[14JUN17] How not to mess up a perfectly good Prepar3D v4 installation...

[anden145 2,284]

24 minutes ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

Since this thread has started we've been getting regular emails from potential customers stating that if our products are not native P3D V4 SDK they will not purchase. So that original comment is not far from the truth unfortunately. It's amazing how fast misinformation can sprd. 

In my professional opinion the original statement that started this entire discussion should either be clarified or retracted. In its current form it's not very accurate.

Thanks alot for the statement, Mir. I'm glad you come forward in here as well, to state your opinion. As one of the most talented and respected developers in the community, it certainly has some weight when you state this. I have a feeling that's why many people (myself including) take/took the words of @rsrandazzo so seriously and literate. 

I'll be following this, since this is turning into a real 'Clash of the Titans'. 

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

12 minutes ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

 

 

Since this thread has started we've been getting regular emails from potential customers stating that if our products are not native P3D V4 SDK they will not purchase. So that original comment is not far from the truth unfortunately. It's amazing how fast misinformation can spread. 

In my professional opinion the original statement that started this entire discussion should either be clarified or retracted. In its current form it's not very accurate.

Mir,

I'll clarify. 

Quoting from Lockheed Martin's guidance to developers:

"The Prepar3D v4 SDK has been in development throughout the beta phase. Along the way, several changes have been made that will require content to be re-exported in order to take advantage of some of the newer features as well as prevent crashes. For this reason, we recommend that all content being developed for Prepar3D v4 use the SDK available at the time of the release.
 
With that understanding, we recommend that anyone developing content keep up-to-date with the latest SDK."

So our guidance to customers remains that they should use their heads...  Unfortunately in an era when the vast majority of simmers have gotten used to products being portable across multiple platforms- it isn't always apparent to them that this may no longer be the case- and they need to be armed with some understanding so that they don't set themselves up for failure.

The unfortunate reality (and i know you see this too, Mir!) is that some developers simply update their installer and don't both to check and be certain that their product actually works without creating problems for our mutual customers.  (I wish I had the moxy to mention a few names directly- but that violates my prime-directive not to talk down another developer just because they conduct themselves differently than we do...)

Obviously YOU wouldn't be on that list, Mir. 

The other behavior that we see is users simply assuming "if it worked in v3 it works in v4!"  This is categorically dumb, as well.  When we pull data on our support traffic rate, w can see uptick dramatically the day after the estonian migration tool was made compatible with P3D v4.  The obvious correlation there is that folks are driving a ton of stuff into P3D v4 that was never intended to be there- and it shouldn't be.

Yet somehow they wind up at our tech support screaming and demanding that we fix their issues... 

So the overriding guidance to our customers remains the same:  Use your heads and stick to reputable developers who make a CLEAR effort to ensure their products work.  (I'll pick one at random... uhm... like FlightBeam...)

 

 

[Johnny19 344]

As stated by one gentleman before me, I have also installed Bunch of Aerosoft, FlyTama, all FSDT and all Flightbeam airports, Justsim LIML... PMDG aircraft. AI traffic by Alpha India and models of FAIB, FSP, TFS, AIG on Windows 10 Creators Update. And I couldn't be happier how all performs. So yeah, the world didn't end.

 

Suffice to say, people don't think with their heads, they blindly follow what is said or written. Geez people, it's a software not a living breathing thing. You messed it up somehow, do a system restore. And think think think.

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

4 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

@rsrandazzo

I'll be following this, since this is turning into a real 'Clash of the Titans'. 

Andres,

I'm going to slap you around gently for this comment.  This is PRECISELY the sort of garbage that isn't needed here.

Mir and I share a tremendous amount of mutual respect for each other's products, companies and development teams.  With that, we are allowed to disagree or see the same thing from slightly different points of view without it being a "clash of titans."

This popularized theory that two individuals cannot discuss differing points of view without fighting is entirely and completely ignorant- and denigrates me and Mir and the reputations we have worked very hard to build within the community.

If you want to see a fight- go hang in some unmoderated group that exists for the primary purpose of spewing venom.  Around here we much prefer to see an honest exchange of ideas and opinions without recriminations, and without comments like yours tossed in from the peanut gallery by someone who simply wants to watch a fight-to-the-death rather than two mature adults speak in a friendly fashion about topics on which they disagree.

 

[anden145 2,284]

8 minutes ago, rsrandazzo said:

Andres,

I'm going to slap you around gently for this comment.  This is PRECISELY the sort of garbage that isn't needed here.

Mir and I share a tremendous amount of mutual respect for each other's products, companies and development teams.  With that, we are allowed to disagree or see the same thing from slightly different points of view without it being a "clash of titans."

