I did give this a shot. Got a developer license one-time prepaid subscription. Wasn't going to plunk down $200 and wind up not liking it. I'm a cautious man. Seems okay. However, I seem to run into an issue, where even with the shadowing completely off (heard this kills FPS), I'm still getting 12 FPS. That's without any add-ons. Just the default plane that loads. Normally in FSX I would get 40-50 FPS running at the most dense airports and cities (KJFK, etc) with my add-ons. My system is no slouch though. I have a i7 2600K, GTX 670 4 GB, and lots of RAM.

 

Perhaps I'll come back to Prepar3D when I upgrade my system again in a couple years, but I don't see any big reason to make the switch now. Oh well, gave it the honest try. 

I did give this a shot. Got a developer license one-time prepaid subscription. Wasn't going to plunk down $200 and wind up not liking it. I'm a cautious man. Seems okay. However, I seem to run into an issue, where even with the shadowing completely off (heard this kills FPS), I'm still getting 12 FPS. That's without any add-ons. Just the default plane that loads. Normally in FSX I would get 40-50 FPS running at the most dense airports and cities (KJFK, etc) with my add-ons. My system is no slouch though. I have a i7 2600K, GTX 670 4 GB, and lots of RAM.

 

Perhaps I'll come back to Prepar3D when I upgrade my system again in a couple years, but I don't see any big reason to make the switch now. Oh well, gave it the honest try. 

Jeff, it was reported elsewehere, a similar issue by Nyxx, he deleted the P3D cfg and let it rebuild. He said it improved things a lot.

I did give this a shot. Got a developer license one-time prepaid subscription. Wasn't going to plunk down $200 and wind up not liking it. I'm a cautious man. Seems okay. However...

 

Thanks for this... really seems that then not even my setup will do well either.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did give this a shot. Got a developer license one-time prepaid subscription. Wasn't going to plunk down $200 and wind up not liking it. I'm a cautious man.

With a sixty-day, no quibble refund if not satisfied, what risk would there be?

 

How many software houses have ever offered refunds?

I feel that my greatest fears have been confirmed. Lockheed Martin have moved way too much workload on the GPU, and haven't bothered much with multithreading. As a result, your whole CPU cannot be used, and you need a top-of-the-line GPU to run Prepar3D 2.0 smoothly. Feels exactly like FSX, except that the CPU and GPU have switched places. And come on, how demanding are dynamic lighting and shadows supposed to be? Mainstream games have had them for years and it is very much possible to run them at 60 FPS. It's not like Prepar3D 2.0 has monstrous textures (they are the same as FSX) and tons of shader effects. It still looks like a 2007 game, and still doesn't look as good as Microsoft Flight, which had amazing performance with dynamic lighting and shadows and all that, yet it was DX9. You can say that Microsoft Flight didn't have ATC and AI which is the reason it runs smoothly, but that's all CPU work, which Prepar3D 2.0 doesn't know how to use efficiently.

 

I feel that point releases cannot do much, but they should still try and fix the application. They should try to unlock the complete potential of CPUs, and once Prepar3D can use 8 cores efficiently, some of the workload can be moved back to the CPU to free the GPU for other things (lighting, shadows, water). Once cloud shadows are in and people will want to use them, matters will become even worse. And they should also not depend on add-ons to fix the stock FSX content. I mean, some things like those horrible runway textures could have easily been replaced, which would give all stock airports a fresh feel. And maybe a better detail texture for the grass.

 

If they do all that, then we'll all have a simulator that looks and runs better because it will be able to use both our CPU and GPU to the maximum. By throwing almost the entire workload on the GPU they're making the same mistake Aces made, and it will be years before we have a GPU good enough to handle the maximum settings at 60 FPS.

I feel that my greatest fears have been confirmed. Lockheed Martin have moved way too much workload on the GPU, and haven't bothered much with multithreading. As a result, your whole CPU cannot be used, and you need a top-of-the-line GPU to run Prepar3D 2.0 smoothly.

