Hi all,


Just wanted to share an observation. After upgrading my system lately with a capable AMD 9800X3D and 5070Ti, I decided to just use MSFS 2024, X-Plane 12 and DCS from now on and skip P3D. Fortunately the variety of Airliners and GA is good right now.

The driver
Possibly as for many of you here, the investment in P3D add-ons that I have done in the past decade is easily the highest one in any simulator at least for me, so I felt the need to install again P3D on a separate SSD and see how I feel about it. The biggest driver was the FSL Concorde which I never had the time to fly even though I bought it on release, along with some other great planes (A2A, PMDG and the Majestic Q400). 

The visual
I won't lie, coming from MSFS24, textures and modelling looked more cartoonish in P3D, lower polygon models and photorealistic textures embedded with some minimal reflections. On the other hand, flying even at low altitude gave a more real experience in the sense of sharpening, because all objects on the ground are sharp and more defined in my opinion. Sky and atmosphere also looked in many ways more realistic. 

Aircraft - MSFS24
Ground - MSFS24  with P3D wins in many areas
Atmosphere - P3D

Flying
Flying the FSL A320 in P3D, seemed more natural to me. The inputs from the side stick are translated to the aircraft in a more organic feel, airbus FBW feels better to me, even though I have not flown the real thing, from videos on YouTube, P3D hand flying seems more spot on.

Taxing
Taxing feels nicer to me on P3D. Using Ezdok with shaking effects are more persuasive than in MSFS24. 

Performance 
Even though MSFS24 has better performance in terms of absolute FPS, it seems to me that fluidity in movement is better in P3D during critical phases of takeoff and landing especially. 

 

What is your opinion? 

I really, really miss the A2A Connie and B-17 😟

10 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

I really, really miss the A2A Connie and B-17 😟

And the B377.

which p3d version?

 

Based on OP's signature, I'd say 5.4.

I do not have MSFS2024 but have MSFS2020. Could never really get into it.  My first flight I tried with 2020 was from Jasper, AB (CYJA) to Hinton-Entrance, AB (CEE4). I followed the Athabasca River all the way. First problem, the river kept popping out of ground. Second problem, even though it was July, the Hinton-Entrance airport was covered in snow. My second flight, a week later decided to check out the Casey Emergency Airstrip in Quebec.  Didn't expect this abandon strip to be in MSFS 2020 but wanted to see how it was rendered from the scenery engine MSFS2020 uses. I decided I would take-off from the nearest airstrip, Weymontachie, Quebec (CSU5).  Could not take off because my plane was sitting on the roof of a large building that covers the whole airfield.  Did try taking off from the next nearest airport, Parent (CYPP) and is all fairness, the Casey Emergency Airstrip was well rendered by the MSFS 2020 scenery engine, and I could land there.  I do a lot of flying in the Canadian north and have check various parts in MSFS 2020 included northern parts of the western provinces and the three territories and the scenery varies from good to poor in a lot of areas because of poor satellite imagery.  The main issue is with too many trees and all the same height, in real life the trees and not that tall in the Canadian north, but MSFS 2020 seems to have issues with tree height and way too many of them. The second issue in the Canadian North is MSFS 2020 has issues with water bodies and in some locations the MSFS scenery engine cannot distinguish whether there is water, snow or trees.  I've seen the same waterbody have trees, snow and water.  Do not know it 2024 is any better in the Canadian North. My other reasons for sticking with P3DV5 is the seasons and the default ATC works fairly well.  In the winter I look out my window and there's snow on the ground, I take off from my local airport, there's snow on the ground. the other sims don't have that as a default feature. I will stick with P3DV5 for the foreseeable future. 

John C.

 

Edited August 6, 2025Aug 6 by johncott

I never left P3D but don’t use V6 much as I just can’t get rid of the brown tone everywhere (V6 performance is better than v5.4).  The V6 clouds are much better than V5.4 but MSFS 2024 is better overall with clouds (much better than 2020).

V5.4 works well with many add-ons … EnvText with shader mods was critical to getting the lighting right.

AIG works very well with P3D V5.4 and aircraft actually land and taxi correctly, in MSFS 2024 they’re all over the place (it’s pretty bad if you sit and watching operations).

MSFS 2024 still suffers short LODs on textures and shadows, P3D 5.4 is clearly better with distances (especially with larger cities).

