It does seem slightly better "out of the box" than FSX...though again, this may be placebo!If you read the "tweaks" section in the Learning Centre (installed along with P3D) it does in fact reference all the old favourites (Affinity Mask, HiMem, Pools, etc etc) and recommends that you experiment with them and implement according to your system specs and personal preference as they are not configured by default.

I saw that section but really did not see any commenting as to whether anyone used them. It would be nice to not have to use the UsePools, but I guess if LM has worked with that part of the code I will soon find out.Bob

Can someone tell me what Prepar3d has better simulated over FSX? Left alone the addons.

I saw that section but really did not see any commenting as to whether anyone used them. It would be nice to not have to use the UsePools, but I guess if LM has worked with that part of the code I will soon find out.Bob

I have included the usepools=0 and affinity mask in my P3D.cfg and that is all.Honestly, I have spent so much time tweaking over the last few weeks I find it hard to tell whether anything is making any improvements any more - I should probably quit and just get flying again!

I have included the usepools=0 and affinity mask in my P3D.cfg and that is all.Honestly, I have spent so much time tweaking over the last few weeks I find it hard to tell whether anything is making any improvements any more - I should probably quit and just get flying again!

What happens if you remove the UsePools=0? If you do not see any difference, that is very good news indeed!!If you have time please let me (us) know. I am very curious.Bob

The worst humidity I have ever experienced in my life was in Houston. And that's from a guy who lived in Wash D.C. for eight years! Don't know how you do it? And on the other topic, I plan to switch over to P3D as soon as they support mulit-cores and GPU's. Maybe we get lucky with version 2? From what I undestand they said it would take several years to "re-write" the code. They've had the code close to what, two years? So maybe in a year we see a v2. Then it's bye-bye MS. It's been fun.

I guess that is considered central Texas. What is the weather like there in the summer? Do you have a lot of trees there? What about tornado's?Bob

More west Texas, hot and dry!, lots of Mesquite trees (which are pretty ugly), windy but rarely tornados.

What happens if you remove the UsePools=0? If you do not see any difference, that is very good news indeed!!If you have time please let me (us) know. I am very curious.Bob

A quick, dirty and very unscientific test using the default flight and airport from P3D, frames unlocked, seemed to show a very slight increase on the top end in terms of FPS with pools=0, but no significant difference in the average or bottom end...Thing is, after much tweaking and messing around, I do now seem to have FSX running better than P3D with all add-ons etc!On the flip side, I got a little cavalier with bulk copying add-ons and old folders from FSX over to P3D and I am not entirely sure I haven't caused a few issues in doing so.Overall and after much deliberation, I don't see a significant difference in performance between the two on an even playing field - blurries seems reduced in P3D, bloom doesn't seem to have the same heavy impact and the colours are a little richer and that is about all.As others have said, what I have done is set my flag in the sand to support a product which, fingers crossed, will one day offer improved performance and stability over FSX and still allow me to use all my $1000s of add-ons!Until that day I am fairly sure I will be sticking with FSX as my everyday sim.

The worst humidity I have ever experienced in my life was in Houston. And that's from a guy who lived in Wash D.C. for eight years! Don't know how you do it? And on the other topic, I plan to switch over to P3D as soon as they support mulit-cores and GPU's. Maybe we get lucky with version 2? From what I undestand they said it would take several years to "re-write" the code. They've had the code close to what, two years? So maybe in a year we see a v2. Then it's bye-bye MS. It's been fun.

I have spent 1 summer here so far and that's enough. Well I do hope v2 is here within a year unless Houston kills me before that happens (cry baby) - yea I know. I am spoiled. Lived in Washington State for 10 years and loved it and miss it sooooooo much, aside from their "liberal" policies.Bob

I would say stick with FSX for a while yet but eventually move to P3D, unless MS decide to push Flight all the way to, and past, Flight Simulator territory before then. You may want to consider your next addon purchase to be able to install for Prepar3D when/if you get it, as well as FSX now.Steve

I would say stick with FSX...

The whole point of the original post was to find out which may be better for me, or someone who may in a similar situation to mine, where I don't have FSX and therefore no addons for FSX.Have been with X-plane for the past decade, which although has had great potential but has never approached or quite fulfilled that potential in any significant way. You fly with what's there, not with the "potential". You fly with what's real not with what's "plausible".Needless to say, Flight doesn't quite fit the bill. Hence my search for a possible alternative. Yet, I haven't completely given up on X-plane - since that may be hard to considering the amount of hours and years I have devoted to flying it and developing for it.So, still hoping for and looking forward to more opinions on FSX or Prepr3d Academic ?

I think the comparisons regarding performance are kind of missing the point. No-one said P3D was an instant magic bullet. However one should consider this:1. Stability - I rarely get CTDs in P3D, in fact I can't remember the last time. FSX on the other hand is (for most people) flaky at best with complex (or even not so complex) add-ons.2. Showing support - by buying and using P3D you are sending a message not only to LM but also to the 3PDs. Here is a way for the FS that we know and love to move forward; the more that jump on board the brighter the future is for its continued developmemt, and the add-on support will follow accordingly (although many work straight out of the box already).

If you are getting instability in FSX then you have settings wrong, or there are corrupted textures.P3D I will move to if they actually implement a DX11 graphics system.

At this moment I am really happy with how FSX is perorming on my setup. So for now I stick to my grandmothers wise words: "don't fix, what isn't broken." That doesnt mean, however, that I am not going to make the switch eventually. I do keep an eye out how Prepar3D is developing and once I am confident enough - and feel up to the task of converting and fiddeling with maps and dll- I probably will make the jump.

If you are getting instability in FSX then you have settings wrong, or there are corrupted textures.P3D I will move to if they actually implement a DX11 graphics system.

That may be true in some cases but quite a few add-ons can cause FSX to be unstable especially when using two or more together.This can be frustrating especially a when on finals at the end of a four hour flight!I find that disabling unused entries in DLL.XML can help to some degree.

FSX works very well for me, I have a ton of addons (looks like my FSX folder is currently 45 gigs) and a ton of tweaks as well. I never spend time tweaking any longer (thank god) and I never experience any CTDs or oom errors or anything like that. I'd lie if I said that performance was good, I wouldn't call 25-30 fps good performance for a 2006 title, but its OK / normal when it comes to FSX of course. Its fluid, without stuttering. I would say that I am currently fairly happy with FSX and unless P3D adds significant improvements I dont really see any reason to move over yet