BostonJeremy77

Yeah, 2024 has improved since when I saw it last. Thankfully. I am thinking about picking up a couple of aircraft for it - haven't bought anything since iniBuilds released the A300 Premium for 2024. Namely, I want the A350 (which I have the FF A350 for XP12, but let's face it... it's not the best... thankfully them and Toliss are collaborating on a brand new version) and the iFly 737MAX (which isn't available for XP yet). I refuse to fly that default Asobo one (unless they improved it drastically). I still don't understand how loading passengers and cargo and fuel works through that EFB. Or why ATC has a prompt to Begin Boarding Passengers after I pushed back from the gate... A lot of it makes no sense, so as long as I can rely on 3rd party EFB to load things (iniBuilds default AC is good for that too), I should be OK. As far as antialiasing in XP, Laminar is working on motion vectors, which will enable them to roll out new antialising for XP. I don't have TDS GTNxi for XP mainly because I don't have any AC that would use it. On 2024, I use it with FSS Boeing 727. I mostly fly airliners, since if I want to fly GA, I can just hop in my Cessna and do the real thing. It's not often that airliners would use GTNxi. I am wondering if that new TriStar is worth picking up too. Anything else in terms of airliners in 2024 that I missed? I do have the FSS Embraer 175 and JustFlight BAE146 and that old Fokker one.

It's plenty! I am running on 2060 with 6 and it's one of the best performing airliners there. Better performing than 757 and 767.

So, I hopped back into MSFS 2024 today. It's better than it was a year ago. Honestly, as far as performance goes, it blows XP12 away... Granted, I am running on a 6 yr old laptop, but I can manage 50 FPS on Medium settings with Volumetric Clouds set to Ultra (otherwise they look terrible)... Took me an hour to set up controls again. The key is to avoid default planes because loading them via tablet used to be a nightmare. Flew one flight with Fenix and one with PMDG 777. I may get a new aircraft or two and mess around with it more. Always had it since day one (bought the $200 Aviator Edition). Good to see it's making progress. It still doesn't match my XP12 experience, even though I only get 25-30 FPS on it. Even ATC has gotten somewhat better, though again.. doesn't compare to XP12 default. I am REALLY missing Better Pushback. For the third flight, set up the 777 for 45 mins just to have the pushback tug get stuck at an angle unable to push the aircraft. So I rage quit. 🙂 Back to XP for tonight.

So, I hopped back into MSFS 2024 today. It's better than it was a year ago. Honestly, as far as performance goes, it blows XP12 away... Granted, I am running on a 6 yr old laptop, but I can manage 50 FPS on Medium settings with Volumetric Clouds set to Ultra (otherwise they look terrible)... Took me an hour to set up controls again. The key is to avoid default planes because loading them via tablet used to be a nightmare. Flew one flight with Fenix and one with PMDG 777. I may get a new aircraft or two and mess around with it more. Always had it since day one (bought the $200 Aviator Edition). Good to see it's making progress. It still doesn't match my XP12 experience, even though I only get 25-30 FPS on it. Even ATC has gotten somewhat better, though again.. doesn't compare to XP12 default. I am REALLY missing Better Pushback. For the third flight, set up the 777 for 45 mins just to have the pushback tug get stuck at an angle unable to push the aircraft. So I rage quit. 🙂 Back to XP for tonight. EDIT: OOPS... wrong thread. Apologies.

Thank you for a very in-depth explanation. I am not versed in development these days (back in early 90s, I used to know C and Pascal - two obscure things that have gone away a long time ago)... Had NO idea that Gizmo was more than just DRM. That makes sense now. Good to hear about the DC-3 getting a new version eventually! And DC-3 IS an Airliner to me! 🙂 An early one, but... in the 1940s those WERE the airliners people actually flew on.

Goran - kinda off topic. Do you have any idea if IXEG 737 is planning an update to ditch Gizmo? It's the only aircraft I use often that tethers me to Gizmo now that CL650 has moved past it... Oh and Leading Edge DC-3 too!

