Best Flight Simulator

[Mogus]

I recently read an article in Time magazine (I was really really bored and I'll never do it again, I promise!) about some nutcase who created X Plane. The guy worked really hard to make an extremely accurate flight model, apparently much better than Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004's model. Instead of using the data in the POHs, he actually did his own research in the planes. If this is true, I'd definitely choose X Plane over FS2004, despite X Plane's lackluster graphics. It said X Plane is a more valuable training tool. Can anyone confirm this? Which is better?

 

[bigD]

I use X-Plane all the time, and personally prefer it over FS2002 (I haven't tried 2004 yet). X-Plane actually breaks down the surfaces of the airframe and does the various force calculations on each of them. MSFS on the other hand, uses lookup tables to determine how the airplane should respond to different situations.

So X-Plane ends up giving you a good flight model for whatever you're flying (which also makes it a good test bed for people designing their own planes in real life), whereas MSFS' flight model is only as good as the lookup table of that particular airplane. Some are very good though, so it's not necessarily fair to say that X-Plane's flight model is simply superior to MSFS'. In most cases it is, but if you take the time to get a highly realistic plane in MSFS, you can get one.

If you're into scenery, MSFS is a better sim - there are simply more people using it, and therefore more custom scenery is out there. Although I just got the Socal scenery pack for X-Plane, and it's awesome. Satellite imagry mapped over the terrain - I can fly over my old house, school, and so on! It's pretty cool.

I use X-Plane primarily for instrument stuff, and it's fine. Personally, since I'm just flying with a joystick and I'm missing a lot of the tactile feedback of a real plane anyway, the flight model becomes less relevant. All I know is that power settings in the sim result in airspeeds and performance that match what I really fly, and that's good enough for me. But plenty of people are happy with MSFS in that regard as well. Both sims have complete global databases for airports, approaches, and so on.

Bottom line - you won't go wrong with either. I kinda like X-Plane because it's the "Linux" of flight sims - there's a die hard group of fans that are determined to produce the highest quality planes (within 1% performance-wise in all flight regimes). The drawback of X-Plane is that, like Linux, it's not as polished, and sometimes you have to deal with bugs here and there (buy the lastest version of 6.x - wait until 7.x matures a bit). But the author, Austin Meyer, is receptive to feature requests, and does his best to fix and bugs that are reported. Download it and give it a try!

 

[ammodawg]

Depends on what you are looking for.

Good Points

X-Plane =
1. High framerates even if you don't have a power rig for a computer.

2. The most accurate flight dynamics of the 2 simulators. You can do stalls and spins.

3. You can fly on Mars

Flight Simulator =
1. Looks prettier

2. Too many free downloadable planes to count. There are sites that have hundreds of planes, helicopters, scenery and everything else free to download and put in the game.

3. Very simple to setup and go. My grandfather is 65 and he plays on this thing until 2 am.


Bad Points

X-Plane =
1. Not very pretty

2. I havn't been able to find that many planes and stuff to download and add to the game.

3. Constantly being updated requiring either a cable modem or alot of time watitng on the good ole 56k

Flight Simulator =
1. Framerates if you have a lower end computer or like having all the pretty stuff turned up way high.

2. Flight dynamics. Spins and stalls can kinda be done but not really the same way as they would be done in a plane or simulated in X-Plane ( kinda hard to explain unless you actually try it in both of them)

3. Although they have really good info I almost want to shoot myself watching the King Videos that are included with FS to teach you how to use the simulator. My god does he ever blink his eyes?

I have owned both and chose to stay with Microsoft FS. It just offered alot more. Besides I hardly ever do spins in the simulator. I prefer to fly as a virtual airline pilot online at VATSIM.com. I believe that if you go to the X-Plane website you can download a free demo to try. Then find someone that has Microsoft FS (if you know pilots one of them will for sure have it) and try it. Like I said it all depends on what kind of flying you want to do with it.

 

[T-Gates]

I've always had the latest and greatest copy of MSFS on my PC. I just got 2004 the other day along with a new fast Laptop. And may I just say....it kicks some serious A$$. The scenery is great and the new weather graphics are pretty cool. I thought once I started flying professionally that the FS big would wear off, but I still enjoy it.

I have tried other sims, i.e. X-Plane, but after years of MSFS I always went back.....

--03M

 

[Jafar]

I have tried both and hands down prefer MS FS2004. I have had them all from 2000 on.

My experiance with X-plane has been purely negative. In fact, I venture to say it is terrible.

I am always hearing how accurate the flight model in x-plane is, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Stalls and spins are slightly better than MS, but some of the extreme ends of the regimes are down right crazy wrong. How about jets that roll violently and uncontrollably about their longitudinal axis when they reach mach 2? Or a fighter jet that's included with the program zoom climbing to 145,000 ft. and still going up like a bat out of hell. Sorry, I'm not impressed. Not to mention that goofy ATC background crap. It's like a broken record, spitting out the same meaningless vectors and info. That kind of nonsense belongs in an arcade game. They might as well throw in some muzak.

MS FS2004 on the other hand offers quite a bit more for less money. Yeah, you need a high horsepower machine to run it at its full potential, but as far as semi-valuable training goes, I consider it to be the superior product.

The fact is instrument training is about all you are going to get on your PC anyway, IMO.

One last angry jab at X-plane; Its made by some communist in his basement that actually thinks Macs are real computers and linux is a real OS. And no, I'm not ducking for cover.

 

[Dash8]

I tried xplane a few years ago, could never get it to work.

never cared for 'uncle bill' or his flight sim, too unrealistic and hardware demanding.

had the original 'flight unlimited' excellent excellent program, aircraft flew beautifully, graphics were cool, but it's old now, but it had a place i've actually flown at, sedona az. supposedly they used actual fluid dymanimcs computations to determine the movement of air around the aircraft and the input of control surfaces, boy could you through that extra around the sky like crazy

i haven't really looked at any sims in years so i don't know if there's a newer version of it

 

[Fast8945]

I've only flown MSFS. Usually i am about a year behind schedule that they come out. I can't afford the 50 bux every other year. But there is so much for MSFS that is free, i would say go with MSFS!

 

[snoopy_1]

The U.S. Navy has a 400 Meg download that adds several aircraft and lessons to FS2002, I believe they use this to supplement pilot training, they used to use it anyway, not sure they still are. You can download it here. https://wwwcfs.cnet.navy.mil/microsimptt/

 

[whatwasthat?]

Try Aces High:
www.hitechcreations.com

The sim is a free, fairly complete and realistic download. Not too good for practicing approaches but who cares, you can kill stuff!

I'm not really into gaming but I end up dogfighting online till the wee hours.

Enjoy!

 

[Citationkid]

X-plane flies a lot better then FS2004, but the graphics in '04 are great compaired to x-plane.