P3D v4 worth the investment in my case?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

6 minutes ago, 0Artur0 said:

Oh, man, I'm even more confused that I was before. Now, I'm seriously considering switching 🙂 Oh, my...

When in doubt, do nothing. Think things through logically and you will arrive at the right decision especially if you take the advice of knowledgeable people here.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

6 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The difference between 4.5 and 5.0 is 11%. So instead of 25fps you would get 28. That isn't much of a return for the money you would spend. Your system is good enough to benefit from a 1080 or 1080i especially if you want to run at UHD. You don't say what res which is really important.

RAM is easily upgraded and has minimal impact on fps. 16Gb is fine. I agree with you. Save you money until the benefits are greater especially as VAS is not an issue.

I almost bought 1080Ti last year but than I started thinking that it was about time that nvidia releases new series. Well, we're still waiting for that to happen.

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

When in doubt, do nothing. Think things through logically and you will arrive at the right decision especially if you take the advice of knowledgeable people here.

Thanks. I went for a coffee and now again I think I'll probably stay with v3 🙂 As I said, still confused but all the thoughts from people here will help me greatly at the end.

[ckyliu 1,749]

25 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The default wx engine may be adequate but Hi-Fi AS16 brings so much more with textures changing on-the-fly.

FSXWX is not the default weather engine, it's a free addon providing a nice real world weather depction. ASP4 only does cloud texture changes on the fly if you also purchase ASCA. My point is that transitioning to 64 bit doesn't have to be expensive in all areas.

@0Artur0 I don't think you'd see much improvement for the money it would cost to port your products across, so you may as well sit and wait for v5 if you're not bothered about v4 exclusive releases. Spend the money on upgrading to a GTX980Ti, GTX1080 or similar.

Most area scenery has already been ported free of charge though, and airports that have been updated have generally been free too whilst v3 versions will generally work you could get issues with legacy code and you'll be missing dynamic lighting. Where the costs set in are some utilities (I don't really use any so don't know the costs), I believe PMDG and A2A cover V3 and V4 in the same licence? You'd also lose most 32 bit aircraft addons except those that purely use XML gauges.

Edited August 1, 2018 by ckyliu

[duckbilled 310]

Waiting for V5 may be the right choice, but I am running v4 nicely with a 4790k. I recently upgraded to a 1080ti and a 32" 4k monitor. The increased resolution has allowed me to drop AA, so I saw a significant performance increase.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

5 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

FSXWX is not the default weather engine, it's a free addon providing a nice real world weather depction. ASP4 only does cloud texture changes on the fly if you also purchase ASCA. My point is that transitioning to 64 bit doesn't have to be expensive in all areas.

Understood but Hi-Fi generally offer discounts for those who have bought previous versions. I haven't paid full price for several versions. They're very good in that respect.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

1 minute ago, duckbilled said:

Waiting for V5 may be the right choice, but I am running v4 nicely with a 4790k. I recently upgraded to a 1080ti and a 32" 4k monitor. The increased resolution has allowed me to drop AA, so I saw a significant performance increase.

There a huge difference between 970 and 1080Ti 😉

I will be buying new computer next year and will be switching to v5 when it comes out, there's no question about that.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

@0Artur0, you still haven't said what resolution you're running. That is just as important these days as CPU and GPU.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

Just now, Ray Proudfoot said:

@0Artur0, you still haven't said what resolution you're running. That is just as important these days as CPU and GPU.

Oh, I'm still on 1920x1080.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

9 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

IMost area scenery has already been ported free of charge though, and most airports have been free too although many haven't been updated ad whilst they may work you could get issues with legacy code and you'll be missing dynamic lighting.Where the costs set in are some utilities (I don't really use any so don't know the costs) and obviously the major expense of repurchasing PMDG and A2A products. You'd also lose most 32 bit aircraft addons except those that purely use XML gauges.

I thought PMDG and A2A are free upgrades to 64bit?!

