A rant from the heart

[shivers9 1,174]

47 minutes ago, honanhal said:

Simbol, genuine question and I'm curious to hear your answer: how are you defining these highlighted terms for purposes of defining the market?

It is easy to understand your question and it is valid. I do however suspect that there is no "good" or "correct" answer. Like we all have different computers and set ups, we are likely to all have a different answer to that question. Out in flight sim land there are folks who use the simulator on a Walmart lap top to crash into buildings and runways and other aircraft and know zero...nothing....nada....about flying an aircraft other than they maybe know how to purchase an airline ticket and can find the correct gate with only minor assistance. On the other side of the curve are those who have $250,000.00 plus invested in home cockpits with experience as deep as being NASA Shuttle Engineers and everything in between. It is this vast difference in experience, equipment, personal desires and money that make it impossible to truly define users. Thus before anyone can answer your question we must all be able to agree on Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? 😵 Not going to happen!!

[simbol 5,819]

11 minutes ago, honanhal said:

Fair enough! As an outsider looking in, I'm still left wondering what the real user figures look like. P3D developers whose products adapt well to MSFS (e.g. scenery) have overwhelmingly shifted their efforts to MSFS, so it stands to reason that they're drawing a different set of conclusions. Maybe they have different data, or maybe it's a question of interpreting the same data differently.

Anyway, thanks for sharing how you approach it. It's always interesting to me.

James

James,

Scenery is one of the things that the current MSFS SDK supports best, so of course everyone went for it as quick as possible.. specially when all P3D users posted all over social media, forums, sent letters to our aunts, mums, etc. saying they were not going to buy any P3D add-on ever again because MSFS was about to be launched.

What do you think developers were going to do? they rushed to convert everything they could as fast as they can.. no? then after months of being on MSFS.. many users came back to P3D and now are complaining there are not many releases for P3D.. well.. you told the market you didn't wanted them to build anything for P3D no? 

As you might have noticed, I waited before committing.. because A) MSFS SDK status, B) Market status (what is the real size of DLC buyers and what they want to buy?).

In my particular case, while I wait and see when MSFS is going to open their platform further helped me to released many add-on's with partners for P3D, the latest was the 777 V2 Immersion for P3D.. which has been a very successful release so far. Another release will be out soon and I am about to complete another to send for beta test.. so I am not static.. I am just evolving with the market as it fits  

S.

 

[shivers9 1,174]

5 minutes ago, simbol said:

Scenery is one of the things that the current MSFS SDK supports best, so of course everyone went for it as quick as possible.. specially when all P3D users posted all over social media, forums, sent letters to our aunts, mums, etc. saying they were not going to buy any P3D add-on ever again because MSFS was about to be launched.

IMHO that is 100% correct. There were a few of us who did try to point that out from the beginning and even a few like myself who were threatened by the local mods for trying to scream above the MS marketing noise but to no avail. Now as you point out, we pay the price. Sad but true.

[chapstick 2,757]

27 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

IMHO that is 100% correct. There were a few of us who did try to point that out from the beginning and even a few like myself who were threatened by the local mods for trying to scream above the MS marketing noise but to no avail. Now as you point out, we pay the price. Sad but true.

It was a pretty widely held belief that scenery would be pumped out pretty quickly, way before complex airliners, etc., thereby disrupting the market. Not sure why you seem to see yourself as some persecuted prophet. 

[rob0203 689]

My opinion about it is that MSFS is catching up really fast and Prepar3d is about to stay far behind.

I was allways a strong supporter for Prepar3d, have a lot of money in it to. Have all PMDG, FSLabs, Maddog etc. I tried to fly a lot of times with MSFS in the beginning but it was al lot of times a disaster with my hardware etc. The thing I really wanted to do was take a tour around the world in a jetliner to discover the new sim.  A new approach each day keeps the doctor away 😉

But since last week I decided to try it again and now with Lorby Axis and OH, I got my MCP working and with the FMC from aviaworx on my Ipad I am taking a tour around the world in MSFS with the Aerosoft CRJ. 

See pic here: https://imgur.com/a/gHlmnLj

Yes, everything is working in my setup all rotaries and autopilot buttons, zooming the ND, dialing minimums, speed, ALT etc.It has improved a lot! Never had a single crash, the graphics are awesome and the weather and scenery is 😲😮

Also the CRJ is of course not FSLabs (yes I also bought the sharklets) but the immersion and lighting is way better in this sim.

