Republic DC9

Let us know how you progress! I like your gritty/real comment - and I keep coming back to XP12 for that reason. I came flying in on final approach in another sim past completely melted photogrammetry then the plane, despite a good flare and speed, booped down the runway at some impossible angle before recovery. No, no, no - I did the same landing in XP12 and it was just much grittier and felt very real, just without photorealistic scenery (though as noted above, there are ways to enjoy that in XP12 too). Enjoy!!!

The idea of getting a baseline at a simple place with few or no scenery impacts is interesting. I have two flights I do often - KSEA to KBFI, landing over downtown Seattle and KBUR over to KLAX past the LA downtown - if I can take off, fly, and land with zero stutters then I know I’m dialed in for any other flight I might want to do.

Awhile back a post on this forum led me to experiment with running MSFS2024 (and XP12) in “all default” mode - no add on scenery or planes (but I did allow liveries). Here are my observations- 1) It was hard not to cheat - day 1 that @dfflyer fellow came out with an update to his Milwaukee scenery (added the Brewer’s stadium) - I HAD to try that (and its marvelous) 2) There is plenty of fun to be had running an all-default sim, and both sims include some nice add on aircraft (by my standards) - the new 707 fortunately was “default” for me 3) Having fewer choices reduced update maintenance, fewer chances for conflicts and issues, less decision fatigue, and I enjoyed the planes I had access to - I think there’s an element of the “jam experiment” here - fewer choices can counterintuitively lead to more satisfaction and enjoyment. 4) In my case, plane purchases are often good for a brief dopamine hit, then as the newness wears off and hedonic adaptation kicks in I fly them less (except the A2A and JustFlight fleet, so very high quality and performance are worth it). Smooth FPS and good textures are important to me in default planes or addons 5) Time for flying is scarce and easily interrupted, so fewer choices and spending time on updating or figuring out issues helps with this 5) Why doesn’t the freebie Piper Dakota we all got have a rotating beacon on the tail - or maybe mine fell off? I adore this plane otherwise. 😂 Anyone new to this hobby or those with limited means should hopefully find this all very encouraging, as well as anyone looking to try a new sim - if one has an OK-ish PC, for a limited investment, there is much fun to be had a simplicity is great* *this is the same guy who has to box up over 250 die cast airliner models to sell to a dealer this week and has embraced the original “black box” NES Golf, so take my ramblings about the joy of simplicity as those of a 51 year old dude that may be confused but is, in general, sick of “too much”

Welcome to XP12! I run MSFS2024 as well, but find I love the feel and look of XP12 far more, despite the terrain not being orthophotos (though there are ways to get that too). Some suggestions I have are to install the latest beta (box on the installer) when installing XP12 and maybe keep it to default only until you get everything configured - there are plenty of default planes that are very nice and I think you’ll find adjusting settings and key assignments very intuitive vs MSFS2024. Depending on your PC, you may or may not want to use some sort of frame gen for extra smoothness if needed (I use Lossless Scaling off Steam). Once you start looking at add ons, the free Zibo 737 and LevelUp 737s are very nice (and all free). I don’t have that many payware jets, but do have the ERJ-175, BAe-146 and 757 for XP12 and enjoy them all. I’ll let others advise on scenery enhancements as I find the closer I can keep my sim to default the better (same concept as an empty community folder in the other sim).

Great thoughts, guys - since I wrote this post I've been enjoying my low and slow(er) flights very much, even in photogrammetry areas. Still need to buy the 114!

Interesting read. We have two Hondas, a 24 and 25 Civic and Accord Hybrid - love them both, though the Civic is MUCH larger than the old Civics we had. My Accord (“Creampuff”) gets excellent mileage, much better than the non-hybrid (turbo) Civic - but both very nice. Drove a Camry hybrid for a week as a rental and liked that too and it also sipped fuel.

