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joemiller

PMDG Expansion 747-8 or QW 787

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Hi guys,

I'm stuck on a bit of a dilemma. I trying to decide if I should get the PMDG expansion  747-8 or if I should purchase the QW 787. I have enjoyed the PMDG Boeings for a long time; however, it has bothered me their practice of charging several time for the same aircraft "colored with a few little extras ."  Other developers  have preferred to provide free updates or a significant discounts for updates/upgrades. Thus, I have my doubts if I should continue supporting such "business approach."   On the other hand we have QW 787 which is more modern, New,  and a beautiful aircraft.  Therefore, I am debating as to whether I should get the Expansion for the 747 or get the QW787.

And, here is where I would like the owners of both aircraft.. What's your experience with both: modeling, textures, fps, extras, prices, VC lighting etc..etc..

 Thanks,

 

Joe Miller

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Joe, I do not have the P3Dv4 747, I do the others. The price for PMDG stuff is very high, but so is their quality. I do have the QW 787 for P3Dv4. The QW 787 for P3dv4 is very much an expensive-ish beta product. In time, it may be a great machine after several updates. Though I doubt it will ever be close to a PMDG product.  

One of my major issues is not being able to save panel state when resuming a saved flight, which for a long range aircraft, is an issue that does not seem to be resolved after many unanswered requests by users. I am still inside my refund time limit that I may exercise and look again in 12 months time... 

Unless you buy the 787 product, you can not log onto their forum to see the issues, which why the refund policy works so well, as you pretty well buy it with no information.... 


Geoff Bryce

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I think it is a no brainer. PMDG. You get what you pay for.


David Porrett

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1 hour ago, por930 said:

Joe, I do not have the P3Dv4 747, I do the others. The price for PMDG stuff is very high, but so is their quality. I do have the QW 787 for P3Dv4. The QW 787 for P3dv4 is very much an expensive-ish beta product. In time, it may be a great machine after several updates. Though I doubt it will ever be close to a PMDG product.  

One of my major issues is not being able to save panel state when resuming a saved flight, which for a long range aircraft, is an issue that does not seem to be resolved after many unanswered requests by users. I am still inside my refund time limit that I may exercise and look again in 12 months time... 

Unless you buy the 787 product, you can not log onto their forum to see the issues, which why the refund policy works so well, as you pretty well buy it with no information.... 

Did they fix the VC lighting  issue? (banding textures)  

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57 minutes ago, DavidP said:

I think it is a no brainer. PMDG. You get what you pay for.

Hummm, not a fan of "You get what you pay for."  That only happens on a few things in life- this is not one of them.   I know PMDG make good products ; however, other develops also make similar top quality products and the prices are no where near PMDG. (I can go on and on, but not my intention). Any-way, thanks for your input. 

 

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36 minutes ago, joemiller said:

not a fan of "You get what you pay for." 

Happens all over life - buy the cheap dishwasher, it breaks, Buy the cheap anything, it usually breaks. It's a mantra I've learned in over 50 years on this planet - a lesson sometimes learned the hard way. What ever works for you.


David Porrett

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31 minutes ago, joemiller said:

Hummm, not a fan of "You get what you pay for."  That only happens on a few things in life- this is not one of them.   I know PMDG make good products ; however, other develops also make similar top quality products and the prices are no where near PMDG. (I can go on and on, but not my intention). Any-way, thanks for your input. 

 

I agree Joe. I have several products that while not as "robust" as PMDG, they do the job quite well for the minimal times I use them. The lighting effects are still a bit 'iffy' and tends to be all on/off. The FMC text is very 'soft' and not that clear to read, as are the FMC textures a bit 'bright'. I think this has been brought about by The VC is 2048x2048. When the 787 was started, it was 4096, but they decided for performance reasons to continue at 2048x2048. It does have some great new features where you can move to any flight plan waypoint as well as the approach. For the price, they are offering the 787-10 version at no cost, though, I would prefer them to get the existing FSX/P3D versions of the 787 working better before bringing a new model into the family.

If you google the QW 787 1.1.2 update, you will catch up on the improvements. e.g...https://pcpilot.keypublishing.com/2018/09/25/ultimate-787-update-version-1-1-2-released/ 

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Geoff Bryce

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I think one of the important things to consider here, is what do you want to use it for?

