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Simon · Jan 7, 2003, 09:00 AM

I wanted to buy a flight simulator for my great new MDD PowerMac to practice Instrument Flight Rules I've been learning in theory. I'm not interested in military sims (like Hornet or WarBirds), but civilian planes from a Cessna prop to an Airbus A340-600 jet.

I have seen XPlane. It's not bad and I got the impression that they are very concerned about proper physics in the sim engine, but when I look at the graphics and compare them to pics from MS Flight Sim 2002 they start looking pretty pale...

What options other than XPlane do I have? If I understand correctly MS's sim don't work on the Mac (I had one years ago, but maybe that's just history?).

Is there nothing for the Mac around that can compete with the MS sim? (I'm serious, no flame war intended)

PJMacDude · Jan 7, 2003, 10:14 AM

Well there is "Fly! II", but that got bad critics, seems too unstable. Best Flight Sim out there is in fact X-Plane.
What you say about physics is very correct: they do see to it that every plane is handled the same way as in reality. Same goes for weather-conditions and so on... Very accurate.

Flight instructors even give courses with X-Plane.

About the graphics... I saw some screenshots @ the developper site and they seems to be nice, no??

As for MS Flight Sim... Well I suppose there's the one advantage in using PC's

Footy · Jan 7, 2003, 11:18 AM

MS Flight Simulator is coming to the Mac, though I can't say when. I'm not so sure you should shake off X-plane, the graffics are pretty darn good from what I can see and isn't the flight physics the most important thing.

Simon · Jan 8, 2003, 09:27 AM

Thanks for the info guys. It's true that the physics are very important for a flight sim - as a physicist I surely won't doubt that.

About my graphics criticism. On the XPlane site it doesn't look bad at all. Especially that B767. But take a look at the details - especially with add-on packages. Often the gear sucks big time. Flaps that extend over the edge of the wing leave some space to see through the wing (from a passenger seat) onto the runway. You don't see this effect in XPlane because the details are just not correctly done. Of course this are minor issues, but if I pay 60$ for a Sim and another 50$ for a joystick I'd like the game to be perfect. The MS sim doesn't cost much more, but the details are hell of a lot better. I hope they port the 2002 version to the Mac. That would rock! That would prtobably be the only really good program I have ever had on a Mac from MS.

Rastar · Jan 8, 2003, 09:44 AM

Can't speak about X-Plane cause I havent (couldn't) tried it...but have been using MS 2002 Pro for over a year, As far as I know, their is nothing quite like it on the market. Absolute realisitic graphics and performance. I don't think you can go wrong, if you have access to a high powered PC, with a nice screen.

NOTE to Developers: I would be willing to examine and review X-Plane- if not for the $ 100.00 and the extreme download (me- on a dialup), and then the demo would not launch-something about missing the plane and some other stuff. I (and most users) want to double click an icon- and go. Also, It appears, from all the releases that X-Plane is a work in progress- wrap it up now.