Prepar3d V2.0 entering beta

[exodus1977 37]

All this discussion about 3PD and PMDG's position regarding it is pretty entertaining. Let me put forward some other thoughts on the subject. Standard caveat applies; I know nothing of the details, am not privy to Rob's thinking on the subject, and am definitely NOT tied into the thinking of LMOC, Boeing or any other stake holders in this discussion. Having said that, keep in mind I am retired Northrop Grumman, so I do have some insight in to the possible mindsets. So, this is just speculation on my part.

 

POSIT 1: Boeing and LMOC are competitors. 3PD is fundamentally a LMOC military product, presumably to aid in sales of their own aviation products.

 

POSIT 2: LMOC won't allow a Boeing product of such fidelity such as the PDMG 777 on their "training" product.

 

POSIT 3: Boeing won't allow a high fidelity representation of their product to appear in a competitor's product (remember, Boeing makes trainers and works in conjunction with companies such as CAE to producer high fidelity trainers too).

 

POSIT 4: Randazzo is allergic to anything military and is afraid that LMOC may put weapons and bombs on the 777, 737, etc.

 

Okay, so there you have it. The posit of Allensworth, for whatever they are worth. B)

Hi Tom- I don't believe we've ever chatted, but thanks for the great site.

 

As an attorney, I can understand the difficulty of contractual obligations--particularly those that likely exist between PMDG (that is publishing Boeing type software) and a competitor like LM (that has P3D). However, I disagree with "posit #1." PMDG is fundamentally based in the commercial airliner sim market--one in which Boeing and LM simply do not compete with each other. There may be some military contract competition between the two, but PMDG is clearly not in that market and P3D is not releasing its "special version" to its non-military subscribers. Accordingly, I really don't see the issue with PMDG/Boeing making a product for P3D (...not that my opinion ever counted).

 

If LM continues to develop P3D and offers a license that us student/developers can afford, then I imagine something with PMDG will have to change. And I stress the phrase, "have to."  To put it differently, if PMDG only supports MS FSX, I have to ask-- in what year do they go out of business? This is an honest question.  FSX is 7 years old (at this point) and may be eclipsed very shortly (based upon P3D speculation). To put it another way, can PMDG (as a company) say that they have a forward vision for releasing products in (lets say) 2020 based exclusively on the FSX platform? A platform that as of 2013 is no longer supported, the code sold off and otherwise dead.  To me, PMDG seems too business savvy to let this sort of obsolescence occur. But, like I said, my opinion never mattered. Someone commented earlier about LM buying out PMDG (and I believe it was satire)... however, that might be a very smart move.

Regarding PMDG and P3D... here's my thought:

 

1. PMDG can only publicly release their aircraft for entertainment purposes, it's a restriction placed on them by Boeing.

2. Prepar3D is not licensed for entertainment purposes, it's a restriction placed on L-M when they purchased the original ESP code from Microsoft.

 #1 I disagree. It's liability.

[Noel 4,580]

All this discussion about 3PD and PMDG's position regarding it is pretty entertaining. Let me put forward some other thoughts on the subject. Standard caveat applies; I know nothing of the details, am not privy to Rob's thinking on the subject, and am definitely NOT tied into the thinking of LMOC, Boeing or any other stake holders in this discussion. Having said that, keep in mind I am retired Northrop Grumman, so I do have some insight in to the possible mindsets. So, this is just speculation on my part.

 

POSIT 1: Boeing and LMOC are competitors. 3PD is fundamentally a LMOC military product, presumably to aid in sales of their own aviation products.

 

POSIT 2: LMOC won't allow a Boeing product of such fidelity such as the PDMG 777 on their "training" product.

 

POSIT 3: Boeing won't allow a high fidelity representation of their product to appear in a competitor's product (remember, Boeing makes trainers and works in conjunction with companies such as CAE to producer high fidelity trainers too).

 

POSIT 4: Randazzo is allergic to anything military and is afraid that LMOC may put weapons and bombs on the 777, 737, etc.

 

Okay, so there you have it. The posit of Allensworth, for whatever they are worth. B)

Well hey that's easy--PMDG could migrate off to support XPlane 64 and give 'em a run for their money just in time for XPlane Version 11.0--you know, the one w/ airport buildings everywhere you find them in the competition?  Yeah!