HAHAHA! Thanks for making me spill out my coffee!! A better question is why am I drinking coffee at 7:16 pm?

I am one of those. It was in the middle of the COVID lockdown and I didn't have anything better to do with my time, so I picked up MSFS2020 on the day of release and so it began. I then picked up P3D5 and XP11. But... reality is that if I didn't dive DEEP into MSFS 2020 when I did, I wouldn't have had my pilot license and instrument rating today.

I was thinking exactly the same. Considering the demographic of Navigraph users tends to be comprised mostly of serious simmers who value realism, authenticity, etc. That 2% of XBox users is nowhere near representative of the total ratio of PC vs XBox (or PS5)... It's just that the console users are casual gamers who don't bother to participate in Navigraph surveys. There are a lot more of them than of us (that includes Avsim user base - we ARE the minority). The quicker we accept it, the better. I am perfectly fine with that, too. Your parallel to the Career Mode has actually been answered in the survey without betting your CL650 license. 😉 There was a question of "what type of flying do you do?" and the majority (of course, considering the sample) answered IFR. Missions WAS one of the choices but it was again, something like 2%. Microsoft wouldn't have put so much into that Career Mode if they didn't have a reason to believe a vast majority of their userbase wants something like that. The realistic number is MUCH higher than what Navigraph can sample. The Navigraph survey targets a very small percentage of sim users. OK... Hang with me here... (no Purism or Elitism or any other -isms here)... This kind of boils down to what I think is true: - Without taking away merits of either sim, MSFS intentionally targets casual gamers, thus GamePass, consoles, etc... It doesn't mean that sim can't be used for more "serious" stuff - procedure flows, etc... It just means that it has a lot of appeal to the casual segment of the market. I am willing to bet MY CL650 license 😉 that X-Plane has a lot less casual users. Therefore, the numbers of MSFS users vs XP users is likely a lot more skewed than the survey suggests. All the XBox players that didn't take the survey? Add them on top of the ones who did. Granted, XP also has a large percentage of users who didn't take that survey, but in sheer numbers, there are lot less. Realistically speaking, having taken a Stats course in college, I know that a sample size of 42,000 respondents means absolutely nothing in terms of a true picture of the market. As a matter of fact, most of these survey results would fail simple statistical tests and be considered "statistically insignificant". Am I making sense here? - Considering above, I also wouldn't postulate that "not that many people are moving away from MSFS" - if you take a deeper dive into the more "core simmer" social media presence, even YouTube has so many content creators saying they haven't really given XP a chance before but now that they have, they actually really like it. For example, some real-world Airbus pilot (forgot his name, I don't remember those things well), said that based on his experience in the A320, his recent Toliss usage clearly made say that it just "feels a lot more like the real thing in terms of response" than what he has seen in MSFS... So, I wouldn't underestimate the number of people switching, or at least using BOTH sims instead of just one. And as XP makes strides in development, especially with the upcoming Next Gen scenery they are working on, I can only see XP marketshare growing against MSFS, because realistically? I think MSFS has tapped what there was as far as userbase. It won't get that much larger than what it is now. XP? We have yet to see, but I have a feeling, the userbase of XP has PLENTY of room to grow.

What's a 737-400ER? 😉 X-Updater works fine for me... I just run it, put in license numbers and then it works. What's the issue?

They aren't associated with Laminar Research. It's a different entity. The integrated store would be curated by Laminar (in a way that it could have quality requirements to be sold on there - at least that's the hope). Get a life? Nice one. I suggest brushing up on the way you post.

I am glad they are taking their time to do the store RIGHT. Otherwise what happened with the MSFS Marketplace will happen here too... Rubbish developers cranking out 5 aircraft a month for $10 where nothing works while being advertised as "faithfully represented" or such. As long as LR learns from MS about this pitfall, the XP Store would be a revolution in the market of this platform. Bonus would be if they did what Contrail does on MSFS side - you can transfer your purchase from certain developers to Contrail. Aerosoft and JustFlight and GotFriends and FSS do that.

