FSX and P3D_V4.5 were my goto Sims for years. I had tons of airplanes and when I took a liking to a particular airport I built it, including custom buildings and hand placed vegetation and ground textures. When MSFS came along I found that my current puter wasn't quite up to the task. I loved the screenshots that were coming from MSFS but alas I was stuck with the "older sims". Eventually I found a great deal on Amazon and put together a very nice system that ran MSFS with all sliders maxed. Right away I found the learning curve a bit daunting, especially the controllers as Asobo introduced the inclusion of both keyboard and mouse assignments (preset) which meant that if I set my controllers for certain function to more mimic what I was used to I also had to search the presets for the keyboard and mouse to keep them from interfering with my setup. It took awhile to get that worked out.
The lack of freeware aircraft was something I knew about so I sucked it up and found a sparse few that fit my way of flying. What followed was the realization that the age old joy of tweaking the panels, textures, etc was out the window, especially for payware which can be encrypted, keeping any changes from being made. I know that there are ways to modify, but as far as being as simple as it had been for previous versions. . .definitely not.
I had also hoped to move some of my custom airports to MSFS however that now requires that I have a basic knowledge of Blender in order to import the work I did in Sketchup into Blender and then redo it to meet the requirements of Blender then re-texture using the new texture regimen and then export for use in MSFS which is also a totally different subject.
Anyway, after hoping to eventually get into MSFS 2020 and all the beautiful scenery and finally getting there I find that I fly very little (my average was at least a few hours each day if I wasn't building scenery) maybe twice a week for an hour or so. I do fly FSX and P3D the most.
2024 is not something I'll move to as the "new stuff" isn't of any interest to me and going by the videos and screenshots the ground textures and ambience of the Sim are more or less the same. So I would say that the anticipation of joining the MSFS world has, for me at least, been somewhat anticlimactic.
The lack of freeware aircraft was something I knew about so I sucked it up and found a sparse few that fit my way of flying. What followed was the realization that the age old joy of tweaking the panels, textures, etc was out the window, especially for payware which can be encrypted, keeping any changes from being made. I know that there are ways to modify, but as far as being as simple as it had been for previous versions. . .definitely not.
I had also hoped to move some of my custom airports to MSFS however that now requires that I have a basic knowledge of Blender in order to import the work I did in Sketchup into Blender and then redo it to meet the requirements of Blender then re-texture using the new texture regimen and then export for use in MSFS which is also a totally different subject.
Anyway, after hoping to eventually get into MSFS 2020 and all the beautiful scenery and finally getting there I find that I fly very little (my average was at least a few hours each day if I wasn't building scenery) maybe twice a week for an hour or so. I do fly FSX and P3D the most.
2024 is not something I'll move to as the "new stuff" isn't of any interest to me and going by the videos and screenshots the ground textures and ambience of the Sim are more or less the same. So I would say that the anticipation of joining the MSFS world has, for me at least, been somewhat anticlimactic.
