for many years in the past I have been using Microsoft Flight Simulator, most recently FSX. I have been out of flight simming for a couple of years now. I am now looking to get in again and I have looked again at FSX, but this FS is now very old and scenery looks terrible. Then I have looked at MSFS 2020 & 2024, but you need a real high-end gaming computer to play MSFS. I would have to spend a considerable amount of money to update my machine and at my age of almost 80 years (yes, in less than three months) this would not be justified.

This brought me to X-Plane. The download for the normal X-Plane 12 version is priced at $59.95. Not all the world, but not really cheap. Are there any other websites which sell X-Plane 12 at a lower price? I saw lower priced options using Steam, but I don't understand what they mean with Steam.

Can anybody help? Help would be very much appreciated!

The general consensus is that Microsofts MSFS 2020 and 2024 are actually LESS performance hungry than X-Plane. So if framerate and the visual aspect of the scenery is your main concern, that would be the simulator to get.

You can check out how the performance of X-Plane is on your system by downloading the free and fully functional demo - it is limited to one hour of playing time (after that the joystick input stops working, but you can restart the demo as often as you want) and it is also limited to a few areas of flight (Salzburg, Austria, Hawaii, Portland).

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/try-it/

47 minutes ago, Litjan said:

The general consensus is that Microsofts MSFS 2020 and 2024 are actually LESS performance hungry than X-Plane. So if framerate and the visual aspect of the scenery is your main concern, that would be the simulator to get.

You can check out how the performance of X-Plane is on your system by downloading the free and fully functional demo - it is limited to one hour of playing time (after that the joystick input stops working, but you can restart the demo as often as you want) and it is also limited to a few areas of flight (Salzburg, Austria, Hawaii, Portland).

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/try-it/

Thank you, Litjan! Well. what you write is surprising for me. That would mean, that I would need to upgrade my computer more than I would have to for MSFS? Surprise, surprise.

When I try to play MSFS 2020, my machine says: your computer is not compatible for MSFS or something like that. That was longtime ago.

Well, I will install the X-Plane demo and see what it says.

Well, you are right. I tried to install the X=Plane demo and that's the message I got: X-Plane failed to initialize Vulcan and can't run. Your graphics card cannot run X-Plane, etc.etc.

So, X-Plane is not what I want.

 

 

11 minutes ago, sfinazzi said:

Your graphics card cannot run X-Plane, etc.etc.

Apart from just using a much older version (v10 or 11) your options are fairly limited if you don't want to upgrade your hardware.

I see two options for you

1) Try AeroflyFS (https://www.aerofly.com/). It's a fairly basic sim compared to the others but has great performance and should run fairly well. It really depends on what sort of simming you want to do.

2) Sign up for XBox cloud https://www.xbox.com/en-us/play This lets you use your computer to play games (MSFS 2024) over the internet without actually needing to install the game (The game is ran on another system on the internet and streamed to you, and if you have a decent internet connection it could be worth a go, but of course there is a subscription to use it.

Thank you, tonywob. There's still FSX to go back to. There are probably more simmers who still use FSX.

4 hours ago, sfinazzi said:

There's still FSX to go back to. There are probably more simmers who still use FSX.

That may not be such a bad option if you don’t want to upgrade your system. I keep FSX just for the A2A Stratocruiser and I own XPlane, P3DV4 and 5 as well as FS2020. I don’t know what your addon library has but ORBX can make default FSX look much better and there are many enhancements still available for FSX. You may even want to consider P3Dv5 which is basically FSX in a 64 bit structure so no memory crash to desktop. Options are plenty these days.

The important thing is that you enjoy yourself and don’t get caught up in the sim vs sim tribalism so prevalent in our hobby these days. Heck, my wife and I enjoy watching old movies that are still good in spite of there age.

Edited November 25, 2025Nov 25 by Patco Lch

Without seeing your system specs (CPU, GPU, RAM) it's not really possible to make a specific recommendation.

