Simheaven is the most resource intensive but the good thing about X-Plane is that you can test it quickly and safely and if you don't like the result you can delete it without any problem.

1 hour ago, pscharff said:

I would rather have new high quality ground textures for X-Plane 12.

Yes. Those should come. The question is in how many years….🤷‍♂️😊

37 minutes ago, Franz007 said:

Yes. Those should come. The question is in how many years….🤷‍♂️😊

hopefully next year 🙂

@jcomm my xEnviro landing on KOMA . I got too curious and had to checkout xEnviro once again.  

 

Edited December 31, 20241 yr by Sims Smith

A couple of years ago, I was splitting my flight-simming time pretty evenly between X-Plane and MSFS 2020. But lately, it’s been more like 90% MSFS and only 10% X-Plane.

For me, the main reasons are reliability, the sheer variety of add-ons, and performance, especially in virtual reality. It’s frustrating because VR support in X-Plane hasn’t really improved at all recently, and that’s a big deal for how I like to fly.

To be honest, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. While MSFS 2024 has its own issues that need fixing, the gap between the two feels too big to close now.

 

Here a video that showing level up on a short flight that enter severe turbulence. 

 

54 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

It’s frustrating because VR support in X-Plane hasn’t really improved at all recently, and that’s a big deal for how I like to fly.

It's a big deal for me as well. But also watch Ben's interview in that video that Jcomm posted here to get feel on how things are progressing and on that note, i'm patient.

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

Hace un par de años, dividía mi tiempo de simulación de vuelo de manera bastante uniforme entre X-Plane y MSFS 2020. Pero últimamente, ha sido más bien un 90 % MSFS y solo un 10 % X-Plane.

Para mí, las principales razones son la fiabilidad, la gran variedad de complementos y el rendimiento, especialmente en realidad virtual. Es frustrante porque la compatibilidad con realidad virtual en X-Plane no ha mejorado mucho últimamente, y eso es muy importante para mi forma de volar.

Para ser sincero, no creo que esto cambie en el futuro cercano. Si bien MSFS 2024 tiene sus propios problemas que deben solucionarse, la brecha entre ambos parece demasiado grande para cerrarla ahora.

 

I use 2020 and XP just like you but all those scenery improvements as I said I don't normally see them is a placebo unless your flights are in the specific areas where MFS shines.

 

If you are not bothered by the simulator's animated fibukos tones, melted buildings, photogrammetry errors, misplaced giant trees, ortho with incorrect colors, fsx scenery outside Europe and North America,it is clear that MFS is very good simulator, I at the end in 2024 I have opted to disable photogrammetry as with 2020.

 

In the performance is where MFS really shines I have to agree with you and it is the pending subject of Laminar.

 

I know that improvements are coming and that Ben is developing a new implementation of the scenery, I do not expect new textures in that new implementation I expect a significant improvement in performance, at the level of MFS.

@GCBraun, I see your point and I play FS 2024 too, using only the Fenix 320, between default airports I know from RL and look nice, although I prefer the lighting, runway and taxiway markings and physics of contaminated taxiways and runways in XP12, and with my last purchase I can't honestly say I prefer MSFS in that respect ( Global Traffic and a few freeware services available from the .Org ).

But if I want to find how a city, or any place in the World looks IRL, I load FS 2024 without hesitating... Even with autoortho and SimHeaven, XP12 can't still render it without being simply very plausible... although if plausibility for instance in the night lighting of cities and airports is a factor, then again I prefer XP12's rendering!

Problem with MSFS is --> FLIGHT <-- 😞 It isn't a FLIGHT simulator... I'm sorry but it's so far in some aspects from even basic stuff that I can't get pleasure out of flying practically any non-FBW aircraft in it, and even if FBW, only fully functional because if failures are introduced and there's "Flight Law reversion", the underlaying FM begins to "shine", then it's all ruined...

