Grisu

100% agree, I can't say it better. I'm following the steam reviews on steam meticulously since release (stable version). And it's astonishing how constant the bad reviews are regarding the many issues of the MSFS2024; and many of those reviewers are very detailed and laboured to show up their problems (worth a read). And between all these bad reviews there are plenty of typical and uncommunicative "word not allowed" comments, or - most likely - payed reviewers from MS/Asobo - for saving the stats not falling into oblivion. In total, all these smells fishy in such a high degree meanwhile, that no one with a minimum of common sense in his mind can deny it.

Thanks guys for all your expertise and profound answers. But now I'm confused again because of the different answers and point of views, which all sound reasonable to me; highly appreciated 🙂. But besides of the topic itself, I think there lies a lot of truth in the quintessence of the whole MSFS2024 "issues": The techniques and the whole programm has become so inherently complex overbrim, that many people MUST get confused . And finding enduring solutions for software engineers regarding all the fixes which have to be done will become more and more difficult in the future. KISS is still a fundamental and valid principle among skilled engineers and scientists; MSFS2024 has gone far beyond of this. Keep It Simple Stupid ☺️.

Yes, that's a very good and meaningful argument. I still remeber a YT review recently where the reviewer stressed out the "fact" that when you pan around e.g. inside the cockpit, every single view change must be streamed onto the screen again and again. Otherwise the user couldn't see the scenery from different angles. To me THIS information was a huge bummer and one of the main reasons why I'm still omitting a purchase of MS2024; allthough I can't confirm this information because I'm no MSFS expert by all means. But to me it sounds comprehensible.

What about the melting buildings and "sculpted" tree problems on the ground in MSFS2020/24; are these still a valid problem? They were the most disgusting issue and immersion killer, at least for me.

Thank you for your kindness. Currently I'm triying to shift further away from too much screen-time, and filling my leisure time with other, more physical, simple and "old school" hobbies. My "personal wake up call" was the launch mess of MSFS2024, the worst thing I've ever experienced in front of my screen. So many hours of wasted time and getting hypnotized by the infamous loading-bar 🥺; "contless" hours of setting up controls, etc..., you name it. During the aftermaths I asked myself if it is worth to spend so much time for something bleak and almost useless. And that's another, quite important and maybe the BIGGEST BENEFIT where Aerofly shines: In company with Aerofly you don't "need" another, unpayed job as a caretaker and DIY troubleshooter of your own flightsim. It doesn't matter if you've not used the sim for quite some time, or how often you use it. If you want to "fly", just sit down and start your sim; even no internet connection required, no additional dependencies - YOU BECOME YOUR OWN MASTER OF YOUR SIM AGAIN ! This flightsim is almost ideal for someone who doesn't want to spend a good bunch of precious flightsim time with caretaking. Yes, it has a lot of missing features, meanwhile even on graphics level, and it'll take probably antother 20 and something years till we get some decent 3D water, dynamic weather and seasons. But hey, who cares if flightsimming is not your main hobby (anymore). 😎

