Haven't been on the sim for awhile. Decided to get on briefly to see how things were after the latest update. As I was logging on, a pretty good storm with rain and light hail was pelting my house. I wanted to see how real-time WX was looking. I set up a quick, no-frills VFR flight out of my old field, elevation, 6200 msl, about 40 miles South of my house. I used the VL3 just to have a good view. Fly-Now placed me on the runway in a very strong rain storm with visibility not more than a couple hundred feet at best (no - you wouldn't really fly in this!). The rain was pelting the canopy very realistically. I took off and decided I would see how far I had to climb to break out on top, and whether the aircraft could survive. It was flight by instruments in zero visibility all the way up to over 14,000 feet before I broke out on top and could get a visual reference as to my location. All during the climb lightning was flashing and thunder was booming around me and the rain was really noisy against the canopy. Once on top the scattered storms looked VERY realistic and three-dimensional, and varied from light Virga, to really dark and scary-looking in the vicinity of some of the individual storms. I did notice that the latest update improved the elevator trim function a good amount. The realism, both audibly and visually, was really stunning and effective during this little experiment, and truly, I can't say I have had an experience in any flight sim that was this well done. The immersion was superb! The only glitches I had were a few momentary freezes - unfortunate but not a deal-breaker.

I dare you have FUN and fly in those conditions 🙂 Nice to hear you enjoyed it. Wait for it?

I uninstalled P3DV4.5 today,no going back.

 

I bought MSFS in February expecting the worse after reading all comments, and ... enjoyed the best virtual flight experience ever since I left cockpits more than 25 years ago! I logged more than 250 hours in three months, travelled around the world, now around Africa, and after that more tours planned around South America and Asia. Never before did I enjoy so much my flying experience, this is the result of the excellent renditions of the earth and the atmospheric environment sharing my time with the cockpit management and the scenery watching.

I recently landed at remote places such as the Samburu, the Amboseli and Serena Masai Mara airstrips in Kenya, at Niokolo Koba  Simenti in Senegal and numerous others you never heard of and each time found a sort of "atmosphere" of my past real world visits. I was even more surprised to find them designed in the sim in the first place!!!

A few weeks ago, I fired up P3Dv4.5 and started a flight with the FSLab A320, my favorite add-on. After fifteen minutes, I switch it off, I could not stand the visual anymore even with all the ORBX, REX Environment, AS, top notch sceneries, something just was not right. The lighting to start with was boring and sad. I never thought this transition would be so drastic, even with all the imperfections we mention daily, this sim has a great future if we only learn to be patient and persistent! 

Edited May 31, 20215 yr by Jean-Claude

7 hours ago, BIGSKY said:

I uninstalled P3DV4.5 today, no going back.

Ooh, that's pretty final. Not quite ready to kiss P3D V.5 goodbye just yet myself; it still has much to offer in terms of most of us having a massive virtual hangar full of complex aeroplanes for it, although I suspect when that PMDG DC-6 comes out in a couple of weeks, there may well be another influx of Serious Simmers (TM). 

I can understand people who say that MSFS is a bit light and fluffy in terms of technical depth compared to P3D and FSX, but one thing which MSFS manages which even P3D with Active Sky and the Cloud Art add-on cannot pull off, is actually having a sky that genuinely does look threatening when those CBs start boiling up, which makes you genuinely consider diverting and actually believing that the sky can be as dangerous as it really is in reality when the lightning comes. Up until now, no other flight sim has managed that. 

Still, I'm not kissing P3D goodbye completely until all of the technical add-ons it has can be more closely matched by MSFS, which will happen eventually.

43 minutes ago, Chock said:

Ooh, that's pretty final. Not quite ready to kiss P3D V.5 goodbye just yet myself; it still has much to offer in terms of most of us having a massive virtual hangar full of complex aeroplanes for it, although I suspect when that PMDG DC-6 comes out in a couple of weeks, there may well be another influx of Serious Simmers (TM). 

I can understand people who say that MSFS is a bit light and fluffy in terms of technical depth compared to P3D and FSX, but one thing which MSFS manages which even P3D with Active Sky and the Cloud Art add-on cannot pull off, is actually having a sky that genuinely does look threatening when those CBs start boiling up, which makes you genuinely consider diverting and actually believing that the sky can be as dangerous as it really is in reality when the lightning comes. Up until now, no other flight sim has managed that. 