For myself I tend to consider MSFS's flight model as a Caricature Flight Model... Aircraft designed and based on it's flight model feel like what I could call a "caricature" of their RW counterparts... Some traces from the real thing are there, but most all are represented in a way that makes me feel like looking at the caricature of a given personality, with some of it's physiognomy characteristics being put to emphasis 🙂

For GA prop aircraft (well, non twins ... but that's another story with a bug presently affecting XP12 ), helicopters, even gliders or TMGs, WW2 replicas and the like, I load XP12 and enjoy, even with it's limitations - it has it's limitations too OFC ! -, an at least believable flight dynamics model and feel of flight.

Weather modelling (effects and visuals) is yet another area where MSFS, even aided by the great help of ASFS and RealTurb, can't match XP12. I haven't yet understood how the aircraft, all of it, act like kites in MSFS if even a slight, but variable wind is present, or how they try to represent some types of turbulence... The way aspects like effects of temperature in barometric altitude are only partially modelled in MSFS is also a reason I choose XP12 to reproduce an approach into an airport where cold weather operations are active.

With xEnviro I have Historical Weather way better than in default FS 2024 weather too. Yes, ASFS does the miracle, but has it's limitations because the SDK is poor for 3pds to be able to make their magic 😕

Then, there's the Next generation Scenery announced sometime ago by LR, supposedly coming with 12.2 !!! I believe we will all be positively surprised by it's potential, even though I don't expect it to be able to beat MSFS's World scenery.

My only missing feature right now in XP12, the one that if coped with could make me spend even more time than I already do playing this sim, is ATC and AI Traffic interaction. In MSFS I can use FSHUD or BATC with the Great freeware FSLTL AI Traffic models, and experience a reasonable interaction with ATC that **also controls AI** and not the, sorry but ridiculous, default AI offered by XP12... This is probably, together with the twin props bug, the only "negative" aspect XP12 presently has for the kind of use I give to flight simulators.

Ah! And I like to play the Challenges and some Missions too in MSFS, just as I did with MS FLIGHT, but I have to close my eyes to the flight dynamics when I play them... Most are played in the pure spirit of an Arcade Game, but they're fun to play, just as when I played and rather enjoyed War Thunder...

And there's also the Career mode, which I didn't yet play, and will probably not play at all, because what I've been reading and watching about it's structure doesn't appeal that much to me 😕.

For soaring, weather and aerodynamics as close as possible to the real thing, then nor XP12 nor MSFS... There's only Condorsoaring, now v3... 🙂

So... I keep using the 3 simulators, although I would rather use just one if I could...

 

Edited December 31, 20241 yr by jcomm

I don’t use VR but cannot really fly without Autoortho anymore. It is not perfect and I agree that MSFS has an overall more refined scenery if we compare both statically. But then I have to say, that it doesn’t really add to the flying experience and immersion, since XP does some other things better (as Jcomm explained) where it matters the most: Runways, better default airports, contamination, lighting of airports. And photogrammetry also doesn’t really make things better because of the limitations (melted down, building up etc.). I think PG is only an advantage when flying helicopters over a big city, otherwise I never really found it adding to the experience, where during approaches we focus on different things (airport and RWY). And I do like the overall sharper textures in the distance in XP. One of the bigges pros in my opinion is also the very intuitive camera-steering and also that in XP we can always see what happens in the sim (map with weather, metars being shown, even traffic around etc.).

As I always said I see some potential and advantages with MSFS for bush-flying that I like to do, because of all details added to the ground. But for now, the few flights I tried resulted in some difficulties to recognize objects from the distance and rocks or trees popping up too late.

The choices of addons isn’t really an advantage in my opinion, since we already have too much of them in XP. I am speaking about « study-level » ones that needs a hell of time to learn (not only to fly them from A to B but to master failures etc.). I have for example only scratched the surface of all possibilities of the FF777 and not even that with the CL650. Rushing into a new plane to only fly it twice and then using the next hyped addon that I don’t even use in depth and so on just for the sake of trying hundreds of different planes isn’t the way I want to use a flightsim. With MS2020 and 2024 I only used 3-4 different default planes, the other ones doesn’t even interest me the slightest.