Well, I must confess after purchasing IPACS's "new" Aerofly FS 4 Flight Simulator , that I was wrong ! Congrats to the developers of this nifty, little sim: Guys, you've improved it really well ! (compared to the previous v.2), and I was wrong. Because I'm mainly a helicopter, GA and glider pilot, and at the first glance and after watching many reviews I came up to the conclusion, that the new version 4 is primarily done for bus-flyers, but I was wrong after hours of trying and scenery watching in this sim. Yea, the version of a digital tourist in its finest 🙃: (but without headset). Especially five main points have triggered me in a very positive way: They've improved the autogen worldwide; no need for extra cultivation files anymore in many cases. It's really impressive how populated and dense the whole scenery looks above from helicopter- /GA distance. AND it seems they also have improved the autogen textures of houses's roof tops, regarding variation of textures. --> especially in the old version of the sim it was eye-sickening when flying e.g. over Orbx's Palm Springs or Monterey where every house looked like a european style house; very, very generic and unpleasant. Some very dedicated simmers from Aerofly figured out how to get to work the beautiful sceneries from ORBX in AFS4 (no dealbreaker for me anymore). AND in combination with AFS's new autogen system the Orbx sceneries now even look BETTER from above - which is an amazing feat, at least for me. I've never been a big Black Hawk UH-60 word not allowed in other sims. But the version of IPACS's is great fun to fly, and the systems are very deep. AND THEY'VE IMPELEMENTED A PROFESSIONEL FLIGHT MODEL for the Black Hawk , like in their first Robinson again. Which I've grievously missed in their second Eurocopter (which was a huge complain of mine about version FS 2). To me IPACS has shown with the implementation of the Black Hawk, the BF-109, and various glider assets, that the developers still have'nt forgotten the pure GA and rotorhead lovers like myself. Which gives me hope for more to come 😉. Surprisingly they even have improved their cloud system with new cumuls clouds. Funny fact after my own experience: The new clouds look far better during live flightsim sessions, compared to static pictures an promotion stuff you can find on the internet. But these new clouds are very VRAM hungry and not well optimized, allthough I can run the sim on ultra settings without any issues locked at 60 FPS. After hours of monitoring and testing I can fairly say that the cumulus clouds are the only thing which the developers must improve (btw: I have no VR, and still running my sims with "old fashioned" headtracking) regarding performance. Compared to other flightsims: Aerofly FS 4 is still king respective "ease of use", "performance", "stability" and "loading times" ! For those of you who are interested I've listed a couple of links below about how you can make to run and port our ORBX sceneries to AFS4; a big shout out and THANK YOU ❤️! to @ApfelFlieger: US-CA: KSPS Palm Springs Int. (ORBX) on FS 4 US-IL: KCGX Chicago Meigs Field (ORBX-Edition) in FS 4 LOWI-Innsbruck from ORBX - FS2 to FS4 how to US-CA: Palm Springs - 7x Heliports Best wishes to all of you!

The biggest (already) gripe and concern I've about the upcoming MSFS24 is it's huge greed for internet speed and bandwith. E.g. I live in an area (western Germany) where the maximum speed I can get is round about ~110 Mbit at most. Especially Germany is known for bad and underdeveloped Internet, compared to international standards. For those who are interested: The Youtuber Compusemble has done a remarkable good job in monitoring the previous Tech-Alpha build in his video MSFS 2024 Technical Alpha | Performance and Internet Bandwidth Tested! Well, I foresee a lot of upcoming problems for many users and flightsimmers at least in Germany, and MSFS 2020 will be around for onger than someone may expect, maybe 😉.

As I mentioned earlier it really depends on somebodys preferences. You, HiFlyer, are a perfect example for someone who derives benefit from the Aerofly series: Interested in... ......a butter smooth implementation of VR !!! I think AFS is still king regarding this topic, although I for myself don't use VR, only can rely on verdicts of others. ...and interested in Airliners which fly most of the time above serious weather conditions. Thus the complete absence of a dynamic weather engine is (maybe) not so annoying as for many other like myself. By the way IPACS has invested a lot of time in improving and extending their airliner fleet in the last couple of years; in this case the chances are good that they will improve their tubeliners further in the future. It really depends on someones owns inerests in aviation.

@ Kalnon: Thank's a lot for your useful inputs and your kind worlds ❤️. I'm glad that I could help you !!! Best wishes across the pond 😄 . @ Ray Proudfoot: Thank you for your clarification; now I know it better. You guys from AVSIM are awesome; thank you for helping to maintain this wonderful site. It helped me over many years to get useful informations about our beloved hobby, although the language barrier is not always easy to me 😉.

