petabread

So I sit here day after day and read the same stuff over and over again about AI and atc and then I fire up the sim and load up at a gate with planes around me. Atc and myself going through the motions. Last night I flew from Tokyo to Incheon and I had to wait for a plane landing, which got off the runway and I went on my way. Traffic along the way and atc guiding me through my altitude changes. As I approached for landing I was told I’m number 1 and to watch traffic landing on the runway next to me. As I landed and exited the runway I was told to hold short for another landing aircraft. I finally pulled into the gate and AI and atc worked flawlessly for me. This has been my experience the majority of the times. Are they perfect, no but they are better than what you get in the other games. X-plane atc is literally useless and the AI relies heavily on 3rd party addons, same as p3d which atc is almost as horrible as x-planes, putting me on 100 mile finals… yeah sure, I’d like to see real airlines and planes flying around but as a real pilot, I get the immersion feel a lot more from this sim than what others consider to be superior.

Where in France, I’d like to try this. I flew around Paris several times and didn’t see any.

I was in the us and didn’t see any.

Actually, if they’re ironing out a bug or an updating something in one area, there’s no way to see everything. I never ran into spikes when everyone was complaining about spikes. So while I’m not saying it wasn’t there, it wasn’t where I was flying. Not one. I use msfs very seriously and don’t play like it’s a game.

One thing I noticed, from time to time, rarely the sim resets my settings. And it defaults it to low. I wonder how many people don’t notice this. I’ve been swimming since 1994 and I’m not a novice. Every time a new sim or a sim updates I put it through the same ringer, JFK to ORD. Real world weather, next, jfk to lhr. If these commercial flights work, I go on to the small aircrafts and VFR flying. I do ils, visual, rnav, vor approaches. I always try to use atc. X-plane hands down has the worst atc. Fsx and p3d was so bad, I would always be told to contact tower as I’m on a 100 mile final. With msfs, having set up the flight plan with sim brief and then making the changes on the world map the atc has given me a far better experience. Even with vfr flying, though basic isn’t as buggy as I thought it would be. X-plane doesn’t even do vfr atc. The weather and flight dynamics are very good. Not talking about aircraft dynamics with defaults because they’ve never been something great. I’m talking about how the environment affects the airplane and this is exceptional.

I spend a lot of time in the sim and I put every sim through hell. Fsx at first was horrible, p3d performance wise stabilized after a while but I never saw any real progress after spending money on 5 versions I feel the fool and will never endorse it for home use. X-plane really was a great step after fsx but even that has kind of stalled out and after flying msfs, I can’t go back. Even with the Zibo and other aircrafts. What we have in msfs, is leaps and bounds better. I really don’t know what’s causing people to have so many issues with performance but I do feel bad people can’t enjoy the sim I’m enjoying daily.

I can counter this with my experience with 10 hrs of flying sim update 3 no halo no mesh spikes i don’t have a lot of pay ware airports so no comment. AP worked fine for all my flights mods need to update their own product, pmdg broke several times after p3d update and it needed to update so this is normal. Same with x-plane. A320nx worked fine for me last night. I saw no impact of LOD. atc is by far the best from all sims. Not great but is by far better than the word not allowed from the other platforms. I had plenty of ai flying around. So is it the sim? Have you checked your settings? Seems weird that I have the same but none of your issues.

Every game I ever played had stutters. X-plane was the smoothest but even that wasn’t free. I’ve had less with MSFS than I have had with fsx and P3D. I’ve completed many flights with the A32NX and default 747 and 787 without issue. I see all these complaints and I just don’t see the many issues that others see. For me it’s very stable and updating is a breeze. I also don’t remove my community folder. My system is less than special, it’s 1050ti and an older cpu. I get 20-25 FPS around NYC, occasional stutter but p3d gives me hell and it doesn’t look good.

I’ve had 0 issues. No LOD issues. Nothing, runs smooth.

I’ve been using flight sims since 1994. This is leaps and bounds better than what we have. I mean, let’s look at what we have and had. P3Ds flight model isn’t very good at all, in fact very linear. What P3D has is the high fidelity aircraft that were mostly ported over from fsx. Aircraft that took 5-10 years to creat for fsx. Remember the fslabs A320, that wasn’t released that long ago... I’m not hating on P3D but I quit after 4.5 because it was fsx 2.0. X-plane is refreshing but even that has its limits. What we have in the new sim is a very impressive new base sim. I haven’t seen spikes on my flights, I haven’t had crashes or anything crazy. I don’t have a top of the line system. The weather engine, even if not 100% accurate, is better than what the other sims have even with 3rd party programs. Flight sim isn’t perfect, none of them are. Enjoy the sims that give you joy and pleasure. For me it’s the new sim, I uninstalled p3d. I still have x-plane but I haven’t used it in a while. P3D hasn’t been perfect, and in some cases takes months to update issues. Maybe that’s a better method, maybe not. We get new content every so often. This new sim updates Nav data, never been done in base. I say enjoy the sims that bring you joy.

