Buying P3D was a big mistake for me, FSX and XP10 are so much better. I'm not buying v3

Who cares?

Spirit

 

 

ntdll.dll, from my experience, is indeed an overclock issue as Rob suggests but, more specifically, a memory issue. Do you have your memory overclocked, i.e. timings or frequency? If so, I would check there and either back off some of the settings or check your VTT voltage. I used to--and other folks still--think that just because FSX/P3D are so heavy on core 0 that you can get away with overclocks that would otherwise fail in Prime95 testing. However, the thing that Prime95--and custom Prime95 tests--does is run your memory through the ringer too. I've caught more memory overclock issues through Prime95 than memtest ever could.



For example, I'm currently totally stable at 4.7Ghz (3770k) with 8gbs of RAM @ 2200Mhz and 9-11-11-31-2 timings. Believe me, I'm sure I could run P3D for hours at 4.9Ghz/2400Mhz and never have an issue but, then again, the marginal performance increase isn't worth the utter devastation that any CTD is...

 

Thanks Greg for the input...

 

I went ahead and checked my ram timings which are set at 10-11-10-30 @1.5v... DDR3 1866... do you think i should just set them to auto and be happy with less ram speed but stability?

 

The OC to 4.6ghz has been stable for ages, and this is the first error of that nature to have stricken me! Had the systemn for 3 years now...

 

Thanks Greg!

I went ahead and checked my ram timings which are set at 10-11-10-30 @1.5v... DDR3 1866... do you think i should just set them to auto and be happy with less ram speed but stability?

 

Well, before doing much of anything, run your machine through one of the custom Prime95 torture tests and see what you find. You need to at least know where you're at before you can figure out where to go. Go http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/complete-overclocking-guide-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-asrock-edition and scroll down just a tad to the second post. Under the "Overclocking..." sub-heading, expand "The Prime Test" and follow the directions and settings. You want to be able to run this for at least an hour and a half or two hours.

 

Regarding RAM, I should probably start a new a whole new thread so that folks can see this but there's a very defined curve where RAM essentially stops bottlenecking your CPU and you don't see much benefit. I use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and 3dMark11's Physics test for my CPU benchmarks. I haven't completely determined how those benchmarks relate to FSX/P3D but given that the simulators seem to want much more single core performance, I would guess that for every 10% increase in synthetic benchmarks you get, you see much less of that in real-world performance.

 

Take at look at these:

 

http://postimg.org/image/a9q9ezbcp/

 

http://postimg.org/image/b3ezyhsef/

 

Regarding benchmarks, I would like to start a revolution where instead of folks putting their CPU/Mem stats in their signatures, they simply just post their IETU score. It's much more of an apples-to-apples comparison. I had to pay for the 3Dmark suite and I'm pretty sure many folks don't want to go that far (the correlation between the 3dmark physics scores and the IETU scores is over 98.5% anyway). This obviously doesn't affect graphics output so there'd still be a need to treat that separately...

I believe they recently pushed out a cloud update days after Rob (and others?) identified the cause of the rotating clouds. Seems pretty responsive to me.

When LM needed to be out front with updates in responce to urgent issues (Oom, autogen, blurries) they were. Not only were those issues addressed, but enhancements were provided too (gpu processing, shadow and lighting processing, water enhancements, etc. So patches have always been worthwhile even if not always 100% effective. The only downside was the constant requirement to update other 3rd party addons. With that in mind, less frequent - more robust updates is reasonable...with hot fixes as needed of course.

I think a lot of people complain because the LM team isn't on the forum holding hands on a daily basis. Which is, of course, a ridiculous attitude. They do monitor the forums and when repetitive complaints are posted, they see if they can reproduce and go from there.

 

Consider - would you rather have a developer who spends more time on the forum posting "Thank you, we'll look into the issue" or one who tries to fix the issue.

 

IMHO, LM has been extremely open and responsive - anyone remember how much cooperation was received from Microsoft?

 

Vic

I think a lot of people complain because the LM team isn't on the forum holding hands on a daily basis. Which is, of course, a ridiculous attitude. They do monitor the forums and when repetitive complaints are posted, they see if they can reproduce and go from there.

