Is PS3D suitable for me?Cliff

[cliffardus 3]

Some years back I "flew" with Microsoft's Flight Simulator and X-Plane and in my early twenties held a Private Pilot's License.

 

However now I'm 83 and retired and want to keep learning and broaden my Simulator experience. I should make it clear however that I've forgotten much of my flying knowledge after being away from Flight Simulation for quite a time.

 

Finally to complete the background information perhaps it's relevant to mention that I use an Apple iMac.

 

I'd appreciate guidance as to whether PS3D would be suitable for me.

[twojastara 85]

I would say, that you should go for it!

I have PPL and it helps me to keep my flying skills sharp. And it lets me to follow my dream of flying  :rolleyes: .

 

Get P3D first, without any addons, get familar yourself with default planes, scenery and basics. When you will be ready to learn more, try some payware. There are lots of very invaluable planes which are modelled in outstanding details.

 

I am not sure if P3D will run on MacOS, but I have read somewhere it should. But please make sure before.

 

Good luck!

[hesynergy 67]

Good for you!

 

... my mom at age 83 was a internationally ranked bridge player… And that's how she kept her intellectual "hand in"...

 

This summer I did a course of online instrument flying over at Pilotedge and boy was it challenging and probably the most fun I've had in flight Sim ever.

 

 

Oh! As for P3d on a Mac, you of course know that you need to emulate windows first and then there shouldn't be any problem with P3-D within Windows

 

I don't know if hardware, such as joysticks or rudder petals or other USB I/O devices, are fully compatible in the "emulated windows mode on a Mac". Also, I don't want you to be dissatisfied with your P3D experience, so I'm hoping that your CPU/graphics card combo is up to the task...

 

You will have to do some research here and elsewhere on that.

 

We used to be able to see what kind of equipment everybody had at a glance at their icon, but now the only way to do that is to click on every members icon at the top left and look for "my equipment..."

 

So, That being said you oldfart, (I am a young fart of 68 years) go for it!!!

 

... and if I can be of any assistance whatsoever; I have been simming for 30 years but never got my PPL, please, don't hesitate to ask.…

 

Welcome aboard!

 

Chas

[cliffardus 3]

 

Wowee...I'm already learning...........

 

1.       "Oldfart"? How can I be an old fart at the tender age of only 83? That term refers to other guys. Not me. (Uh huh, you're probably thinking, ....where have I heard that one before.....?)

 

2.      I use a program called "Parallels" which creates a separate partition on my iMac Hard Disk and consequently allows me to use Windows 7.

 

I assume therefore that I'll be able to use P3D on that partition.

 

 Do you know whether P3D uses a lot of space on the HD or is it pulling data from the HOME site?

 

3. Am I correct that the relevant License for me would be  "Acedemic" at $59.95?

 

4.      It would be interesting if you could paint a brief picture of how P3D differs from, say, FSX and how you use it to improve your flying skills.

 

Regards………Cliff (In the sunny, Spanish countryside)

[Demious 23]

Any sim runs best from it's own hard drive.

 

The P3D installation files are around 10GB, not sure about the exact size of the installed program, but I guess somewhere in the area of 10-15GB.

 

Accademic version will do fine. The big difference is a small logo, in thin script in the upper right corner, saying:"Accademic", but this is not bothersome at all, I dont even notice it when flying.

 

The big difference between FSX and P3D is that P3D is still in development. FSX hasnt been in development for quite a few years now and LM started redevelopping FSX a couple of years ago.

There are some improvements in functionality in the settings, but the most noticable difference is in how the program uses the computer's recourses and it's optimized for more curent hardware.

[cliffardus 3]

Demious would you please enlarge on the relevance of the difference in development time between FSFX and P3D?

 

Regards,

 

Cliff

[Dominique_K 10,133]

Wowee...I'm already learning...........

 

1.       "Oldfart"? How can I be an old fart at the tender age of only 83? That term refers to other guys. Not me. (Uh huh, you're probably thinking, ....where have I heard that one before.....?)

 

2.      I use a program called "Parallels" which creates a separate partition on my iMac Hard Disk and consequently allows me to use Windows 7.

 

I assume therefore that I'll be able to use P3D on that partition.

 

 I'm not familiar with the Apple stuff but keep in mind that you need to have a DX11 compliant video card to take full benefit of P3D and that a strong CPU is a plus to enjoy the sim !

 

 

 

 Do you know whether P3D uses a lot of space on the HD or is it pulling data from the HOME site?

 

P3D does not pull anything from the mothership. Its a standalone. Its size (some 10 odd Gb) is somewhat irrelevant as, like FSX, the default P3D landscape is awful and the default aircraft nice but not up to speed with what the market can offer at its best (RealAIr, A2A, Milviz etc.) . To give an idea my setup is almost 200 Gb, covering the west Coast, Alaska, Australia and PNG + a world mesh + half a dozen of payware aircraft. I also changed all the ground textures (FTX Global).

