Poll: Most wanted feature enhancement for P3D v5

[RioPilot 99]

5 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Crash modeling? Really?

Someone in the previous thread mentioned this as a weak point that could be touched upon, and I agreed. Accurate damage modelling would be a worthwhile aspect when it comes to forced landings, belly landings, speed overstress, etc. It's certainly not a priority though. Personally, I voted for a new terrain engine, but volumetric clouds would be nice too.

4 hours ago, SKEWR said:

This type of thing bothers me IRL. The world could be so much further along technologically, but some company or conglomerate would lose money (e.g. we continue to use oil versus alternatives that already exist).

For our little hobby, why should simmers be stunted to the current engine due to 3rd party addons? Why are we still worrying about compatibility when we could have the performance that these new CPUs and graphic cards can produce?

Yeah, I see no reason why we should stunt technological advancements, just because it would render certain 3rd party developers redundant. Should we be expected to stick with 2-dimensional cloud sprites into perpetuity, just because REX and HiFi or whoever would have to rework their entire product line? At the end of the day, either they can adapt to the new technology, or new 3rd party developers will rise to the occasion to take advantage of these new developments.

Imagine if a version of P3D made use of clouds like those seen in UNIGINE here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tui5-x2i2zw

Really though, I'm starting to think more and more that a complete rework of the ESP engine would be needed to make use of future developments.

It's quite unfortunate that we're nearing the 5th version of P3D, and many aspects of the simulator are virtually identical to FSX, a simulator which was released in 2006. In fact, there are many aspects that remain unchanged since Flight Simulator 2002, if not earlier. The flight dynamics engine, cheaply done oversized autogen, unrealistic flat airports, and of course, the woefully antiquated ATC system (though personally, I see this as something that could be largely left to the 3rd party developers at the moment). It's nearly 2 decades later, and some aspects are exactly the same.

What I'd like to see would be a simulator with a reworked flight dynamics engine, using volumetric clouds, and actual 3D satellite imagery used for most of the global landclass. There are challenges I'm sure when it comes to properly adapting satellite imagery to a simulator (seasonal variations, incorrect shadow lighting, artifacts like clouds overlaid on the terrain pictures, etc), but I think this would be the future going forward.

For instance, take a look at FSX using Google Earth imagery. A mixture of that kind of imagery, with properly done trees, volumetric clouds, waterclass, etc, would make for an especially realistic looking simulator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D3t4rqNRa8&t=234s

 

Edited September 28, 2018 by RioPilot

[Amon1973 1,421]

I'm another poster that voted for improved ATC, although in reality any of the options would be great.

[Guest]

You probably should have left out the Version number in P3D ... maybe a topic heading more like "What's the ONE change you'd like to see in P3D's future?"

Cheers, Rob.

[Mace 1,929]

Why isn't there a choice:  "departure from D3D, i.e. Vulcan or similar"   (??)

I am admittedly not well-informed on that front, but to me, that is the one big thing (as it relates to long frames, blurries, frame rate issues, etc.), which would encompass a lot of the choices in this poll.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

29 minutes ago, Mace said:

Why isn't there a choice:  "departure from D3D, i.e. Vulcan or similar"   (??)

I am admittedly not well-informed on that front, but to me, that is the one big thing (as it relates to long frames, blurries, frame rate issues, etc.), which would encompass a lot of the choices in this poll.

Because it's the least relevant path LM could possibly choose.  The 3d API Prepar3d uses is no more a limitation than the ISA.  Not in 2018 anyway.  1997?  Sure.  You could gain some performance with OpenGL or Glide, perhaps.  D3D has come a long, long way.  In terms of featureset, there is for all intents and purposes parity between the modern APIs.  In other words, if it can be done with Vulkan, it can be done with D3D.  

[MatthewS 761]

Fix the oversized autogen...  comical since FSX.  

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Just an aside on the oversized autogen, the autogen tree heights have been fixed to some extent by the 3rd party add-on Terra Flora by Turbulent Designs. In Terra Flora, the billboard (2.5D) tree species have differing sizes.

[Mace 1,929]

24 minutes ago, TechguyMaxC said:

Because it's the least relevant path LM could possibly choose.  The 3d API Prepar3d uses is no more a limitation than the ISA.  Not in 2018 anyway.  1997?  Sure.  You could gain some performance with OpenGL or Glide, perhaps.  D3D has come a long, long way.  In terms of featureset, there is for all intents and purposes parity between the modern APIs.  In other words, if it can be done with Vulkan, it can be done with D3D.  

