Are FSX and P3D becoming step children?

[tonywob 4,769]

Well, OpenLC Africa and Australia v2 are also being worked on, so it's not that P3D development has stopped in favour of X-Plane, it's simply that they have a bigger team working on different sim products simultaneously. I doubt such products will be seen on X-Plane for some time (if ever), so it's all tit-for-tat. All the recent airports except my own Barton are ports of products that are already on P3D.

Yes there is a lot of excitement and noise over TrueEarth Washington (and I'm very happy about it 🙂), but it doesn't mean the teams that were already there working on P3D products have stopped.. Nothing has changed in that regard

 

 

[tymk 105]

54 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

You do realise that the lead developer for the TrueEarth product range (Tony Wroblewski) is an XPlane man, and therefore presumably created the tools and libraries for that particular platform? That being the case, why would Xplane not be the lead platform for the TrueEarth series?

That's one thing. Another is that as someone who has tried TE GB for both platforms, I can clearly see why developers would prefer to work with XP. There are things which simply cannot be done efficiently with P3D, mainly to do with vector roads and autogen. P3D's vector roads have always been an ugly mess with no ability to create intersections, overpasses, interchanges, etc. (other than placing custom objects which then do not align smoothly with the adjoining roads). Building autogen is also very limited, making it impossible to create things such as UK-style terraced houses (or, as noted by TE NL users, anything resembling Rijtjeshuizen), or anything other than simple square/rectangular buildings, for that matter. As a result, a huge amount of custom objects have to be created, with takes a lot of work and causes issues with loading times and performance.

And as far as performance goes, on my modest system (including a hold-me-over GTX 1060), I get perfectly acceptable frame rates in XP and a stuttery mess in P3D v4.4/4.5 in the same areas of TE GB at comparable settings.

Now don't get me wrong, I still use P3D as my main sim and I'm well aware of XP's limitations (to me, the awful weather representation and lack of proper AI/ATC are the most important ones), but the point is that Orbx is a scenery developer/publisher rather than a "complete flightsim experience" provider. So, if one platform gives them much more freedom to realize their vision (and makes it easier to do that), I can understand why they are shifting their focus.

Not that I particularly like it as I'm inclined to keep "flying" mainly in P3D in the foreseeable future, but I do see their point.

Just my $0.02... 😉

Tym

Edited April 26, 2019 by tymk

[Christopher Low 5,354]

Quote

Well, OpenLC Africa and Australia v2 are also being worked on, so it's not that P3D development has stopped in favour of X-Plane

I just hope that TrueEarth GB Central for P3D v4 has not been forgotten about. I understand that ORBx has a lot on its plate at the moment, but now that I have seen how much better southern England and Wales looks when compared to my existing UK photographic scenery, it is somewhat frustrating to have to wait for an extended period of time before I am able to enjoy the next volume in the TrueEarth GB series (particularly when the base photoscenery images have already been obtained).

Edited April 26, 2019 by Christopher Low

[tonywob 4,769]

3 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I just hope that TrueEarth GB Central for P3D v4 has not been forgotten about.

No, as JV already mentioned, ORBX have taken on additional people to work on these ports, as well as future ones such as Washington, etc..

[fta2017 160]

Orbx are artists, and want to keep innovating and making the best scenery they can. Here is an example. I watched the Orbx Twitch stream last night where they flew around PNW for P3Dv4 and visited many of their iconic airports. It looked great, but out of curiosity I played JV’s sneak preview Washington trailer on a second monitor at the same time. The difference was profound to say the least. As in there was no comparison. The XP11 Washington looks REAL, but the landclass PNW looked repetitive with tracks and roads painted on top and with laughably oversized autogen houses.

I think they know this, and have found a platform which allows them to realise their creative ambitions much sooner. Does it mean they are abandoning P3D? Not based on their past 12 months’ new title releases which weighs heavily in favour of P3D. Most of what is being made for Xp are ports anyway.