So at the end, its down to the same as we always stated: no sim is really better and it’s down to individual preferences. Both have pros and cons. And no, XP isn’t at all behind (or any gap with MSFS being bigger in general as some like to state). But sure, XP has to improve it outdated ground-scenery and that is what they have planned. In the meantime using Autoortho closes the gap for me and results in more overal advantages as MSFS2024.

Edited December 31, 20241 yr by Franz007

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

Then, there's the Next generation Scenery announced sometime ago by LR, supposedly coming with 12.2

Did they really ever say this? I thought the new scenery is a long term project, to come in several steps over many years.

33 minutes ago, peroni said:

Did they really ever say this? I thought the new scenery is a long term project, to come in several steps over many years.

Maybe I misinterpreted and thought the first version would come with 12.2 then ? 😕

Edited December 31, 20241 yr by jcomm

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

Problem with MSFS is --> FLIGHT <-- 😞 It isn't a FLIGHT simulator... I'm sorry but it's so far in some aspects from even basic stuff that I can't get pleasure out of flying practically any non-FBW aircraft in it, and even if FBW, only fully functional because if failures are introduced and there's "Flight Law reversion", the underlaying FM begins to "shine", then it's all ruined...

For myself I tend to consider MSFS's flight model as a Caricature Flight Model... Aircraft designed and based on it's flight model feel like what I could call a "caricature" of their RW counterparts... Some traces from the real thing are there, but most all are represented in a way that makes me feel like looking at the caricature of a given personality, with some of it's physiognomy characteristics being put to emphasis 🙂

You keep repeating this in every post.

Besides MSFS, I regularly use DCS and XP as well, and while I agree that XP and DCS may have a somewhat more accurate flight model, the difference isn’t imho as drastic as you make it out to be—especially when flying add-ons from PMDG, Fenix, FSLabs, A2A, or Flysimware.  

Calling the MSFS flight model a ‘caricature’ is highly subjective and not a view shared by many users with thousands of flight hours in real machines.

At the end of the day, we’re all flying desks here, and it often comes down to how the add-on developer tunes their model, sometimes even bypassing the default APIs entirely. I have my own criticisms and concerns about MSFS, but I’ve never thought the flight model was a major issue.

16 hours ago, Sims Smith said:

I am minority here 😀.  I disabled Simheaven, Ortho, xEnviro,  reShade, and every graphics enhancements.  I am planning to enjoy vanilla X-Plane for 30 days.  It is day 10 today so far I am loving it.  It is a different experience. 

 

16 hours ago, alexcolka said:

This is a path sometimes I like a lot, less is more. Fly the CitationX with no mods, no mods for anything, jsut plain X-Plane 12 as it is. It is like this term our fellow simmer here coined: to detox of sims, in this case to detox of too many addons and mods!

These sentiments (keep a vanilla or nearly vanilla sim) are my New Year’s Resolution this year!  Less tweaking and messing around, less $$$ spent, higher frame rates, more time spent flying!

This goes for ALL of my sims.

I’m greatly enjoying vanilla XP12 (though I’m playing with the LevelUp 737s)…no melted scenery, great XP12 lighting, solid 30FPS.

I also bought and installed Aerofly FS4 over the holidays and am enjoying its smoothness and simplicity (but naturally I tried to corrupt that with downloads that caused issues, so back to vanilla).

Back to XP12, the cure for any sim sadness is to take a vanilla sim flight at dusk or night and just soak up the night lighting, or crank up the water waves to 3 feet and fly around the San Juan Islands in the default 172.

I’m looking forward to the idea of less generic autogen/textures based on available data (but without the bad colored or cloud covered or off season orthos).

We’ll see how long my resolution lasts! :)

3 hours ago, peroni said:

Did they really ever say this? I thought the new scenery is a long term project, to come in several steps over many years.

Ben did say that they are going to roll out slowly the new scenery and it would be my guess that it will start appearing during version 12.2.0 run but still keeping DSF for compatibility purpose to keep the old scenery working so that it will give developers time to convert over to the new system. So it will be phase in while adding improvements to the performance as well, adding process to more core's etc.  

Edited December 31, 20241 yr by BobFS88