Valuable P3D advice, must read.

[Senchai 24]

Quote

17 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

You don't think it's an absolute rule??? Based off of what?

Seriously, you have a well known developer literally telling you that his support team is seeing problems with what people are doing to p3d v4 but you don't believe it. He's telling you that the massive performance drops with the dynamic lighting is being caused by people throwing in p3d v3 sceneries not optimized for p3d v4, but you don't believe him.

What would it take for someone to convince you of these things he wrote about.

Is that your approach to your health. You don't want a someone who knows about the human body  way more than you do telling you how to be healthy and what you should and shouldn't do to you body? I'm sure you'll just find out and see?

I seriously don't  understant the logic of people in this community anymore.

The smartest thing I have ever learned was to learn from other people's mistakes so I don't make the same ones.

Apparently, that is lost on the avsim  community.

 

Yeah, one cant ask for brain nowadays. I think we have to get used to it. On the other hand, why not let them suffer? If they want to go through it by themself to waste the same time others already had, why not. Its up to them

 

[harrry 322]

12 hours ago, Henry Street said:

True this about the users. Imagine thinking that the "migration tool" would make 32bit code work in v4. Yes, I've seen it asked in the context of "why doesn't work".

Just think about this.  Are you running Windows 64 bit?  Are you running or have you ran P3d V3?

Is P3d V3 a 32 or 64 bit program.

Oversimplification seems to go with rules.

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

V4. I cant help but see similarities with the HBO series Deadwood.

[hs118 706]

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 7:21 AM, harrry said:

Just think about this.  Are you running Windows 64 bit?  Are you running or have you ran P3d V3?

Is P3d V3 a 32 or 64 bit program.

Oversimplification seems to go with rules.

As it has been said "Ignorance is bliss".

[W2DR 1,859]

On 6/15/2017 at 1:39 PM, AviatorMoser said:

Based off what I said. I can just find out for myself if something is working correctly or not. I don't need to abide by any sort of "rule" but I can consider it as good advice.

He has every right to post what he thinks -- especially because he has to run a support team. I just disagreed with his "rules". Because there is all kinds of stuff out there that may work fine out there even though it's not officially updated to the newest SDK. Like Manfred Jahn's C-47. Works for the most part, not perfectly, but it doesn't crash my sim, and I'm almost certain it doesn't affect PMDG's simulation.

Nothing, I'm convinced his support team has to deal with all sorts of issues.

I'm smart enough to know what's good for my body and the consequences of any risky lifestyles.

Hey I agree with you on learning from people's mistakes. I just don't agree with these so called "rules". It's more like good advice -- not essential. And that's just like, my opinion, man. :)

Right on.....well said.....Doug

[Guest]

We'll get there eventually, I think most content providers understand that they'll have to drop some platforms (i.e. FSX/FSX-SE, V2, V3) in order to survive and help end users understand why they want to use V4 and not FSX/FSX-SE, V2, and V3.  There will be some choppy waters ahead, but it's time, for the greater good and we need to drop the ball and chain.  Developers will be fully aware that means losing some customers, but the reduction in support costs can easily outweigh the loss of customers.

Are any developers gonna go back and redo ALL their FSX, V2 or V3 airports and make them 100% compiled with V4 SDK?,  NO, there is NO money in that unless they charge customers for it ... it's not just a matter of re-compile using the V4 SDK and call it done, they'll need to revisit 3DSMax and plug-in for it and do some re-working just to get to an "existing" working state, then they'll need to think about using the new features of the P3D V4 SDK to enhance their content.

I think the more likely scenario is they'll continue working on their new list of products and hopefully compile them with the V4 SDK and utilize V4 features, then (big maybe) they'll revisit older products and maybe release (for small update cost) a V2 (or V3 or V4 or rebooted or ...).  For some of the much older stuff, the source may not even be available and long gone and we'll just have to live without or hope another developer picks it up.

But to be clear, the workflow for doing V4 content IS different (in a positive way).

Cheers, Rob.

[Griphos 138]

I'm just wanting to take a bit of exception to the characterization of the "need" to drop the "ball and chain" and everyone move to v4 "for the greater good."  I don't think there need be any choppy waters.  

As an end user, I have no interest in v4.  It is certainly reasonable for developers to stop developing or supporting FSX products, since that platform is dead.  But to drop support for v3 seems a bit drastic.  If you're only meaning to suggest that new products developed for v4 may not be backwards compatible, then, sure.  That's understandable too.  But I'm not going to buy v4, and no amount of developer "help" is going to get me to.  I certainly want and expect continued support for the v3 products I have bought.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Griphos said:

 I don't think there need be any choppy waters.

Turbulent Designs are committing to V4 and XP11 (0:20 min to 0:45 in video below) only  ... it's my understanding from other sources this is going to be a common approach for many 3rd party content providers moving forward.  V3 projects already started will get completed, but future projects will be V4 or XP11.  Yes, there will be some fallout from this and content providers are well aware of that.  Of course, this doesn't mean ALL content providers ... just have to wait and see how many follow suit. 

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61O1IhxLq5o

Cheers, Rob.

[GHarrall 494]

Turbulent and flytampa (and others if the whispers are true) are clearly deciding that new products will be developed on v4 and / xp11. 

Of course, v3 products will still get support but new products will be for the two platforms mentioned.

its upto the user to decide which sim and product availability they are comfortable with. It's all very well saying "I have no need for v4" well, that's fine as long as you are comfortable with what v3 has available going forward 

[Griphos 138]

Well, since I'm pretty much solely a XP11 user lately, I'm fine with this development too.  :-)

And I'm completely comfortable with what I have in v3.  More than I need, that's for sure.  Plenty to entertain me whenever I crank it up again.  