This has surpassed expectations. When I look at a new sim, it has to at base level be better as a base than what we have. Create a base that 3rd party developers can take their products and create something even better if that’s your thing. Im usually not one to buy a lot of addons but in the past I’ve had to shell out for better weather, better ai better everything. My expectations were low as far as performance goes because I have a mid range system. However the sim runs smooth on medium-high settings and it looks great. No doubt there the best looking sim out of the box. The weather for me has been great, I always hated previous sims using strictly metal data and forcing updates that rip realism out the window. REX and activesky both had this issue in past sims. Metar only weather is a bad way to do weather, I like that they use a forecast model to depict weather in between metars. As a real world pilot, I can’t begin to stress how important it was for a weather engine to get away from strictly metar. AI right now with the FlightAware system seems adequate, minus of course liveries not matching but it hasn’t broken my realism much. And I haven’t had an issue with lack of ai either. The flight model is pretty spot on as well, once configuring my yoke and peddals, the way the aircraft behave in their environment is nicely done, not perfect but I don’t expect it. It’s close to X-plane. FSX and P3D don’t fee close to real world at all. As for the aircraft themselves, the GA planes, the single engine ones feel good, fly good. Having done VFR and IFR flying in the sim with these aircrafts has been a pleasure. The big boys leave some to be desired. The mods help correct some of that but I never expected high caliber default aircraft. In time we will get them from other developers but I’ve flown point a to b in all 3 commercial airliners and they’ve flown without much hitch for me. overal, what they promised is what I feel I’ve gotten with some bugs from time to time but this is better out of the box than any previous sim.

I know they said they will have a weather fix coming up in the next update. I haven’t seen any serious real weather issues, mine have loaded up fairly accurately except for the winds above the surface. Also the live weather isn’t live, I think meteoblue is 45 mins behind in their weather, even their online site seems to be off by a bit.

I personally would like something new. I hope this is a new engine. 3rd party developers can take advantage of new technology to make new products. If Microsoft has a default weather engine that surpasses what’s on the market now then great, if there is room for improvement then someone will step in. Everyone is stuck in the whole fsx/p3d era because it’s been the same sim for 13 years. That has never happened. Back in the day products were released every 2 years. I switched to x-plane because I wanted something different from fsx/p3d and some 3rd party developers started price gouging.

So here’s my take on the state of sims. As a real world pilot I enjoy our choices of flight sims. Personally I liked the general direction dtg was going but I’m not crying they ended it. I flew the pmdg 737 in p3d the other day and the next day I flew the zibo mod 737 in x-plane 11 for my return. Both wonderful experiences but what hit me was that I felt p3d was nostalgic. Maybe it’s because I use x-plane 11 more or maybe that on this day, in 2018, p3d still feels like fsx and to me, it’s outdated and run down. No matter how many addons I have on there. Its time for a new engine, I don’t see myself buying another ESP product. I was actually going to hold off on p3d v4 but a lot of close friends hyped it and honestly it was just the same for me. Same old fsx. Still enjoyable but I’m ready for a fresh new look, I have my opinions on what should be included in the sim and it’s not the most popular so I keep it to myself but we are still in exciting times.

No doubt it has problems but it’s the best we have in x-plane right now, I don’t have the stutter issue though and the abrupt weather changes are much less than default, it kind of reminds me of the activesky 2012 days.

Before activesky next, there wasn’t s weather engine in fsx/p3d that could smooth out weather either. Actually when I switched to x-plane in 2010 it was because the weather was better represented in x-plane than in fsx and later p3d. Flying over the Atlantic was terrible with the previous weather engines with constant wind shifts that lead to crash after crash or sim freeze up. Of course, it is with my opinion that active sky next and their recent release are the best in the business, x-enviro does a pretty good job of injecting weather into x-plane and fairly smoothly. I would like like an activesky product in x-plane but x-enviro satisfies my needs, and as a real world pilot, I don’t see it as a big problem or a bad product. A lot of people talking about updrafts, microbursts and thunderstorm representation and the lack there of in x-plane, and having had thunderstorms blow up around me I real life with little to no impact, at times I feel the flight sim community is looking more for a little drama in their flights than actual representation of wind interaction with the airplane or actually worrying about whether your actions will lead to freezing wing and engines, which the weather engines for fsx/p3d don’t model well at all.

Can't wait to sit in this thing in VR. All I gotta say.

