Sightseeing sim or the next true slight sim?

I have been away from flight simming for a couple of years, but with the release and the great bargain on xbox live, I dove back in. I also upgraded for comparison sake  to P3DV5 and Xplane 11.5 with Vulkan/Metal API. My rig is a pretty good one with lots of memory and an i7/ RTX2070 roughly 2 years old. The videos posted of MSFS were astonishing and I can confirm in some places, VFR flight was truly that, you could follow roads, water towers etc, just like I was taught in the pre-GPS days.  Flight models are mediocre and I find the controllers difficult to configure, and views, annoying to set up.  Weather is worse than non-existent, making IFR approaches impossible even if everything else works (Try a crosswind VOR approach for fun in a cessna).  So ok, that will all be fixed eventually, but it makes it as a sim less than useable, but it looks nice. VR, VR, where art thou?

On to XP-11.50 with Vulkan/metal, and my first impression is holy moly, the frame rate is really high. On my iMac, it was even more dramatic going from 8 to 28 switching OpenGL to metal in the FJsim 727 (I’ve never run xplane on an iMac before, but Metal makes this viable).  So that was a pleasant surprise how smooth everything ran even when cranked up and, though the classic barren terrain is still there, it looks much better, and even the boring xplane clouds look better rendered. It’s surprising to me how good the xplane airliners have gotten, almost to PMDG standards. The flyjsim 732 and 727 are both joys to fly and a huge challenge at the same time. Pro-tip: Throttle down to avoid blowing an engine during your climb out.  Along with Navigraph, vatsim or PilotEdge, you can simulate any IFR flight quite accurately in  Xplane. I see that PilotEdge now supports MS2020, but until navigraph support happens (they say there will be downloadable updates coming but as yet, nothing), its risky to fly on a live network.

Where does xplane really shine? VR, and here’s to my dream that FS2020 adopts the xplane manipulator formula rather than P3D’s no controller mode. If you have never flown in VR, beg borrow steal a headset and fly one of the airliners (you know my favorite) and be prepared to never fly in 2d again. It’s not perfect and it crashes often at the worst times, but handfly a 727 into Ohare on vatsim in VR....

I could go on and on but lets conclude with P3D. V5 runs much better on my system and VR works pretty good as well. I’m not a fan of the control scheme and pointing my head and hitting a button is not my idea of realism; but, I come and stay for A2A. The Cherokee, in my book, is the best GA aircraft you can purchase for any flight simulator. Ok, maybe the Comanche instead; you get my point. You bounce the landing, better check the landing gear before heading out. Forgot to do a run up? Maybe thats why you missed the magneto drop, the fouled plugs and your crash on takeoff. 

For now, I like most of you, await the patches, the weather, the improved flight models to come in MSFS2020. And, for now, I can show my friends my house.