P3Dv4 on an old PC?

[CaribbeanCLANK 134]

I want to make the switch to P3D from FSX soon and I also have an older pc that is not a power house. If a GTX 1070 or 1080's price is out of your budget consider the GTX 1060 6gb version as an affordable upgrade for your older PC. Here is a video of the card in action. The person also runs other test so have a look at the performance numbers.

https://youtu.be/IV-Q8l2EkvM

Keep in mind that the card is paired with an Intel i7 but with lower settings I don't see why an i5 paired with a mid range card can't  run P3D v4 smoothly. I personally have an i5 but I am going to upgrade to the MSI Gaming X gtx 1070. Bit by bit I will upgrade other components. 

[d.tsakiris 417]

Not quite on-topic, but also not completely off-topic: Will V4 start up and run on a graphics card with less than 2 GB? My 580 only has 1,5, and I'd like to know if I can test V4 a little before forking out the money for hardware upgrades.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

On 17/06/2017 at 11:43 PM, Chock said:

Four things you should give a try if you use FSX, and/or are on a limited budget, are:

Use the Steam version of FSX, because it definitely runs better than the old boxed (or D/L) versions of Microsoft FSX with SP2/Acceleration; it is cheap (20 quid normally, but sometimes you find it on sale for a fiver) and has all the extra bits and bobs with it as well, so no need to install any SPs or Acceleration or whatever.

Try FSX Booster Live and FSX Fiber Accelerator, both of them are inexpensive, but they can squeeze some extra performance out of an older PC. Now obviously they can't work miracles, but they almost certainly will gain you some frame rates.

Steve's DX10 Fixer (with the cloud shadows add on too) is another one worth trying, since that is fairly cheap as well and will sort out a lot of issues with such an old sim as FSX and of course will also give you cloud shadows on the terrain, which is one of the things that you might otherwise miss in not using P3D.

On the plus side, one thing you won't miss with not using P3D, is any additional expense with having to buy new stuff for your sim again, and you will also miss out on the tedious P3D downloading and installing process it makes you endure lol; nothing can 'Pr3p4r3' you for that one, or the 30 Gigs of space you need to fit it on your HD.

Chock, you're suggesting acquiring a bucket full of programs just to try and tweak and patch an obsolete flight sim that was abandoned by its developers a decade ago.

The world moves on, we're now in the 64-bit era. Rather than throwing more money at a sim that's now well past it's prime, I suggest that anyone who's seriously interested in flight simulation take the plunge and move to P3D v4.

You don't need a top of the range system to run it, as some of the above posts indicate. Most of the key software already runs on this version, and by purchasing the P3D versions of addons moving forward, you'll be making a much sounder investment than if you pour more money into our old friend, FSX.

[Chock 17,769]

2 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

Chock, you're suggesting acquiring a bucket full of programs just to try and tweak and patch an obsolete flight sim that was abandoned by its developers a decade ago.

The world moves on, we're now in the 64-bit era. Rather than throwing more money at a sim that's now well past it's prime, I suggest that anyone who's seriously interested in flight simulation take the plunge and move to P3D v4.

You don't need a top of the range system to run it, as some of the above posts indicate. Most of the key software already runs on this version, and by purchasing the P3D versions of addons moving forward, you'll be making a much sounder investment than if you pour more money into our old friend, FSX.

 That is why I wrote 'If you are happy with FSX and it is doing what you want it to do' to preface those suggestions of how you can speed things up in FSX if you want to stay with it on a prior post, and also why about three posts below the one you quoted, I pointed out that I have P3D V4 running on a very modest system, where I quoted its specs etc.

All those suggestions I made for products are very inexpensive, and so they might suit someone for whom P3D will not run well and who are not in a position to spend a lot of money. Don't forget that although we are seeing many old FSX products gaining P3D installers of late, there are still many products you will need to buy to flesh out P3D if you do switch, and it is still the case that there are vastly more products out there for the older sim, many of which, long term users will already own. So it's not just about moving on, it's also about the cost of moving on, and not everyone is in a position to do that from a financial standpoint.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

4 minutes ago, Chock said:

That is why i wrote 'If you are happy with FSX and it is doing what you want it to do' to preface those suggestions of how you can speed things up in FSX if you want to stay with it on a prior post, and also why about three posts below the one you quoted, I pointed out that I have P3D V4 running on a very modest system, where I quoted its specs etc.

If someone is happy with FSX and it is doing what they want, why would they buy FSX-SE and three new addons to try and make it work? :)

I priced your "very inexpensive" addons:

• FSX-SE: US $25
• Steve's DX fixer: around $30 USD
• FSX booster live: EU 12.90
• FSX Fibre Accelerator: EU 14.90

That's around US $85 to try and make an ancient sim perform at an acceptable standard. When you finally move to Prepar3d or another platform in a year, or two years, or three years - that's money down the drain. 

