Gaming New Microsoft Flight Simulator?

[diogom]

Honest question: what about X-Plane 12's flight model is significantly better than MSFS's? Other than the ground handling, which even the devs have said has problems.

 

[Max-Q]

Honestly? Everything.
X-Plane actually models the airflow over wings, fuselage, etc (simplified, of course!)
Basically, the difference is MSFS reads a table with speed, aoa, etc to see how a plane flies. X-Plane actually models the physics.
This is especially nice for situations like stalls, especially with any sideslip, where the situation just can't be represented by a table!
It also models propwash and jet blast, and these can interact with the flying surfaces of the aircraft as well.
By the way if you're interested in seaplanes, the water dynamics are amazing and very realistic; (I'm a licensed floatplane pilot) It's a lot harder than it looks!

This is a (very long!) article on the X-Plane 12 flight model by Austin Meyer, the creator of X-Plane. No need to read it all, but there's a lot of good stuff in there!
https://developer.x-plane.com/article/x-plane-12-flight-model-report/

 

[gamer19]

kudos to x-plane airflow model but I had xp11 and I can tell you... it's far from perfection
it flies great and look beautiful for most of the time but man... those loading times were killing me. and also performance issues
I think I can fairly say that I had with similar graphic settings (still not looking quite like fs2020 ) quite lower frames per second
mods installing was complicating, had numerous crashes (not that fs didn't had any) and you know... the whole package
but yeah... it was cheaper

 

[Max-Q]

kudos to x-plane airflow model but I had xp11 and I can tell you... it's far from perfection

Agreed... but XP12 makes huge improvements in that area, it's basically a whole new flight model.

it flies great and look beautiful for most of the time but man... those loading times were killing me. and also performance issues
I think I can fairly say that I had with similar graphic settings (still not looking quite like fs2020 ) quite lower frames per second

If you have a GPU that can run MSFS, than please give XP12 a try! There's even a free demo!
In XP12, a lot of the heavy computations were moved from the CPU to the GPU. Folks with good GPUs report better performance than XP11!

mods installing was complicating, had numerous crashes (not that fs didn't had any) and you know... the whole package
but yeah... it was cheaper

How so? You just extract the zip to the correct folder.

X-Plane also works offline...

 

[diogom]

Honestly? Everything.
X-Plane actually models the airflow over wings, fuselage, etc (simplified, of course!)
Basically, the difference is MSFS reads a table with speed, aoa, etc to see how a plane flies. X-Plane actually models the physics.
This is especially nice for situations like stalls, especially with any sideslip, where the situation just can't be represented by a table!
It also models propwash and jet blast, and these can interact with the flying surfaces of the aircraft as well.
By the way if you're interested in seaplanes, the water dynamics are amazing and very realistic; (I'm a licensed floatplane pilot) It's a lot harder than it looks!

This is a (very long!) article on the X-Plane 12 flight model by Austin Meyer, the creator of X-Plane. No need to read it all, but there's a lot of good stuff in there!
https://developer.x-plane.com/article/x-plane-12-flight-model-report/

Thanks for the link, I always like learning about what's under the hood.

That's the thing though: as far as I'm aware, MSFS has all that now, in its own way. It introduced CFD and propeller blade physics like a year ago. Granted, I think devs have to add it on a plane by plane basis, so it's possible some planes still don't use it if the devs haven't bothered (there's admittedly a lot of low effort cash grabs on that mess of a Marketplace), but from what I've heard it's based on the basic plane geometry. It also extends to weather, with wind being affected by terrain and structures, thermals, etc. It's possible XPlane 12 still does it better from the hardware POV or in complexity, and MSFS does have quirks with how it uses hardware (CPU hog), but they're at least in the same playing field now in airflow, to my understanding. As far as seaplanes, from what you say it probably is much better, because like ground handling it does seem like a common complaint in MSFS, but I rarely fly them.

I should point out I'm not at all an actual pilot of course, so I'm not exactly invested in having the perfect physics since how would I know anyway. But it's more about the apparent misunderstanding in features. MSFS is definitely far from perfect, but it has evolved since launch, sometimes so much that it's to the detriment of addon developers struggling to not have products break on every sim update (a certain PMDG someone had a looot to say). But it kinda feels the marketing more initially targeted to casual players and a rough launch gave people the idea of "ok, reskinned FSX" and that reputation hasn't been updated since.

