Should I come over from X Plane?

[ErichB 3,642]

With all that is available for P3DV2 already,  especially the Orbx and ASN offerings, makes for a remarkable sim experience.   There is a noticeable performance improvement over FSX and somehow just feels very different.  I have also opted to use SweetFX which makes for a much more vibrant and believable environment to the muted grey veil in the stock offering.

[MikeT707 1,181]

 

 

I have also opted to use SweetFX which makes for a much more vibrant and believable environment to the muted grey veil in the stock offering.

Where is a good place to download SweetFX?  I want to make sure I would not get ad/spyware included if I download.  Thanks.

[ErichB 3,642]

Where is a good place to download SweetFX?  I want to make sure I would not get ad/spyware included if I download.  Thanks.

 

Mike,

 

I can PM you you the SweetFX files from my P3D folder this evening when I get home.

[MikeT707 1,181]

Mike,

 

I can PM you you the SweetFX files from my P3D folder this evening when I get home.

Thanks Erich.

[Aaron Cumberland 12]

I kinda hope P3D goes the way of Microsoft's ESP and just fades away.     Honestly, it's time to kill off this hopelessly outdated engine once and for all.       The only reason FSX reached the level of success it currently has is that without updates from that abominable MIcrosoft team over the past few years, new hardware was eventually able to compensate for the bloated, inefficient coding.       Also of course, third party developers were finally able to design and create add-ons without Microsoft constantly pulling the rug out from under them by constantly updating the Flight Simulator platform will no regard to continual legacy compatibility.        Sound familiar in regard to P3D not supporting FSX add-ons?    

 

P3D will NEVER EVER be as smooth as FSX currently is in all situations, no matter how much money you throw at it.     P3D will always be updated with more and more inefficient coding that relies on brute force hardware to compensate for incompetent programming.    

 

I hope P3D dies and somebody buries it where it can never be found.       We need a brand new engine, coded from the ground up by programmers who have both the talent and commitment to accomplish building a platform that truly is congruent with the latest hardware advances.      On this note I find it very refreshing that developers like PMDG appear to sense P3D's doomed future and now turn to developing for X-Plane instead of indulging in the licensing and hardware requirement nightmare that will always characterize P3D.     

 

Should you come over from X-Plane you ask?     LM offers a full refund on P3D for sixty days after purchase.    Try it out; enjoy the stuttering that never goes away; watch your performance fall to it's knees when in heavy clouds.      Try to figure out which third party add-ons will work; tweak the program from one end to another and never be completely happy with the results.      By all means,  buy a new computer too, only to realize that the machine that will run P3D flawlessly hasn't been designed yet.      And finally, ruminate on why any commercial or military entity in their collective right minds (LM's target customers) would even begin to put up with any of this.    

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

Aaron,

 

PMDG have just started to turn towards P3D ...

[Jude Bradley 659]

I have X-Plane 9 at home (not used). When PMDG release the NGX/777 for the X-Plane platform,then I'll seriously think about using the 64bit version of X-Plane (PS I hate when people refer to it as XP, I keep thinking it's an OS thread).

[ErichB 3,642]

 

 

should I take a look at prep3d??

is prep3d better than fsx???

 

Yes

 

Yes

[Glynn 405]

 

 

P3D will NEVER EVER be as smooth as FSX currently is in all situations, no matter how much money you throw at it.

 

P3dv2.2 runs better on my machine than FSX ever did,

Have you even tried P3D yet ?, does not sound like it to me.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

 

This is totally a matter of personal preference ... some people prefer X-Plane, some prefer FSX, and others prefer Prepar3D.

 

I bought X-Pane 10 last August after I bought a new PC (I also owned X-Plane 9).  I was quite disappointed with X-Plane 10. I didn't find its 'Plausible World' to be all that plausible, and the small GA aircraft were overly affected by wind (even a light breeze blew then around like they were made out of paper).  A few months later P3D v.2.0 was released, and I immediately bought it. 

 

For my purposes (I only use small GA aircraft)  Prepar3D offers the best of the three. I have honestly hardly used X-Plane 10 since buying P3D (have just use it for helicopters). I've now added Orbx FTX Base, Vectors, and FS 2010 mesh, plus Active Sky Next and A2A's C172 (and their Piper Cub, which I already owned). I'm VERY happy with Prepar3D. P3D runs better on my PC than X-Plane 10 (and I do have the 64 bit version), and looks MUCH better (especially after adding Orbx FTX), and it has seasonal textures and better ATC and AI aircraft (partially due to Orbx).

