Making the leap...

[klamal 282]

So I just bought P3D and am currently downloading.  I'll install later and give this a try on my somewhat "old" system.  Hoping to run at least smooth with visuals comparable to FSX now.  Would be really nice to get to throw in cloud shadows.  Anything above that would be icing on the cake.

 

Anyway, I'll post my experience later then for any of you still out there that are curious how it'd run on a system similar to mine.  I have an i5 2500k(OC'd to 4.2>), GTX 560Ti 1G, 8G RAM on Win7 64-bit.

 

Fingers crossed...hoping this doesn't lead me to "need" to upgrade my hardware prior to the planned 1Q2015 that I have now.    It wasn't really a 'if' I got P3D but just a when.  With PMDG announcing their products coming over and the prospect of a 64-bit version somewhere down the line, I finally figure that this is the future of flight simming.  X-Plane looks great and I was debating for so long which to choose.  But, with being able to use most of my FSX add ons and not lose that investment, P3D became the winner.

[vgbaron 3,604]

You should get "acceptable" results with that system. The video card is the weak link, the 560 is considered barely passable as far as P3D goes.

 

Enjoy!

 

Vic

[klamal 282]

You should get "acceptable" results with that system. The video card is the weak link, the 560 is considered barely passable as far as P3D goes.

 

Enjoy!

 

Vic

Yep.  That's my biggest worry, I know.  Like I said, hoping it will be good enough for now and not cause me to salivate too much at the latest video cards out there.  LOL

[vgbaron 3,604]

I understand!  I don't want to offend any serious FSX fans out there but even at reduced settings on a so-so video card - P3D blows FSX away. Setting the same as FSX will be like kicking FSX up at least one notch in sliders so start with the default that P3D assigns.

 

It will probably start you at 20FPS - resist the urge to change that at first. Start increasing the settings slowly to get the look you want. When you get that, you can try kicking up the FPS but you might find that you do not need high FPS, except for bragging rights. If you overload the GPU it will bleed off onto the CPU and your FPS will suffer. Find those sweet spots and adjust around them.

 

Autogen and AI traffic are major fps killers.

 

Use no tweaks. P3D really doesn't need them and many are either disabled or not needed.

 

As I said - Enjoy!

 

Vic

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Kevin,

 

Your system is almost identical to the PC that I replaced at the end of July (when the motherboard and GPU failed). I am curious to find out how well P3D performs on that system. My decision to "upgrade" to P3D was effectively made for me when I decided to purchase a completely new PC (i5 4690k @ 4.6Ghz/2GB GTX 770/16GB Hyper X Fury RAM), and I am glad to say that it runs very well indeed at high detail levels with lots of FSX addons installed.

[klamal 282]

I understand!  I don't want to offend any serious FSX fans out there but even at reduced settings on a so-so video card - P3D blows FSX away. Setting the same as FSX will be like kicking FSX up at least one notch in sliders so start with the default that P3D assigns.

 

It will probably start you at 20FPS - resist the urge to change that at first. Start increasing the settings slowly to get the look you want. When you get that, you can try kicking up the FPS but you might find that you do not need high FPS, except for bragging rights. If you overload the GPU it will bleed off onto the CPU and your FPS will suffer. Find those sweet spots and adjust around them.

 

Autogen and AI traffic are major fps killers.

 

Use no tweaks. P3D really doesn't need them and many are either disabled or not needed.

 

As I said - Enjoy!

 

Vic

Thanks a lot for the advice, Vic.  I will do what you suggested.

 

Yeah, if I can just get smooth performance along with adding some of the P3D benefits, I will be happy.  I don't care what my FPS number is.  Never have.  Even in FSX.  I just strive for "smooth".  Just hoping for some cloud shadows and no more "autogen popping" at the same time and this will be a very worthy upgrade.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Be careful with the cloud density, Kevin. That can significantly impact performance.

[TrafficPilot 121]

 

 

Be careful with the cloud density, Kevin. That can significantly impact performance.

 

+1

 

Volumetric Fog can also kill FPS on older systems.

[klamal 282]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions everyone.  Time to embark on my first ever P3D flight.  Aerosoft ENGM - FlyTampa EKCH in the Airbus X A319.  I'll be posting my first impressions soon...

[klamal 282]

Ok, so just arrived at EKCH.  First impressions:

 

Well, I'm happy to report that I can run P3D with my current hardware at acceptable levels.  I can't say however that the flight was entirely smooth.  Overall, it was better than FSX but still not completely smooth.  Maybe it's not possible with my hardware.

