Are you happy with P3Dv4?

[Luis_KMIA 242]

I exclusively use P3Dv4 with AS and PMDG, plus high quality scenery products form ORBX, FSDT, FlightBeam, and others.

The main advantages now are no more OOM erros and very smooth performance.

The FPS drop with dynamic lights should be solved with a future update.  There has only been a hotfix since the May release, so we should expect improvements.

[snglecoil 1,828]

Happy with V4? Meh...64 bit is significant. But honestly the rest is underwhelming. Increased LOD and auto gen are wins for sure. I look forward to seeing what progress looks like going forward now that 64 bit is out of the way. 

[WebMaximus 372]

5 minutes ago, snglecoil said:

Happy with V4? Meh...64 bit is significant. But honestly the rest is underwhelming. Increased LOD and auto gen are wins for sure. I look forward to seeing what progress looks like going forward now that 64 bit is out of the way. 

I understand what you mean and I guess what you say is part of the reason I haven't been in a rush updating this time. 

I also share what you say how it will be interesting to see what's ahead of us now with 64 bit out of the way.

[tonywob 4,769]

9 minutes ago, WebMaximus said:

I also share what you say how it will be interesting to see what's ahead of us now with 64 bit out of the way.

Well they say the next big thing is VR, but I'm not so convinced by that. It will be interesting for sure.

[Chock 17,769]

11 hours ago, FalconAF said:

I agree.  But here's my disagreement with the part of your post I originally quoted.

You list yourself in big, red letters under your forum name as a "Reviewer".  Then shouldn't you review the product for what it was INTENDED for?  Not what YOU WISH it was "out of the box"? Everything you said about P3Dv4 that made YOU unhappy was OUTSIDE the scope of the DEFAULT product as sold to the consumer.

I would certainly do so if I was writing a review of it as purely a default product, commenting solely on its intended purpose. But I wasn't doing that, I was answering a specific question posed on this thread by the OP, which asked if I was happy with it. That level of satisfaction for me, or any other user, is dependent on what the user does with it, wants to do with it, and whether the desire to do these things can be achieved. So to apply these criteria to my comments if one is not going to apply them to the comments of others who responded to that question too, is somewhat captious in nature.

How many posts have you seen on the Avsim P3D forums where someone has mentioned how brilliant they found P3D for their training scenerio lesson with their students? Have you even seen one such post? Because I haven't, not a single one, nor would I expect to. But it seems to me that there are apparently an awful lot of academics and training professionals frequenting these forums who are choosing to never even mention that they are doing this with P3D if we are to believe people who frequent Avsim's P3D forum are using P3D for its intended purpose.

There are just less than 40 airworthy Douglas DC-6 aeroplanes in the world, this being the case means there would be no great demand for a DC-6 simulator add-on for P3D, but we know that's not the case because there is not just one DC-6 add-on aeroplane for P3D, there are three of them available (not including freeware ones out there too), so what are these being sold for, if not for entertainment? In approving these being developed and sold for use in P3D, Lockheed Martin is either really stupid, turning a blind eye, or is acknowledging who is really using P3D and what they are using it for. And we know it is the latter of these notions because how many airworthy Constellations are there? Yup, exactly two, but there's one right there in P3D by default (which absolutely was developed as an entertainment product by Aeroplane Heaven for sale by Just Flight) and another one from A2A, also developed originally for entertainment purposes, which you can buy. What are these for if not for fun? Certainly not for any real-world training purpose unless A2A went to the trouble of developing it for P3D so they could sell two copies to the two owners of the only two airworthy Constellations there are left in the entire world.