 

Arwen, port over the 737-800 from the ah..er...other sim...cough, cough..., and take a commercial flight in a tube!  What a hoot...and the morning sun at FL240 playing out upon the wing...is quite mesmerizing...  Basically, it is a drag and drop into the Airplane folder. The 737-800's work perfectly, and to see the shadow engine do its thing with the air frame...is a work of art....   This, hand's down, is the most realistic looking flight simulator, that mimics metrics and visuals of the world, I have ever used.  The sunshine (HDR treatment) on the wing made it LOOK metallic, and not merely a 'lightened texture in comparison to the darker shadow.  There actually was a glint on the top of the wing. WHAT A SIM!  WHAT A SIM!

[Aaron Cumberland 12]

 

 

P3dv2.2 runs better on my machine than FSX ever did,

Have you even tried P3D yet ?, does not sound like it to me.

 

Sure did, V2.2 with the latest hotfix.     My computer specs are on par with yours and I had micro-stuttering with texture updates no matter what tweak I used.      Use P3D with a heavy overcast cloud base and kiss your FPS goodbye.     No so with FSX.

 

I think interpretations of simulator performance are pretty subjective though; some individuals find stuttering, etc, perfectly acceptable when paired with some additional eye candy.     I personally refuse to accept less performance than I have with FSX, but others may not feel the same.         

[User72 28]

As one who has made the switch fully in the opposite direction, from P3d to XP (sorry Jude) I can honestly say that yes you should at least try P3d, as others have stated, you can always get your money back. I had all three main sims on my system with P3d on an SSD and was using the Playsims Ireland photoscenery which by FSX/P3d standards was excellent. I had more aircraft than I could ever possibly fly and plenty of airport scenery and ORBX scenery.

I'd spent many years, as have many others, trying to get FSX and then with what I'd learned from that, P3d to be the sim I've always wished any sim would be for me, I suppose I was chasing the dream of a sim as realistic as it could possibly be. I was always ultimately dissappointed. No matter how you dress it up, P3d is FSX but better. How much better? Not enough for me personally. I could never stand the idea of flying over scenery that had no basis in reality which is what landclass based scenery basically is, just a contrived fake.

I see you live in York, I'm just across the water to the left. When I started using G2XPL I quickly discovered I could make photoscenery for XP myself at no cost and at resolutions which put the other sims equivalents to shame, it was a simming revelation. Resolutions where you can see animals in the fields and players on the pitch as you fly over at 500ft, it really is that good. Resolutions for true VFR flights. I can't adequately impress upon those reading quite how good it looks in sim, I didn't think it would be possible to get such realism and immersion in my lifetime.

Then World2XPlane came out and suddenly I had autogen where the objects exist in the real world, footprints matching. So you fly over industrial buildings for instance and all the individual cars in the correctly placed carpark are clearly visible, as is the occasional person walking to their cars. Stunning! Forests placed over their footprints in the photoscenery. It's a sight to behold. I did all Ireland and then bought a bigger hard drive so that I could do the UK also. If you've not done already, I urge you to try the tools I've mentioned whether or not you get P3d. I can't imagine you'll be disappointed if you do. If you need help getting either of them running, (G2xpl can be tricky) I would be happy to help.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is yes, you should try P3d, absolutely. I personally think there is just no comparison between an XP properly done and the others, enough so that I was willing to completely abandon them and the many thousands I'd spent on them over the years but it's only a peronal appraisal of their relative merits that will tell in the end.

[Arwen 289]

Sure did, V2.2 with the latest hotfix.     My computer specs are on par with yours and I had micro-stuttering with texture updates no matter what tweak I used.      Use P3D with a heavy overcast cloud base and kiss your FPS goodbye.     No so with FSX.

 

I think interpretations of simulator performance are pretty subjective though; some individuals find stuttering, etc, perfectly acceptable when paired with some additional eye candy.     I personally refuse to accept less performance than I have with FSX, but others may not feel the same.

I always find it funny that people continue to blame P3D2 performance and other uses' acceptance/blindness, based on their own limited experience. Yes P3D2's performance can be improved (which is the main focus in v.2.3), but there are many of us here who are actually not getting much stuttering and are mostly happy with the way version 2.2 is running on our systems. This is most due to the fact that we have found the settings that work best for us, under various conditions, and are not trying to run P3D2 with settings that are too high.

 

I make mods for a number of role-playing games, and I get some of the same comments on my mod's support forum . . . like "this mod makes my game stutter/crash" while most users have no increased stuttering or CTD issues at all (mostly because they actually read my mod's ReadMe). Comparing FSX to P3D2 is like comparing an older RPG like Morrowind to a newer RPG like Skyrim and bashing the latter because when you push all the sliders to the right, the FPS are too low . . . when the former game ran great on your PC, with "the same settings."

