Made the Switch from FSX, now What?

[John Snyder Jr]

I held off as long word not allowed I can and finally bought P3D V4.3. It was my understand that my (or most of them) FSX addons would work. I've yet to figure out how to get any of them to work. Trying to get Ultimate Traffic Live, Active Sky, FSUIPC, several sceneries and several aircraft to work but haven't had much luck. Bought the Estonian migration tool and no luck there either. Can anyone give me some pointers or perhaps a You Tube video to get me started. I'm out of idea's. Thanks for any help!

[simbol]

Just now, John Snyder Jr said:

I held off as long word not allowed I can and finally bought P3D V4.3. It was my understand that my (or most of them) FSX addons would work. I've yet to figure out how to get any of them to work. Trying to get Ultimate Traffic Live, Active Sky, FSUIPC, several sceneries and several aircraft to work but haven't had much luck. Bought the Estonian migration tool and no luck there either. Can anyone give me some pointers or perhaps a You Tube video to get me started. I'm out of idea's. Thanks for any help!

First, welcome to the dark side.

Following your list:

• UTL: It will work out of the box, you need to configure it to connect to P3D. I suggest you uninstall it and install it again so it detects P3D.
• Active Sky: You will need to purchase the P3D version, I believe previous owners have the option to pay only for the upgrade.
• FSUIPC: I gather you are talking about the registered version? if so you need to acquire FSUIPC5 FOR P3DV4, not sure if you can get a free upgrade or will need to pay again. If it is the free version just go to the oficial Peter Downson website and download FSUIPC 5.14 for P3D 4.3.

Most FSX scenaries will work with P3D 4.3, but you need yo check this, the best is to ask directly on the forums, people will help you with the process..

All the best,

Simbol

[vgbaron]

First - dump the migration tool - it will cause you more grief.

Identify the addons you wish to install and check with the developer whether they 

1) are compatible with P3d

2) have a free upgrade

3) have a new installer for P3d.

Browsing through the forums will give you an Idea of which are compatible but each addon is it's own case.

Vic

[IanHarrison]

vgbaron  is giving you the best answer: that you cannot rely on any FSX things to work with P3D. They are not using the P3D SDK

and therefore will not deliver the best performance. Be prepared to shell out bucks and treat it as a new simulator.

Ian Harrison

[Wood4591]

Hi

 

the following links will show P3D v4 compatibility products:

https://www.aerosoft.com/en/flight-simulation/news/what-s-prepar3d-v4-compatible

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NqrnrO-LOna7TWBYwC2PNfqlFrlyUNRa0E2VLkwpK1o/edit#gid=1423092427  ( not sure if it is up to date)

 

[raymie]

You probably are quite aware of this major difference--FSX is 32 bit and P3D v 4 is 64 bit. Follow the good advice given here and go to the developer's forums to see what you must do to be able to use your favorite addons in the P3D v 4 environment.

[DaveCT2003]

I think many of us who have been running P3D for years tend to forget how much of a difference there is between FSX and P3D.  To highlight some of the differences:

1. Now two different ways to install scenery.

2. How products specifically created for P3DV4 are added by the installers (knowing this will immeasurably help you should you need to do any troubleshooting).

3. The impact and result of graphics settings is very different between FSX and P3D.

4. What are dynamic lights, what the performance impact is, and what type of hareware is needed.

5. When and why you need to install the legacy versions of SimConnect.

6. The new tools available via the in-sim menu.

7. What graphics settings to use (sometimes this depends on your hardware so advice should be for specific systems).

8. New addon folders and locations (which didn't exist in FSX).

 

While I realize the desire to jump in and get flying, taking time to learn about P3D will save you hours and hours in the future.

Below are links to the P3D Guide and a few Youtube videos that will help to answer the above questions. Please note that some of the videos were created back in P3DV3, however the information discussed works the same in V4.

P3D Guide: 

 

 

 

 

Best wishes!

 

[vgbaron]

It MAY seem like a jumbled mess but that's just the learning curve - once you get the hang of it the pieces come together pretty fast. Another caveat - don't just do something because that's the way you did it in FSX - in many cases you might be right but in those cases when it's different - it will really confuse you.

Just take things step by step and get familiar with the "addon xml method of installing" - that will be a big help.

Vic

[Chock]

I've found that it is worth keeping an FSX install on my computer (even though I don't use it as much now with having P3D) because whilst many add-ons will work with P3D even though they were made for FSX, a lot of them look for FSX when installing, and without it, they won't proceed with the installation (although you can create a dummy FSX folder structure too and that will work as well). You can then port them over to P3D, or point P3D at them where they are.

