). However, in this case PMDG offers the 100$ credit for MSFS2020 NG3, and so I see the 100$ for the NGXu as an investment of sorts. I'll almost crtainly get the NG3 when it arrives for MSFS2020, so to me it's a no-brainer.

 

EDIT: guess I read some other posts that suggest that performance is terrible compared to the NGX... which is sad. I suppose mileage will vary. I do wonder to what extent the NGXu represents an in-development product? Meaning, that it's some sort of spin-off from the NG3, which itself appears not finished. How does that reflect on the NGXu, then?

It's also interesting to read people's impressions on the VC. My two cents: it seems to me that the modeling is better, and I appreciate what appear to be high resolution textures, making labels of buttons and switched easier to read. I do agree the VC seems a little cartoonish, and I'm sure this relates to the fact that PMDG opted to model a clean cockpit, rather than a dirty one, such as in the NGX. Not sure why they made this switch, because I would have preferred a more worn cockpit, personally. That this has nothing to do with the use of PBR instead of phototextures is evident by considering the Leonardo Maddog VC, which is PBR and looks very worn and is, overall, beautiful.