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

2 minutes ago, 0Artur0 said:

Oh, I'm still on 1920x1080.

Right. If you're thinking of UHD your current graphics card won't cut it but a 1080 or better will. Just for info.

[ckyliu 1,749]

6 minutes ago, 0Artur0 said:

I thought PMDG and A2A are free upgrades to 64bit?!

They are free if you already own a P3D version, I was thinking about going from FSX to P3D so I made a mistake and corrected my post, sorry! I believe P3Dv3 to v4 is covered under the same licence with PMDG and A2A. The only aircraft charging from 32 bit to 64 bit is Majestic Q400 but it's not that expensive and the previous 32 bit versions covered P3D without additional cost. And obviously CaptainSim 757 and Aerosoft Airbus are new products for v4 rather than ports, although Aerosoft still provides an upgrade discount.

Edited August 1, 2018 by ckyliu

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

1 hour ago, Poppet said:

Hi Tomaz 

As the rest have posted your computer is fine to get Prepar3D v4 up and running with Add Ons.  The more Add Ons you Introduce you will obviously need to adjust your settings via Prepar3D > Options.

Thanks!

Maybe you can answer my question about dynamic lighting?

1 hour ago, 0Artur0 said:

If I turn it off, do I than get the same lighting as in v3? Do addons like FSFX Immersion packages and other that effect lighting work as in v3 with it turned off or do some require dynamic lighting to be turned on? Because with GTX970 I don't think I can use dynamic lighting - and I do fly almost exclusively on addon airports with addon aircraft using ORBX stuff with Active Sky and all those thing.. and also TrackIR so FPS in low 20s are not really an option because head movements become to "stuttery" and no joy to fly.

[officercrockey 196]

3 hours ago, 0Artur0 said:

Is there anybody with i7 4790k @ 4.5GHZ, GTX970 and 8GB of RAM that switched from v3 to v4?

Hi,

I have the same CPU and only have the 960 but 16GB of RAM. 

With the same settings P3Dv4 should run the same or better. You just have to think that the sliders are different and that a full slider doesn‘t have to mean the same in v3 and v4. 

I would go ahead. Sceneries are working with almost no exception. I ise some old FSX sceneries in v4 without problem. 

[mpw8679 428]

Pretty simple decision really.  U don’t have VAS issues and u have a GTX970. Stay with what u have and see what the future holds.

[Bob Scott 7,707]

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The difference between 4.5 and 5.0 is 11%. So instead of 25fps you would get 28. That isn't much of a return for the money you would spend. Your system is good enough to benefit from a 1080 or 1080i especially if you want to run at UHD. You don't say what res which is really important.

RAM is easily upgraded and has minimal impact on fps. 16Gb is fine. I agree with you. Save you money until the benefits are greater especially as VAS is not an issue.

The difference between 4.5 and 5.0 is 11% more CPU throughput...if you approach it with the idea that the only tangible benefit from that faster processing is a few more frames per second, then it isn't a tremendous difference.  But...that 11% can be put to use as a standby capability, providing reserve processing power that is used when needed to deal with spikes in workload without generating long frames--stutters--and that enhanced smoothness *does* make a tremendous difference.  With a 30Hz monitor in vsync, the increase in CPU power from a mid-4 GHz 4790K to a 5 GHz 7700K did indeed make a significant difference for me.  Both hold 30fps well, but the 7700K is smoother.

For the OP, the only real imperative for an upgrade from P3D v3 to v4, as has been already said, is eliminating the dreaded OOM crashes associated with VAS limits in the 32-bit v3.  For those that were experiencing that problem, v4 was worth the price of admission for that alone.  There are other improvements in v4, but none rising to the level of a "must have" from my perspective (others, such as VR users may have a different view, pardon the pun).  The performance improvements when using scenery with v4-native ground polys and materials, and the enhanced lighting (given a powerful GPU subsystem) are worth having, but all things worth having come at a price.

Bottom line, you're in a good place either way you go.

Regards