12 hours ago, tonywob said:

MFS was the first sim to use AI tech with flight sims, it's only the start of this amazing branch of tech that I personally believe will change the world over the next few years. I can't imagine it will be long before it can texture and create buildings for us and reproduce airports to a decent standard (I've already seen tech demos of it texturing models)

AI has so many exciting possibilities for gam…sorry, simming, it’s unreal (sic). I’m still hoping LR will offer something truly innovative in their scenery generation using AI that will get round the advantages MS have with their in-house maps, and bring us something that has most of the benefits but none of the grottiness of orthos (baked in shadows / clouds / cars, inconsistent coloration, poor resolution in some areas etc.)

Surely AI can extrapolate surfaces from satellite imagery and render them with some tessellation?! (Or something like that…)

13 hours ago, mSparks said:

or

shock horror, you can have fun with X-Plane as well as use it as a deadly serious aviation tool, and android, ipad, xbox and playstation are pretty much in direct competition with each other.

Building stuff specifically for XP12.

Honestly I deleted my comment to not get sucked in but you quoted it in the 90 seconds it was up?  Do you just sit here waiting for someone to say something about XP? 

So the XBox kids that download MSFS to get to the 10M users they claim are somehow different than the half that number of users over how many years that XP has acquired on mobile devices? 

I'm so lost on your logic when you bash MSFS XBox kids but then "turn" to mobile users to prove XP's popularity?  You talk out of both sides so much I honestly don't know which end the hot air is coming from anymore...   You are literally a typing contradiction to prove your points...   I also must have missed how many mobile downloads XP12 has to show it's continuing popularity...  Those 5M are cumulative since XP9mobile was released and it's not marketed for fun, it's not a game it's a flight simulator on your phone after all... 

About this game

The most realistic aircraft. The world at your fingertips. It’s not a game, it’s a flight simulator.

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by psolk

I also hate MSFS trimming and ground handling, but it's more like they will fix those in an update the LR would fix world scenery/graphics.

18 hours ago, OverTheEDJ said:

I think that the 2019 MSFS announcement was “check”…and that “mate” will happen somewhere in 2023 or early 2024 for all of the civil sim competition. I believe that mostly all “new” simmers will opt for MSFS going forward.

If this means having to read less "MSFS vs X-Plane" drivel, they may as well deliver their coup de grace tomorrow. I'll even open the gates for them to have them burn everything down! Just no more dumb word not allowed discussions! PLEASE! I just want to fly in X-Plane!

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by Bjoern

6 hours ago, psolk said:

and it's not marketed for fun

its barely marketed at all tbh, never needed it. Paid advertising is only an absolute necessity when a product isn't good enough to be generally recommended by its users to other people....

When its really bad, such as most products microsoft has published ever, many even resort to paying marketting agencies to troll interest groups and reddit....

Which is generally why, with xplane everything feels more authentic, including the conversations by people who like and enjoy it.

6 hours ago, psolk said:

Honestly I deleted my comment

honestly, this is the internet, its not possible to delete anything ever from the internet. 

Plus I have notifications turned on.

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by mSparks

8 hours ago, scotchegg said:

none of the grottiness of orthos (baked in shadows

As XP12 doesn't have scenery shadows, I find the baked in shadows welcome to add some depth to the scene.

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Which is generally why, with xplane everything feels more authentic, including the conversations by people who like and enjoy it.

Big LOL.

On 12/15/2022 at 4:00 PM, brinx said:

So to summarize the video from a real world airline pilot:

• Out of the three main simulators, MSFS is best suited for real world flight training.
• You can't practice hand flying an airplane on a home simulator. You would need a multi-million dollar simulator.
• You can practice procedures. You can practice procedures equally with both sims, but MSFS wins due to visuals. And ability to do VFRs. The new avionics in MSFS will be great for IFR.
• None of them are certified for flight training.(I think he means the home version along with home hardware). Use them as aid to practice procedures ahead of time.
• In terms of flight model, xplane is first, MSFS second, P3D third.

It is good to know that a real world airplane pilot does not think MSFS is just an XBOX game like some do.

Additional points he made:

• MSFS has study level aircrafts out the box
• MSFS 3rd party aircrafts are on par with other sims
• Trimming out the plane is better in xplane
• MSFS weather engine is the best in a simulator
• Performance to Visual is better in MSFS. 
• The amount of free content in MSFS is unbeatable
   

OTOH, isn't it ironic that "the best FLIGHT simulator" isn't the best at, y'know...FLIGHT? 

While we have to give a GREAT deal of respect to an IRL airline pilot's opinion, a few of his conclusions are also quite biased because of that very Ivory Tower perspective:

MSFS for VFR (by comparison, XP not being suitable): IDK about you folks, but I have no problem VFR'ing around in XP. XP is far more detailed than most of the nav charts I've seen, and I have no problem getting from here to there following terrain features, water bodies, and man-made geography.

