Originally posted by jigsaw
Chairboy, does X-plane have any Garmins and does it support undocked windows?
Would be nice to have a sim where the GPS is more realistic than FS2004.
X-Plane will output NMEA strings, so you can use any outboard navigation tools you want. It also has an open interface where you can hook up to to get any data about anything for the plane over UDP. This makes it straightforward to have it run instrumentation.
It also supports a number of different full-motion simulators out of the box.
Again, I'm not trying to say that X-Plane is straight up better then MSFS, each has their own strengths. MSFS has better eye candy, ATC, and airport detail. X-Plane has superior aerodynamics, models complete systems (hydraulics, power, etc), outputs all the airplane data, etc.
After flying in X-Plane, I took flying lessons and my instructor said he could really tell I used a sim because I nailed almost every maneuver immediately. That was neat. Everything he's taught me, I've been able to simulate in X-Plane exactly.
Also, I really like how X-Plane does the minutae too. Here's an example fully modeled startup procedure for a certain jet if you set it to put you in the plane with everything off (note, the default is the same as MSFS, everything running and ready to go).
Battery master on, set APU from OFF to START for a moment, then let it go to ON. Once the APU is started, bleed air and generator voltage is being supplied to the plane. Set BLEED AIR to APU, then press the engine start buttons one by one. Set BLEED AIR to BOTH so you can use the engines to restart each other in flight. Set APU to OFF.
That, is cool. And there's all sorts of stuff like that that can be modeled in the sim. You can fly it right out of the box, but if you're a detail junky, you can do it just like in real life.
There are some commercial package for MSFS, and that's great. There's over 2,000 free aircraft for X-Plane, but of course, there's varying levels of quality.
Like I said, if I'm looking for something that's pretty, I'll use MSFS. If I want realistic (to the point where companies use it to test their aircraft virtually or train with), I'll use X-Plane.
Best regards,
Chairboy
