51 minutes ago, whitav8 said:

AFS2 has a newly designed graphics engine that is about twice the performance of DCS, P3D, and XP

I am sure you enjoy what AFS2 has to offer. It does look nice on Rob's high dollar computer set up. The problem is that you simply can not compare the two. As you stated yourself, they don't cover the same area or features. It's like trying to compare a VW Bug with an Indy Car. Your argument would be the the Bug would be just as fast if it had a big engine, different suspension, better steering and a stream lined body. That may all be true and possible but it is still not the correct way to compare them.

Edited July 18, 20187 yr by shivers9

1 hour ago, shivers9 said:

The sad truth is that we can not even buy a computer that will run P3d with sliders at or near the max. You most likely could fill a 1000 page book from the post from AVSIM members about the dreams and hope for the next release of something. It has been true for FS 2000, 2002, 2004, and FSX release number do da and then FSX-se and P3d 1,2,3,4 and now 5.

.....and the common denominator is DirectX (up to and including DirectX 11) and having to run the main thread on a single core. This is all about to change with either the move up to DirectX 12 and/or the adoption of Vulkan. Both cover the same bases but, again, Vulkan is cross-platform compatible thus potentially attracting a much wider user base.

Regards,

Mike

2 hours ago, WotanUK said:

.....but the Prepar3d platform runs on Windows and Windows comes with Direct X (Windows 10 with DX12); whilst the OP calls it a "cash cow" it’s a good O/S.....

Hi Ian,

In fact, I was referring to Microsoft’s Xbox. I very much doubt they are as interested financially in those who prefer to game/sim on desktop PCs.

Regards,

Mike

1 hour ago, shivers9 said:

It is hard to tell who is going to do what anymore. The entire situation is beginning to reach the point of being silly. It is hard to even look forward to the forums at this point. All the Developers for hardware and software are just playing a game of "I've got a secret". Ever since that DTG scam showed up in the forums making out like they were going to save the Flight Sim world, it seems everyone is at ods. Has anyone else noticed that for the last year or more there has really not be a major release of flight models other than PDMG type tube liners (nothing wrong with them at all). Hardware is pretty much at a stand still. Nothing really new from Flight 1, A2A, Milviz. They don't even bother to come to the forums to pretend to be working hard for us anymore.

I would really like to be excited about Vulcan or DX12 but even if they come to XP or P3d then One group of Dev's will drag their feet or even refuse to make products for this or that because of one thing or another. If that don't happen then we will spend a year or two debating on whether it is even legal to down load product A or B. Then we will hear from all the members who are married to a woman who had a cousin that once dated a guy who almost finished law school.

The sad truth is that we can not even buy a computer that will run P3d with sliders at or near the max. You most likely could fill a 1000 page book from the post from AVSIM members about the dreams and hope for the next release of something. It has been true for FS 2000, 2002, 2004, and FSX release number do da and then FSX-se and P3d 1,2,3,4 and now 5.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here?

How are hardware manufacturers related to P3D or XPlane, i dare say Intel don't give two figs for Flight Sim users, we really don't factor into there decisions either positive or negative.

It's a stretch to claim that A2A don't or Milviz; but even on that point you are wrong, A2A are about to release (or it's somewhat close) the V-Tail Bonanza, Milviz released the DHC3-Turbo variant of the Otter, aren't Flight 1 more of a publisher than a developer?  Aircraft take a long time to develop if you are doing a detailed job.

I have said quite a lot about DTG, but even i would hesitate to call it a scam, what exactly was the 'scam'?

The second paragraph makes a little more sense.  I suspect any major change in either XP12 or P3Dv5 would require development work certain companies would charge for that (looking at you PMDG) and others (Quality Wings, Captain Sim) simply wouldn't bother.

FS9 will run with everything to the right, i am pleased that P3Dv4 has significant ability to upscale.