About to download. Spectacular aircraft and I am happy to see an update. Also, no more Gizmo! Only if IXEG updated theirs to not use Gizmo anymore, I would do away with that plugin!

To me, it's the most immersive aircraft in any sim barring CL650... Blows PMDG away. My biggest issues are: 1) No Wind Uplink. Have to manually enter those and it's tedious. But they said they will have that in the future. 2) Service vehicles literally drop out of the sky. Zibo has them pulling up, which is much nicer. 3) The BAD text-to-speech voices for the crew. But FF outdid themselves on this one. Highly recommended. One of my best purchases. I only have the -200ER but planning to purchase all the engine options and the -300ER this weekend. Support XP12 developers! If people don't buy great new releases, we won't have people developing for XP. Really looking forward to AirFoil Labs 737 MAX and the Nimbus 707.

I agree with you, actually. On all of the points you made above. Like Goran said, no ill will was meant. Especially on the point of XP not advancing quickly enough before MSFS gave LR a motivation to innovate more and quicker. Between XP11.5 (which is when I started using XP - AFER MSFS 2020 came out) and the current version, it's leaps and bounds! Competition is a great thing. It's what drives innovation. Purism (as you mentioned in LM's case) can also lead to stagnation, I agree. I am not THAT kind, because I always try to push myself. But I can see how it can be a detriment to some. I want MSFS to do better. I want to like it more. Maybe that will happen, maybe it won't. I am happy with XP, but to all those who enjoy MSFS 2024, like I said, more power to them! In certain aspects, I hope LR's turn is to motivate MS. The environmental depiction far surpasses MSFS among other things. Once the new scenery in XP platform rolls out, I believe it will be a revolutionary release. Not just an evolutionary one.

Haha, that may be true! But I have always been a curmudgeon - since my 30s. Now at 49, forget about it! In 10 years I will fully become a member of "get off my lawn" club. 😉

No, as a businessman myself, I can assure you that not all collabs are good for business. There are concepts of dilution of identity, feature bloat, etc... If as a restaurateur in an upscale/fine dining segment, I begin to collaborate with drag show performers (nothing against drag show performers - they have their own market segment), would it bring in people? Yes... Perhaps. Will it dilute identity of a restaurant that has its own niche and focus? Absolutely. It's entirely not the place for those events. Therefore, I'd never do it. Because it makes no sense. Read the audience. That would get other segment (the core one) of the clientele to leave... kind of like what MS is doing with quite a few people commenting everywhere how they are switching to XP12. The definition of Elitism is believing that one belongs to a group that should exclude other groups considered "not worthy" of being part of it. No such thing is expressed here. What I expressed were my own feelings about the direction of the product and why I don't enjoy it anymore. If someone has MSFS as their sim of choice, I'd say... more power to them. Go and enjoy. I think Purism was the word you were looking for. I believe the simulator experience should be about aviation and nothing else. Sure, it's a game, but not in a traditional sense. Quite a few people, myself included, use it to become familiar with flows and procedures. It can also work well for training the brain for making good decisions when it comes to real-world aviation. I can tell you that I am a better pilot of my C182 today BECAUSE of the extensive amount of times I spent in XP and MSFS. I try to learn from every session and every failure scenario I practice and the decisions I made are self-evaluated and questioned. It's not about "flying" - nothing like this can compare to actually being at the controls. Without feel, the inputs are fairly devoid of real impact. This is about flows, procedures, and training decision-making ability. So... not really a traditional game... like STALKER or Elder Scrolls. It's pretty hard to learn anything from those games you can use in real world. Purism is about not diluting the essence. Sometimes less is more. When you narrow down the focus and make it razor sharp, you have a better product. In which case, I am happy to be a "purist". It doesn't mean things I have no interest don't deserve to be in the product. A great example is Laminar's next update which will focus on VR. I am not a VR user, so it's meaningless to me, but it's obviously meaningful to a ton of people, which makes me happy for them - a feature THEY use is being improved. All of LR's work focuses on the core experience of it being a flight simulator, the best one they can deliver. THAT is important. Do they want to be successful in terms of sales? Of course! But not at the price of diluting what the product is all about. If XP started adding fantasy elements and entertaining the audience by throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, it would be highly disappointing. So yes, call me a "purist", I am not ashamed of being branded so.