 

It is the "eye candy" that largely defines P3D2 (along with increased GPU use), just like it is the chocolate chips that define chocolate chip cookies. Without the chocolate chips (eye candy), you just have cookies (FSX).

[CaptCWGAllen 49]

It is of course personal preference but this is my experience.

 

Came over to X Plane from FSX early this year - it's never crashed (although I have), doesn't stutter, is'nt dark and broody which I find P3D to be especially with HDR on. It is easy to set up over 3 screens with an amazing FOV, I can get great FPS most of the time with the highest resolution and high levels of objects and roads.

 

Then I thought P3D V2 sounds very good...tried it.....stuttering, dark and didn't get a feeling of flight were my overriding impressions (if you are an FMC programmer, flying heavies on autopilot and using autoland then the latter point won't matter to you). Then read about the v2.2, added all the ORBX  generic extras and NC detailed region.... but alas still stuttering, dark and no real feeling of flight.

 

I have tried but to no avail to get a decent FOV over 3 screens using Track IR in P3D (but that may be me being useless - but in was a cinch in X Plane so that says something). Also at the equivalent settings the FPS dive in P3D - which surprised me as 2.2 is meant to be more GPU intensive and I have a Titan.

 

Track IR was straight in (there is a special tick box in the UI for it) in X plane. Calibration and button assignment in the UI is a cinch too (no add ons required).

 

VFR in X Plane using the HDv2 Mesh from AlpilotX, World2Xplane, Sim Heaven is wonderful. Checked it out on a moving map (FS Widgets iGMapHD) and I think that every lake, river, stream was there in pretty fine detail and every road and railway was evident - and most major powerlines too. As John Venema said in a recent interview with Angle of Attack - 'X Plane.... is beautiful'.... although he is not going to produce anything because the user base he reckons is (currently) too small. But straight out of the box but with HDV2 Mesh it is pretty stunning. Try flying the Grand Canyou at dawn or dusk with full shadow effects - but don't try it if you have vertigo! 

 

Someone mentioned the shine off the wing in P3D when the sunlight glints - mulitply it by ten in X Plane. I am not sure why (maybe 64 bit) but the detail of the planes in X Plane to my eyes is much sharper - and I have compared like with like (Carenado King Air C90B). You also get the vibrating objects in the planes (e.g. pen in C90B) which you don't in P3D. To me there is a blurriness about P3D (and I am not talking about the blurries).

 

In X Plane you have to put up with no seasons, no ORBX (although to be honest X Plane is, as said above, pretty stunning without and with equivalents such CZST - Stewart by Beti X it may even be better) and no PMDG yet (but they say they are producing an aircraft to release at some point), although put IXEG in Google and it will probably satisfy your study sim need when it is released.  I tend to spend time in GA anyway and for my money the feeling of flight, which is aided by the depth of field and the lighting effects, is some way ahead of P3D. The night lighting is also, again to my eyes, much more realistic especially with HDR on - e.g. cars going under street lights are bathed in the light of the street light and the shimmer on the water from street lights is very realistic. The ORBX lights are bit like orbs to me - but that is very much a personal taste thing I guess. Also the water - what is going on with the water in P3D (and FSX for that matter) - other than the Severn Bore I don't think I have seen a swell in a river before. Rivers tend to be quite black with amazing reflections on a sunny day in real life from the air - X Plane recreates this.

 

My son has a PPL and flies a PA38 Tomahawk - I have a PFC Yolk and Pedals - he says it is the closest thing to real flying he has experienced (other than a proper motion sim). If the wind bothers you as pointed out in a post above - turn it down a bit - but then enjoy the turbulence and the crosswind landings - just can't get that feel in FSX or P3D in my experience. 'Pilots' are also in the process of producing FS Global Weather for X Plane according to thier web site, and John Spahn (Sky Maxx Pro) is show casing some amazing work in progress on an upgrade to his clouds - which, again, fly through them and it very realisitc.

 

But as others have said - try for yourself and only you can know.

[tonywob 4,769]

As John Venema said in a recent interview with Angle of Attack - 'X Plane.... is beautiful'.... although he is not going to produce anything because the user base he reckons is (currently) too small

 

Do you have a link to this interview, I'd be very interested to read about this?. He's certainly changed his stance from a year ago, where the reason given was that X-Plane is full of problems.

 

Edit: Ignore, I've found the interview in iTunes, on AviatorCast Episode 15 :smile: