P3D V4 Stopped enjoying it. Time to reconsider the options.

[vgbaron 3,590]

19 minutes ago, vp49p3 said:

When most folks can do that in V4 (and the A2A Connie's updated) then I'll switch to V4.  Don't want to sound smug, but I'm enjoying flying more than ever, and just don't want to have to deal with problems for now.

I'm not having any of those problems. Remember, the majority of people who post here are having a problem but the majority who are not having problems are busy flying not posting. V4  is the best so far, IMHO in visual quality, performance and stability. I have to monitor a bunch of forums and I can tell you that a great number of the problems, when finally resolved, come down to user error. It must come with the sim territory - the need to try and make something do what it is not designed for. Else why would so many try to use old and incompatible scenery and blame LM when it doesn't work.

 

Vic

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

21 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Yeah and make sure you aren't running the highest AA.  8xSSAA just kills my cpu.  Try 8x msaa (sort of shimmers) or 4x SSAA which is what I'm doing with my GTX970

4XSSAA works nicely on my four year old 4770K/GTX770 system.

[Sethos 4,333]

Funny, V4 is actually the first time I'm truly enjoying P3D and feeling relaxed knowing, the sim won't suddenly take a dump with a notice of running out of VAS because I dared use the sim. Terrain is finally being rendered as far as I can see, at least to a degree that makes it crisp. My many hundreds of dollars in OrbX scenery finally feel like it isn't wasted in a sea of blur and mush. Performance is now so good, I can have traffic, higher autogen settings, more AA, higher terrain settings and still maintain a solid framerate. It runs smoother, runs faster and is more stable. 10/10. 

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

42 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

I'm not having any of those problems. Remember, the majority of people who post here are having a problem but the majority who are not having problems are busy flying not posting. V4  is the best so far, IMHO in visual quality, performance and stability. I have to monitor a bunch of forums and I can tell you that a great number of the problems, when finally resolved, come down to user error. It must come with the sim territory - the need to try and make something do what it is not designed for. Else why would so many try to use old and incompatible scenery and blame LM when it doesn't work.

 

Vic

Good point, Vic.

[dal330200 216]

13 hours ago, virtuali said:

Not a single airport in the default scenery, as supplied by LM, is complied with the P3D V4 SDK.

Of course, someone might say "recompiling the AFCAD won't give you any benefits", which is precisely my point: every aspect of the scenery is different and should be analyzed separately, and you cannot expect that just recompiling would auto-magically convert a bad performer into a speed demon.

A badly-optimized scenery will be just as bad, even if recompiled so, it's just wrong to generalize, and assume that everything "requires" to be recompiled. If LM really required this and if the knew there were stability problems, they would got rid of backward compatibility entirely.

Speaking about ground polygons, for example, which is the thing that interacts the most with dynamic lights and the airplane dynamic, and it's the part that forced many developers to still use FS8 code (most of the sceneries out there are made like that. NONE of the FSDT sceneries made after 2010 used FS8 code anymore, we were the first to get rid of it entirely...), while the FS8 code is surely the slowest one, the P3D native code is NOT the fastest one either, because we could measure a slight fps drop, on the same scenery, compared to the usage of the FSX code + our own custom Couatl/Addon Manager handling to prevent ground flickering.This because the P3D native code supports priority layering of ground polygons which HAS a performance cost, albeit very low so, we are using it for KMEM and KCLT, because it's easier to use, with less quirks and more predictable.

However, we couldn't find any evidence that the method used to do ground polygons has any effect on the frame rate loss caused by dynamic lights, see here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,16007.msg114745.html#msg114745

The only things that really have an effect on dynamic lights performance, are the Antialiasing mode and the screen resolution. The SDK used for the scenery has no effect on it, other than FS8 code being the slowest one, which is something that has been known for years. We gained 30% fps by removing the FS8 code, when we updated JFK to V2 version, in 2013.

That's just an example, to show that just using the P3D V4 SDK it's not a magic bullet, and each case is different and each scenery is different. Of course, we can only comment on our own sceneries, where we always tried to get rid of legacy code as soon as possible. I'd guess a scenery made with hundreds of SCASM macros, so it's totally littered with FS8 code everywhere, might be a different story.

