ProATC X - New Version

[captain420 3,099]

That's good to know, I've been trying to find videos of PF3 on youtube, and only saw 2, and the voices in those videos were robotic, so that is why I'm asking.

[ZKOKQ 984]

 

 

Not sue about the network

You can with WideFS

[Jarkko 59]

Have they fixed the awful robotic voices in PF3? I hope the voices sound better than PATC.

I have only tried the demo and watched, but the voices in PF3 were too robotic for my taste.

[ARCO 245]

The voices may not be "robotic" anymore in all those add-on ATC programmes, but they are still far from pleasant and realistic to listen to: " Taxi... to...runway 2..7" These are "cut and pasted" audio clips with high and low pitches, lapses in between words, nowhere near the fluidity of stock Microsoft ATC. Of course we are all aware of the FSX ATC shortcomings in terms of correct procedures and phraseology, but I have yet to come across one single voice programme for flight simulation that would technically (I am speaking of audio not procedures) come close to what is acceptable and quite often... understandable! I fail to understand how ACES did it so beautifully and how all others - so far - stumble on that audio quality, is there no qualified audio technician in any of these add-on developer teams who could work on the speech fluidity! I have been told by one developer "it's a massive work", but making an airplane add-on is a massive work too, and yet PMDG and FSLabs do it. As opposed to airplane developers, voice clips need to be refined but they are readily available and can be duplicated and reworked easily, they dont need to be invented like software coding! That requires dedication, time and audio knowledge.

 

The market is still open for yet another good quality ATC add-on, unless an existing one finally accepts to finish the job correctly and matches the audio quality of ACES on top of offering the correct procedures and phraseology. Several ATC add-ons are almost there for the second part but are still miserably stumbling their way through the audio part! Food for thoughts...

[ZKOKQ 984]

I have only tried the demo and watched, but the voices in PF3 were too robotic for my taste

The demo only has a small number of voices.

 

[captain420 3,099]

For a demo I would hope they put their most pleasant voices to attract more users into purchasing the product.

[ZKOKQ 984]

For a demo I would hope they put their most pleasant voices to attract more users into purchasing the product.

Does ProATC have a demo ? Can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Jarkko 59]

The demo only has a small number of voices.

 

The other problem is that PF3 (and a few other ATC products) break the immersion before you even start the flight. What would happen in the real world if you filed your route as a FSX flight plan to ATC? How far would you get?

 

We all have our preferences. For me, having navdata/AIRAC support is a must. If an ATC program doesn't understand the routes you can find from flightaware or eurofpl, then it's not for me. PFPX understand these flight plans and so does ProATC. That is the way I like to fly.

 

(Also having ATC know the real world SIDs/STARs/approaches without having the user enter the data is a huge time saver)

[tf51d 284]

 

 

User voice sets have been promised for at least two years, but this has never been implemented, and it looks like it never will.

 

I'm actually glad they apparently abandoned the  User voice sets idea. That was one of PATC's biggest issues. On paper it sounds like a good idea, but in practice as we've seen all quality control went right out the window, resulting on inconsistent voice sets, especially with airline callsigns. I do agree PATC needs some more voice sets but they should be created in a more quality controlled environment. Which of course would require in house staff to create, which they probably don't have the resources to provide.

[sgreen91 182]

If you are flying a SID, you have your vectors in the SID

 

That is correct but this SID BNDTO5 off 33L states climb rwy hdg to 600 expect radar vectors to SHAKK. The othe rwys you do follow the SID.

[Jarkko 59]

SID BNDTO5 off 33L states climb rwy hdg to 600 expect radar vectors to SHAKK. The othe rwys you do follow the SID.

 

Neither Navigraph or Aerosoft include "expect vectors" data in the ProATC AIRAC. This is why ProATC doesn't know that it should issue vectors for this SID. For ProATC, the AIRAC looks like a normal waypoint-to-waypoint SID.

