Meh- 2020 has nothing over FSX

Can't say I'm too impressed by 2020. This seems more like a game company put it together to make a quick buck. No moving your head around anywhere in the cockpit, no three quarter view out front as you approach from an angle. I thought the graphics is what makes this so great. They don't look any better than the original FSX. We've lost thousands of airports. Once I get FSX back up and running I doubt I'll ever fly this again. I see nothing but limitations, whereas FSX is endlessly fluid (for free or low cost) and will never be used to its fullest capacity. Why didn't the Aces Team come up with their own and market it?

Because the `Aces Team` were fired long ago...

Opinions and butt cheeks - everybody has them.

Glad you found a flight sim (FSX) that you enjoy playing. Millions of others (me included) found a flight sim (MSFS 2020) that we enjoy playing. I would never tell you what you 'should' like and I'm sure you feel the same way about MY sim choices.

It's ALL good IMHO, and bottom line, it's only a game, we ain't solving world hunger ner nuthin'.

Try to navigate around FSX by using buildings and landscape from the actual world. You can do that in MSFS but not in FSX. Fly out in Iowa. In FSX, everything is a flat patchwork of tiles. In MSFS, the terrain develops a three dimensional quality that resembles the actual landscape.

Certainly, there are still good things to be said for FSX, large choice of aircraft, less demanding on hardware, and some additional airports, but why not have both. I still have FSX and FS2002, as well as X-Plane, but 98% of my use is MSFS.

Ok, a short post, yet a lot to unpack and explain.

First off, when it comes right down to it, if it’s sold at retail to the masses, it’s made by a “game company”. Sure, their team has a focus on simulations, but when the employees apply for new jobs, many will be applying at other “game companies”... simulations are just a small part of the electronics game industry, a niche.

Second, AFAIK, the Aces Team was broken up and shut down more than a decade ago. Hasn’t existed for quite some time now. I also know that MS got very cagey when the product known as “Microsoft Flight” bombed hard… they were certain it was goiing to be a surefire hit, combining gaming with simming in aviation… and it attracted NO ONE. Notice that it was Microsoft made, and omitted the word “simulator”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight

Third point. Games and sims are going in the direction of head tracking, be it by TrackIR type products, VR goggles, or AR displays (Augmented Reality… like VR but where it doesn’t completely block off your view of real surroundings, but adds in VR images). TrackIR, Delan Clip and other head trackers, track your head movement so the sim changes your screen point of view. It started off with combat flight sims, to help with dogfight visibility and situational awareness, but has since expanded to civilian flight sims, and racing sims too. Thousands of people have even built their own simple head tracking for cheap.

Doesn’t look any better than FSX ? Ok, maybe that’s true if you are running a very old video card, but modern systems will make it look better, for SURE. Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beerholder so…

Lost thousands of airports?!? This one puzzles me, as the new sim has WAY more included airports and aerodromes than FSX. Heck this new one has crazy grass strips in the middle of the mountain jungles of Indonesia, and these are DEFAULT included airstrips. So please enlighten us about which airports were in FSX on a clean install, but don’t appear in the new sim!!!

If you are talking 3rd party downloads, then sure, FSX is surely WAY ahead in terms of terrain scenery downloads… but it’s had a headstart of near a decade and a half!! Also, have you tried checking fliightsim.to for scenery and aircraft addons? That’s the current hub for the latest stuff (not sure why but anyway).

Look, no one’s stopping you from using FSX, enjoy it! And maybe FS2020 is just not appealing to you, that’s also ok too. But your observations seem… incomplete.

Like Randy stated everyone has their own opinion's and here's mine-

VR ROCKS!!!!! I am not going back to using my monitors and now that I have my VR and the settings adjusted it is awesome. MSFS 2020 looks WAY better then FSX did.

Oh, and Cat's Rule

Oh, and Cat's Rule

Ok but HOW do they rule? Velvet glove, or iron fist? Or a middle ground?

And are we talking felines or swing wings on the silver screen?

Ok but HOW do they rule? Velvet glove, or iron fist? Or a middle ground?

 

And are we talking felines or swing wings on the silver screen?

