BendyFlyer
Charter Member
In 2023 nearly to years ago I moved my simulated flying to XPlane. Confidently I actually deleted all of my MS and LM systems completely (Except for work I had done in the past).
It has been an interesting journey as XP12 has upgraded and continued its development (The dreaded Beta phase to some). So as XP12 matures or settles depends on your viewpoint - no regrets whatsoever. The sim performs flawlessly on my Intel Chipset with NVIDIA card. The weather, sky and cloud representation is now worlds apart from everyone else and has to be seen to be believed some days. I get 40-60FPS most days and do not worry or have pause to consider how is the computer handling all this it does!
A great strength is its use and collaboration with the simusers itself and the tools it provides to help out. So scenery - lets be frank still some work on landclass and meshes is needed (They are not alone here) but from altitude above 2000ft - looks very realistic. I have only in a few special cases bought or added on scenery to this sim - why? the basic airports etc are so well done to be as good as payware and most of it comes out of the collaboration via the Scenery Gateway.
Aircraft in the sim - spoilt for choice, B707, B747 (Classic and 400) B737's Classic and 800 etc and Airbuses some of the best in the sim world bar none - the exceptional Tollis A319, A320, A321, A340 and A330. Study level Embraers are there as well and GA aircraft basically anything and everything (a few minor exceptions). Tuboprops - the F27 and F50 the Dash 8 100,200,300 and 400. ATRs etc all available. DC-3s or C-47 wonderful port and developed rendition of the Manfred Jahn C-47 (AWX) VSkylabs does one just as good and X-Aviation have a great detailed one as well.
What is missing? - big flying boats of the past and the big pistons such as the Constellation, DC-4 and DC-6. I have 3 high quality Piper Aerostars and even the Aerostar Jet. Not to mention BN-2s, DHC 2 (Beavers) DHC4 Caribous. etc etc. KIng Air's? yep 350 and C90 both. There are some splendid payware quality free models from some very dedicated designers and builders (curiously they are Asian either Japan or Chinese) and as for ground systems and traffic it is all there and all works.
Military stuff - not all that much but I have the ported Jahn Beverly a brilliantly rebuild Blackburn Buccaneer and handsome T33, Restauravia's French stuff such as the Crusader, Alpha Jet and various other French gems have all been ported and fixed for XPlane but still lacking some decent jets. WW2 sort of catered for but not that great - some good stuff for XP11 but did not make the cut to XP12 alas and they are not compatible really due to coding issues.
Best of all I do not rely on streaming services to have a working very high quality flight simulation. For less than 100 bucks it was a great buy! Kept me interested in flight simming even as I age and slow down.
So no regrets at all a great flight sim!
It has been an interesting journey as XP12 has upgraded and continued its development (The dreaded Beta phase to some). So as XP12 matures or settles depends on your viewpoint - no regrets whatsoever. The sim performs flawlessly on my Intel Chipset with NVIDIA card. The weather, sky and cloud representation is now worlds apart from everyone else and has to be seen to be believed some days. I get 40-60FPS most days and do not worry or have pause to consider how is the computer handling all this it does!
A great strength is its use and collaboration with the simusers itself and the tools it provides to help out. So scenery - lets be frank still some work on landclass and meshes is needed (They are not alone here) but from altitude above 2000ft - looks very realistic. I have only in a few special cases bought or added on scenery to this sim - why? the basic airports etc are so well done to be as good as payware and most of it comes out of the collaboration via the Scenery Gateway.
Aircraft in the sim - spoilt for choice, B707, B747 (Classic and 400) B737's Classic and 800 etc and Airbuses some of the best in the sim world bar none - the exceptional Tollis A319, A320, A321, A340 and A330. Study level Embraers are there as well and GA aircraft basically anything and everything (a few minor exceptions). Tuboprops - the F27 and F50 the Dash 8 100,200,300 and 400. ATRs etc all available. DC-3s or C-47 wonderful port and developed rendition of the Manfred Jahn C-47 (AWX) VSkylabs does one just as good and X-Aviation have a great detailed one as well.
What is missing? - big flying boats of the past and the big pistons such as the Constellation, DC-4 and DC-6. I have 3 high quality Piper Aerostars and even the Aerostar Jet. Not to mention BN-2s, DHC 2 (Beavers) DHC4 Caribous. etc etc. KIng Air's? yep 350 and C90 both. There are some splendid payware quality free models from some very dedicated designers and builders (curiously they are Asian either Japan or Chinese) and as for ground systems and traffic it is all there and all works.
Military stuff - not all that much but I have the ported Jahn Beverly a brilliantly rebuild Blackburn Buccaneer and handsome T33, Restauravia's French stuff such as the Crusader, Alpha Jet and various other French gems have all been ported and fixed for XPlane but still lacking some decent jets. WW2 sort of catered for but not that great - some good stuff for XP11 but did not make the cut to XP12 alas and they are not compatible really due to coding issues.
Best of all I do not rely on streaming services to have a working very high quality flight simulation. For less than 100 bucks it was a great buy! Kept me interested in flight simming even as I age and slow down.
So no regrets at all a great flight sim!
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