TLDR? Here is the "Coles Notes summary: If you have have either MSFS 2024 SU4 or X-Plane 12.4, then you are living your best flight sim life. If you happen to own both MSFS 2024 SU4 and X-Plane 12.4, then you are living in totally blessed times. 

 

Edited January 18Jan 18 by alanw2005

Add to that DCS World with the new C130J professional model and it's the Best time of my life flight simulation wise😁

I’ve been using XP12 exclusively for the past six months, appreciating how the weather and lighting feel a step closer to reality. Before that, I’d been on 2024 since its release. A couple of weeks ago, the shimmering in XP12 really started to frustrate me, so I switched over to MSFS2024 for a few flights. The lighting wasn’t quite as good, but without the infinite visibility it was known for, the view was much nicer. There’s enough great content in SU4 to make it a very enjoyable sim.  XP12 has the edge with weather, but two very nice sims!

Edited January 18Jan 18 by MrBitstFlyer

Interesting how different the same aircraft sound.

Edited January 18Jan 18 by Bjoern

Yes, blessed time indeed. Lets go and lock this thread; I can foresee what is to come. 

Oh no, not again and again and again … ugh.  They are both excellent platforms … stay diverse and use them both and be rewarded.

17 minutes ago, Sims Smith said:

Lets go and lock this thread; I can foresee what is to come. 

Such a troubling mindset. Just because someone "foresees" an issue, we feel the need to shut down the discussion. There is no breach of forum rules, yet some believe they can suppress opinions about a product. Is this becoming a new norm? Can't we simply have honest comparisons and share our views?

3 minutes ago, LRBS said:

Such a troubling mindset. Just because someone "foresees" an issue, we feel the need to shut down the discussion. There is no breach of forum rules, yet some believe they can suppress opinions about a product. Is this becoming a new norm? Can't we simply have honest comparisons and share our views?

To be fair, I thought there was a dedicated forum for "advocacy" and "comparison".  This can just be moved there.  I don't remember which one, maybe "general flight sim".   

13 hours ago, LRBS said:

Such a troubling mindset. Just because someone "foresees" an issue

This is actually one of the definitions of "intelligence". To learn from experience and apply it to predict the future based on current information.

Unless you live in la-la land or have very little intelligence, you can - with a very high degree of certainty - predict where and how this thread will end up. 😆

Although, now in the 5th year of waiting for Laminar to close it´s doors after MSFS has driven nail after nail into it´s coffin...the number of pages we manage until a thread has to be closed has grown. And who knows, maybe in the future a thread like this - stating the very obvious (that both sims have their merits and can be enjoyed) - will garner the attention it deserves and fizzles out after the few mandatory "yeah, right on!" posts.

It's good to have choices, and it's important to know what one can do with each if we can opt for the different options without leaving any behind.

That's where I ended up after so many years flight simming.

I am still very disappointed with the way prety much every platform I tried fails in terms of flight dynamics modelling, weather modelling, and so on and so forth, but I finally settled with an open-mind approach, and try to get the best out of them all.

Yes I still am tempted to uninstall Xp12, MSFS, DCS, ... whenever I stump into limitations that really irritate me, but I'm getting old, and inertia has grown  considerably 🙂

9 minutes ago, jcomm said:

It's good to have choices, and it's important to know what one can do with each if we can opt for the different options without leaving any behind.

That's where I ended up after so many years flight simming.

I am still very disappointed with the way prety much every platform I tried fails in terms of flight dynamics modelling, weather modelling, and so on and so forth, but I finally settled with an open-mind approach, and try to get the best out of them all.

Yes I still am tempted to uninstall Xp12, MSFS, DCS, ... whenever I stump into limitations that really irritate me, but I'm getting old, and inertia has grown  considerably 🙂

"Knowing" you since all these years, I think you have a cognitive dissonance between what you think you want, and what you really want, because you always end up flying the more eye candy sim. Maybe that's the real source of your frustration?

Sorry for my cheap psychological analysis! 😁 It's the internet after all. 

You never have MSFS your just allowed to use it with a cable bill to follow,,, Xplane  is yours and it looks great and you can get it with a slow phone hotspot

 

 

3 hours ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

"Knowing" you since all these years, I think you have a cognitive dissonance between what you think you want, and what you really want, because you always end up flying the more eye candy sim. Maybe that's the real source of your frustration?

Sorry for my cheap psychological analysis! 😁 It's the internet after all. 

I have to disagree 🙂

I used Aerowinx PS1 and the PSX for years (1997 to 2019), more than any other sim, for airliners... If you know that sim, you'll see how low in the list I put scenery and even weather depiction details... 

Meanwhile I slowly started using P3D with FSLabs for the Airbuses and Xp11 and the Xp12 with Toliss...

These days, all summed up, Xp12 is more or less on par with MSFS 2024. I for instance, use MSFS 2024 with Photogrammetry disabled, no Fauna or Ship traffic or cars on roads, which might enhance the "scenic" experience.

In MSFS 2024 I use Fenix and FSLabs, and also INIBUILDS and default ASOBO Airbuses, and in Xp12 mostly Toliss.

But in the end, while MSFS 2024 has it's limitations in terms of flight dynamics and some aspects of systems modeling, truth is Xp12 also has quite a few, so, in the end I can't even, at present, put one in the 1st place when it comes to flight dynamics and systems modelling.

None can even properly model gliders to the level a rather old soaring sim like Condorsoaring can. Just to give an example, both MSFS and Xp12 fail miserably to properly simulate the aerodynamics of negative flaps as used in most "plastic" gliders. Yes both sims offer parameters and "tricks"/plugins to try to overcome these limitations, but even so, they fall far from being realistic when it comes to properly replicate the performance of such gliders.

Graphics wise I do feel the limitations of Xp12 regarding, for instance, a proper depiction of clouds during night. It's a true showstopper for me. It's pitch dark and you can't see any clouds, if there is no moonlight, and that indeed is a visual limitation that really hurts me 😕  

I do, OTOH, and specially now that I am tired of spending time configuring / optimizing / tweaking stuff for my sims to please me, look after features that make it easier / less time consuming and more realistic to come to the desktop, pick a flightplan for an airliner, start at a gate and end at the arrival gate, have services properly integrated, preferably without having to use external apps/ plugins.

I also like to be able to use real weather proferably with the "historic" feature. At present MSFS does historic real world weather and coordinates it with ATC better than Xp12. OTOH default ATC IMO is in general superior in quaility and features in Xp12, so... it's a mix, and instead of restricting myself to a single platform, I have learned to use multiple.

 

Edited January 19Jan 19 by jcomm

4 hours ago, jcomm said:

I have to disagree

I only want to know one thing....when are you going back to War Thunder? 😂

Edited January 19Jan 19 by Litjan

One other thing I've noticed in the video is no rain on glass in MSFS. Is that a general limitation or did the creator forget to enable it?