I don’t claim to speak for all PC users, but I have read quite a few comments lamenting the fact that some aircraft are either intentionally designed (or patched) to accomodate the lesser capabilities of the Xbox relative to mid- or high-end PC’s.
I’m personally somewhat irritated by this trend. When I bring it up, I’ve been told things like, “Xbox users are by far the largest market segment, and those of you with high-end PC’s shouldn’t complain about developers who market to their biggest user base by ‘detuning’ their product to cater to them.”
There’s certainly some truth to that. But to me it’s akin to saying that those who drive sports cars should accept that a 125 HP 4-cylinder engine comes standard, with no OPTION to order the car with a turbocharged V-8.
Not sure what you mean, there’s really nothing that can’t be modeled between both that there’s some super workload aircraft beyond the capabilities of human beings that could only be modeled on PC only. I already think it’s silly when people do the co-pilot(or engineer/navigator on older craft) that a pilot would never be doing themselves. I don’t bother with aircraft that ask the pilot to do someone else’s work, because I’m a pilot, not the navigator in a Connie.
For PC, what I would see as being ‘PC only’ is something like motion setups, force feedback, multiple PC-multiple multi-screens, wind simulators, a full build out for a co-pilot to sit next to you and work the sim together, etc.
But MSFS is just not that complicated. PC doesn’t mean reaching out beyond the pilot seat exploring worlds you just ‘can’t’ on the lowly XBOX. Like someone sitting in your dining room on another PC being the guy who sits in the wing monitoring engines in some old behemoth 12 engine aircraft with an oil-spray simulator.
Really, what impossible thing that the pilot of a Barron could only be replicated by a PC? MSFS just isn’t all that. And if only PC, why not make it 5+PC’s required? One PC isn’t squat. I’ve seen racing guys with 3 PC’s running the show. And ‘PC’ also means the vast majority of PC players that sit looking at some 5+ year old WalMart ‘gaming’ laptop micro-screen ‘flying’ aircraft with a mouse and keyboard. They need low standards for lowly computers. They can only really optimize for XBOX. Because unlike PC’s, consoles always end up better 5 years later.
One major problem with PC is they are all a collection of hodge-podge parts and settings. I used to be heavy into gaming PC’s, and going to an old lan party of 200+ people playing the same game before Amazon even existed and no two computers were the same. And you’re talking the equivalent of $4K+ setups on average for ‘gamers’ of yore if you were a dual voodoo hero, not including heavy hitters with a (2024$) $3K 24" CRT. What can they ‘add’ to MSFS now to an SR-22 that would still be compatible with a minimum-spec PC.
I do remember my early days when I paid $400 for ONE megabyte of ram(bringing VRAM total to a big-shot 2MB) on a Packard Bell PC back in the day.
I don’t believe making 2 versions is possible with the “one version” across both platforms. I wish they could make 2 different versions of the sim. One for PC and one for Xbox. And for a developer to have to make 2 versions of a plane would be lots of extra work. It would also reinforce the OP comments. If you compare a $5k rig against a $500 console it’s no contest. There were concessions made for the sim to run on Xbox. Draw distance was a big one. I saw it over the span of few updates. There were a lot of topics about it on this forum. Like I said before Im just carful about what add ons I buy. I also never buy from the market if I can help it.
You’re welcome to not believe it, but it is true — a dev can submit two different versions of an add-on should they feel the need to reduce resolution of texturing or for other Xbox-specific reasons.
PMDG is doing this right now with the 737 series. They are having issues with their UFT and have kept it off the Xbox version until they are able to resolve their open issues with it.
Therefore, PC users are not having to have their versions of the 737 held back by the open issue affecting the Xbox versions.
I don’t understand what you mean by this comment. Can you please state specific examples of the changes you feel are responsible for turning MSFS from a flight simulator into “more of a video game”?
Every one of the developers you listed here (except HPG) release their products for both PC and Xbox, so I am again not understanding any complaint you might have about the Xbox platform and how you perceive it as negatively affecting the MSFS experience for PC simmers.
What are the differences in the Marketplace versions meant to run on Xbox and on PC?
More importantly, what do statements like this from one developer’s change log mean?
"Texture size reduction has been made to optimize memory load on GPU’s. However, if performance problems or CTD’s are detected, it is recommended to:
Review third-party addons, such as airports, general texture improvement packs, etc. that could be pushing Xbox to the memory usage limit."
It is clear that some developers are trending towards keeping their fidelity reduced so as not to negatively impact Xbox users. I submit that doing so negatively affects PC users - just in a different way - namely, by throttling the fidelity that those with more capable PC hardware could experience.
I do, for the most part. Don’t judge me on one observation that I feel has merit, even if the tone is negative. I don’t expect you to have read all my posts, but I have advocated completely different versions of the sim for the two platforms. If Microsobo had the will to do so, then criticisms such as mine would not even be a topic for discussion. Until and unless that day comes, I reserve the right to be 90% positive, and 10% critical of things I feel strongly about.
I have to agree to disagree with you on this statement. When a respectable developer lowers texture resolution to decrease memory footprint. The respectable developer will have high resolution models of the aircraft and low resolution models of the aircraft. High res are for the PC crowd, Low res for the Xbox crowd.
What I also don’t get about this thread is that there are PCs that meet the minimum (or better) criterion for running the sim and they can have worse specs than an Xbox.
Are they being “blamed” for the sim not meeting satisfaction?
There are 3rd party planes that my mid-range PC has a hard time with. You know what I do? I don’t fly them.
You know what I don’t do? Ask that the developers to reduce the fidelity of the plane to satisfy my needs while reducing the enjoyment of people with more capable systems.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re driving at here. What is wrong with asking for a reduced textured version or whatever is required to have an add-on work better for Xbox? This has zero bearing on what can be released for PC.
Why not go after the devs that won’t release a PC-specific and an Xbox-specific version rather than blaming the Xbox for this?
I’m not going after anyone. I’m making an observation about what I perceive as a sense of frustration among PC users here. You seem to be reading something else into it.
