I picked up on a discussion elsewhere about MS abandoning Simmers etc and where to now and guess what?

Lockheed Martin (Yes the aircraft manufacturer) has taken over and I think now owns the rights to FSX. The program is now called PREPAR3D and is fully compatible with FSX which it replaces having by the look of it upgraded lots of bits including the internal menus look and feel.

So there is life after FSX and it will continue but in completely different ways and ones that will focus in my humble opinion on aviation as opposed to being merely a game and a software sideshow where it ended up at MS.

The news gets better , you can add in or add on all FSX SP2 compatible models, scenery and other sort  of addons, and they feature the Captain Sim C130 on their web pages as an example of a a high quality model being used in PREPAR3D. Also in partnership with Lockheed are ORBX, FTX and REX who make all the good stuff for scenery and weather etc. It seems the ACES team is not dead either and are now working in partnership with Lockheed.

It seems they have a number of nifty tools to let you add in a lot of stuff, scenery add ons, place objects etc and have upgraded the whole thing to let you do stuff and make what was FSX a lot more flexible and user friendly. They also claim to have upgraded the world scenery to current standards and improved many other things that were left hanging by MS when they shut it down.  

This is the most exciting news for flight simmers not only because it finally frees us up from MS clutches but alas it is only offered to Windows OS and will not be ported across to Linux or Mac systems. The offer full access to SDK's and developer tools to allow us to do the sort of stuff that simmers have always done make a diverse and rich environment.

Go check it out at: http://www.prepar3d.com

I will get my copy at the end of the week and starting adding in all my favourite CAPT SIM stuff plus lots of other bits and pieces. As I see it the future for simming is assured and can only get better now.

MarkOz - What are your thoughts and experience of P3D?

On first inspection it appears they have tidied up a lot of stuff and look like they are encouraging addons and development but their primary focus at the moment is the aerospace training industry which is understandable given it is after all Lockheed Martin.

Given that MS has now effectively bowed out of the Flight Sim business (Lots of people have trouble even getting recent purchases activated and are told by MS for instance it is no longer supported - buzz off) we are reliant on P3D for the future. For other simmers  I guess I should explain what I mean.

First, FSX is pretty good and WIN 7 is good for at least another few years and P3D (FSX) can only getter better with software and hardware development over time but and it is always in the back of my mind, the way MS have a habit of resdesigning their operating system virtually tri-annually it is not going to be long before FSX as it currently stands became non compatible with the latest operating system from MS (Seen it happen with dozens of really good programs now quaintly refered to as legacy programs - Remember Lotus?) So if they don't support the current FSX after only a few short years we are all in strife in a few years time. I guess my thinking is with Lockheed using the commercial training and aviation world as a primary market base then providing it is profitable and taken up (which it will be as my experience in the industry was that simulation and computerised aircraft and systems was where it is all going from here -hence no real general aviation industry any more). I did military flight training as a pre-retirement gig and we used MS 2004 plus other computer training systems extensively (plus real time flying) and even more was planned for the future. This was where SubLogic originally was aiming so the wheel has turned full circle.

I think the big barrier for recreational simmers, like myself, its fun and a hobby now, is the price tag for licenses which at the moment are calculated per month. I have written to them to see if a recreational license for the simmers out there is to be offered or could be offered and we shall see what they have to say.

I noted they offered a work around program to help you install FSX stuff that required the FSX directory structure and was built into the automated install script programs and the access to development tools etc is refreshing from a large congolmerate business.

Anyway as I see it is P3D or nothing from here on, just need to get them to offer it at a reasonable price and on a CD/DVD for folks like me who have internet and download limit issues.

£The next major update of prepar3d has already happened, we are on v1.4, some independent tests showed it was "up to" 85% faster than fsx ( Please remember performance is down to the hardware you have so i would expect less on older machines ) , I run all the CS aircraft i own on p3d 1.4 now.

Im over the moon with the performance i get from p3d at the moment, both ground texture and fps performance are great

For the fist time i can sit at Ants YBBN with Orbx AUS scenery with me CS737-200 on external view watching the AI do its thing with a very nice locked 30fps

Click the image to make it bigger

gandy wrote on Aug 30^th, 2012 at 8:02am:
I Didn't even know that 1.4 was out yet. Thanks for that.
I downloaded it last night and have just finished installing it this afternoon and so I'm doing a flight in the Mooney Bravo out of Norfolk Intl. Looks like a nice improvement over v1.3 so far. That new Mooney Acclaim looks very nice too.

