What is Prepar3D????? What does it have with flightsim to do????

From the Prepare3D homepage: Lockheed Martin Prepar3D® (pronounced “prepared”), an application based on Microsoft® ESP™, is a visual simulation platform that brings immersive games-based technology to training, experiential learning and decision and performance support for non-government, government and commercial organizations. In other words: An upgraded version of Microsoft's Flight Simulator X intended for professional users.

To me, P3D seems a little bit over hyped in its possible role as a replacement for FSX for the flight sim community. I have the following concerns: LM has had the source code for years, yet I don't see much in the way of improvements in their last release notes.Their forums hardly had any posts over the last year.We don't know how many people are working on P3D, in what capacity and with what goals.LM is not a game company, their priorities are not likely to match ours. We want a flight sim, they add subs.P3D is still old FSX code and it remains to be seen what can be done with it that Aces could not do.Compatibility with FSX add-ons. Not too bad right now, but this may change as new features are added.Cost for some people, which reduces the player base, which makes add-ons less likely to be made for it.No track record with this sort of software (schedule, updates, releases, quality) and customer base.LM is not a game company...it's an important difference, so I listed it twice.I am sure I can dig up more, but this is just for starters.

LM is not a game company...it's an important difference

Good, I want a simulation from them, not a game. In any case, LM would not be the first company who build the real thing, yet realise the value of reaching out to other markets. It's not a new concept, Citroen did the exact same thing in the 1930s, when they started making extremely accurate models at about 1/12 scale of their real vehicles, to be sold as tinplate toys; they were fairly expensive, but they were beautifully-engineered accurate models with opening doors and such like when other toys of the era had no such thing. The intention was that young boys who were lucky enough to get one of them (i.e. the ones likely to grow up and get some money) would develop an affinity with Citroen which remained when they got older and in a position to buy the real vehicles, which seems to have worked, since Citroen, unlike a lot of other companies around in the 1930s, is still going. This is a technique many Japanese car companies use today as well, in a kind of reverse way to what Citroen did, where they deliberately design cars that echo the styling of toy cars that would have been popular 20 years before, since they know that young men with disposable incomes who had those toys will find such styling appealing, as it reminds them of the toys they were happy with, which is why all the latest Jap cars look a bit like they could be a Transformer. So it's not quite as pointless as it might seem for a serious company to look at games and toys as marketing tools, as it's all part of the wider perception and corporate identity of a company, after all, stop someone in the street and ask them to name an aeroplane manufacturer, and how many do you think would say Lockheed Martin? Not many I guess, but if LM put their name about in a wider circle, that would probably change. So you may very well find some youngsters who dream of being in aviation when they get older get into P3D, and if LM is the company that reached out to them, it will be no bad thing for LM when it comes to trying to recruit them, and LM certainly will want to recruit the kind of people who have a lifelong passion. Most large aircraft companies do similar things, Boeing has scholarship and school programs, EADS does too, they don't have to, but they have good reasons to want to. Al

Does SLI actually improve performance?

Anyone have any screenshots?

Try the Prepar3D homepage: http://www.prepar3d.com/experience/images/

Thanks simmerhead. I may end up doing this. I'm going to get a dedicated hard drive to try it out.

Hmmm, after that 1.2 version it might be worth a hard look, although FSX is running so well for me now that I wonder if I really need a new sim.

Let's make this thread a sticky until we have a better visibility of this product. Al, I really don't believe LM's marketing decision has something to do with Citroen's tinplate toys history.As far as I understand Prepar3D, it's a professional training tool for home or flying schools usage and not a flagship product.

Key to making P3D viable to a broad spectrum of users used to fsx is 3rd party devs getting in board with it. As of now for instance all of FSDT's stuff will not work in it (read post in their general forum for reason why). If third party devs get involved then this is definitely doable.

This forum is for news and information for Microsoft's new software, Flight. Prepar3d is a Lockheed Martin product based on ESP code obtained from Microsoft. At best, Prepar3d would be a subforum in the wider Microsoft Flight SImulator Forum. Why this is a sticky here seems to be incongruous.

Key to making P3D viable to a broad spectrum of users used to fsx is 3rd party devs getting in board with it. As of now for instance all of FSDT's stuff will not work in it (read post in their general forum for reason why). If third party devs get involved then this is definitely doable.

REX and ORBX are already onboard !It is backward compatible with nearly all FSX addons if people care to read up a little more.FSUIPC is now fully compatible with it as are Saitek products. I am preparing to move to that platform permanently.It is being developed as we speak and Ver 1.2 is due in the next few days.It supports Nvidia's SLI and it's use of Shader 3 is fantastic.It also supports multichannel video which is a huge feature especially for the professional users. I have asked lots of questions on their forum and always got great answers from the programmers themselves.I think it is a great leap forward for flight simulation seeing as a real aerospace company have preserved and areimproving Microsoft's 25 years of simulator technology. I bet MS are pleased that it went to Lockheed as opposed to some gaming house !! FSX has been very good to me but it has been dead in the water for almost 6 years now.Time to move on to bigger and better things.

Does it support ati sli?

Does it support ati sli?

Hi Eric ! I have seen no mention of ATI Crossfire so far but I will look out for it.I will report more findings here soon. Fred.