The notion that PMDG is some kind of unassailable pantheon of perfection is getting a bit old hat really. It might have been true when the 737NG for FS9 was pretty much the only really super-realistic treatment of an airliner, but these days PMDG are hardly unique in making detailed sim airliners. You only have to look at the Majestic Q400 and the FSL A320 to know that, and those are by no means the only examples of that trend either.

Ask yourself questions which will determine the best choice for you. Do you want to simulate failures? Do you want to do long or short/medium haul? Do you want to replicate real-world flights? Lots of airlines are ditching their 757s shortly and getting the 787 as a replacement, whereas the 747 is rapidly becoming a cargo only jet. Does this affect your intended use of your potential purchases? Failures simulation can be a challenge and on realistically simulated airliners, if you fly them for real, it has some merit to simulate errors in practicing drills for check rides, but on a daily basis they are really rare occurrences, so if you want to simulate normal operations, having an aeroplane add-on which can simulate the seats in row 37 refusing to tilt backwards and the rear toilet no longer flushing, or any other system malfunction, is impressive in terms of programming, but also rather pointless to you personally if you're not going to make use of such a feature. Maybe you feel strongly enough about PMDG's pricing policy to let that also be a deciding factor? Or maybe you don't. Only you can decide these things.

Personally, I don't have the most recent PMDG 747-400 for P3D, although I do have it for FSX, so I won't be getting their new 747-8 anytime soon whilst it is dependent on another product in order to get hold of it, particularly in view of the fact that I already have a 747-400 from iFly, which makes me not inclined to buy another one. Conversely, I have the QW 787 for FSX and for P3D and held no objections to buying that one for two different platforms, in fact, I always intended to do that. And I bought the iFly 747-400 for FSX and P3D too come to think if it.

I suspect there's a moral in that somewhere.

Edited by Chock
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Alan Bradbury

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IMO, simulating an airliner in an acceptable realistic way makes only sense with a 'real' or a virtual copilot.

Simulating an emergency and failure handling in an aircraft that requires two pilots IRL isn't realistic and it doesn't make much sense if you are trying to do it on your own.

That's also the reason why I'm not flying any multi-crew aircraft in any sim 😉

 

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Agree Alan. Aerosoft have a policy where they never build in the code for failures. Just day to day normal operations. Their logic is that these 'events so rarely happen, why spend years and lots of code to debug at considerable cost to the end user. They are also pretty upfront about re-using code where they can on update models. Their Bus range is very good. When you compare them to the FSL Buses, maybe not has 'exact', but just as much fun, and considerably less cost.

We all want the bells and whistles, to a point, but at what price. I am not a failure type of user, so, this provision for me, is pretty well wasted, other than one engine out sometimes.

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Geoff Bryce

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14 minutes ago, por930 said:

I agree Joe. I have several products that while not as "robust" as PMDG, they do the job quite well for the minimal times I use them. The lighting effects are still a bit 'iffy' and tends to be all on/off. The FMC text is very 'soft' and not that clear to read, as are the FMC textures a bit 'bright'. I think this has been brought about by The VC is 2048x2048. When the 787 was started, it was 4096, but they decided for performance reasons to continue at 2048x2048. It does have some great new features where you can move to any flight plan waypoint as well as the approach. For the price, they are offering the 787-10 version at no cost, though, I would prefer them to get the existing FSX/P3D versions of the 787 working better before bringing a new model into the family.

If you google the QW 787 1.1.2 update, you will catch up on the improvements. e.g...https://pcpilot.keypublishing.com/2018/09/25/ultimate-787-update-version-1-1-2-released/ 

That's a good amount of improvements. And, I'm not really  into having every rivet and failure on my addons. I enjoy flying my aircrafts and not removing a screw or turning off a fuse... That would make my passengers really mad. lol   

But from what I've seen the QW 787 looks really nice.  I read online that the textures used to be 4096; but I guess this is due the massive complexity of the 787 (coding), that they had to lower the resolution.  

