2 things

[Dave43H]

Hey all,ive got two questions,
1: but off the website? or on steam? which would you say was the best? i like steam and have several things on it now,but i kind of want it without the steam app or whatever..which works better?..plus on steam,if something happens to my pc,its there to retrieve.,well hell ive just talked myself in steam..but i still would like ya'lls input.

plus,i asked before and someone helped me,but im no good at searching this site for older posts..could someone do a flight from Price Utah and show me some screenshots of the general area,like the town of Price itself?..thank you to anyone who helps me out here.

[Ferry_vO]

The only difference between Steam and MS is a small installer you will need to download from Steam first. Once you run that, it will execute the same way as if you bought it directly from MS.

[Tom Clayton]

There's also a difference between default install locations on your drive, and it seems that some Steam users have fewer issues with updates, but that's just anecdotal. This latest update had several store version owners - including me - installing the free Xbox app in order to get yesterday's update to install.

[Dave43H]

There's also a difference between default install locations on your drive, and it seems that some Steam users have fewer issues with updates, but that's just anecdotal. This latest update had several store version owners - including me - installing the free Xbox app in order to get yesterday's update to install.

yes,i saw all that which is why i was questioning which would be the better way to go.but if i go steam,there arent any issues installing extras ,like using orbix to add scenery etc ?

[ak416]

yes,i saw all that which is why i was questioning which would be the better way to go.but if i go steam,there arent any issues installing extras ,like using orbix to add scenery etc ?

No, zero issues. It is functionally the exact the same game. The only difference is you are not dependent on using the Microsoft Store. The Microsoft Store is garbage, it always has been. The most recent update failed to be pushed to the Microsoft Store for a lot of users (this is an issue that was happening with numerous titles, not just Flight Simulator). That issue prevented people from playing, because Flight Simulator requires an internet connection. So they would launch the game, be told there was a mandatory update, but were unable to download the mandatory update because it wasn't available in the Microsoft Store.

I highly recommend the Steam version over the Microsoft Store version. The Microsoft Store is fine when it works. But when it doesn't work it is an absolute nightmare to troubleshoot. I have not had a single issue updating or reinstalling Flight Simulator on Steam and it seems the vast majority of people who do run into issues are using the Microsoft Store.

[Mr.Mugel]

This should be default without any scenery for the area. Graphics are mostly maxed out in terms of details. Running at 5120x1440 on my Ultrawide screen.













There are some mountains in the area featuring snow while the rest looks pretty hot, I guess there was cloud cover over the summer shots. Still in general the area looks quite cool. Airport is missing some buildings though.

[Mr.Mugel]

Just to be fair, here is one shot showing the snowy / generic textures in one place:

[DennyA]

I favor the Microsoft Store because it's one less middleman. And if you want to opt into betas, so far they've only offered them to MS Store users. (Way easier for them to facilitate, I'm sure, than coordinating with Valve.) Also, with the MS Store version, you don't have to have Steam running, so that's a bit more memory and resources for the sim. But the comments about Store issues are legit -- I had them with SU5. That said, they're generally resolvable with either the Xbox app or a WSRESET command.

The BIG thing is not choosing the default install folder when you get to the part within the sim where it goes to download the sim's data files.

Where would you rather navigate to install third-party addons?
C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Local\Packages\ Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache \Packages\Community
or
C:\FlightSim\Community

:-)

Finally, if you plan to add airplanes, scenery, etc. I highly recommend this Addons Linker:
https://flightsim.to/file/1572/msfs-addons-linker

It lets you store your add-ons in another folder, and save groups of them so you don't load hundreds of airports you won't be anywhere near, and possibly conflicting add-ons. Just run it before you fire up the sim and enable the areas you want to fly in. I just group my add-ons in folders by country (and State/Province for US/CA) so I can easily just enable the ones I want active when flying.

[Dave43H]

I favor the Microsoft Store because it's one less middleman. And if you want to opt into betas, so far they've only offered them to MS Store users. (Way easier for them to facilitate, I'm sure, than coordinating with Valve.) Also, with the MS Store version, you don't have to have Steam running, so that's a bit more memory and resources for the sim. But the comments about Store issues are legit -- I had them with SU5. That said, they're generally resolvable with either the Xbox app or a WSRESET command.