 

[Max-Q]

The cool thing about X-Plane is that you can design your own aircraft with Plane-Maker and they'll fly like they would in the real world.
Also free updates for the life of the v12 run.
All you say about MSFS is true, I'm just biased...

 

[gamer19]

If you have a GPU that can run MSFS, than please give XP12 a try! There's even a free demo!
In XP12, a lot of the heavy computations were moved from the CPU to the GPU. Folks with good GPUs report better performance than XP11!


How so? You just extract the zip to the correct folder.

X-Plane also works offline...

I have 1660 super. not really some state of the art gpu

yes, modding seems simple but it's not only about planes, I remember I have some (atmospheric) modifications
and that has to be in other folders. but ok it's not a rocket science

yes, it's working offline but in order to do it, you have to download a gigantic amount of global scenery from their page
and I assume loading times hasn't improved since xp11

but I'll try demo when I catch time, for sure. it wouldn't cost me a dime

 

[Ripley]

Just for info, is X-Plane demo time-limited, or something like that?

 

[Max-Q]

yes, it's working offline but in order to do it, you have to download a gigantic amount of global scenery from their page
and I assume loading times hasn't improved since xp11

Unless you buy the DVD set, then no internet connection is needed, ever!
For me, 12 does seem to load a good bit faster than 11 so far. But my 11 installation has a bunch of addons and my 12 install in pretty clean so far...

Just for info, is X-Plane demo time-limited, or something like that?

Yeah, it's time limited to 15 minutes; after that your controls stop working!
Also location limited to the Portland OR area; fly too far and you won't see anything but water...
Other than that, it's the full sim with all features. The paid version will perform exactly like the demo.

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

I never got used to X-Plane. It was always told to have the best flight model, for decades actually. But it never really felt that realistical to me. I don't know X-Plane 12 though. But judging from the visual appearance I don't think it catches up with the latest MSFS.

In MSFS you can fly VFR all over the world and spot your house or whatever easily without any additional addons. When I look out the window in my SEP low wing aeroplane, I can see all the rivets and the slightly battered surface while the sunlight perfectly sparcles on it. Wings bend and twist. You can even hear it (and also hear turbulence and different angles of airflow). It's nearly shocking how real it looks and sounds. And with live weather all over the world, the new turbulence/weather model, the addon support and the frequent updates and new content they put in, it is really a game changer. If you land somewhere, no matter where, you are not just on the ground with some plain textures. It is bumpy depending on the ground and there is real flora. Grass, flowers etc. You can hear birds and the wind outside. And so on...

I installed it once and immediately threw away my P3D and all of my addons I had. I'm glad MSFS is almost completely online. It gives me a living and breathing environment like nothing else There is only reality next

 

[gamer19]

yeah, all great there
if only there's no those never ending everyday updates....
some even state that they spend more time updating than actually flying
they overreacting, I know

 

[Frilock]

yeah, all great there
if only there's no those never ending everyday updates....
some even state that they spend more time updating than actually flying
they overreacting, I know

In my case I actually did. Steam says I have 120+ hours, yet this:

 

[Frilock]

I'm very out of the loop. What's the issue?

In my particular case, the fact I couldn't even try the game before the refund policy was voided thanks to the game downloading itself through its own launcher. Scummy business practice.

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

With a fast internet connection updates are actually not an issue. Never had issues yet although the big updates can be annoying.

I personally don't give much on achievements to be honest. There is no such thing in real life anyway. I log my hours in a (real) logbook, so MS can do whatever they want

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

some even state that they spend more time updating than actually flying
they overreacting, I know

Yeah But I think people complaining about turbulences are worse... they just never knew the real thing which MSFS finally gets very right

 

[Frilock]

With a fast internet connection updates are actually not an issue. Never had issues yet although the big updates can be annoying.

I personally don't give much on achievements to be honest. There is no such thing in real life anyway. I log my hours in a (real) logbook, so MS can do whatever they want

I don't actually care much about the achievement, it was more to show just how little time I've actually spent doing the thing I actually paid to do vs how much time steam says I've been doing it. My calculations put me at about 2.5 hours in the pilot seat. Steam says:


Figure maybe .3-.5 hours messing with settings, that's about 124 hours of doing nothing but downloading updates.