 

1 minute ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ian,

In fact, I was referring to Microsoft’s Xbox. I very much doubt they are as interested financially in those who prefer to game/sim on desktop PCs.

Regards,

Mike

Hi Mike,

I don't know if agree with that.  I think that X-Box has been the money spinner for MS, but going forward it's starting to look like PCs and consoles will have much more in common, they already share a large amount of hardware.  There have been to my knowledge no exclusives to the latest version of the X-Box that haven't appeared on the PC.

There is even talk that MS will release a Keyboard and Mouse for the X-Box system, at that point surely the X-Box is just an off the shelf PC, something akin to the latest Apple Mac.

14 minutes ago, WotanUK said:

There is even talk that MS will release a Keyboard and Mouse for the X-Box system, at that point surely the X-Box is just an off the shelf PC, something akin to the latest Apple Mac.

Hi Ian,

Okay, fair comment. However, if the Vulkan API proves to be a roaring success then perhaps this will be the catalyst that prompts the appearance of a ‘V’ box (sponsored by STEAM, maybe?) in direct competition with the Xbox! 

Regards,

Mike

2 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ian,

Okay, fair comment. However, if the Vulkan API proves to be a roaring success then perhaps this will be the catalyst that prompts the appearance of a ‘V’ box (sponsored by STEAM, maybe?) in direct competition with the Xbox! 

Regards,

Mike

Do you think that there is room for another console, one that would just be a PC?  The appeal of a console was always no hardware configuration (or differences), your console would stay current for perhaps 5 years and of course the exclusive game releases. 

I mean you could do all of this with a PC in a box running some form of SteamOS or a locked down version of Linux; this perhaps would have made more sense in the past when your PC was a pig too build, install and setup, i have very fond memories of changing jumpers to get the extra 33Mhz on my 486, followed by the nightmare of sorting the drivers for both DOS and Windows before the advent of Windows 95.  Nowdays everything just plugs in, Windows 10 finds everything and installs the drivers, it's so simply that anybody can now build and setup a PC.  Even when i replace hardware Windows no longer has a problem, it just works!

I got into the habit of entirely formatting and reinstalling my PC either every year or after a major hardware change, i still do it now, but really there is no need any more.  I hate to say this (being an Amiga guy and a huge Linux fan) but Windows is now a superb OS.  Without the game exclusives (something Sony seem very aware of) i see consoles dying, the games are massively overpriced, digital distribution is years behind Steam or even Origin, perhaps the irony is to this i actually don't think PC's have much time left either.  I think that in the medium to long term most games will become services and will be streamed to your devices.

19 minutes ago, WotanUK said:

It's a stretch to claim that A2A don't or Milviz; but even on that point you are wrong, A2A are about to release (or it's somewhat close) the V-Tail Bonanza, Milviz released the DHC3-Turbo variant of the Otter, aren't Flight 1 more of a publisher than a developer?  Aircraft take a long time to develop if you are doing a detailed job.

1. V-Tail Bonanza....somewhat close?....OK 2. DHC3-Turbo variant ....updated sure. Also the C310 just an update 3. Flight 1.....publisher sure but they did good on the Mustang and a few more. In your opinion that may be wrong and that is fine by me. Don't mis-understand. Not a slam at all to them.  My point was simply that the hobby is kind of a state of turmoil. I think that is why we are not seeing much in the way of new releases. Yes new airplanes take a while and yet PDMG with very high quality has been moving forward and a steady basis. That is mostly because they take it seriously and it is not so much just a side line of income for that company.

13 minutes ago, WotanUK said:

I hate to say this (being an Amiga guy and a huge Linux fan) but Windows is now a superb OS.

Broadly based on the excellence that was/is Windows 7 🤓

Regards,

Mike

2 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

Based on the excellence that was/is Windows 7 🤓

Regards,

Mike

Yes absolutely, Windows 7 was a excellent OS, in truth i still prefer the GUI from Windows 7 over Windows 10.