MarkOZ interesting coincidence, I was inbound to Norfolk Island and then went on to Auckland in the 737-200 last night (in FSX of course).

Hi, Mark

I have no idea what is P3D function  . How do you obtain and how to install it?

What doest it do?

Ahmet

Here's a fps comparison video from an Avsim guy. Perhaps watch it bigger on YT to really see the fps counter. It pretty much sums up of what I saw in P3D so far, but maybe there's more about it.  

Quote:


Quote:

Got a link for that? If that's the case, it would be nice of course. But why doesn't the video show it for example?


The T-6/A Texan II they've included in P3D is freeware for FSX.

You can leave FSX as it is, Ahmet. You may need to install some stuff again in P3D, other things can be copied over. The folks running it can surely help with that step.

I'd keep FSX as a backup, even if you like P3D. Some stuff doesn't run in P3D and most copy over thingies aren't supported. So whenever there is something not working, you have to ask yourself if the product is faulty or if the other sim causes the problem. With running FSX, you can test that.

Be aware that some payware devs don't support P3D, so support threads with that sim may not last that long or just won't receive an answer. Some seem to get very upset on licensing issues.

Let us know how P3D works out for you. I wasn't impressed so far and reinstalling things or the sim itself (with every update) is not what I'm looking for. If it had turned out to be much faster, that statement would look different of course.
If version 1.4 generally unlocked it, let us know. The video above doesn't look like it did with the same settings. But maybe there's a trick somewhere.

I have both installed. On different drives/partitions: J:\Flight Simulator X (single partition on a 500GB drive) and I:\Prepar3D (on the 3/3 partition of my 1TB HDD).
After viewing that video, I wonder if he used the same CFG? In other words, is it just a renamed fsx.cfg (to Prepar3D.cfg). Or is it a modified Prepar3D.cfg to have all the same changes in all the same places so that it is "the exact same settings" as in the fsx.cfg?
One other thing to take note of in Prepar3D, is that you do not have a [Trusted] section in the Prepar3D.cfg, so there is none of that crazy nonsense of accepting a gauge as being "trusted" (a pet hate of mine with FSX).

Quote:
The more complex the aircraft, the harder it can be to get into P3D, so without the support of the developer, you have to rely on those who have already made the transition with the product.

My big problem with moving the Captain Sim aircraft over (when I first got P3D), was to forget to add the info into the DLL.xml file! The ones like these:

 <Launch.Addon>
           <Name>Captain Sim 767 Menu</Name>
           <Disabled>False</Disabled>
           <Path>Captain_Sim\Captain_Sim.b767.menu.dll</Path>
     </Launch.Addon>
 <Launch.Addon>
           <Name>Captain Sim 767 Sound</Name>
           <Disabled>False</Disabled>
           <Path>Captain_Sim\767\cs.sound.dll</Path>
     </Launch.Addon>

But once that was done, they worked. ACE does NOT work with P3D. Well I haven't been able to get them to be able to. But then I haven't tried very hard either.

Mark & CoolP,

Ok... I will try. Will I purchase $9 per month packages?

"$USD199 for LM Prepar3d is not too bad a price for it. It was worth it in my opinion"

Wow,,It is not definitly $9.

Do you have installation advise, before I end up in deep waters

Yikes! You have some expensive FSX there, Mark. Well, I don't know how much mine was. Bought it pretty early as it came out, later added the Acceleration addon. But that's from years ago, I wouldn't buy it at the same price now.

I guess most folks pretend to be 'academic' of some kind and pick the 50 dollar P3D.   200 bucks is a bit steep from my experience. It was no different than FSX on the fps and some addons still don't run. I can't recommend the 200 dollar license if the picture still is like in the video and needs the tricks and tweaks on the installation of software which easily runs in FSX.

I know some folks running it ok, others returned it and one is a serious fan who only flies two or three planes which all work. But for 200 dollar, you can get some hardware or quite some planes and scenery. However, they seem to offer a refund policy.


I'd stick to the cheap options for testing. They don't state anything on a minimum subscription time span here. http://www.prepar3d.com/partners-overview/developer-network-program/ So my guess is that those 10 bucks give you 1 month. Cancel it soon enough and it won't get prolonged. Forget about it and you have two months.  

