Give P3D a try... Lets see. A civlian simulator program, purchased by a military contractor company undoutingly with tax payers (My) moneys because it is an experimental D.O.D program. Now in a period of 6yrs I can spend 720.00 on a program that is and always will be very similliar to FSX. As a famous comidian once said "You can't fix stupid." By the way. The military and their contractors dont take a crap son without naming it something. What does P.R.E.P.A.R.3D stand for anyways?

Ron White said it ... one of my favorites Ease up .. some people like to have to pay to FSX twice... its their thing

Lockheed Martin is a privately held company... they sell stuff to militaries and civilians alike for profit. To state that LM used taxpayer money to buy...

A civlian simulator program, purchased by a military contractor company undoutingly with tax payers (My) moneys because it is an experimental D.O.D program.

Tells me you do not understand anything about how defense contractors work... This program P3D is a LM program, paid for by LM money, now yes that money is from profits they earned pedaling their goods to governments. But it becomes their money to do with what they wish once the contract is signed. R&D funds are controlled by DOD NOT LM, infact in any contractor facility where tax money is being spent to fund any DOD program there are several DLA employees as well as military procurement officers on site who oversee and sign off on any and all funds. The idea that LM simply spent US tax dollars to buy a flight simulator they are now selling to the public is a bit laughable... but considering some of the stuff that gets tossed around these forums it does not surprise me in the least. If in fact DOD had authorized LM to buy and complete any such sim, you nor any of us would be talking about buying it for you to play with on your PC...

Give P3D a try... Lets see. A civlian simulator program, purchased by a military contractor company undoutingly with tax payers (My) moneys because it is an experimental D.O.D program. Now in a period of 6yrs I can spend 720.00 on a program that is and always will be very similliar to FSX. As a famous comidian once said "You can't fix stupid." By the way. The military and their contractors dont take a crap son without naming it something. What does P.R.E.P.A.R.3D stand for anyways?

Currently it still does bear similarity to FSX but it's beginning to move away from FSX SP2 quickly. I'll let the post above mine explain who paid for it to be developed and Prepar3D is a name not an acronym.

Is there anyone here who actually tried it ?I really would like to know more about it. Avsim forum meber RougeGent wrote about it : Posted 07 March 2011 - 04:11 AM I have been running Prepar3d for a week or two now. And guess what... FSX, is now lying in the bin!! I love this thing. I registered as a "developer" and am paying a $10/month subscription which entitles me to two licenses and the SDK. I have a 2006 mac pro quad 2.66 zeon, 4 GB RAM and an ati 5870 and I can say that prepar3d runs the way fsx always SHOULD have. Great performance increases :). So long as you follow the FSX integration installation instructions on Lockheed's website, 99.9% of FSX addons work just as they would in FSX. I have installed captainsim jets, a2a accusim b377, PNG Bushpilot scenery and many others perfectly. I have noticed there's a couple of gauge issues with the uiver dc-2 but I'm confident I can fix these. The only other downsides I've found so far is the UI is quite watered down but imho, in a good way. There is less default aircraft; no boeing, airbus or cessna A/C i'm guessing due to licensing issues with the plane manufacturers. Also the weather interface is a little buggy and there appears to be a lack of a "real world weather" option. In short though, IT ROCKS!!! And for $10 a month, just try it then delete it if you don't like it. Buy it now and start hassling all our third party devs to look at supporting it, I recon lockheed's really on to something good here! ;) Imagine this to run smooth with good framerates, better graphical effects and the use of SLI....It already supports FSUIPC. This what Lockheed Martin says :Prepar3D furthers the development of Microsoft® ESP™ while maintaining compatibility with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, allowing many thousands of add-ons to be used within Prepar3D Here a screenhot I found from CS C-130 flying over FlyTampa's Athens This what Dean said about it at FsDeveloper :In my experience the shaders have been totally overhauled and overall the performance seems better than FSX. I get stutters and occasion frame rate drops in FSX with the same scenery and settings, whereas P3D I'm able to lock in at 24fps on a 1920x1080 HD monitor.In terms of usage, currently the UI is undergoing work so no intial screen, it loads straight into a flight. Real world weather is not yet implemented but is in process. The "multi-player" system is also being overhauled and right now only supports peer to peer connections.Loading in scenery and simobjects are as simple as FSX.There's a few planes missing compared to FSX, I've been able to port most of mine in, except the 3rd party ones that require simconnect modules to be installed.

HelloBut they are giving them back to the community as payware$9.99 per month.So you really think a company such as Lockheed i.e a fairly serious outfit would purchase the source code from MS, hire some of the ex aces guys to build them a first class military visualisation system and then think, Hell! why don't we just release all of this for free.

