Mixing it up ...

 

 

Cheers, Rob.

Enjoyed the vid, Rob. Good job!

 

Don't run over the squirrel....!!!

 

Mitch

Thanks Mitch ... that F22 has got some good brakes! 

 

Turned on all the options for Orbx Squamish airport and surrounding area and of course the squirrel (glad you noticed) -- was a little hard on fps.

 

Not sure why YouTube didn't convert to 1440p yet - seems stuck at 720p.

 

Cheers, Rob.

That was wonderful. Why is P3D so spectacularly good out in the bush but so much less spectacularly good around cities? Is rendering trees so much easier than rendering buildings?

 

 

Is rendering trees so much easier than rendering buildings?

 

I believe that building issue is targeted to be solved in v2.3 release ... which I'm "guessing" will be out July/August (not official, just my guess).  I'm hoping SLi/Crossfire support will be in v2.3 but I get a sense it might not be or will be of limited use (i.e. AA).  But LM keep forging away, so looking forward to whatever comes out.

 

Cheers, Rob.

If they got the frame-rate issue fixed around cities, I would probably be ready to commit to P3D v2x as my main simulator. Right now I use it to fly around the Orbx created wilderness areas the way you did in the video.

 Pretty gutsy little squirrel seeing how there are over 1000 Bald eagles living just across the river west of the airport. hehe

Oh yeah, bird strike ... didn't even think about that ... I've seen nasty footage for bird strike on small GA planes (can be VERY serious).  Wonder if any real world pilots in this area have encountered a Bald Eagle strike?

That was wonderful. Why is P3D so spectacularly good out in the bush but so much less spectacularly good around cities? Is rendering trees so much easier than rendering buildings?

This morning, I did a full-out, options on of CYSE for both P3D and FSX.  I found that in a fly over of Squamish, the version in FSX had much less detail and autogen, than did the version for P3D. I even checked out the graphic settings in FSX to see if I had changed them to less than full out. I had not....so P3D puts out much more autogen for a given setting, or Orbx could just produce more detail, as P3D allows for it.  I don't know which explanation it is...but if you fly over the center of CYSE, I think you will see what I mean.  FSX has much less rendered and showing as per streets, houses, buildings...well...detail in general.  The P3D rendering is muchly preferred, IMO.

This morning, I did a full-out, options on of CYSE for both P3D and FSX.  I found that in a fly over of Squamish, the version in FSX had much less detail and autogen, than did the version for P3D. I even checked out the graphic settings in FSX to see if I had changed them to less than full out. I had not....so P3D puts out much more autogen for a given setting, or Orbx could just produce more detail, as P3D allows for it.  I don't know which explanation it is...but if you fly over the center of CYSE, I think you will see what I mean.  FSX has much less rendered and showing as per streets, houses, buildings...well...detail in general.  The P3D rendering is muchly preferred, IMO.

 

Oh no doubt what you are saying is true. I just wonder why I can fly in the wilderness with everything turned on and get a butter-smooth 30 fps, but if I fly over a not especially well populated Seattle I drop to a jerky 18 fps. There are as many or more trees being rendered in the wilderness as there are buildings in the city, but it does so much better with the trees. I'm sure they are working on it.

In my video, you can notice that some "trees" have shadows while others do not ... I'm guessing this is because some of the airport "trees" are classed as "SimObjects" and I have shadows enabled  for those while I have Vegetation shadows disabled so Autogen trees don't case 3D shadows just whatever it baked in the ground textures.  SDK limitation?

 

This is probably one of those areas that needs "adjustment" (coding) ... a tree (SimObject) should be able to "inherit" it's shadow functionality from a Vegetation class.  But, such adjustments would require scenery content (Orbx) to make changes if such as feature was in place.  And of course, a single "build" would NOT work correctly in FSX.

 

I feel for LM and Orbx, LM probably want to make fairly significant changes to address design/SDK limitations, but in doing so they could break a lot of existing 3rd party content that is single build distributed.  The chains of maintaining FSX compatibility are definitely not good for P3D.  

 

But what can one do?  Stay in the past forever living with these limitations (for some they are fine with that, but for how long)?  Or break functionality and move forward and away from what must be A LOT of spaghetti code to deal with FSX compatibility.  I see many people complain about performance while at the same time say they can't drop FSX compatibility ... the harsh reality is you can't have both unless you are willing to compromise both.

 

I'm just thankful development continues.  And who knows, maybe the rumors of another Flight Simulation platform in the works -- although if it is based on MS Flight, development turn around for that is at least 2 years away (maybe more).  I think it's all good myself ... competition brings about change and improvements and it seems the flight simulation market is waking back up once again, maybe it's driven by advancements in hardware (2014 is going to be a fantastic year on the CPU/GPU hardware front along with Gsync and 4K monitors and looking forward to P3D V2.3 and v2.4 and beyond).

 

Cheers, Rob.

   Awesome video Rob. Thanx for the video review of Squamish. I have been curious about it, performance wise. I looks great, but may kill my pc.

 

    I agree that it's time to leave backwards compatibility in the past. LM's big selling point for P3D v2 was the ability to use FSX add-ons. They obviously didn't see the albatross waiting to drag them down. Had LM stuck with the idea of, improving the code/FSX add-ons be damned, simmers would have been pi55ed, but simmers always want the latest and greatest. And developers will always follow the money. Nothing, new in that, nor for anyone to worry about. Kudos must be given to the development team at LM for walking the fine line between improving the code while maintaining compatibility.

 

  Regards, Craig.

 

 

They obviously didn't see the albatross waiting to drag them down.

 

I think LM expected this ... I consider V2.x as a base product from which to grow.  Maybe in a week or two I'll have permission to show the next step to keep everyone motivated

OOHHH!! Now don't be starting any RUMOURS, there Rob.  jk. IMO P3D V2 is a great step into the future. It is as real as it gets.

 

Go Kings Go!

Cheers, Craig.