If PMDG will release 737 for MSFS it will be really hard for Prepar3d to catch up! To say that MSFS is just a "game" and Prepar3d a simulator is a little bit too easy.......

Anyway I really hope that the 5.2 release of Prepar3d will bring something great to our hobby!

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by rob0203

[Christopher Low 5,353]

2 hours ago, honanhal said:

Fair enough! As an outsider looking in, I'm still left wondering what the real user figures look like. P3D developers whose products adapt well to MSFS (e.g. scenery) have overwhelmingly shifted their efforts to MSFS, so it stands to reason that they're drawing a different set of conclusions. Maybe they have different data, or maybe it's a question of interpreting the same data differently.

Anyway, thanks for sharing how you approach it. It's always interesting to me.

James

I am betting that it is a lot easier to port existing products to MSFS than it is to build an entirely new product from scratch. As the young John Connor would say........easy money

Edited May 17, 2021 by Christopher Low

[simbol 5,819]

26 minutes ago, rob0203 said:

If PMDG will release 737 for MSFS it will be really hard for Prepar3d to catch up!

Agreed.. So as per my 3rd party developer rant. I hope by then MSFS opens the platform and work with all 3rd party developers as equal.

Having said that if they don't, many of the points expressed here will remain since the AI world, camera system and many others immerse factors expressed by the original OP would remain the same..

Unless of course Asobo does it all themselves, in which case MSFS will becomes not only the winning platform but Also ASOBO the leader as DLC content provider.

So, the future is still cloudy regarding how things will pan out for everything and everyone in the flight sim world..

Regards,

S.

[ideoplastic 86]

Bought and installed the Premium Deluxe version and cannot really express how disappointed I was.

The actual intefaces are terrible and the setting up of peripherals and cameras is extremely complicated and confusing. Add to this that whenever I tried to fly any of the planes, had all kinds of stability issues and the annoying downward pointing arrow was a real pain in the behind, don't get me started on how complicated and confused the menus and the terminology used in most them is. Trying to set my cameras was a nightmare also and the interfaces for exiting or changing something were less than user friendly. I got the impression that this MSFS2020 has been designed to work in Xbox as a game rather than a simulator, for those people who just want to enjoy all the eye candy and don't care much about stable aircraft systems, etc. Then there is the issue of having to download/stream large amounts of data to get that lovely eye candy. If you also want good performance on a PC be prepared to expend quite a bit of money running into close to £3000 and that's without buying the new peripherals that they recommend that will also add additional hundreds of Pounds Sterling to your total cost. As regards the comment that MSFS2020 is catching up, that is far from true for they haven't even finished and SDK after nearly a year of release and cannot see that happening for perhaps 6 months or more. Needless to say that I agree with the poster on this subject and have myself removed it from my PC until or if ever MSFS2020 becomes a viable choice. Those developers that abandoned P3D and are issuing all these airports for this sim are obviously taking advantage of this new game to make money but very much doubt that their sales are sky rocketing seeing that quite a few of those airports are already being discounted by some vendors, not a good sign for them. This is my honest opinion.

[coastaldriver 919]

I have found this thread fascinating. It seems there is a lot of frustration with both sims from the users perspective and developers - understandable! The key problem is both these sims have gone in different directions the same way X-Plane took a different approach with their code. I am a P3D user, I tried MSFS but it was a no go for me and I actually got a refund. A number of reasons which are a form of comparison of difference.

First, the deal breaker for me seems not to be obvious to a lot of people but it was the need for high speed quality constant broadband and internet connectivity and bandwidth! There is a large number of countries and places where high speed and good bandwith is not an option it is just not available - so MSFS is never going to work for me or those areas. Even if it was available it is not cheap and the costs would become prohibitive very quickly. 