That one month testing thingy from back then isn't there any more it seems.  

Thanks for the link, gandy. That looks massive. I will look closer, but I wonder why people don't rave some more when a guy gets such results. Well, lets read into it.

Is this the same Kosta as on Avsim?

Do you have a tip for Ahmet on the costs? Which license model are you running?

Makes sense on the P3D version. Regarding Kosta's blog, I didn't know he had his results posted at Avsim before.


There is something strange on the screenshots in Kosta's blog. The FSX ones don't have aircraft shadows, the P3D ones do, but the shadows are enabled in his FSX, they just don't show up.

I've just checked if this could be a problem with the addon airport he uses as I have the same, UK2000 EGLL and EGKK. My shadows come up when I enable them in FSX (I wouldn't fly without them). I've also checked it at EGKK. I get shadows, his FSX shots don't show them, but they are enabled in his options.

On the EGLL shots in P3D, there is some scenery missing. I first thought that it was dynamic stuff, but apart from some vehicles, there is static equipment missing in P3D at the parking spots.

His P3D water slider is at medium, the FSX one is at max.

I'm not questioning his results, but his FSX install doesn't look correct on the shadows, while the P3D one does strange things at the airports from UK2000. I don't understand the water slider max setting in FSX, that's a fps hog.


But I will forward his link to the folks of mine running P3D. Perhaps they can spot what enables that fps boost as they don't get it so far. So thanks for that one.  

Thanks for the feedback guys, I am not up and running yet on this one for reasons relating to my TELCO and beingh stuck with a mobile broadband service being in rural OZ with no copper wire or cable service available, which means I am download limited and the downloads (plus REX AFFINITY Etc.) will take up all my broadband for the month and then some more. I have a plan but will have to now wait a couple of weeks.

I will keep both but over time migrate everything I can to the LM product as FSX is a dead duck now as far as MS is concerned. I am not to bothered by the updating business, gee, MS does that almost weekly sometimes with WIN 7.

CoastalDriver wrote on Sep 1^st, 2012 at 8:45am:

True, but you don't have to reinstall the OS then.

I saw some folks offering tips on a quick reinstall though, but it's not like some step up from 1.3 to 1.4 comes with a small patch and a few minutes of patching. If I had to reinstall FSX, I would die.  

However, let us know how it goes. And lets hope you get some cable internet then. 

Sounds very good on the CPU. Mark has just upgraded and seems to be very happy with the new stuff.

On the shadows, you are right, they don't harm the fps. Without them, it looks a bit odd at times in my eyes. You know, the shadow is the soul.  I especially like the shadow when approaching and looking out of the VC, seeing it on the ground when turning and things, also on the AI.

Ive become a format and fresh install expert, i can do it all in a day now.. all me addons and other software i like to have installed

I assume you are installing everything with a stock clock cpu Markoz as it has been known for corruption to creep in on both the sim and windows, not everyone will have issues and its probably less than 1% that do ( i have been in that 1% in the past ), i dont take the chance.. always stock now when doing a fresh install of everything.

I'm not much of an overclocker. I tend to run my CPU's at their stock speed. On my previous CPU, an i7 870, I ran it at its stock speed of 2.93GHz and only overclocked it a couple of times to around 3.2/3.4GHz, but it never stayed there for long. But because I have the 3770K, I might actually go ahead and do it, but I doubt I will try to push it too far, it's not my style.

I'm pretty good at redoing everything (format, OS, FSX etc.) as this is about my 3rd or 4th time this year. I don't mind doing it because it cleans up everything, but that doesn't stop it from being a PITA.

The Orbx folks have updated their libraries just a few days ago, for both sims. Maybe that helps in your case. 

The updated orbxlibs are no help.

Markoz the sbsl's no longer work you have to use the migrator tool, if you brought the sbsl's you should have some store credit where you got them from

I was playing with the Swap wait timeout and that helped but it also brought with it another crash

When i build my new pc i plan to do some tests and see how it goes as i will be installing p3d first just to see if i can get it to g3d crash on a clean set up with no addons or other bits installed.

I'm already missing the performance gains of p3d and the sharp ground textures

@gandy. What is a g3d crash? Did I ask this before? Because I thought I had, but can't find where I might have asked.

I wished I could help some more. Well, the main thing is to keep FSX in place, so you can always fly the old sim in case the new one stutters. The installations should not affect each other to my knowledge.

