I read often about this ‘competition’ between the two. I believe that in practice when being new to simming one may look at both. But eventually, considering time and effort one needs to spend on setting up a flightsim to one’s liking and hardware, people tend to stick to one or the other.
Thus I believe comparisons between both are useful to new simmers but for established users there is little competition.
I have no idea how XP in general will manage to keep up with MSFS but each has loyal users.
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There’s no problem of comparing side by side images or videos. 
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Foe trees not issue, they can do it, just by setting date and trow them, they can actually do season as it is now with colors on trees and type of tree without having season photo sat with shaders. Not all photo sat are provided by Bing, they are from various source not just Bing, and now they are collection season photo sat from various source for terrain. They could do it basic for terrain like others sim, in this case MSFS with color shader on ground, but they preferred to have season photo sat for terrain.
All - The referenced video above shows two things.
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Laminar took the time in the lab, to get the flight models correct, and based on my experience in XP12, they are almost spot on in the 737-base plane. Several flights, and reports on that forum, mostly concerning the FMS and how it interacts with AP system posted from me. That I cannot integrate the ATC and my flight plan must be that I do not understand how that ATC is supposed to work. OANN-The F-14D however has some buttons and switches which you can program in your Flight controls which don’t work, the fuel shut off valves do not shutdown engines, I have bugged them all.
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It took MSFS two years to get the planes to fly correctly, it came out like a badly thought-out item. It took them 12+ months to get syntax in ATC correct, and it was really SU5-7 where the ATC and IFR got good enough to fly using it. It was half baked two years ago, and it’s really been in the oven since.
Reports from SU-10 beta team are positive, so hopeful it’s going to be really good when it’s done. As aside, if you do not know it by now, some aftermarket antivirus/firewall programs block or prevent downloading of updates to this, take them off prior to DL’ing the SU-10 patch. And do not forget the Community folder either.
The current ATC is almost a direct port from FSX, with some of the same bugs even present. To be fair, Asobo has been quite transparent that ATC will not be addressed until SU11+. While I agree it’s long overdue, most serious users don’t even bother using IFR ATC due to its inherent limitations when it comes to using only one SID and STAR transitions.
I would much prefer them work on other aspects on the sim.
My overall impression after I tried the 15 min demo a few times now with max settings for the visual… My system handles it very well considering the engine is old gen vs pc specs…
I am not a pilot so I can’t comment on the flight model difference… MSFS flight model especially the mods and addons are more then enough for me…
But I can comment from the perspective of someone who works for a living as a team lead in what we call the User Experience of software (in the digital team of a real aircraft manufacturer). We create software for real aircraft… It is not as much fun as creating flight sims 
So to be fair and just, these are the few things I hope MS/Asobo will consider for MSFS from my perspective vs XP11 or 12:
- I hope MS/Asobo will consider a “PC” edition with a graphic user interface that is minimalistic and different from the XBox experience we have by default even if it is very modern and fun… A minimalistic PC menu and dialog experience, as well as disabling the assistance, hints, transition screens, overlay glowing tool bar etc… All this will bring MSFS closer to a “sim for simmers” look and feel… It is extra work and maintenance but I feel it will bring more confidence to serious enthousiats…
That was overall, but if we want to go in the little details:
- Features to disable the overlay tool bar, transition screens (Start flight) etc.
- A more straight forward Control settings experience. I think a PC GUI style will help make the controllers settings more straight forward in my opinion as the actual experience is more adapted to game pads? XP controller settings are adapted to this straight forward and quick user experience…
- I suggest image adjustment options in MSFS (i.e: to reduce saturation etc). MSFS is by default a bit saturated in the color tones. I tried the NVIDIA filters once by reducing the saturation and MSFS looked amazingly even more realistic
- The replay mode in XP is simple and straight forward and I hope something like that will be implemented in MSFS
- As for the graphic engine, the dynamic seasonal experience is the only element missing in the digital twin of the world of MSFS… I have AccuSeason addon and it works very well… But a similar seasonal system in MSFS would be a good start…
Cheers
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Yes precisely “with colours on trees” but not with bare trees on forests, that presents a whole set of difficult problems nobody has yet solved.
All - In another post, one suggestion was to change a Nvidia 3D Setting. My PC now will not display the actual program I am working on, instead it keeps the first program in the list showing. I am admin on machine, and have tried to open it as admin, no change.
I Think at some Windows UPDATE, they took control of the graphics settings, thinking the fools in the office know more than the fellow sitting at the PC, and blocked it from working right. I am going to bug it in Nvidia’s forum/support system. I should be able to hatch chickens as admin on this machine.
