Been waiting a LONG time to afford switching my FS to 64bits. I finally bought both XPlane 11 AND FS2020 Premium for not much more than it would've cost for just 2020 Standard at regular price. I now know the struggle of the 24-hour "is it stuck/did it break" initial install! 🙃 (just sleep/work it off)
BTW for those still on the fence about switching sims with older systems that are now lower than the stated "minimum requirements": Give it a try- it may still work. I took that gamble and was very pleasantly surprised that even with my now word not allowed-poor ancient GT5xx series GPU and last gen AM3+ system, both XP11 and FS20 still ran well. I'm finding that unless it needs something completely new like the Vulkan Graphics API for XP12, the "minimums" may just mean expecting no less than 60fps. I'm ok with 15-30 fps, which I've been accustomed to for years from all the mods I have with original FSX and Steam Edition. For me it's the right time to start moving on. I'll still be using FSX for a good while longer until I figure out how the tons of unique/retro/custom AI traffic I collected can be converted to work with what the AIG Traffic engine won't have. But as long as they still fly instead of CTD, I'm good with a slower than normal sim until I max out this board with a new GPU. XP12/FS24 can be for my next Generational Build.
For those seeing this after the sale ends: monitor https://steamdb.info/ to track the price history and predict when the next sale should be due. You can also test XPlane with the demos on their site. https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/try-it/older/ Just delete the demo folder and buy/reinstall through Steam when ready since, like P3D, I've not seen the Developer site ever go on sale.
X-Plane 11
-67%
$29.99
$9.89
https://steamdb.info/app/269950/
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition
-80%
$24.99
$4.99
https://steamdb.info/app/314160/
Microsoft Flight Simulator: 40th Anniversary
Standard/Deluxe/Premium Editions
(get Premium on sale for the regular price of Standard Edition)
-50%
$59.99/$89.99/$119.99
$29.99/$44.99/$59.99
Standard: https://steamdb.info/app/1250410/
Deluxe: https://steamdb.info/sub/759286/
Premium: https://steamdb.info/sub/759285/
X-Plane 12
(requires Vulkan Graphics capability to run)
-33%
$79.99
$53.59
https://steamdb.info/app/2014780/
