two mates who before would never touch flight sims are taken by it for them reasons. flying can be relaxing , fun ,then tense as you land in a crosswind. one has moved over from playstation (mainly for forza motorsport) and the other is a teenage 50 year old like me from pc base. we have pc`s that can run msfs 2020 from low to mid settings but prefer xboxs. forza or flight , just not enough hours
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I have told a few friends to try MSFS on Game Pass.
âWorst case scenario, even if you donât get into flying planes in a realistic way, it is the greatest screensaver you have ever seen.â
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The best part about consoles is with closed hardware options it gets optimized for the better over itâs lifespan, whereas in the PC world developers just interject new graphics requirements that pretty much say âhey we added all this stuff into our new game, just pony up for more power then you should of ever had to have needed cause we aintâ optimizing nothinâ
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Same here, I have my GT Omega Titan rig on wheels wired up high and tight with my clubsport setup. I can just roll it up to the TV plug in in the butkicker, a power plug and a USB, move the TV out close to the wheel base and Iâm off, perfectly lined up for a 55" monitor. I usually play PC2, F1 2020, and some FM7. Horizon 5 actually isnât bad with a wheel either, but the couch is fine too. Then I have a cheap Ikea desk with adjustable legs that sits 1/2" below the screen, with my Velocity One/mouse/keyboard and and office chair with another buttkicker, plus a TFRP that plugs right into a static HOTAS on the shelf under the TV, and in 3 minutes Iâm a pilot with a 55" pulled up 3" behind the yoke. Or just pop off the T1 and play COD or move the whole thing back for couch gamepad duty. Gotta love it.
And itâs pretty â â â â impressive for XBSX versus what I had spent thousands on before and countess hours tinkering with gaming computers.
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Its nice to see another RCâer on here. Iâm an RC Heli pilot myself. I downsized in 2020 and sold off all my big ships (Trex 600, 500, 450âs) and bought smaller field flying machines (Blade 230s V2, (2) x Blade 150sâs). All upgraded of course with MicroHeli stuff.
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That is an impressive setup and very much to my tastes. I am building something quite similar. Becoming quite efficient at switching from car to plane mode and from console to PC.
Yeah, Project Cars 2 was excellent. So many cars and tracks.
Forza Horizon 5 is a BLAST on a wheel and the FFB is almost decent (which for a Forza title is amazing)⊠you just are slower. The game is designed for a gamepad first, and twitch reflexes on a game pad will win online far, FAR more often than good wheel technique. So I adjust my difficulty for the wheel. My issue is I need a different skill level for dirt than road⊠so with a wheel I have to switch difficulty frequently to keep things challenging but winnable. So I tend to let off steam with a wheel and really race on pad.
The Motorsport titles are also excellent⊠I just never quite like the wheel feel so I play each for a few months then return to the sims that feel better to me. Every sim is different and some just jive better than others with my individual tastes. Forza Motorsport never quite is a perfect fit for me. I can tell because I drive worse in it! 
Make sure you play Wreckfest if you havenât. Perhaps the perfect balance of sim and arcade for a wheel yet. I adore that gem of a game. Lots of configurations for a console game, too.
(A Mod is probably reading this and yelling in their head for me to get back on topic I am sure⊠soâŠ)
My point talking so much about cars is, the sim community on consoles thrives. People like you and I have real rigs. We have been dying for a flight sim. There are real advantages to console simming. PC folks are quick to point out the disadvantages too and of course there ARE some disadvantages. We weigh these things before purchasing.
I have known the console racing sim community for a long time and some of these folks⊠their rigs, their setups, the money theyâve spent⊠console simmers are every bit as passionate as PC simmers, and if they cannot do something on console, they figure out a way to make it happen. It is absurd to think the PC is the only way to fly. Give the console sim community a couple years with a flight sim and theyâll be making some builds that will blow your mind!
I have wreckfest too. Play FH5 with both wheel and chaos driving with the controller. Have owned all the FM titles you can spend more time tweaking ffb than playing but once in a while a custom race at bathurst just works out right, even if youâre a shoe in for the win. I also was a 700 heli guy at one time now just down to tiny yard helis. One day will get back to a nice 10â+ giant scale airplane. Those are some of my 80âs tamiya stuff, have traxxas bashers too, and a bunch more junk everywhere, plenty of stuff stacked around the house too to my wifeâs dismay
gotta love the newest xbox for saving sooo much time for just pnp gaming. Just got the pedals, braced against the wall with an extra Lego Saturn V in the shipping box, perfect fit and doesnât block the brakesâŠ
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wow, great clean not much space using setup there.
Like you âphutyooâ I used to have quite a collection of âstuffâ too. I collected for years. Over time I have gotten rid of a lot of it. Whatâs left is in 2-3 boxes now. Once the Heli hobby took hold of me, my preferences switched and I decided to downsize. Now that Iâm into this ârealâ SIM stuff, (it was eventual), has come into my life, I donât even use RF 9.5 RC SIM anymore. And I have a thumb drive with a great many aircraft and airports. I canât wait to get outside and fly my Heliâs once this dam winter â â â â is over. 
