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A joystick will add considerably to the experience. That's really all you need and you don't need an expensive one, but it helps a lot if it has a throttle of some kind.
Eventually you'll want a good plane to fly. Depending on what you prefer to fly you might find some good freeware, and the payware is usually well worth it. I flew for about 4 years before buying my first payware. PMDG probably makes the best modern airliners and A2A the best general aviation and warbirds. These are advanced aircraft and will take a lot of work to learn, so be warned. Carenado, Aerosoft and many others make some good planes that usually aren't as complex.
Don't bother with scenery until you get tired of what is already there in the game. Payware scenery only covers relatively small areas and you could be flying everywhere. Check out London, for example. You should be able to find a list of all the high definition cities and airports in FSX and it will take you a *long* time to visit them all. I flew all over the world visiting all the special cities and airports and collecting all the "badges" for visiting special locations. All with default cities and stock aircraft, and always flying from one to the next.
Enjoy!
Hook
I would recommend a third-party weather program (FSRealWX or Active Sky Next) for better experience.
What's regarding aircrafts - it's up to you. Best birds are often mentioned here in the forums.
Joystick with throttle axis is a "must-have" for smooth flying.
If the former then, yes, go ahead; there is no better flight sim available. And you will get plenty of enjoyment out of it. But if you are serious and want to make it into a real hobby then you should not be spending money on this. It is 12 years old, is no longer supported and is simply old tech. More and more third party add on companies are either not supporting their FSX products or are simply no longer developing for it.
But the choice is yours.
He's already answered that one:
Prepar3D doesn't have sales and XPlane isn't for serious simmers.
Hook
He doesn't need the DX10 fixer. I've never used a drive imaging program. You don't need an external hard drive to make backups.
Add-ons for new missions and such are good, but after you've already explored what is already in the game, and there is plenty. If he needs new missions, he'll know.
"Buy now" is good advice. :)
Licopolis is right about people's experiences. I didn't mention that the reason you need a weather program is to replace the built-in Jeppesen weather which no longer works.
This is very true. You can spend years exploring everything that comes included with FSX. I know I did.
The reason to buy a payware aircraft is because you want that specific aircraft (in my case it was the Cessna 337 Skymaster for personal reasons) and no free version exists. Or you want a better version of an aircraft that may already be in FSX, for example the A2A Piper Cub. But you can go years without spending anything.
There's no need to over-think this. This isn't a game that requires all the DLC to have the full experience. The base game IS the full experience. The various DLC is mostly for people who want to specialize. You will know if and when that time comes.
Hook
Perhaps you'd have better luck starting a new thread with this question.
Hook
You know, you remind me of my old maths teacher. "Every time I open my mouth some fool speaks".....and you sure spoke.
But why should I worry. I have both P3D and X-P which, rest assured, are both serious sims.....for serious simmers.
Hopefully the OP will ask the same question elsewhere; I'm sure he'll get different replies.
I looked at XPlane and it was far FAR too limited. I would be totally unable to do the kind of flying I prefer even if the aircraft I want to fly were available. The few XPlane advantages do not make up for all the things it lacks.
Just for grins, why not post screen shots from stock XPlane of such interesting landmarks as Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, the Meteor Crater in Arizona and NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center . They are all in FSX and I have visited them all.
Hook
No OOMs (out of memory) as it is 64 bit, plus a LOT of rendering work is pushed onto the GPU and in fact the more you increase the settings - the harder the GPU works.
Couple P3D v4.3 with a 30 hz capable monitor (like a monitor supporting MHL) with Vsync enabled and the result is a butter smooth flying experience unlike anything possible with FSX-SE.
Setting vsync enabled at 30 hz means a steady 30 fps and leaves plenty of free GPU overhead to ramp up the settings values so that everything looks great.
In all honesty though, 64 bit is probably the most fantastic part, as in FSX-SE (even with the DX10 fixer) I'd be dropping back to minimal GFX settings to fly for any length of time without an OOM CTD.
Cheers
I'm still researching the VAS problem. I got my first ever OOM not long ago so I couldn't research it before. Other things are involved besides textures, but that is the big one.
Hook
While it is certainly true a lot of 32 bit specfic items won't run, there is a lot that will come over and for those that will not there is still FSX-SE.
The original deal breaker for myself was Accu-Feel and my A2A aircraft, surprisingly I never realised how much I missed Accu-Feel till I didn't have it but now that A2A have released a P3Dv4 version and are moving their fleet to P3Dv4 I couldn't be happier (well, I say that but more fps would always not go astray...)
But otherwise a fair number of items can be transfered quite easilty, for example as LM have recompiled the default gauges as x64 the default FSX planes can be moved over as they use the default gauges. Doug Dawson has made an x64 version of his sound dll which is a drop in replacement fo the x86 version and all the Orbx items and most scenery are freely movable to P3D.
You won't cure FSX-SE and VAS, think of it as 4 GB "window" of memory being the maximum FSX-SE (or any 32 bit program) can access no matter how much ram is installed and the more FSX-SE is expanded the more VAS it will use.
I used to turn down the GFX and dutifully monitor via a VAS monitor app (There are a few VAS monitors available), but hey no more... which means an uninterupted flight with almost max GFX set.
Note the 30 hz capable monitor (MHL) and vsync really makes a huge difference, that is unless you've a machine that can pump out 60 fps consistantly. A GSync or FreeSync system might also provide similar vsync smoothness benefits.
Cheers
Keep in mind also that the team behind XP11 is only a few people compared to hundreds of people behind FSX, so of course XP is going to be lacking in some areas but they are constantly improving it and they're adding more and more landmarks. There are heaps of free community mods as well to fix any issues.
Get FSX if you want a good sim for the price, want casual multiplayer, and don't want to spend to much. However if you plan on spending lots of money sice you want a realistic experience then I don't think spending it on an outdated sim is worth it and you should get XP11 instead.