Were talking the 4 legged variety :)

Can't say I'm too impressed by 2020. This seems more like a game company put it together to make a quick buck. No moving your head around anywhere in the cockpit, no three quarter view out front as you approach from an angle. I thought the graphics is what makes this so great. They don't look any better than the original FSX. We've lost thousands of airports. Once I get FSX back up and running I doubt I'll ever fly this again. I see nothing but limitations, whereas FSX is endlessly fluid (for free or low cost) and will never be used to its fullest capacity. Why didn't the Aces Team come up with their own and market it?

I respect your opinion, but I wonder sometimes what sim(game) people are looking at. I have FS9, FSX:Steam, and X-Plane11 installed. Every couple months I grab Gamepass and check in on 2020. Eventually I will just plop down the cash and get it, but for now I am enjoying the other 3 for various reasons. But, none of those reasons are that they look better. Nothing looks as good as 2020. Even in its default no internet connection state, which I have tried, it is better looking than the others although a tricked out XP11 looks pretty good.

I'm not sure why some folks are so annoyed(it seems to me)by the new sim. I think some just don't like the idea that they might be left behind. Which I don't get. When I fly in FS2004 it doesn't matter one bit if I'm the only one using it. End of the day I enjoyed the experience. I like the 757, 777, and 737-600, MSFS doesnt have them, yet. Well, the 600 is on the way and the 777 is the Captainsim(ugh).

Nothing wrong with liking old stuff. My desktop is covered with shortcuts to games from GOG. But when something new comes along like MSFS, if you can run it, enjoy it. All the bickering is kinda goofy anyway. Game/Sim? When I use GTA3, it's not a game, its a 'Thug Simulator". Many of us, if not the majority(not sure of the demographic)are adults, sitting at a desk playing pretend plane fly guy. People know where to find us and we generally stay out of trouble. Enjoy.

Wow, it's been a while since last time someone popped out here to say FSX was better than MSFS.

I can only say this:

...

...

...

(Edit) Well, I just thought better and won't say anything. It would be a waste of time.

In the FSX forum the OP is asking for help installing FSX because his copy fails to install.

The score at half-time is:

MSFS - 1

FSX - 0

In the FSX forum the OP is asking for help installing FSX because his copy fails to install.

The score at half-time is:

MSFS - 1

FSX - 0

Maybe his FSX found out he tried MSFS 2020 and it is now pouting?

I meant to add 'Change My Mind'. These are just my first impressions. Thanks for all the feedback.

I have an RTX3080 on a 1080p screen. I haven't gotten into all the settings yet, so maybe real world graphics aren't on. ? Should I buy a 4K monitor?

I have 43,729 airports listed in my database. 37k in 2020. 6TX9 is missing, which is a small ranch airport in West Texas with the easiest name to remember and I know the owner. It's not a big deal.

Each Flight Simulator has its own characteristics, good and bad. Once I get into it, figure out all the settings and possibilities, and apply what I learn here, I'll probably end up going back and forth between them.

As background I started with the first MS Flight Sim 40 years ago, was using FS98 (I still have the disk and the book) when I finally got some good computers and found FSX. I skipped FS9 during some turbulent years and have only used it a few times. FSX hooked me good. I have over 10,000 hours of serious flight time on FSX with a possible extra 40k, or more, on previous simulators and just plain messing around. My first cross country trip was New York to Chicago and the only scenery was in NY and ChiTown. Nothing but flat grey for hours in between. My, how times have changed.

Aurora 13, i9, RTX3080, it's full blown and fast.

Ok, sounds like you added a bunch of airports yourself, shows dedication! But it's not exactly fair to knock the new sim, especially since FSX had a massive headstart, and making scenery, airports and planes for FSX was basically the same since probably FS98 or something... but that ALL changed for the new sim, both for scenery and for aircraft, so there's a big learning curve for developers of freeware and payware to overcome.

For the graphics, well that's about as stonkin' a vid card as you can get, but I suspect strongly that you'll get much improved effects after spending some time optimising in-game settings and maybe your card settings too. Just curious, what's your internet connection speed and dependability? If that's bottlenecked, it could dramatically hurt your graphics as it's not just your own hardware, a lot of data streams to you. Just a thought.

nothing wrong with going between sims!

You might also find some enjoyment with DCS perhaps, it's military aircraft, in a battlefield environment... many who flew these aircraft in real life swear it's pretty good in realism. Some even do reviews and tutorials, mixing real world annecdotes with their instruction.

