X-Plane from what I've read has incredible scenery though some of the aircraft systems such as the auto-pilot on some of the base aircraft is less than realistic and the B738 FMS has much to be desired of when you are unable to get V speeds nor input fuel and gross weight numbers. I have PDMG and love the realism of the NG's in all aspects of the aircraft.
Is X-Plane worth the money and how does it compare to other simulator products other than MSFS 2020 as I'm not getting that for quite some time?
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- BWIAirport
- Posts: 1602
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Re: X-Plane
Sorry no one responded to you sooner. Not sure if you've made your decision but here's my two cents:
Obviously if you're excluding Microsoft Flight Simulator for the time being (which is understandable) you're asking for a comparison between X-Plane 11 and Lockheed Martin P3Dv5. I use P3Dv4, which is broadly extremely similar to P3Dv5, but I'll do my best to be unbiased.
XP11 has very nice geographical scenery from my understanding, but does not come with airport buildings. You can get freeware scenery for almost any airport you want, however.
XP11's default aircraft are said to be close to study-level, and the same absolutely cannot be said for P3D. Keep in mind P3D at its core is an optimized version of FSX, a 2006 product. That being said, chances are you'll invest heavily in quality payware addon aircraft, so this benefit may prove to be inconsequential. The best payware developers across all platforms certainly seem to be PMDG and FSLabs, both of which I believe exclusively develop for P3D. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. But the PMDG 737 NGXu is certainly more detailed than XP's default 737.
The flight model in XP is more realistic than in P3D, from what I've heard. Although there are addons in P3D that can improve upon this.
May I ask, which simulator do you have now?
Obviously if you're excluding Microsoft Flight Simulator for the time being (which is understandable) you're asking for a comparison between X-Plane 11 and Lockheed Martin P3Dv5. I use P3Dv4, which is broadly extremely similar to P3Dv5, but I'll do my best to be unbiased.
XP11 has very nice geographical scenery from my understanding, but does not come with airport buildings. You can get freeware scenery for almost any airport you want, however.
XP11's default aircraft are said to be close to study-level, and the same absolutely cannot be said for P3D. Keep in mind P3D at its core is an optimized version of FSX, a 2006 product. That being said, chances are you'll invest heavily in quality payware addon aircraft, so this benefit may prove to be inconsequential. The best payware developers across all platforms certainly seem to be PMDG and FSLabs, both of which I believe exclusively develop for P3D. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. But the PMDG 737 NGXu is certainly more detailed than XP's default 737.
The flight model in XP is more realistic than in P3D, from what I've heard. Although there are addons in P3D that can improve upon this.
May I ask, which simulator do you have now?
Re: X-Plane
No worries on the no response.
I went and got X-Plane 11. The scenery is pretty darn good as well as the flight models though you are correct, PMDG is much more detailed than the default B737 in XP. While I did find a Zibo Mod B737 that is better I still prefer to use the PMDG NG's in MSFS 10 Deluxe than XP. But keep in mind I am much more familiar with FS and still learning the nuisances of XP and configuring each individual plane for the keyboard commands as well as joystick which at least for myself is a pain in the butt. Found the Cirrus Vision, Baron, Skyhawk, King Air 90 and MD82 to be nice additions to the default aircraft.
As far as the airport buildings go, the default scenery does appear to have the buildings well done. I'm using IAH as a reference as I'm quite familiar with that and it has what I'd call 99% if not 100% correct detail. Airfield lighting is also very very good and the default weather is better than what I find using Active Sky 2016 within FS10.
Once I get a bit more familiar overall with XP 11 as I just purchased it about two weeks ago, I am sure things will become much more friendly to me. The logbook shows me with less than eight hours so guess I shouldn't be too hard on the product just yet.
I went and got X-Plane 11. The scenery is pretty darn good as well as the flight models though you are correct, PMDG is much more detailed than the default B737 in XP. While I did find a Zibo Mod B737 that is better I still prefer to use the PMDG NG's in MSFS 10 Deluxe than XP. But keep in mind I am much more familiar with FS and still learning the nuisances of XP and configuring each individual plane for the keyboard commands as well as joystick which at least for myself is a pain in the butt. Found the Cirrus Vision, Baron, Skyhawk, King Air 90 and MD82 to be nice additions to the default aircraft.
As far as the airport buildings go, the default scenery does appear to have the buildings well done. I'm using IAH as a reference as I'm quite familiar with that and it has what I'd call 99% if not 100% correct detail. Airfield lighting is also very very good and the default weather is better than what I find using Active Sky 2016 within FS10.
Once I get a bit more familiar overall with XP 11 as I just purchased it about two weeks ago, I am sure things will become much more friendly to me. The logbook shows me with less than eight hours so guess I shouldn't be too hard on the product just yet.
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- BWIAirport
- Posts: 1602
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Re: X-Plane
IAHFLYR wrote:But keep in mind I am much more familiar with FS and still learning the nuisances of XP and configuring each individual plane for the keyboard commands
This is pretty important. It's hardly discussed, but comfort and familiarity with not only aircraft controls but simulator commands can make or break your experience. After 15 years flying FS04/FSX/P3D, the keyboard commands are so second-nature to me that I don't even look at the keyboard. When I'm flying in MSFS2020, I find myself fighting the keyboard commands so much it ruins the experience.
Keep it up and you'll get the feel for them. Happy flying!
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- peterlewis
- Posts: 7
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Re: X-Plane
In my opinion, the MSFS 2020 has taken the sim to the whole new level, in terms of details. The game itself consists of petabytes of data, although you do not need that much hard disk storage, as most of the environmental details are streamed from the internet. Yes, that's right, you need a decent internet connect for MSFS 2020, to showcase its full potential. X-Plane 11 on the other hand, is a tough competition, but when it comes to visuals, the MSFS 2020 is clearly the winner. Moreover, the Xplane 11 is not internet dependent, which you need to keep in mind depending on your situation.
Now granted that MSFS 2020 costs much higher than Xplane 11 (on Steam), I think it is totally worth the money (with a decent internet connection), if you are new to the flight sim genre.
Now granted that MSFS 2020 costs much higher than Xplane 11 (on Steam), I think it is totally worth the money (with a decent internet connection), if you are new to the flight sim genre.
Re: X-Plane
BWIAirport wrote:After 15 years flying FS04/FSX/P3D, the keyboard commands are so second-nature to me that I don't even look at the keyboard. When I'm flying in MSFS2020, I find myself fighting the keyboard commands so much it ruins the experience. Keep it up and you'll get the feel for them. Happy flying!
I used the keyboard so little with FS that like you don't even look at it, but with each X-Plane aircraft you have to set up any keyboard commands that you'd want to use and it is not a simple task with so many things to look through to find things.....at least it is for me. I'm sure it will come around to be more simplistic as I use it I just have to plug along with it till all the planes are configured how I want them.
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