 

If thats true..then I am ok with it..cause Video cards are improving so rapidly and prices keep falling. CPU is a dead end so ..this may not be a bad approach at all. Earlier..even if I was prepared to throw money I can't get a faster CPU.

 

My concern is how much improvement have we had with VAS/OOM issue. This is the weakest link in the chain.

A few observations from a guy who started playing around with Flightsim when Sublogic released Flight Simulator II for the Mac:

 

1. Runs extremely well on my hardware

2. The lighting, clouds, all of it is stunning

3. AS2012 DOES work with this product for weather depiction. I have not used the AS2012 textures yet, but the weather injection works fine

4. PMDG will make some of their products compatible in q1 2014. As soon as RealAir and Majestic follow PMDG, I will be uninstalling FSX permanently. There is just no performance comparison. It works my GTX680 and I look forward to SLI in 2.1

If thats true..then I am ok with it..cause Video cards are improving so rapidly and prices keep falling. CPU is a dead end so ..this may not be a bad approach at all/

 

Are you saying that if Prepar3D 2.0 could use 8 cores there wouldn't be much of a difference? Even if they don't move more work to the CPU, AI performance can improve greatly. Is it possible to max out the AI sliders without tanking performance like in FSX?

Arjen Vandervelde, on 26 Nov 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

I think P3D is a good step up from FSX. It's got better graphics, shadows, more distant autogen, no autogen popping, fewer bugs and DX11. It's also better optimized for modern-day hardware, which might seem good at first glance, but many people are reporting much lower performance in P3D than in FSX which can only be resolved by monster videocards. FSX can be optimized by monster CPUs, which are mostly much cheaper than monster GPUs. Currently, we are seeing better performance on a CPU intensive program than on a GPU intensive program. Doesn't that make this new GPU optimization utterly pointless?

 

OK, it is only within its early stages of development, but do you honestly think that we are going to go from 25 FPS to an average of 60 on the short term? Of course not. The performance in P3D is very very bad looking at how basic the graphics are compared to most other modern-day games. This means P3D is very poorly optimized. We have the technology to have 60 FPS on a mid-range system in any occasion, and this technology is called XPlane 10, which leaves me puzzled why people aren't welcoming that sim with open arms.

FSX was designed for single cores to get progressively faster which didn't happen, they split. Stronger video cards is where everything is headed (at least more so than single cores would ever be). The first mission for LM was to clean up the crappy FSX code, next I would imagine tackle new/wanted features as LM and our add-on developers explore what's possible (this better positions the software for trainers and military solutions). FSX was such a hurdle to come from for everyone involved over the years. It actually created an accepted low standard for functionality for those that don't remember days before FSX. It was not built for the way hardware was going (or went after it's release), P3D v2 is. I personally think the look of the new sim is fantastic when taken into consideration where it's coming form (the FSX code). Looking at it now like others have mentioned one can only imagine what it will be in the time frame FSX has been out or let's just throttle back to one year from today.

Are you saying that if Prepar3D 2.0 could use 8 cores there wouldn't be much of a difference? Even if they don't move more work to the CPU, AI performance can improve greatly. Is it possible to max out the AI sliders without tanking performance like in FSX?

 

    Have you seen that the CPU is maxed out when you are flying in p3d?   Which graphical features would you remove from the GPU and calculate with the CPU - then ask the GPU to draw them?

 

    Are you expecting to be able to max all the sliders for the graphical features and is that a reasonable expectation?

 

    I suspect that all that dense autogen out to the end of the world does have some impact.   People are comparing to xplane and performance but run some dense OSM scenery in OSX that looks like what we get with p3d and watch the frames tank also.

 

    I know you have the answers, but are they they right answers that will give improved results.  Not sure  removing GPU functions to the CPU will do what you are asking.