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

I am beginning to think that my sense of humor is not on the same wave length as most in this thread. Pity. I spent hours coming up with those "posits". :p0503:

[JimmiG 244]

I'm still surprised that certain people here are so transfixed with why P3d won't initially be a 64 bit app (which it eventually will be).

 

This is because recently, OOM (Out Of Memory) errors have become a real problem in FSX / P3D 1.x. With aircraft and scenery becoming more and more detailed, they use more VAS than ever before. Even if two airports fit in the VAS individually, a flight from one detailed airport to another in a highly detailed aircraft may exhaust the VAS on final approach, resulting in your flight ending prematurely.

 

Even if an 8 GHz Haswell comes out tomorrow, we're currently at the stage where developers simply cannot add any more detail.

 

However I expect the P3D 2.0 developers to keep VAS usage in mind when they write the new graphics engine. There are a lot of opportunities to clean up the code to reduce VAS usage.

[HighTowers 1,439]

I sure hope this doesnt turn into Another EULA discussion. 

We are all hungry for a new simulator, that is updated, and takes advantage of modern hardware. Money talks. 

[magnetite 38]

Other software I use actually puts all the textures it uses in a cache file and runs it off the hard drive (as a big archive). No VAS used. Well, aside from things like levels and such, all the textures are not stored in VAS. Don't see why P3D couldn't do something similar.

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

 

 

I sure hope this doesnt turn into Another EULA discussion.

 

If it does, it won't last long.

[TheDanger 182]

What's the basis of said stance?

 

PMDG's stance during a Q+A session at the last AVSim conference when asked if the 777 was going to be released for P3D. It looks pretty obvious to me

 

 

 

 

Taken from Monty Pyton....for those that don't know

[Akila 40]

This is what I anticipate will happen

 

Users might find the way to make PMDG work on P3D v2.

maybe not in it's maximum potential P3D v2 features and performance , but at least the same as in FSX.

this will be done either by manually tweaking or by 3rd party tools like P3D migration tools, etc. which there is one already for P3D v1.x

 

I believe most will Migrate PMDG to P3D v2, legally or not, breaking the EULA or not, I believe it will make no difference as the added value of

P3D v2 will be so great (under the assumption), that users will want to move to P3D no matter what PMDG EULA they break.

especially that most 3rd party vendors will support or are supporting P3D.

be truth with yourselves , don't be all noble here talking about the EULA to look at your best in the Forums. how many of us P3D v1.x that like PMDG did not migrate PMDG into P3D just to respect the EULA and decided to use a different product instead.

I believe hardly any of us... talking is one thing but actions are totally a different story at the end.

and you can see this by today's P3D v1.x users that use PMDG, almost everyone migrated their copy of NGX into P3D caring less about the EULA really.

don't lie to yourselves....

 

that will slowly lead to a situation that PMDG sales will start dropping or becoming FSX irrelevant product and they will have to stand in front the inevitable

and fateful decision ever. To jump into the P3D boat pissing off Boeing (maybe) to survive , or die (close up the business) since they don't want to make Boeing mad at them.

 

Another thing you guys forgetting , we are not that great of % PMDG users (i mean those who can't live without it), there are many iFly users, CS users ans VFR GA users.

also  I believe many of us PMGD users are willing to compromise the quality of their Airplane moving to a less complex product like iFly/CS, etc for the great added value that P3D will offer (i know I will).

 

that by itself will cause more and more PPL ditch FSX as developers slowly will develop even greater stuff (like weather tools as an example) that only take their full potential in P3D v2.

another motivation that will cause users to ditch FSX even in the expense of loosing PMDG for a "lees" complex product.

which will lead  PMDG to decide.

jump in or die.... or maybe even they can get to an agreement to limit their License the the Academic version only and not the Pro (which is the real problem with Boeing is the Pro version as it is a direct competition to real pilot simulations) 

 

this is my forecast of events.

[AndyPaul 11]

This is what I anticipate will happen

 

Users might find the way to make PMDG work on P3D v2.

maybe not in it's maximum potential P3D v2 features and performance , but at least the same as in FSX.

this will be done either by manually tweaking or by 3rd party tools like P3D migration tools, etc. which there is one already for P3D v1.x

 

I believe most will Migrate PMDG to P3D v2, legally or not, breaking the EULA or not, I believe it will make no difference as the added value of

P3D v2 will be so great (under the assumption), that users will want to move to P3D no matter what PMDG EULA they break.

especially that most 3rd party vendors will support or are supporting P3D.

be truth with yourselves , how many of us P3D v1.x that like PMDG did not migrate PMDG into P3D just to respect the EULA and decided to use a different product instead.

