How does X-Plane compare with Micro$oft FS?

[elmerfudd]

I've been playing with M$ FS for years now, and find that it has some shortcomings. While on a website recently, the subject of X-Plane came up, and it was mentioned as 'the best' flight sim. I was wondering how the two compared.

Thanks.

Elmer Fudd

[Localizer]

FSX is much better: Scenery, aircrafts, water effects, forum answers, etc.., etc...and you can buy it any store in the world.

Regards,

Val

[Rayflight]

FSX is much better: Scenery, aircrafts, water effects, forum answers, etc.., etc...and you can buy it any store in the world.

Regards,

Val

Reality and facts speak otherwise VAL. ref what i asked Bert.

Who are the clowns here?

Consumers and the right to use what has been paid for. I shall speak on a general behalf for that base. WE all are consumers, so Let's all work together to achieve a common goal. Enjoyment of what we paid for.

[loki]

It comes down to personal preferences and what you want. There are some great X-Plane forums around, so just because there isn't much activity here doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And a negative for FSX is that it includes Microsoft's lovely activation "feature" that is causing no end of trouble for some people. X-Plane doesn't have this and also tends to perform better with each release, not worse.

Download the demos for both and try them out for yourself to see which one you prefer. You can't really go wrong with either though.

loki

[dleonr]

It comes down to personal preferences and what you want. There are some great X-Plane forums around, so just because there isn't much activity here doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And a negative for FSX is that it includes Microsoft's lovely activation "feature" that is causing no end of trouble for some people. X-Plane doesn't have this and also tends to perform better with each release, not worse.

Download the demos for both and try them out for yourself to see which one you prefer. You can't really go wrong with either though.

loki

I am new to this forum, but not new to flightsim.com site. Where can I download the x plane demo.

[ladamson]

I am new to this forum, but not new to flightsim.com site. Where can I download the x plane demo.

Scroll down past the pic.

http://x-plane.com/

L.Adamson

[dleonr]

Got it! Thanks for your reply.

[Biohazard]

I happen to own X-Plane also v8 is what I had bought. During game play, it spins up the media to check if you have a legal copy, during this process the simulation briefly "pauses" and after a period of time, it gets really, really annoying. I ended up uninstalling it when I first got it.

It comes with 7 DVDs, yes you heard me, 7 DVDs! Thats a total of 32 Gigabytes of data that you have to unpack into your PC, assuming you want the whole world, each DVD has a part of the world highlighted on it.

Total installation can be as big as 54+ Gigabytes!!!

[Paperflyer]

X-Plane has matured quite a bit since then:
Its scenery has grown to numbing 70 Gigs and the planes now *can* look nearly as beautiful as MSFS'. 3D-Cockpits are becoming normal and there even is some sort of autogen in Europe and the USA.

This being said, the great thing about X-Plane is that it is far easier to tinker around with it, as it tends to model special cases better than MSFS, which means that an airplane does not have to be specifically crafted for aerobatics to try some fun stuff. (Ever tried to land a Beavor on a Skyscraper? Its tough... Also, there is a pretty advanced aircraft creation program included which is tremendously fun to play around with as the Sim evaluates the flying characteristics of your plane based on Wing layout and used engine. Therefore, you can easily create some completely new design and see if it would fly.
If you want to, you can even fly on Mars, where there is nearly no athmosphere and you have to be insanely fast just to get airborne.
And it works not only on Windows, but on Mac and Linux, too.

However, if you are rather the big-iron-longhaul kind of pilot, I would strongly suggest you get yourself a copy of MSFS instead.

[jwckmiller]

I've owned every single release of MFS since it's inception. Fun no doubt, but less so recently. Some nice bells and whistles, but many, many problems along the way.

Purchased X-Plane 9 after the demo to use on my Mac.... flawless, fast, accurate, straight out of the box. If you have to worry about loading 70 gigs of anything these days well......what can I say. Hard drives are cheap.

Take a look at all the other things you can do with X-Plane, and FSX begins to really look like a toy.