About to pull the trigger and buy GC Quad.... good move? Need your help!

[poundpp]

I am not a research nut to be frank, just enough to be dangerous. I was looking at Trackman 4 until a buddy put me onto GC Quad. My main goal is for a garage simulator for me and buddies to have fun and play and practice. We are bogey golfers wanting to improve and have fun. To me, important features are good multiplayer course playing, good graphics and yes good data/ stats to help me improve but I am not a professional. I am very intrigued by the FSX Play as the graphics look much nicer compared to the 2020 software. I say all that to say this, would you recommend I buy a GC Quad with FSX Play and be happy with it? I like that its half the price of a TM4 and also the Sim In A Box includes everything. Open to all opinions, thank you for your time, I have a lot to learn.

[poundpp]

Snipe what in your opinion is best graphics and UI? Ignore pricing for a minute as I can palate GCQuad after being set on TM4, it’s a discount at that point ha

[Snipe]

I'd really do some investigation into the various software packages before choosing FSX. Foresight just isn't a great software company from the UI to the graphics, pricing, etc. They can't even be bothered to add Cypress trees for California clubs like Olympic. The feel of the courses just isn't on par with PS4 games from 10 years ago (even on full settings on a new Nvidia GPU).

[Dax]

Actually, just checked. It is virtually the same price but with 15 less courses. However, this price includes the club data. They do however have some bundle packs of 10 courses (various bundles) on sale as well.

[Dax]

While not as good as the Costco price, I believe Par2Pro has a deal on right now for sim in a box. Quad with club data.

[Snipe]

This is all very helpful thank you. I spoke with Foresight sales guy today (Kevin) and he was very helpful. Didn’t push anything on me and just answered questions. Didn’t say one bad word about any other product I asked about either from competitors. Follow my logic here, buying a Sim-in-a-box you get all the software (fsx2020, fsx play, etc), club data package, all equipment needed, etc. For someone like me that’s not big time DIY guy and with hours to research this is very intriguing. You get 15 courses with fsx play with 10 more (to total 25) included. You then can buy more if you want. To me the fsx play graphics are 1000x times better than run of the mill simulators as well as fsx 2000. He said in next 12 months or so all the features of fsx 2000 will be moved to fsx play in totality and improve. So, for me, as a bogey golfer who wants to have fun first and improve second, I think this is a good fit with great graphics and the club data included. Yes, I agree it’s expensive and could do it cheaper but it’s half of TM4 which was other I was considering. Any thoughts on my logic?

If you're going to go this route - consider waiting until Costco has the Sim in a Box package back in stock. That said, the quality of the components in the package varies if I recall correctly (gaming PC components, projector, etc.). The real "deal" here are the courses included which sounds like it will be of value to you given your primary goal is simulation with friends.

The Costco version I recall had far more courses but did not have club data enabled.

[Snipe]

That's a really hard question to answer, and the answer is "It depends". Given your goal of fun with buddies in the garage (this is going to be a wildly unpopular opinion) but I'd probably go with SkyTrak and TGC. There are tons of courses and the SkyTrak is pretty great. I had mine for a few years, and it's pretty accurate IMO.

FSX is ridiculously expensive and, once you own the hardware - they kinda have you (you can use TGC apparently but it's a pain). Each course is $150 to $700, and they're not particulary great (elevation change is pretty poorly done, textures are bad, terrain variation (e.g. trees) is lacking - and they don't have anywhere near as many courses as something like TGC (Augusta, Pine Valley, Harding Park, etc. etc.).

Again - I love my Quad for the club data only. Everything else - the company, the support, the quality, the software, the pricing model, the bang for the buck - it's all horrendous.

[sinkingputts]

Once you start using FSX2020 you will start a wish list of feature you wish it had and bugs you wish would be fixed. You can find a i going list right here on this forum. Needless to say I’ve had me quad for almost 2 years and none of those this were implemented. So even if they get FSXPLAY was identical to FSX2020 we would be looking at a laundry list of features and bugs that still need fixing. But with that said just dropping your quad on the ground and getting the numbers from the top of the unit is awesome.