 

3. Am I correct that the relevant License for me would be  "Acedemic" at $59.95? Yes, you don't get anything more paying 200 bucks for the Pro version wwhich just rubs out a tiny logo  at the upper right  of your screen.

 

4.      It would be interesting if you could paint a brief picture of how P3D differs from, say, FSX and how you use it to improve your flying skills.

 

P3D is a "modernized" FSX which makes full use of MS  DX11 allowing to shift part of the processing from the CPU to the video adapter. It allows much better visuals (environment shadowing for instance) and also a better smoothness of the simulation.

 

Regards………Cliff (In the sunny, Spanish countryside)

[Guest]

Cliff,

 

Please reduce your font size as that could be considered as shouting  and in violation of this sights policy.

 

If you're using an iMac (Apple OS) you'll need to run Bootcamp and install Windows (recommend Windows 7 for now) or you will need to run VMWare and/or Parallels.  I recommend Bootcamp as that will provide the best performance and P3D will need all the performance you can get.

 

P3D has a 60 day refund policy, so you if you don't like you can get a refund.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[vgbaron 3,504]

Cliff - Basically FSX has ceased development of the internal engine. There are developers that are producing add-ons for FSX but no changes or improvements being made to the basic platform.

 

P3D OTOH is continually being developed by LM in addition to the 3rd party developers providing native add ons.

 

ROB - he mentioned that he is using parallels.

 

 

Vic

[Poppet 703]

Any sim runs best from it's own hard drive.

 

The P3D installation files are around 10GB, not sure about the exact size of the installed program, but I guess somewhere in the area of 10-15GB.

 

Accademic version will do fine. The big difference is a small logo, in thin script in the upper right corner, saying:"Accademic", but this is not bothersome at all, I dont even notice it when flying.

 

The big difference between FSX and P3D is that P3D is still in development. FSX hasnt been in development for quite a few years now and LM started redevelopping FSX a couple of years ago.

There are some improvements in functionality in the settings, but the most noticable difference is in how the program uses the computer's recourses and it's optimized for more curent hardware.

PD3 only 10 to 15 GB installation!!  How is that when x-plane is 80GB.  In saying that the actual x plane sim is only 3.50GB the rest is scenery.  Is PD3 only 15GB complete installation??

[JB3DG 225]

Cliff - Basically FSX has ceased development of the internal engine. There are developers that are producing add-ons for FSX but no changes or improvements being made to the basic platform.

 

P3D OTOH is continually being developed by LM in addition to the 3rd party developers providing native add ons.

 

ROB - he mentioned that he is using parallels.

 

 

Vic

 

Depends on the definition of improvements. There are many things being done behind the scenes that overcome the bugs and limits of FSX by many devs.

[vgbaron 3,504]

Agreed but a band-aid is still a band-aid, not a cure.

 

Vic

[diajohn 164]

My P3D install on a separate SSD is about 37 GB with the Aerosoft Airbus 319 and the Ifly 737 for P3D,   I would expect you need at least 50GB for a good install.

[Guest]

 

 

ROB - he mentioned that he is using parallels.

 

Ah yes sorry, missed that in all the shouting  ... I haven't used Parallels in a while (a few  years) but when I did it took a huge performance hit for any Windows 3D based game/sim ... maybe that's changed over the years??  But bootcamp is always the best on the performance front as it has no layers (other than the EFI) to go thru to perform tasks ... if you have OSX Yosemite you might want to double check on using Bootcamp with it.

 

 

 

Depends on the definition of improvements.

 

Oh come on, lets not be silly.  One party has the source code ... the others do not.  The definition of improvements is rather obvious.

 

No one is undercutting what has been done for FSX to help it out but to suggest there is some "definition of improvements" for what P3D v2.x has accomplished is stretching the FSX sales pitch a little too much.  If you are a commercial member for FSX only platform that's fine, but to come in this forum and suggest that one needs to define "improvement" then just look around at all the screenshots and videos.

 

Cheers, Rob. 

[cliffardus 3]

1 ….”you need to have a DX11 compliant video card to take full benefit of P3D and that a strong CPU is a plus to enjoy the sim”

 

I’m grateful to learn that as my video card is three years old and I suspect may not be good enough .

 

2. “Please reduce your font size as that could be considered as shouting  and in violation of this sights policy.”

 

Thanks for drawing this to my attention.

 

3. “I recommend Bootcamp as that will provide the best performance and P3D will need all the performance you can get”.

 

I’ve been forced to abandon FSX in Bootcamp as my iMac heats up really badly. As Apple have not been able to solve the problem for me I moved to X-Plane in the normal Apple partition. Hence my reason for looking for an alternative to X-plane

 

My thanks to all of you for being so helpful.

 

Cliff