So Far, A Fling with MSFS? But Still, Married to P3D?

[ssair1 92]

Now that I have MSFS, I’m appreciating P3D even more. Sure, I admire and respect what Asobo and Microsoft have been able to accomplish, i.e., utilizing the power of AI to virtually recreate the entire globe in acceptable detail for VFR. However, even with all that technological genius, there is still something to be said, something that is priceless, about the number of hours, developers and us, spent on fine-tuning and customizing the planes, weather, and landscape, etc. Sure, for example, the scenery in the vicinity of an airport may not look as realistic as MSFS, but by God, countless hours were spent on attempting to make it look good enough. Every time I fire up P3D, after flying in MSFS, I cannot help but appreciate how well, to my preferences, I’ve set up my controls, cameras, and how it’s almost second nature to set up the PMDG 737 or the Majestic Dash 8 from cold and dark to a VOR circling approach, etc. I hope all of this makes sense, if it doesn’t, I just want to say this: to everyone in the P3D community, we’ve all accomplished a lot and each deserves a high five. P3D isn't going away and I sincerely hope the new competition will push P3D to continue getting better (and X-Plane) 🙂

[GSalden 4,656]

Well said 👌

[Gazzareth 808]

Just took a flight in Fs2020 from Edinburgh to Inverness following the A9 - a route I've driven dozens of times, utterly blown away by the scenery. (At least once you're past the Forth).

 

At the moment I can see me using FS to explore, but back to p3d for everything else. So much potential there though, can't wait to see when the 3rd party devs start releasing the good stuff....

 

G

[Noel 4,493]

I wholeheartedly relate to this, except for the 'fling' piece, which of course implies short-lived, temporary.  The depth that P3D (even 4.5!) offers is astounding in its own right and I can't see not wanting to continue using it as I have been, which is nearly every day.  It's a ritual for me.  I'm up at around 5am, start the coffee, take our sweet dog out to do her business, come back in and see where we are flying to this morning, accompanied by FSCaptain, and Nikki, who jumps up on my lap, and we set up the flight and start out w/ GSXII doing its thing.  This morning off we went, choosing the Maj Q400 'Crash' 8 leaving Orbx KJAC to KSLC direct.  The sunrise was stunning, the haze in the valleys looked so real and with such depth.  Multiple cloud layers, and the dawn sky gorgeous.  There is a certain crispness to dawn/night lights that looks better to me than MSFS' nighttime lighting, though I only have one flight in MSFS so far at night so a bit early to tell.  That dusk to nighttime flight in MSFS also had a sky that looked fake, with no depth, as if it were painted with paint that was not transparent enough.  I can't explain it other than it was what it was.  So P3D wins there too, so far with my limited experience.  So yes I will continue using P3D for what I always have and continue enjoying the time with it immensely.

 But, no 'fling' with MSFS!  The scenery engine is, as a first release version even more so, spectacular in terms of what you get for the processing power delivered.  It needs refining in some areas, for example in scenery night lighting, lighting halo/glow, and especially some road edges are just too low resolution.  Don't have enough experience w/ cloud rendering to know if it is as good as ASN/REX, or better.  I don't yet know what to say about that dusk sky.  But I think we will be watching the new sim grow and mature as they have put so much in it already in terms of core engine strength.   At least I sure hope it continues to evolve.  I don't see anything that hints this will be a flash in the pan.  It looks like it could be a rock solid new foundation and engine.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Noel

[David Vega 348]

I'm sure that as more addons find their way to MFS, folks will slowly migrate.  Most folks in this forum are not default airplane users.  That said, I'm still on P3D 4.5.  

[Joseph29 225]

22 minutes ago, SAX702 said:

I'm sure that as more addons find their way to MFS, folks will slowly migrate.  Most folks in this forum are not default airplane users.  That said, I'm still on P3D 4.5.  

 

For me it is the AI. I just can't bring myself to flying without of all my custom AI (from Alpha India Group and MAIW). For example, it is a pleasure to see all my custom AI at FlyTampa KLAS then seeing USAF planes taking off and landing at nearby Nellis AFB! Until that type of AI works in MSFS 2020 I will not make the switch.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Joseph29

[Noel 4,493]

I never thought I would ever use 2 sims, but I can see it here, they are very different--each one excels in certain areas and I can see, depending on what I'm after, of using one or the other at various times.  Eventually, if and when MSFS matures, I think we will abandon P3D, unless LM has photoreal streaming scenery up their sleeve in which case all bets are off!

Edited August 21, 2020 by Noel

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

AIG is making progress on the AI front. FSPXAI demonstrated one of their models converted for MSFS:

https://m.facebook.com/pg/FSPXAI/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0

[out 769]

I didn't buy and am not planning to buy MFS2020 any time soon.
Yes, I do like what I'm seeing in the screenshots or videos, when it comes to the autogen and landmarks. A milestone for sure.
But I hardly ever fly GA. In my sim, I am an airline pilot. I don't practise simming without my addons (aircraft, airports, tools), as this is the flying I enjoy.
I am on P3D v4.5. Maybe I will switch to P3Dv5 with its next version, or stay with 4.5 which is working perfectly for me.

