Prepar3d 2.0

[cj3737 1]

Ive heard some muttering about 2.0... Anyone know of a release date?

[Ian McPhail 55]

Beyond a casual end of the year type comment, no.

 

I'm still hanging on 1.4 which appears to have seiz

[Zeus67 15]

As Ian said there is no word beyond end of 2012, beginning 2013. It will come out, that is the only certainty.

[Ian McPhail 55]

ed up.

[KL Oo 695]

Is there a list of any planned features for 2.0?

[Ian McPhail 55]

I have read about DX10 or DX11. I guess the whole trick now is to make scenery rendering vastly more efficient (and VCs). Hopefully even v1.4 will do this, but by 2.0 I guess they will have completed a thorough revamp of the ESP and hence the FSX scenery engine. Many. most, of us have spent thousands on getting our hardware up to speed, therefore inherent limitations in the code are now staring at us with FSX, and this we are told is the aim of LM to correct.

 

Backward compatibility with FSX is important, because at the moment this is the most important incentive, allowing us to get value from our five year investment in addons for FSX and it will be the connection that will promote the greatest uptake of P3D.

 

v1.3 has some bugs, but those of us who use it, find it already appreciably better than FSX. But in the way of the sim world, there are those as loyal to FSX as are those who stick with FS9 and claim it to be superior to FSX. Not something my experience ever showed to me, but...!

[gandy 18]

Is there a list of any planned features for 2.0?

 

The list of official Features stands at..

 

1. Direct X 11 Support

 

Everything else you hear to do with v2 is people having a guess or repeating what they hear on the rumour mill.

[Zeus67 15]

The list of official Features stands at..

 

1. Direct X 11 Support

 

Everything else you hear to do with v2 is people having a guess or repeating what they hear on the rumour mill.

 

2. Complete backwards compatibility with FSX and P3D ver 1.x. FS9 compatibility will be limited because of tech advances.

[gandy 18]

I have not heard about the backwards compatibility, any chance you can share the official post from LM :)

[alainneedle1 97]

Here is a part of what I posted on another forum,

 

Full DX11 support is actually a combination of software (API) and hardware features of the graphics card. DX11 is still backwards compatible with DX9 and DX10, but to be able to use all the advanced features of DX11 such as tessellation and shader model 5, the hardware must be capable of those features.

 

Also, you must have Vista or window 7.

 

A patch will be needed to make all your addons DX11 compatible if they were not sold DX11 compatible from the start, will the patch be free....i doubt it.

 

This question should be ask on Prepar3D forum, "Will Prepar3D be 100% DX11 compliant?"

 

There is no way around it, if Prepar3D become DX11 and you want to use DX11 all new addons will have to be DX11 compatible and the old one will have to be patched.....ask Orbx if they will give you a free DX11 patch on all the scenery you already got from them, if not what will be the price of the patch?

 

Crysis 2 is the best example (I have the game), Crysis 2 was not DX11 at released but some time after two patches were released, one was Crysis_2_DX11_pack, the other one was Crysis_2_HiRes_Texture_Pack.

 

Here...that's DX11 fully used...

 

Do you think Prepar3D will come up with something remotely looking like that with the old FSX's engine....if they do...good for them.... I'm not holding my breath.

[Ben Cap 89]

Also, the texture 'layering' will also be fixed with v2.

[Noel 4,486]

I have read about DX10 or DX11. I guess the whole trick now is to make scenery rendering vastly more efficient (and VCs). Hopefully even v1.4 will do this, but by 2.0 I guess they will have completed a thorough revamp of the ESP and hence the FSX scenery engine. Many. most, of us have spent thousands on getting our hardware up to

 

Native 64 bit code & multicore support sounds attractive. If the engine went to 64bit, I guess add ons could be troublesome eh?

[alainneedle1 97]

Before sinking more money on addons for Prepar3D one may be wise to ask the right person on the right forum if a cost will be attached to the old scenery/improvements of their addons to make it usable with DX11 (one will think that the right peoples would already have the answer to these questions) and if 64-bits become a reality....well......you catch more flies with honey than vinegar..... so how much???

[TheDanger 182]

....well......you catch more flies with honey than vinegar..... so how much???

 

I prefer vinegar on my fish and chips to honey

[Zeus67 15]

Native 64 bit code & multicore support sounds attractive. If the engine went to 64bit, I guess add ons could be troublesome eh?

The engine will remain 32 bit for the foreseeable future.

 

The link to the forum post regarding backwards compatibility: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=757

 

We intend keeping backwards compatibility with existing add-ons.

 

We need to work together, so no fears about that. We are certainly looking at and noting the feature requests from the community as well. Where possible we will communicate our intentions for any major changes as we are currently doing for the DX11 upgrade. (BTW, this specific update should not see any major changes to add-ons.) Our intention is to improve and extend SimConnect as we have done so already without breaking backwards compatibility. There will inevitably be changes as the product continues to grow and improve. That is part of the growth of any product and the forward momentum of technology. As a member of the flight simulation community for over 20 years, I get the requirement to maintain stability. At the same time, we all want to push the boundaries....

John

 

Regarding the flight model:

Hi Robin,

Not necessarily, we put in ExternalSim so that brand new and more complex flight models could be added without breaking any existing models. The other point I would make is that the current flight model is actually pretty good, albeit with some limitations. What is lacking is better documentation and this means that developers are not getting the best out of the system. I am trying to address this in the future. Hopefully developers will jump onto ExternalSim to create those hyper-realistic flight models though! We certainly do this inside of Lockheed.

John

 

In other words, the core will remain the same but they will improve SimConnect so any improvement can be done externally. That means that any FSX add-on will work without problems and any New P3D only add-on can also make use of improved technology without breaking compatibility.