I'm slowly getting the hang of P3D and it's a nice simulator indeed! Lots to like but, just like FSX there are things I 'wish' it had.

It would be wonderful if I could find a way to get real time weather and have the P3D ATC pay attention to it. I have looked around at the weather engines and such but I'm not sure it would affect how the P3D ATC reacts.

 

Speaking of ATC, some of the airports I have used seem to be deserted even though they have traffic control in real life...one is the South Lake Tahoe airport in California along with a couple of others... I wonder if an addon ATC program would be able to 'generate' ATC for those sort of 'as the need arises'...

 

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with P3D... hopefully after I put in my new graphics card tomorrow, I'll be just as happy with how my computer handles it! Did P3D move away from almost full reliance on the CPU and offload some (most?) of the graphics to GPU? As is, my GeForce 610 can give me about 10 FPS and it really is usable there...lots of delays but usable...

Just get Active Sky Next.  It's beautiful and accurate.  The inbred ATC is deformed, but I think it does know what the weather is doing.  I don't have it but there is some voice interaction program I forget the name of that has much better ATC from what I have read here, but Stephen Hawking and his family control all the space, which is why I don't use it.  Well I haven't really tried it maybe it's not all that bad.  It's called voice something.  Man I'm lazy.  Google isn't that lazy, go ask him.

Thanks denali, I've been looking at active sky and pro ATC/X.

If you want ATC try Radar Contact.  Not sure if it will work with P3D but if so its great.

If you want ATC try Radar Contact.  Not sure if it will work with P3D but if so its great.

 

It does work with P3D, and it's an amazing addon.

ASN is your best bet for what you want. ASN and Radar Contact is better but you need the correct weather injected for ATC to function properly.

 

Vic

Looks like ASN is the winner for weather... I'll do more research into Pro ATC/X and Radar Contact for the ATC functions...

Thanks folks!

IMHO, Radar Contact is the better ATC product BUT, and I hope current users will clarify this, there has been no progress on a new version for years. I understand the developer has some pressing issues.

 

if that's not the case, I apologize but I'm pretty sure it is something to be aware of.

 

Vic

OK, I'll be looking into trying out both of those ATC addons...

I also upgraded my video card today...WOW! I had no clue that the graphics could have such an impact on the actual operation of the simulator! Everything simply works better... the aircraft steer more easily and basic navigation is smoother. Moving the view around the cockpit is so much smoother too and basic operation of the program features simply works better.

I've been able to increase the detail of just about everything a lot and now I get an average of 40 FPS which is more than good enough for my viewing pleasure...if I drop the details of scenery and such down to mid range across the board, I can get 60+ FPS. This is great!