 

In defense of P3D though, I have ASN drawing 90nm minimum distance vs the 60nm min I had set in FSX(It is what ASN defaults to so I left it there just to see).  Not sure to what effect that would have.  I took all of P3D's defaults with the exception of setting cloud shadows to 10000m I believe was the setting(not sure, still getting used to all these new options/terminology vs what they are in FSX, if at all).  Oh, and P3D by default enabled volumetric fog(not sure if it does on all systems by default?) so I left it there for now.  This may sound stupid, but I don't really know that I actually was in weather conditions that would cause volumetric fog though - so I noticed no hit there.  On approach into EKCH, visibility did drop but I think that's not the same as volumetric fog, right?

 

In defense of FSX, I still do not have any mesh installed, Ultimate Traffic, or Vector(had UT in FSX but will be getting FTX Vector for P3D real soon).  So, I'm not sure what adding that to P3D will do. 

 

Overall, it's just one flight, but I think I can safely say that even with my current system, P3D is my new sim.  Visually, the overall experience was just more "real" looking than FSX.  I have REX4 for textures and the water on approach to EKCH was just stunning.  I'm not sure if my cloud shadows setting showed much or not due to the late afternoon arrival into EKCH and the sun being so low in the sky this time of year up there.  So maybe too low of an angle to really notice ground shadows and/or too dark to see them.  I did appear to have shadowing from the clouds in my cockpit which was really cool!  Oh, yeah, and no autogen popping - at least inside the LOD radius anyway.  I could see it sort of "pop" or be added as my LOD kept moving w/ my aircraft.  Not sure if I'll be able to bump that up to not notice that or not w/ my hardware but we'll see.

 

Oh, I haven't been able to get FS2Crew for the AirbusX to install.  Get the "host aircraft cannot be found".  The fix supposedly was to download the latest installer according to posts in the past week.  So, I did that.  Downloaded new installer today and could not install it.  Anyone have any help there?

 

Also, for mesh, I assume FSGenesis mesh will work out of the box in P3D, correct? believe I read that somewhere.  Other than that, I just need Vector and to re-install all my scenery into P3D and I'm all set.  One more thing, do you really need the migration tool for all that?  Can you not just install scenery to anywhere(temp folder or whatever) and copy it over to P3D and add proper cfg entries?  Or, even copy it straight from FSX install?

 

Thanks so far for all the help.

 

-A new happy P3D user!  

[zmak 331]

I have the same system except Im OC to 4.8g and run fsx very nicely so I was curious about your feedback. What I see is you swapped but still have problems. Why don't you try to OC higher? I mean you have nothing to lose be trying it even though P3D is GPU intensive it wont hurt to OC the CPU

[klamal 282]

I have the same system except Im OC to 4.8g and run fsx very nicely so I was curious about your feedback. What I see is you swapped but still have problems. Why don't you try to OC higher? I mean you have nothing to lose be trying it even though P3D is GPU intensive it wont hurt to OC the CPU

I wouldn't say I still have problems...at least not in such a way that I'm not happy about the switch.  Yes, it's still wasn't butter smooth for the entire flight, but it was overall a better experience than FSX.  It was smoother than FSX.  It was definitely "prettier" than FSX.  I feel that I have more of those immersion effects with P3D than I did with FSX.  Overall, I am happy with the switch.  And, that's also with no tweaking or changing much.  So, there may be wiggle room yet to either make it butter smooth, or drop dead gorgeous too.  

 

Yeah, I'm also not sure what higher OC would really get me.  I think it's pretty obvious that with P3D, my GPU is going to be the biggest thing holding me back now.  A completely new system is in the plans as I said for early next year.  In the mean time, I'm happy to be able to run it where it's at now settings wise on my current system.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Also, for mesh, I assume FSGenesis mesh will work out of the box in P3D, correct? believe I read that somewhere.  Other than that, I just need Vector and to re-install all my scenery into P3D and I'm all set.  One more thing, do you really need the migration tool for all that?  Can you not just install scenery to anywhere(temp folder or whatever) and copy it over to P3D and add proper cfg entries?  Or, even copy it straight from FSX install?

 

I use FSGenesis and I use the EMT for all non P3D ready installs even some of those the tool is needed - I can not install that mesh without it - get the tool you need it - dont ask just get it - you will thank me later 

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Yep, purchasing the EMT is a no brainer.

[-Stark- 3]

On the topic of video cards I used a 570 for the first year, recently upgraded to a 970 and it's night and day difference.