I have P3D v4.5 currently, and am curious whether v5 is a better path at this point or would MSFS be a better path. Not looking for any religion here, just observations from those who’ve used both.

I have a relatively high end machine with a 4K monitor, all about 18 months old.

Airline procedural flying —-> P3D

GA flying and/or amazing visuals —-> MSFS

I'm making some popcorn for this thread... 🍿

But the answer is, this is as personal of a choice as religion, so asking for people's opinions will get you just that.

It depends on what you want. I have both. I've had every version of P3D since the beginning. It does some things really great, and if you can manage past the VRAM challenges in P3Dv5, it can be a great experience.

MSFS is a different experience.  As of today, if you want to fly airliners or really any high-end third party aircraft, you'll be disappointed with MSFS as of TODAY. If you want to have an amazing GA experience, then MSFS is the way to go.

Personally, for the time being, my answer to this question is "both".

Keep and enjoy what you have. But MSFS is clearly the future for flight sims with XP11 being relegated to a Mac/Linux/airplane engineering niche and P3D fading into obscurity in 1 or 2 years.

Just now, neil0311 said:

I have P3D v4.5 currently, and am curious whether v5 is a better path at this point or would MSFS be a better path. Not looking for any religion here, just observations from those who’ve used both.

I have a relatively high end machine with a 4K monitor, all about 18 months old.

If you are mostly interested in just doing as accurate as possible flights in large airliners, P3D is probably the way to go for the next 6-12 months. 

If you want to do a mix of VFR flying and basic IFR flying (non study level), and don't mind some glitches and missing content in the short term, then go with MSFS.

I cannot really comment on the merits of P3D over MSFS. What I can say is that you can obtain the latter for $1 via GamePass, there isn't any real reason not to take a look.

Invest to the future!

You can purchase Prepar3D v5 and use it within the refund window which is two weeks, and subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass for PC for just $1 during the first month, and then decide for yourself which simulator you'd rather keep.

If you are looking to make a long-term decision I would recommend giving them some more time before trying them out, because both of them have their fair share of issues that should be fixed with patches in the near future.

Thanks everyone, and I get that different folks have different opinions, but that’s what I wanted, with the reasons stated in a logical way.

The emotion was what I want to avoid. 🙂

4 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Invest to the future!

Or,  as the saying says: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" If You can afford it, get both.

Edited August 27, 20205 yr by RamonB

1 minute ago, RamonB said:

Or as some say: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" If You can afford it, get both.

Well I can and probably will. Since I have P3D v4, wasn’t sure if the “bang for the buck” in v5 was worth immediately taking that plunge, but don’t want to go too far OT. 

You can take a look at this video: 

 

I wouldn’t buy P3D v5 at this point unless I already had all the addons I need. You’d have to go spend hundreds to get regional sceneries and to fix things like weather, clouds, etc. 

The major developers have made it clear MSFS is the future. Be patient and save yourself a lot of money in the long run.

I was in the same boat as you in that I have P3D v4.5. I decided to get MSFS because it is the future and I wanted to learn the platform and get a good start from the beginning. I did not see much advantage of getting P3D v5 because I already have v4.5 and really don't see much of an advantage. Plus, when v5 was released it had so many issues and still have many problems including the requirement of high VRAM.

I was planning on still using P3D as much as MSFS, but I find myself going to P3D every once in a while because MSFS is so much more engaging. When I do go to P3D, I don't stay long. It is kind of like having a great new girlfriend and at time, hanging out with your ex-girlfriend who did not treat you well and just wasn't that good to be around anyway. 

Bottom line, my recommendation would be to get MSFS and have a ton of fun with it and learn the platform. You still have P3D v4.5 if you have any P3D needs, but there really is no good reason to get v5 unless you must have those upgraded clouds but make sure you have enough VRAM on your GPU. Eat eats VRAM for breakfast.

It depends on what experience you want out of the flight sim. Both sim's are good for different reasons. If you mainly fly the big jets and airliners then P3D is the way to go. As i posted in a reddit thread the enjoyment from flying them airliners and big planes, comes from the management of the systems. The more complex and in-depth the systems are and are model then the more fun its going to be. P3D easily wins in this category currently. Will be a good 6 months to a year before high quality payware airliners come on the market.  In the interim there is already a community mod to improve the A320 from the default but if you want complexity and big airliners that just isn't in MFS currently, so for the time being P3D is your sim.

Now if you want to fly GA MFS blows P3D out of the water. The fun of flying GA especially under VFR is learning to navigate by looking out of the window instead of on your instruments, a total different skill set. Traditionally outside of maybe Orbx True Earth products this has been hard to do because what you see out of your window doesn't look like what should be out of the window. MFS changes that and on the simulator at the moment VFR is king. That's not to say IFR and complex airliners wont catch up but that will take time. So best to ask yourself what do you want the fly and pick the sim that best replicates that experience.

Myself I would maybe invest in MFS just due to the price of P3D, knowing that i most likely wouldn't be using it in 6 months to a years time but is money isn't a problem then pick the sim that best reflects what you want to get from your experience.