First reactions to P3Dv4.4

[Rocky_53 1,566]

I've just come inside from my sim and I am sooo excited! Everything I wanted to get from V4.4 has been delivered. I have done several tests, mainly around photosceneries, which was always my big bugbear. I thought I'd pop into the cfg the TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP = 10 tweak...wooow! With all sliders set at mid to high, I have seen stunning results. No delayed texture loading, if so, then it is very little, no blurries and textures crisp and sharp. I've kept all my sliders at the same settings as usual, with the exception of LOD and tesselation factor, which are both set at max. Also, the sim is a LOT smoother. I have a test scenario at LEBL, where a lot of the time taxiing around the runways and terminal areas I see frames mid twenties, today I flew in a thunderstorm, with traffic set at 30, sliders all mid to high and the FPS never dropped below 30! Equally important, it was as smooth as a babies bottom! The other thing I was hoping would have been cured, is the occasional pause for the odd second, which I still experience.

Other tests were in the A2A P180 at Orbx Jackson Hole and Valdez, both surrounded with stunning mountainous photoscenery. At each of these sceneries I was always frustrated, at both airports the mountains were always blurred when viewed from the runway, today they are crisp and sharp! I guess XP will have to wait a while longer 😃

Edited November 29, 2018 by Rockliffe

[IAhawkeyeDDS 158]

PBR lives on folks!!!

PBR at it’s best!!!

[ckyliu 1,749]

My experience is framerates are broadly similar, except with photo scenery at altitude I'm seeing a 20% FPS drop, although the distance scenery textures are much sharper. At low level I'm seeing no difference, and same for night flying low level over regular scenery. For the me the update is worth it for the photoscenery sharpness improvements alone, I'll probably leave it enabled now when I fly my airliner stuff.

[pgde 571]

16 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

I flew over SeattleX and swear I could see the potholes especially over the industrial area between Boeing Field and Seattle.  Did a flight today from Wash Dulles to Chicago and had all of my State MSE photoscenery enabled and it was as real as I have ever seen.  I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.  More to come.

Jim

Nice to see another MSE user here :) I absolutely agree -- with the Use High Definition Textures checked the clarity is outstanding. In 4.4,  was at KPHX and you could see mountains fading in the haze far from the airport. Tomorrow will try KPHX - KRNO and see what other areas look like! I installed both client and content with no apparent issues now that Active Sky is updated!

[simbol 5,818]

15 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

I've just come inside from my sim and I am sooo excited! Everything I wanted to get from V4.4 has been delivered

You see, and you were judging and being disappointed hours ago before even trying it.

Glad to see you are happy and confirming what me and many others have been saying, this is the best release by far from LM, it cannot be missed.

I would be nice if you also post your happiness at LM forums, all LM developers worked very hard for months, I was a witness of that and they will be very pleased to hear positive feedback like this.

They totally deserve the gratitude and congratulations from everyone.

Regards 

Simbol 

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

Installing v 4.4 by doing the client, then the content and then the scenery totally jacked my sim up. It just sits on the black screen with sound for an indefinite amount of time. 

If I press alt+enter or Ctrl+alt+delete to see what's going on. It just goes to the desktop.

If I click anywhere on the black screen. Windows makes a sound like I'm not clicking in some sort of window.

I'm doing a clean reinstall next week. 

Oh well.

Edited November 30, 2018 by ahsmatt7

[Benjamin J 751]

30 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Installing v 4.4 by doing the client, then the content and then the scenery totally jacked my sim up. It just sits on the black screen with sound for an indefinite amount of time. 

If I press alt+enter or Ctrl+alt+delete to see what's going on. It just goes to the desktop.

If I click anywhere on the black screen. Windows makes a sound like I'm not clicking in some sort of window.

I'm doing a clean reinstall next week. 

Oh well.

Hold on, before you do that, do you have the FSLabs installed? I read a post describing similar symptoms and he said that uninstalling the FSLabs cured the problem. Apparently it throws up an error that stops the sim from loading.

[RioPilot 99]

The performance doesn't really feel any better or worse for me, which is rather disappointing.

I also fail to really see any difference with their default F-16. Wasn't it supposed to showcase PBR? I suppose there's some minor difference, but it might be my imagination.

In any case. My main problem now is that the scenery tiles pose problems. I did a clean reinstall, and when I flew around the default location, I saw weird flickering tiles that showed the entirety of the continental United States, and other continents of the world. It's hard to explain, but it was really weird.

I did a repair, and that seemed to solve the issue. But now the airports have black night tiles during the middle of the day.

Something seems corrupted, but I made sure to uninstall the old version of P3D and delete the old residual folders, so I'm not sure why that would be the case.

[Skywolf 992]

This is a solid release by LM, the beta testers tested this release real well.  All I can hope to be a beta tester for LM.  One of their office is even next door to my building (but LM team is in Florida, and I am in the North East...😆).

 

For best stablity in the sim.  Use Prepar3d designed addons....not going into debate on what can be put in.  I do not have any legacy stuff in my sim period.  Stability is paramount.  

 

4.4 is the release which should have been out when 4.0 came.  Super rock solid so far.  Only few months will tell, and then the cycle repeats in 6 months 😉

 

Thank You LM team for amazing work on this major v4 release 😊

 

 

[curt1 79]

11 hours ago, pao said:

No one is using a camera add-on like EZDOK here ? 

The developer said he would have a beta patch out tomorrow, and then a new installer in a week.  I love EZdok, and wouldn't use P3D without it.

[Midnight Music 252]

Heads up everyone, if you upgrade the scenery you have re-install FTX Global, trees and ObjectFlow or you get some weird patches, because basic ORBX scenery stuff gets replaced by the new scenery install.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

1 hour ago, Benjamin J said:

Hold on, before you do that, do you have the FSLabs installed? I read a post describing similar symptoms and he said that uninstalling the FSLabs cured the problem. Apparently it throws up an error that stops the sim from loading.

You might be on to something. I'll uninstall that first and try it. Thanks for stopping me. It's the first time in a long time that I would have had to do a complete reinstall.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

18 minutes ago, Midnight Music said:

Heads up everyone, if you upgrade the scenery you have re-install FTX Global, trees and ObjectFlow or you get some weird patches, because basic ORBX scenery stuff gets replaced by the new scenery install.

Do you have to reinstall any open LC stuff to or just the global base?

[Skywolf 992]

5 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Do you have to reinstall any open LC stuff to or just the global base?

If scenery is changed then yes - all Orbx stuff needs to be changed.  At this point, so many things are getting changed.  Only with Client update you can leave the whole sim.  See Orbx forums - on how to reinstall with the least amount of downloading.  I have all my orbxdirect packages.  This is the only addon which takes time.  All my other addons are in Prepar3d Addons directory and works flawlessly.  

Please see Prepar3d Tips section in the forums - Poppet guide are excellent and answers all the installation questions.  Her screenshots are awesome too.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

1 minute ago, Skywolf said:

If scenery is changed then yes - all Orbx stuff needs to be changed.  At this point, so many things are getting changed.  Only with Client update you can leave the whole sim.  See Orbx forums - on how to reinstall with the least amount of downloading.  I have all my orbxdirect packages.  This is the only addon which takes time.  All my other addons are in Prepar3d Addons directory and works flawlessly.  

Please see Prepar3d Tips section in the forums - Poppet guide are excellent and answers all the installation questions.  Her screenshots are awesome too.

Thanks for the insight. I'll get to it eventually. I have a 4 day trip starting tomorrow so I won't be able to touch anything until I get back home.