2 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

No worries, Ray! I understood your point and I'm sorry, if I came off as a bit too direct. 😉

You made a valid point old chap. No worries. 😉👍

5 hours ago, JoshuaBrown said:

How would buying P3D actually benefit me? What does it give that FSX:SE doesn’t, and would it actually be worth it?

There are of course some visual things P3D offers which FSX does not, but really the main thing it gives, is potential. A good example of this would be to examine the example of the Quality Wings Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the story of its release.

The QW B787 is an add-on which it was known, even before it was released, would make FSX struggle, owing to the rather large impact which its glass cockpit would have on the VAS limitations of FSX by virtue of the fact that FSX is a 32 Bit application. Shrewdly, QW released the FSX version before the P3D one, and this puzzled some people as to why, but there is no mystery there; it was because QW were well aware that people keen to have a 787, would buy the FSX one since it was the first one available, even if they had P3D, just to be able to fly a simulated 787. QW took the precation of adding a VAS monitor to the PFD of their FSX 787 and even went so far as to warn people before purchase, that it would be subject to limitations. But sure enough, if you were careful with how much scenery you ran in FSX, you could make a flight in it without FSX crashing, however, the moment you started loading up everything into FSX, it was a no-go.

It would have been easy for QW to simply then knock out their P3D version of their 787 a bit later and take the cash of another full-price P3D purchase again off everyone who had bought the FSX version who came to the realisation that if they wanted to fly such things in their sim, then 32 Bit was not going to cut it. They are a business after all, and it would have been a smart move, cynics might even suggest this was the case, but to their credit, QW offered a substantial discount for anyone in that position. That they did this was one reason why I did happily buy the FSX version in order to get an early look at it, safe in the knowledge that they were going to discount any dual purchase.

Thus the QW 787 was for many, the wake-up call that 64 Bit was the way to go if one wanted add-ons which pushed the envelope without making the base simulation program fall over under VAS limitations, since it was the first fairly complex airliner sim to come out which was going to put a heavy graphics load on things to the point where most people would have to give up some scenery eye candy if they wanted to fly it in FSX. In this, it was probably responsible for a huge amount of switches by flight simmers from FSX to P3D. But for those who have not drawn this conclusion yet, it is as well to be aware that the situation is only going to be exacerbated by ever-more newly-developed add-ons, where the temptation and marketing pressures are always to push things visually.

If you don't think this is true, it is perhaps worth examining another much more recently-released airliner add-on - Virtualcol's Airbus A220 - and noting that even this demonstrates the trend.

Anyone familiar with Virtualcol's products will know that they are, generally speaking, cheap and cheerful add-ons with the avionics simulation being decidedly on the 'light' side of the fence, often with rather spartan-looking VCs too. This has usually meant that they are fun to fly, don't require hours of study to master, and importantly for this example, run well on modest systems. Yet take a look at this screenshot of their latest offering, that Airbus A220; the cockpit has more glass than a Murano factory, and this is for an add-on which costs 20 quid and is unashamedly meant to be simple:

If this is what a simple cheap add-on has to display nowadays, can you imagine trying to run something fancier on FSX when you're sat on the deck at an add-on airport with PBR texturing throughout and animated passengers wandering about all over the place as high resolution, high polygon AI airliners taxy and fly about all around you?

It won't even be a matter of choice to go with the 64 Bit sim option, it'll be a necessity.

Edited April 7, 20197 yr by Chock

Visual advances like cloud shadows, dynamic reflections, dynamic lighting, PBR definitely take the immersion to a higher level, and off course no OOM.

Whats FSX? 

Well, looks like you've all convinced me...

I can upgrade to the Aerosoft A318/319 Professional for just £30 which is nice.

I'm probably going to get 1 month of P3D for £10 as a trial to see what I think, with my ORBX installed and some UK2000 Airports too.

Google also claims that TomatoShader and ReShade are good, so I'll install those. Then I'll return here with my thoughts...!

Thanks everyone, and so long FSX...(for now!)

Prepar3D has 60days refund policy, so actually you can buy the normal one and try it for 59days and decide to keep it or not.

8 hours ago, Nyxx said:

Whats FSX? 

The sim of choice for years that is still running the same add-ons as P3D. 

19 hours ago, Sunay said:

Prepar3D has 60days refund policy, so actually you can buy the normal one and try it for 59days and decide to keep it or not.

I was thinking about doing that, but based on the fact it's quite likely I'll stay, I don't have £60 to part with at the moment...:(

FSX is "The Walking Dead" of Flightsims.

Having used both and mainly using FSX ( prepared to be shot down in flames 😃  ) i would say the benefit of going P3D is the 64 bit architecture and the increased utilisation of your Graphics card, it also provides a lot of eye candy.

The one downside personally i find is that AA is not as good and for 60HZ panel users you will get some form of stuttering at times due to no full screen support. Way to reduce this is either run 4K or a 30hz monitor. You will definitely need more than a 1050Ti to fly in coudy conditions,

 

 

Edited April 10, 20197 yr by Dazkent
typo

On 4/9/2019 at 4:42 PM, JoshuaBrown said:

Google also claims that TomatoShader and ReShade are good, so I'll install those. Then I'll return here with my thoughts...

Go steady with the shader mods, they can create problems. Get ieveeyrhunf else working nicely and put those on last.

On 4/9/2019 at 4:42 PM, JoshuaBrown said:

Well, looks like you've all convinced me...

I can upgrade to the Aerosoft A318/319 Professional for just £30 which is nice.

I'm probably going to get 1 month of P3D for £10 as a trial to see what I think, with my ORBX installed and some UK2000 Airports too.

Google also claims that TomatoShader and ReShade are good, so I'll install those. Then I'll return here with my thoughts...!

Thanks everyone, and so long FSX...(for now!)

Ha ha ha/

rdpresets.com for tomatoshade and reshade.