Prepard V4 is announced

[westman 257]

I run 32gb 4x8 at 3600mhz C15 

[nealmac 260]

After toying with the idea of sampling Aerofly, X Plane, and FSW, I've now made up my mind. P3D V4 looks like it's blown them all out of the water.

[Noel 4,518]

3 hours ago, Boomer said:

XP10 with 64 bit doesn't even use 10GB of my 16.  So 32GB I think is overkill right now unless you get a wicked deal.

It's so cheap though, relatively speaking, but yes for now maybe it's overkill--really depends on exactly how LM reworked P3D, which sounds though like VRAM is the area to cover.

[Noel 4,518]

19 hours ago, Avidean said:

None of them are great without addons. You must be very well off indeed to be able to afford the addons for all three

It's the time involvement way more than the cost for me.  I don't want to spend my whole life installing software and learning 3 or 4 entirely different platforms.  The cost per se over time is quite small compared to many pursuits.

[Noel 4,518]

7 minutes ago, nealmac said:

After toying with the idea of sampling Aerofly, X Plane, and FSW, I've now made up my mind. P3D V4 looks like it's blown them all out of the water.

Really?  Beyond 64bit which won't help me at all since I never saw an OOM s/p V3.0, what are the key 'promises' for V4?  Isn't it essentially going to look the same as V3.x, except you get to wait and update all of your software to compatible scenery and other addon versions?

[swiesma 625]

I will use V4 to do what I long wanted to do..... Do a FRESH and CLEAN install.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Really?  Beyond 64bit which won't help me at all since I never saw an OOM s/p V3.0, what are the key 'promises' for V4?  Isn't it essentially going to look the same as V3.x, except you get to wait and update all of your software to compatible scenery and other addon versions?

The scenery engine can now display autogen basically to the horizon.  Also, if you have enough VRAM you can increase the scenery texture LOD radius to better combat the dreaded blurries.  All for the same frame rate as you had before.  That's huge, if you ask me.  Those are issues we simmers have been dealing with for as long as there have been textures in our sims.  

[vgbaron 3,693]

1 hour ago, TechguyMaxC said:

The scenery engine can now display autogen basically to the horizon.  Also, if you have enough VRAM you can increase the scenery texture LOD radius to better combat the dreaded blurries.  All for the same frame rate as you had before.  That's huge, if you ask me.  Those are issues we simmers have been dealing with for as long as there have been textures in our sims.  

Amen!  The clarity of the visuals out to the horizon is an enormous step forward,. especially with no performance hit. 64bit is not the only thing changed.

Vic

[armchair_pilot 54]

Like the new features, although a bit bummed about no information on volumetric clouds. I'm getting sick of the spinning 2D sprites.

[Noel 4,518]

1 hour ago, TechguyMaxC said:

Also, if you have enough VRAM you can increase the scenery texture LOD radius to better combat the dreaded blurries.  All for the same frame rate as you had before.  That's huge, if you ask me. 

Is this 100% confirmed behavior?  I ask because early on in P3D 2.x releases I think it was the amount of VRAM in use was reduced drastically.  It has stayed this way since, which for me is P3D v3.0.   I still use the original GTX Titan w/ 6Gb of VRAM, and prior to this fundamental change I believe in one of the 2.x releases I went from for example a maximum of 5.1Gb VRAM in use on a slow flight thru the SF Bay Area down to 2.3Gb in that very same stretch and now on a 3440x1440 screen up from 1920x1200.   Since then all I ever get to for max VRAM in use is maybe 2.7Gb.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

5 minutes ago, Noel said:

Is this 100% confirmed behavior?  I ask because early on in P3D 2.x releases I think it was the amount of VRAM in use was reduced drastically.  It has stayed this way since, which for me is P3D v3.0.   I still use the original GTX Titan w/ 6Gb of VRAM, and prior to this fundamental change I believe in one of the 2.x releases I went from for example a maximum of 5.1Gb VRAM in use on a slow flight thru the SF Bay Area down to 2.3Gb in that very same stretch and now on a 3440x1440 screen up from 1920x1200.   Since then all I ever get to for max VRAM in use is maybe 2.7Gb.

Yes, I can't remember which video it was that talked about the behavior, I want to say it was Jordan King.  I'll try to confirm and let you know.

Edit: yep, it was Jordan King.  Here's the point in the video where he discusses it:

It is a different config file variable than LOD RADIUS, it's TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP.  He suggests if you change this value to 9 you will need 4-8GB VRAM depending on add-ons you use, and if you go up to 10 you might need as much as 12GB which puts your video card choices in very limited territory at this point in time.

[Noel 4,518]

Thanks for that I watched the whole video.  Sounds like a great base platform, w/ some real upside in the future, and w/ slowly restoring depth of content, but if you already own V3.x and are loaded with fully functional add-ons, it's a hard sell for me.  By the time everything I would need going forward is restored  and my guess is this will be 1-2 years out for me it will be worth seeing where XP11.x and FSW has gone. As Jordan said if this is going to be your primarily simulator you might hold off for now.   It's clear to see if you were just starting out in simulation you'd consider buying in as you begin learning more and starting to acquire 3rd party content slowly as it appears, but that's not my situation nor many folks here.   My clear sense is I'll notice what's missing way way more than what's new and better, absolutely, and no way I'd like to donate $100 or whatever it will sell for for that privilege.  I have to laugh a little at Jordan mentioning the very cool 'new' feature to get to the options screen before launching a flight which was something the half astute noticed LM removed from FSX when we bought into P3D, and it's taken years to restore this capability.   Had LM reworked the ATC, even a little to get rid of its niggles and add a few new capabilities, I'd be in like flint, but that's not the case, it's too similar to what we have now which works as we all know, quite well.

 

[pmb 5,138]

Given nearly all addons will be provided for free, some even at startup, I'll be in on day 1. I'll add the addons as they'll be completed, and this will supposedly be at a pace faster than my time to try them all. 

I'll certainly keep version 3 for some time, but expect it too fade out quite quickly.

Kind regards, Michael

[captain420 3,099]

I've been waiting for this moment for a looong time, so long that I lost my patience and decided to switch to XP11. Now that P3D is finally 64bit, I'm positive that I'm going to switch back to P3D and that will be my flight simming platform of choice! I've already wiped out P3D v3 completely in anticipation for a clean, fresh and new start of the welcomed 64bit platform!

Sorry X-Plane, you've been a last resort for me, but somehow my heart was always with P3D. I'm just fed up with the lack of quality of aircrafts for XP. 

BTW, is how are some people getting their P3D v4 copies so early? I've seen a few people using v4 already for the past few days on Youtube.

[cannonplug 126]

16 minutes ago, captain420 said:

BTW, is how are some people getting their P3D v4 copies so early? I've seen a few people using v4 already for the past few days on Youtube.

They're beta testers. They've had their copies for a while and were free to start sharing images and videos with us yesterday after the announcement.