Oh, I did setup Both versions of X-Plane to use the Nvidia RTX 2070 processor as it’s default. So not sure will see any difference, but now it won’t use the Intel one period when it’s running.
This needed to be added by Asobo, it’s only a type of tree generated for x period of a year on calendar they have landclass already. I don’t think they will do seasons without them, they are looking to do it in deep as they said, or we would had already base seasons implemented that I wish we got already, and improved later in larger scale, not all people are looking for “deep” seasons things, I think many would be satisfying with base implementation.
No need to show what XP12 is capable of
Here we already know…
It is able to change the tone of the colors and some adjustments in the clouds and charge you €60 for it
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I don’t get this at all.
Maps show trees/forests, sim places bare trees based on time of year.
Why is that impossible? Hasn’t it already been achieved by 3rd parties?
I don’t view these products (both of which I own and am committed to using) to be in competition of one another. MSFS 200 targets the new to casual flight simmer. X-Plane targets the casual to advanced flight simmer.
When I use either, I do wish the things the other does a little better were in the product. But the list of things MSFS 2020 does better, for me, is significantly shorter than the wish list of features/realism XP has that MSFS2020 does not.
Photogrammetry simply blows. It makes entire cities look bombed out. A huge expense in order to get your polygonated house in the sim. It also comes with a high bandwidth cost.
I flew yesterday in same area than XP12 demo with MSFS Turbo Arrow. Graphically MSFS is own league, maybe you can get near same with OrbX TE but MSFS still wins. And MSFS GA planes are not bad. I waited more fron XP12 and now I doubt if I should upgrade from XP11 to XP12.
I still fly XP helis but it can change when MSFS get proper support. Frank Dainese Mountain Sceneries are very good with XP, better than OrbX TE. I hope XP12 will survive, competition is not bad.
So while you all argue a now silly point, and there have been some insane comments
I have been having a blast doing sun country ops in both Sims. Pros and cons in both, I am using the Ziobo beta in XP12 and of course the PMDG in MSFS SU10 Beta
MSFS
XP12
Between the Zibo and the PMDG - The Zibo is not as good as the PMDG IMHO overall, however and it is only my opinion the Zibo feels more weighty, but that could be the sim dynamics.
And really the whole XP12 is on rails, is just a silly statement. It isnt, take a plane and fly around and look at the weather, the plane moves with the wind, maybe not enough for some, I dont know, but it is not on rails.
Is XP12 better than MSFS (Not talking flight models because using SU10 and whatever PMDG have done to me I can’t tell what sim I am in in that regard) but the answer is no!! MSFS is IMHO the king now.
I will see in another year, but dont be quick to dog on XP12 it is after all a beta.
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We’re all here to see if mom or mother-in-law is better at making macaroni.
My advice is that when you’re with mom, enjoy the plate of macaroni she’s made for you.
And when you are with your mother-in-law, enjoy the plate that she has also made for you of macaroni.
Conclusion:
Those of us here at MSFS 2020 are enjoying its bugs and errors to the fullest like everyone else (which will be solved little by little)
And those of XP12 I hope you will also do the same and enjoy it to the fullest and not be here in our community heating up the atmosphere.
Don’t waste time and enjoy flying.
(Close the door on your way out)
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Hi @MeridianSquid71,
Real pilot here. The above may be true for IFR flying, but it absolutely is not true for VFR flying. Early in my PPL training (pre-solo), my CFI repeatedly corrected me for spending too much time looking at the instruments. This bad habit is apparently very common with new student pilots. He said I should spend about 90% of my time looking outside the aircraft and only 10% of my time doing quick scans of the instruments to make sure everything is in order.
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I had exactly the same. To the point the Instructor said if I carry on doing it he will have no choice but to stop my lessons until I figure out my obsession with the instruments. He did cover them once with a sticker lol
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This is not accurate.
For tree generation, the Bing map which itself is a snapshotted and heavily processed version of the Bing Maps - Directions, trip planning, traffic cameras & more only provides information such as location and color of the tree. The depicting of the tree happens during simulation time and the base texture files are independently sourced. Therefore, it should not be a question whether they can just simply replace the texture file with a different one.
The reason we don’t have seasons (other than snow landscape) in MSFS yet is because Asobo wants to make it right and deep, potentially with more than just colors and simple texture replacements. I suspect the season may come with a significant global vegetation and fauna update. I hope they take the update as seriously as possible because once it’s shipped, we may wait for MSFS 2030 for an update. Same goes for XP series, I don’t think LR will be keen on revamping seasons in the next 5-10 years and what we have in XP12, will likely be what we have in this decade
Looking at those puddles 
Are they using raytracing in xp12?
Yes, a good point about comparisons being useful to new simmers and not one that really occured to me having being a simmer myself for many years 