    Have you seen that the CPU is maxed out when you are flying in p3d?   Which graphical features would you remove from the GPU and calculate with the CPU - then ask the GPU to draw them?

 

    Are you expecting to be able to max all the sliders for the graphical features and is that a reasonable expectation?

 

    I suspect that all that dense autogen out to the end of the world does have some impact.   People are comparing to xplane and performance but run some dense OSM scenery in OSX that looks like what we get with p3d and watch the frames tank also.

 

    I know you have the answers, but are they they right answers that will give improved results.  Not sure  removing GPU functions to the CPU will do what you are asking.

 

Firstly, can Prepar3D 2.0 max out all cores? Doesn't look like so. If it could properly take advantage of 8 cores, there would be plenty of room for lots of AI, and something like the terrain creation could easily be moved back to the CPU. Then the GPU will have more room to calculate the lighting, the shadows and the water, and more AA would be possible.

 

I asked for something and I hope that somebody can answer. How's the performance with AI when you turn up the sliders? Are the horrible stutters of the road traffic gone?

Firstly, can Prepar3D 2.0 max out all cores? Doesn't look like so. If it could properly take advantage of 8 cores, there would be plenty of room for lots of AI, and something like the terrain creation could easily be moved back to the CPU. Then the GPU will have more room to calculate the lighting, the shadows and the water, and more AA would be possible.

 

I asked for something and I hope that somebody can answer. How's the performance with AI when you turn up the sliders? Are the horrible stutters of the road traffic gone?

 

   Sorry, I can't answer that Q, I haven't looked at it.   Moving graphical features off the cpu is a hard one.  The GPU is optimised for it and with modern GPU features it would be hard for the CPU to match, especially when the cow has to make multiple calls to the GPU to render after the calc is done.

 

    With your example, p3d is doing something all sims have talked about doing and that is using tessellation for some of the terrain creation.

 

 

Feels exactly like FSX, except that the CPU and GPU have switched places.

 

The difference being that when FSX was released the hardware to run it wasn't there. But now you can stellar performance with 'only' a GPU upgrade. And as Manny said:

 

 

 

If thats true..then I am ok with it..cause Video cards are improving so rapidly and prices keep falling. CPU is a dead end so ..this may not be a bad approach at all.

 

I agree. I own a i5 2500K @ 4.5 GHz and in the past I would certainly have replaced it by now already and probably would have bought a new PC. However, after doing so every two years for a long time, I now still have my 3 year old PC and I am considering only updating my GPU (GTX580 > GTX780-ish). The biggest steps forward nowadays are made in GPU-land. CPU-land is drying out a little. The fact that I can upgrade my 3 year old PC with one GPU and then get the most out of P3D is very nice, I have to say. I never ever had the feeling I could get the most out of FSX, not even with hardware upgrades. With P3D I can and that without a LOT of awesome improvements!

The difference being that when FSX was released the hardware to run it wasn't there. But now you can stellar performance with 'only' a GPU upgrade. And as Manny said:

 

GPU performance evolution is slowing down, and while CPUs aren't getting any faster, they're getting more cores. I think it's unacceptable for a 2013 application, meant to scale to future hardware for years to come, not to take advantage of 8 cores.

 

Also, I insist that dynamic lighting and shadows need more optimisation. In any other modern game, shadows simply don't cause such a performance hit. I expected Prepar3D 2.0 to do great in that respect since it uses DX11, but Microsoft Flight does better which uses DX9. DX11 can do things like this with much less overhead.

How about we just acknowledge that LM has bought code from many years back and is on the path to making improvements to it.

 

    They have delivered an upgrade to FSX that is basically what they have said they would do.  I am sure there is room for improvement and I reckon they will be working on things.

 

   They might come from a large company but it's a small team compared to the games you are comparing it to and within the company it will have a budget which is minuscule compared to the same games you will be comparing it to.

 

   I can see progress and for the meantime I also see a working team/company supporting it.