new home Sim build

[SuperCrash]

Okay, I have decided I like the marketing and reputation of A2A simulations vehicles. I have purchased no vehicles yet for either environment, so nothing invested in either FSX or P3D.

If you started over would you use FSX or P3D? I like P3D just worried it is not trageting my market and I think I only need a couple A2A aircrafts ( C182, F33A and maybe P51 )


Sorry I dont intend to start another P3D vs FSX, just looking for concenus on what most active simmers are using today in 2018.

Thanks for your input and opinion.

[MarcE]

why would you get a dead horse if you could get one that's just broken in?

FSX is dead. seriously. That's got nothing to do with P3D vs FSX but I wouldn't invest a single dollar in addons for a platform that loses more and more supporters (developers) The P-51 is not available yet for P3Dv4 but someone said a couple of weeks ago that it's not far away.. whatever that means in A2A terms.
P3D is a bit more expensive, sure, but the difference today between FSX (that you will have to tweak first that it actually runs properly) and P3Dv4 is huge.

Also most high quality developers want you to purchase different licenses for FSX and P3D so if you got the addons for FSX now and decided to switch to P3D in a couple of weeks you would have to pay twice. I personally wouldn't touch FSX anymore.

Cheers,
Marc

[patful]

Just a thought if you're really thinking of the future: though I think the Bonanza will be available for FSX, I'm not sure if A2A will continue to develop new FSX products. Maybe Lewis or somebody could confirm one way or the other?

[Blitzer]

The investment to get P3D is higher but there are essentially 3 significant reasons (in my opinion) why it is the only really logical choice of the two....

1. P3D v4 introduced a 64 bit platform ending OOM errors and extending the possibilities of what can be achieved to further enhance the flight sim experience.

2. P3D is actively still being developed and is therefore making better use of current hardware capabilities. This also has the mutual benefit to Lockheed Martin and 3rd party developers to support each other.

3. In comparison FSX was released in 2005 (if I recall correctly) and the development team long since been dissolved. It is likely that 3rd party developers (in the longer term) will gradually favour developing for a supported flight sim platform (P3D) than one that is not supported and hinders or prevents them developing their own products due to the limits of FSX.

The above are very much the reasons I switched to P3D despite the financial investment. I still have FSX installed but rarely use it, quite simply P3D offers a far better experience and makes use of the hardware I also invested in for flight sim-ing.

HTH.

[jeepinforfun]

There are still more users of FSX than P3D so why would A2A stop developing for both platforms.

I only fly for an hour or two so never get OOM's in FSX unless I fly over London and forget to back up my settings. I might go with P3D when they fix the default ATC and get rid of the Airport flatten concept. I'm sixty years old and on a small pension so to re-purchase all the A2A aircraft again doesn't make financial sense to me even if they are all I fly. Nor does having to buy each new upgrade of P3D through the years. For me sim flying is just a learning and relaxation exercise and FSX is still viable for that especially with all my scenery upgrades.

Now for someone just starting off P3D would be a good buy especially if you are a fan of A2A like I am. Either platform still needs some computer smarts so keep that in mind, in my case the FSX hobby has been a good one and I have learned much about computers and aviation and I have done things I never thought I would.

There is also xPlane but you would have to do without A2A aircraft and that would be a big loss if you really want to learn about flying the way it should be instead of just gaming aviation.

[MarcE]

There are still more users of FSX than P3D so why would A2A stop developing for both platforms.

I can't speak for A2A of course, but the more P3D advances from FSX the more they will have to develop twice. No idea how many customers they have on either platform but I'm not sure if that efford will be economically justified in the future. They have sold all their products at a very low price thank to their sponsors. But nevertheless the amount of work that has to go into their products must be huge, considering their release cycles. Until P3Dv3 it was rather easy to throw it out for both platforms. But just look at the time required to "update" the existing fleet to v4.. The later airplanes were maybe developed with 64bit in mind, I don't know... But how long it took for the Spitfire - one year! - and for the other airplanes to get ready for v4... well, someone has to pay that efford. I really can't imagine that FSX with its limitations compared to P3Dv4 is going to be high in their priority. Several scenery develpoers have dropped FSX, there must be a reason for this, although FSX might still have many users.

[patful]

There are still more users of FSX than P3D so why would A2A stop developing for both platforms.

Here's the thread from a year ago that's always stuck in the back of my mind. See Lewis' response, the "just yet" made me think it might not be much longer. Maybe I'm just reading more into it.
https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewto ... 23&t=60392

[Bruce66]

I chose FSX when I decided I wanted to fly A2A airplanes for several reasons.

Number one has to be cost. To build a PC that will run P3D v4 I would have had to spend nearly three times (at the time) what I spent on the PC I got. Plus P3D is a much more expensive program.

P3D is still in development, which is a good thing, but if I get what I need now will it be outdated in a year? There are those who will say FSX is already outdated, maybe it is, but we still know where it's at and the limitations. A bit like buying a really good used car where you know the whole history and it comes with a load of spare parts.

For FSX there is a ton of stuff available from aircraft to scenery through atmosphere to ATC whether you are offline or online. Maybe most online simmers are going to P3D, I don't know, but I am strictly offline so FSX suits me fine.

Then there is the future. I reckon FSX will last me for a long time yet and if it does start to show its age and I am still alive and flight simming I will look again at what is on offer at that point. Il-2 kept me going for years before I finally switched to FSX so I can see that I may possibly move to P3D or some other flight simulator like DCS in the future but for now I am happy with FSX and never doubt my choice.

Just my point of view of course but it looked like FSX needed some fans to chime in.

[CAPFlyer]

Bruce, sorry I have to disagree that you need 3x the build cost to use P3D. My system runs P3D, even with the very complex airplanes and scenery just fine (at 30 FPS) if I get rid of the "ohh pretty" stuff you only see if you are outside the airplane, things not required for a SimPit anyway. In fact, since adding an SSD, my P3D runs better than FSX with similar settings - a benefit of P3D being 64-bit instead of 32-bit and its ability to better use multi-core CPU and heavier reliance on the GPU.

I have the following -

Intel i5-3570 Ivybridge
16GB DDR3 2400 RAM
GeForce 950Ti 1GB DDR5
WD Blue 3D 1TB SSD

[n421nj]

Starting from scratch I’d go p3d v4. Even though fsx has more add ons. I figure in a way it’s kind of like buying installments. Things getting ported over to p3d come out little by little so it’s not just one big purchase.

[Bruce66]

Hiya CAP

Prices are likely different in the UK from Texas. I just googled the SSD drive only (which I am not using an SSD drive though I did look into them). A brief search brought up prices that were half the cost of my entire home built right. I am very much a 'Simmer on a Budget'

Add to that my barely capable video card, (which was cheap as borscht) and I really am running on a shoestring.

[CAPFlyer]

You don't have to get a 1TB SSD. I went big because it's going to be the primary drive for my next computer build and I have several large programs I run that benefit from it. Getting a drive half the size would still be more than enough for P3D.