Second, my level of trust in MS is low, not because they cannot produce good software (their dominance of the PC market is evidence enough) but their business model has always been to constantly update and change platforms and software not just because hardware has got better because it is profitable - its called planned obsolescence. The second aspect of their business approach is their need to own intellectual property down to code level - in other words you buy our stuff or we decide who we will give code to and you can buy some stuff from them (and we still get a fee). MS has been at the forefront of inhibiting and attacking open source software and common licensing. They are also very good at buying up  developers who have something they need or could not do so they own it and can use it! That is how flight sim started in the first place, MS did not develop it SubLogic did. MS bought them out because they had solved a number of coding problems with respect to vector graphical display. The fist sim was just a marketing tool to sell Windows (fancy solitaire!). All the gripes I see now see concerning the MSFS SDK and addons (not to mention NDA contracts with developers etc) are evidence that the MS method and that corporate mindset continues. MS want in to the gaming market so MSFS is the vehicle, the same as they wanted in to the mobile phone market. They want in to the gaming market because you produce huge sales of short lived software games and you get a fee feed continously from the delivery system (Sound like MSFS to you now!). Now on one level I have no major issues with some aspects of that excepting the inhibition of open source and community participation in software development the thing that made FSX fly was the unfettered access to the SDK (MS hated that) and the huge amount of input from amateurs and professionals alike, both in flight and aviation but computer systems. 

Third and last I believe the three platforms, P3D-MSFS-XPlane have now significantly diverged. That change means you cannot approach flight simulation like we did in the past when there was only basically one platform (MS Windows as the OS and FSX or equivalent as the software that ran on it). 

I have no view about what LM may or maynot do - they are in the aerospace, manufacturing and engineering business - P3D is a good fit because they are using it to deliver training systems to their other customers (The military primarily). What they have done is rebuild a 32 bit platform into a 64 bit platform, then taken on board graphical and graphics hardware developments to addin a variety of enhancements to the synthesised simulator experience (DX12, EA, True Sky, Bathometry, wave motion) the old MS simulator engine is sufficiently robust and capable of this type of simulation. Equally LM is also sufficiently sensible to have made the P3D platform addon capable in otherwords it is to their benefit to have others develop a feature or system that works with theirs and avoid all that inhouse need to develop and design everything. So the other aspect of P3D is it's addon compatability (with xml, html and C++).

So I do not need or care if P3D cannot deliver everything in one box - the primary platform if properly matched with the hardware is very good indeed. It is fast, robust and easy to use. Yes there is more work to be done to upgrade and tidy up some aspects (EA and Sim Director or Misson Creation are the main issues and controller interface can be an issue for some). 

So after 6 months now of using P3DV5 I have a rock solid simulation program that delivers high quality graphics and has enabled me to port across just about my whole aircraft collection and which a large number of developers have provided proper rebuilds and updates for the 64 bit environment. I have a high quality simulator from study level jets and pistons to being able to play around with a simple vehicle for the fun ot if as well. 

Sensible developers are sticking with P3D for all those reasons as far as I can tell. If they have the resources they may go to MSFS as well or even do all three with XPlane but that is the new reality - there are now three sims. Comparisons are useful only so far but what I want and need out of a sim is not what say a 20 year old with time on their hands thinks a sim is! I clearly see the develpers dilemna and the rant that started this. 

Just my view of the world. 

 

 

[himmelhorse 1,276]

12 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

A part of me really does want to start from scratch with something completely new,

Christopher Low,

I think a lot of us were "taken in" by the hype prior to release of this platform.  There is so much of this allegedly "new from the ground up" Simulator which I believe is based on the old ESP platform.  To be sure there is a lot which is new, but a lot of it appears to be simply altered ESP. I cite the ATC for example.

Regardless of this, what they have come up with is truly outstanding when it works properly. Like you, I feel that many people are now being driven away by the enforced bugs introduction system that MSFS call updates.  They have yet to release one that did not cause problems for a large percentage of the community.

I highly recommend it and it is very much worth the perseverance because there is a huge amount of help available from the community to surmount the problems you are likely to encounter. 

Regards

Tony

 

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

1 hour ago, himmelhorse said:

I highly recommend it and it is very much worth the perseverance because there is a huge amount of help available from the community to surmount the problems you are likely to encounter. 

I also recommend it, but would add: get a separate 500 GB SSD to install MSFS on, and whatever you do, DO NOT uninstall your current sim..

MSFS is great when it works... but it has the most convoluted "Microsoft installation ecosystem", and you will lose some hair over this.. especially when you are dealing with Microsoft Games server outages that prevent you from starting up MSFS..

