some quick questions for those here who know …
normally I spend my flightsimming in DCS
but fancy a go in Civ sims
so which should I go for Xplane or Msfs… further to that what are the differences with
flight sim 40th and FS2024…
also does air hauler 2 play well with either in VR
In general, I’d say that X-plane is the sim with better physics and MSFS is the one with better graphics, with especially pleasing and detailed terrain. MSFS is also a bit easier to get going and get set up in compared to X-plane. For both sims, the truly best planes are payware DLC’s. the 2024 version is the latest version with some new features such as aircraft walkaround and a career mode. It’s also quite buggy I’ve heard.
The last MS flight sim that I played was FSX but I recently updated from X-Plane 11 to 12 and can vouch for them. Even though there are more free and payware aircraft for XP11, I would go with XP12 if you decide on the X-Plane route.
On that note, I’m pretty sure there are (a lot?) more DLC aircraft available for MSFS.
I have read that the way MSFS is prone to large updates and downloads textures on the fly might be an issue if you are not on an unlimited plan, but if you start downloading scenery packages and ortho for X-Plane it can blow out your storage requirements out to DCS levels (e.g. the Orbx TrueEarth XP12 scenery package for Great Britain unpacks to 280GB).
Other than that, I guess it comes down to what Syran has said, one has the edge in eye candy, the other for its flight modelling.
Also: MSFS ATC is… and bit strange.
XPlane ATC is atrocious.
Same sadly goes for traffic. In MSFS the AI planes act a bit strange. In XPlane they crash all the time.
Depends on what you are looking for. VFR and prop planes or IFR and airliners?
Both sims are great but each has its quirks.
If you want to do VFR and bush piloting I would go MSFS. On the flip side If you want to fly Airliners IFR then X-Plane 12 is the best.
I think XP 12 is easier to set up controls wise. I never really got MSFS to work correctly with the control scheme I wanted.
If you need traffic, MSFS is good at that out the box, XP 12 airports are dead and require addon software to bring them to life.
You really cant go wrong with either one. I have switched back to XP 12 instead of trying to run both, Cost to much money.
One other plus XP 12 has some cool tools, You can take an airport and liven it up fairly easy and then there is Plane maker, Where you can make your own plane.
imo , and talking here only about sims I own
the main reason to choose the particular sim can be the availability of planes you want to fly .
msfs is the most popular fs sw out there so there is lots of modules to choose from ( payware / freeware ) .
my second criteria is the performance . from best to worst :
third criteria can be the ’ out of the box ’ streamed satelite photo scenery . cause I am not just the ’ test pilot ’ I want also to enjoy the scenery I am overflying .
both aeroflyFS4 and msfs20 offer this .
so in the end I regularly fly aeroflyFS4 ( EC135 , UH60M ) and msfs20 ( for anything else ) .
I abandoned xp11/12 for now .
the ’ best flight model on the market ’ is nice marketing talk . the full truth is that xp plausibly simulates only in the subsonic regions ( mentioned by Laminar Research in an interview ) . plus only the best third party devs can deliver the modules in needed quality and such devs are very few and far between on xp platform .
btw xp12 is known for best FM on the market but there is third party dev who offers corrected flight models for xp12 default planes , thats funny imo 
Adding to all that was memtioned, you also need to know what type of aircraft you wanna fly, because for example, xplane is a shame in 4 prop engine airliners, but for example have the best ever made bizjet simulation (CL650). So when you fly in a flight sim you are in an aircraft, and sadly many people inconsciously forget that in the time of decision, because xp12 vs msfs24 vs afs4, … all are good and bad at the same time depending of many factors and not being purist, about physics, visuals etc all of them are much better than OKish, so what should drive what you want is the aircraft you wanna fly. For example, the best concorde made are on p3d or xp12 with mods, the best b377 on fsx, yeah, fsx. The best q400 or Connie, p3d. … so it much depends also on the aircraft you want.
talking about the available modules in general , imo the best quality third party devs are developing these days for msfs platform .
to mention few ( in alphabetical order ) :
A2A Sims , Blackbird Sims , BlackSquare , Fenix Sims , FlightSimWare , FlyingIron Sims , JustFlight , PMDG , SimWorks Studios
edit : added names
I am personally on MSFS 2020/2024.
You can download xpl 12 demo and give it a shot and you can also buy one month of xbox game pass and try the MSFS franchise.
Without counting with personal aircraft preferences, both XP12 and MSFS24 have out of the box excellent default aircraft with payware quality type. To pimp it further, the XP12 you can have more top quality contents for free than in msfs department. In XP12 you have many paywares that where gifted to community by the devs and also updated by them. Also you have a superb quality B737NG (zibo), Tu-154B2, Tu-134A-3, B-29, L-18… …
About visuals if you pimp the xp12 with sceneries like orbx trueearth the visual quality is as good as msfs24 infact in some situations even better (not much white over lighted as in msfs (like many unreal games)). Also the rain and his physics acording with wind flow is better on xp12, and the sound is more rich and powerful in xp12.
So the choice is not easy, its why i have them all installed hahaha
That’s a great point, I did a month of gamepass and tried out MSFS 2024 and decided to hold off getting it (tried out a couple of other games and held off getting those too - felt one month was worth it and in a weird way saved me some money in the long run).
Pretty much the only reason I still have XP12 on my system is the Hot Start Challenger 650. For everything else I am all in with MSFS 2024.
I ended up going for xplane …partly because of the steam sale but mostly because of streaming terrains on msfs
Cheers for all the input guys
Fwiw i cannot get ms24 to run at all
I may have made the right call then 
now we start the long deep dive into VR performance 
msfs20 runs still strong 
then looking forward to some screenshots of yours and your impressions