Still, I'm not kissing P3D goodbye completely until all of the technical add-ons it has can be more closely matched by MSFS, which will happen eventually.

I can't wait to get my PC back from the shop, and get back to MSFS. I have been flying P3D for the last week and a half, and I have to say, it really is about as thrilling as doing circuits around a garbage dump. It just looks terrible, and when I got my pilots license back in the late 70;s,  I loved flying to different places and looking at the scenery. There is nothing to look at in P3D, except cartoonish looking scenery. Yuck. 

As an old retired pilot I am not embarrassed to admit that perhaps one of the best things about a sim like this is that you can choose to have only the parts of the experience that are fun and enjoyable- without having to meet any requirements or follow any rules. Those challenges keep you sharp and keep you interested in the real world. Here it’s kinda like creating your own world with all the stressful parts left out (though they are still there if you want them). I am reminded of the point in “The Great Waldo Pepper” where his old friend who now works for the Feds, tells Waldo that from this point on its all going to be regulated and full of rules and requirements. The free and wild days are over. That doesn’t have to be the case with MSFS 2020. I can still be Waldo. 

RSR from PMDG  "Is it "better" than P3D? I think so. The airplane behaves and performs nearly identically- but there is a character to it that is hard to explain. I like the MSFS model more, but I will admit to fighting with it a bit when we first started, because it was different."

3 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

RSR from PMDG  "I will admit to fighting with it a bit when we first started, because it was different."

That's probably true for most people. I disliked the GUI initially, but now I actually quite like it in most respects. Still miss things like Shift+Z and the built in replay and tower cameras in FSX and P3D, but I daresay these things will come at some point. And I completely agree with Robbo on the flight model too, it's way better than that of any other mainstream flight sim and it keeps on getting even better.

Best sim I have ever purchased even with the issues.

I fired up X-Plane recently after being annoyed at the tree LOD nerfing and slightly blocky terrain at altitude.  It took me a whole day, with hours reserved to trying to get World Traffic 3 to work (absolutely superb program).

In the end I felt like just plainspotting.  Even with the ortho, the SimHeaven scenery, the Active Sky, it felt so flat, so lifeless.  The boxy autogen not covering bits of terrain up.  The random patches of cloud and the weather transitioning every 15 minutes.  Our standards have gone up this year a heck of a lot. 

Two things I'd kill to have brought over from X-Plane are the Zibo mod and World Traffic 3..  I went straight back to MSFS and did a nice flight from Dublin to Copenhagen that, aside from the lack of Zibo and decent AI traffic liveries, is just stunning out of the box.  Even MSFS that doesn't always behave is still streets ahead of the competition.  Oh for a near study level jetliner with Zibo like FPS..  Not sure that's ever going to happen! 

24 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

Oh for a near study level jetliner with Zibo like FPS..  Not sure that's ever going to happen! 

Agree with you on wishing Zibo came over, but what we have isn’t far off! We have the FBW A32NX which is quickly becoming Zibo quality, and we have Working Title & their CJ4 + Garmin mods which really improve things. 

Once PMDG releases their 737 I’ll feel completely set & satisfied though!

13 hours ago, BIGSKY said:

I uninstalled P3DV4.5 today,no going back.

 

2 years ago for me.   Onward and upward.

Cheers

bs

Edited May 31, 20215 yr by bean_sprout

How refreshing to finally read a positive momentum thread. The summary being that is really is next gen as we all cried out for , for the past decade.  Of course its got warts, moles, cysts whatever you want to liken it too. To expect otherwise , is simply not realistic. Its only going to keep getting better and better. 

2 hours ago, Chock said:

That's probably true for most people. I disliked the GUI initially, but now I actually quite like it in most respects. Still miss things like Shift+Z and the built in replay and tower cameras in FSX and P3D, but I daresay these things will come at some point. And I completely agree with Robbo on the flight model too, it's way better than that of any other mainstream flight sim and it keeps on getting even better.

Better than XPL? The FM?