Nice to be able to go back to something you control and understand 😀

Edited May 17, 2021 by Bert Pieke

[MarkW 1,491]

6 hours ago, rob0203 said:

 

See pic here: https://imgur.com/a/gHlmnLj

Yes, everything is working in my setup all rotaries and autopilot buttons, zooming the ND, dialing minimums, speed, ALT etc.It has improved a lot! Never had a single crash, the graphics are awesome and the weather and scenery is 😲😮

 

 

 

sorry to take this off topic, however,I had no idea this could work. I have been using LINDA and it does not allow control of the rotaries. Is the setup complicated?

[rob0203 689]

2 hours ago, MarkW said:

sorry to take this off topic, however,I had no idea this could work. I have been using LINDA and it does not allow control of the rotaries. Is the setup complicated?

No it is really easy, see topic here:

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/163785-mcp-combo-template-for-crj-with-lorby-axis-oh/

[rob0203 689]

7 hours ago, ideoplastic said:

Bought and installed the Premium Deluxe version and cannot really express how disappointed I was.

The actual intefaces are terrible and the setting up of peripherals and cameras is extremely complicated and confusing. Add to this that whenever I tried to fly any of the planes, had all kinds of stability issues and the annoying downward pointing arrow was a real pain in the behind, don't get me started on how complicated and confused the menus and the terminology used in most them is. Trying to set my cameras was a nightmare also and the interfaces for exiting or changing something were less than user friendly. I got the impression that this MSFS2020 has been designed to work in Xbox as a game rather than a simulator, for those people who just want to enjoy all the eye candy and don't care much about stable aircraft systems, etc. Then there is the issue of having to download/stream large amounts of data to get that lovely eye candy. If you also want good performance on a PC be prepared to expend quite a bit of money running into close to £3000 and that's without buying the new peripherals that they recommend that will also add additional hundreds of Pounds Sterling to your total cost. As regards the comment that MSFS2020 is catching up, that is far from true for they haven't even finished and SDK after nearly a year of release and cannot see that happening for perhaps 6 months or more. Needless to say that I agree with the poster on this subject and have myself removed it from my PC until or if ever MSFS2020 becomes a viable choice. Those developers that abandoned P3D and are issuing all these airports for this sim are obviously taking advantage of this new game to make money but very much doubt that their sales are sky rocketing seeing that quite a few of those airports are already being discounted by some vendors, not a good sign for them. This is my honest opinion.

Sorry but I have to disagree, not to disagree but just some what I feel are honoust comments:

1. Prepar3d is a easy to setup program because I already am simming since FS95. For a new user it is really hard to setup just like for you to setup MSFS. Once you learn it, it is really easy! In fact Prepar3D has a very steep learning with all the addons, Fsuipc, Active Sky, Scenery library, AI etc etc. Just don’t forget because it is easy for some of us it is not for everybody…… I found that after putting some time in setting up Msfs it is now really easy setting up controls and camera’s for me! Oh yeah and in Prepar3D I had to buy Chaseplane for the same results 😉

2. I am running MSFS ( and Prepar3d) on a I5-8400 GTX1070 8Gb Ram 32Gb three screens as shown here with lot of hardware: https://imgur.com/a/gHlmnLj 
With the last update from Msfs it runs perfectly no stutters and amazing graphics and all hardware working. Not a €3000 setup! Also Prepar3D is working great!

Anyway my plan is to buy a big fat new awesome great PC at the end of the year, yeah baby!

3. You don’t need to stream a lot of data, when I looked at the data which was used it was really nothing for any modern WiFi connection. I never use a cabled connection, never had any problems. I think I could even use the 4G on my IPhone!

Anyway I am flying both sims, and the best one will stay on my computer in the end of the story. Am not pro or against anything but will switch sims just as easy as….,

(I wanted to say wives, but my wife will kill me if she reads it)

I am still hoping for a great 5.2 Prepar3D since I have great planes and scenery. But the weather is getting far behind and that is one of the most important elements in a flightsimulator! So please LM fix it in the next update! 

Grz

Robert

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by rob0203

[simon747 185]

Features such as not being able to save a flight without complications is a problem in FS2020 for me and makes flying flights over an hour a problem.  I am surprised a feature such as that does not work right.  In P3D I appreciate setting things up in FMC etc and then reverting back when need be.  For instrument stuff P3D just works.  The default flight planner in FS2020 is actually nice and intuitive to use however.