The P3D community’s smugness is wearing off really quickly now. Once upon a time they used to taunt the XP community with ‘but have you got Orbx?’. Now that Orbx has embraced XP it’s turned it’s ‘They have abandoned us!!’. Little do they realise most of what Orbx is making for XP has already been available for FSx/P3D for over a decade, yet they still feel jealous.

Edited April 26, 2019 by fta2017

[birdguy 3,943]

fta217 are you saying that TrueEarth Washington wouldn't look good on P3Dv4?   You are comparing apples and oranges here.  You checked PNW against the TrueEarth Washington trailer.  That's no comparison at all. 

That's like comparing the stock P3Dv4 Washington to Orbx PNW. 

The only real comparison would be to check TrueEarth Washington on P3Dv4 against TrueEarth Washington on XP. 

It's not a feeling of jealousy, it's a feeling of being left behind.

Noel

Edited April 26, 2019 by birdguy

[John_Cillis 2,406]

1 hour ago, fta2017 said:

Orbx are artists, and want to keep innovating and making the best scenery they can. Here is an example. I watched the Orbx Twitch stream last night where they flew around PNW for P3Dv4 and visited many of their iconic airports. It looked great, but out of curiosity I played JV’s sneak preview Washington trailer on a second monitor at the same time. The difference was profound to say the least. As in there was no comparison. The XP11 Washington looks REAL, but the landclass PNW looked repetitive with tracks and roads painted on top and with laughably oversized autogen houses.

I think they know this, and have found a platform which allows them to realise their creative ambitions much sooner. Does it mean they are abandoning P3D? Not based on their past 12 months’ new title releases which weighs heavily in favour of P3D. Most of what is being made for Xp are ports anyway.

The P3D community’s smugness is wearing off really quickly now. Once upon a time they used to taunt the XP community with ‘but have you got Orbx?’. Now that Orbx has embraced XP it’s turned it’s ‘They have abandoned us!!’. Little do they realise most of what Orbx is making for XP has already been available for FSx/P3D for over a decade, yet they still feel jealous.

I wish I had disk space for Orbx P3D or Xplane11, they are indeed artists, they craft their work so well, I remember downloading a sample around Seattle some time back for FSX.  They prove to our community how well scenery add ons can look in any sim.

John

[Guest]

6 hours ago, tymk said:

(or, as noted by TE NL users, anything resembling Rijtjeshuizen)

Hear hear! 😉

Quote

And as far as performance goes, on my modest system (including a hold-me-over GTX 1060), I get perfectly acceptable frame rates in XP and a stuttery mess in P3D v4.4/4.5 in the same areas of TE GB at comparable settings.

Define acceptable framerates, please. 20, 30, 40...? And is that with enhancement addons like Ultra Weather XP or anything? One of the things I liked about XP (apart from the great lighting engine) were the detailed roads: they make things look so much more real when flying low...! In P3D they usually look bad and don't get me started on AFS2 roads... I am seriously considering installing XP 11 again and to buy TE GB for it but I don't have any addons for XP 11 apart from one GA plane. I think it'll look word not allowed without addons compared to the video's I've seen. And I am afraid fps will hardly reach 20 with TE GB installed.

EDIT
Had a look as some more XP TE GB video's and I noticed houses aren't placed as extremely dense as in AFS2. Might be a setting in the sim but I wouldn't want to lower the amount of buildings I can have in AFS2 in order to get acceptable fps in XP. I think that when it comes to performance AFS2 is a clear winner and best suited for TE scenery...

Edited April 26, 2019 by Guest

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Sorry guys, this is not artistry. It certainly takes skill and perseverance to translate a whole bunch of beautiful orthoimagery to a flightsim, but it isn't what I call creativity. You want artistry in a video game. Take a look at Red dead Redemption 2. That's artistry.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

16 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Sorry guys, this is not artistry. It certainly takes skill and perseverance to translate a whole bunch of beautiful orthoimagery to a flightsim, but it isn't what I call creativity. You want artistry in a video game. Take a look at Red dead Redemption 2. That's artistry.