So, while I certainly understand the hype of a new sim, I haven't been affected.
I know after a few hours of fun searching for my home, stroking dense trees with my Cessna's gear and circling aroung the Eiffel Tower, I would return to FL380 with my P3D jet anyway.
In the future? Time will tell - I never say never (lol).

[Gabe777 132]

Yup. Eye candy versus personality.

Snog, marry, avoid ?

MSFS is good for an hour's romp on the settee with a controller on the new Xbox. "Ahhhh, pretty elephants and giraffe. Let's stalk them for an hour"

P3D.... Full on serious mode.... 3 PCs and monitors, 747 manual, Navigraph charts on a tablet......

X plane .... Went in the bin on Day Two. Too Olive green everywhere. Even Africa. Yuk.

I bet, 75.78 percent of P3D users have gone back to it, by the 5th September at 1100 Zulu. And will prolly keep a distant eye on the development of MSFS from time to time over the next year or 2.

But obviously, only 53.24 percent of these people, will admit it ... even to themselves.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Gabe777

[Michael Moe 495]

Indeed , looking forward to a NGXU flight to-night maybe with the new Cargo variant in P3dv5.

Next up is a FSLA321 trip

Michael Moe 

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

1 hour ago, Gabe777 said:

I bet, 75.78 percent of P3D users have gone back to it, by the 5th September at 1100 Zulu. And will prolly keep a distant eye on the development of MSFS from time to time over the next year or 2.

But obviously, only 53.24 percent of these people, will admit it ... even to themselves.

I'm confident Asobo will iron out the bugs and add the missing features in timely fashion.

For me it all depends when some more complex aircraft from A2A/PMDG etc. will start appearing for MSFS2020... when this happens I'll make the switch. It's a flight simulator after all and not fancy Bing maps.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Tomaz Drnovsek

[CFIJose 5,485]

It was more of a date to me and I found her to be immature. 😀

[ssair1 92]

13 hours ago, Noel said:

I wholeheartedly relate to this, except for the 'fling' piece, which of course implies short-lived, temporary.  The depth that P3D (even 4.5!) offers is astounding in its own right and I can't see not wanting to continue using it as I have been, which is nearly every day.  It's a ritual for me.  I'm up at around 5am, start the coffee, take our sweet dog out to do her business, come back in and see where we are flying to this morning, accompanied by FSCaptain, and Nikki, who jumps up on my lap, and we set up the flight and start out w/ GSXII doing its thing.  This morning off we went, choosing the Maj Q400 'Crash' 8 leaving Orbx KJAC to KSLC direct.  The sunrise was stunning, the haze in the valleys looked so real and with such depth.  Multiple cloud layers, and the dawn sky gorgeous.  There is a certain crispness to dawn/night lights that looks better to me than MSFS' nighttime lighting, though I only have one flight in MSFS so far at night so a bit early to tell.  That dusk to nighttime flight in MSFS also had a sky that looked fake, with no depth, as if it were painted with paint that was not transparent enough.  I can't explain it other than it was what it was.  So P3D wins there too, so far with my limited experience.  So yes I will continue using P3D for what I always have and continue enjoying the time with it immensely.

 But, no 'fling' with MSFS!  The scenery engine is, as a first release version even more so, spectacular in terms of what you get for the processing power delivered.  It needs refining in some areas, for example in scenery night lighting, lighting halo/glow, and especially some road edges are just too low resolution.  Don't have enough experience w/ cloud rendering to know if it is as good as ASN/REX, or better.  I don't yet know what to say about that dusk sky.  But I think we will be watching the new sim grow and mature as they have put so much in it already in terms of core engine strength.   At least I sure hope it continues to evolve.  I don't see anything that hints this will be a flash in the pan.  It looks like it could be a rock solid new foundation and engine.

It has been a fling with MSFS so far, but that doesn't rule out long-term potential. In all likelihood, MSFS will continuously iron out bugs and provide general improvements. A2A Simulations recently announced plans to make their fleet available for MSFS, within a probable short-time frame. And the likes of PMDG and others have already been commencing development. Performance-wise, default MSFS has been running well on my system, but only time will tell how more complex aircraft, add-on enhancements, etc. will impact frame rates. 

However, P3D continues to maintain a lot of value, having set the precedence for sophisticated airliners and GA birds. There are just too many established positives to mention about P3D. One future improvement, I cannot wait to see, is when Enhanced Atmospherics comes out of Beta. If the past is a predictor, i.e., the gradual improvements of v4 to v4.5, then the future looks bright for P3Dv5. 

Edited August 21, 2020 by ssair1

[jalbino59 114]

I withheld my decision to purchase P3D v5 until after this release, and having had the opportunity to use the alpha and beta builds and realizing this game would release in DX11 (can't wrap my head around that move). I decided P3D V5 would be better suited to the type of simming I prefer to take part in.   Once the MSFS matures I'll re-assess but for now, I'll stick to P3D