September 24, 2024 / admin / 0 Comments
It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged about anything other than flight simulation and with the quickly approaching release date for the new version of GIANTS Farming Simulator I thought I would put a few thoughts down.
As I’ve mentioned before, my first experience with any sort of agricultural based simulation game was with Farming Simulator 15 and I’ve owned/played all the versions since. When I first started hearing about the future release of FS25 I honestly had mixed emotions. In recent months, I really haven’t spent a lot of time playing FS22. For me, my main simulation interest has always been flight simulation and I sort of intermix Farming and Trucking when the boredom starts to sit in. I had made the decision to take a “wait and see” approach to FS25. Wait until it was released and then watch some game play on Youtube to see what really has changed and go from there. After all, I figured my upcoming move to Texas which will be happening in the late October to early November timeframe would keep me far to busy to worry about doing any sort of gaming and certainly not a lot of time for virtual farming.
But, best laid plans and all that…I did decide to go ahead and pre-order Farming Simulator 25 yesterday on Steam. Everything mentioned above is still true. Most likely I won’t have much time to spend with FS25 until we’re settled into the new home as that must be my priority in life during this time. But what changed my mind?
I suppose I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as both my wife and I picked up Covid during our trip to Texas and we’re both feeling like we’ve been run over with a tractor. Plus while I must honestly say that there really isn’t a whole lot of new in FS25, there is some new features that interest me to make the purchase. I’m not going to go into all the details about FS25 as I’m sure you’ve watched and read all that has been mentioned about the new title. But bottom line is I’m looking forward to being able to spend a few hours with the new version when time permits and I’ll be sure to provide my opinions here at a later time.
Until then….
Happy Farming!!!
Jerry
September 17, 2024 / admin / 1 Comment
Anyone who knows me in the flight simulation community knows that the Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW) is one of my absolute favorite airports in the real world. I have very fond memories of visiting DFW as a child in the mid to late 70’s. Watching the airplanes/airlines including American, Braniff and seeing the awesome Concorde all fill my awesome memories of this incredible airport. As a young adult living in the DFW area, I spent many hours in this airport awaiting flights when I traveled for personal and business in the early to mid 90’s.
When MSFS 2020 released, DFW was one of their included hand-crafted airports. While it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t too terrible until the summer of 2022 when Microsoft/Asobo released their US Cities Photogrammetry package. As the city of Arlington, Texas was included in this package, it messed up the terrain in and around the DFW airport to an almost unusable condition. Now two years on and even though there is a rather lengthy forum post about these issues on the MSFS forums, DFW airport is still an airport in shambles unless you remove the US Cities Photogrammetry package. Once removed, the airport is functional once again but still not perfect.
In previous versions including FSX and P3D, the DFW airport had been available as a payware add-on from FSDreamTeam. I’m not sure why FSDreamTeam has been reluctant to release their version for MSFS, but four years in there’s no chatter about it on their forums. But for the past few months there have been rumors that Imaginsim (creator of KATL, WSSS) was working on a version of DFW. Just a few days ago these rumors were proven to be true as it was announced on FSElite that Imaginesim would release DFW for MSFS in the future. But hold the horses….I’m just not impressed with their previews and I’m not the only one.
It appears Imaginsim has lost credibility within the flight sim community as they have all but abandoned both their KATL and WSSS offerings which are both in need of some continued development and polish.
T-Minus Two Months and Counting
As we’re just about two months away from the release of MSFS 2024, I’m personally going to hold off on purchasing the Imaginsim version of DFW (even if it releases before) and see if Microsoft/Asobo have finally resolved the issues with DFW in the new sim. Of course, I have been rather reserved in what I’ve purchased in the past few weeks just as I mentioned here a few months ago. And while we assume most, if not all add-ons for MSFS 2020 will work in MSFS 2024, I’m just not going to spend my money on the Imaginsim version of DFW until I see how things look/act in MSFS 2024.
What are your thoughts on DFW and the future release of the Imaginsim version of the airport?
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry
September 10, 2024 / admin / 0 Comments
My wife and I just recently returned from our trip to Texas to visit family and to hunt for a house. During our week long stay, we toured nine different houses with our realtor and found our new dream home. Interestingly, the house we purchased was the first house we toured. We’re currently in the process of having inspections done and pending no major issues, we will close on the property in mid October.
We’re already back in Denver and will be working on getting our house here ready to go on the market. We hope to list it towards the end of this month (Sept) and believe it will sell quickly as others of the similar size in our neighborhood have sold within the first 10 days or so. While we’ve already managed to pack a considerable amount of our stuff, we still have a lot more packing to do and of course we need to arrange for the moving company.
Our target time to arrive in Texas and move into the new house is anytime after mid October to mid November. Everything from here on out really depends on the sell of our home in Denver. But we’re hoping to be in Texas and in the new house before Thanksgiving.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry
September 3, 2024 / admin / 0 Comments
In recent weeks I’ve had a few emails from readers regarding the various options available or soon to be available in the Airbus A320 family of aircraft. I’m going to sort of summarize the main general question which each asked and provide my own opinion and plan towards the topic.
In a nutshell, the general question was regarding whether to purchase the Fenix A320 and wait out their A319/A321 projects or simply to wait until MSFS 2024 and purchase the FSLabs Airbus series. This is a good question and for many reasons it really is somewhat difficult for me to provide advice. I’ve always been hesitant on telling anyone how to spend their hard earned money. But in this one exception, I’m going to provide my own opinion and the reader can draw from that what they will.
Fenix versus FSLabs
Back in my P3D days I owned all three Airbus offerings from FSLabs and considered myself a very happy customer. Even despite the little stunt FSLabs pulled…I was very pleased with all three of their Airbus A320 family aircraft. So much so that I did hesitate briefly on purchasing the Fenix A320 when it was first released. But at that time, we really hadn’t heard much from FSLabs other than they planned to bring their aircraft to MSFS at some point in time. As I was really wanting a good study-level airliner for MSFS, I went ahead and purchased the Fenix A320 and to this day I’m not disappointed in that decision.
I’m of the opinion that if you truly want a good, study level Airbus A320 in MSFS today, you can’t go wrong with the Fenix A320. Now with their A319 and A321 expansion package the Fenix lineup fills a very much needed gap in the virtual hangar for me and I’m sure for many others.
While Fenix may have had some pain points in their very early days after the release of their A320, they have produced an Airbus A320 which in my opinion is just as good as the FSLabs was back in P3D. As both the A319 and A321 has been built on the solid foundation Fenix as given the A320, and all three from Fenix rival the FSLabs products back in P3D.
The only information we’ve been given from FSLabs is that they plan to bring their lineup to MSFS once the 2024 version releases sometime later this year. While their A320 family was certainly top-notch in quality for P3D, the price tag was certainly a lot more expensive than the pricing Fenix introduced their A320. While FSLabs can certainly price their products however they wish, I believe in order to be competitive they’ll need to fall closer in line to the pricing Fenix set the bar with.
What are my plans?
In short, my current plans are to stick with Fenix for my Airbus A320 family of aircraft. They have won me over as a customer just like PMDG has done with their Boeing lineup. I don’t need duplicate aircraft of the same type in my virtual hangar. It’s already apparent their A319/A321 expansion is just as awesome as their A320 has been and all will provide me countless hours of enjoyment as I fly around the world for many years to come. So my advice to everyone else is to do what you want, but honestly, why wait? Fenix in my opinion is the way forward.
Until next time…
Happy Flyiing!!!
Jerry
