I realize this is going to be a general question, but am going to ask anyway.

Am currently flying FSX Gold with the Accel pack, and am going to update to another sim, but not totally sure which way to go.

Am considering either P3d 4.5 or Xplane 11. Also, not sure if I should wait till FS2020 releases.

I know there are pro's & cons for each, but I'd like some other opinions.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Thanx.

 

Good timing on your part, the new P3D version has just been announced and will be available in a couple of weeks, so if I were you, I'd see just how compatible that will be with stuff you have for FSX.

About Xplane, you can try a demo and evaluate it directly before to buy (I don't use it, so I can't say much). 

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I've already heard both good and bad things about P3d V5 (realizing you can't please everyone).

So I'm wondering if I should just go with V4.5 due to the fact that I already have FSX add-on a/c that are probably compatible with that. 

Also wondering if I should wait till FS2020 comes out. So far it looks pretty good, but I'm a little concerned about possibly needing a full-time internet connection to use it.

Any other thoughts?

Wait until April 14...

P3D is ideal if you like military aircraft and commercial airliners, although of course you can use any aircraft you like in it, but its maturity in terms of following on from FS2004, FSX etc, means it has a massive range of products available for it which facilitate its use for flight simmers who are into all the 'serious stuff' such as fancy ATC add-ons, flight planners, really complex airliners, realistic airport environments etc, etc.

There's a lot of that kind of stuff for XPlane too, but not anywhere near as much as there is for either FSX or P3D. It's alos probably fair to say that XPlane is better suited to users who prefer GA aeroplane operations. XPlane is generally speaking a lot better looking than FSX and P3D though.

The new MSFS sim is probably going to land somewhere between the two, i.e. it'll be pretty for sure, but it will likely end up with most if not all of the stuff that you can get for FSX/P3D being available for it, although that is likely to take a while to happen.

The new MS sim will not require a full-time internet connection; what it CAN do is stream scenery from an online database if there is a full time connection, but it doesn't NEED to do that, it can fall back on locally cached scenery.

So in short, if you are 'prepared' to wait a week or so, then check out reports on the new P3D (particularly how it performs), in the meantime give XPlane a look and see if it floats your boat. Or, stay with what you've got and await the new MS sim, although don't hold your breath whilst waiting, it's gonna be a while. Having said that, the chances are good that the new MS sim will run better on a reasonably okay PC than any of the other current offerings because it is really going for it on utilising GPUs.