I just finished a lovely - perfect - GA flight from Oshkosh up to Green Bay, flying past Appleton/Neenah en route so basically photogrammetry all the way. I was at 2500 ft and around 200 knots and it seemed like the scenery was a bit clearer without a single stutter that I could detect. I can and do fly jets, but it seems like the scenery is grainier, photogrammetry is slower to load in, etc. It seems like the struggle is less real for my 10900K 3060 12GB 32MB RAM early Covid era machine when I fly GA. What is your experience? Is my latest not so profound observation something obvious (going slower and lower is easier on the machine, and jets probably consume more FPS in general with their systems), or is this a mental trick I’m playing on myself to justify buying the Black Square 114 I still haven’t bought? 😂

The XP12 is a “high crime area” and I find the police cars adorable, and yes, the night lighting at dusk/early AM is incredible. I’ve not tried improving the ground/autogen aside from Orbx True Earth which I don’t currently have installed - I instead tell myself that the sim (because the physics are so good) is meant to simulate a plausible world (sort of like P3Dv5) and just enjoy it that way. If there IS a P3Dv7 with improvements I’ll probably buy that even without ortho scenery as a convincing plausible world based on real data is close enough for me (and never had weird colors etc). I’m a model railroader as well and there are many who enjoy realistic operation with a minimum of scenery - just as a play can be convincing with great actors and minimal scenery - something like that. That said, I’m going to try firing up my old True Earth sceneries in P3Dv5 when I get a chance!

I participated in the beta and overall it performed pretty well for me (and does now on release), but I see they never fixed the horrible terrain issie around the S43 airport I reported and others confirmed. I see my post had “votes”, does one have to campaign and get one’s virtual flight buddies (aka all of you) to vote for particular issues to get them fixed? (Not necessarily this one, just the overall beta issue process?)

OR try one of the different simulators - perhaps the one with the X prefix. The two major sims I run (plus the two others) let me scratch the itch to sim when one of them bums me out for some reason hard stutters on landing, terrain looks silly, thrust reversers don’t engage, whatever.

Currently reading “Boeing 757” by Dan Dornseif to get in the spirit of this (and flying the FF in XP12). Such an amazing airplane, and the previews look great.

For us flight simmers, altogether - “It’s a totally different kind of flying”. 😂 I’ve been learning acoustic guitar for the past three months, hopefully I can get to the point where I can play along to “there is only one river” while on a longer flight. Hopefully someone creates an “Otto” co-pilot mod, similar to the recent pet add ons. It is a fine addition to the fleet - the missing windows bug me, but perhaps that’s an easy revision or can be faked on the repaints.

I, too, hope for another version off P3D, but I recently re-installed my P3Dv5 and some Orbx scenery just for fun (I run every flight sim I can find). If interested in a supplement to P3Dv5, for me XP12 is its spiritual successor. The flight dynamics etc are great, the “representative world” of the scenery never surprises you with clouds or strange colors, and the clouds and weather effects are amazing. Default aircraft are more than enough for fun, and the LevelUp 737v2 looks amazing and seems nice. I believe there is a timed demo around KPDX which is free and will give you a flavor for it. Back to P3Dv5, I was surprised how well it ran and how good the sky and clouds looked even vs XP12 in some cases. In any case, I like P3Dv5 as another option and there is no reason not to enjoy some “retro” action the same way I run and enjoy Atari and NES emulators. And it’s good to be able to flip between sims because I inevitably end up getting mad at all of them at some point. 😂

Whoops it was free for me perhaps because I bought the “super deluxe” version of MSFS2024 where you get the full collection of planes (many of which still don’t actually work) - BUT having just flown this 707 I would for sure pay $15 for this version, I cannot have enough old airliners and the louder and smokier the better.

It seems better than before, just had a pleasant enough flight in it KBFI to KPAE. Didn’t behave strangely, smokey engine exhaust with reverse thrust visible (cool). In any case, it’s a free upgrade and hoping for Northwest Orient repaints (and others). Ne forewarned that the GPWS voice is VERY annoying - was glad my spouse was outdoors. 😂