Orbx TrueEarth in P3D looks exceptional, but when moving out to AutoGen area, ugh … gain altitude quickly so one doesn’t see the mess of disjointed AG tiles.

P3D does take some work on configuration and many add-ons to look good, but once it’s there, it’s very stable and everything does indeed work.

With that said, I’m doing most of my flying in MSFS 2024 (never really did much in MSFS 2020, just wasn’t that impressive) … toss in some XP12 every once in a while.  If SU3 for MSFS 2024 can solve many of the issues, I’ll probably uses P3D V5.4 and XP12 less.  I’ve had to “rebuy” a ton of scenery/aircraft from Orbx, iniBuilds, Contrails, PMDG, iFly, FSLabs, GSX, etc. for MSFS 2024 (about $4000 worth).

Of course there are future versions of P3D that may or may not exist 😉

20 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

Of course there are future versions of P3D that may or may not exist 😉

But even if they do, the likelihood of the third party ecosystem going back to developing for it in quantity is pretty small I should imagine.

2 hours ago, dbw1 said:

And the B377.

For this reason I reinstalled FSX Steam. I’ve decided for me flight simulation is about simulation of aircraft rather than simming sims so nothing wrong with multiple platforms for certain aircraft. I have been enjoying bringing FSX back to life and revisiting some favorite addons that never came to the 64 bit sims. Even so P3DV5 is my main sim. It’s all about the fun.

49 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

likelihood of the third party ecosystem going back to developing for it in quantity is pretty small I should imagine.

That will really depends on what’s delivered (aka how it looks and performs) and what comes “out of the box”.

Didn’t stop MS/Asobo from releasing MSFS … it got market share because it looked good, great out of the box content, affordable (heck MSFS didn’t really have a working SDK when it was released)… it started from a clean slate, zero compatibility and became successful.  

Nothing to suggest this can’t be repeated by another vendor … not to mention if it has a working combat system. 

Edited August 6, 2025Aug 6 by SayAgain

8 hours ago, ComSimPilot said:

The biggest driver was the FSL Concorde which I never had the time to fly even though I bought it on release,

How are you getting on with it?

5 hours ago, vp49p3 said:

I really, really miss the A2A Connie and B-17 😟

You don't need to. I used to have them for fsx but at the A2A sales last week I purchased for p3d the Connie, the cherokee, the bonanza and took the free p40 as well. (I already have the t6 and p51 civ for p3d) After a week using fsuipc and mouse macros to set up all the hardware controls with my Bravo ive been loving the classics again. The Connie is enough work I don't care about occasionally dodgy scenery. By choosing orbx true earth areas the combo of aircraft and scenery with smooth frame rate is actually the best I've ever experienced. Taking over the controls manually is just so much more satisfying in p3d. You know, the actual flying part. 

It's unbelievable to me that in 5 years A2a only have 1 plane out for msfs and 1 for the new sim when in the decade before there is a whole fleet of fantastic flying machines. That still fly as well as they used to. 

When the 777 was released for MSFS 2020 i thought that it was time to finally migrate to it. I only fly 777s and 747s (primarily) so the 777 would be a good replace for the 747 while it is not released. Since this is not happening for the 2020 version and after i invested almost 1k hours in it, i came back to P3D only to discover how good it was. Better performance on my system, yes, i can reach 70 fps inside the cockpit in some cases, and in MSFS 2020 the maximum is 55 fps in cruise level over the sea no matter the settings (exclude FG); No jagged taxi lines; No world map textures loading in a radius; No stuttering panning around; No planes taxing with infinite constant speed without applying a bit of power; Somewhat better representation of the weather with cirrus clouds and that thin transparent cloud layer; Few clouds metar does not mean clear skies; The same planes in P3D look to be superior, have more features; And so on... To me, the only attractive MSFS has to offer is the bing maps and the autogen, which become irrelevant once i'm high altitude with atmosferic effects. Will i come back to MSFS when the 747 is released? Probably not, unless there is some innovation, the 777 did not impress.

Edited August 7, 2025Aug 7 by Aeronildo

If you are using Widows 11 stay away from their recent version. It's a disaster for P3DV5 . Not sure about 6.

For what its worth, I've never tried MSFS, but I am more than happy with a combination of the performance of P3D5.4 and FC Scenery.