Based off of the overwhelming number of "buy it!"s I read on the TFDi 717, and the otherwise lack of recent reviews (2+ years ago), I decided to cave and buy it.  I bought it somewhat naively assuming that the CTD issue must be relegated only to the most degenerate of pilots, but found myself landing more frequently on the desktop than the runway not long after my first flight.  Here's a condensed review that I wish I would have read before I paid $60 on it:

With the CTD issue, you have three solutions:

• You can do nothing, and play Russian roulette every time you change views
• You can open a tiny 1x1 inch "new view" using the "[" key and leave it, as well as about 10% of your FPS, in a small corner and pretend you don't see it
• You can pretend you're a real pilot, and not Superman, and forbid yourself from the physically impossible task of zooming yourself inside, out and about your aircraft at a whim

TFDi's formal response on the matter is that it's not their fault, despite most people literally never having this problem with other aircraft.  So that's that.

But that's not all, if you're foolish enough to want more performance out of your system and decided to go SLI, there's a good chance you'll also be blessed with incessant, seizure-inducing display gauge flickering.  With the flickering, you have two solutions:

• You can disable SLI and join the rest of the "economy class" out there
• You can play TFDi 717 in "hard mode".  In hard mode, you basically try to fly without looking at the displays whatsoever.  Like they used to 100 years ago.

TFDi's formal response on the matter is that it's not their fault, despite most people literally never having this problem with other aircraft.  So that's that.

The concerning part isn't so much that these major bugs exist (and have existed for over a year now).  The concerning part is that their dev team (or whatever's left of it) has taken the formal stance that "it's not their problem".  That means unless properly-working code is summoned from a higher power and sneaks its way into your computer, these issues are permanent.  And yes, their support forums are a ghost town.  So, an accurate review that would have been useful to me would have been:

If you don't mind paying $60 to slash 40% of your graphics performance and an additional 10% of FPS for an addon to function at a "sort of like PMDG" level, lost to the sea of abandoned support, then the TFDi 717 is the perfect plane for you.

I used to love the TFDi 717, but I came to the same point as you. That CTD thing is like playing Russian roulette with a semi automatic. Almost every time it ends up on the desktop. This is the only aircraft that I have this kind of problem with. Also having a SLI means Trueglass rain not showing up. I have sent them logs and details experiments, never got an answer. The product seems dead right now. While I was one who advised to buy a year ago, I suggest people wanting McDonnell Douglas heir turn their lights to the MaddogX from Leonardo.

 

Sorry TFDi

I have uninstalled this not finished aircraft, fly the MadogX instead 

Some what of a harsh "review" in my opinion. I agree the CTD issue made the aircraft almost unusable for a long time after release, but I was led to believe these issues had been fixed in a patch. Since then I can say from my experience I haven't experienced any CTD's in any flight since, with regards to SLI I cannot comment on that as I've never used it

 

With regards to the actual aircraft it self I would say they did a very good job, good FPS(for me, some others seem to have issues with it), everything seems to be modeled to a high standard. And the exterior model is among one of the best out there, I don't fly it very often but when I do its always enjoyable

Edited May 13, 20197 yr by Litmoose

3 hours ago, Litmoose said:

Some what of a harsh "review" in my opinion. I agree the CTD issue made the aircraft almost unusable for a long time after release, but I was led to believe these issues had been fixed in a patch. Since then I can say from my experience I haven't experienced any CTD's in any flight since, with regards to SLI I cannot comment on that as I've never used it

 

With regards to the actual aircraft it self I would say they did a very good job, good FPS(for me, some others seem to have issues with it), everything seems to be modeled to a high standard. And the exterior model is among one of the best out there, I don't fly it very often but when I do its always enjoyable

Same for me here! I did a short flight from TLPL to TJSJ and it was very nice, smooth, no CTD even if I changed views a lot of times between inside and outside. I agree it is not a"finished product" to enjoy it fully, few things are missing like copilot announcement(80 kt, V1, VR, positive rate and so on...and entry for climb  cruise and descent winds.

Cheers

Pat

I stayed away from this one because of the persistent complaints about CTDs and the problems I was already having using RealGlass as part of another add-on on an SLI config back when it first appeared.

Where there's smoke, there's fire, and it's sometimes just not worth risking a trip to CTD Hell to roll the dice with a relatively new developer without an established track record.  And now their track record is established, and frankly, it doesn't look so good.

Still, it's always a shame to see so much good work go down the drain.

 

actually if someone still has old setups or old versions backup i don't get any issues. I use an older version i've never updated (1.09.30 i think) but i find hard to swallow the fact devs didn't seem to talk a lot about any kind of fix. really sad, cuz they have the knowledge to make great stuff, and was expecting them to come with an md-11 at any time (lol).

I don't have SLI, but even with my *word not allowed* potato PC i get about 30 fps with decent settings. 

Harsh.

Sorry you're having problems. I'm not having problems.

As a buyer beware post, OK, I get it. In my world, it's a really nice aircraft I enjoy a great deal.

Yes the view change CTD is still there. I think the SLI stutter is due to their Real Light and Real Glass effects. If I'm not mistaken, this affects every aircraft that uses Real Light and Real Glass? I ditched SLI a long time ago because it's more trouble than it's worth. Way too many developers don't support it.

It's not only with SLI. If you have two GPU active, even not linked via SLI Trueglass rain effects will not work.

That's too bad.  I was thinking of adding this nice looking plane to my hanger.  But these CTD horror stories are scaring me!..lol   $60 is a lot of $$$ and if it doesn't work right or as expected.... yikes! I'll be really sad.  Not liking what I am reading here about the 717 to make the purchase until I know you guys that have it are happy with it and working without no intermittent CTD issues.   

If you want a plane from that family I suggest you get the Leonardo Maddog.

Having followed this thread, I must admit I was a tad sceptical, that is, until tonight, when I got the aircraft out of the 'hangar' and installed it, accepted the latest Updates, etc, etc, then having spent virtually 3-4 hours following an Aussie-created pre-release YouTube tutorial on C+D Start-up, and seeing quite pleased with myself as I taxied to the runway threshold................switching Views from internal to external................bang, CTD.

Immediate reaction, everything this thread has been saying happened, and I am not even on an SLi rig set-up.

Nice to have known you TFDi. Pity I got suckered in at Cosford2017 with your slick PR show there. What a waste of money!

23 hours ago, TopGun33 said:

It's not only with SLI. If you have two GPU active, even not linked via SLI Trueglass rain effects will not work.

Aside a massive amount of displays I can't think of a valid reason to have more than one GPU in a modern desktop PC used for flight simming anyway.  There are plenty of laptops that switch back and forth between integrated and discrete graphics depending on the workload but they're not both active at the same time so your statement shouldn't apply here.  

Interesting, I never had CTD - switch view. Before i had chaseplane no problem after I bought chase plane switch views did not cause CTD, I had other small problems but most are gone with the updates.