I do not need to learn that because i can do it but i don`t want to do that all the time…
But all good, it works back like before…
cheers
Hey guys -
So I have the amazing Justflight Bae-146 and PMDG 737 and both are very high level of art and realism. And, surprisingly, the PMDG runs at a great frame rate (better than the 146).
So next I’ve been eyeing the Maddog MD-82, but wanted to ask some folks how it compares to the other two birds I mentioned.
How are the graphics and textures? (is it a p3d port or made from scratch?)
How’s the performance?
Performance is great. Graphics/textures are okay, but probably not at the same level as the Just Flight and PMDG offerings. (It is made from scratch according to Leonardo btw.) Flyability sits between the two – the 146 is more hands-on, the 737 is more automatic, the Maddog is a blend.
It’s a very different beast than the 737, though. More like a thoroughbred, where the 737 is the loyal family riding horse. You really have to fly the MD-80; it will only fly itself to a certain point.
I have all three and don’t regret purchasing any of them.
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MD is not boeing or airbus
You should try it
And maddog is the best MD of the flight simulator
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I had the Rotate MD80 for XP11 and have been waiting patiently for an MD80 to arrive to FS2020. It did not disappoint. I have done many flights in it the past few weeks. I do not have either of the other planes you mentioned, though I’m very familiar with JF’s level of awesome.
The textures are ok as others have stated, but there is a 8k/16k mod on Flightsim.to that improves them enough for me. There is also a soundpak out by FTSiM. Functionally the plane is great. It’s a ton of fun once you spend some time to get to know it.
I can tell you that it’s the first airliner/jet that has felt realistic to me on landing, it plants the rear tires, and you can gently set the nose down, instead of the weeble wobble zig zag everything else seems to do on landing. I love it.
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The 146 has the biggest performance tax for me surprisingly I thought the PMDG 737 would be the heaviest. The Maddog performs the best on my system.
so i pulled the trigger and I’m pretty disappointed in the cockpit textures to be honest.
This is THE most expensive addons and is supposed to be a near masterpiece, but the cockpit looks straight out of XPlane. I see blurry textures and low-res graphics all over the place, it completely takes you out of the immersion.
does anyone know if the devs have admitted to this and are planning on upgrading to MSFS standards in the future? thanks for any info
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No surprise there as it doesn’t have the textures
i actually found this right before you posted and tried it out and…i can’t really tell a difference. i’m trying with the 8k, but maybe i’ll try the 16k
but even on the outside it doesn’t look like the developer used updated shapes and texturing. i’m pretty confused as it doesn’t look MSFS2020 at all. where are the decales?
and this is why I didn’t pull the trigger myself… highest priced but among the study level planes lowest eye candy…
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Fenix annouced the price of the A320. It’s going to be about 60 dollars, for a high res, deep study level plane.
I am sorry for the MD, but this confirms the price is, like the textures, from the P3D age.
The simulation maybe great but they set their price too high.
Even though they have their fan base, rarely see a MD at airports in Europe. Unless everyone is on vatsim… I now see 737 everywhere. The PMDG price appeals clearly.
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I was frankly amazed at the performance of the 737. Super smooth and no glitches. Still having issues with the BAE in that department.
Have yet to try the MD.
Certainly up to a degree. The MD80 isn’t your “boring” (sry but that fits most for me) Airbus where everyone can press 3 buttons and it will bring you to your destinations, questions asked later. It’s a very complicated plane to fly and requires a lot of reading and following procedures, even its controls require you to understand them, the questions in their forum proove that. Leonado Softworks had to set a price that would by their calculation cover the development plus brings in a certain percentage of profit for an expected number of sales. They were lucky that they were one of the first releases of complex airliners but they will never ever reach the number of sales a 737 or an A320 will. And that’s where the price comes from.
I ASSUME that while PMDG have a ton of experience optimizing complex airliner simulation and Justflight being quite new to this high level of business they still need to figure out how they can optimize their addons. I’m sure it will receive patches that will improve all that. They seem to be quite engaged in their new role of high fidelity developers which is great.