Yes, exactly. It would not interfere with sales and deployments of their military visualization systems at all. Completely different markets. It's not like companies and governments will just say "Ok, screw this multi-million dollar visualization platform. Let's just get FSX SP3 and buy a Dell system with a Logitech joystick and a 24" monitor instead." Professional applications of consumer technology is hardly unusual. The same model already exists with X-Plane, which is available as certified version in addition to the regular version.

FSX has already been patched. It's called Acceleration and it's very damn good for $30. As soon as we start to add-on payware or even freeware that's when we begin to see a significant decrease in performance and even instability. Finally, I remember when I saw only 15fps, now in those same places I see 30s. Computers are getting faster and it's only a matter of time before we see FS9's performance in FSX. Hopefully!

What would be nice is for those that are using it to post the addons they have tested with it. I believe more would find interest knowing that their investment in aircraft, textures and the like does work. If this product has stability then it very well may be a good alternative. But until then, most will not bite. Bob

... done with Flight. A couple even broke NDA's to inform the FS community because they felt it just that important. Call them what you want to, people who broke contracts or even whistle blowers but the point is, something is up in the MS Flight world and its got many developers feathers ruffled... I hope Flight is what everyone here wants it to be, but the more I look into it, I fear MS has shifted away from the traditional PC FS SIM towards something else that we won't like, and that is why so many developers are upset.

do you have any links to info on this? I'm really curious what the development plans for MS Flight are. This will make a choice for a prepar3D license easier for me. Thanks.

It's the paying $120 a year that gets me...

What would be nice is for those that are using it to post the addons they have tested with it. I believe more would find interest knowing that their investment in aircraft, textures and the like does work. If this product has stability then it very well may be a good alternative. But until then, most will not bite. Bob

This. Prepar3D seems very interesting, but before jumping from FSX, it would be really nice to hear how addons really work with it. It seems, that even the most complex aircraft work fully or almost, but what about some of the most popular scenery addons, like GEX, UTX or ORBX products (REX seems to be working)? Or terrific and popular AI-products like MTX or UT2? In my opinion addons make the FS-style sim, in the end. Plethora of features compared to FSX is only achieved by 3rd party companies or individuals who produce free/payware addons. FS series has for a long time counted on for 3rd party support whose job is requiered to create huge simulated world: vanilla FSX is just the base and toolbox, addons are the main building blocks. I definitely will buy P3D if most of the addons are compatible out of the box or after little fiddling or I will get the same popular P3D-versions of the same addons hopefully with reduced price, if I own FSX version already. P3D seems very interesting product and I sincerely hope all the best for it and for the team at LM! There aren't too many realistic sims, civilian or combat sims, coming out every year. And not the least, P3D has exceptionally good heritage and deserves no disdain IMO.

I for one, will be very reluctant to cough up 9.99 a month to play something, which ostensibly, will be nothing more than a 'tweaked' version of FSX.

I for one, will be very reluctant to cough up 9.99 a month to play something, which ostensibly, will be nothing more than a 'tweaked' version of FSX.

HelloThe thing is if the community get behind this it is going to end up much more than just a tweaked version of FSX.I don't think it is that unreasonable at £6.43 a month/21p per day.Think about it, its the price of two decent pints of beer a month.

I was under the impression that the subscription is only for registered developers. It even says this on the purchase page:

As provided in our End User License Agreement, the Prepar3D application is not to be used, offered, sold or distributed through markets or channels for use as a personal/consumer entertainment product.

I was under the impression that the subscription is only for registered developers. It even says this on the purchase page:

HelloIf it really starts to bug me that I might not be completely inline with the EULA I will quickly knock together an afcad or just pretend I am not being entertained.This post from the lead dev for P3D may put your mind at rest. Posted 23 September 2011 - 01:27 PMHi,There appears to be some confusion about Prepar3D that I would like to address. I have posted a message here that may be of use: http://forum.avsim.n...ost__p__2115805Yes, it is for normal folks as long as it isn't being intended for use as a game. It is all about end-use. Anyone can purchase it. No hidden agendas here. Please also review the price points and descriptions of the products in the store as well as look at the Developer Network description here: http://www.prepar3d....etwork-program/I really encourage people that have questions to go to the Prepar3D site and ask questions. Thanks! Regards,John NicolPrepar3D

Just remember that you have to check each FSX addons EULA to see if you are permitted to use it in Prepar3d. Some like Flight1 and Orbx do not permit you to use their FSX products in Prepar3d. From the Orbx EULA:This SOFTWARE PRODUCT is for personal entertainment purposes only