Hi Guys,

Looking for a little advice if possible about purchasing MSFS.I have been a long time user of FSX and P3D,but now i am thinking of switching to MSFS.

1,Where is the best place to purchase Amazon are the cheapest at the moment.

2,Is the weather on a standard with Active Sky.

3,Is the default ATC better or on a standard with Radar Contact.

4,Is the flybywire A320 close to areosofts P3D version.

5,Would my PC be able to run it with mid to high settings,

I7 11700k

RTX 3060

32GB Ram

Windows 10 Pro.

Thanks in advance if you would be so kind to help me out with these questions,plus anything else that would be beneficial on making the switch.

With Thanks 

Gary Jones.

1. Steam Edition

2. No.

3. No.

4. Better.

5. Absolutely!

6 minutes ago, Benbo said:

1,Where is the best place to purchase Amazon are the cheapest at the moment.

2,Is the weather on a standard with Active Sky.

3,Is the default ATC better or on a standard with Radar Contact.

4,Is the flybywire A320 close to areosofts P3D version.

5,Would my PC be able to run it with mid to high settings,

 

1. MS Store

2. Mostly better, more natural, over all very realistic. Active Sky was more precise regarding data

3. Never used Radar Contact but default ATC is similar to FSX/P3D ATC.

4. No, far better

5. of course!

1. Xbox / Microsoft Store
   But Steam is also a good option
2. Compared to FSX/Activesky it is much better visually but it needs more work.
3. No, same ATC as with FSX basically, with a few improvements.
4. Better
5. Should be pretty good performane, probably better/smoother than with FSX.

Coming from FS98 to FSX...

1. If you already have a Steam account and use it, then get the Steam version. Otherwise, it probably does not matter much.

2. Weather looks better, but is still a work in progress.

3. Same/similar experience with ATC as FSX, for the most part

4. Have not personally tried it, but the general consensus I have heard is that it is better and one of the greatest pieces of freeware of all time for flight sim.

5. Your specs are perfectly fine.

You did not mention this, but make sure you have enough Hard Drive/SSD space (SSD preferred). 1TB on a shared drive with Windows is the absolute minimum you should think about if you will at all be adding third-party content. 512 GB minimum is you will dedicate a drive to it. Personally, I have an external 2TB drive just for games installed on my machine. A "fairly light" installation of MSFS (only a fairly select number of third-party add-ons and all of the World Updates) is 242 GB.

You should not be "thinking" about the switch. This is the simulator we have all been dreaming about since we use to follow pixels around on a 12" CRT monitor. It is not perfect and has some growing pains it is dealing with, but MSFS is a superlative experience in VFR and GA planes. If you like to simply simulate being in a tubeliner and never look out the window, the jump in the experience might not be as drastic. However, the moment you look out the window in MSFS, you will never want to fly any of the older sims again. It took me 4 weeks of using MSFS before I uninstalled FSX and said good-bye to the RIDICULOUS man-hours I had spent tweaking and customizing it to my liking (and I was pretty proud of what I had built).

24 minutes ago, Benbo said:

Thanks in advance if you would be so kind to help me out with these questions,plus anything else that would be beneficial on making the switch.

Be acutely aware MSFS is a work in progress so what is correct to say today about MSFS will change going forward, whereas what you've been used to is the epitome of stagnation, by comparison, albeit maturity in the total flight sim domain.  My prediction is once you are on board w/ MSFS, and it will take a little time to sort things out, you'll find yourself using P3D less and less as the days fly by.  Welcome!

I'm fully invested in MSFS and have deleted all other sims from my HDs. Where MSFS shines is in the world coverage of photo sceneries, the water is just fabulous, and most payware airports look amazing in MSFS.

There are some amazing payware airplanes that are now available that will get you hooked right away. If you want a list, let us know.

The "live weather" feature is still not consistently delivering the goods, the ATC is terrible, the AI traffic needs work and is neglected in every update. It's even hard to move the tug out of the way when your aircraft is parked at a gate. In other words, the ground services need work. This is another area that has been ignored by the ASOBO.

I'll state this again, where MSFS shines is in the scenery which is where their focus has been since day one., ASOBO needs to start focusing on the core sim and stop pushing payware add-on airports.

Buy the Steam version.  Just look at this forum, nearly every issue with installing and upgrading concerns the Store version.

Edited April 12, 20224 yr by MrBitstFlyer

3 hours ago, Benbo said:

Thanks in advance if you would be so kind to help me out with these questions,plus anything else that would be beneficial on making the switch.

See my Happy Camper post, and get the freeware Addons Linker day one to manage your addons.. this keeps your Community folder small and easy to manage.  Hardware wise, a dedicated 500 GB SSD and a decent internet connection (25 Mbps+) is all you need to use your current rig.