[CCIP]

Good advice Sky, I agree! I think if you were building a civil flight sim setup from scratch today, I would most heartily advise starting with Prepar3D, which is the most solid platform and gives a good compromise between being up-to-date, stability and compatibility with add-ons. Most of what works in FSX works in P3D, and P3D is simply a better platform. FSX by itself is a bit full of holes and inefficiencies (though definitely rules the aftermarket), and FS9, while it's impressive how well it still holds up, is simply out of date and rapidly losing support. I don't think you will see releases for it for much longer. I am on FS9, and there is already quite a few reasons I wish I could get into FSX add-ons instead. When I build my new system later this year, I plan to switch to Prepar3D.