FSX to P3D V3 or V4

[Chris27 0]

Hi guys, looking for some advice. Im an avid FSX user and have invested a lot of time (and money) on various addons over the years. Visually, it looks great but sadly being 32 bit FSX sp2 is now showing its age and im sick of the constant OOMs when i fly over London or approach Heathrow.

My pc specs are:
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit sp1
Intel i5 6600k overclocked to 4.4ghz
16gb corsair ram
Nvidia GTX970 graphics 4gb
Dedicated 250gb ssd for flight sim
1tb hard drive

Im looking to make the leap to P3D either v3.4, or V4. I fly a lot of heavy stuff such as PMDG, Aerosoft airbus etc and love ORBX, UK2000, Fly Tampa etc as well as Activesky weather. My home airport of Newcastle is not yet V4 compatible, so will my pc run P3DV3 better than FSX? Im not after miracles, just nice smooth fps and the occasional microstutter in complex scenery.

Thanks for your advice 

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

25 minutes ago, Chris27 said:

Visually, it looks great but sadly being 32 bit FSX sp2 is now showing its age and im sick of the constant OOMs when i fly over London or approach Heathrow.



Im looking to make the leap to P3D either v3.4, or V4. I fly a lot of heavy stuff such as PMDG, Aerosoft airbus etc and love ORBX, UK2000, Fly Tampa etc as well as Activesky weather. My home airport of Newcastle is not yet V4 compatible, so will my pc run P3DV3 better than FSX? 

If OOMs are a problem for you in FSX then P3D v3 won’t help you at all since it’s 32 bit as well, although it’s memory management might be a little bit better than FSX, but it’s still 32 bit and OOMs will still be a factor.

You’ll have to bite the bullet and get v4 since it’s 64 bit and should cure your OOM issues. Going to v3 would just enhance visuals (cloud shadows, etc) but your still capped with the memory restriction being 32 bit.

Or wait until your home airport Newcastle is available for v4 and make the switch then.

[Chris27 0]

Many thanks for your reply. Ok cool i might just go for v4. I know its 64 bit and new airports are being released all the time :)

[jcomm 5,890]

I'm certainly not the best reference in as far as using Prepr3d goes, although I have bought all of it's versions since "day 1", but undoubtedly v4.2 is the best looking, the smoothest, actually the most enjoyable MSFS-based version of a simulator I have ever used, including FSX, FSW and other P3D versions.

These days I use P3D only for the sake of enjoying what I also consider to be, on pair with what the Aerosoft Airbus was in times of FSX, the most enjoyable Airbus simulation available, and I have used pretty much every Airbus add-on or the FSX and XP platforms ( would go for Airlinetools A32x if it wasn't so expensive though... ).

In P3Dv4.2 running the FSlabs A32x ( latest update from March ) I get superb performance in my rather old rig - i5 2500 @ 3,3 GHz 16 GB DDR3, GTX 960 4GB GDDR5, win10 Pro 64. Of course I use very conservative settings for graphics and scenery because I am well aware there are no miracles ! Should I buy a better rig one day, I will surely try to get from P3D the same I see in some extraordinary videos :-)

Edited April 21, 2018 by jcomm

[wardp 19]

UK2000 Newcastle airport is compatible with P3D v4 as are all the others from UK2000.

[b757 43]

When upgrading to v4, be sure the add-ons you use are compatible. I have had several issues since upgrading to 4.2. 4.1 was very stable for me and I had very few issues. Since upgrading to 4.2, my CPU overheats on almost all flights over 2hrs. I had to purchase a CPU watercooler and will be installing that tomorrow. ActiveSky is having an issue with their latest upgrade in regards to some permissions and .dlls. You have to ensure you are running the latest FSUIPC for FSDT to work properly. I would suggest trying to get your hands on 4.1 and run that for now, especially if you don't have a top of the line rig. I personally don't want to move away from P3D in the future due to all the money I have spent on add-ons, but I feel that P3D is not progressing nearly as much as I would like to see. I am starting to move to FSW a little more and have enjoyed flying on there. There is still a lot of work that has to be done on that simulator, but the software is certainly promising. I hope you have better luck with upgrading then I have.

[Bob Scott 7,715]

FWIW, P3Dv3 isn't an option, anyway, as Lockheed Martin does not continue to sell new licenses to older versions once a new version is released.

The two biggest benefits to P3Dv4 over FSX, and they *are* big, is the pretty much complete elimination of the OOM problems associated with the 4GB 32-bit VAS limit, allowing flights with complex acft and scenery limited only by the PC's capability, and the move from DirectX9/10 to DirectX11, which puts much, much more of the power of modern GPUs into play.

Regards

 

[Afterburner 374]

With all respect, it is not true that "Lockheed Martin does not continue to sell new licenses to older version once a new version is released."

In fact, you can still buy a license for P3D v1 or v2 if you want to.

[vgbaron 3,495]

5 minutes ago, Afterburner said:

With all respect, it is not true that "Lockheed Martin does not continue to sell new licenses to older version once a new version is released."

In fact, you can still buy a license for P3D v1 or v2 if you want to.

Correct but that was due to the many complaints from users who wanted the old versions. For a while there, when a new version was released, the old one was removed from the store.

Vic

[Chris27 0]

7 hours ago, Chris27 said:

Many thanks for your reply. Ok cool i might just go for v4. I know its 64 bit and new airports are being released all the time :)

Wow thanks for the replies everyone. I'll look into upgrading when i have a bit of time on my hands towards the end of the week. The comments seem positive though, so im looking forward to making the leap into a new era of flight sim :)

[Chris27 0]

So with the specs i posted above, can my rig comfortably handle V4 on medium settings or higher?

 

Thanks

[hillsboy 33]

I think your specs are fine for V4.

I recently made the jump from FSX to V4 after decades of flying Microsoft flight sims.  What a huge difference, and no ooms!

Most of my add-ons for scenery and aircraft transfered over without much trouble at all.

I think you'll be very pleased.

JOHN

[vgbaron 3,495]

You'll hear it over and over but one important difference between FSX and P3D

ignore fps meaning don't set up your system for the highest FPS you can get - aim for the lowest fps you can run and still get smooth performance. Many of us lock at 20 - as long as it is smooth you'll get the best visuals. Each system will react differently but go as low as you can.

Enjoy - 

Vic

[Bob Scott 7,715]

10 hours ago, Afterburner said:

With all respect, it is not true that "Lockheed Martin does not continue to sell new licenses to older version once a new version is released."

In fact, you can still buy a license for P3D v1 or v2 if you want to.

Yup, you're right...I see where there are now dropdowns for the older versions on their store page.

Regards

 

[Chris27 0]

Thanks so much guys. Im excited now! Haha