Can someone please explain to me why FSX and each version of P3D is so different that you need scenery and aircraft to be compatible with each one? I’ve experimented with them in the past and could hardly tell the difference.
In response to the original question I will say that I found X-Plane to be the most interesting alternative, its focus seems to be much more on flight dynamics than eye candy. For immersive flight simulation you want both, but if you already have MSFS I’d go with X-Plane. Both combined effectively would be awesome imho.
All you need is a copy of Prepar3d and a plane from PMDG. 737, 777, 747…pick whatever you like, then a copy of ActiveSky and subscription to Navigraph. They should cost you approximately $300-400. You don’t need any scenery cause it’s irrelevant in your case.
That being said, keep in mind that the very same PMDG’s head guy Robert Randazzo himself said the following about MSFS 2020:
MSFS is providing to us is a world simulation into which we can insert some truly incredible simulations.
Unlike previous generations, MSFS is a live, evolving platform that will remain under continual development.
This is the platform that we will be using for the next 5-10 years. As such we are making a long-term investment in our development effort.
Microsoft’s effort here is much larger than any of us can truly appreciate. This is a good thing for simming as a hobby.
All these long-haul, airliner developers are working on bringing their stuff to MSFS, but it’s going to take some time like it always has taken in the past. By spending $300-400 in other platforms you will literally be investing on almost 15 year old platforms. Think how you would feel if I told you to buy a Pentium 3 PC with 64 MB of RAM and forced you to use Windows 95 on it for your work. Think how you would feel if I took away your latest iPhone and forced you to use a Nokia 6310i instead.
That’s why personally I highly suggest you save your cash and wait, no matter how long it takes. Aerosoft CRJ is a regional airliner and not a long-hauler but it’s going to be the first complex airliner with most of the features required for IFR + VATSIM and it’s scheduled to be released on the 16th of this month. Aerosoft’s Airbuses are also in development. FlyByWire team have been making great progress with the modding of the default stock A320Neo and Working Title’s CJ4 is absolutely phenomenal. Save your cash and try these.
Relax, grab a coffee and give the link I posted above a slow, thorough read. And remember: some great things in life can only be gained with patience, taking your time and not rushing.
For me X-Plane is my second sim, you get awesome airliners like Zibo mod, Inibuild300, FF .. etc.
I have also P3D v5, that sim you really need to invest on it A LOT! My investments on it like 1500$ and I have deleted on favor of MSFS and X-Plane because of the issues and the CTDs and honestly, I don’t think it makes sense to invest of something else that has the same core of FSX (MSFS, P3D, FSX) and many of these devs on P3D/FSX will neutrally jump to MSFS since it shares the same core (FSX and Simconnect).
Therefore, in my opinion it makes sense to invest on a totally different sim besides MSFS, for example X-Plane and hence you’d get the best of both worlds (MSFS and X-Plane).
Also not to forgot, really in P3D, you really really need to buy third party application for every aspect of the sim, even for god sake a turbulence add-one! So yeah, P3D needs full bag of cash.
And I learned that most addons you buy for p3d now get really cheap when they port over to msfs, the vendors offer a good discount when you go msfs so bear in mind
Wise words for a decades old simmer like me. Its typical. A new sim comes out, it will always be imperfect and buggy. Give it time, and it will improve.
I own both P3D and X-Plane. While X-Plane is a solid simulator and great for GA and short-haul airline stuff, I’d say P3D is the way to go for long-haul on vatsim if that is your cup of tea.
Why?
It has the best long-haul equipment, particularly along the Boeing lines: 747s, 777s, 787s, A330s.
You can minimize P3D during a long haul to save PC resources and it will still get you to your destination
VATSIM doesn’t boot you out if your framerates drop below a set number.
How does a PMDG aircraft “feel like” compare to the B748 in MSFS? Its miles and miles apart. I’m rated on a heavy Boeing IRL, and I say the PMDG aircraft feels a lot like a Level-D simulator (minus the motion and the tactile gadgetry of course). You actually do have to dig into the manuals to learn how to fly it properly. The B748 in MSFS is no where close.
P3D can get expensive though. At the minimum, in addition to the base sim, I recommend having at least 1) Orbx Base to improve ground textures $100 AUD; 2) Activesky as a fully functioning weather engine suite $40 Euro; 3) Possibly chaseplane for better camera controls $47 AUD; and 4) The aircraft of your choice, with PMDG costing about $140 USD for a 747, or a 777.
I have prepared v5 because its great for long haul jetting, and my xplane too. Have these sims for years and they are staying on my pc, nice to have variety and not follow the hype crowd garnishing fs2020. I use fs 2020 vfr ga mostly, with the a330 and the bredok 737 for casual, easy to plan med hauls. 2- 4 hr flights max. Never really used the default 320 nor the others.
That’s what I have.BASIC SETUP: The base sim, the orbx to modify the world eg global range ie landclass, vector,global base, activesky, chaseplane- excellent views and the pmdg.aha,and don’t forget the free aig traffic. Done!!!
In all likelihood, due to the state of the SDK, that it will be at least middle of 2022 till early 2023 before the first PMDG drops. It took them almost a whole year just to update their 777 for P3D v5, and their most recent progress reports says it has been slow.
This said, while I do concur that the FBW A20N, WT CJ4, and a few others that are coming out the pipe soon are impressive, I haven’t heard much in terms of long haul aircraft outside of FBW’s A380, which in all likelihood will take at least another year (given that the A20N still requires tremendous work yet).
I’d say investing $300-400 even on older platforms is worth it for anyone looking to spend the next year and a half on a preferred niche (notably, long haul flying on vatsim as noted by the OP).
Thanks, I went on their website to check before I posted that, and missed that completely in the specs.
