Well I took the plunge and purchased v3. I didn't used v2 (v2.5) that much since I had GTX 560 which simply wasn't enough for decent performance. I've got GTX 960 2gb couple of weeks ago as preparation for v3.

First start after setup - was about 85fps on default settings, and I thought that is not good, as soon I crank up autogen and shadows, fps will drop like a rock as in v2.5.

 

Closed the sim, and ran it again, and started to crank up the settings. Set up AA, AF, texture resolution, wide view, fps was the same.

 

Scenery complexity/autogen on extremely dense, water detail on ultra with terrain and airplane reflections, special effects on high... fps was 80. What the..?! Is this really happening? My first thought.

 

Next - shadow quality on high, terrain shadow cast 20,000m, cloud shadow cast 20,000m, object shadow cast 3,000m, vegetation/buildings cast shadows, hit OK... fps was 70! What?! Did all the settings applied?! Hahaaah! (disbelief laugh)

 

Cloud draw distance 90mi, cloud coverage density on maximum, detailed clouds, thermal visualization on natural, hit OK, fps was still 70! I started to laugh hysterically!    I mean, is this really reaaally happening?! This is amazing!

 

The flight with these settings is smoooooooooth, no stutters at all. Ok, there are some micro stutters, but they are rare, barely noticing them at all.

 

All this, I mean all this on my mid-range system, i3770k @ 4.6ghz, 8gb ram @ 1600mhz, and GTX 960 2gb! Also I don't have any ssd on my system!

 

I know that fps will drop 50-60% when MyTraffic is intalled, FTX package and when using NGX, but that's still around 30, which is amazing with my GPU, and all settings and details cranked up.

And I must agree that flight model is BETTER, seems smoother, more natural, few guys already stated that (Froogle for example).

 

This is not v2.6 in any way guys, this is completely new sim, and I really can't wait developers to start releasing installers for v3. When that happens, FSX is gone from my system, finally after 5 years! And I'm happy FSX user, 30fps locked, smooth performance, stable, no crashes, never had OOM. But it's incredibly old platform and it's time to move on.

 

So if you are undecided what to do, just go for it and get v3, it's amazing. Maybe there is not much addons that work with v3 now, but we'll se in few months who will be a happy camper.  :wink:

Hi, I just purchased 120 GB SSD which I plan to dedicate this drive to P3D sim. But now I am having second doubts if 120GB is enough.

 

Should I look to have it changed or 120gb should be decent size for the time being ?

Install size is around 20 gigs. Add some airports, FTX Global, Open LC, MyTraffic, NGX and few more airplanes, it will be around 50-60gb. If you want to add bunch of photo scenery also, 120gb is simply not enough. If you want to fly only with above without photo scenery, I think 120gb is enough.

Well I took the plunge and purchased v3. I didn't used v2 (v2.5) that much since I had GTX 560 which simply wasn't enough for decent performance. I've got GTX 960 2gb couple of weeks ago as preparation for v3.

Mitch is that you?

Mitch is that you?

 

<< X-Files theme playing >>

 

<< pause >>>

 

Nope, it isn't Mitch. It's P3D v3 user in disbelief.  :smile:

Nope, it isn't Mitch. It's P3D v3 user in disbelief.  :smile:

  Skinner

It is really encouraging to hear more of these types of comments about the platform. I will be hopefully getting V3 this weekend and look forward to seeing how well it performs.

It is really encouraging to hear more of these types of comments about the platform. I will be hopefully getting V3 this weekend and look forward to seeing how well it performs.

 

Exactly the reason I wrote this little essay, to encourage you guys to hop on the v3 train.

 

cheers

It really must do a much better job of off-loading tasks to the GPU than v2.5 did. I have had the same experience of turning up the detail and seeing only a small decline in performance.

Exactly the reason I wrote this little essay, to encourage you guys to hop on the v3 train.

 

cheers

I also liked what Froogle had to say about the platform. It really is a true v3. It will be great to see what LM will add for features in the next couple of point releases.

 

By the way, if anyone wanted to see Froogle's review, here it is.

Mitch is that you?

I instantly thought the same thing, he's starting to rub off on people  Give it a week because he has to switch back over from X-Plane again.

Great video and explanation !

Mitch is that you?

Nope...still back in v2.4 land...lol.

I'm quite impressed.  The clouds look great and the entire sim looks good even without any add ons.  Plus, the performance is quite good.  Very nice!

Hi, I just purchased 120 GB SSD which I plan to dedicate this drive to P3D sim. But now I am having second doubts if 120GB is enough.

 

Should I look to have it changed or 120gb should be decent size for the time being ?

Well I used FSCubed to get back up on my scenery files because I thought it was a pretty cheap utility at 11 bucks. FSCubed creates files with 50% compression of all the scenery that you have related to FSX, OR P3Dv2.x

 

My back up was 351 GB at 50% compression…or 3/4 of a Terrebyte uncompressed . Now understand that includes all of the world mesh from FsGenesis, and all the Orbix and photo real scenery from MegaSceneryX, but I was astounded by how much I had, and I don't think I'm atypical. I think that pretty much answered your question doesn't it?

 

Regards,

 

Chas