Upgrade to P3D v4 now, and you're investing in the future. You'll get continuous improvements for the next two years, and can still keep FSX to fly the older scenery and planes that will never be updated to 64 bit.

[Holdit 551]

On 6/17/2017 at 1:30 PM, Chock said:

reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Agreed, yet many here seem to be not only anticipating its death, but want a stake driven through its heart as soon as possible. As you rightly point out, though, AVSIM != The World.

[zmak 331]

1 hour ago, OzWhitey said:

If someone is happy with FSX and it is doing what they want, why would they buy FSX-SE and three new addons to try and make it work? :)

I priced your "very inexpensive" addons:

• FSX-SE: US $25
• Steve's DX fixer: around $30 USD
• FSX booster live: EU 12.90
• FSX Fibre Accelerator: EU 14.90

That's around US $85 to try and make an ancient sim perform at an acceptable standard. When you finally move to Prepar3d or another platform in a year, or two years, or three years - that's money down the drain. 

Upgrade to P3D v4 now, and you're investing in the future. You'll get continuous improvements for the next two years, and can still keep FSX to fly the older scenery and planes that will never be updated to 64 bit.

Can buy fsx se for 5 bucks during the many steam sales and DX10 fixer brings it up to p3d  v3 standards without the multiple re buys of pmdg etc. The other two tweak programs should be avoided unless your on a home lap top IMO they can cause big problems. 

Gonna wait a couple of years until all the posts I'm seeing with guys complaining about stuttering and lag and with a gtx 1080 no less! In v4 are sorted 

IMO anyone holding a gtx 780 or less should not  go near v4 and wait for the many bugs and dev compatibility  to be updated 

Dont worry about supporting LM they have many millions x your bank balance :-):-)

[Chock 17,769]

42 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

If someone is happy with FSX and it is doing what they want, why would they buy FSX-SE and three new addons to try and make it work? :)

I priced your "very inexpensive" addons:

• FSX-SE: US $25
• Steve's DX fixer: around $30 USD
• FSX booster live: EU 12.90
• FSX Fibre Accelerator: EU 14.90

That's around US $85 to try and make an ancient sim perform at an acceptable standard. When you finally move to Prepar3d or another platform in a year, or two years, or three years - that's money down the drain. 

Upgrade to P3D v4 now, and you're investing in the future. You'll get continuous improvements for the next two years, and can still keep FSX to fly the older scenery and planes that will never be updated to 64 bit.

Oh for... Look, there has been more than one question posed on this thread, read the entire thread for chrissakes. Thus I made THREE posts to address the different questions, with different suggestions depending on people's financial circumstances, from trying P3D to see how it runs, to trying things designed to speed matters up a bit; things which cost considerably less than buying new hardware if someone is not in a position financially to pay 200 quid for P3D and to possibly have to buy new hardware as well. In other words, a few options. So cherry picking one of the THREE POSTS I MADE, and taking it right out of the context and situation it was intended to address in order to suggest I did not say try P3D, is disingenuous to say the least. I even posted a pic of P3D V4 running on a crappy PC at decent frame rates on one of those previous three posts, to prove it could be done.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

Oh for... Look, there has been more than one question posed on this thread, read the entire thread for chrissakes. Thus I made THREE posts to address the different questions, with different suggestions depending on people's financial circumstances, from trying P3D to see how it runs, to trying things designed to speed matters up a bit; things which cost considerably less than buying new hardware if someone is not in a position financially to pay 200 quid for P3D and to possibly have to buy new hardware as well. In other words, a few options. So cherry picking one of the THREE POSTS I MADE, and taking it right out of the context and situation it was intended to address in order to suggest I did not say try P3D, is disingenuous to say the least. I even posted a pic of P3D V4 running on a crappy PC at decent frame rates on one of those previous three posts, to prove it could be done.

The thread is not even two pages long, mate, trust me I read it...

You use the word 'disingenuous' and claim that I'm 'cherry picking'. I quoted your whole post (did you want me to quote all three for some reason???), and then responded to the argument that you made in reply to this.

My point is very simple, and not all that controversial - the time for spending money on trying to bring FSX up to modern standards is past, IMHO. That made sense five years ago, now its time to move on, and as you've noted in your third post hardware isn't really an impediment to joining the P3D train.

Some people - lots of people - will likely disagree. and stay with FSX for years to come. That's cool, it's a discussion forum, we're discussing things.