Basically, two terrain maps are free, two planes are free, there are some freeware mods that are good to great, but most of it is payware aircraft and payware maps. No, it doesn't model the whole world, right now there's the Caucasus map, Syria/Lebanon map, the Nevada map that includes Las Vegas Area 51 Nellis AFB and Fallon's Naval Strike Warfare Center ("Top Gun"), Guam and the Mariannas Islands, a couple small European maps one over the English Channel and the other is.. Normandy? They have modern Hornets and Apaches, WW2 birds like the Spitfire and P-47, helis like the UH-1 Huey and so on. Even if it doesn't sound like it would appeal to you, you ought to at least check out the website and a trailer vid:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/

Nice freeware for DCS : the A-4 Skyhawk, AH-6 Littlebird

6TX9 is missing, which is a small ranch airport in West Texas with the easiest name to remember and I know the owner. It's not a big deal.

6TX9 IS in MSFS. Please let the owner know.

Can't say I'm too impressed by 2020. This seems more like a game company put it together to make a quick buck. No moving your head around anywhere in the cockpit, no three quarter view out front as you approach from an angle. I thought the graphics is what makes this so great. They don't look any better than the original FSX. We've lost thousands of airports. Once I get FSX back up and running I doubt I'll ever fly this again. I see nothing but limitations, whereas FSX is endlessly fluid (for free or low cost) and will never be used to its fullest capacity. Why didn't the Aces Team come up with their own and market it?

Um, yay you I guess?

I couldn't go back to FSX and the monopoly game looking houses and such now.

While I do miss my QW 757, I find the FREE FBW A320 a superior change.

And of course, buzzing my house in 3D instead of the generic or flat photoreal scenery is still so cool to me.

Wow, it's been a while since last time someone popped out here to say FSX was better than MSFS.

I can only say this:

...

...

...

(Edit) Well, I just thought better and won't say anything. It would be a waste of time.

I liked that reply. The old saying is that you can lead a dog to water but you cannot make it drink. He says he still has his FS98 disk and manual well .... I still have my FS95 CD and I must have tried just about all the flight sims ever and can say that MSFS is the best by far. Even the upcoming (they said it would be released this month) Aerofly FS4 looks insipid besides MSFS and it has far fewer airports and scenery coverage! Add the upcoming A310 November announcement and how can anyone go anywhere else I ask!

Try to navigate around FSX by using buildings and landscape from the actual world. You can do that in MSFS but not in FSX.

Fly out in Iowa. In FSX, everything is a flat patchwork of tiles.

In MSFS, the terrain develops a three dimensional quality that resembles the actual landscape.

This is such a strange criticism that gets lobbed all over the place. That VFR flight was impossible before satellite imagery. Yeah right....

I'm not going to knock FS11, it looks to be just about the best VFR simulator purely for the terrain engine. But to say it's suddenly impossible without it... come on now! And yes, I still enjoy FSX. To each their own.

Welcome to the silly season...

Lee Graves

(Private pilot (ASEL); instrument rating; and advanced ground instructor and instrument ground instructor ratings)

(Ryzen 5 3600 cpu; ASUS ROG B-550-F MB; 32 GB Corsair memory; GeForce 2060 video card; Sabrent 1 TB SSD; ASUS 27" Gaming Monitor; Updated Win 10; ANTEC case)

I have 43,729 airports listed in my database. 37k in 2020. 6TX9 is missing, which is a small ranch airport in West Texas with the easiest name to remember and I know the owner. It's not a big deal.

You must have been adding airports as FSX itself only came with around 24,000 airports out of the box. And at least a few of those were not entirely accurate. MSFS is far better in this regard without installing add-ons, especially when you get outside of the US and other western countries. There are also plenty of add-on airports being put out for the new sim as well, with more coming all the time.

What do you mean not being able to move your head around? Maybe you need to map the view controls to your joystick or yoke? Note that keyboard and other control mappings may not match previous MS sims and some peripherals, especially older ones, will need to be manually mapped.

If MSFS is not looking good, then you should check the online scenery settings and your internet connection.

As for changing your mind, that is really up to you to do. Everyone has their own list of requirements for the best sim for themselves.

O.K., so I was wrong about the scenery, and the airports (6TX9 showed up after the first update), but not the Eye Point. I finally made a flight out of Austin this morning up to the Grand Canyon and, yes, the ground forms are way better than FSX. I somehow, after not flying for two years, imagined the FSX graphics to be better than they are. I think I also expected photo real landscape out of MSFS. I just installed FSX on my new i5 and took a look at the graphics. The pixels may be about the same, but the complexity of the landscape in MSFS is far beyond FSX. I can't wait to start checking out all my favorite geological features around the world. I might have flown over Shiprock this morning, but I didn't verify my position...because I couldn't.

