Ok I finally got spoiled and need help

[Aviara1985]

A short story... a long time I've been using FSX with Overland planes and planes in that quality region, mainly because my old pc couldn't handle more. Since I have a new pc since March I still kept this path mainly because I didn't want to limit my aircraft choice to the high quality ones available.

Well, until I recently tried the Aerosoft Airbus product, which spoiled me. I'm fine with that, cause I've been missing a lot. But then again there is currently no other plane I would fly in the FS..... can't wait for the Aerosoft A330. But currently still looking for a second plane for a little diversity. I'm looking into the 737NG and can't really decide between iFly and PMDG. €60 is a high price for the PMDG option and while I'm sure it's more than worth it I'm hesitating to spend it to realize I won't be able to land this bird in EDDF, EGLL or KLAX with traffic and weather.

Does the PMDG 737 give around the same FPS as the Aerosoft Airbus and will I have a hard time getting used to the systems (Airbus <-> Boeing).

And how does the PMDG 777 hold up in terms of frames compared to the two?

[JWNoctis]

As far as I've experienced, PMDG 737NGX gives about the same FPS as the Aerosoft Airbus, and PMDG 777's slightly slower. All of them worked like a charm in FSX:SE.

The Boeing 737 had significantly less automation than an Airbus and may take a bit more to work - though the only work there would be the occasional cruise and landing altitude before takeoff, NAV frequency and course and MCP speed on approach, and fuel pump switch as center tank runs down. There's also a lack of FBW-provisioned autotrim, automatic turn coordination and envelope protection for not being a FBW aircraft, though those are part of a different kind of fun, I think.

Also one of PMDG 737's - and 777's, too - selling points is extensive and accurate system modeling, down to being able to transfer fluid between hydraulic systems with a specific sequence of action just like the real deal. In fact, the real aircraft's FCOM, FCTM and QRH are included in the package, and all of them make really nice read and probably worthed the price alone...albeit you would not have to deal with most of those systems and procedures unless you insisted on starting up from cold-and-dark, or played with simulated failures and emergencies, which both of these addons can do.

[Aviara1985]

I'm sure i'll be at least as happy with the pmdg 737 as i am with the aerosoft a32x. The only reason i'm hesitating is performance despite having a strong cpu (i7 4790k). How much 'slower' is the 777?

[Lowke]

PDMG has better frames than Ifly by about 5-10 fps. It is also a much better simulator. However it is much more expensive. If you can hold on and wait till you have enough money for the PMDG one get that you wont regret it. HOWEVER
WARNING. You might find once you start installing lots of addons that eventually you begin to suffeer from OOM (out of memory) Issues. This is not linked to hardware it is to do with the hard coding of FSX. Which means that basically if you want to fly your fancy planes you will have to turn off / turn down your nice scenery. - you cant have both unless yu stop your flight every so often save reload and continue. Eventually you will come to the same conclusion as everyone else and buy P3D because it doesnt have this OOM issue. This will mean that youll have to rebuy a more expeneive version of the PMDG plane.

That rant out of the way - Welcome to Fligh simming. Its a wonderful world.

[Aviara1985]

Well actually I've been Flight simming since the FS4 days back in 1995 ;-). And for long it was enough using overland quality planes, which I was forced as well since my old pc couldn't handle much more.
But as I have mentioned, I got myself the Aerosoft Airbus A32X, especially since I'm an Airbus guy (doesn't mean I don't like or won't fly Boeing or any other) and got spoiled.

I don't use add-on airports, as I don't want to limit myself to where I will fly and keep a "balanced eye-candy". I just use enhanced AFCADs for the default airports (e.g. from Ray Smith). So I guess that spares some resources, but I won't fly without the following add-ons:

Active Sky Next
REX4 Texture Direct + Soft Clouds
GSX
and I want to get GEX one by one
Ultimate Traffic 2 (preferably 50% or above)

As mentioned the Aerosoft A32X was running without issues until now along with the Add-Ons I just mentioned and I rarely go below the locked 30 fps (by nvidia inspector). So if the 737 NGX runs as well as the Aerosoft A32X I might jump as I really want some diversity and having the A32X alongside the 737-800/900 is a great start into the world of quality aircraft in flight simming and will also soften the wait for the Aerosoft A330 ;-)


My current system:
i7 4790k @ 4 GHz
GTX 750 (GTX 970 is planned)
8 GB RAM (16 GB is planned)
Windows 10 64-Bit

I'm thinking of getting P3D. Will my system (with the upgrades) be able to handle P3D v2 with the mentioned Add-Ons? And what license would I use since I'm a little confused with the options.

[JWNoctis]

That spec should be able to handle P3D just well, especially if upgraded as planned. I'm currently running fair to moderate ASN weather with stock clouds, stock full autogen with most other sliders close to the right, and complex addon planes like PMDG 737 and Aerosoft A320 in FSX:SE at 20-30fps with 8xSQ antialiasing(Try it if you haven't already - everything looked that much more lovely) and 30fps limit via NI on an i7-3632QM with a GT640M and 16GB of memory, on a laptop.

And as far as I'm aware of, most are reporting superior performance in P3D under similar conditon, and P3D can be configured to look much, much better, albeit at a expence in performance that a GTX970 should be able to handle. Also overclock your processor(with a safety margin!) if possible, since stock FSX and FSX:SE are almost always CPU limited - No idea about P3D on this.

However, P3D versions of PMDG and A2A's addons are much more expensive, and PMDG's 777 for P3D is probably the single most expensive addon out there, apparently due to licensing.

For traffic, I'd rather fly on VATSIM/IVAO than having to contend with stock ATC and their blindness to procedures, especially when AI(used MyTraffic 5.3c) is expensive on performance for a machine like mine...But everyone had a different way of flying, I guess!

[Aviara1985]

I'm not too comfortable about overclocking. It might seem ironic why I got a K-Processor when I don't plan to overclock, but I wanted the 4 GHz by default. Btw I'm still using the stock cooler. I plan to get a different cooler as well, but I'd still be uncomfortable about overclocking. It's the first PC I assembled by myself, which made me very cautious of it's components ;-).

I guess I'll stick around with FSX for the time being as long as it's still alive. Eventually I'll switch to P3D or something else that might rise.
So then PMDG 737NGX it is end of this month ;-).