 

Consider - would you rather have a developer who spends more time on the forum posting "Thank you, we'll look into the issue" or one who tries to fix the issue.

 

IMHO, LM has been extremely open and responsive - anyone remember how much cooperation was received from Microsoft?

 

Vic

 

They were very cooperative until a few individuals started trolling these very forums. Which is why LM has done good in having their own forums. They just need to moderate the comments more tightly and kick out all the trolls.

They were very cooperative until a few individuals started trolling these very forums. Which is why LM has done good in having their own forums. They just need to moderate the comments more tightly and kick out all the trolls.

I tend to agree but I sure wouldn't want to run that type of support forum. I see a huge amount of "bug" and "trouble" posts from users who quite obviously couldn't find their own rear end with a GPS. Considering that P3D is a commercial venture, they (LM) pretty much have to ignore them and let the other users deal with it.

 

Legitimate issues seem to be responded to albeit not as quickly as some might expect.

 

As an experienced user, you know as well as I that many of the so called "issues" stem from improper setup or inadequate systems. The problem always is that the satisfied user is too busy flying to bother posting, so only the problems are discussed.

 

Vic

 

 

As new versions were released, less and less comment is to be found coming from LM, specifically Beau & Wes.

 

I pointed out the inaccuracy of this statement in response to Matthijs ... the link I included brings you to a response from Beau made yesterday (1/13).  

 

But if folks were reading the P3D forums, you can also see that Beau posted he was out for a few weeks because of medical issues and most of the LM crew were away on vacation during the holiday season.  Not that a justification is needed - it isn't ... but the end user cycle seems always be the same ... a version is released, lots of posts, then if a more than 1 month goes by and no news then the speculation of P3D's end usually starts, then next version is released followed by lots of threads and so the cycle repeats.

 

Again, the LM P3D forums are for 3rd party developer and end user community sharing of information.  The restricted Beta forums or for Beta team feedback.  If you find LM's P3D end user forum NOT useful, I can certainly pass that information back to Wes as he can evaluate the need for the resource/forums and act accordingly.

 

 

So regardless of 'obligations' it is plain to see keeping the user base up w/ more detail about time frames for addressing various remaining & significant issues has changed from what was the case in earlier releases, and moreover, is something users would definitely appreciate.

 

You are always welcome to provide your suggests here: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/forum/prepar3d-development/prepar3d-feature-requests/

 

Most companies insulate their developers from the public and don't want developers spending time responding to the public.  If those companies offer "official support" as part of the deal (my company charges a monthly support contract) it is usually a paid subscription ... for example Apple provide paid support options which is completely separate from Apple's community support forums.  It costs money to provide an "official" support staff -- however some end users want a certain level of support and are willing to pay for it.  Microsoft offer per incident support which usually consists of your CC number up front and then support starts ... and if you are lucky enough to actually get MS to admit to a bug, then you don't get charged.  But if it's end use error, then you do get charged (a lot).  Also, even with paid support, you rarely actually get a software engineer, you usually go thru levels of support staff.

 

But in terms of flight simulation, I doubt many (training companies maybe, but Academic and Pro users not) are willing to pay for support options.  I'm guessing some probably feel it should be "included" with the cost of the product without any understanding of what that really means in terms of dollars to operate.  You could suggest LM provide such a paid support option if you feel it's something many users will want ... my hunch is this would NOT be a popular option.

 

Also, there are many threads in LM's forums that have nothing to do with LM ... but are questions that should be directed at 3rd party vendors support forums.  And then there is the issue of supporting folks with pirated software ... why many 3rd party support forums require valid order numbers, registration, etc. ... again, because support costs money.  

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

I pointed out the inaccuracy of this statement in response to Matthijs ... the link I included brings you to a response from Beau made yesterday (1/13).  

 

Rob--what I said was that the freq of comments from LM, in particular about where they are taking P3D, is less than it was in the early days of the big release of 2.0.   Quite a bit came after w/ 2.1, and less and less thereafter as I recall.   If you really want to debunk what is my stated belief, go back and count the numbers of replies and depth of commentary from just before 2.0 to subsequent releases.  I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me, which is why I said it. 