10 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

1. V-Tail Bonanza....somewhat close?....OK 2. DHC3-Turbo variant ....updated sure. Also the C310 just an update 3. Flight 1.....publisher sure but they did good on the Mustang and a few more. In your opinion that may be wrong and that is fine by me. Don't mis-understand. Not a slam at all to them.  My point was simply that the hobby is kind of a state of turmoil. I think that is why we are not seeing much in the way of new releases. Yes new airplanes take a while and yet PDMG with very high quality has been moving forward and a steady basis. That is mostly because they take it seriously and it is not so much just a side line of income for that company.

Hmm...yeah i guess i agree a little, there was a long period of stability with FSX, over 12 years i think lots of simmers got used to this.  With the arrival of P3D, the later arrival of FSW, the resurgence of X-Plane and especially the move to 64-bit it has seemed like the hobby is in turmoil, but really i think we are just back to normal; i think it was the FSX period that was the exception.

1 hour ago, Cruachan said:

having to run the main thread on a single core

Ok... any individual thread runs on a single core.  Doesn't matter what the software is.  There are multi-threaded applications, which utilize multiple threads to improve performance, and those individual threads can run on separate cores and typically do.  Prepar3D certain accomplishes that.  It's performance isn't about threading at all.  It utilizes multi-core/multi-thread performance enhancement.  I have no idea where you get the opinion/belief otherwise.

4 minutes ago, WotanUK said:

Hmm...yeah i guess i agree a little, there was a long period of stability with FSX, over 12 years i think lots of simmers got used to this.  With the arrival of P3D, the later arrival of FSW, the resurgence of X-Plane and especially the move to 64-bit it has seemed like the hobby is in turmoil, but really i think we are just back to normal; i think it was the FSX period that was the exception.

LOL I am glad you can remember the names of them all and when they came out. I remember reading here how great it was that we were getting so many sims to choose from. The popular belief is that we are a very small group. I am afraid that all the choices may have had the effect of splitting that small group up to the point that no one really profited from the situation. It is good to have a choice and competition but it may have been too much of a good thing!

1 minute ago, shivers9 said:

LOL I am glad you can remember the names of them all and when they came out. I remember reading here how great it was that we were getting so many sims to choose from. The popular belief is that we are a very small group. I am afraid that all the choices may have had the effect of splitting that small group up to the point that no one really profited from the situation. It is good to have a choice and competition but it may have been too much of a good thing!

I think that a lot of simmers probably have multiple sims, i bought FSW, DCS, X-Plane 10, FSX:SE and P3D, but i only have P3D and DCS installed.  You are right that the risk for fragmentation probably does affect add-ons, more than sims.  Whilst i have all those sims i have only spent significant money in DCS and P3D.

43 minutes ago, WarpD said:

Ok... any individual thread runs on a single core.  Doesn't matter what the software is.  There are multi-threaded applications, which utilize multiple threads to improve performance, and those individual threads can run on separate cores and typically do.  Prepar3D certain accomplishes that.  It's performance isn't about threading at all.  It utilizes multi-core/multi-thread performance enhancement.  I have no idea where you get the opinion/belief otherwise.

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the clarification and, yes, I could have expressed this better.

There is little doubt in my mind that with each minor revision of Prepar3D v4 there have been in improvements in multi-threaded capability. Currently, under v4.3, I have disabled my previous Affinity Mask setting and am running very smoothly without stutters or extended pauses (suspecting the latter are ORBX related) with HT=ON. This is with a stripped down P3D (for 3rd Party testing purposes) that approaches that of a default installation.

I was referring to the heavy loading of core 0 by Prepar3D and the appearance of stutters when the loading approaches or achieves 100%. My understanding is that this will change under Vulkan and also, presumably, DirectX 12 where there will be less use of the CPU and a better distribution of the workload across all the available cores. Please feel free to correct me if this is incorrect.

Regards,

Mike