1 hour ago, EGLD said:

so many posts saying that thinking the new control settings are bad is just duffy old luddites who cannot accept change

it's just fundamentally a really, really bad design

agreed, XP12 is magnificent in comparison - really simple and intuitive to configure any hardware and save as a profile

If a large number of people say a feature is garbage, guess what? It is probably garbage. 😉

36 minutes ago, EGLD said:

how many flightsims are there on gamepass?

Immaterial.

Or, actually, more to the point.

NEITHER is a representative sample for flight simmer market trends, and for entirely different reasons.

Again: "...Lies, Damned Lies, ...and Statistics."

28 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

If a large number of people say a feature is garbage, guess what? It is probably garbage. 😉

Depends entirely on whether you want fine grain control, and how many add-ons you have.

Just because something isn't intuitive doesn't make it garbage.

4 hours ago, pete_auau said:

nah rather go to dcs

DCS has PLENTY of significant limitations as a general purpose flight sim.

It is very good for purpose, but not at all good when it comes to MANY of the things at which both XP and MSFS excel.

4 hours ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

And not a realistic one at that. Military arsenal is confidential.

Incorrect.

The most highly classified items are related to comms and Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures.

There is a simply shocking amount of available hard data on many weps, systems, and aircraft.

And much of the rest can be readily inferred by folks familiar with that world.

42 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

If a large number of people say a feature is garbage, guess what? It is probably garbage. 

I believe the same was said about 2020 a few years ago.

I didn't have a hard time setting up my controls in 2024, I mean, yes it is not perfect, FMPOV it is way better than 2020, at least now I can just select a plane and its profile is loaded along with it, I don't have to remember to go into settings and pick the control profile like in 2020, but hey, to each their own, both are valid options, however, calling it "garbage" is way out of line and as usual Bob, that is how you always roll, nothing out of the ordinary.

What's the point of this post?  I'm just curious. 

I think we're in between sims.  A lot of devs have started 2024-only projects which means there's not as much new addons to buy for 2020.  Which means some who use 2020 may not continue to invest in it. Which makes numbers trend downward a bit.  2024 is still too new and with its poor launch, users are also not playing it.  Additionally, the dev time for a native 2024 addon is higher and since it's new the SDK doesn't contain enough info, so devs are still trying to figure things out.

XP is stuck in the middle.  An awesome release patch just came out, which means users from 2020 and 2024 are trying it out, imo that's why I think there is a slight uptick.

All this being said, steam is a small component of MSFS.  We can only infer 2024 or 2020 isn't doing that well on Xbox/Store.

The only reason I’ll consider 2024 is because of PMDG 747-400.  If (maybe) iFly does theirs, I will only move to 2024 when MS kills 2020.

I think it would be difficult for DEV to produce a product for 2024 since there are many bugs which causes it to be a moving target.  I mean here you work on your product and then a “fix” comes out and either breaks your product or adds new issues or additional work.  

At some point we have seen most sims become stable enough to call finished and further development is refinement but that doesn’t sound the case for 2024. 

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by Dreamflight767

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

If a large number of people say a feature is garbage, guess what? It is probably garbage. 😉

It is very capable and that comes with some complexity. But if we are pretending to master immensely complex machines (aircraft) spending 20 minutes to hack in some control settings should not hold as back from a sim. It is like an entry test for flying. If configuring the controls proves too demanding for you, chances are you will have a hard time flying complex aircraft in the sim.

7 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

It is very capable and that comes with some complexity. But if we are pretending to master immensely complex machines (aircraft) spending 20 minutes to hack in some control settings should not hold as back from a sim. It is like an entry test for flying. If configuring the controls proves too demanding for you, chances are you will have a hard time flying complex aircraft in the sim.

I never tried 2024 control assignments. I have no interest in getting 2024 at the moment. I have read reports on this forum as well as other forums, with people complaining about the control  setup however and how they thought the 2020 system was much simpler. 

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

the people that play Steam are a different demographic than people who directly buy their flight sims.

I agree. Those that want a trouble free install,  reinstall or join/leave a beta of MSFS choose Steam.

I'm not sure why you'd allocate resources to re-designing the perfectly adequate controls interface from 2020 when there was so many more important things you could be working on.

6 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I never tried 2024 control assignments. I have no interest in getting 2024 at the moment. I have read reports on this forum as well as other forums, with people complaining about the control  setup however and how they thought the 2020 system was much simpler. 

I much prefer the way 2024 does things. Those happy are less vocal I guess.

6 hours ago, Noel said:

So is the visual experience, lighting, clouds/weather, and autogen all on a par with 2020 such that one would hardly notice differences?  And while here setup as identically as possible is performance generally the same, worse or better in XP12 for a high end machine?

XP12 atmosphere is better than both 2020 and 2024, as are the clouds most, but not all, of the time. However this is my opinion, so yours may differ. 
 

pic from over xp forum 

https://postimg.cc/8J5RzZhk

6 hours ago, Gilandred said:

You will lose out on distant night lighting, seasonal trees,

No you won’t and no you don’t. Each can easily be fixed in a matter of seconds.  
 

PS autoortho isn’t as good as map enhancement. Map enhancement has higher res imagery. 

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by Ianrivaldosmith

7 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

XP12 atmosphere is better than both 2020 and 2024, as are the clouds most, but not all, of the time. However this is my opinion, so yours may differ. 

No you won’t and no you don’t. Each can easily be fixed in a matter of seconds.  

I was reading up on using Map Enhancment in XP, if my understanding is correct, once you get close to the ground, you just get them map with no details on it  of the scenery like you get in MSFS, buildings, trees, roads, lights, etc.  Is that true?