On 8/27/2020 at 9:01 PM, MagentaChild said:

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.

I sign that one.

MSFS is not there yet. But it is the future.

On 8/28/2020 at 6:50 PM, Jeff_Fortuna said:

With all due respect, flight simulation is not tied to the accuracy with which the scenery can be represented. If it were, no one would have ever purchased X-Plane, P3D, IL-2, DCS, etc. Additionally, none of the professional pilot training sims would be used.

Well said! As someone who paid a lot of money to fly the Concorde simulator at Brooklands Museum near Heathrow the scenery was very basic. But I’m handling actual Concorde controls and the realism was brilliant. Also, the sim engine was pretty old. Perhaps FS98. But the important thing was the quality of the flight model and handling real controls.

All that glitters is not gold.

1 hour ago, cantremember said:

To me, after FSX died of old age, X-Plane became its successor, and as of today the choice is either between X-Plane 11 as an established/matured sim with a lot of complex addons, and quite good looking.. and FS 2020 that has a bright future and huge user base pushing it forward (possibly to overtake X-plane in a year's time)

I have only tried P3D 4.5, not v5 but it was antiquated and has terrible scenery. I was disappointed to find that even my hometown of 70k pop is STILL entirely absent in P3D 4.5 being just random farm fields, just like in FSX from 2006. While it is quite nicely present in X-Plane 11 with the correct street layout, it looks much like FS 2020 when you turn off the Azure streaming.

You probably used LC scenery in P3D 4.5. When using PR scenery as MSFS does you will not only find your hometown but also your street and an AG house on the correct place...

You cannot compare LC based scenery to PR scenery . Doesn’t matter what game/sim..

- - - 

And I agree with Ray. Sitting in a cockpit with real controls adds everything to realism, even when there is little eyecandy ..

Edited September 14, 20205 yr by GSalden

 

15 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Well said! As someone who paid a lot of money to fly the Concorde simulator at Brooklands Museum near Heathrow the scenery was very basic. But I’m handling actual Concorde controls and the realism was brilliant. Also, the sim engine was pretty old. Perhaps FS98. But the important thing was the quality of the flight model and handling real controls.

All that glitters is not gold.

Indeed. If I had the choice between flying over basic, blocky scenery in a fully-modelled cockpit with genuine controls or flying over pretty scenery with an average flight model and a joystick, I would choose the former every time. But if my only option is to sit in front of my monitor in the corner of my living room at home, the visuals have a big impact on how successfully I'm able to suspend my disbelief and convince myself I'm actually flying from A to B, just as the flight model is important in allowing me to convince myself I'm flying something that's pretty close to the real aircraft. 

I'm very jealous of your Brooklands Concorde sim experience.

On 9/3/2020 at 11:48 AM, GSalden said:

P3D an outdated sim. LOL. It is being used in real world flightsimulators and many simmers  over the world.

That is not exactly correct. The two largest manufactures of Full Flight Simulators and Flight Training Devices is CAE and FlightSafety. CAE uses its priority third generation Tropos-6000XL visual system and FlightSafety uses VITAL 1150 visual system. Not a single line of code is used from P3D in either system. 

Where you do see P3D and XPlane Pro uses is in the low end Aviation Training Devices (BATD and AATD.) At this level of training neither accurate aerodynamic model, accurate control loading, accurate sounds, or accurate avionics are required for certification. They use generic or comparable for all of the requirements i.e. they are recognisable for being what they represent. For the aerodynamics a table of performance must be submitted but it is a far cry from the aerodynamics certification in the larger devices. Basically maximum speed, cruise speed, stall speed, maximum climb rates, and for multi engine airplanes minimum control speeds are required at altitudes up to 5,000' for a piston airplane and 18,000' for turbine powered. The main difference in an AATD over a BATD is a more realistic cockpit layout.

Even though P3D can be used as the software solution of a BATD or an AATD does not make your home setup and FAA approved device. The entire setup has to be approved hardware and software and a Letter of Authorization (LOA) issued. The chances of an individual completing the process is highly unlikely. 

One of the misnomers is the approved by the FAA moniker used in so much advertisement. The reality is any one piece of hardware or software is not approved on its own, but can be added to the Qualification and Approval Guide (QAG) for certification. An example of such advertisements includes software manufacture, a  high end flight sim PC manufacture, and a flight control manufacture.  In all three cases they advertise Approved by the FAA, but the reality is the parts they ship you do nothing to make you home setup one step closer to an actual device much less authorize you to start logging time. If you want a certified device then you should buy one from a manufacture like Red Bird. 

 

As far as P3D versus MSFS, that is not something I would even dip my toe into. You might as well ask Coke versus Pepsi, AMD versus Intel, or what brand of motor oil. These arguments are timeless and have been around since competition in the market. There are hundreds of review articles written by professional journalists and YouTube videos. Any potential customer can look to these and make a determination for themselves. 