Well Kalnon, if you are into helicopters you'll be surprised that there exists a dedicated helicopter-simulator from IPACS/Aerofly. Internally IPACS called it Aerofly FS 3 (yes, there is a version 3 between version 2 and todays version 4); it's software engine is based on Aerofly FS 2 solely developed by IPACS. The pictures as shown in my post before and in this one are exclusively from Aerofly FS 3. But it is sold for professional purpose only. It's training helicopter simulator is even certified by EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency). The company was called VRM Switzerland first, later on they've renamed themselves to Loft Dynamics . See the article from Helisimmer here: EASA certifies VRM Switzerland’s VR training system for pilot training, using Aerofly FS2 My biggest grieves with Aerofly will be and forever: Although all the other helicopters we already know from AFS2, like the R22 and H145, are equally represented in AFS3 too, there is still no AS350 (nowadays called H125) in our desktop version, not in AFS2 and still not in AFS4. And you can find the sling loading functionality ONLY in their professional version (AFS3); which is a big shame and no go for me personally. To me after so many years of waiting for new features and observing the selling policy of IPACS, it has become clear: For the "ordinary" consumer market they have strictly focused on Airliners and features, more Airliners, and more Airliners; with tons of autogen objects on the ground (which look everywhere the same in the world. No distinguished autogen differences within different world regions; the houses in e.g. Palm Springs, Europe, Africa look everywhere the same 🤥 . Not only in AFS2 but in AFS4 too.) Their main selling product on consumer market seems to be their mobile app; development was optimized to maintain the app first, desktop version second. Their helicopter simulator and new, dedicated helicopter features are sold for professional purpose ONLY and will never advent us, the ordinary consumers of e.g steam. In the video links below you can find some video footage of AFS3's sling loading capabilities: Opportunity for Helicopter Operators to improve their quality in Sling Load Operations Flying sling load in Zermatt Hope this helps too 😉 The more information someone has, the better it becomes to make right decissions. All the best.

Thank you for your kind worlds. Another point I want do highlight, which I haven't mentioned before and which become more important in Aerofly the more often you fly this sim (an experience which I've made for myself): Because of the total lack of dynamic weather (which is still not implemented in AFS4), always the same looking clouds, the same date, only on summer day-season (still no seasons in AFS4, even not mentioned by the developers), no dynamic 3D water, blurrry textures close above the ground (which gives me the most headache as a former helicopter pilot) - the overall look and seceneries of the sim become very boring and stale very soon. Yes, the flight dynamics are good, but not every aricraft is great. Extra300 - outstanding good flight physics. Gliders - superb. Pitts Special - not so great, pretty basic. Fighter Jets - e.g. the F/A-18 vs. F-15 behave almost the same; boring, not challenging, pretty basic. FBW seem to rule forever 😂. Tubeliner - can't tell because I'm not interested in these. Helicopters ! - debatable; e.g. the R22 even in professional flight mode flys way too easy. Their first rendition of the R22's flight model was really top notch, world class. Months later they have tamed and "fixed" it too much; probably because too many virtual pilots and users of their mobile app were flying the R22 without proper controls. Good luck !

From my experience with Aerofly over almost ten years I can say: No, it's not worth to buy, and it's not worth the hassle to wait years and years and years till IPACS has improved something substantially. Unless you are totally in flying tubeliners 30.000 feet above weather conditions, unless you are a huge fan of VR or if you want to achieve 60 fps under any cricumstances, than maybe it's something for you. E.g. I've payed some great payware sceneries for Aerofly FS 2, like Himalaya Extreme by Aerosoft or LOWI by ORBX (lowi came out in 2017 under the direction of Jarrad Marshal). These great sceneries are still not updated for Aeerofly FS 4, which is a big loss and grieve for me. I think even JustFlight still hasn't updated one of their great addons from AFS2 to AFS4. The developers refuse to go on with IPACS and AFS4, which I can fully understand. I would deny further cooperation with IPACS too if I would have developed payware for AFS2; a crucial point which I don't want do spread out more than necessary on avsim. Let's say, my own experiences with IPACS on their main site were not the best in the past. But the good thing is, that we as customers can make our own decissions to buy something or not to buy, depending on our own lessons we've learned. Hope this helps. All the best 😉