That doesn't mean a scenery DESIGNED, right from the start, using the P3D V4 SDK couldn't be made much better, because it surely can. But it will be designed starting with an entirely different approach, not just "recompiled", it will be a different product, that would work ONLY with P3D V4, and couldn't even be back-ported to FSX. There are NO sceneries out there made like this, and no present scenery can be updated to this status just by "recompiling it": it would have to be remade from scratch, to *really* use the V4 SDK to the *full* extent.

On the topic of dynamic lighting, I got caught up in that surprise last night...for me turning off reflections and shadows as well as keeping the MSAA did wonders.  The latest mini-update for the PMDG 777 also eliminated a lot of the problem.  I had no clue dynamic lighting would be such an in-depth feature.

[Anxu00 176]

11 hours ago, swiesma said:

But everyone should do what he thinks is best :-)

Not think, I have both side by side with the same settings (by comparing the cfg file) In the same add-on setting, There is no increase in FPS in my setup.  Perceived smoothness is the same.

11 hours ago, MikeT707 said:

Also, settings in v3 do NOT equal the same in v4, so an Extremely dense autogen setting in v4, for instance, is different than that in v3. The autogen draw distance is also quite different. With the system you have listed, you should be running quite well so there may be an issue with your install or some of the add-ons that were installed in your v4 platform.

You may be right, but I did my best by using the same settings as the cfg files tell me.  To me currently I lost too many favorite aircrafts, and I have no idea what kind of upgrade cost will end up for me.  So I stay put for now until the dust is clear.  For others, especially tube flier the advantage is clear.  I am just not one of those.

[MikeT707 1,181]

5 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Remember, the majority of people who post here are having a problem but the majority who are not having problems are busy flying not posting. V4  is the best so far, IMHO in visual quality, performance and stability.

This is very true. If people who were having a very positive experience posted topics, there would be a flood of people posting those. v4 is a great platform, but the inevitable result of a new platform release is there will be people who make mistakes or &@($*-ume things will work when they are just not designed to do so. It it kind of sad that this affects a number of people who would normally proceed with the new platform, but get scared away by problems they think are due to the platform, when the reality is the problem is typically on the user's end.

If there are bugs, they are usually minor with v4. v2 was a different story, but that is in the past and the platform has evolved quite well.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Let me say that I just installed P3DV4 this week, coming from FSX Accel.

It has been a very pleasant experience! 

Orbx FTX Central has been most helpful in getting my favorite scenery installed, and adding two of my go-to planes, the Realair Scout and Alabeo Seminole, has worked very well.

Had some issues with visual settings, but now, with FXAA off and 4XSSAA on, it all looks great and flies very well.

This, to me, is what FSXI should have been all along 

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Quote

....a great number of the problems, when finally resolved, come down to user error. It must come with the sim territory - the need to try and make something do what it is not designed for. Else why would so many try to use old and incompatible scenery....

Yes, but this is precisely why some of us choose not to upgrade to v4 at the moment. The fact is that I need all of my addons to work in the 64bit version, and that means that I need to wait until the upgrade work has been completed, or to be told that certain addons will never be compatible. Only then will I make a final decision (based on whether any incompatible addons are essential for my enjoyment of flight simulation).

[Holdit 551]

7 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

 

 

Yes, but this is precisely why some of us choose not to upgrade to v4 at the moment. The fact is that I need all of my addons to work in the 64bit version, and that means that I need to wait until the upgrade work has been completed, or if I am told that certain addons will never be compatible. Only then will I make a final decision (based on whether any incompatible addons are essential for my enjoyment of flight simulation).

This times 1000.  And even without those reasons, I find it's better to delay pulling the trigger on any New Thing. Let others deal with the early adoption growing pains. When the times comes to say yay or nay, the information with which to make an informed choice will be so much better.

[glider1 90]

21 hours ago, virtuali said:

Not a single airport in the default scenery, as supplied by LM, is complied with the P3D V4 SDK.

Of course, someone might say "recompiling the AFCAD won't give you any benefits", which is precisely my point: every aspect of the scenery is different and should be analyzed separately, and you cannot expect that just recompiling would auto-magically convert a bad performer into a speed demon.

