Who stayed on 4.3 and why?

[Simicro 247]

Hi,

Do some of you stayed on 4.3? If so please say shortly why.

I'm on 4.4 and after various compatibilty problems with addons and "P3D has stopped working", I am in the process of doing a clean uninstall of 4.4 and reinstall of 4.3.

[ckyliu 1,749]

I moved to P3D 4.4 and had no issues, aside from photo scenery taking ages to load initially (albeit looking much sharper vis-a-vis 4.3). I'm now running 4.5HF1 and the loading times are still abysmal (in the order of 7 minutes from leaving the Create A Flight screen).

So loading times would be my only reason to stay on 4.3.

[Rogen 1,087]

I went from FSX -> FSX-SE -> P3D 3.4 -> 4.3 -> 4.4 -> 4.5 then back to 4.4 then forward to 4.5.12 (hotfix #1).

The biggest diff for 4.3 to 4.4 for myself was the view distance clarity was muchly improved.

4.5.12 (hotfix #1) feels like a mostly bug fixed 4.3, not to say that it's perfect but it's pretty good overall.

And I load some 647 GB of data off a Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB M2 drive.

The drive is really fast @ ~ 3576 MB per second for reading and ~ 2507 MB per second for writing meaning loading is fairly inconsequental (I'd hate to have to load so much data from spining disks though).

Cheers

Edited May 29, 2019 by Rogen

[virtuali 4,419]

4.4 it's the first version with PBR support, so I think it should be considered the minimum supported version right now, considering how many add-ons are being udpated *as we speak* to support PBR.

About GSX, for example, the PBR update will have a separate FSX/32 bit version installer, and a 64 bit installer. The 64 bit installer will work only on 4.4 and above, and we are considering dropping support for 4.3 and lesser entirely.

Even if we are NOT "build-bound", meaning we don't require a patch if LM release a minor version or hotfix, it's becoming a nightmare having to support all these different versions of the SDK. Apart from PBR, which is a huge difference for us, 4.4 added new features to the Camera system, so we obviously jumped on it to support it for the next GSX, so you could have very nice custom camera views to all vehicles (following, 1st person, spot, etc.) which are individually tailored for each vehicle and require NO external add-ons and NO user configuration. However, they will work on 4.4+ only, but PARTS of this feature was already available in 4.1 so, having partial support in 4.1+ and full support in 4.4+ would be a coding nightmare, making our code unnecessarily complex, just to handle all these cases. The same with Render To Texture: technically speaking, it was already available since 2.5, but the SDK changed, and it became stable around 4.1 or so. But for simplicity sake and even to keep some sanity during support, we are also restricting it to 4.4 and above.

So, basically, as far as we are concerned, it's either PD4.4, with all the new features (Camera, PBR, new animations, new vehicles, easy custom logos, etc.), or you'll going to use GSX AS IF it were running under FSX.

I believe other developers, like PMDG, are doing basically the same thing: if you use P3D4, better be 4.4 at least.

[Simicro 247]

Thanks all.

Finally I deciced to make a clean re-install of 4.4

All in all wiser indeed Umberto.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Simicro

[jlund 380]

I'm still on 4.3 and in no hurry to update.Especially with the problems with v4.5 and even with the hotfix, there seem to be a lot of people not satisfied with it, So i'll stick with version 4.3 for now.

[Treetops45 1,081]

On 4.3 because it is stable for my setup & I wasn't sure how many of the aircraft I have would work in 4.4, then 4.5.

I'll move up eventually, when the dust settles.

Does anyone know if you can jump from 4.3 straight to 4.5?

T45

[ckyliu 1,749]

Don't see why not, I went straight from 4.1 to 4.3.

[Tony P 160]

v4.4 and will not touch it until v5

[Nyxx 6,993]

4 hours ago, virtuali said:

4.4 it's the first version with PBR support, so I think it should be considered the minimum supported version right now, considering how many add-ons are being udpated *as we speak* to support PBR.

About GSX, for example, the PBR update will have a separate FSX/32 bit version installer, and a 64 bit installer. The 64 bit installer will work only on 4.4 and above, and we are considering dropping support for 4.3 and lesser entirely.

Even if we are NOT "build-bound", meaning we don't require a patch if LM release a minor version or hotfix, it's becoming a nightmare having to support all these different versions of the SDK. Apart from PBR, which is a huge difference for us, 4.4 added new features to the Camera system, so we obviously jumped on it to support it for the next GSX, so you could have very nice custom camera views to all vehicles (following, 1st person, spot, etc.) which are individually tailored for each vehicle and require NO external add-ons and NO user configuration. However, they will work on 4.4+ only, but PARTS of this feature was already available in 4.1 so, having partial support in 4.1+ and full support in 4.4+ would be a coding nightmare, making our code unnecessarily complex, just to handle all these cases. The same with Render To Texture: technically speaking, it was already available since 2.5, but the SDK changed, and it became stable around 4.1 or so. But for simplicity sake and even to keep some sanity during support, we are also restricting it to 4.4 and above.

So, basically, as far as we are concerned, it's either PD4.4, with all the new features (Camera, PBR, new animations, new vehicles, easy custom logos, etc.), or you'll going to use GSX AS IF it were running under FSX.

I believe other developers, like PMDG, are doing basically the same thing: if you use P3D4, better be 4.4 at least.

You also have stoped supporting W7 and that should be pointed out also. 

4.5 runs really nicely with a clean install, with PR I have 100GB a flight still loads in under 30 seconds.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Nyxx

[G-RFRY 1,705]

 I run P3Dv4.5HF Client, Scenery,and Content no problem with the latest NV drivers 430.86 W10. 

[Les Parson 99]

I remained with 4.3 - Same position as jlund. 

[Christopher Low 5,332]

4.3 Scenery

4.4 Content

4.5 Client

[pgde 571]

2 hours ago, Nyxx said:

You also have stoped supporting W7 and that should be pointed out also. 

4.5 runs really nicely with a clean install, with PR I have 100GB a flight still loads in under 30 seconds.

I am running GSX Level 2 on Win7 Pro with no problems.

[Nyxx 6,993]

18 minutes ago, pgde said:

I am running GSX Level 2 on Win7 Pro with no problems.

Have a look at you error reports, it runs fine but "crashes" on exit. You don't see it but its there. It's a W7 call that's broke.