Which do you prefer and why?

FSX+acceleration. higer performance and realism

I switched to FSX mostly for the aircraft selection. Granted there were a lot of great versions for FS9, but they also work in FSX (with a little tweaking)

Terrain such as Orbx, FSDreamteam and GEX/UTX also.

Autogen! Lots and lots and lots of autogen!

Also, cool new feature possibilities on aircraft.

Did you really say "higher performance" with a straight face?

FSX = Better graphics and more realism

The terrain, down low, is much better in FSX. It's just awful in FS9. I like the way you move around in the cockpit, as you manuever the airplane, too. The whole experience is just much more realistic and immersive for me. After just a few minutes of flying it, I knew that FS9 had to go.

My most important airport scenery never got ported to FSX. That's a deal breaker for me.

Actually FS9 loaded with scenery,terrain, sky/clouds, and water enhancements looks damn good, people. I agree with those who say FSX has a superior feeling of flight dynamics, wind buffeting, etc. out of the box. I also prefer the reprsentation of water out of the box, when comparing the two. It's not even close. If you have a DX10 vid card and Vista/Win7, and check DX10 preview in FSX, the difference is even greater. But I actually prefer FS9's stock flight "missions" better than FSX's. The only solution, then, is to have both.

Exactly. When writing for PC Pilot I end up flipping back and forth between the two. FSX has yet to have a King Air B200 that approaches the quality of the Aeroworx B200, so I have to use FS9 when writing articles that use that airplane. Overall I like FSX out of the box better...but most people are using heavily modded FS9 installs which evens things up a bit.

BeachAV8R

I had both sitting on my old system, but when I built a new one in February, I figured I never fired FS9 up after getting FSX. Bought a ton of addons for FSX too. So I didn`t copy my old install to the new machine.

Beach, you write for PC Pilot? One of my fav magazines. Kudos.

About the only thing I miss about FS2004 is flying my favorite circuit between "FlyTampa! Seattle (KSEA)" and "Flightzone 02: Portland." There are a few other sceneries that I wish were available for FSX also.

Every once in a while I reinstall FS2004 with the intention of keeping it stock and to just fly the lessons. Invariably I install an old favorite aircraft (like the MAAM-SIM B-25J for example) and a scenery package or environment enhancement usually follows soon after. For some reason, my install always ends up acting goofy or crashing, etc., with the passage of time so I get frustrated and delete everything. I've probably done this a dozen times over the last two years.

Otherwise I've completely migrated over to FSX.

Hi all,

I have both on my computer and have too much of an investment in FS9 to walk away from it. Both FS9 and FSX have a lot to offer with all the addons. I also like flying Aeroworx King Air B200 in FS9. Too bad it was not made for FSX as well. FS9 looks much better after I adjusted the cfg file so the scenery textures are no longer blurry at a distance. They are now in focus and look a little more realistic.

FSX does look more realistic out of the box, and even when some of the sliders are turned down. Unlike FS9, when fps drop in FSX to the high teens and low 20s planes landing and taking off are still fairly smooth in flight. Having tweeked FSX on my system scenery textures remain sharp and there is no more stutter. And because of the tweeks I am flying FSX most of the time now.

Wired

I do...usually 1 to 3 articles per issue. Usually G/A stuff and coverage of some combat flight sims. My favorite assignment was the 6 issue installment of DCS: Black Shark training articles. That was fun stuff. Glad you enjoy the magazine.

Regards...
BeachAV8R

Price and age if I'm not mistaken.

I prefer FS9, though granted its only cause i cant run FSX very well. I am having a blast with FS9 though, especially with the variety of AI planes and tweaks i just added.

I am very disappointed that FSNAV will not work in FSX. That was a great program.

Scenery is much better in FSX, though.

My main reason was the "Missions" concept in FSX. Even though there are some pretty good addon missions out there, unfortunately it seems like the idea didn't really catch on
BUT the first thing I did was port the FS9 vintage aircraft (DH88 Comet, Lockheed Vega, Trimotor) into FSX. They are pretty much the only aircraft I fly in FS.

True about the missions... also one of my favorites.

Do you know about the Mountain missions from [url=http://www.vertical-studios.net/]Vertical Studios]/url]? They're great missions, rather cheap. Not difficult but they give a nice idea of mountain flying in some beautiful areas.

There was an amazing freeware addon pack for mountain strips, FS9, in the Cascade mountains (Washington State, North West USA). it was simple, but darn fun! Rough little strips, often not flat, bumpy even! STOL aircraft were ideal, but with careful flying, some regular planes can get there too. Beavers and Twin Otters are best! Many had significant slopes, making the approach image quite different than a normal landing appearance.

Hi chaps,
could somebody tell me if there are big differences between the helo flight models of FS9 and FSX?
The flight physics seem to be somewhat stiff and odd in FS9 compared to DCS: Black Shark for instance.
Does FSX a better job there?

Also would FSX run properly on my humble rig?

Athlon X4 @ 3Ghz
4 Gigs of RAM
Geforce 460 GTX /w 768MB
Edit: Windows 7 64bit

Thanks in advance!

If you're running 64bit OS you should be ok.

I can't tell any difference in the helo flight models.

What is advantageous about a 64bit OS in running FSX?

Ive heard people complain about the FSX flight models on the Cliffs of Dover site but I cant tell any difference myself. I used to have FS9 and loved the old planes but I prefer FSX because of the vastly improved visuals and the missions are great. However I do miss the old planes such as the Trimotor. They are available for FSX but dont work in Directx10 mode with Acceleration (textures dont show up) which is really annoying. However I cant play without Directx 10 as I love the cockpit shadows and improved graphics/speed. Prehaps its just a matter of changing the textures from jpegs to the acceration version I may have to look into that. I did love the old missions as well though in Century of Flight, they arent present in FSX obviously. I dont know why they had to remove all those great old planes and missions for FSX.

The standard helos are very (too) easy in both, but there are some good addon ones.
Really the only reason for using FS2004 is if you have an old and slow PC or a library of expensive add-ons.
Try hovercontrol for more info
Cheers
Keith
PS your rig is better than mine , mine runs FSX OK

I don't need traffic on the roads and animals in the jungle. I really don't need to re-purchase every add-on I have purchased for fS2004 for FSX.