I had to go back and reread it and I don’t know how I missed it.
Much Appreciated!
My credentials:
I have been into flight simulation for thirty plus years. In that time I have tried all the main flavours of simulator and have in the process spent many a penny on sim software, peripheral software and
control hardware. Before MSFS 2020 came along I was using P3d exclusively.
But now we live in an MSFS 2020 simulated world, world. And despite all it’s faults and foibles,
for me at least, there can be no going back.
Further, MSFS 2020 has so let the simulation ‘genie’ out of the bag that if, after a couple of years of
development, MS/Asobo still hasn’t brought the sim to a good state of developmental maturity, I
shall just quietly retire from the genre.
Addendum:
“genie out of the bag”! I think I just mashed my metaphors!
That’s genie and bottle or cat and bag.
Haha.
I was having similar thoughts, but after trying the new FlyByWire mod for the A320 I changed my tune. They have done an outstanding jobs in just a couple months. I’m putting more time into that now then FSX (for long hauls), just hope the MSFS stability improves. As much as MSFS can drive me crazy, it’s hard to go back to FSX (even with a ton of addons).
Sadly I see myself in the same boat… I play FSX (and fly) FAR less now with MSFS2020, just out of frustration with crashes or a couple hours into the flight and 5 FPS. But going back to FSX doesn’t work either for me. So either MSFS2020 improves, or I just find something else to do I guess. Sad outlook… In the meantime, I’ve completed a lot of personnel projects waiting for MSFS2020 to improve. DCS is fun on occasion, but I wouldn’t say it’s a stress reliever. So it’s MSFS2020 or bust for me, I guess.
20 years flying ( gliders, small props) , and simming … all MS Flight sims till fsx, then XP 11, with Navigraph Navdata.
XP airliners flight dynamics are v good, and with the free x737 mod from zibo +high quality classic and modern aircraft available from the community, long haul simulation is v good. It is a v stable platform in OpenGL, Vulcan is getting there.
MS now has more potential, so I wouldn’t recommend P3D… though it may be more stable.
I’ll join in and drop my .02 as well. I’ve been in to sims since the first sim I played on a hand-me-down apple IIe the sublogic flight sim. I’ve had every version and chased a premium sim experience for as long as I can remember. In sim I’ve flown GA to airliners and IRL currently student pilot, getting scarily close to checkride in a few weeks if the weather would cooperate with about 70 hour split between the 172N and S models.
In regards to flight model - I feel the XP11 flight model feels more like flying, vs more on rails with the P3Ds. This is based on flying the stock 172 with the REP addon. To be fair I have the A2A C172, but haven’t flown that in a few years so I can’t remember how well that flies given each sims differences in simulating flight.
Since you mentioned airliners is what your after I’ll go with what I think here. For Boeings, I have a good amount of time in each the PMDG 737 as well as the Zibo. Both are very detailed, full of features, look and fly very well. I will say I think the Zibo ‘feels’ a bit better, based on my experiences flying both in VR. I get more a feeling of flight in the zibo in XP than I do in P3D. I think honestly this is due to the flight model simulation in either sim vs what the developers are capable of. For Airbus, I have the Toliss321, FF320, & FSL 320/321. All the options here are great. The FSL and FF busses from what I read are very realistic, with the Toliss being a bit less ‘study level’ and the model isn’t as nice. Funny enough - I prefer the Toliss out of all of them (with the proper sound pack of course). Reason being I prefer the IAE engines and XP these days. P3D even with a superbly done aircraft as the FSL bus STILL just feel like rails to me for some reason.
With all that said P3D looks HORRID out of the box. You WILL want to spend money to make it look better. Not to mention the airliners mentioned are not cheap at all. I would steer you towards the XP11 demo as others have mentioned, download the Zibo and take it for a spin. I think you’ll be very happy. To top it off - there’s a TON of community-made free addons to make XP look and feel even better, including ortho scenery to round it out. Also if your in to VR, I feel the VR implementation in XP is even better.
Enough rambling on my part - the conclusion is I’d recommend XP11 based upon Flightmodel, Cost, Looks. P3D even with v5 will still cost a lot to get it to look decent, have a decent aircraft and then still - have a bit of that fly on rails feeling. That aside - the MSFS platform should come along nicely as time progresses. PMDG is on board so we should get the 737 sometime this year I’m hoping. For me personally I stick it out with FS2020, even with missing waypoints and fixes and weird avionics that sometimes bug out. It’s a beautiful sim and all the rest will fall in to place. Not to mention its great competition and I feel XP12 should be around the corner somewhere. We’ve been on XP11 for a few years now so we’re over due. Maybe austin will really shake things up in the next version!
I have to mention… The “on the rails” part of P3D is remedied by buying A2A’s AccuFeel. It’s a separate product that adds elements of their AccuSim simulation to whatever aircraft you choose. You can also enable/disable individual elements or toggle whether a certain aircraft implements it at all or not. And the aircraft remember those preferences, so for things like PMDG that have their own implementation of stalls etc, I leave it disabled, but I have it enabled for all default aircraft, for instance. It’s a GREAT product.
TOTALLY a different experience.
This is my combo Majestic Dash 8 Q400 + Radar contact 4 (free) + Active Sky + FS2Crew. I like to fly relaxed by myself, no online ATC and that thing, I never understand foreign accents talking over a radio.
MSFS is a toy right now, an amazing world renderer simulator.
PMDG 737 is just amazing too.
You will also need some ORBX region and a couple of nice airports. Big money commitment, but it will feel like the real thing. Lots of headaches too, the sim is old nad very error prone when installing things. Not as much as MSFS though, they cause pretty much the same headache lol