Next point- there's no Latitude Longitude reading anywhere in the King Air. I have added 'Shift Z Stats' and downloaded 'Little NavMap' and there should be a fully working Garmin somewhere in the livery stable.

I haven't had the chance to entirely figure out all the binds, but it seems you can't assign joystick/quadrant buttons to the External and Cockpit cameras. Are we stuck opening the menu each time to switch back and forth? This is one area where FSX blows MSFS out of the air. It was so nice to be able to move my Eyepoint and turn my head in any direction to see dials and the landscape as I ran the first few flights while installing FSX. And click buttons on my controllers to switch to whatever view I needed.

So each has its strong points and weak points. That's How the World Turns.

Now I have a copy of the original FSX:Steam for XP(!) coming, which has Acceleration, the one version I've always wanted to play with because of the Aircraft Carrier Operations (and Il-Sturmovich), so we'll see how that pans out. I'm finally able to run X-Plane so I'll probably pick that up and I'll have four simulators to play with, and a Combat Simulator.

Thanks for all the advice. Happy simming.

O.K., so I was wrong about the scenery, and the airports (6TX9 showed up after the first update), but not the Eye Point. I finally made a flight out of Austin this morning up to the Grand Canyon and, yes, the ground forms are way better than FSX. I somehow, after not flying for two years, imagined the FSX graphics to be better than they are. I think I also expected photo real landscape out of MSFS. I just installed FSX on my new i5 and took a look at the graphics. The pixels may be about the same, but the complexity of the landscape in MSFS is far beyond FSX. I can't wait to start checking out all my favorite geological features around the world. I might have flown over Shiprock this morning, but I didn't verify my position...because I couldn't.

 

Next point- there's no Latitude Longitude reading anywhere in the King Air. I have added 'Shift Z Stats' and downloaded 'Little NavMap' and there should be a fully working Garmin somewhere in the livery stable.

 

I haven't had the chance to entirely figure out all the binds, but it seems you can't assign joystick/quadrant buttons to the External and Cockpit cameras. Are we stuck opening the menu each time to switch back and forth? This is one area where FSX blows MSFS out of the air. It was so nice to be able to move my Eyepoint and turn my head in any direction to see dials and the landscape as I ran the first few flights while installing FSX. And click buttons on my controllers to switch to whatever view I needed.

It sounds like the online scenery functionality isn't enabled in your Data settings under General Options. Make sure the Online Functionality, Bing Data and Photogrammetry are all enabled.

As for the camera view controls, you need to spend more time with the control mappings as they are different than FSX. There are options for 45 and 120 degree left and right quickviews, for example, that can be mapped to a joystick. Maybe look up some tutorials on YouTube.

I would highly recommend spending more time with MSFS, and asking questions, before jumping to conclusions about what the sim can and can't do. It works very differently than previous MS sims.

Great points Loki. I would inform/remind newcomers to this sim that UNLIKE the previous versions of MS Flight over the decades, MSFS2020 was 100% crafted from the ground up by an outside French firm (Asobo) and as far as I know has no direct DNA software relationship to all the other MS flight products that went before.

I think of it as the brand new flight sim from a new software company that it is and am SLOWLY learning how to make it work for me without thought to all the older MS sims I have laying around.

In the FSX forum the OP is asking for help installing FSX because his copy fails to install.

The score at half-time is:

MSFS - 1

FSX - 0

I was about to post something to this effect then saw this.

Even with the Steam edition, FSX is getting very tricky and temperamental to run. Menu fonts are tiny trying to run at HD resolution and it doesn't quite have the same life feel to it. Comparing with the train sims, FSX is like MSTS to Train Sim World, a different league and generation ago.

Not that MSFS is perfect, I'm just finishing a reinstall (taking the opportunity to move from my congested C Drive to the more capacious E Drive) after an earlier rage uninstall. But it appears to be moving in the right direction. Over at Avsim (not sure if duplicated here) apparently we are getting a free A310 at the end of the year as part of the official content. Nice.

Of course it still needs a DC10 and Tristar (amongst others) which is probably just about the only thing that stops me recycling FSX off the HD and reclaiming the space.