This popularized theory that two individuals cannot discuss differing points of view without fighting is entirely and completely ignorant- and denigrates me and Mir and the reputations we have worked very hard to build within the community.

If you want to see a fight- go hang in some unmoderated group that exists for the primary purpose of spewing venom.  Around here we much prefer to see an honest exchange of ideas and opinions without recriminations, and without comments like yours tossed in from the peanut gallery by someone who simply wants to watch a fight-to-the-death rather than two mature adults speak in a friendly fashion about topics on which they disagree.

 

Robert, I'm sorry if you (or Mir for that instance) took offense! I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings!

I had ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION of being disrespectful of insult anyone! To be frank, I thought that was pretty clear. Obviously I was wrong...

My comment was meant as a (perhaps poor) joke.

Jeez - I'll be quiet for now... 

[Mir // Flightbeam 541]

I don't really consider myself a "titan" anyway ;) Just one overly enthusiastic scenery developer.

I agree with Robert however, this is hardly a clash. You guys would be surprised on how much we cooperate behind curtains. There is regular, and open communications between our development teams. Not just PMDG, but with FlyTampa, FSDT and other devs as well.

Robert, thanks for your clarification. Your original statement is technically not "false" per say, but it did cause mass confusion for customers. In my opinion customers shouldn't be involved in SDK talk in the first place, we deal with this stuff full time and the level of complexity is mind-boggling. So for customers to make rash decisions about whether A, B or C dev used this or that SDK is a dangerous game. 

In its current form, it's not possible to create a full size airport with 100% P3D v4 SDK without negative consequences for customers. A developer can still (properly) use previous SDK to make stable, clean assets that does not cause problems in the sim. The keyword here is properly, because I do agree there are a few who have some messy assets that cause problems in the sim. 

Just some further clarification for simmers: 

We got a lot of email regarding Dynamic Lighting and old SDK causing frame drops. Older SDK models do not cause performance drops with Dynamic Lighting. This is 100% incorrect, and we tested this *thoroughly*. 

Dynamic lighting performance is very simple from the user perspective (without going into technical detail). Basically.. the more detail at the airport, the bigger performance drop with dynamic lighting. The "dynamic" light forces your system to make a *lot* more calculations to display that light splash when there are a lot of objects. It's really that simple. Other things can be factored in to, especially with complex ground polygons. 

Hopefully this.. and Robert's post provides a bit more clarification so soothe some concerns. 

[anden145 2,284]

18 minutes ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

I don't really consider myself a "titan" anyway ;) Just one overly enthusiastic scenery developer.

I agree with Robert however, this is hardly a clash...

*sigh*

My remark wasn't meant to disrespect, hurt or in any other way cause a stir! I have already said (more than one time) that it was meant as a joke. I never thought it would be viewed in a negative way, to be honest. But then again, humor and sarcasm is clearly a subjective view. I apparently missed something.

If the comment is so horrendous, please mods, feel free to edit it out. 

[Drumcode 1,892]

3 hours ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

There is regular, and open communications between our development teams. Not just PMDG, but with FlyTampa, FSDT and other devs as well.

 

Outstanding. I love reading such positive comments, this kind of stuff assures me that this community is in good hands.

[ZKOKQ 984]

8 hours ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

 

 

Since this thread has started we've been getting regular emails from potential customers stating that if our products are not native P3D V4 SDK they will not purchase. So that original comment is not far from the truth unfortunately. It's amazing how fast misinformation can spread. 

In my professional opinion the original statement that started this entire discussion should either be clarified or retracted. In its current form it's not very accurate.

That was the point I was trying to make Mir, albeit not very well :)

[flyaway719 3]

What I have learned as I have been putting this all together, at around $600.00 for the new software and PD3 V4 The days of pirated software is over for reason one... is we are in the beginning stages of 64bit flight sim world. Be patient for the proper add-ons, and as you get them there will be updates to properly run, add on's and PMDG products; ( And make sure that they are going to update without eating your wallet in that case I would dump them for a time):  I don't think we have seen anything yet, for the most part of what is happening. Our favorite products are 32bit being converted over to run on a 64bit flight sim. This is why flightbeam, fsdreamteam, flytampa, came out with article they are dumping 32bit and steering towards PD3 V4. We should be thankful that PMDG and other product designers are quickly jumping over and spending the money to pay there designers to rewrite programs. I know I have complained that NGX was not done earlier, But I understand that the T7 and 747 is there money maker, and they need to stay on the side of profit to give us even better products in the near future. (HMM, HMM, MD-80, LOL.); I was flying over the smokey mountains with the 747 with orbx and as16 V4 and there was a mist of clouds in the valley of the mountains like there truly is. Think about that just compared to a year ago. As far as hardware I would be updating that if you are not there yet. I am running A asus formula maximus V and  3770k at 4.8 ghz  with 1060 6GB evga at 1800ghz with liqiud cooling G-Skill 32gb at 2400mhz. not to empress you but it does a good job for what I wanted from it. Me and A computer wizz did some testing and found that for the flight sim world the 4790k is your best bang for your buck because that processor puts out more GHZ per core than any Intel processor on the market. buyer beware just because Intel comes out with 7700 or higher numbers just to get your attention or money. Just like AMD has done for years read up on the true values of power. Think about it my 3770k does just as good of job if not better than new ones today. Remember we all have been building 64bit systems for years now and for the first time we will be using it as it was designed to do. Anyways be patient for what is ahead, and enjoy what we have. Have A great day.     

