I’ll continue to copy and paste. However, you’re more than welcome to post your own comparisons if you feel this isn’t representing correctly.
I’ve tried it. The thing I don’t get is that the X-Pane 12 image below is running at a lower framerate than the MSFS one above it. Forget settings, how is that even possible? Is it mining coins for Austin or something? 
Anyway, both sims have something to offer, but choosing the scenery graphics hill to die on is probably not the way to go. I like how the ground handling feels heavier in XP-12 for sure.
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XP12 seems like the way to go if you just don’t care about world scenery/terrain accuracy at all and want to focus on cockpit simulation only. MSFS just feels like a richer much more varied world and atmosphere. With XP12 there isn’t any mood to a totally different atmosphere, Washington State looks like Rio De Janeiro same bland colors same atmosphere. Africa looks just like Australia…same tan,blue, green and gray colors on the entire XP12 globe.
In MSFS even flying over individual states have a different feel and vibe ie Florida looks totally different than California.
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Are we actually getting ZL18/19 quality though from a lot of areas? Some areas might be this high but there seems plenty on Bing that look more closer to ZL16.
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Not sure if we are looking at the same sim concerning MSFS. ‘Washed out look’ is far from the truth. That being said we all want XPlane to succeed if nothing more than to have an alternative should new management bean counters at Microsoft switch gears and destroy all the gains Jorg and Asobo have done. It’s happened in the past…
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I saw a few videos of XP12, it looked reasonably good but not at the level of MSFS, I also noticed the frame rates didn’t look smooth. The video creator explained it as video compression or “YouTube”. Some bits did look good like the low visibility weather and lights on the runway.
Has anyone any more detailed views of the A330 systems on XP12? The video I watched kind of skipped over that bit very quickly (it was a pro XP video).
We are fortunate here to have a group of developers working on an excellent A320 which we have for free, same with an A380.
yes we do but obviously not in all areas, the WU ones and USA is pretty much ZL19 if you have enough bandwidth and TLOD is at 400.
but other places have low ZL16 ish textures streamed even tho if you log into Bing from the browser those areas have the ZL19 ones available.
Asobo probably did not add them cuz it has to be fixed by hand for clouds and other anamolies.
We still have more than 8 years support for this title, we’ll see some nice improvements down the line 
Msfs trees are generated as octohedral imposters which are a modern take on the 2d billboard trees from the mid 2000s. Basically a bunch of pre rendered views of a high quality 3d tree that display depending on what direction you view it from. It’s an amazing use of modern rendering techniques to create dense realistic looking forests with very low overhead.
There is absolutely no way what I’ve seen from xplane compares, you get sparse patchy vegetation close by and scattered fields of flat imposters in the distance. Who cares if you can see high detail trees on the ground?
Also regarding draw distance, from what I saw xplane has a terrible draw in boundary, you can literally see clouds rendering in. There is nothing to be impressed with here.
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Downloaded the X plane 12 demo out of interest. It still has the best replay system although that is a carry over from 11 so nothing new. Also the rain effects on the windows is nice as well. 2 areas that MSFS really need to improve.
However aliasing whilst better than 11 still needs improvement. The nuclear apocalypse sunrises are totally OTT. Configuring or trying to confiure control settings was beyond frustrating. The mix settings was moving back and forth on it’s own on the SR22, cessna etc and despite setting the throttle it didn’t want to know.
Performance I can set everything on ultra on MSFS and get for the most part excellent performance. With everything on max on x plane moving the view around felt more sluggish. It’s clear that better optamisation is needed.
Dude, XPlane 12 doesn’t hold a candle to MSFS for the look of the real world, lighting and all… It’s not even close. 
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What I don’t get is if you’re heavily invested in FS2020 and have spent a lot of hard earned money on gigabytes of add ons why would you want to start over again with a different platform that may or may not have marginally better flight physics and whatever else it may or may not do marginally better?
I get why some flight simmers also invest in something like DCS, after all its doing something that FS doesn’t do. But what is XP12 going to do thats going to be worth all that extra investment? I’m genuinely curious.
I suppose as a platform XP12 will build and build and in time have lots of amazing features but I’m guessing now there’s a bit of an arms race on Asobo will now fight back and match it pretty much feature for feature.
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It depends what the person wants in a flight simulator. I looked at xp12 and it is pretty nice and I assume it doesn’t require connection to a server. But I use PMDG so msfs would be my choice over XP. But MSFS is still missing way too much stuff for me. That will change over the next few years.
hmm,both Vids from Flight Sim Deck looking amazing
@Mobias7 Some people invested in XP long before FS2020 and still have full harddrives.
Furthermore, the FS is great online, but not so nice in offline mode (Travelling, low Datarate etc.). Here, a slight pimped XP looks much, much better.
Why are posts deleted here without any info after 5 seconds? ahh, ok, not a FS Vid, i understand … Lets wait another hour…
Yes its clever and the shadows cast using that technique are really good, a lot better than the 2d tree shadows in xp which look terrible.
But the 3D trees in xp are a lot closer to the way a tree looks close by which is what the xp 3d trees are used for and i would like to see something similar in msfs.
As for draw distance, I get more trees on the mendip hills in xp viewed from eggd than i do in msfs.
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Well, that is the thing, isn’t it.
I bought XPlane 12 besically because I liked the water handling better. I wanted to be able to play around with that. I really really really wanted to like XPlane 12 and buy the A330. I’m not a tubeliner pilot, I mainly fly bush trips, etc. So when I do a jetliner flight, part of the job would be the arrival and the sights. Fidelity wise, we have PMDG, and the BAE 146, and Fenix A320. So we have jetliners that has fidelity of flight. So when it came down to looking to see what a JFK or OR Tambo airport were like, they were ok, but not the fidelity of the MSFS versions. And lets not forget the surrounding area. My reward for flying the jetliner just wasn’t going to be as good in XPlane 12. So with the seaplane/bush plane I did buy, I can do water in XPlane. I can do the new rain and the new snow. I can see the weather effects. Basically, I can with just what I have experience what I wanted to see. If MSFS is down, I have a backup to use while it is down. But yeah, I just couldnt figure out a good reason to justify putting money into more planes and scenery. It still wasnt going to meet what I like.
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Why? They are two different simulators , why fight?
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I have kindly asked you earlier to post your own comparisons. It is of no use to just state: this is better. We need examples to know why you are saying that. Otherwise we hardly can take your point of view seriously. And I seriously am curious as to why you state what you state.
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Screen shot at KSAN XP12 with Orbx TE. Not bad for Beta…Sun looks like a nuclear explosion though. Have both sims and will use both…It’s nice to have choices 
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The sun looks absolutely terrible in MSFS also…
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I wouldn’t go that far. I think it looks quite good with bloom and MSFS definitely handles sun-down better than XP in terms of gradually fading out the light. XP, sadly, drops it down in distinct steps that you can see, MSFS fades it imperceptibly.