I.e., would i RATHER fly around in MSFS for visuals? sure, why not - it's gorgeous! Same reason i spent so much money on Orbx TrueEarth, etc.

The flight training thing bugs me as well. Perhaps it's because I'm an "old geezer" who earned his IRL wings with no simulator AT ALL. (well, FS 2.0 was a thing, but not for me...).

I can tell you that, without a doubt, a sensible flight training curriculum supported by a modern desktop flight sim, would've made me a much better pilot a helluva lot sooner than it took with books and limited IRL flight time.

But you don't have to take my word for it, because that's exactly what the USAF/USN are doing with their new Pilot Next flight training programs (in the extremely "unrealistic" P3D, no less!).

And of course it's true that there are (literally a couple) "Study Level" default aircraft in MSFS, but that's only been true for a month-ish, and MOST of those are decidedly basic in terms of fidelity.

And even then he's basing some of his opinion on sim updates that literally haven't even released yet.

So while I like his content and respect his achievements, the conclusions are inarguably biased, particularly when it comes to training.

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by UrgentSiesta
grammar

9 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

So while I like his content and respect his achievements, the conclusions are inarguably biased, particularly when it comes to training.

What he's saying is his opinion from his real world perspective. You may disagree with some of it but that has nothing to do with being biased.

44 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

OTOH, isn't it ironic that "the best FLIGHT simulator" isn't the best at, y'know...FLIGHT? 

He has adopted a reasonable stance - which I don't especially disagree with.

That basically - you can't and probably shouldn't try to use a home flight simulator and expect to translate that directly into hand flying a real aircraft. So the fact that one is (much, much) better at translating real life experience into a home flight simulator for practising hand flying isn't something he puts a strong weight on for the vast majority of people.

What I do really disagree on, is even if you do define "the best flight simulator" as "The best scenery simulator and able to practice some procedures", whether MFS actually meets even that goal, one is the best at simulating flight and has 30,000 hand crafted excellent 3D airports, the other doesn't feel as authentic and has 30 hand crafted good airports and 50 photogrammetry cities.... therefore we conclude the less authentic simulator with 30 airports and 50 cities is simply the best flight simulator ... honestly ... no one is paying me to say this.... Hmmmm OK...

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by mSparks

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

What I do really disagree on, is even if you do define "the best flight simulator" as "The best scenery simulator and able to practice some procedures", whether MFS actually meets even that goal, one is the best at simulating flight and has 30,000 hand crafted excellent 3D airports, the other doesn't feel as authentic and has 30 hand crafted good airports and 50 photogrammetry cities.... therefore we conclude the less authentic simulator with 30 airports and 50 cities is simply the best flight simulator ... honestly ... no one is paying me to say this.... Hmmmm OK...

XP does not have 30000 hand crafted airports. To even suggest that number is realistic is preposterous - show me the people that hand crafted 30000 airports. Second, MSFS has over 100 hand crafted airports and over 350 photogrammetry cities.

I'm not here to banter about visual content, but apart from the first number being absurd one can find out the real numbers with a quick Google search - if one wanted to have an authentic conversation rather than blatantly manufacture misinformation again because 'my sim is better than your sim'. It would be nice if we could not ruin this thread like the other ones that went south because of this.

51 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

OTOH, isn't it ironic that "the best FLIGHT simulator" isn't the best at, y'know...FLIGHT? 

Better is relative. It is better to have $100 than it is to have $95. But would you rather have the $95 if it included free lunch and dinner for a week. When you look at the whole package, that $100 may not seem like a such a great deal to most people.

Keep in mind that how well the planes fly largely comes down to the developer's skill. He mentioned the inibuilds 310 as an example of a well-made plane. This plane is a good comparison point because it is in both sims from the same developer. The consensus has been that it flies equally well in both sims.

Another thing that wasn't mentioned is the cost to get started. A $299 USD xbox is all that is required to get started at 1440p 30fps. Also the addons are cheaper in MSFS.

27 minutes ago, mSparks said:

30,000 hand crafted excellent 3D airports, the other doesn't feel as authentic and has 30 hand crafted good airports and 50 photogrammetry cities....

Xplane said 17,000 3d airport from the gateway, FYI.  With the scenery gateway opening next yr, and the pace of addons in MSFS I can see that number being surpass relatively quickly though.  

 

31 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

XP does not have 30000 hand crafted airports.

Sorry, yeah, more like 50k or 60k now

 

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by mSparks

4 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

As XP12 doesn't have scenery shadows, I find the baked in shadows welcome to add some depth to the scene.

Seriously? Wow, that puts an interesting perspective on your frequent praise of XP12’s visuals…😅

 

2 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Sorry, yeah, more like 50k now

@mSparks Submitted does not mean shipping with xplane. Anyone can submit a modified airport and it says nothing about the quality of the submitted airport. I submitted one a few years back, but it is not part of xplane.