I call BS on everything. My opinion, only thing keeping people away from x-plane is pmdg and orbx. ATC is deplorable in fsx/p3d... same problems, leaves me on a 100 mile final, forgets me, doesn't let me takeoff because 60 aircraft are landing. At least you don't even have decent 3rd party action other than allowing for real AI but atc sucks. Weather, again p3d doesn't even have a built in real weather engine, it requires a 3rd party developer. I know xEnviro has its cons and critics, but I've had times flying with it, unbeatable by any other developer including hifi, grant it there are things missing but it's not as serious as some people make it out to be. Seasons- garbage in fsx and p3d, living in Nyc, I see snow coverage maybe 3 weeks out of the winter, in the sims, 4 straight months. I hate that. I hope that LR can figure out a way to develop a real season. But giving that as an excuse is simply bs. Scenery, with Ortho and w2xp overlay, nothing currently in fsx or p3d comes close to looking like all 5 Boros and the surrounding counties. I use to think as a real world pilot, that fsx and p3d was the be all end all. Then I had 1 really fantastic flight in x-plane 10 with the flight factor 777, can never replicate that feeling in p3d. Reading forums and people bickering back and forth and putting out stuff like lack of AI, atc, weather, seasons, aircraft, scenery, I sat down and reevaluated both sims. The above answers what I found with regards to atc and AI. Most people say they fly online for p3d, you can do that with x-plane. Weather, can be better in x-plane and may have a nudge in p3d but only do to active sky, again I've had better immersions with xEnviro in some cases. Scenery, a lot of good scenery out there and I never have an issue with this but people are sold on orbx. So so I narrowed it down to aircraft, the one thing that people keep bringing up, is pmdg level aircraft, whatever that exactly means because even their aircraft have short cuts and none are truly study level. There are really good aircraft in x-plane and p3d not developed by pmdg, but I believe that until pmdg gives its blessings on x-plane, p3d will be people's choice. Quite frankly, I've been flying in vr lately, and p3d looks way to cartoonish and early 2000s. I am more immersed in x-plane 11. This concludes my thought, I know it's a controversial opinion but it's my honest thought about it. I don't hate p3d, I own in, I fire it up sometimes but turn it off almost instantly when my pmdg 737 looks and feels, I don't know, off. Same with the pmdg 777. Which both are great aircraft but they can't convince me that p3d is better.

How do you guys handle the problem of the 2 crosshairs?

Orbx is garbage. I got so tired of their "offerings" FTX global can keep with ESP. Their local airports are nice but they're not the holy grail of scenery. Honestly don't care who caused what, I wouldn't have bought anything from orbx for x-plane.

Everyone is going to have an opinion but there are also absolutes that the community is faced with but not told. I switched from FSX to X-plane 10 in 2011 because I was frustrated with fsx weather, atc and AI. Before Active sky next, no weather engine was good enough, they all caused some sort of crash, stutter, pause, massive wind change. ATC was terrible, putting me on a 100 mile final more than 60% of the time. AI, being in a line of 8 aircraft is awesome, except when you get stuck at an airport because the arriving aircraft is stuck half way off the runway because of an aircraft blocking the taxiway and now no one is going anywhere and you have to ride the grass and takeoff without permission. I never like P3D because I felt like there weren't enough differences from fsx. Also pmdg decided to charge for their products and that just turned me off completely. The aircraft and environment in x-plane far exceed what I ever had and get in fsx/p3d. Now onto the new sims, quite frank, seeing the videos of p3d v4 show me nothing of interest. It's 64bit fsx with a few lighting changes... The night lighting is nothing to write home about, just going on video alone, it doesn't look good, the day looks like p3dv3. I will not purchase. FSW has my attention but not holding my breath. Onto the subject of the flight sim community and 3rd party development. It's no doubt that pmdg, activesky, so forth and so one prefer p3d because it is very identical to fsx. The community as a whole, holding on for dear life for p3d not because it has a vastly better atc or AI than x-plane but rather that Pmdg and active sky and so forth are not part of x-plane. PMDG says that they were experimenting with x-plane by putting out the dc-6 and they were going to move from there. But don't let that fool anyone, if they were really committed to x-plane, their first choice wouldn't have been the dc-6. Evidence? Was the dc-6 their first aircraft of choice for fs9 or fsx? Active sky is one of the if not the best weather engine to date for any platform but I get better immersion with x-enviro more often than not. Perfect? No; but it's good enough for now. So where do I stand and what do I think about the flight sim community? Seems pretty grim but truth is whatever you like you like. I'm not going to stop you or call you and idiot for liking p3d or fsw or x-plane. We have sims for everyone. Now this is what I'd like to see happen, I would like to see a new flight sim, that sets the bar, one where you don't need active sky, one that doesn't require pmdg to develop top notch aircraft. Where atc and AI are smooth. My final thought is this, x-plane 11 is my sim and I get everything I want minus atc but I didn't get a satisfactory one in fsx and p3d anyway.

Correct. I would imagine they will release an update at some point but you will have to wait till after p3d v4 and all the new bugs introduced. Maybe by late 2018/2019. My guess is they don't really want to support x-plane 11. PMDG is an ESP company.

That's what REX said about x-plane 10 when it was released. Still waiting...

Wait, why do people keep saying it looks like FSX? So does P3D, actually they are pretty much the same... Early access and people expected a big free and complete sim AFTER everyone was told what to expect with release and any other. Your choice to pay or not if you had flight school.