The BIG thing is not choosing the default install folder when you get to the part within the sim where it goes to download the sim's data files.

Where would you rather navigate to install third-party addons?
C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Local\Packages\ Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache \Packages\Community
or
C:\FlightSim\Community

:-)

Finally, if you plan to add airplanes, scenery, etc. I highly recommend this Addons Linker:
https://flightsim.to/file/1572/msfs-addons-linker

It lets you store your add-ons in another folder, and save groups of them so you don't load hundreds of airports you won't be anywhere near, and possibly conflicting add-ons. Just run it before you fire up the sim and enable the areas you want to fly in. I just group my add-ons in folders by country (and State/Province for US/CA) so I can easily just enable the ones I want active when flying.

Thank you denny,good info!!

[Dave43H]

thank you for those,it actually shows my apartment building clearly..nice

This should be default without any scenery for the area. Graphics are mostly maxed out in terms of details. Running at 5120x1440 on my Ultrawide screen.













There are some mountains in the area featuring snow while the rest looks pretty hot, I guess there was cloud cover over the summer shots. Still in general the area looks quite cool. Airport is missing some buildings though.

[Tom Clayton]

Even with the stock location, you'll only have to find it one time. Once you're there, in the left navigation plane of the folder window, right-click the Quick Access folder and choose the pin current location option. Since I do regular edits in the official folder, I have the "Packages" location pinned on my rig.

[DennyA]

Even with the stock location, you'll only have to find it one time. Once you're there, in the left navigation plane of the folder window, right-click the Quick Access folder and choose the pin current location option. Since I do regular edits in the official folder, I have the "Packages" location pinned on my rig.

True, but the other issue is that the stock location has a stupid-long pathname, and you can run into filename length errors with some add-ons unless you do the registry edit to allow unlimited file name length. Making that one choice during install has many benefits with no downsides.

It's not worth the hassle of moving the folder later if you took the default, but if you can make that choice during the install, there's no advantage to taking the ridiculous default option.

(Also, Tom, saw your comment on minimizing add-ons to avoid issues... You should look into the AddOns linker I mentioned! That way I can fully populate areas I'm flying in with the awesome airports and POIs on FlightSim.to, without having to worry about conflicts or loading issues.)

[Tom Clayton]

I just have addons that cover my favorite places as far as scenery, and except for the DA62X and no-pod Caravan mods, I find that the stock planes more than fill my needs. Here's the complete list of my Community folder:

.Library esd-eolib
.Library French Grass Airport Objects
.Library tsr-windy-things 1.08
Aircraft Cessna 208B No Pod v1.2 SU5
Aircraft Diamond DA62X v0.4.5.1
Airport EGLC Orbx 1.2.0
Airport KACK Nantucket Island
Airport KAVX Catalina ORBX
Airport KBUY Burlington NC
Airport KCGX Meigs 1.6
Airport KDAL V2.0.1
Airport KDAN (Cazzie's)
Airport KGCN Grand Canyon
Airport KHXD Hilton Head
Airport KMDW Chicago Midway V3.1
Airport KMSY NOLA
Airport KRTS Reno-Stead
Airport OG20 Fairways ORBX
Airport PHHN Hana
Airport PHTO V1.1
Gauge pms50-gns530 v1.0.38
Gauge workingtitle-g3000-v0.7.4
Misc NoToolbarHandle
Misc Red Flashlight (My own edited effect)
Misc Toolbar Pushback v1.2.4
Performance XCub v2.4
Scenery a-puf-we-love-vfr-region2
Scenery Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Scenery Hover Dam
Scenery Kennedy Space Center aquilasim
Scenery Navaid Objects
Scenery projectionist-pearlharbor
Scenery South Mt AZ Towers
Texture TBM930 Propfix
Texture XCub Propfix

The ones in bold are the only payware I currently have installed. I also have the Emb-110 payware, but it's not currently installed.