prolixindec

Aerowinx is ticked (and greyed out).

Absolutely loving the new GUI. I haven't stress-tested it, but all the functionality seems to be there. It worked very well on 2 full flights so far. I mentioned this to Balt, I'm unable to connect in RT App, so I'm using RT Direct, According to the notes, this isn't supposed to work, but it does. ( I use PSX + MSFS + RT + PSXT, and I have the RT app open and running whenever I fly.) When I switch to RT App, I get stuck in an endless loop in which PSXT closes and restarts forever. This was happening before the new beta. NOTE: It's not a problem for me, because RT Direct works just fine.

Retired airline pilot here... Making a secondary flight plan for a possible diversion (or using RTE 2 for this in the FMS) is fine, not a mistake by any means, but operationally, diversions are often reconsidered enroute because the facts change mid-flight. Perhaps the alternate picked by the dispatchers isn't the best one; maybe another airport has good weather and better company ops; perhaps another airport has good weather and easier connections for the passengers. Or perhaps, given the inevitability of a diversion, the decision is made well before you get to the actual destination. The choice of alternate airport while flight planning is to guarantee that you have enough fuel to make it to a place with a better weather forecast. However, in real world ops, you may end up starting your diversion early, and/or picking a totally different airport to land at based on all kinds of different reasons. So be prepared for some flexibility. A pre-entered route to the flight-planned diversion airport is often overruled by practical considerations in the moment.

I was a devoted user of PFPX up until a few weeks ago, when I finally switched to TOPCAT+SimBrief. I had a homemade OFP template that I perfected over countless hours, I had a fleet of aircraft that I meticulously fine-tuned, and I had a good grasp of the features and intricacies of the app. I tried to use just about every flight planning option, even the esoteric ones, at least a few times. Alas though, the days of PFPX are numbered. First, all development stopped. Then Aerosoft changed the official support forum to Read Only. Then the site that warehoused all the multitudes of performance files closed. Then, as of the last few months, the weather subscriptions no longer work. Yes, there is a work-around for the weather: fetch the weather manually, and then copy-and-paste it into PFPX. For some users, that's not a problem, but for me it meant it was time to switch to something a bit easier. I know SimBrief doesn't have everything that PFPX does, and I was very sad to say goodbye to an old friend, but SimBrief now strikes a better balance when it comes to performance and ease of use--at least for me. I didn't uninstall PFPX... and if by some miracle, support is someday restored, I'll switch back.

I bought a new computer about a year ago, and I installed 2024 (only) and didn't install 2020. I suppose I could install 2020 if I needed to, but I've been happy with 2024.

I would vote for better weather, with (in order of priority, from highest to lowest): Accurate visibility when the visibility is low. Too often, the in-game visibility is way too high, especially at night. 1/4 mile should look like it does in real life: impenetrable soup. For example, runway lights in the USA are standardized to be 200' apart. Thus, with RVR 800, you should see no more than 4 lights ahead of you. Accurate cloud volumetrics. Often, the vertical dimension of an overcast layer appears to be 1000' thick and you can see ground detail below it, so we have either partial coverage, translucent clouds, or both. IRL, you can get overcast layers that are 10,000 feet thick and you can't see the ground AT ALL when you're within one. We need that. More variability in cloud types. We have lots of "cotton ball" clouds, which get clumped together to represent every possible type of cumulus cloud, but we don't yet have a convincing stratus type. When the sky is overcast, instead of bunches of little cumulus clouds, we need a flat-ish stratus type (that you can't see through, see #2 above). Thicker and more meaningful precipitation graphics, stuff that can obscure your vision when it's really coming down. That's my wish list, although I do like the suggestion above about a configurable start button, so that you could start at the same location with the same settings in just one click.

In the 737, you're flying an updated version of a base 1970's aircraft. You have to click more buttons. In the A320, you're flying a more modern platform, where the aircraft is able to do many more functions automatically. Both can be fun, it depends on what you like.

I flew the Twin Otter in real life and it was a 100% completely enjoyable aircraft in every way. I loved every minute in it. I never had a real engine failure, but V1 cuts and other single engine maneuvers were a breeze. You needed a hard press on the rudder for sure, but climbing up and out on one engine was no problem at all. Thank you for allowing me to reminisce. Regarding simulated engine failures in MSFS -- I have no idea. I've never flown an aircraft within MSFS. I only use MSFS as a scenery generator for another sim. I'll just say that single engine work with power requires significant rudder to to keep the wings level. (You need much less rudder if the good engine isn't developing much power, like in a descent or in the landing flare.) If your MSFS aircraft doesn't require lots of rudder for single-engine ops, then the flight model probably leaves something to be desired.