        

[markdf 84]

Ignoring, for a minute, the lack of any line breaks and the spec boast, I'd just like to address the slightly sketchy hardware advice in there:

In an application so heavily dependent on a single core for most of it's processing, the 4790k is most definitely *not* the fastest bang for buck you'll get with any ESP based sim.  The amount of GHz the chip can attain is only relevant in the context of it's IPC (how *much* it can do per clock cycle) - an area in which the 6700k and 7700k outperform it by a good margin (And that's before you get into overclocking, both of those chips will leave any 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx chip in the dust) - it has nothing to do with Intel trying to grab attention.  And to put an Ivy Bridge chip in the same classification is at best misleading, at worst deluded (And yes, I've used both the 3770k and the 7700k very recently as well as a number of chips in between - I'm not being misled about the "true values of power" by anyone).  

Advising people to waste money on older chips on the basis that the performance is allegedly equal is terrible advice.

I just hope that the "computer wizz" is strictly an enthusiast and not someone giving actual sales advice to paying customers

[flyaway719 3]

Its just a opinion there are some people who have responsibility to other things in life and the 4790K is a good cpu for flight sim. And before I dump another $400.00 in a good mother board I am waiting for stable 5.0 plus GHZ. PD3 is just now beginning to truly read more than one core. If you look up single core output of the 4790K it is in the 8.0 plus score which is the best bang for the buck when you have a budget, were most others are in 6.0 to 7.0 plus. maybe I should of clarify if you have a tight budget and are responsible for other things in life this is a good cpu to work with. Not all people have a line of credit that don't care about what the top dollar is.     

 

[FalconAF 213]

The problem is you didn't say ANY of those things in your first post about the 4790K.  ALL you said was it was "better than" buying anything more current...which WAS very poor advice...and flat out incorrect.

NOW you are amending your "advice" by saying it is a "budget decision".  So be it.  But the 4790K is not and never will be as good as a 6700K or 7700K, no matter what criteria you try to use to justify it.

 

[markdf 84]

2 hours ago, FalconAF said:

The problem is you didn't say ANY of those things in your first post about the 4790K.  ALL you said was it was "better than" buying anything more current...which WAS very poor advice...and flat out incorrect.

NOW you are amending your "advice" by saying it is a "budget decision".  So be it.  But the 4790K is not and never will be as good as a 6700K or 7700K, no matter what criteria you try to use to justify it.

 

Exactly what FalconAF said, your post gave people the impression that the 4790k had higher speeds than any other Intel CPU, and that all newer models were just Intel and AMD attempting to make a cash grab and didn't offer any performance benefit.

Performance isn't a matter of opinion - it's a raw measurable fact.

After that you then claimed that the 3770k could do a better job than current generation CPUs on the market, which if someone who didn't understand what they were buying followed that advice, they'd end up very disappointed and out of pocket - potentially being forced to buy two sets of components if they couldn't get a refund.

If budget and value for money is the concern, my recommendation would be an i5 from the Skylake/Kaby Lake families, which can be quite a bit cheaper without losing out on the performance improvements (Since hyper-threading is of such limited value in flight sims anyway, an i5 is generally better bang for buck unless your other software would benefit from hyper-threading)  It's very, very rarely better value to go for an older i7 vs a current generation i5 unless you have very specific needs.

I have no idea what scale you're using when you're talking about "8.0 plus score" (although I suspect you're talking about the Windows built-in performance measurement, which if so, is worse than useless in comparison to other benchmarks), a single digit decimal score is nowhere near granular enough to give any real scale, and not specific enough to tell you anything about it's performance in P3D/FSX/X-Plane which demand very different workloads than most games do.  Taking a quick glance at some Geekbench single-threaded results, the 4790k - whilst scoring respectably high, can be matched by at least one current generation i3, as well as current and last generation i5 chips.

In actual real-world usage where applications can take advantage of newer instruction sets you can expect the current generation chips to draw ahead even further.

https://browser.primatelabs.com/processor-benchmarks

 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Interesting discussion. Let's bring it back on topic, shall we?

There's a whole hardware forum for those battles.