X Plane 10 or Prepar3d

[ChasenSFO]

The saddest thing though is that today in 2016 the flight sim gaming industry is dead - as far as new products. I mean sure, you have P3D versions and X plane. But gone are the days of 1997-2001 when you could walk into a game store and literally see half a dozen flight sim products on the shelves: Microsoft flight simulators both regular and combats, Sierra Pro Pilot / PP99, Terminal Reality's Fly! and Fly2!, Looking Glass Flight Unlimited I - III, and I think one or two more I can't think of right now.

Market conditions dictate products and I guess people were a lot more interested back then as opposed to today? Whatever the reason, it's kinda sad walking into a game store these days when it comes to flying stuff.

Fry's Electronics. At least in the Bay Area, every location has a good flightsim selection. Most of it works with FS2004 but some of it is FSX and up only. It's worth noting that today most of the legit companies do download only. It's the crappy developers who really shouldn't even charge for their stuff who love to box it and sell it to Joe-novice simmer who doesn't know the difference. Abacus is the WORST. They half ass models and like to use existing sounds and gauges that came with the sim. Avoid them.

A company that I never really read much about but who does a great job is Virtualcol. They mainly specialize in commuter props and the planes come with full working systems/virtual cockpit(but the FMS is limited in the planes that have it), but best of all they come with a crap ton of liveries and they're cheap compared to what similarly realistic planes would cost. I picked up the Saab(all versions from 340A-2000), JS-31and Dash-8(all versions). The planes are over-sensitive on the ground which is my only real complaint, but the 80s-present are well represented in the dozens of airlines included and over-all they're a real bargin and better than the free versions of these planes you'll find around the internet for flightsim. It's pretty nostalgic to pop out of the clouds in a red-top Mesaba Dash-8-200 on the ILS at MSP to see a line of Northwest jets, American Fokker 100s, Vanguard 737s, TWA, ect all lined up waiting for you to land or fly an American Eagle JS-31 on the short hop from SJC-MRY to see Mid Pacific(Reno Air Express), WestAir(UAX), and Sierra Expressway JS-31s lined up along-side Stateswest(USAir Express) and maybe a United 737 at the now abandoned terminal. Everyone wanted a piece of the "small town" pie back then, and people in those cities had a lot(realitively) of options pre-9/11. They will be the stars of many of the YouTube videos I'm making for the flightsim community who have a huge presence on the site.

Here are some of their products, I don't know how their E-jets stack up to the competition(Feelthere/Wilco does a damn good job with those), but with even FS2004, you can't go wrong with these cheap but good looking and fun to fly birds:
http://www.fspilotshop.com/virtualcol-m-147.html?filter_id=&sort1=3a

 

[JustinS]

Fry's Electronics. At least in the Bay Area, every location has a good flightsim selection. Most of it works with FS2004 but some of it is FSX and up only. It's worth noting that today most of the legit companies do download only. It's the crappy developers who really shouldn't even charge for their stuff who love to box it and sell it to Joe-novice simmer who doesn't know the difference. Abacus is the WORST. They half ass models and like to use existing sounds and gauges that came with the sim. Avoid them.

A company that I never really read much about but who does a great job is Virtualcol. They mainly specialize in commuter props and the planes come with full working systems/virtual cockpit(but the FMS is limited in the planes that have it), but best of all they come with a crap ton of liveries and they're cheap compared to what similarly realistic planes would cost. I picked up the Saab(all versions from 340A-2000), JS-31and Dash-8(all versions). The planes are over-sensitive on the ground which is my only real complaint, but the 80s-present are well represented in the dozens of airlines included and over-all they're a real bargin and better than the free versions of these planes you'll find around the internet for flightsim. It's pretty nostalgic to pop out of the clouds in a red-top Mesaba Dash-8-200 on the ILS at MSP to see a line of Northwest jets, American Fokker 100s, Vanguard 737s, TWA, ect all lined up waiting for you to land or fly an American Eagle JS-31 on the short hop from SJC-MRY to see Mid Pacific(Reno Air Express), WestAir(UAX), and Sierra Expressway JS-31s lined up along-side Stateswest(USAir Express) and maybe a United 737 at the now abandoned terminal. Everyone wanted a piece of the "small town" pie back then, and people in those cities had a lot(realitively) of options pre-9/11. They will be the stars of many of the YouTube videos I'm making for the flightsim community who have a huge presence on the site.

Here are some of their products, I don't know how their E-jets stack up to the competition(Feelthere/Wilco does a damn good job with those), but with even FS2004, you can't go wrong with these cheap but good looking and fun to fly birds:
http://www.fspilotshop.com/virtualcol-m-147.html?filter_id=&sort1=3a

Now if someone could come out with a decent CRJ. I know Aerosim is coming out with a CRJ-700/900 soon. I hope that one is better than anything else that's been thrown onto the market.

 

[DhruvK]

Honestly, Boot Camp the Mac into Windows (better graphics drivers across the board on the Windows side) and run both XP and P3D as your needs see fit, or get a MacBook Air instead of the Pro and use the $ you save to purpose-build a desktop sim rig if you can. Better bang for your buck as you won't be constrained by a laptop GPU and underclocked RAM and buses.

 

[tcco94]

Now if someone could come out with a decent CRJ. I know Aerosim is coming out with a CRJ-700/900 soon. I hope that one is better than anything else that's been thrown onto the market.

That CRJ is done actually but they had some FMC issues, I guess. I read their forums because it was supposed to be released last year but once that baby drops, I think it'll be the best regional add on in the market. Aerosim is legit. Just hope it doesn't require a $5000 gaming computer.....

 

[xdashdriver]

I haven't kept up but get the one that has the best built in ATC to practice real world stuff.

The best way to do the ATC thing these days is through PilotEdge. Real, live, trained controllers instead of AI. I would recommend it to anyone doing private/instrument training for ATC familiarization purposes.

 

[Sled14]

I have FSX on my MacBook Pro with Windows, works well