I debated about getting the P3D PMDG 737, and I had already owned the first version in FS9 and X. I decided that the price was way too high, so I got the Airbus A 319-321 for a less money and I hate to admit it, but I have grown to love this aircraft in just a couple of days. And the best feature for me is it doesn't have a big impact on frame rates which is one of my biggest considerations when considering an add on. I am now an Aerosoft convert. 

 

Your welcome Bob

Interesting thread, great read  

I think it depends on your add-ons and on your rig. Personally, I have been disappointed with P3D. I have an i7 920 running at 4ghz and a GTX 970 and I get quite poor performance with default airports if I run a mid level complex plane like Aerosoft's Airbus series. I am usually at around 17 to 24 fps. I do not have settings turned up so high and have the big fps killers such as object shadows turned off.

 

Frankly, I haven't touched it much since purchase and fly mostly X-Plane 10 these days which gives me great fps even with complex aircraft and probably takes much better advantage of my GTX 970.

 

I can't speak for FSX:SE as I don't own it. Frankly though, I am a little tired of trying to optimize either Prepard 3d or FSX by constantly fiddling with settings. I have spent the past 7 years messing with config files etc. and settings, and I never seem to find a sweet spot that lasts more than 5 mins or is placebo. Maybe a new machine might help but I am not willing to throw more money on a rig for only that at this stage. 

Why P3D for me? 

 

• It runs well on GPU heavy, weaker CPU rigs like gaming laptops
• Those clouds.....
• Actively being developed
• Near zero tweaking
• Grand total of 1 OOM in the last year
• It's not X-Plane

Pros:

 

Lighting effects

Shadows

More efficient use of GPU

Faster terrain loading

Less Autogen pop

 

Cons:

 

Many sceneries incompatible, strobing and flashing textures

Night lighting/ runway light issues in many places

HDR looks a bit bloomy

AA still isn't there yet

Doesn't draw clouds as well as FSX. A lot of the Prepar3d videos show clouds that look like those from X-Plane - far too soft and mushy. 

Not to come off rude, but next time use the search function. These threads just stir up arguements and really have no point because its been answered before, try it. If you dont like it ask for your refund.

Not to come off rude, but next time use the search function. These threads just stir up arguements and really have no point because its been answered before, try it. If you dont like it ask for your refund.

 

Well, you did.    :Shame On You:

Not to come off rude, but next time use the search function. These threads just stir up arguements and really have no point because its been answered before, try it. If you dont like it ask for your refund.

No arguments here, just good opinions and information

Why P3D?

 

A very good question, which can then be followed up with another question: Why FSX?  or better "Why X-Plane"?

 

Everyone has opinions on everything, good and bad.  You can pick anything created, and someone will always have something good to say and someone will always have something bad to say.

 

The easiest way to counter anything good and bad is YMMV...your mileage may vary.  There is a lot of truth to that.

 

One of the bad things about community forums is that someone will come along and say "hey look at this!!!" and of course, curious creatures that we are, will look and then say "Oooooh, would you look at that!", followed up with a response of "wow, I wish I could have/do/see that!"  Then, we try and try to achieve what someone else did, and it doesn't come out right, so we look to place blame.

 

The argument of which is better shouldn't exist.  Think about it, FSX was released in 2006 with a couple of improvements along the way shortly thereafter, but all in all we were all hooked on an old program that somewhere along the line, the people at MS thought we'd evolve to a point where FSX would be the defacto simulator and no one could match it.  We as consumers applauded MS for creating such a super real sim and for over nine years, we have added tweaked, broke, reinstalled FSX as well as argued, fought, screamed over the fact that improvements were needed.  We divorced our partners, governments fell, wars were fought, and therapists made record income.

 

Then along came a couple new developers, making claims that their sim is better, and we bought it, hook line, and sinker.  THEN the arguments intensified, communities were in uproars, more people got divorced, even the therapists.

 

The point to all of this drivel is that there are always good and bad points to everything.  More so, people's opinions can sway the majority...strength in numbers.  We never had the opportunity to have a group of scientists from some out of the way hamlet in the heart of Europe to conduct unbiased testing of the sims to see where they fair as well as having official reports and findings, so we are at a loss.

 

When people ask this loaded question, they still never get the answer they want, and in the process are left confused and most likely purchase a sim just so they don't go insane, but at the same time, they wind up arguing that what they got is not what they expected...big surprise.

 

YMMV

 

I could easily say to TrafficPilot that his claims about flying tubeliners at high altitudes would be a waste of time in P3D is not the case and pricing points have validity to them, just not something that is widely advertised to consumers.  Are my counter claims truth or opinion? (Sorry TrafficPilot, just sighting an example and I am not picking on you directly)

 

Someone on a sim forum once said that no two computers are the same, even if they have the same exact hardware (which of course goes without saying as I brought that up above), but it's all in what other things are running on the computers.  A vast majority of simmers use the computer they fly on, for other things.  We do our finances to track the money we spent on therapy, surf the net, type letters to our ex'es about regrets we had over the divorce, follow politicians that can end the wars and even find time to play solitaire (not the new Windows 10 version though).

 

Bottom line, can't we all just get along and say "look, we live in a world of free enterprise.  Let us not begrudge anyone for trying to improve things, because this is how we evolve, how we grow, how we contribute.  Let us embrace the fact that we all have choices."