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The MD needs a cockpit cleaning, can someone just take some simple green to it? Its super dirty, other than that its a cool plane… The 737 is much nicer in that regard…
I don’t keep my stuff dirty like that, so maybe it just bothers me!
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Given PMDG 737 and now the A320 from Fenix and all the work, ambitions to embrace what new possibilities MSFS has to offer and the love that seems to have been poured into it, to know that the A320 is going to be only 50£, I see the maddog going downhill now sadly but well deserved in a sense.
It has been just a P3D port with zero effort to raise the bar or even try to experiment with MSFS next gen possibilities. Old texture work from a bygone era (I know, I’ve done the cockpit overhaul mod so I took a deep look into the texturing).
Lucky has it, it’s still a great simulation of an MD-82, but if you’re not an MD-80 fan, there’s honestly no point to buy it. It’s feels to me more like a “For our existing P3D customer, we have ported our only product to MSFS for your convenience”. It’s a “convenience” product, not a new product from a developer who would say “We are coming to MSFS with all our expertise to propel our unique product into next gen and improve it”… and given PMDG and even more so Fenix now, the huge price tag of the Maddog makes it look like an embarrassing piece of obsolete tech. 90€ here in France!! and don’t tell me about VAT, Fenix openly said:
And, no. We’re not sneakily adding “excluding local taxes” or any of that. It’s just £49.99. All inclusive.
So it’s well feasible.
I’m huge lover of the MD-82 so no regrets, although to be honest, I’m pouring much more time in the learning of the 737 as it’s that much more immersive.
Given how everyone sold me Leonardo as a god-tier developer on AVSIM, it’s apparent to me that they totally missed their entry in the MSFS community. Big time. Sure they sold more than in P3D obviously, but given the download rate of the liveries and stuff on flightsim.to and how silent the community is here about the MD-82 compared to PMDG, Fenix and even the 146 which is an even more niche vintage airplane than the MD-80 should be, it doesn’t have half the recognition it could have had, had they poured in some real effort into it!
Hell, even the marketing was an absolute nonsense, with one the very rare teasing video where Leonardo handed over a copy of the beta plane made by someone who barely tried to study the plane before flying it let alone land it 
The very very few informative videos where people were really talking about the plane, their impression on it etc were all… in German!! 
seriously??
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no quarrel with our fellow German friends, but German is hardly the international language. I’m French, if all those vids would have been made in french it would have been the same. It makes zero marketing sense!!! Made it impossible to try and educate myself on before buying it, so I resorted to all the good praises people had about this developer in P3D. Textures could have been improved at least the way I did before release too, which is a poor man’s way of doing it but still.
I don’t think they will redo the cockpit the way it should now, it would require a lot of workforce and labor and it probably won’t be viable financially as the majority of sales happens at first release.
As we say in France “you only have one chance to do a first impression”, people that still were on the fence of possibly buying it have already totally moved on and forget about it given the hype generated by PMDG and now Fenix, for very good reasons in just about every departments.
A fine example of “easy couple of bucks vs missed opportunity to make big bucks through efforts”
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exactly my thought, before release I do really loved to try out this iconic rear engine plane, but then price make me hold for a day, seeing textures another few days, after seeing what PMDG have done it’s basically a choice between PMDG/Fenix, then Fenix do that amazing depth, immersion and most importantly - PRICE. so it’s a nobrainer for me personally now.
And sad that Fenix is in an inferior competition start as the FBW is really so good that you feels like flying the real thing (especially hand flying) when you are not totally into failure etc. it could make one want another plane model over thte A320 CEO, but after all that, I will just go for Fenix, and the TCA captain pack would not need reconfigure to a detent less config is another plus
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Yea, don’t be fools dive in the nostalgia is delicious
We’re currently on our maiden voyage KBOS to CYYZ both FlyTampa
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it looks like a rental. i’m a private pilot at a couple local flying clubs and it’s disgusts me the state other people leave these planes in!
i’m always cleaning out so much garbage and re-attaching bits and pieces that have been kicked or ripped off. so that’s kind of what this reminds me of lol
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More screens later don’t want to do to much while this is running.
Edit had to bail on decent to CYYZ, was just to overcast for a steam version 172 pilots first hood on jet landing, apparently I need responses to post more.
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