The big thing to realise is that you are going to find that some of your old favourites (or even some relatively new ones for that matter) may need to be bought again in their native P3D V4 incarnations and some things are only now just becoming available for P3D V4, for example, A2A's Accu-Feel and their P51 Mustang. So you have to kind of draw a line under FSX to some extent and regard P3D as a new starting point for your flight simming which will allow you the advantage of using some of your old stuff. Ultimately it is worth the move and if you miss anything which isn't around for P3D, well, that's why you keep your FSX install.

[Bigt]

Can anyone post a guide to the XML method of installation? I don't quite follow Matt Davies explanation.

[DaveCT2003]

1 hour ago, Bigt said:

Can anyone post a guide to the XML method of installation? I don't quite follow Matt Davies explanation.

Hey, if it's scenery you're installing, I would simply use Lorby's Addon Organizer.  I'm in and out of the XML entries all day long every day, but that only because I'm working on and testing stuff.  When I was first into P3D I used the Addon Organizer and all the guys at OVPA and I use it exclusively for non-test additions.  Plus it has some incredible features in the Tools section (tests the files are correct, can give you a report of all the scenery installed no matter where it is, etc.).  In fact now that I think about it, it's a tremendously learning tool for working with P3D addons!

Best wishes.

 

[Indy511]

1 hour ago, Bigt said:

Can anyone post a guide to the XML method of installation? I don't quite follow Matt Davies explanation.

Lorby Prepar3D V4 Addon Organizer

[IanHarrison]

To be quite honest. Although I know about the xml story, I just don't worry. All my add-ons are installed where their installers put them and they all work perfectly.

I have not found any need to even worry about where they are!

[Lorby_SI]

47 minutes ago, IanHarrison said:

I have not found any need to even worry about where they are!

Which one of the three ways to link addons to the sim is more convenient depends on your usage scenario.

• If you simulator is pretty much static, then it doesn't matter where they are.
• If you want to try out things a lot, for example because you don't know if they are working, keeping them out of the core simulator folders is better. You simply don't know what that addons' installer does. It may be replacing default files and the uninstaller may leave stuff behind (if the addon is not working and you decide to uninstall it). Installers made for FSX can also screw up your config files pretty good because they are unaware of the change in character encoding.
• For a developer it is invaluable to be able to just switch stuff on and off without having to worry about installers and uninstallers.
• Finally if you are constantly updating your sim and want to do clean reinstalls, keeping the addons out of the core sim will also keep them intact, even if the core folders are deleted at some point

I know that this feature is not taken seriously, but P3D actually has a content error log that will tell you if there is something wrong with an addon. If you are using FSX stuff a lot, I suggest to at least read through the content error log, and then decide if you want to keep that addon or not. Many entries in the content error log are only relevant when the addon is being loaded the first time, but many others are always evaluated at runtime, and that will slow your sim down (for example a syntax error in a gauge will lead to an error state 18 times a second that the sim has to process. Scenery errors like wrong terrain or runways types may be even worse - but that is only an assumption on my part). 

Best regards

[Lorby_SI]

13 hours ago, John Snyder Jr said:

It was my understand that my (or most of them) FSX addons would work.

This is not true anymore. Always make sure to check how old that information is, this was only (at least partly) true until P3D 4.0 came out.

• 32 bit programmatic content like aircraft gauges and systems DLLs, FSUIPC etc. are not compatible with P3D 4.3 and there is no way of making them compatible. You need new versions of those addons, made for P3D V4. Some updates are free of charge, others aren't. The exception are external tools that hook to the sim using only SimConnect, those continue to work if you install the correct legacy SimConnect client.
• Some aircraft models and textures no longer show up in P3D V4 (mostly stuff made for FS9)
• Many many addons have errors in them. They just went unnoticed because they weren't obvious to the user, at least not right away. FSX had no content error log, so the addons were never validated. P3D has a content error log now, and these errors become apparent. It is still unclear to me what their impact is exactly. I concur with the notion that many of those content errors don't matter in the running sim. But there are some that do, and I am just not sure what the "critical mass" is, when they will become noticable. My gut feeling says that many of the small stutters and hickups originate in just too many of those little errors being processed at the same time. If nothing else, they make the sim processing inefficient, handling an error is always more work for a program than just proceeding with what it is supposed to do.

Best regards