A badly-optimized scenery will be just as bad, even if recompiled so, it's just wrong to generalize, and assume that everything "requires" to be recompiled. If LM really required this and if the knew there were stability problems, they would got rid of backward compatibility entirely.

Speaking about ground polygons, for example, which is the thing that interacts the most with dynamic lights and the airplane dynamic, and it's the part that forced many developers to still use FS8 code (most of the sceneries out there are made like that. NONE of the FSDT sceneries made after 2010 used FS8 code anymore, we were the first to get rid of it entirely...), while the FS8 code is surely the slowest one, the P3D native code is NOT the fastest one either, because we could measure a slight fps drop, on the same scenery, compared to the usage of the FSX code + our own custom Couatl/Addon Manager handling to prevent ground flickering.This because the P3D native code supports priority layering of ground polygons which HAS a performance cost, albeit very low so, we are using it for KMEM and KCLT, because it's easier to use, with less quirks and more predictable.

However, we couldn't find any evidence that the method used to do ground polygons has any effect on the frame rate loss caused by dynamic lights, see here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,16007.msg114745.html#msg114745

The only things that really have an effect on dynamic lights performance, are the Antialiasing mode and the screen resolution. The SDK used for the scenery has no effect on it, other than FS8 code being the slowest one, which is something that has been known for years. We gained 30% fps by removing the FS8 code, when we updated JFK to V2 version, in 2013.

That's just an example, to show that just using the P3D V4 SDK it's not a magic bullet, and each case is different and each scenery is different. Of course, we can only comment on our own sceneries, where we always tried to get rid of legacy code as soon as possible. I'd guess a scenery made with hundreds of SCASM macros, so it's totally littered with FS8 code everywhere, might be a different story.

That doesn't mean a scenery DESIGNED, right from the start, using the P3D V4 SDK couldn't be made much better, because it surely can. But it will be designed starting with an entirely different approach, not just "recompiled", it will be a different product, that would work ONLY with P3D V4, and couldn't even be back-ported to FSX. There are NO sceneries out there made like this, and no present scenery can be updated to this status just by "recompiling it": it would have to be remade from scratch, to *really* use the V4 SDK to the *full* extent.

Thank you so much for your input it has helped me a lot.

[swiesma 625]

10 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

4XSSAA works nicely on my four year old 4770K/GTX770 system.

SSAA works good and fast on my machine - as long as it is daylight and no dynamic lighting involved :-)

[Bobsk8 12,674]

2 hours ago, Holdit said:

This times 1000.  And even without those reasons, I find it's better to delay pulling the trigger on any New Thing. Let others deal with the early adoption growing pains. When the times comes to say yay or nay, the information with which to make an informed choice will be so much better.

Same here, I notice many threads on his forum with issues and problems with V4, and almost no current  complaints about V3, and I  seriously doubt that the majority of users have switched to V4. It looks like the add on aircraft I use now exclusively, ( helicopters by Milviz and Cera Sim) may never be adapted to work with V4, and since V3 for me is problem free, and smooth running, I may just stay with V3 for a very  long time.  

[swiesma 625]

Noone MUST use v4. You can use v3 as long as you may want to, nobody will have a problem with it.

 

But v4 is a huge leap in a lot of aspects and most things are running very well, even for the first version of v4. And a lot of people run v4 without any issues. So I still don't get this "v4 is sooooo bad, I'm gonna stay at v3" stuff in almost every thread here.

[Anxu00 176]

8 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Let me say that I just installed P3DV4 this week, coming from FSX Accel.

It has been a very pleasant experience! 

Orbx FTX Central has been most helpful in getting my favorite scenery installed, and adding two of my go-to planes, the Realair Scout and Alabeo Seminole, has worked very well.

Had some issues with visual settings, but now, with FXAA off and 4XSSAA on, it all looks great and flies very well.

This, to me, is what FSXI should have been all along 

Welcome aboard Bert.  I remember you did not like the previous P3D versions, so your endorsement of this version says a lot ;-)  Now if I would have the GTN750, F1 Mustang and B200 would be nice, patiently waiting until then.  Perhaps by Christmas, if P3Dv4 4.2 would have come out by then