 

Since I do use P3D for academic purposes, in that I use it as a training tool for teaching people stuff from my training centre in the NW of England, that is something I am happy to say falls within its EULA; specifically the bits about 'Experiment with challenges that develop critical thinking skills' and 'Collaborate with students around the world to solve real-life problems and hone their teamwork skills' are things which I do indeed use P3D (and other software programs) for. But I do use it for fun too because it's important for me to be familiar with it if I am going to use it for teaching in an academic environment, and there is no better way to become familiar with something than to use it a lot, so when I mess around with it for fun, that is a means to that training end, so that too falls within the remit of the EULA I agreed to. This is my experience as a user of it, and this is what I was basing my comments on, because for much of these tasks, I could indeed also use FSX, and really the only thing which precludes that is the 32 bit status of FSX as opposed to the 64 bit of P3D V4, which is advantageous. This is exactly why I never bought the preceding (V2 and V3) versions of P3D, but did buy the V1 version in order to check it out very briefly, so I could judge its suitability for the tasks I demanded of it for training purposes, finding the V1 iteration no better suited to that task than FSX in that instance, which is why I subsequently never used that version at all, in fact i think I fired it up about three times in total and then uninstalled it.

Thus reviewing something such as a simulator takes a very different approach to making a personal comment on it, where in a review one looks at all its features and capabilities, not merely the ones which suit ones own purposes (which is why reviewing is not quite as much fun as some might imagine it to be), and this can include anything which might be enhanced by additions available, and then comments on the overall utility of the program for any purpose it might reasonably be used for.

If Avsim asked me to review P3D V4, I would do so, but since they have not, my comments are not a review and in most cases when I comment on the forums, although I am bound by a certain level of behaviour since I am 'one of the staff', in almost every respect other than that limitation which I largely choose to place upon myself, I am just as much a regular joe avsim member as anyone else and it was in this spirit and from that completely no more special than any other forum member position that I commented on this thread.

So yes, as a training tool I do find P3D V4 more useful than FSX since it is less likely to suffer VAS issues, and that also when having a bit of fun with it, and this I mentioned, but in terms of it being especially more advanced in comparison to FSX beyond largely its difference in bit depth, that I am considerably less impressed with. I don't doubt than LM will work on this and it will continue to improve and impress, but as it stands in its V4 iteration, it does not set itself greatly apart from FSX in terms of what it can offer beyond system stability, unless I actually was using it to train on things such as aquatic assaults on military targets or some such. Which I'm not, and neither is anyone else on here, or we'd be seeing people banging on about how great the new PMDG Los Angeles Class submarine was in comparison to A2A's new Akula Class sub and how fantastic UK2000s new Faslane submarine base scenery was.

Edited August 17, 2017 by vgbaron
removed references to eula

[WebMaximus 372]

Excellent post Alan and of course I didn't start this thread to discuss how P3D is or should be used...I started this thread to find out how happy people are with the new version...people using the product in the same way I do as well as 99.99% of the people in here.

Debating on how P3D is/should be used and whether LM is aware of this fact is just plain stupid. I find the answer quite obvious and I think that is the same for most people in here. You don't need to go any further than https://www.prepar3d.com/ and you'll find both ads and other stuff for products with one single purpose...to make the sim look prettier and to be a more realistic and thus fun environment to simulate flight within.

I think we should end this discussion right here and now before someone gets upset and locks it. I would not appreciate that since I personally think it has been a very good thread with lots of great input and I hope it will continue in that course.

[Chock 17,769]

Really, the only reason to lock such a thread would be if it were to get out of hand or decend into personal attacks, neither of which appear to be the case. Moreover, it's interesting to read about people's experiences with it and in particular what pleases them, most of which appears to be its performance rather than its looks, at least its looks by default that is and the fact that if one chooses to enhance them, the sim will keep on running owing to its 64 bit base.

I am happy to see many people are satisfied with P3D, I think that's great and I am happy with it too in many respects, not least the fact that it doesn't start pinging away at me the moment I tart up its graphics a bit. But as noted, I think some of that tarting up should really be addressed by LM, because even if one were to view it solely as a training and scenario tool, it would certainly be better able to serve that purpose if it was up to date in terms of its airport and nav aid database. I doubt even LM would disagree with that notion if they really do want it to be seen as the ideal solution for such use.