I was going to post this exact same thing, but DavidP beat me to it. I am also an MEI (and former turboprop airline pilot) and I agree completely. The failure of the "critical" engine does have, on paper, more of a detrimental effect than failure of the other engine, but in practice, the difference is small, and is usually overridden by things like wind gusts, turbulence, instrument tolerance, and pilot technique.

Optimal TLOD and OLOD vary by what your personal preference is for the tradeoff between detail and performance. And what software (if any) you use to reduce those settings if/when performance is degraded. I have 9800X3d, 4090, and I use AutoFPS. My fps are locked at 60. I don't use frame gen. TLOD is 400 on the ground, 800 in flight, and 100 at night when you can't see much anyway. OLOD is always 1000.

I use TOPCAT with Windows 11 for every flight, including just 15 minutes ago, and I'm not seeing what you're seeing. So it's not a global issue. Perhaps TOPCAT is trying to create a file with your license info. I would start the debugging trip there... see if TOPCAT has permissions to write to files, for example.

One thing that may demystify the experience for you is that the FAA and the chart designers all have pretty obsessive personalities... there are legends available that explain every single line, figure, or textual component you'll ever see. So it's not like you're expected to hear it once and then rely on your memory. You can have a PDF of the legend open right next to the PDF of your chart. It's even, dare I say, fairly intuitive once you learn the language. In fact, looking at charts can explain some of the things you experience elsewhere in the environment. For example, your ATC program will give you periodic frequency changes. Well, there are ATC sectors marked on IFR sectionals (green lines), and when your aircraft crosses one of those green lines, you move from one sector to another and you'll be given a new frequency to use to talk to a different controller. Another example: your route might contain a strange sharp turn, and by looking at the chart, you can see that there is restricted airspace you need to avoid. Sure, it could be trivial and of no real consequence in the sim, but it could also add to the "immersion," based on how approach simming.

A few more arguments for using charts... 1. They look great. Ever since I was a kid, I've admired the aesthetic of navigation charts. 2. It can be fun to build a route yourself. (Fun is in the eye of the simmer, of course.) 3. It's easier to get a sense of the visual extent of a SID, STAR, or approach--where it connects to the upper airspace, which IAF is most efficient for your flight, etc. Of course you can see this by loading one procedure after another in the FMC, but it's faster to just page through the charts. 4. Some navigation items are contained on the charts only. For example, approach waypoints in the 747 can only be entered as speed and altitude pairs. ("Maintain airspeed XXX at altitude YYY.") However, some procedures require a certain airspeed at a waypoint that you might cross at variable altitudes. In these cases, the speed restriction will be on the chart, but it won't be in the FMC--you have to speed intervene and set it manually. Same with things like minimum safe/sector altitudes, runway incursion hotspots, or warnings about the ILS not being on the same heading as the runway. Like @BrammyH above, I'm also not trying to change your mind--part of the fun of a simulator is that you can do whatever you want with it--but for me the charts have always added a certain richness to the experience. Back in the early 2000's I purchased (on Ebay) a set of paper Jeppesen charts covering every airport and upper airway in the entire United States. If I recall correctly, it cost me about $100 and was a snapshot in time, never updated, and yet at the time it was a prized possession. I never would have thought that now in 2025, I could have the entire world through a Navigraph subscription, updated in real time as procedures get rewritten and adjusted.

I am in flight now, and I updated and did lots of clicking around. So far, so good! I'll report back if I notice a problem.

In the demo flight video, I noticed that the dangling pull thingies sway as the aircraft buffets and turns. Nice. However, they seem to always point towards the earth. In a coordinated turn (which most of the turns were, reasonably so anyway), the dangling thingies should point towards the floor of the aircraft, not towards the earth. Look at 25:38 and afterwards. Minor issue, for sure.

Navigraph gives you worldwide Jeppesen charts, everything that's published as far as I can tell. There's also weather, ATIS (if available online), and a moving map over IFR, VFR, or satellite charts. It's a very comprehensive package and IMO indispensable.

I also use it every flight.

