So who do you believe is the more credible - the "arm chair lawyers" or John Nicol from Lockheed Martin Prepar3D?
Lyn

David Roch<p>

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Posted 11 October 2011 - 02:14 AMGents, From now we won't allow any more comment on the legal aspect of Prepar3D.Discussing here about the deal between Microsoft and Lockheed Martin without any basis is useless and sterile.Avsim is not a lawyer school and all those groundless speculations and comments are inappropriate and out of place here. Thanks to John Nicol, we have a fantastic opportunity to interfacing with LM developers, we shouldn't waste it because of legal stuff that isn't in our hands.Thanks for understanding.

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Posted 06 September 2011 - 04:50 PMSekstifire, on 05 Sept 2011 - 5:43 PM, said:

Prepar3d is basically FSX, Lockheed bought the IP rights to the code from Microsoft. Lockheed are not allowed to sell it to consumers tho, so the asking price is really high. Its basically exactly the same as FSX, except that it costs 10x the amount of money. And that Lockheed is developing it (I think they added some sort of submarine logic, not sure if they have added anything for flightsimmers yet)

Hi, Just to be clear (and trying not to sound defensive!). Anyone can purchase Prepar3D. We do not sell it as an entertainment product and the EULA talks about that, which means that it will not be appearing on the shelves of Best Buy next to Call of Duty any time soon..... I am not sure where the rumour started that we sell only to certain people, but anyone can buy it. It isn't about consumers, but end-use. If you are a pilot, simulation user, student, whatever and want to use it for familiarization, training, taxiing over bugs then go for it. If you are 10 or 110 it doesn't matter. If you want to use it at an arcade game, then buy something else. You can go to our website and purchase it with a credit card and download it. The commercial license version is $499 and we have added a considerable amount of features and made a lot of bug fixes to the code that we were fortunate enough to procure from Microsoft. A list of features can be found on our website at www.prepar3D.com. We certainly have added in bathymetry data to allow the use of submersibles and we have added in a few features for hard-core users that they should find interesting including true multi-channel (spreads the load of the image generator across multiple PCs), update to DirectInput 8 to allow up to 32 axes and 128 buttons per joystick, sensor views (night vision and infra-red), updated landclasses, GPS upgrades and so on. We have also updated and improved the SDK documentation and added more samples for developers. We are also going to be releasing an update version 1.2 of Prepar3D and the SDK in the next few weeks. Those that are looking to test, integrate, develop, investigate etc and therefore do not require a full commercial license can subscribe for $9.95 per month and receive 2 copies of the software. That is an option that many people are taking and I would be glad to see more people come on board and see what they can do with the app! There are no restrictions to joining the developer network. If people are using Prepar3D for commercial activities, then switching to the commercial license is appropriate and required. For Victor, sorry that the website isn't clear enough. I will work with Lockheed communications to try to get some clarity on that. We are just a bunch of engineers and not necessarily the best at marketing!! Regards,John NicolPrepar3D.

Back on the topic of P3d as a platform replacement for FSX - there'd have to be a dramatic difference in scenery/lighting/weather depiction for me to switch and consider it a replacement.

Don't know about you, but I dont feel any sense of depth to anything in the sims. I think shadows has a lot to do with this. Also mountains - no sense of depth or definition to them. Lighting - always strikes me as being too bold and bigger, instead of being small defined bits of light. Water - no sense of depth to it etc etc. for 2013, I would've thought we'd be more advanced than we are. Hopefully v2 will be a game changer, and more PMDG, simmer friendly.

 

They are redoing the lighting system and how it in interacts with terrain. Saw a post about it on their forums just this past week.

Hopefully that improves things.

Well Done Mazo!

 

That should just about settle it. "I use P3D because someday perhaps I may wish to be a pilot or a submarine driver." Qualifies you to use the student version.

I wanna use P3D cos none of my friends use it and I wanna be a badass mutha

Great, thanks bonchie. It appears LM are doing great things to their platform. Good to hear they're on to the 'issues'.

 

I have little doubt that I will make the switch, though I'll have to wait it out to see some big differences visually, because it just seems like more of the same (I say this whilst acknowledging the hard work LM engineers have already invested, and the leaps you've made so far).

 

I appreciate LM engineers are playing catch-up. I look forward to seeing the results of their work.

Alain and Gerry,  I have not seen any member on any forum carry on like you two have over the last two years.

 

    Jumping in any thread to bring up the same conversation and over two years never convert anyone to you way of thinking on this subject.   I have seen the admins warn other people in the xplane forum, as an example, for far less ongoing derailment of conversation.

 

    For all the many hours of your life you have devoted to the crusade over the last 24 months, wouldn't you just sigh a breath of relief if you took a break from it?

what is the real issue here .the same people time and again using the same silly arguments to basically rubbish P3d,makes me wonder if you act for a third party , maybe a company? ,who knows, these people seem to  have a phobia regarding P3d , give it up boys just purchase P3d you know you really want to ,come on over  to the dark side ,its really good here ,30fps and no issues ,Purchase P3d you know it makes sense,

I'm waiting for V2 and see how it is, anyway personally I would prefer to see Prepar3d as the next big sim especially if it maintains some compatibility with FSX addons... Would make things quite a bit easier than learning the new way of making things with X Plane.

Thank you Bonchie and Copper, I did mean for this thread to be about the furture of P3D, not EULA of P3D, however, I must say that the discussion has been fisty and entertaining. I would like to discuss more about P3D addon's, 64 bit vs the sims 32 bit platform. Running out of memory problems? How hefty of a computer would we need to run the program smooth? I know some of these questions will come when v2 comes out. Those that have already purchased P3D, do you like it? What do you like and what do you not like? I signed up on LM's fourm for P3D and those of you who have not, take a look at it, and those who have, I would like to keep this thread going for everything P3D to keep everyone updated on latest news. I know everyone has opinions on the EULA and I do think the discussion on that topic in this thread has been intresting.  Thank you all in the community replying to this thread, however, I would like to move on to the subject of P3D and its furture. Thanks again and I'll stay glued to this thread.

 

Best Regards

Lamar Wright 

 

 

Mini Blog on V2. Im excited. The license thing is a big ?? but I have high hopes. Cant wait.

 

http://edwardboyte.blogspot.ca/p/prepar3d.html

 

and this quote sounds interesting

 

" In V2 we do terrain lighting and mesh generation dynamically on the GPU. Fast flight terrain paging performance is much improved as a result. By leveraging D3D11 texture arrays, hardware instancing, and tessellation, we can draw the terrain and water for the entire globe in one draw call. (No promises that we will ship it as one draw call because it may be more optimal to break up, but it's pretty exciting that it's possible with D3D11.) In addition, we encode the land class into the elevation model which allows us to shade differently for each land classification. (e.g. snow will appear shiny in the regular scene and cold in the IR sensor scene.)"

 

Thanks,

Beau

 

Prepar3D Software Engineer"

Edited July 11, 201312 yr by HighTowers

This sounds sooooooo exciting!! Looking forward to V2.

I wonder if V2 will be available to current paying customers at a discount

Very happy to have purchased ver. 1 and am excitedly awaiting ver. 2

 

I'm a proud supporter of all things "Simulator" X-plane included.

I wonder if V2 will be available to current paying customers at a discount

 

Was FSX available at discount for FS9 customers?

LM has already indicated that there will be an upgrade "path" for professional users. I interpret that as meaning the possibility of a discount for current Professional Version customers. Since they are NOT mentioned, I would venture a guess that the academic users would not have this option.

 

This last statement is totally MY take on the situation - nothing official that I know of.

 

Vic