[harrry 322]

On 6/17/2017 at 9:09 PM, Henry Street said:

As it has been said "Ignorance is bliss".

Yees Ignorance is bliss.

P3DV3 is a 32 bit program strangely it does run on a 64  bit Windows operating system. 32 bit programs can run on 64 bit.

Most of the xplane 32 bit programs  changed over with little problem when it changed to 64 bit.

 

 

 

[ShawnG 1,823]

meh,  most of the scaremongering about this is over the top, honestly.  By all means, if you want to accept what was written in the original article without question,  have fun flying over your default scenery for the next few years   oh, wait, the majority of the default scenery wasn't compiled p3d4 native either...   I personally think that Mr. Randazzo's team does an excellent job obviously at developing the best Boeing sims in the business without peer, and other than the outrageous upgrade pricing on the rollout of the p3d the other year, I've never had a beef with them.  I also keep my AA settings down and I haven't had terrible issues with dynamic lighting at any airport, and I don't own any that have been compiled with p3dv4 to my knowledge.

Also I won't advocate anybody doing anything they feel uncomfortable with.  I LIKE the challenge of making my stuff work on the new sim, I am quite happy to break my installation and fix it again, it's part of the fun for me, I like to tinker.  you CAN screw up your install if you don't know what you are doing, and cause yourself some hassles, so if that doesn't sound like fun to you, don't do it.  Also the post in question makes some other great points and should be required reading, although I have personally violated every one of his rules, and the only time in 2 weeks with p3dv4 I had a crash was when I installed a product that I knew wasn't going to work, just to see what it did.  The only thing that actually needs changed with 64bit are exe files and .dlls.   Scenery bgl's, textures and models are just data, and data can be read by either 32 or 64 bit executables.  so, unless it's a plane with non-xml guages, an extension of the functionality of the sim, or contains anti-piracy DRM code.  most of this stuff is just going to work like it did before.

But let's address one elephant in the room,  dynamic lighting is a performance intensive feature, and if you want to use PMDG's aircraft, you can't turn it off.  (I mean you CAN, but then you have no lights) they do not provide non dynamic lighting for the landing or taxi lights.  Every other plane in my arsenal does. (and dynamic lights look good for planes that were never designed for it too!)  I'm not sure the reason for this. I think their support guys in the forum are saying it's not possible,  which I doubt, but it may very well be not possible to now provide decent looking non-dynamic lights, so fair enough.  It may be in fact very cynical of me, but I'm not sure the motive of this was to help simmers with their future installation problems, I'm pretty sure it was to offload some of the support requests that were going to be coming from the switch to dynamic lighting only.

This article was published, and now every scenery developer under the sun is being hounded by simmers over their sdk usage.  These are guys who know their craft every bit as well as PMDG know theirs, and now there is impression, created by someone who isn't a scenery developer, that nothing other than pure p3dv4 should be allowed on their installs.  this isn't true.  this has been fairly handily debunked by the best developers already, particularly with respect to the dynamic lighting issues, and even with the newest techniques you are going to have frames dropping if dynamic lights have to illuminate a very high detail airport with lots of high polygon objects and terrain in it.  it's just computing reality.  It should be noted, after a good natured exchange with Mir of flightbeam, Mr. Randazzo clarified his position a bit for simmers just to use their heads, and choose products from quality developers who know what they are doing.  sage advice, and reasonable.  but it is on page 9 of the original thread, not at the top, where it still says only 100% sdk compliance is acceptable.   So, yes.  maybe don't install that dodgy scenery, and maybe don't run every installer you own through the migration tool,  but perhaps instead of badgering Fly Tampa, fsdt, flightbeam, orbx and imaginesim and the other good scenery developers why they have bgls compiled in fs2004 (there are some, and there's a reason) maybe try to find the settings that allow your sim to look decent, and maintain performance in the new environment.  like we've had to do for every version of the sim before this one.

At least we don't have OOM's any more!

 

[CaribbeanCLANK 134]

My initial plan was to get rid of FSX:SE once I got my hands on P3Dv4. Out with the old, In with the new. After reading this article on PMDG's forum I decided not to do so and hold onto old faithful for a few more months(maybe one more year). As great as the new platform is, at the moment a lot is unclear and for people like me who aren't as well versed with the intricacies of a flight sim, best not to mess around with files and what not. P3Dv4 is my first version of P3D so I have no plans of breaking it on the first weekend.  

So far I have a few add-on airports and one aircraft which I have had to uninstall moments after I installed it (at least it was a simple task). Many add-on devs need to be a bit clearer with their customers when releasing "v4" updates for their products and let us know if this is a truly v4 ready product following official installation guidelines or just a quick fix so it will work in the new sim platform. I have said this before...this industry needs to take simplicity seriously if we want to see more people take an interest in flight simulation. One developer has posted a bunch of zip folder for its customers to add to their install then you have to go find the installed product and delete a bunch of files from a folder inside the product you just installed (Oh I forgot, you might have to activate certain options in a config library thingy before deleting files). That is NOT simplicity and think of what it may look like to a potential new simmer. Another dev of some very popular add-ons simply posted on there Facebook page that there most recent release "works just fine." No instructions as to how to get it to work and no word on there official website or forums explaining to customers if they even have a plan for v4. It's all very confusing and it will probably get worse after a few updates from Lockheed Martin and stuff we thought was v4 ready start causing problems inside the sim.

Luckily a few devs have followed proper protocol and have released products that are actually v4 ready. Some are even kind enough to write articles such as the one featured in this thread to help the community get a better, less stressful experience from the new sim platform. To ALL the developers who decided to do things the proper way and make life "simpler" for their customer...THANK YOU. ☺