 

P3D is a great, but so is FSX, X-Plane and any other simulator out there.  It all depends on what you are looking for and for what purpose you use the software.  It took me a very long time to ask myself that question and when I did, I answered and I stuck to that answer.  I no longer over-analyze the subject and just take it all for what it is.  Now, I made a choice and I am not looking back.  I saw what it was like on one side of the fence, now I am on the other.

 

The only reason we nitpick or scrutinize so much is to help justify the choices we make or made.

 

Btw, my therapist is on speed dial, in case anyone needs the number.

 

-Jim 

I think it depends on your add-ons and on your rig. Personally, I have been disappointed with P3D. I have an i7 920 running at 4ghz and a GTX 970 and I get quite poor performance with default airports if I run a mid level complex plane like Aerosoft's Airbus series. I am usually at around 17 to 24 fps. I do not have settings turned up so high and have the big fps killers such as object shadows turned off.

 

Frankly, I haven't touched it much since purchase and fly mostly X-Plane 10 these days which gives me great fps even with complex aircraft and probably takes much better advantage of my GTX 970.

 

I can't speak for FSX:SE as I don't own it. Frankly though, I am a little tired of trying to optimize either Prepard 3d or FSX by constantly fiddling with settings. I have spent the past 7 years messing with config files etc. and settings, and I never seem to find a sweet spot that lasts more than 5 mins or is placebo. Maybe a new machine might help but I am not willing to throw more money on a rig for only that at this stage. 

 

 

That is strange, I have a middle of the road 3 year old i5 Desktop and a GTX 750 ti and with the Airbus, I lock to 30FPS and that is what I get 95% of the time. I have scenery on dense. I am also running ASN, Pro ATC, My Traffic 6 and Acars at the same time.  I think you must have something else going on with your system.  

 

Why P3D for me? 

 

• It runs well on GPU heavy, weaker CPU rigs like gaming laptops
• Those clouds.....
• Actively being developed
• Near zero tweaking
• Grand total of 1 OOM in the last year
• It's not X-Plane

 

 

 

+1   

That is strange, I have a middle of the road 3 year old i5 Desktop and a GTX 750 ti and with the Airbus, I lock to 30FPS and that is what I get 95% of the time. I have scenery on dense. I am also running ASN, Pro ATC, My Traffic 6 and Acars at the same time.  I think you must have something else going on with your system.  

 

 

+1   

It surprised me too. I think it's the nature of the FSX / P3D beast. Everyone's hardware seems to deliver different experiences. I remember an article some years back on Aerosoft's forums where they (Aerosoft) were suggesting that a weaker GPU with a strong CPU produces better fps than a strong GPU with a strong CPU. Not sure if this was actually true for everyone but I think that's the point. What works well for one person seems to work not so well for another. 

The way I see it is if you already own P3D, there's no reason to consider FSX-SE unless OOM's are an issue for you. If you don't have either, it's better to try out FSX-SE preferably when they run there $5 sales  before trying P3D. It's easier to stomach a $5 mistake then a $200 one. If FSX-SE isn't right for you then go for the higher priced P3D.

 

 

I could easily say to TrafficPilot that his claims about flying tubeliners at high altitudes would be a waste of time in P3D is not the case and pricing points have validity to them, just not something that is widely advertised to consumers.  Are my counter claims truth or opinion? (Sorry TrafficPilot, just sighting an example and I am not picking on you directly)

 

Not feeling picked on but if you're going to mention me at least quote what I said accurately

Day 2 of me looking at P3D.  A couple of other things I've noticed...

 

• Water in FSX looks far, far better.
• In P3D it's visually much crisper.  You notice the shape of the terrain much better.  Little hills and things like that seem to be more obvious.  On the other hand, since it's crisper it tends to show flaws more like, for example, in photoreal.
• In P3D, one of the reasons it seems to look so good is the haze layer which obscures things in the distance.  I installed textures from REX Texture Direct in it last night and it mucked it up and made it look bad (gray haze).  I reinstalled the originals from a backup (blue haze of a different kind) and it's back to the way it was.  This is, to me, actually, a good thing that P3D has found a way to make things out there in the distance more natural when it's coming into view.  I tried using the same texture with FSX and it didn't work...appeared gray and crappy. 

At this point, I'd say this.  While they are both, obviously, similar, P3D is diverging and has a different set of problems than FSX.  Also, problems in P3D have to be dealt with in a P3D within the capabilities of that sim.  Your knowledge of tweaking FSX is of marginal benefit...some tweaks for FSX should not be done for P3D and it also has different methods for fixing problems.  For now, I'm sticking with my plan to use FSX for general flying and using P3D for GA on the US West Coast.  That's a big change for me since the last time I looked at P3D...it just wasn't there.  Now I can see it's getting close.  To me, the larger issues are now with the third party developers.

 

 

P3D is diverging

 

This is something else I think about.  I don't do anything about it, but I do think about it.  Am wondering idly what will be the impact of breaks with compatibility - not huge ones, just a pileup of small ones as P3D and FSX move farther apart.

 

A thought related to this - one of the additional things I appreciate about FSX:SE is that I'm a core customer, not a peripheral one.  I like being an important customer.  I'm not as happy being a side issue.

 

On the other hand - as a peripheral customer of P3D, I can benefit from all the resources that the aerospace and defense industry is putting into it.

 

Again, not drawing any conclusions, just making some observations.  As noted above, I continue to run both.  Interesting to watch how things evolve.