As for the addons, I think some of them may work with the user-to-user help. Avsim forums may be a good idea as they seem to collect the most common solutions these days (http://forum.avsim.net/forum/436-the-unofficial-prepar3d-forum/). Other addons will work out of the box, like REX-E, which just needs an extra code to allow for P3D to work.

Some remaining ones may have trouble on the licensing   or some modules failing so far. Take some another company airports for example and their AES Lite components like the small vehicles around the place. Perhaps check if there are separate P3D installers for your purchased software. In the case of another company airports, they've updated their installers some time ago. So perhaps download them again to install them in P3D too.

I want to have:

1- REXE
2-Fs2Crew
3-RC4.3
4-UT2
5-UTX US
6-GEX US/CA
7-FSFD

REX-E needs an extra code and then works.
Quote:


FS2Crew. So far, only the 737 thing works. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/373558-prepar3d/

RC4.3. I don't know. Maybe this helps. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/382754-two-installations-on-same-machine/ Looks like it's working with small adjustments.

UT2 may work with tricking, UTX and GEX too, but those are the ones where the companies have trouble with the license. Stating that openly.

What is FSFD?

Markoz wrote on Sep 5^th, 2012 at 1:59pm:

That's the best one. Nobody should miss it. 

Im back in action on p3d as Pete has updated fsuipc4 to help with the g3d crashes 

http://forum.simflight.com/topic/66139-updated-modules/

Well there could be a number of reasons for the crash but the g3d.dll is the visual end of the bgl converter, when its overloaded or it receives a response its not happy with it causes a crash.

Im starting to wonder if it caused by a duplicate GUID issue between the stock scenery and addon scenery, when there is no stress on the g3d.dll it can cope with the issue but when you up the settings and run the sim on its edge it can't deal with the issue fast enough and causes the crash. Just a theory mind you.

You have been very very lucky not to have a g3d crash Markoz

I originally brought fsuipc for its wind smoothing features in fsx but it probably is one of the most powerful tools you can have in fsx/p3d and its worth every penny if not more considering how well its supported by Pete

Again, after many hours  trying to stabilize P3D, finally I got breakthrough:


1- REXE
a- I stabilized the REXE, now working well

2-Fs2Crew
a- Stabilized and working well

3-RC4.3
a- Woow..That was something RC stabilized and working well

4-UT2
a- Stabilized an working well

5-UTX US
a- Working well

6-GEX US/CA
a-Working well

7- GSX  (Sorry CoolP FSFD was wrong title)
a-Working well.

8-FsBuild
a-I solved the problem, now I can generate FP and import to any Airplane including PXMG 737 FMC

I did have on stable graphic scenery and airplane hiccups developed. I solved the problem with upgrade to latest beta Navdia Driver 306.

One more problem developed  my GPU temp is now high  around 75C.
If all go well as I predicting. I can be out from bottle neck in next two days.

More upsetting was my FPS went down dramatically around 5 FPS. I identified the cause of problem was wrong installation of FSUIPC, Now I have the latest one suitable for P3D.

Tomorrow I will start test flights.

I just want to inform, what is going on with my project P3D .

 

CoolP wrote on Sep 6^th, 2012 at 6:10am:


The funny thing is all the weather addons can use fsuipc to inject weather in to the sim but they choose not to use that feature, instead we have to use simconnect which is worse way to inject weather in to the sim as it can cause fps drops when loading, the bad wind shifts and the stutters can also happen. I would be very happy if Rex or Active Sky gave the option to inject weather through fsuipc

asanal wrote on Sep 6^th, 2012 at 6:19am:

How did you get them working?

Apparently there is some migration tool available for ~$10 has anyone tried that?

I purchased the academic version. No checks required and from what I can work out that's the license we SHOULD be buying.
Forget about paying $200. You don't have to.

Cappy,

I utulized  "FlightSim Estonia FSX to Preaper3D Migration Tool". Around 10$.
My GPU temp was around 89 Degrees and FPS down to 5 FPS with REXE clouds. I found the problem.The other a day I dowloaded 306.02 NviDIA DRIVER and It caused all these problems.
I uninstalled and redownload 304.48 driver. Now all returned normal.

I have to say, P3D makes the difference and upgrades  FSX to  Next Generation FS.

You are right. I learned hard way.