30 minutes ago, mrfilbert said:

Indeed. If I had the choice between flying over basic, blocky scenery in a fully-modelled cockpit with genuine controls or flying over pretty scenery with an average flight model and a joystick, I would choose the former every time. But if my only option is to sit in front of my monitor in the corner of my living room at home, the visuals have a big impact on how successfully I'm able to suspend my disbelief and convince myself I'm actually flying from A to B, just as the flight model is important in allowing me to convince myself I'm flying something that's pretty close to the real aircraft. 

I'm very jealous of your Brooklands Concorde sim experience.

It really does boil down to how you fly. I’ve been an IFR simmer ever since I bought flight sim back in the 90s. I fly VFR very occasionally but soon get bored. Yes, seeing your own house is novel but the novelty will soon wear off.

I readily accept the scenery in MFS is excellent that P3D could never match. But with FS Global, Ultimate Terrain X, Active Sky and my own GoFlight hardware P3D v4.5 is still extremely attractive to me.

Once the MFS SDK is released and the serious guys can port their aircraft into MFS maybe my attitude will change. But that’s at least 12 months away.

It was an unforgettable experience in the world’s only Concorde simulator. If you ever get the opportunity to visit Brooklands consider it.

For me I think MSFS is visually stunning, but flying into places like JFK or Heathrow without proper AI is just awful! So until MSFS gets proper AI (from AIG and MAIW) I will be sticking with P3D (I have v5).

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Well said! As someone who paid a lot of money to fly the Concorde simulator at Brooklands Museum near Heathrow the scenery was very basic. But I’m handling actual Concorde controls and the realism was brilliant. Also, the sim engine was pretty old. Perhaps FS98. But the important thing was the quality of the flight model and handling real controls.

All that glitters is not gold.

I flew a 717 full motion sim at Long Beach back in 2003 when the factory was still open. I got a tour of the factory included with the sim time. I think it was $400 for 90 minutes in the sim and the tour.

The visual representation in the sim was also very basic. My FS9 (or perhaps my FS2002) setup was visually more realistic, but yes, you can't beat the experience of actually being at the controls. The thing that suprised me the most was the sensitivity of the toe brakes. I slammed those things when I landed (<60kts), and it felt like we crashed. This is where I leaned how to keep the aircraft trimmed property, and unlike in MSFS, it was fairly easy to do just like P3D, FSX...

 

Just look for Edetroit in YouTube.. That’s the sim we all want.. 

 

The Airsimmer was the bees knees when it came out. No weather radar, but I learned a lot. It looks flat now compared to the FSLabs version. 

4 hours ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

Just look for Edetroit in YouTube.. That’s the sim we all want.. 

He is amazing and a really nice guy as well. I've followed his postings on this and other forums since FSX came out. He is the grand master at photo-real 2D panels, truly talented. He has got FSX looking amazing and I sense he will stick to it for years to come, uploading more impressive videos. 

4 hours ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

Just look for Edetroit in YouTube.. That’s the sim we all want.. 

Not necessarily. 

Not all of us are interested in tubeliners, and what is an adequate out the window view of the world from 45000 AGL using decent mesh and landclass breaks down at 4500 AGL.

Some of us want the actual airports in as much detail as possible while others want the area surrounding the airport to be detailed.  Especially when such details are what we use to help line up a visual approach.  

MSFS is clearly the future imo. I will not spend anymore money or time with P3D or XP. If we support them and the 3rd party vendors (which I did by buying KDEN) then they will have incentive to keep improving the sim and add-ons. It's a vote for the future. 

9 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But the important thing was the quality of the flight model and handling real controls.

All that glitters is not gold.

Well, I think this is more complicated. Given the fact that most home simmers will not have a full motion flight sim, the feeling of flight will never match reality. The sense of motion is one of the most important things of flying. Of course a good flight model is important. But it can only do so much.

On the other hand the visual representation may not be important for a type rating or to log flight hours, but it's an essential aspect of delivering the illusion of flight.

Besides, MS flight model is quite good actually. No other sim models moving through air as believable as MSFS. There are some flaws still. A few general ones but mostly with the specific flight models.

I've never had such an authentitic impression of flying than in the last few weeks with MSFS.

Edited September 14, 20205 yr by tweekz

 

15 minutes ago, tweekz said:

Well, I think this is more complicated. Given the fact that most home simmers will not have a full motion flight sim, the feeling of flight will never match reality. The sense of motion is one of the most important things of flying. Of course a good flight model is important. But it can only do so much.

On the other hand the visual representation may not be important for a type rating or to log flight hours, but it's an essential aspect of delivering the illusion of flight.

Besides, MS flight model is quite good actually. No other sim models moving through air as believable as MSFS. There are some flaws still. A few general ones but mostly with the specific flight models.

I've never had such an authentitic impression of flying than in the last few weeks with MSFS.

What is also very important is fluidity. No pauses or stutters are vital in creating the impression of flight. I have limited experience with GA aircraft so would leave the quality or otherwise of the flight model to those better equipped to judge.