The saving grace of my junk is just about everything I own I can sell for more than I paid for it. Especially diecast cars, I have over 100 stored away, some I bought for $90 now go for $500+ And old complete lego sets can be ridiculous. Figure I can turn it all back into a Porsche when the kids are old enough. 
Even stuff like the Fanatec components, when I sold off the old CSL 360 stuff I donât think I hardly lost anything, so upgrades really arenât that painful. Paying to keep a computer up to date is a bottomless well though, especially when the inevitable crash in pricing happens.
The pedals/hotas was $200, when turtle beach comes out with theirs Iâll probably only loose ~$50 selling it off. The only hard sell with the Mrs is a âneedâ to upgrade that 55 to a 49" OLED 
Just always save the boxes and the perfectly fitted shipping carton it came inâŠ
I have been contemplating swapping my 50â Samsung I use for regular TV for my new 43â I just bought. Cable TV is garbage and I donât watch enough TV to even warrant paying for it let alone any streaming service for that matter. Iâm not a TV guy much now that the 70âs and 80âs are gone and I have a PC and internet and YouTube. TV was the best back in the 70âs and 80âs. After that, the â â â â started. So you knowâŠfor meâŠcurrent TV sucks.
I just checked for my laptop, it would cost $1000 getting ganked for a new $250 card to get me to 4K on a 55. Think Iâm good on the 'box.
I only have streaming services, dumped the box a while back, havenât watched a super bowl in 10 years anyway. I do have the F1 TV app though, which is ridiculous awesome. Wanna watch the Tyrrell 6 wheeler P34, well just pull up some 1974 footage at 3AM with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. All that stuff you built from Tamiya but there was no chance of ever seeing it live on TV. My kids are being raised on 4K OLED. I do find it hard to get them to watch hand drawn Disney classics.
Ya sometimes itâs not worth upgrading a PC, Laptop. Better to buy a new one. But your on Xbox with MSFS so youâve won half the battle. Thatâs why I switched to the Xbox version of MSFS. No graphics stuff to mess with. Set it to HDR10 and just fly. Old Disney classics, was there such a timeâŠ? 
Donât forget good ole bugs bunny. Now thatâs classic toons. 
Just a few pics of both setups. 1) My MSFS setup. 2) My setup for AeroFly FS2.
You can see the rudder pedals on the floor under the desk. I have to swap controls every time depending on what SIM I intend to use. PITA it is, lol 
Have no clue why the pics went sideways. Sorry about that folks.
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I have posted my setup before but âŠ
Iâm very happy with the XBox S with a 1T expansion card. I have âflownâ around the world - west to east (about 160 hours) and an now flying from the tip of South American (west coast) to Canada. I have very few addons⊠I use mostly stock planes. My future plan is to buy assorted USA sectional aeronautical charts and visit all the airport in said sectional.
Iâm a train person so Iâve added Train Sim World 2 to the mix.
All and all Iâm very satisfied with the cost/benefit ratio.
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Nice setup. 43" screenâŠ? I donât fly the world or long distance flights. I found them to be not very entertaining. I just like to putz around and do short/long local flights. Like TO to Sudbury, Sudbury to Thunder Bay or Ottawa to TO or just random exploring. I have a whole country to explore and various cities around the world without ever leaving my house. I used to drive truck and buses all around Ontario so I know geographically where everything is looking from up in the air. I mostly only use a compass and visual line of site to get where Iâm going. I have the airport markers on so that makes things a lot easier. I have a good sense of direction, so it doesnât seem to be a difficult task for me. Trains is my other interest but never really delved into it. Iâve been eyeing the Train SIMâs and might take the plunge on those later. The cost benefit is definitely a plus with the Xbox versions. I could have saved $1500 and not bought a new PC because the Xbox X is a PC combined with a Game Console. Oh well too late now. Maybe as I age more (55 right now), I can see me only having the game console and nothing else. I wonât need a full house PC. Who knows, only time will tell.
Heh I love all of us at Team XBOX. We all have desks with 40-60" TVâs parked on them. Mah Brothas 
If $250 video cards didnât cost $1200 with the absolute â â â â pricing right now Iâd consider using a computer. Iâd throw down $3000 for a computer rig if it werenât just buying an overpriced $1500 one. Xbox i just touch the yoke and everything comes on, resume a flight in under 20 seconds(after it goes crazy out of control for a few seconds of course). Versus xbox, if I went computer it would have to also work for my racing rig, and be powerful enough to run 3x50" OLEDâs wrapped around me or something stupid like that.
A series X and a $500 40" HDR TV costs less then a mid-grade computer card and looks hella good for most, and for the most part wonât let you break the system on accident. Although strong internet is an absolute priority.
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I guess for me ( if I really think about it), buying a new PC wasnât a total wash. I mean, it is my total entertainment source. My cable TV is usually on just for background noise, or if there âisâ something on that I might feel I wanna watch, (rarely though).
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Very off topic, but Iâd be curious to your wheel settings, if youâd share via PM? Horizon games have never felt playable to me on my G920 wheel, despite the Forza Motorsport games playing nicely with it. Too arcadey. Sorry again for going off topic.
Stock on my Thrustmaster. It isnât perfect but better than I recall other Horizons being. No need to fiddle too much because I play more with gamepad. Good enough for some fun. You know?