Hello,

          I've been an FSX user from day 1. Like most of you, I've amassed a fairly substantial collection of addons. Today, I was uninstalling an addon airplane using Revo uninstaller to make sure I got all of the files and registry entries. Well, It got everything, including my FSX installation. When I have to do a full reinstall, it usually takes weeks to get everything back to where it was. The question I'm facing now is, is this the time to make the switch to P3d? Is there enough of a performance boost to justify the added expense? What addons will I lose if I go this way. While I expect some bias, this is the P3d forum after all, I know Avsim members are very honest when it comes to things like this. I would really appreciate your thoughts on what the best course of action should be. 

Well would you please list some add ons you are currently using?

Sure,

          PMDG- NGX, 747, MD-11, Aerosoft AEX, Level-D 767. I know Aerosoft's scenery is mostly compatable, but I use FSDT and FlyTampa scenery also. I use FS Genesis for Mesh and UTC for landclass. I also use GEX for ground textures and Rex for cloud and water textures. I know Opus FSX is P3d compatible. I use VOX ATC and ProFlight Emulator for ATC. I use MyTrafficX Professional 5.4 for AI. This isn't everything but it is the major ones.

I believe PMDG works in P3D but it requires some manual adjustments... (GOOGLE) 

i think we should wait and see what P3D will bring in new version. Maybe one day will be time to switch, but for some time is really worth to use acronis true image and make a full backup of your stable fsx, so this way will allways take 20-30 min to get everything back

Zeljko,

            It's funny that you mention Acronis True Image. I think I might have made an image last year after a fresh install. Thanks for jogging my memory.

Mike, P3D will not give you a performance boost, it gives you smoothness and stability. If you go looking for an increase in FPS, etc, you will be disappointed. What you get with P3D is performance and stability off the shelf, no need for endless tweakings and changes to the .cfg file, etc.

 

Just fire it up and go.

 

It will not crash on you after flying for hours or in heavy scenery, or even at random (even without tweaks). There are some really good add on managers, the free program "Sim Launcher" works in both FSX and P3D and it is well worth looking at.

 

Other than that, you can purchase the Estonia migrator tool to move over your current FSX stuff if the developer hasnt yet created a P3D installer. Aerosoft is working on updates to their scenery so most will (hopefully) have off the shelf installers.

Also remember that settings in P3D are higher than FSX by default...for example....Dense AutoGen in P3D is equivalent to Very Dense in FSX...so you need to look for what works in the Sim rather than replicate your old FSX settings in P3D.

 

Rex has a module for P3D, as for LandClass, I use the default so can't really comment on it.

Yes, I would recommend changing to P3D, it is a notch or two more stable and smooth.  Don't expect to be blown away by huge improvements, but in my opinion there is absolutely no downside.  THe vast majority of add ons work in P3D.  I haven't had any problems with the NGX.  My Traffic X has a P3D version, so you might have to switch over to that.   Additionally you'll be headed in the right direction when P3Dv2 comes out.

 

I would recommend also using SimLauncher, and you'll never miss the start up screen that P3D doesn't have.  ALso the Estonia P3D installer works great with most FSX add ons.

 

Overall I think you'll be very surprised with how easy and similar to FSX it is to install and set up, and you'll be doing way less tweaking to the p3d.cfg.

 

Pretty much any small issues that you run into can be resolved by google or here in the forum we can assist you. 

Do the Flightbeam scenery's work in P3d? 

I'm using Flightbeam KSFO and yes it works.

 

If you've spent years fiddling around with FSX, you'll instinctively know what to do with P3D since it's basically the same platform.  It's not at all like I imagine switching to XPlane, which would be a complete change, sort of like switching from a PC to MAC, annoying until you figure it all out. 

 

So don't let the intimidation of P3D being something totally different factor in... 

Thanks everyone for the info. Friday is payday so I might have to give it a try.

I too have used FSX from day one indeed, I have every release of MS Flight simulator. I have found that as the complexity of addons has increased, so too has the inability of FSX to handle them, Aerosoft's Airbus X Extended puts a massive drain on my system to the point I am only able to complete a full flight about 20% of the time. I'm running REX as well as Traffic 360 and a lot of ORBX Australian scenery. I'm using an Intel i7 3.4ghz processor with 12gig of ram on win 64 bit and FSX still crashes.

 

In answer  to your question I took the P3D challenge and at $50 I figured it was worth a try. In short, the best move I ever  made, I transferred all my aircraft and sceneries over, extended my REX licence to include P3D ($4.99), re-installed Traffic 360, put all the P3D settings to MAX. I now have uninterrupted flights with increased frame rates and performance.

 

I read somewhere that when Lockheed Martin bought the rights to FSX, they re coded it to run better on quad core multi-processors, which has been the limitation with the native FSX.

 

I for one recommend the switch. I still have FSX on my system but rarely have the need to use it anymore.

One thing you need to be careful of is the current EULAs of both P3D and the addons you use. Technically, the PMDG aircraft aren't even allowed to be used in P3D, even if they work alright. If Lockheed Martin decide to really enforce it, you can end up in some trouble, which while it's unlikely, you need to observe that. You might want to wait for P3D v2.0 which might have some license changes and will [hopefully] fix most of the problems people have addressed. 

One thing you need to be careful of is the current EULAs of both P3D and the addons you use. Technically, the PMDG aircraft aren't even allowed to be used in P3D, even if they work alright. If Lockheed Martin decide to really enforce it, you can end up in some trouble, which while it's unlikely, you need to observe that. You might want to wait for P3D v2.0 which might have some license changes and will [hopefully] fix most of the problems people have addressed. 

Oh my god, NO! NO ONE CARES. Don't make the guy disheartened. Stop with the EULA stuff, people. 

I agree but I'm just adding it to make sure he knows what little risk it is. Nobody will likely do anything with the EULA anyways and it shouldn't matter, but I'm just letting him know.