 

 

 

 You could suggest LM provide such a paid support option if you feel it's something many users will want ... my hunch is this would NOT be a popular option.

 

Wasn't talking about specific problem resolution, and no I don't feel it's something many users would want, and that primarily is because users not paid by LM don't mind providing and sharing their own solutions and work arounds to P3D and FSX and this meets that need adequately.  Thank you for your contributions in this regard.

 

That's all--it would be well received were LM staff to send out a little more information to the many users who jumped on board this 'commercial training' product as somewhat useful and often appreciative beta testers, sometimes unclear about whether they really are using the product w/in the requirements of the EULA, and wondering about the direction LM is taking the platform. 

I haven't counted the number of LM responses and done month to month compares, frankly I'm not going to either as it's not something that matters to me.

 

I think LM have been pretty clear about the direction:

 

1. they've been working with nVidia for driver support

2. v2.5 will be out early this year

3. 64bit is planned for a future release

 

If you want a more detailed road map, then I'd recommend you post on LM's forums and ask.  FYI, there aren't many software development companies that will provide those types of details for competitive reasons and certainly don't provide "release" dates.  But just curious, going back to Phil Taylor days (who has posted here on occasion) he had planned out FS11 (partial or complete, not sure) and as we know that was no assurance of a future.  So even if you had a detailed road map of where LM are going in 2015, would it really make any difference at all?  Have Dovetail provided detailed plans of their planned work with FSX:SE?

 

I'm not going to enter into EULA discussion ... if that's a problem for you there is nothing I or LM could say to further clarify beyond what is already defined.

 

Cheers, Rob.

I think a lot of people complain because the LM team isn't on the forum holding hands on a daily basis.

 

No kidding. It doesn't really sound like the P3D team is more than a dozen folks so yeah, just what the team needs to be doing... holding a bunch of goofballs' hands all day. And before anyone calls me out on the phrase "goofball," yes, there have indeed been some legit complaints and bugs spotted... yet, as KenVerburg points out, those things get fixed. Your isolated "blurries" issue and uncharacteristic yet largely undefined "poor FPS" (jeez what a popular thread title these days) issue will likely not get much attention...

 

 

Consider - would you rather have a developer who spends more time on the forum posting "Thank you, we'll look into the issue" or one who tries to fix the issue.

 

Also a good point. However--case in point--I've been an ardent follower (not necessarily fan... yet, at least...) of the BBS Airbus series, namely the 330. The best avenue to follow them happens to be their facebook page. If you're familiar with software development, you'd understand delays perfect fine but if you've been following BBS, you'd understand the definition of the word "delay" even better. However, the two guys that are BBS seem to spend so much time responding to people on their facebook page that I can't imagine how much productivity they've lost. And they arguably haven't won any goodwill with all of that time and effort; people are still ###### off. So, I might ask (as vgbaron does)--and especially when it comes to the actual platform development (and not an addon aircraft's development)--do you really want the P3D team wasting a bunch of their time on the forum??

 

 

I tend to agree but I sure wouldn't want to run that type of support forum. I see a huge amount of "bug" and "trouble" posts from users who quite obviously couldn't find their own rear end with a GPS. Considering that P3D is a commercial venture, they (LM) pretty much have to ignore them and let the other users deal with it.

 

Legitimate issues seem to be responded to albeit not as quickly as some might expect.

 

As an experienced user, you know as well as I that many of the so called "issues" stem from improper setup or inadequate systems. The problem always is that the satisfied user is too busy flying to bother posting, so only the problems are discussed.

 

Vic

 

One would almost think I'm posting as two different users (echoing so much of what vgbaron says) but, again, Vic nails it. Given the idiotic nature of so many of the posts I see over at the P3D forum, I'm surprised that the P3D team pipes up as often as they do.

 

Some of us should start a "most popular P3D forum threads titles of 2014" thread (using, of course, the typically bad simmer grammer and odd word choice):

 

• "bad/poor FPS"
• "blurries!"
• "fsx addon don't work in P3D"
• "P3D wont start!"
• "what is best license to use??"

 

etc. etc.

Hope LM can fix the washed-out clouds during midday and misaligned water reflections too.