I think it's time to pull the trigger!!

Hey Smitty,

Great thread, as it's been a while since we looked at migrating to MSFS from other simulators.  I wasn't aware that there were other places to purchase the sim other than the Microsoft website.  At the time of purchase I bought the deluxe package with the most aircraft available.  At the time there were no amphibious or rotor aircraft available.  I'm not sure what is currently available there but are likely payware addons.

Most importantly you will likely need to upgrade your computer that your simulator(s) are running on.  I recommend that you keep your old simulator because there are some things that MSFS cannot do yet like our Adventure Packs and Mike's Bomber Group flights. Also, there are times when you may want to fly only to find a mandatory update for MSFS waiting for you that may take several hours to finish.  Currently they don't give you the option to update later and you are forced to update before flying.  I've been met by this on several Wed. night group flights because they generally push the updates out on Tuesday sometime.  I was able to join the flight on my P3D while the update was downloading on MSFS.

Back to the upgrade of the system, skimping on the system specs will likely result in a disappointing performance and you may get frustrated enough to upgrade later.  Some of the upgrades might require a new motherboard and case so you might end up with a whole new system but for some higher end components you can shift to the new system.

My upgraded system is as follows:

* AMD X570 ATX gaming motherboard with PCIe 4.0, 16 power stages , OptiMem III, on-board Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 2.5 Gbps    LAN, USB 3.2, SATA, M.2 and Aura Sync RGB lighting.

* AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Vermeer 3.4GHz 16-Core AM4 Boxed Processor

* Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 AORUS Master Overclocked Triple-Fan 24GB GDDR6X PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card

* 64GB RAM

* Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD 3-bit MLC V-NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive 

* SAMSUNG 970EVO+NVME 1TB  M.2 SSD

* Seagate BarraCuda 4TB 5400RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

* EVGA SuperNOVA G Plus 1300 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply

* Corsair H150i Pro XT 360mm RGB Water Cooling Kit

* Lian Li Lancool II Mesh Tempered Glass eATX Full Tower Computer Case - Performance Black

I'm quite happy with the performance, and it's a bit more robust than might be necessary, but I'm running 3 monitors 
with my flight deck.

I've enjoyed the large number of aircraft you have in your hangar, and the loss of most of your aircraft will be the most significant impact you will notice with MSFS.  The wonderfully realistic scenery will be the most enjoyable part of the new simulator I'm thinking.

That's my thoughts to help get the discussion going.

Good luck.

Yes Oswald, please do share any photos of your photoreal scenery when you test it out.

I'm very pleased to see the updates with MSFS has greatly improved the night lighting for wide angle setups like mine.  I can finally fly at night again as demonstrated by some of my recent pics.  I've also updated with the global shipping addon that really looks great at night with all the ships, and even sailboats lit.  

The clouds and other weather has improved significantly over the updates too.

As Bill mentioned on the group flight, there is still some annoying popping in of scenery, but I can live with that for now if it improves the overall performance of the sim without stutters.