On 11/7/2022 at 6:44 PM, UrgentSiesta said:

if the specific geography is so important to VFR helo training, then I'm sure you'll hop over to MSFS when helos release in a week or so?

Good grief, with more detailed ground textures and geography available in XP12 with free addons, why would anybody 'hop over' to MSFS for better geography?

On 11/10/2022 at 4:41 PM, Humpty said:

over and out

No such phrase 🙂

On 2/16/2023 at 4:57 PM, Daytona125 said:

If you can afford it I'd say yes, definitely. I have both and my time is divided about evenly with both sims. X-plane does good thing in certain scenarios and MSFS does the same. Absolutely no reason not to enjoy both....

My thoughts exactly when it was XP11/MSFS, but I really can't stand being in MSFS now XP12 is available.  I maintain MSFS on my system and load it up after each update, yet I never last more than five minutes in it.  It  is mostly the lighting and portrayal of haze and visibility in MSFS that look 'off' after XP12 to my eyes.  Added to that the inferior ground handling and blurry trees led to my 2106MSFS  hours coming to an end.

 

On 3/30/2023 at 4:09 AM, MrBitstFlyer said:

Good grief, with more detailed ground textures and geography available in XP12 with free addons, why would anybody 'hop over' to MSFS for better geography?

The debate was about the claim that any helo in XP was better than any helo in any other sim.

When I showed evidence to the contrary using DCS World helos, the goalpost was moved to include hometown scenery (which any military pilot can tell you doesn't matter a bit...)

And, sorry, not sorry - as much as I love XP and DCS, MSFS is the undisputed King of Scenery. And x 10 or so when comparing Default Sim Scenery.

Like...I was just thinking today how nice it'd be to rip around the Mach Loop in the new Tomcat or hustle the just-released CH-47 through right down in the weeds, but then I realized I'd have to make room for 250GB of Orbx True Earth & re-download & install it.

Then I shrugged and did it in the MSFS Strike Eagle while the (free/default/included) scenery automagically streamed down over the net while I was flying in the sim. And the Cache file only took a small fraction of what the Orbx TE install would've consumed.

IOW, I was done with the cold start to shut down full flight in MSFS and ready to hit some MTRs in the US before I would've even finished downloading the Orbx installer.

I've got a few favored places set up in XP with all the eye candy, but it's quite a static setup due to the effort in setting it up & keeping it.

That's why. Get it?

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The debate was about the claim that any helo in XP was better than any helo in any other sim.

there is no debate. it is a simple fact.

 

Also, having An Petrovich starting to show he's Live at the MFS Dev support forum gives simmers some hope for the future of that sim FD, including the rotaries... He posted about the latest updates for the turbine helis in MFS.

He knows his job & passion & flying, and with his base formation in aerodynamics engineering, we might have something really good in the future, and for sure a good FM and the already great scenery, merged, can make that sim an even more powerful and successful platform.

And... those guys don't waste their time recording / producing silly youtubes that actually are detrimental to the image of the sim, IMO...

Weather wise they are also doing their best to improve stuff that is still not perfect.

 

 

Edited April 6, 20233 yr by jcomm

6 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

That's why. Get it?

No, not at all.  download the free AutoOrtho and get streaming ortho for the whole world.

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

and for sure a good FM and the already great scenery, merged, can make that sim an even more powerful and successful platform.

I keep seeing comments about the great scenery in MSFS, but using the free AutoOrtho gives worldwide streaming Bing scenery in XP12. Not only that, but you get to choose different map providers.

nvm

Edited April 6, 20233 yr by mSparks

17 hours ago, mSparks said:

there is no debate. it is a simple fact.

 

There are no such absolutes, my friend. 😉

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

There are no such absolutes, my friend. 😉

There is here. X-Plane has had decades of highly experienced helicopter pilots and test pilots pouring their talents in to X-Plane such that every helicopter developer has all that experience on hand, by default, ready to go, before they even start.

No other sim has had that, not any of the MS attempts, DCS, P3D or FS4, nor any other. If one were to pay for it the entire budget of MS to date wouldn't cover the cost of their time.

Of course that doesn't mean that other sims can't do a half decent rendition of a single heli, or that every heli in XP is 100% perfect and ready to use in every aspect of ATPL training.

It does mean, that whatever your favourite heli, XP is the place to come to get it, whether it exists yet or not, whether it's perfected yet or not, no debate, those are facts.

21 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

No, not at all.  download the free AutoOrtho and get streaming ortho for the whole world.

Orthos are only good for flying over small areas where, if you're lucky, you find the tiles all the same.
But you won't find them on a large part of the planet, the downloaded tiles will look like many mosaics full of artifacts, defects, and inhomogeneous colors.
I know because I have flown there often with Ortho and XP10-11.
The difference of MSFS lies in the elaboration of the artificial intelligence which processes and uniforms all those scenarios by depriving them (as much as possible) of defects between the tiles.
Even with XP it is possible to correct the tiles, but at the cost of years of patience fixing thousands of tiles by hand with photoshop.
Comparing Ortho streaming to MSFS streaming is a bad comparison, you will never get the quality that allows you to have MSFS instantaneously all over the planet.
Ortho is an excellent tool, I have used it and enjoyed it.
But as I said it only works to map the Sunday trip on small areas.
If you try to fly with Ortho streaming in real time over an area as big as France you will find a multitude of busted tiles, so Ortho streaming is useless in that case, MSFS wins hands down on the "globality and uniformity" of the satellite scenery .

32 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Orthos are only good for flying over small areas where, if you're lucky, you find the tiles all the same.

Its always glass half empty for you.  I have used AutoOrtho all over the USA, Europe, Australia and parts of Africa without many problems.

On 4/6/2023 at 1:03 PM, mSparks said:

there is no debate. it is a simple fact.

 

DCS and Aerofly FS4 would beg to differ

You may, for whatever reason, want XP be be the absolute best but that doesn't make it a fact,

For example DCS offers a depth of systems modelling and damage modelling unmatched by XP (and continually being enhanced, just today ED have announced work to overhaul the UH-1 engine model based on experience from their Mi-24 and AH-64) and FS4 offers a helicopter flight model way better than XP's and combines that with the best sim VR experience available.

XP does some things really really well and some of it's airplanes are as good as it gets, but with helos it's good, but there is better.

Edited April 7, 20233 yr by Matchstick

1 hour ago, Matchstick said:

DCS and Aerofly FS4 would beg to differ

Really? afaik they don't even have publically available SDKs, let alone an open file format so you can take whatever has come before and customise it into a perfect rendition of your favourite (pretty much every helicopter ever made except the Robisons have highly unique cockpits and systems, much like each years hypercar is different than the last)

So if my favourite helicopter is a Gazelle model SOKO HN-45M Gama 2, DCS or FS4 are options for that?

This one

Or do they just have something "kinda" like it, in the same way a 2008 Yamaha R1 is "kinda" like a 2015 Yamaha R1

Edited April 7, 20233 yr by mSparks