Dear Bob,

what an honor! Here are the specifications of my PC:

Device Name    Dario
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz   2.70 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB
Storage    477 GB SSD ATA Samsung SSD 850, 477 GB SSD ATA Apacer AS350 512
Graphics Card    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (2 GB)
Device ID    7A4AD162-51D3-467E-80F3-8DBB83C43823
Product ID    00326-10000-00000-AA701
System Type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch    No pen or touch input is available for this display

Maybe someone here can make me a suggestion EXACTLY which minimalistic graphics card, mainboard and processor I should buy in order to run MSFS. Do I need to increase my RAM?

The ultimate for me would be to be able to use MSFS 2020 & 2024 because of their stunning scenery.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2025Nov 26 by sfinazzi

As for the graphics card I think a NVIDIA GeForce GTX970 4GB would do the job. Am I right?

Edited November 26, 2025Nov 26 by sfinazzi

AI tells me for the processor to go for an AMD Ryzen 5 5600. Any objections?

Do I have to change the motherboard? I have a Gygabite H170-D3HP-CF. 

Edited November 26, 2025Nov 26 by sfinazzi

2 hours ago, sfinazzi said:

AI tells me for the processor to go for an AMD Ryzen 5 5600. Any objections?

Do I have to change the motherboard? I have a Gygabite H170-D3HP-CF. 

Xplane 12 needs a 8gig card as a bare minimum, that will do with low setting and no terrain addons, 10 gig or more is far better, 12 gig is preffered

I run XP12 and FS 2024 in a Ryzen 5600x with a Geeforce 3600 Ti 8GB GPU, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, and both run very well.

I would use a higher rathed GPU but:

- they're expensive at purchase;

- they impact in my home electricity account;

- my close vision is so miserable that the details I could grab from using a higher end GPU would be lost somewhere between my brain cells and the monitor;

Just as @Janov mentioned, FS 2024 uses a completely different approach - streaming - and this, even with a mid / low rank Internet connection can bring higher FPS and lower demand from the CPU  / GPU, and indeed for a higher level of detail FS 2024 runs at higher FPS if I so wish, but I limit, both in Xp12 and in FS 2024, FPS to 32, as I'm more than fine with it this way.

Xp12 is easier to setup, backup, use... The controll settings interface is my preferred among the simulators I have used so far. MSFS uses a rather non-intuitive approach and a naming convention that results from programmers who created it not being familiar with Aviation, IMO...  If I were you I would try the demo after upgrading your desktop / laptop and see how it goes.

This being said, I must also emphasize that I do "love" FS 2024 for the extraordinary details in the scenery, some aspects of weather depiction in comparison to rw, the addon aircraft I use (not many), the Career mode - although I gave up on playing it due to lack of time...

Default ATC in both simulators works. I can't say I prefer one over the other. They bothg lack features, they both have bugs... Same goes with AI Aircraft Injection if you want it. Xp's built-in approach is heavier in terms of processing power because the aircraft use the exact same flight dynamics model that is used for the player aircraft. In MSFS you have various alternatives, and the ones I have used are freeware. For Xp12 I use Traffic Global (JustFlight). 

Default weather is equally good / limited in both sims, for different reasons. If I compare all of the pluses and minuses between both I have to give them both the same classification, a B+... 

6 hours ago, sfinazzi said:

AI tells me for the processor to go for an AMD Ryzen 5 5600. Any objections?

Do I have to change the motherboard? I have a Gygabite H170-D3HP-CF. 

For the love of God - please don´t spend a single dime without talking to a real person with profound computer knowledge first. Every hardware you suggested is simply subpar.

You will need to spend at least 1500$ to 2000$ to get an adequate computer to run X-Plane...or MSFS. Any solution that comes up with less is likely snake oil that can not only run both simulators at 100 frames per second, but also cure you of all of your ailments. 😅

Edited November 26, 2025Nov 26 by Litjan

9 hours ago, sfinazzi said:

GTX970

Are you buying this? I do see some for sale in a google search for 3-400ish USD but that amount of money could be much better spent on a more modern architecture. Of course if it's a gift to stay within budget then that's a different story.

4gb will run yes but you'll have to pull graphics sliders back for sure.