I disagree, I have converted a lot of Orthoscenery for Xplane11 and have paid and also made Orthoscenery for P3DV4.4.  It is a creative art, it adds immersion to a sim to fly over a realistic landscape, and adds VFR and dead reckoning skills to a hobby often overshadowed by IFR navigation.  Orthoscenery makes coming into the vicinity of an airport quite realistic, as airports in the real world are not as easy to spot as airports in a sim, non Ortho world.  My CFI in Light Sport, an entirely VFR form of General Aviation although I did use a gps in flight, always preached to me to look outside more and instrument scan less, so I could learn as stick and rudder pilots well know, to fly by the seat of my pants.  That type of flying makes coordinated flight instinctive.  My CFI had me "trace the box" at altitude, using rudder and aileron to outline a virtual box in the sky, teaching me visual coordinated flight with less reliance on instruments.  I was taught instrument flying as a last resort, in case weather, like Arizona's sudden dust storms that can come from 50 or 60 miles away to your aircraft in minutes, so flight into such weather could end up safely.

PS, looked at the video game you mentioned on youtube, amazing!

John

Edited April 26, 2019 by John_Cillis

[tonywob 4,769]

16 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

It certainly takes skill and perseverance to translate a whole bunch of beautiful orthoimagery to a flightsim, but it isn't what I call creativity

Whilst I don't disagree with you about that game, I strongly disagree that creating these regions and airports aren't creative or artistic 🤨. It's much much more than just dumping aerial imagery into a sim (which anyone can do with free tools), but rather it's trying to make our rather limited flight sim engines look as realistic as possible with all their warts and limitations in a much bigger area than a game with a better engine, and if this doesn't take creativity and lots of work, patience without a huge team and a several million dollar budget then I don't know what does 🙂. 

[tonywob 4,769]

32 minutes ago, J van E said:

Had a look as some more XP TE GB video's and I noticed houses aren't placed as extremely dense as in AFS2. Might be a setting in the sim but I wouldn't want to lower the amount of buildings I can have in AFS2 in order to get acceptable fps in XP. I think that when it comes to performance AFS2 is a clear winner and best suited for TE scenery...

Run it on max settings, as you turn settings down it really culls the building density... There is truth here though that AFS2 is a clear winner in the performance department, but sadly it is limited by the same box autogen as P3D.

[tymk 105]

8 minutes ago, birdguy said:

The only real comparison would be to check TrueEarth Washington on P3Dv4 against TrueEarth Washington on XP. 

It's not a feeling of jealousy, it's a feeling of being left behind.

I absolutely get your point, Noel, I'm heavily invested in P3D myself and I'd love Orbx to keep pushing the envelope on that platform, too. With that said, however, after comparing TrueEarth GB in both P3D and XP, I can now see that there are things which simply cannot be done in the former -- things like proper roads and railways, correctly sized autogen buildings arranged into city blocks and suburbs that match the underlying ortho imagery.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole affair, either. I suppose I'll stick to P3D with landclass scenery for "serious" flying with my A2A planes (there's nothing comparable in XP despite what some people may say...), proper weather, ATC, etc. At the same time, I do intend to use XP for some lightweight flying (mainly in GB), and I'll keep an eye out for further developments.

1 minute ago, J van E said:

Define acceptable framerates, please. 20, 30, 40...? And is that with enhancement addons like Ultra Weather XP or anything?

Acceptable as in 30-40, only occasionally dropping to 25 (which, unlike P3D, is actually flyable as the frame lengths are consistent), but generally above 30 at all times, and that's with shadow distance and resolution settings cranked high above default. Plus, bear in mind I have a measly 1060 and a 5-year-old quad-core CPU.

As for weather, I don't use any weather-specific enhancements as I've yet to see one that doesn't make my eyes bleed. As much as I adore XP's terrain rendering, autogen or atmospheric scattering, its weather depiction is still limited (not just clouds, visibility layering is also problematic, making it hard to get visuals that actually match METARs). So, to me, XP is a "clear weather recreational flying" sim at this stage, though I have to admit it does the job well.