[DylanM 1,069]

There are certainly a lot more options for "tarting up" given the SDK...the devs are going to have a field day over the next little while.

[Manny 1,293]

Extremely happy with P3Dv4. The best sim out there for m! I love it!

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

I love my P3D4 as well, having used flight simulation products for over 25 years.

Not to revisit the "purpose" discussion, I would just like to point out that it is OK to have fun while seriously simulating flying an airplane from A to B, using real world procedures and checklists all the way.

[Clutch Cargo 384]

P3Dv4 and 3d photoreal.... I'm in heaven!  No seriously... I'm cruising at 34,000 ft.,

[David Roch 1,982]

I've never been so pleased with a flight simulator for decades.
Powerful and beautiful!

;-)

[vgbaron 3,622]

I think much of the reactions depend on your approach to using it. If you just buy it, install it and start it up, chances are you are not going to like it very much. When I first bought P3D and installed it, I sent it back for a refund after a week. It was a blurry. stuttery mess and not even close to my FSX. But I kept reading about those who loved it and were praising it so I bit the bullet and tried again. Only this time I took the time to set it up slowly and properly - haven't looked back since.

The popping autogen is one thing but for me - the fact that I can climb out of KBUR and see Los Angeles clear to the ocean takes my breath away. It used to do that IRL and sure still does in v4. Sure, you have to have a strong system to get the benefits of P3D.

Anyone here remember these same types of discussions with the various iterations of MSFS? We ALL were complaining that we saw no benefits but those who had the strong systems could see what was happening. MS always pushed the hardware envelope and it appears that LM is doing the same.

Next, most of what has been done to P3D has been under the hood - stuff that you cannot see but overall affect what the sim will ultimately become. If you have been paying attention you should be able to see that LM has a plan and are adjusting the core simulator to fit that plan. I truly believe there is a lot more to come now that we've got 64bit out of the way. I've been kidding Chock about the glass half full but he is correct - there is SO much more that LM could have done but I firmly believe their approach is to firm up the core sim and build on that.

For years a major complaint has been - "doesn't matter what they do - it's still the same old underlying code" etc etc. THAT has changed somewhat and is changing further.

To me, P3Dv4 is the closest I've been to what I remember for flying IRL for many years.

As to locking the thread - stay nice and away from EULA discussions and we are good to go - a very informative discussion it is.

Vic

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

1 hour ago, vgbaron said:

I think much of the reactions depend on your approach to using it.

Right on!

Many folks on this forum are looking for as much eye candy as possible... and some go a step further and are actually looking for a Flying Game, on par with Driving Games etc.  For the latter group, P3D is a disappointment, and arguably, their desire is better addressed by Dovetail Games who are actively developing just that.

Another group, and I count myself among them, is looking for maximum fidelity.. accurate cockpits where every knob works, and accurate flying behavior where you can test your skills in piloting an airplane, be that a GA plane or an airliner.  For those folks, P3DV4 is indeed the successor to FSX and the many iterations of Flight Simulators that came before it. This is the kind of platform that you can build on with "study level" addons (and the $$s that come with that..).

There is no contradiction in my mind,  in having things working correctly and looking good at the same time.. as a matter of fact, I prefer airplanes where I really feel that I am sitting in the cockpit and I prefer scenery that makes me feel that I am actually "there"..

P3DV4, sitting in an Alabeo Seminole, with a Flight1 GTN in the panel,  at an Orbx airport gives me that 

 

 

[skelsey 765]

4 hours ago, Chock said:

How many posts have you seen on the Avsim P3D forums where someone has mentioned how brilliant they found P3D for their training scenerio lesson with their students? Have you even seen one such post?

Not least because P3Dv3 (at least) in my experience ironically was absolutely, positively useless for the training courses I deliver. The shared cockpit function was so atrociously buggy and unstable across our team of instructors and students that we just had to ditch it and focus on FSX instead.

I am hopeful that v4 has been improved in this regard!