[sinkingputts]

I don’t think you should be believing him when he said the timeline is one year for FSXPLAY to have all the same features as FSX2020. I think that is salesmanship. It’s been six months and there are still tons of bugs, only one update so far. If you read around this forum you see other guys saying their rep told them FSXPLAY is going to be primarily for sim play and FSX2020 is for training. The fact that the company never comes out with any official publicized roadmap for FSXPLAY leave me skeptical that a year is a goal they can or are trying to reach.

[poundpp]

To be clear this was in regard to specific questions I had about practice mode with things that I am aware of that I thought I would like to see in an environment with better graphics and Play. So to be fair he did not say everything as in everything that is outside the scope of my knowledge it was in the realm of what I was asking and I am pretty limited in knowledge and also what I desire

[Kmurray]

This is all very helpful thank you. I spoke with Foresight sales guy today (Kevin) and he was very helpful. Didn’t push anything on me and just answered questions. Didn’t say one bad word about any other product I asked about either from competitors. Follow my logic here, buying a Sim-in-a-box you get all the software (fsx2020, fsx play, etc), club data package, all equipment needed, etc. For someone like me that’s not big time DIY guy and with hours to research this is very intriguing. You get 15 courses with fsx play with 10 more (to total 25) included. You then can buy more if you want. To me the fsx play graphics are 1000x times better than run of the mill simulators as well as fsx 2000. He said in next 12 months or so all the features of fsx 2000 will be moved to fsx play in totality and improve. So, for me, as a bogey golfer who wants to have fun first and improve second, I think this is a good fit with great graphics and the club data included. Yes, I agree it’s expensive and could do it cheaper but it’s half of TM4 which was other I was considering. Any thoughts on my logic?

"He said in next 12 months or so all the features of fsx 2000 will be moved to fsx play in totality and improve."
Not true am afraid. Camera support in Play is going to be restricted to subscription based model using Swing Catalyst software . Currently you can use a number of different cameras with FSX2020 with no subscription. This is from Foresight support. They are saying that Play will be more playing sim golf with better graphics that 2020 and that fitting etc done with Pro. I don't think there will be much forthcoming in the way of feature upgrades. I asked for a an idea of what will be made available and when, they avoided the question by saying they only issue updates with each release as policy.
I'm not holding my breath.

[KidDoc]

You logic is correct. Pull the trigger.

[poundpp]

This is all very helpful thank you. I spoke with Foresight sales guy today (Kevin) and he was very helpful. Didn’t push anything on me and just answered questions. Didn’t say one bad word about any other product I asked about either from competitors. Follow my logic here, buying a Sim-in-a-box you get all the software (fsx2020, fsx play, etc), club data package, all equipment needed, etc. For someone like me that’s not big time DIY guy and with hours to research this is very intriguing. You get 15 courses with fsx play with 10 more (to total 25) included. You then can buy more if you want. To me the fsx play graphics are 1000x times better than run of the mill simulators as well as fsx 2000. He said in next 12 months or so all the features of fsx 2000 will be moved to fsx play in totality and improve. So, for me, as a bogey golfer who wants to have fun first and improve second, I think this is a good fit with great graphics and the club data included. Yes, I agree it’s expensive and could do it cheaper but it’s half of TM4 which was other I was considering. Any thoughts on my logic?

[tback]

....unless you have lefty friends then i would have to think about how much i really care about my lefty friends.

^^^^ this ^^^^

[Wizard of Coz]

I think the quad is a great choice unless you have some lefty friends. Love mine. Tgc2019 and unnamed software are great and I use the fsx2020 range and camera work to work on the swing. I would take quad over trackman indoors unless you have lefty friends then I would have to think about how much I really care about my lefty friends.

[Wizard of Coz]

What would you buy?