Wow, I didn't think for a moment that TrackIR didn't work with P3D. That would disclude me from any interest in the product, until TIR support is provided. :(

Funny thing is, I'm not too worried about TRir as long as I have Ezdok, now that I couldn't live without

Combine both, Howard. EZCA doesn't replace or fill a gap for TIR in my eyes. Same for the other way around. You 'need' both to be happy, which, unfortunately, comes at quite some money on the TIR hardware. Maybe you can ask a friend to try it there, it will change a lot, if you like it. At least, it's a total different experience and that comes from a guy being very much in doubt about buying TIR or not, back then.Or you 'head' for that freeware, tracking you with your webcam only. Worth a try.

No VATSIM is a massive reason why i dont use P3D even though i subscribe, have done since last summmer too.

As I understand it, it doesn't matter if P3D supports TrackIR if you have EZCA. In such a setup, it's EZCA that communicates with TrackIR anyway, so problem solved.

I have been thinking of getting it at this new and very reasonable price!My only concern is that of performance? Am I right in thinking it currently performs worse than FSX in the same circumstances and under the same hardware?...perhaps this still puts other people off too!

The general consensus is that P3D performs better than FSX. The difference is not astounding but from personal experience I run P3D at higher settings than FSX with better performance and using the same addons.

I'm certainly interested in how things go with P3D. It will be interesting to see where it goes since M$ wandered off. The recent developments are sounding encouraging. I don't see the business model with Flight. It seems that M$ threw the baby out with the bathwater trying to turn their investment into a mass market game. Who'd have thought that LM would be the one to pick up the ball.I don't have P3D yet, but the night is young :)I'm curious what the differences are between FSX and P3D. I've seen the increased texture resolution to 4096. I've seen that P3D has some new development tools. What else has changed?

Here's the change log for P3D v1.2 and v1.3http://www.prepar3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Release_Notes_for_Prepar3D_1.2.pdfhttp://www.prepar3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Release_Notes_for_Prepar3D_1.3.pdf

The general consensus is that P3D performs better than FSX. The difference is not astounding but from personal experience I run P3D at higher settings than FSX with better performance and using the same addons.

I don't see that 'consensus' taking place at all. Apart from the folks trying to justify the purchase or (former) monthly fee for just another FSX. I appreciate personal experiences of course, and respect them, but, as said, I wouldn't mark them as a general outcome.It's not that P3D got more efficient on the strong CPU dependency the FSX platform gives you and it's not that e. g. you can now use heavy AA settings in clouds without seeing a huge impact. So that basic structure and the lacks of it haven't changed at all. Even the 'new' 4096 texture size thing comes with the same downsides as in FSX. Used on the clouds and running nice AA settings still gives you a major fps impact due to the ways FSX/P3D generates clouds.Besides, I wasn't able to run all my FSX addons in P3D. So the same experience (from FSX) may, currently, not be in reach. Depends on the actual addons and tools of course.Me says one should look closer before buying. That former trial version was a nice policy. If you end up with just the same as in FSX (means good and bad sides) for 50 bucks, you still have wasted your money.

since theoretically MS could pull the support plug on FSX, stopping it registering when reinstalled in the same way that they now no longer patch XP

MS still supports XP, I have 2 machines using it and get monthly updates.

Yup, that is true that XP still gets security updates at present, however, XP is now subject to limited support, specifically, for the past three years or so, MS support for XP has been shifted from its mainstream supported products, to the MS extended support system, which means that although it gets monthly security updates, it no longer gets warranty support, or free technical support, and there will be no more service packs for it, SP3 being the last one (which what I was referring to when I said that they no longer patch it). In two years' time (2014), all new support for it, including new security updates, will also cease, and then you will only be able to patch it manually with stuff you have downloaded yourself, with no new security features being available for it at all, so support for it, since 2009, has basically been winding down over a phased five year period.Al

One of the other plus points of P3D of course, is that some of the 'default aircraft' are in fact FSX payware aircraft. For example the Just Flight FSX Constellation, which is 30 bucks if you buy the download, comes as one of the default P3D aeroplanes, as indeed does a payware P-38 Lightning, and then there is the fact that it has a minisub as well, which is kind of fun to go driving about underwater, and you certainly can't do that in FSX.Al

I picked up P3D Academic this afternoon. Unfortunately, I'm getting fatal errors when trying to add FSX scenery areas. The first one loaded correctly, but got a fatal error after slewing around for 15 minutes or so. Later, I tried adding more scenery and get the fatal error when I click on the Scenery Library menu. As it stands now, I can't add or delete areas from the scenery library.Another thing I noticed with photo scenery was really biased to red. Somehow the color was interpreted differently than the original file or how FSX shows it. It's my own (WIP) scenery, so I could adjust it, but I am curious where the red bias came from.The first screen shot is FSX and the second is from P3D. Some of the difference is that I have FSX at LOD 9.5, so there's more clarity in the distance with FSX.

biased to red

read here:http://forum.avsim.n...25#entry2132780

I did find the answer to the additions or deletions to the scenery library. It works if you run as administrator.P3D does seem to be almost immune to blurries. I just tried another scenery (my Pima County photo scenery). Slewing at 820 KIAS in FSX, it started blurring. In P3D, slewing at 1240 KIAS did not blur. Maybe it should have at that speed :)

Am I right in thinking it currently performs worse than FSX in the same circumstances and under the same hardware?...perhaps this still puts other people off too!

Actually the opposite seems to be true. At least in my experience and many others. It also seems to be more stable.Not sure where you heard it performs worse (I guess some people may say that....everybody's expereince will be different). P3D is basically FSX with some better graphics (water, etc..), a new GUI, and code improvements (the code is continually being improved upon).In the end, what it really comes down to is the fact that P3D is being supported by a development team while FSX is not. That's enough for me.

Actually the opposite seems to be true. At least in my experience and many others. It also seems to be more stable.Not sure where you heard it performs worse (I guess some people may say that....everybody's expereince will be different). P3D is basically FSX with some better graphics (water, etc..), a new GUI, and code improvements (the code is continually being improved upon).In the end, what it really comes down to is the fact that P3D is being supported by a development team while FSX is not. That's enough for me.

Well having now bought it, it does seem to perform better on my rig than FSX...about the same max FPS, but smoother, no blurries and the lighting seems better....BUT!I haven't yet transferred all my add-ins over, so I am expecting performance to drop as I continue to port stuff across!Still - if they keep supporting and developing it and more add-on developers make it easier to carry across your existing FSX stuff, whether for gratis or a small fee, it certainly has potential.I wonder if they will be able to get clever with the DX11 work they are doing and push more rendering/scenery/FX work onto the GPU, thus potentially improving performance?

I guess what I'm waiting to hear from all you guys is, "hey what a great sim, fantatsic, everything works and the performance is noticeably better" but sadly, I'm not hearing that.