I believe hardly any of us...

 

that will slowly lead to a situation that PMDG sales will start dropping or becoming FSX irrelevant product and they will have to stand in front the inevitable

and fateful decision ever. To jump into the P3D boat pissing off Boeing (maybe) to survive , or die (close up the business) since they don't want to make Boeing mad at them.

 

Another thing you guys forgetting , we are not that great of % PMDG users (i mean those who can't live without it), there are many iFly users, CS users ans VFR GA users.

also  I believe many of us are willing to compromise the quality of PMDG moving to a less complex product like iFly/CS, etc for the great added value that P3D will offer (i know I will).

that by itself will cause more and more PPL ditch FSX as developers slowly will develop even greater stuff (like weather tools as an example) that only take their full potential in P3D v2.

another motivation that will cause users to ditch FSX even in the expense of loosing PMDG for a "lees" complex product.

which will lead  PMDG to decide.

jump in or die....

 

this is my forecast of events.

 

To place the iFly on the same (low) level as a CS in terms of complexity is like saying a rotten apple is as tasty as an apple fresh from the tree. The iFly is leagues better than CS stuff.

 

Anyway, I don't need a PMDG aircraft on P3D v2 since, indeed, I have the iFly which for me presents a sufficient enough complex simulation. There are many other planes outthere, not to forget the Aerosoft Airbus X which do support P3D and hopefully v2 as well.

 

The time is much too early to speculate about what developers will do, time will tell. Enough of us have to buy a P3D v2 license for startes before them companies will also make the jump to invest into a conversion of their FSX products to P3D, in particular smaller ones.

 

Although I dont think this leaked list is fake, we know nothing official from LM in regards to P3D. The fact that several well known publishers are already 'in the boat', however, speaks for itself. P3D with Orbx Terrain, REX textures, Aerosoft aircraft, what else would you want ... 

 

Yay, my 100th post!

[GodAtum 69]

In my case, FSlabs are developing a home cockpit version of the A320 for P3D. as I'm building an A320 cockpit that's the route i will go.

[Bunkers 52]

So if any1 got into the closed beta feel free to tell the rest of us and keep us "in the loop"  B)

[simmerhead 885]

I think a lot of people will be really dissapointed when they run P3D 2.0 the first time and discover it doesn't look much different from FSX and P3D 1.4.

 

Don't get me wrong. It will hopefully be an improvement over what we have, but LM has a different focus than the average simmer, namely catering to the professional market and making the platform usable and scalable to a lot of different user. Cloud shadows, improved ATC and state of the art graphics aren't their highest priority, a far cry from it (pun intended!)

 

The best news so far is the promise of a much improved rendering engine, even better and more up to date than what Microsoft did in FLIGHT. Also, Lockheed Martin has been very supportive of external developers, just look at all the free advertising Carenado and others get at the P3D website. For the average simmer this is key, because it is the external developers who will make most out of what P3D 2.0 will have to offer, hence catering to the average simmer market.

[Copper. 78]

I am beginning to think that my sense of humor is not on the same wave length as most in this thread. Pity. I spent hours coming up with those "posits". :p0503:

Oh there are many on the same wave length, observing the hilarity! Thanks for the insight Tom. What a year 2013 has been for simming.

[mgh 89]

My main concern (like many others I'm sure) is, will the buttload of money we have spent on products built for FSX transfer to P3D, or at least: will the developers update their products to work with P3D 2.0?

 

Lockheed Martin said

We are adding some features to the model format for 2.0 though so 2.0 models won't work in P3D 1.x, ESP, or FSX. Older models should still work in P3D 2.0 however[My emphasis]

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=2870.0#postid-12476.

 

The use of should rather than will means there's no guarantee that all V1.4/FSX models will work in V2.0. Simpler ones might work; more complex ones might not?

 

That must have implications for developers. Do they spend effort converting any V1.4/FSX models that don't work with V2.0 and who will pay for that?

 

In the future do they develop V2.0 models for a smaller market, continue to develop for V1.4/FSX, or develop for both with additional costs?