1 minute ago, J van E said:

One of the things I liked about XP (apart from the great lighting engine) were the detailed roads: they make things look so much more real when flying low...! In P3D they usually look bad and don't get me started on AFS2 roads...

Yep, that's a major point, and it really shows in TE GB.

2 minutes ago, J van E said:

I am seriously considering installing XP 11 again and to buy TE GB for it but I don't have any addons for XP 11 apart from one GA plane.

Start with the free TE GB demo available from Orbx. As for other add-ons, I'd say start with X-Vision (payware) to get a nice atmosphere (no more khaki) and the FlyAgi Tweak Utility (freeware) to adjust shadows, visibility, etc. See if that works for you, then you can start spending again... 😉 I've kept it to the minimum so far, still waiting to see how things develop.

HTH,

Tym

[John_Cillis 2,406]

4 minutes ago, tymk said:

I absolutely get your point, Noel, I'm heavily invested in P3D myself and I'd love Orbx to keep pushing the envelope on that platform, too. With that said, however, after comparing TrueEarth GB in both P3D and XP, I can now see that there are things which simply cannot be done in the former -- things like proper roads and railways, correctly sized autogen buildings arranged into city blocks and suburbs that match the underlying ortho imagery.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole affair, either. I suppose I'll stick to P3D with landclass scenery for "serious" flying with my A2A planes (there's nothing comparable in XP despite what some people may say...), proper weather, ATC, etc. At the same time, I do intend to use XP for some lightweight flying (mainly in GB), and I'll keep an eye out for further developments.

Acceptable as in 30-40, only occasionally dropping to 25 (which, unlike P3D, is actually flyable as the frame lengths are consistent), but generally above 30 at all times, and that's with shadow distance and resolution settings cranked high above default. Plus, bear in mind I have a measly 1060 and a 5-year-old quad-core CPU.

As for weather, I don't use any weather-specific enhancements as I've yet to see one that doesn't make my eyes bleed. As much as I adore XP's terrain rendering, autogen or atmospheric scattering, its weather depiction is still limited (not just clouds, visibility layering is also problematic, making it hard to get visuals that actually match METARs). So, to me, XP is a "clear weather recreational flying" sim at this stage, though I have to admit it does the job well.

Yep, that's a major point, and it really shows in TE GB.

Start with the free TE GB demo available from Orbx. As for other add-ons, I'd say start with X-Vision (payware) to get a nice atmosphere (no more khaki) and the FlyAgi Tweak Utility (freeware) to adjust shadows, visibility, etc. See if that works for you, then you can start spending again... 😉 I've kept it to the minimum so far, still waiting to see how things develop.

HTH,

Tym

I am with you on acceptable framerates, 25 to 40 averaging halfway in between works well for me, so I can have max scenery and graphics and get the most out of my sims in terms of realism.  Usually if fps are an issue, halving your AA setting will help quite a bit and does not take away from imagery, but I will not go lower than 4X with FSAA, and I max aniso filtering.

John

[Matthijs 79]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

Hear hear! 😉

Define acceptable framerates, please. 20, 30, 40...? And is that with enhancement addons like Ultra Weather XP or anything? One of the things I liked about XP (apart from the great lighting engine) were the detailed roads: they make things look so much more real when flying low...! In P3D they usually look bad and don't get me started on AFS2 roads... I am seriously considering installing XP 11 again and to buy TE GB for it but I don't have any addons for XP 11 apart from one GA plane. I think it'll look word not allowed without addons compared to the video's I've seen. And I am afraid fps will hardly reach 20 with TE GB installed.

Well if you don't try it, you will never know!😋

Just for your peace of mind, I easy get a stable 40 FPS over TE GB even with Ultra Weather XP and Xvision.
Only above London my FPS drops a bit to 30 FPS average, but without the well known stutters like in P3D.

(Specs: i7 4790K @ 4.5Ghz, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX1070, 1TB SSD)

But XP is a completely different animal than P3D so take your time to find the sweet spot in performance/settings.
And yes, the roads are outstanding compared to other sims, especially at night.😉

Edited April 26, 2019 by Matthijs