As per your signature, re: the 'ten year tear-strewn contrail of discarded payware' - Alan, it seems that this 64-bit transition is taking an emotional toll on you!

[Chock 17,769]

6 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

TAs per your signature, re: the 'ten year tear-strewn contrail of discarded payware' - Alan, it seems that this 64-bit transition is taking an emotional toll on you!

Nah, not really, as every flight simmer knows, if we can't take a joke, we'd better not get into flight simming. How do you make God laugh..? Tell him your plans.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

3 hours ago, Venturi said:

Can buy fsx se for 5 bucks during the many steam sales and DX10 fixer brings it up to p3d  v3 standards without the multiple re buys of pmdg etc. The other two tweak programs should be avoided unless your on a home lap top IMO they can cause big problems. 

Gonna wait a couple of years until all the posts I'm seeing with guys complaining about stuttering and lag and with a gtx 1080 no less! In v4 are sorted 

IMO anyone holding a gtx 780 or less should not  go near v4 and wait for the many bugs and dev compatibility  to be updated 

Dont worry about supporting LM they have many millions x your bank balance :-):-)

It's on sale right now for $12.50 (I checked!), but only for another hour or two. 

All the tweak programs and hours spend modifying .cfg files is largely due to the fact that FSX was made for a different generation of hardware, and never quite finished by ACES before the end came. The simplest solution IMHO is to move to a modern program that has been optimised for the current generation of technology.

I'm not sure about the 'stuttering and lag with a GTX 1080', I've spent a hundred hours flying this thing, mainly with a GTX 970. It's smooth, not Aerofly2 smooth, but it's a great sim and it really does perform well and look great when compared to FSX. I haven't tried it with a GTX 780, but I do have a GTX680 sitting here so I might give that a try.

re: 'many bugs' - I think you're thinking of FSX there! P3D v4 is very stable, remember LM have had 7 years to improve the code base, something an external program will never be able to do.

One last thing to consider - buying in to a newly released sim is FUN. Yes, there's some inconvenience and unknowns, but there's something genuinely exciting about seeing what a new simulator can do, and watching while it slowly but inexorably improves. 

[zmak 331]

33 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

It's on sale right now for $12.50 (I checked!), but only for another hour or two. 

All the tweak programs and hours spend modifying .cfg files is largely due to the fact that FSX was made for a different generation of hardware, and never quite finished by ACES before the end came. The simplest solution IMHO is to move to a modern program that has been optimised for the current generation of technology.

I'm not sure about the 'stuttering and lag with a GTX 1080', I've spent a hundred hours flying this thing, mainly with a GTX 970. It's smooth, not Aerofly2 smooth, but it's a great sim and it really does perform well and look great when compared to FSX. I haven't tried it with a GTX 780, but I do have a GTX680 sitting here so I might give that a try.

re: 'many bugs' - I think you're thinking of FSX there! P3D v4 is very stable, remember LM have had 7 years to improve the code base, something an external program will never be able to do.

One last thing to consider - buying in to a newly released sim is FUN. Yes, there's some inconvenience and unknowns, but there's something genuinely exciting about seeing what a new simulator can do, and watching while it slowly but inexorably improves. 

Hey brother I have big respect for the trailblazer guys that jump in 

I'm watching from the grand stands and will dive in myself probably about 1 to 2 years when the dust settled. 

Thanks for your updates 😊

[Samany69 41]

maybe too late to response here . yet i have to mention that i am running v4 on a laptop with i7 3610 3.2GHz , 8GB 1.6GHz DDR3 , and a baby 650M 2G GDDR3 and a 128GB ssd . on my laptop i have an stable 25fps inside cockpit of a PMDG 747 and 30fps outside views. yet i have to mention that i have almost everything maxed but AA and shadow settings reduced to a low amount . mesh resolution maxed , texture maxed , high res texture enabled , HDR enabled , Autogen buildings maxed , autogen radius maxed , weather settings all maxed , special effects and radius none. and i assume that what you got as a PC is 10 times faster than my baby laptop .

[Pepsimachine 10]

Running P3D V4 on a 2500K @ 4.6, 16 gigs ram, and a 1060 video card. Runs smooth without issues. Most settings are high. I use AirTraffic Manager when I'm around the huge/busy airports to cut down on traffic and it helps a lot.  I do fly mostly helos and GA. No PMG airlines.

[LH340fan 54]

Quite strange. I have a core 2 quad Oc' @3.51ghz, a 750ti and 8gigs of ddr3. Therefore my pc completely struggles with fslabs and airport addons with an average of 14fps. I m thinking about buying a 1060 as a 1st upgrade. Any setup advice for under 500$ is welcome. I think that fsx is great, but p3dv4 is future.