This is off topic... Speaking just for myself, I am not interested in visible damage, like dents in the leading edge of the wing after a bird strike. I don't care about that. I do want damage like having a pod strike if you land a 747 with too much bank, although I'd be happy if that "damage" wasn't a visible animation but rather was an engine failure that the crew had to react to. I am not interested in failures that don't have training actions linked to them. For example, lightning blasts off your tail cone (this happened to me in real life!) and now the handling characteristics are different. That's probably not a feature I'd use in the sim, because it's too random to have any training value. It's hard in a sim anyway, because if "the handling characteristics are different," the crew in real life wouldn't know why. Is the tail cone missing? Or the radome? How much is missing? All of it? Or just the last ten inches? The randomness of events like this make them untrainable events, and so for me in the sim, I don't find value added. However, I would like to see failures that do have associated procedures. For example, the FIRE CARGO AFT caption on the 747. If you see that alert, then there are procedures to follow. I'd like to train those procedures, so having that "failure" would be useful. In fact, a true "study level" sim IMHO should let you see every possible failure that the aircraft has a procedure for. Back to the topic (a little), I do see value in a well-modeled radar, because you could get familiar with how radars work in real life, and that might be interesting to some people.

I'm also a big fan of PSXT (actually I use PSXTraffic, but same results), RealTraffic, and AIG. Real traffic, with real models, at the real locations on the airport, with real departures and arrivals. Balt (developer of RealTraffic) is very friendly and responsive on his forum. I miss radio chatter from all the aircraft, but it's more than made up for by seeing actual traffic on the TCAS, using real-world separation and real-world responses to weather.

I use MSFS as the "out of the cockpit world view" for another sim, which provides all the aircraft flight model, systems, in-cockpit views, etc. For this reason, my MSFS window is very long and thin. It's the full width of my monitor, but only takes up 1/3 of the height. This is great for the world view when flying, but it truncates the MSFS menus when in Settings. To fix the issue, I just full-screen MSFS when accessing the menus, then revert back to the long-and-thin setting when I'm done. I realize this circumstance may not apply to you (or anyone else), but this is how I was able to see all of the selections in the MSFS menus.

I am totally 100% behind making it optional. For anyone who's sim experience is enhanced by lens flare, more power to them. For me, I'd like to toggle it off and reclaim the 0.000001 fps.

Any hobbyist or professional photographers out there? Photographers spend lots of money on expensive lenses precisely in order to avoid lens flare. Lenses are rated in reviews based on how little lens flare they have. If you come from an environment where people look at lens flare as a nuisance (or as stigma of cheap gear), then it's kind of jarring to see MSFS going to lengths to add it unnecessarily. Of course, not everyone in the photography community shares that view, and some people even deliberately incorporate lens flare into their creativity. So it's not like there's only one opinion. Still, its widely regarded among pros as something to avoid. I would love an option to toggle it off in MSFS. I suppose lens flare is in MSFS as a signifier of realism--it makes the visuals look like they were filmed with a real life (albeit cheap) camera. It reminds me of early iterations of Flight Simulator where you'd hear the tires "chirp" on contact with the runway, even if it were a sound you'd never hear in the actual cockpit (e.g. with airliners). As a realism signifier, tire chirp added "immersion" for some people, or at least Microsoft thought it would, because it was familiar--anyone who has spent time around a GA airport knows the sound.

I love the updates to the GUI. Everything is working well here.

I agree with this. Before the era of online updates, developers had to be cautious about what to release, because updates were impossible. You had to buy new disks to update the games. Now that updates can be pushed out without having to buy a new title, developers are more prone to throw all kinds of new features and technology into releases, knowing that optimizations can happen over time. I think it's a win for users, mostly, because when it works, we get the advantage of features that never would have been released had they needed to be bulletproof across all variations of hardware and drivers. The disadvantages of this approach are of course obvious, but I still think that for most users, today's methods are a better approach.

Others are seeing this: CHARACTERS QUANTITY CHARACTERS VARIETY CHARACTERS QUALITY AIRPORT SERVICES QUANTITY AIRPORT SERVICES VARIETY PARKED AIRCRAFT QUANTITY PARKED AIRCRAFT VARIETY AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC QUANTITY AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC VARIETY But I'm only seeing this: CHARACTERS QUANTITY CHARACTERS VARIETY CHARACTERS QUALITY AIRPORT SERVICES QUANTITY Any guidance on how I can find the final items on the list? I'd like to turn off PARKED AIRCRAFT, but I can't see an option to select that. EDIT: Fixed, it was a GUI issue. Some options can be truncated based on your screen layout.