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2 minutes ago, joemiller said:

That's a good amount of improvements. And, I'm not really  into having every rivet and failure on my addons. I enjoy flying my aircrafts and not removing a screw or turning off a fuse... That would make my passengers really mad. lol   

But from what I've seen the QW 787 looks really nice.  I read online that the textures used to be 4096; but I guess this is due the massive complexity of the 787 (coding), that they had to lower the resolution.  

Yeah, they said on their forum that the 4096 was killing frame rates due to the complexity of systems. They had to choose by dropping off systems, which people did not want them to do, or reducing textures. They are also not into failures, as their aim is to get the a/c operating normally before "what else".

For me, if they get the flight save feature working more robustly(at present it is a bit hit or miss), I will be pretty happy with it. 

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Geoff Bryce

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Yup, I agree with the sentiment Geoff, however, for me personally the Airbus A320 and 321 are kind of a bit of an odd exception to this. I've done a lot of work on them over the years,  for stuff up at the pointy end, and in the back and down on the ramp. Because of this, I have a bit of a professional interest and curiosity about the thing, and it was this which made me buy not only the FSL A320, but also the BBS one and the most recent Aerosoft Pro one too, in fact I've got pretty much every Airbus you can have for FSX and P3D. But in saying that, I have them for very different reasons and use them in different ways. The BBS one is my 'jump in and go' Airbus, the Aerosoft one is my 'I want to simulate a realistic flight' Airbus, and the FSL one is kind of like my 'Haynes Manual' Airbus that I mess about with, knowing that it is very realistically simulated and will do things that the real one would if I pressed a certain unusual combination of buttons.

This was enough to justify buying each and every one of them at the various price points they were. It was a similar story with the Majestic Bombardier Dash 8 Q400. I know that in normal operations, the flight deck crew would rarely if ever pop a circuit breaker, but since I work on those things too, I wanted the version on which they actually worked (forget which version that is - the expensive one whatever it's called lol). I also wanted a 'jump in and go' Q400 too, and that's why I've also got the Virtualcol one as well, but the truth is, you could just as easily simulate a realistic flight in that one with Multi Crew Experience's co-pilot, because you can either have him operate functions, or simply pretend he's operating them, because in real life you'd only be working half, or even less than half the switches if you were the pilot flying.

So back on topic, this is why I have a lot of time for the QW 787 and don't see it as being really any less capable of simulating a realistic flight than other add-ons which simulate every single nut and bolt, switch and dial. Because the truth is, many of those things don't even get touched by the crew, or if they do, depending on which side of the cockpit you're on, you might touch those switches or equally you might not. It's kind of cool to know they do work, but then again, imagination is a great thing too, and unlike those really expensive payware aeroplanes, imagination doesn't cost anything.

If I'm interested in what all those switches do on a particular aeroplane, that will justify its price to me and I will happily pay the price for it, but I don't feel the need to do that with everything. I actually quite like many of the 'lite' add-ons out there for what they offer too. I am fairly sure Virtualcol have never had anyone not buy one of their airliners because they didn't like their pricing policy lol.

Edited by Chock
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Alan Bradbury

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31 minutes ago, Chock said:

I think one of the important things to consider here, is what do you want to use it for?

The notion that PMDG is some kind of unassailable pantheon of perfection is getting a bit old hat really. It might have been true when the 737NG for FS9 was pretty much the only really super-realistic treatment of an airliner, but these days PMDG are hardly unique in making detailed sim airliners. You only have to look at the Majestic Q400 and the FSL A320 to know that, and those are by no means the only examples of that trend either.

(..............) 

Another great post , Alan.  Well, for sure I am enjoying Aerosoft's A-321.. such a lovely aircraft.  I am patiently waiting on the A-330 .  My wild guess is that this will be ready around July, 2019. With P3D frequently coming up with updates, developers are 'forced" to  hold-off and see if here's any good stuff they can take advantage of or,   are simply  required to modify their product to make it compatible with the new version. 

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Spot on Alan. If you want to simulate an engine failure, turn it off, with or with feather etc. I think the QW will become a fun long haul a/c, with a reasonable balance of systems..

I have been a light pilot in real life for many years. For hundreds of hours, I have never had an emergency where the a/c has become serviceable. Usually it has been me who has had the planning issue usually caused by weather that caused a rethink of some flight plans.


Geoff Bryce

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