[sgreen91 182]

Neither Navigraph or Aerosoft include "expect vectors" data in the AIRAC. This is why ProATC doesn't know that it should issue vectors for this SID. For ProATC, the AIRAC looks like a normal waypoint-to-waypoint SID.

 

That would make sense.  In the PMDG NGX the departure programmed in does show VECTORS before the waypoint SHAAK.  Aivlasoft EFB also shows a VECTORS on their EFB charts.  They could use a different compilation procedure so who knows.

[Bobsk8 12,745]

I have only tried the demo and watched, but the voices in PF3 were too robotic for my taste.

 

The voices in the PF3 demo are not good at all and there are only 4 of them. The voices in the program are much , better, and there are 160, and you can turn off voices you don't like,  I only switched off 4 of them. 

I'm actually glad they apparently abandoned the  User voice sets idea. That was one of PATC's biggest issues. On paper it sounds like a good idea, but in practice as we've seen all quality control went right out the window, resulting on inconsistent voice sets, especially with airline callsigns. I do agree PATC needs some more voice sets but they should be created in a more quality controlled environment. Which of course would require in house staff to create, which they probably don't have the resources to provide.

 

The voice sets that we made in the last few months were very good, and a script was used, and they were edited for quality. Some of the  voices that are standard with the program are  poor quality. 

For a demo I would hope they put their most pleasant voices to attract more users into purchasing the product.

 

I agree, and unfortunately they don't. I took a chance and bought the program anyway, and was pleasantly surprised. 

The voices may not be "robotic" anymore in all those add-on ATC programmes, but they are still far from pleasant and realistic to listen to: " Taxi... to...runway 2..7" These are "cut and pasted" audio clips with high and low pitches, lapses in between words, nowhere near the fluidity of stock Microsoft ATC. Of course we are all aware of the FSX ATC shortcomings in terms of correct procedures and phraseology, but I have yet to come across one single voice programme for flight simulation that would technically (I am speaking of audio not procedures) come close to what is acceptable and quite often... understandable! I fail to understand how ACES did it so beautifully and how all others - so far - stumble on that audio quality, is there no qualified audio technician in any of these add-on developer teams who could work on the speech fluidity! I have been told by one developer "it's a massive work", but making an airplane add-on is a massive work too, and yet PMDG and FSLabs do it. As opposed to airplane developers, voice clips need to be refined but they are readily available and can be duplicated and reworked easily, they dont need to be invented like software coding! That requires dedication, time and audio knowledge.

 

The market is still open for yet another good quality ATC add-on, unless an existing one finally accepts to finish the job correctly and matches the audio quality of ACES on top of offering the correct procedures and phraseology. Several ATC add-ons are almost there for the second part but are still miserably stumbling their way through the audio part! Food for thoughts...

 

Aces only has a couple of voices, and phrases and words are very limited. Much easier that way. Problem of course, with Aces, is the ATC for the most part, is a joke. 

[Glynn 405]

 

 

Can you run PF3 over a network setting?

 

Yes this is how I run PF3, the additional tools such as the text prompt and the displayer program for the possible available ATC requests only really make sense on a networked PC, in my case an old laptop.

 

 

As opposed to airplane developers, voice clips need to be refined but they are readily available

 

Really, where are all these freely available ATC voice clips, if true you should really let Mourad Boutabba and Dave Marsh know where to get them.

[barrel_owl 304]

First test, good news, at least for me.
Pro-ATC/X now seem to accept even small airports without SID/STARs as departure and arrival airport. I ran a couple of tests from S45 to KHQM and EDBH to EDCG. With 1.7.2.0 such flight plans were not even saved (I got that known message in German). Now, not only I could save both flight plans, but I flew them and was properly vectored to the first waypoint as expected.

I understand that this may make a very little difference for many of you using exclusively liners, but it does a lot for some us using GA aircraft and turboprops for short IFR flights and yet liking an ATC.