I didn't realize D3D had advanced to parity with other API's.  Yes, I am to some extent stuck in 1997.  Heh.

In that case, I'll choose all of the above, amongst the poll choices.

[pracines 823]

1 hour ago, MatthewS said:

Fix the oversized autogen...  comical since FSX.  

 

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Just an aside on the oversized autogen, the autogen tree heights have been fixed to some extent by the 3rd party add-on Terra Flora by Turbulent Designs. In Terra Flora, the billboard (2.5D) tree species have differing sizes.

Agree on both and would like to add how huge the textures are for neighborhood/side streets compared to the vector highway/freeways we get with most packages and default vector roads.

[speedyTC 195]

7 hours ago, pracines said:

What is called for is an ATC system that we can rely on to be totally manned, all the time, on every frequency, and for that ATC to be able to manage huge amounts of AI (simulating a busy int'l airport) with a system logic that sees ahead to prevent conflicts. Its possible and needed badly.

 

*bold is mine

Wouldn't a huge amount of AI traffic, controlled or not, bring even the most powerful and optimised system crashing to its knees? Even in this day of improved hardware. AI (and road traffic) are the two things most likely to slow a pc to a crawl and introduce stutters and FPS drops. Especially at resource-hungry 3rd party add-on airports.

[pracines 823]

27 minutes ago, speedyTC said:

*bold is mine

Wouldn't a huge amount of AI traffic, controlled or not, bring even the most powerful and optimised system crashing to its knees? Even in this day of improved hardware. AI (and road traffic) are the two things most likely to slow a pc to a crawl and introduce stutters and FPS drops. Especially at resource-hungry 3rd party add-on airports.

I use Ultimate Traffic Live and set traffic to 85% and utilizing generic paints as well ( I fly everywhere and prefer activity everywhere I fly ).

I set car and leisure boats at 20% and have ship and ferries at 100%

I use so many add-on airports, utilities, planes, ect. and I use quite high graphic settings as well and lock FPS at 20 - even at all this I remain pegged at 20 FPS even at KLGA runway 22 no matter what the weather. No stutters. 

I have to give credit to my finely tuned Jetline PC. I was fully intending on getting a new Jetline when P3D v4 came out, but found that I did not really need to. I will likely get a new Jetline for P3Dv5, we'll see.

So the answer to your question is no, at least in my case.😊 

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Mace said:

I didn't realize D3D had advanced to parity with other API's. 

DX12 API is slightly more advanced than other APIs including Vulkan ... more specifically around Multi-GPU usage, DX12 is able to utilize different GPU types and even different manufactures when using more than one GPU and even address VRAM across cards as unified .. Vulkan is limited to the same model/manufacturer.  nVidia are working to get RTX (ray tracing into the Vulkan API but still a work in progress).  DX12 + DXR extensions are ahead of the yet to be officially released Vulcan 1.1 API.

Vulkan API is cross platform but no idea when ray tracing will be introduced on Linux and/or other non-Windows platforms.  DX12 is bound to Win10 and I believe the DXR extensions are going to be released in Windows 10 Update around mid October so that everyone running Win10 will have them if not already installed via a game installer.

nVidia are pushing NVLink (the new SLI) so the rebirth of Multi-GPUs might become more attractive espeically if they scale close to 2X performance increase as we've seen in some of the 2X 2080Ti testing.

Cheers, Rob. 

[Joseph29 225]

It would be nice to have updated ICAO airport codes. There are still quite a few airports in P3D that have old/outdated ICAO codes.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

3 hours ago, Joseph29 said:

It would be nice to have updated ICAO airport codes. There are still quite a few airports in P3D that have old/outdated ICAO codes.

Again, a 3rd party app, fsaerodata updates all the ICAO airport codes.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

A breakaway from the ESP engine would be a good move. These issues have been present for around 15 years, maybe longer...

• Ai landing and stopping on a sixpence.
• Stars visible with the sun above the horizon.
• Ai lining up when my aircraft is 2 miles out.
• Being able to close one end of a runway for Ai takeoff/landing but leave the other end open.

Only after things like that are fixed can we move away from the past.