I am a customer and I have a right to like or dislike a product. I understand if some 3rd party company started creating nonsense content for a flight sim, but it's approaching the absurd and it decreases my appreciation of it because I am losing respect for the first party and dislike their vision of what the product is. There is a loss of identity and a focus... Let's imagine this... "Laminar Research is proud to present: X-Plane: The Nightmare on Elm Street Expansion. It features a free Ultralight that allows you to fly over the haunted neighborhoods tormented by Freddie Krueger and the hellish dreamscape he created." Sounds bloody ridiculous, but it's not a far cry from Dune and Stranger Things. Again, all this does is make me not want to use it, because the creators of this franchise have lost the plot. This is a sim that still has no weather radar that has tilt capability. Last time I checked it, dual jetways weren't a thing either. And their version of Scenery Gateway that they promised years ago is still nonexistent. Default airports still look abandoned and are still filled with things like jetways not attached to anything... just jetway sitting by itself and you spawn next to it! There are taxi lights all over taxiways. Sometimes randomly thrown all over the place. But sure, let's have the Avatar expansion next... I don't know why my opinion is so hard to understand. You don't have to agree with it, but THESE are some of the things I switched to XP12 for my sim of choice.

Yeah... I am not kidding. Here are the three links you'll enjoy. 🙂 Xbox and Microsoft Flight Simulator unveil Dune Expansion and Floating Controller - Microsoft Flight Simulator Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: Stranger Things Expansion - Microsoft Flight Simulator Jurassic World Archipelago - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 - Orbx This is just not what I want from a Flight Simulator. I am sure the XBox crowd loves it. Count me out.

Thing is... I don't want a free fictional aircraft from Dune... And I don't want to see any of that stuff. It makes me feel like that sim has completely lost the plot and if they feel the target clientele wants these things, it just shows you where the focus is. Yes, Freeflight IS one of the choices. And the size of the icon that gets you into it is way smaller than their Career Mode, Racing Challenge, or whatever all that other nonsense is. We can disagree.

I just can't do MSFS 2024 anymore... It's SUCH a chore, I feel. Yes, it looks somewhat good (except default airports, useless default APC, that stupid Universal Tablet without which you can't plan a flight and it still doesn't load aircraft correctly OR communicate with ATC even if you filed flightplan)... but that word not allowed UI of theirs. That main menu where Freeflight is like an afterthought... The constant collaborations with things like Stranger Things, Dune, Orbx' new Jurassic Park thing... I just can't anymore. I still have it, but I never use it. It's XP12 for me and has been for a year and a half at least. Mind you, used 2020 as much as XP11/XP12. But 2024 killed it for me. Can't seem to enjoy it anymore.

I didn't say LAND 3. 🙂 You would still hand-fly it and most of the time they are hand-flown. But AT is on... You simply disengage the AP and leave AT on, as opposed to the 73, where you disable AT then disable AP (that AP should not be flown without AT on). Just practical difference. And they do plenty of training hand-flying the aircraft.

From my understanding, the common practice is to land with AT on, like an Airbus. It's not a 73.

I was actually referring to it just sitting on the ground and not moving... I was expecting to see droplets run down the window. But I didn't. There is also a possibility that it was a freezing rain and maybe the sim considered it snow, which is why it didn't run down the window... it WAS really cold where I was flying from. Hmmm. I will try to fly somewhere warm with a strong rain... or rather just sit on the ground and see what happens.

Hi, I was just doing a flight in rainy weather in Alaska with a default Zibo -800 and it was raining pretty bad but none of it was on the windshield as with some other aircraft. I seem to remember it working back in the day, but no joy now. Any ideas? Anyone else experiencing this?