Benjamin Dover writes:

Really? How would you know you nitwit?

They are both simulations. MSFS simulates IFR flight (with or without IMC).
Flying under a hood in a real aircraft simulates IFR flight in IMC. But a
hood is not real IMC. If flying under a hood is useful (and it is), then
flying MSFS is also useful.

The fact is, anything other than the real thing is just a simulation; if
simulations are not useful, then that has to apply across the board, not just
to simulations that you prefer to dismiss. If MSFS is not useful, then
neither is flying under a hood, or looking at a drawing made by an instructor,
or examining illustrations in a book, or watching an instructional DVD.

Fortunately, all of these simulations _are_ useful and _will_ help with the
real thing. Some of them are a lot safer that the real thing, too--and the
slight loss of accuracy with respect to the real thing is more than
compensated by the reduced or eliminated risk of dying.

Now, you can poo-poo MSFS simulation of IFR in IMC and simply wait until you
encounter the real thing and pray that you deal with it correctly, but to me
it seems a lot smarter to go with the simulation, which will give you at least
some vague handle on the real thing, and that is surely better than nothing at
all.