Are you happy with P3Dv4?

[tonywob 4,769]

2 hours ago, swiesma said:

I always say that the perfect flightsim would be a mixture of XP11 and P3D :-)

There is no such thing as a perfect sim, and after having a ponder over the idea, I can't see what either of these sims actually have that would complement each other. P3D and X-Plane out of the box without addons are really not very good, and it's the addons that make it good. It seems far too common that people incorrectly label P3D with lots of shiny addons as just "P3D", and it really isn't. What makes our sims good these days are the third-party developers and I don't think anyone can deny that.

The "almost" perfect sim for me would be a next generation engine that worked out of the box. i.e. I could jump straight into the sim, have decent weather, good believable scenery, realistic planes and good performance without having to download tweaking tools, pay for lots of expensive addons, etc. I think merging default XP and P3D would just produce a rather strange mess.

 

[Manny 1,293]

30 minutes ago, tonywob said:

There is no such thing as a perfect sim, and after having a ponder over the idea, I can't see what either of these sims actually have that would complement each other. P3D and X-Plane out of the box without addons are really not very good, and it's the addons that make it good. It seems far too common that people incorrectly label P3D with lots of shiny addons as just "P3D", and it really isn't. What makes our sims good these days are the third-party developers and I don't think anyone can deny that.

The "almost" perfect sim for me would be a next generation engine that worked out of the box. i.e. I could jump straight into the sim, have decent weather, good believable scenery, realistic planes and good performance without having to download tweaking tools, pay for lots of expensive addons, etc. I think merging default XP and P3D would just produce a rather strange mess.

 

This is like the VHS vs Betamax debate (yes..my age is showing) LOL :)

the fact is, VHS has more movies in that format...so VHS trumped Betamax ...even if Betamax was "technically" better. 

The User experience with all the addons that are available makes P3Dv4 totally AWESOME!    :)

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

FSX, P3D... both are platforms for running quality airplanes, scenery, weather..

As a platform, P3D4 is a good step forward. 

If you are expecting a great "out of the box" experience, P3D4 is not going to give you that.

[tonywob 4,769]

48 minutes ago, pmb said:

Which value do you guys crank up LOD to?

I can't remember exactly, but I followed a guide by Matt Davies, and it ended up giving me really crazy loading times. I did have autogen out to the horizon, but I ended up setting it back to one notch below top and removed the tweak as I'm inpatient. I'm quite happy with the settings I have now.

[windycloud 30]

3 hours ago, Manny said:

This is like the VHS vs Betamax

Made me google Betamax...

[Manny 1,293]

4 hours ago, windycloud said:

Made me google Betamax...

You are less than 30 years old Jason? . :)

[mtrainer 136]

tonywob nailed it....spot on....I was a late adopter to Prepar3D coming in at V3, and having been a person that sat on MS 98 (AKA FS 9) for what felt like a decade, and one that provided 90% of the reality I experienced initially with P3D, I was quite surprised things hadn't moved along farther.  I had expected more out of the box.    Alas, one must still buy replacement textures, sceneries, study-level aircraft,  weather, cloud textures, and that is just the minimum.   The default sims seem "afraid" to incorporate features that might put some add-on business out of a job. 

On the bright side, it does allow one to buy the simulator in bits and pieces, without the initial capital outlay that having everything in one box might cost.  Plus, there is the aspect of being able to select what one feels might be best for their individual needs.

I feel like the model going forward is that the major flight sim developers will only continue to provide a "base" upon which, AI, weather, scenery, textures, etc. can be added to.

In a forum post earlier this year I expounded on the concept of being able to build an entire simulator out of interchangeable APIs, from lighting engines, rendering engines, flight envelope engines, thread management engines, scenery options, weather engines, etc.

Mark Trainer

 

[Boeing or not going 578]

If you can afford a top of the line computer, or hold out until the next gen stuff comes out, the p3dv4 is perfect

[Guest-475 81]

I'll give P3Dv4 another try some time this year when I have more time to do some deeper tests. I already fired it up for a weekend, but wasn't too impressed, after having left FSX two years ago in favor of X-Plane 10 (and now 11).

Yes, it's 64bits now, but for me it still looks and feels like FSX 2.0 and not like the big step forward that I expected it to be. But I'm not in a hurry, because FSX/P3D just serve one special purpose for me since, and that is running the Majestic Dash. Until that isn't updated to v4, I don't have a reason to spend much time in it.

[swiesma 625]

Well. I can see very clearly where those two sims could add to each other. But I also see that those idea is not accepted at all. 

For me the engine of XP and the flight dynamics combined with the add ons available for P3D would nail it. 

But I can already imagine the incoming comments. Lol

[zmak 331]

15 hours ago, tonywob said:

There is no such thing as a perfect sim, and after having a ponder over the idea, I can't see what either of these sims actually have that would complement each other. P3D and X-Plane out of the box without addons are really not very good, and it's the addons that make it good. It seems far too common that people incorrectly label P3D with lots of shiny addons as just "P3D", and it really isn't. What makes our sims good these days are the third-party developers and I don't think anyone can deny that.

The "almost" perfect sim for me would be a next generation engine that worked out of the box. i.e. I could jump straight into the sim, have decent weather, good believable scenery, realistic planes and good performance without having to download tweaking tools, pay for lots of expensive addons, etc. I think merging default XP and P3D would just produce a rather strange mess.

 

Its out there.

its called DCS

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

13 minutes ago, zmak said:

Its out there.

its called DCS

And Flight Sim World. 

[tonywob 4,769]

I use DCS, but since it's limited to military aircraft only, it's certainly not the perfect sim.

[swiesma 625]

15 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I use DCS, but since it's limited to military aircraft only, it's certainly not the perfect sim.

Right. Every sim out there has its pros and cons. And DCS or FSW are definitely not perfect. Especially for tubeliner people :-)

[Guest]

Hi there, P3D users: I am back!  I didn't want to start a new topic just to say that so I am using this one to gently bring myself back into this forum which I haven't really visited from some 10 months, after uninstalling P3D v3.

After being fed up with my other sims (see my topic called Losing faith) I decided to buy P3D v4 and give it another try. And I have to say I am pretty pleased with it already, after only two short flights.

First of all I am pleased with it because I can use my good old planes and scenery and weather again (which I really started to miss lately) and all that for FREE (that was a nice surprise!) but obviously that doesn't have anything to do with v4.

But I am also happy with some of the improvements I (think I) see in v4. Now it's been a while since I used P3D so I am not totally sure if what I am seeing is actually new, and I also bought a 1080 in the meantime to replace my 780, which also may help, but I like some of the things I see.

First of all the autogen seems to be around me in a really great circle. Or well, circle...? I can see autogen as far as the eye can see!

Secondly the problems I always had with reflections in water seem to be gone (in v3 they constantly moved and shifted).

Third: performance isn't as good as I am used to lately (with AFS2) but things also aren't as bad as I expected: even with pretty extreme settings performance is simply good in the places I like to fly (mainly FTX Norway), like between 30 and 40. But even when performance is low, like around bit cities, it feels smooth enough. Again, nowhere near as smooth as AFS2 but it's flyable. 

I also LOVE the new 'ingame' SSAA settings! I am using 4x now (from the top of my head) and things look great. Obviously my GPU upgrade enabled me to actually use this setting.

I didn't have the time yet to dive into all possible options and tweaks (although I hate tweaks) so maybe there are some more interesting things to discover but for now I am happy to be back. There still are quite a few things I don't like (or really dislike) but what P3D v4 offers me right now I can enjoy. The things that are lacking I can find in other sims. (Yes, I stopped being a one-sim-man.  )