Need help returning to flightsim

[Luis324 0]

Hi there,

I've been away from flightsim for 4/5 years, now that I finish built my new pc I want to get back to flightsim. But have some question that I hope you could help me.

First, I have p3dv4 and a lot of addons like fslabs, pmdg, activesky, orbx products and a lot of payware scenery.

So it is worth it to change to MSFS instead of keeping p3d ?

What's good about msfs ?

Is Msfs premium and deluxe airports good quality addons, like flytampa budai, or  flytampa amsterdam ?

 

Thank you all.

[markmasterson 65]

I will try to answer your questions from my perspective.  I also have P3Dv4, P3dV5, P3dV6.   However, I use MSFS all the time.   PMDG 737 is my go-to aircraft.   Orbx becomes obsolete except for airports or cities in MSFS.   If you fly low and slow MSFS blows P3D out of the water from looking out of the airplane.   If you fly airliners and you use 777, or Airbuses then P3D technical performance is higher and alot of study airliners have not been released or are on the way.  I will say that the Horizon mods to the 787 are awesome and FBW 320 is as close to Aerosoft Airbus 319,320, 321 as you get.   Fenix Airbus 320 is a study airliner, but I can't comment on it since FBW does it for me in MSFS.   Again, it comes down to what you want to see visually.  If you are visual flyer like I am then MSFS is the place to be.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,048]

@Luis324, it all depends on how you like to fly as Mark has suggested.

If you prefer low-level VFR flights then MSFS is best. If you prefer IFR flights and with you owning FSL and PMDG aircraft it suggests that’s your preferred option.

You will be able to use a lot of your airports in P3Dv5 or v6. PMDG and FSL aircraft may have to be repurchased.

Switching to MSFS means junking all your airports and aircraft and starting afresh. Active Sky has no access to the MSFS weather engine. It’s live weather only wherever in the world you wish to fly.

[SierraHotel 989]

3 hours ago, Luis324 said:

Hi there,

I've been away from flightsim for 4/5 years, now that I finish built my new pc I want to get back to flightsim. But have some question that I hope you could help me.

First, I have p3dv4 and a lot of addons like fslabs, pmdg, activesky, orbx products and a lot of payware scenery.

So it is worth it to change to MSFS instead of keeping p3d ?

What's good about msfs ?

Is Msfs premium and deluxe airports good quality addons, like flytampa budai, or  flytampa amsterdam ?

 

Thank you all.

I have over £2000 worth of add-ons for P3D and X-Plane 11 and I fly both IFR (heavy) and VFR (light) aircraft. I would not go back to either of them, for me MSFS is the future. There is also some amazing software available for MSFS from PMDG, Fenix, A2A, FSReborn and Blacksquare. There is also a brand-new ATC programme forthcoming called Beyond ATC (MSFS only) which is set to blow every desktop aviators mind! Oh! And I haven't even mentioned all the FREE add-ons available at https://flightsim.to/  😉

Edited November 8, 2023 by SierraHotel

[Bob Scott 7,759]

There's no reason one has to abandon one platform in order to use another.  You can certainly keep your P3D installation if you decide to explore MSFS.  SSD storage is pretty cheap these days. 

There are still things you can do in P3D that you can't in MSFS--specifically the ability to load historic weather scenarios (MSFS is limited to the "real-time" weather coming from its servers that is not always what you'll see in real-time), and the weather radar options in MSFS are very limited.  So if you want to fly a winter leg in Scandinavia in May or a high-temp daytime leg into Phoenix during the day in Europe, P3D and ActiveSky can do that--MSFS cannot.  Whether those things are important is a personal choice.

If you already have 64-bit P3D versions of PMDG or FSL add-on acft, you won't have to repurchase them if you were to upgrade to P3Dv5.  None of the PMDG or FSL add-ons are officially supported in v6.

Since you run P3Dv4 and have been away for a while, it's worth noting that a good number of very nice acft titles for P3Dv4 and v5 were released to the community as freeware in the last year, specifically the entire Milviz and indiaFoxtEcho catalogs.  Might be worth checking those out, as there are some very nice high-end add-ons that you could run on your existing P3Dv4 installation.

The MSFS Premium and Deluxe airports are pretty underwhelming in comparison to what quality third-party add-on developers like FlyTampa, Flightbeam etc are producing. 

[spilok 1,139]

2 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

There's no reason one has to abandon one platform in order to use another.  You can certainly keep your P3D installation if you decide to explore MSFS.  SSD storage is pretty cheap these days. 

There are still things you can do in P3D that you can't in MSFS--specifically the ability to load historic weather scenarios (MSFS is limited to the "real-time" weather coming from its servers that is not always what you'll see in real-time), and the weather radar options in MSFS are very limited.  So if you want to fly a winter leg in Scandinavia in May or a high-temp daytime leg into Phoenix during the day in Europe, P3D and ActiveSky can do that--MSFS cannot.  Whether those things are important is a personal choice.

If you already have 64-bit P3D versions of PMDG or FSL add-on acft, you won't have to repurchase them if you were to upgrade to P3Dv5.  None of the PMDG or FSL add-ons are officially supported in v6.

Since you run P3Dv4 and have been away for a while, it's worth noting that a good number of very nice acft titles for P3Dv4 and v5 were released to the community as freeware in the last year, specifically the entire Milviz and indiaFoxtEcho catalogs.  Might be worth checking those out, as there are some very nice high-end add-ons that you could run on your existing P3Dv4 installation.

The MSFS Premium and Deluxe airports are pretty underwhelming in comparison to what quality third-party add-on developers like FlyTampa, Flightbeam etc are producing. 

This is an excellent answer.  I use P3dv5.4 every single day...especially for airliners all over the world.  I use MSFS for low and slow flying VFR.  I use helicopters in both sims, and the eye candy in MSFS is hard to beat for this purpose.  P3d is, however, my "go to" sim and I enjoy it immensely.

[Luis324 0]

I'm close to 100% IFR flights with airliners, so I'm sitcking to P3Dv4 and update to v6 when Fslabs, pmdg and qw update their products.

MSFS sounds interesting, but I think I'm gonna wait for MSFS 2024.

Thanks to all. You've cleared my mind...