So I have been playing FS2020 on Xbox X since launch and other than some annoying bugs (like my sensitive settings not saving on my HOTAS which I also bought for day 1, and having some frustrating bugs completing all the bush trips) it has been a wonderful, exciting, fun experience. Again, bugs notwithstanding I would consider this to be one of my top 10 favorite PC games of all time…and I’m old enough that the original Microsoft Flight Simulator was one of my first games for my first home PC (a PCjr of all things…lol.).
So I finally upgraded to a PC just for this (and xplane). Was it worth it? Yes definitely. If you can afford it at all it’s totally worth the upgrade. The main things that make a HUGE enjoyable difference for me are:
#1)The frame rate. Wow…with ultra gfx it’s buttery smooth even in cities with scenery packs. Those things killed my Xbox…quite literally causing CTDs almost anytime I get too close to custom scenery cities or anywhere else with too many polygons. This leads me to…
#2) The stability. Wow. So much more stable. I don’t think I’ve crashed it even once yet. In the same amount of time I would have expected like 10 xbox CTDs.
and #3) The quality of aircraft avaiable. The flybywire A320 is amazing. It’s very close IMHO to what you get with the Zibo mod, or the Toliss payware airliners on xplane (which are awesome!!). the new CRJ is amazing (even tho it will someday be on xbox as well). The Milviz pc-6 is fantastic as well.
I could go on, but my title says I’m going to keep this brief =)
Made the same move myself. XBox X sold last week for what I paid for it. Could have got more as demand is so high pre Christmas.
So far even running at a lower res on laptop I’m having WAY more fun than I had with XBox experience. I got the XBox version to get back into FS (20 year absense), and run at 4K on UHD TV. It achieved both those ams, but I soon got frustrated at its limitations and the lack of response on serious bugs (eg losing mouse control, HOTAS sensitivity, CTD’s, lack of freeware/3rd party planes/liveries/addons etc). PC simmer now and loving it again.
I will be making the move in February when I get my taxes back.
I will say,
I did not use a mouse, so never ran into the mouse issue
I had no problem with the HOTAS sensitivity.
I had no CTD issue.
I own just about every single addon on the Marketplace, and have most all of them loaded at the same time, and never had a frame rate issue except one airport
So why am I making the move?
One of the hotfixes for SU5 broke bush trips, and SU6 broke them even more. SU7 fixed them, but a small group of people who had issues prior to SU7, the save of the last leg they completed did not have all the information. They still couldn’t go forward on that bush trip, and PC users had to restart by removing the save file. XBox bush trip save files are stored in the users cloud data. XBox security doesn’t allow you access to that area, so you can’t hack a save file and cheat. Which means for this, you can’r reset the bush trip. Ever. Even if you go to PC, PC will first look in cloud storage, then it will look on the local PC.
So this means, doing bush trips on XBox are at your own risk. I have FS Academy’s Voyager, I have the Andies package, I have the bush trip from the Edgly and the Zenith, and the Okavango Delta. All of those purchased content. If I do them on XBox, and I encounter a bug that saves the bush trip leg wrong, I am forever locked out of content I purchased. There is no current workaround AT ALL. I really want to do all the bush trips, I’m just afraid of doing them on XBox right now. I do not want to get to a place I am forever locked out of that content.
On XBox, I do have texture popin. The buildings don’t popin anymore, but as you get close to them, I mean like where they are almost under the aircraft, they suddenly morph into a more detailed form. Totally breaks the immersion when the buildings are all morphing underneath you. I want control with the slider like PC has so this popin issue isn’t so bad.
I would list freeware. I know a lot of it isn’t optimized, etc. But there is some very well done stuff that is professional level, most particularly around South Africa where I do a lot of my flying. But I also know, this will be alleviated with Scenery Gateway System if I wait for that.
No access to career addons. Bush trips appeal to me because it provides me a goal. I’m a more goal oriented person, I usually just fly around and explore, but I would love to be able to mix in things that I have a goal to accomplish, because I am terrible at coming up with my own goals.
Once multi-monitor becomes a real thing, I would love to be able to have 3 screens at a desk besides connected to an LG G1 tv. Of course, that is only possible with a PC.
I’ve got a 12Tb external drive, a 1Tb external SSD drive, a hard wired controller so it doesn’t timeout the XBox, and my HOTAS. I’ve had to add a USB hub onto my XBox to run everything, and sometimes the drives go off the XBox and come back on, but that causes stuttering while it is reading the drive index for the 12tb and SSD drive. I’m afraid of adding more USB devices because it seems to struggle already keeping power on what I have connected.
I love being able to fly while sitting on the couch or in the recliner on the large screen TV, but I should be able to use the HOTAS and controller connected to the PC (they both have 12 foot extension cables). But then I have the freedom to be able to sit at a desk in the living room, and use the monitors and a yoke connected to the desk too.
There is indeed a great community creating mods for FS2020. Indeed some of it is not so polished, some of it is surprisingly well done for freeware and some of it is just for fun (drivable cars. Not polished at all, but fun all the same)
In addition to this there is head/eye tracking. Hand tracking has made an appearance already in a very basic form, VR, and as mentioned multi monitor support and external companion apps all fill out the PC experience to a degree which a closed ecosystem can’t. (I can’t understand why Microsoft never bothered to pursue VR with their console platform but…)
Enjoy the ride and welcome to the dark side (we have cookies)
