I never realised that the xbox version of msfs was so restricted so I’m seriously considering selling it and changing to a PC. Has anyone got any advice/tips on what I should or shouldn’t do? Thanks in advance for anything that might save me making any more mistakes.
I made that same realization after 48 hours. Here’s the route I went.
Its depends on budget to a large extent, but you’ll hear lots of people on here complaining about performance with PC’s that have cost them £2k - £3k
Some of that is unrealistic expectation, some is misconfiguration, and some will be legitimate issues.
I bought an off the shelf HP Omen 30L for about £1500 in January. Its probably mid range. I don’t use VR. I’ve a Sidewinder FF2 and an X52 pro throttle. I’ve a 27” Samsung 4K which I run at 4K and its pretty smooth with 30-40 FPS most of the time. I’m pretty happy with the sim, and haven’t tweaked it other than settings in the in game menus. Its got an Nvidia RTX3070ti.
The Dell XPS are probably better (I had one before the HP and thought it was a more solid build) but at the time the best graphics card they came with was the 3060.
I’m not disagreeing that there are restrictions, but which aspects in particular?
You obviously appreciate the vast difference in outlay for equivalent or better performance.
Your license should allow you to change devices without a problem. I have built computers for years and after being hospitalized last year, my last self-built computer crashed. I went out and found this one and it serves me fine.. I couldn’t have bought the parts to build it for this. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-omen-30l-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5600g-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-1tb-ssd-shadow-black/6477879.p?skuId=6477879
Realise that you don’t need to go absolutely bonkers to get a decent experience.
Most of my time has been spent on a laptop with a 1070 maxq, and though you have to turn plenty down I’ve no complaints about how it’s run at all.
I wouldn’t sell the console - you’ll never get what it’s really worth. Just get other games for it and keep enjoying it when you’re not flying.
As for what to get in the PC range, you don’t need the world’s absolute latest and greatest. I had heard about the new sim coming as early as 2019 and was intrigued. Then the pandemic hit. The gooberment sent out “stimulus” checks to everyone, so since I was sitting around with nothing to do, I used that to get a new gaming rig. I decided on a mid-range laptop:
TUF Gaming FX505DT
AMD Ryzen 5 3550H
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
16 GB RAM (upgraded from the stock 8 GB)
With those relatively modest specs, I’m flying with an average of 30 FPS, which is good enough for a nice fluid image on the screen. I had an older (but still perfectly working) HP 24" 1080 monitor that I used with an HDMI for flying and most other things, but I’ve recently put my hands on an older Samsung 39" LED TV that now serves as my monitor and speakers, giving me a rather nice view while flying. I still use the laptop monitor as a secondary monitor and sometimes I’ll undock the ATC window and slide it over.
All of this rambling is just to say this… Don’t spend your life’s savings on the latest and greatest. Two weeks from now, it won’t be the latest and it won’t be the greatest. Find something that beats the minimum requirements and has plenty of SSD storage (that’s my only weakness right now).
I did this route.
I’m not going to give you advice on what box, plenty of people will do that. What I will do is tell you the things I found helpful after I did the switch.
First off, I tried installing all of my addons from the Microsoft store. I have like 600 Gig of addons. Well, I found it best to only load about 100 Gig at a time, then move those addons to a folder that will hold your MSFS addons. Then, use AddonLinker to select which ones you want installed. All it will do is put a symbolic link into your OneStore directory. The sim will think you have them installed in that directory, but they aren’t. Then using AddonLinker you can select and deselect which mods you want easily.
Next, I was thinking “Oh, I may still want to use XBox, so buy mods in the in-game store”. Well with the DRM encryption, a lot of store mods will slow down your sim. So mods purchased from OrbxDirect, Simmarket, etc they don’t seem to bog down the sim like the DRM encrypted mods do. So now unless they are only sold in the store (Carenado), or there is a really really good sale, I get most my mods from out of game sources. I still buy Carenado, and the Local Legends, etc.
Next, since you will be using AddonLinker, I don’t load all my mods all the time anymore. I only install the regions I want to fly in at the time, and the utility mods (Seafront simulations, Bijan, etc). When you are on XBox, I know you hate loading through the store for hours to get all the mods for a region before you fly. Well now, its click-click-click with AddonLinker, so its easy to keep your sim relatively lean, and quickly prepare for whatever flight you want to do.
You will finally have access to a ton of liveries on flightsim.to. Don’t go crazy with them though. Yes, XBox we were dying for liveries (and now lately there are 6 developers competing in that market). Pick the one you like for the couple planes you fly. The liveries will always be there on flightsim.to. But every livery is an “addon” and you don’t want to slow down your sim by going crazy.
Have fun. You won’t regret it. Ive found the PC platform to be relatively stable. I’m not spending all my time diagnosing things like I was on XBox. And yes, it does give an opportunity to do new things that aren’t possible on XBox. My favorite is JumpSeat Radio. I love flying while listening to a local radio station that is from the area I am flying. But there are many more things out there to give a try, see if they are for you.
Yes, because VR
Thank you all for your time and help, I’ve read every word and will check out your specs etc.. For the record and anyone unsure reading this, I have no complaints about Xbox, the fault was mine due to poor research. I really want to have separate screens for instruments and a better vfr map and I have learned from this forum that you can’t have any add-ons or plug-ins from third parties like FI Air Manager on Xbox, it isn’t and never has been that expandable.
So thanks again.