Will we have to buy every add on we use again?

[Superdelphinus 718]

No one is going to have to do anything. 

[ComSimPilot 623]

Like it or not, there are only two ways:

Either our P3D addons will be able to work in MSFS2020 with a conversion method and possibly an added cost or

MSFS 2020 will be a stock airports-stock aircraft simulator for a long time.

The latter means that P3Dv4 will stay the more advanced sim for a long time as well, thus no need for the new MSFS for the simmer who wants the ultimate systems accuracy possible in advanced P3D addons. At least it wont be the working sim, but the ‘experimental-promising’ new sim.

The simmer who values terrain/weather/visuals as higher priority than aircraft systems and airport scenery realism will consider MSFS the new era in day one. For me the turning point for P3D to lose the throne will be when the merging of the new MSFS graphics/engine and the high fidelity addons of P3D is a reality.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Daedalus

[shivers9 1,174]

11 minutes ago, Daedalus said:

The simmer who values terrain/weather/visuals as higher priority than aircraft systems and airport scenery realism will consider MSFS the new era in day one. For me the turning point for P3D to lose the throne will be when the merging of the new MSFS graphics/engine and the high fidelity addons of P3D is a reality.

This will be true for many of us. With all the excitement, many seem to forget that P3d Ver 5.0 is going to happen before the MS release and that may give us a lot of new options also.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I don’t mind bitting the bullet and repurchasing new adddons. My only issue is the length of time from release until we get the new addons. If it takes PMDG and others 2 years to get to market I’m not sure I’ll use the new sim that much as I don’t usually like default airliners. However I can use it to do some sightseeing with the Icon and whatever else is provided.

That was essential the same issue I had coming off FS9 to FSX. I loved flying the PMDG 737 in FS9 but it took forever to get the FSX version. I ended up using the LDS767 for all my tube flying until the NGX came out.

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

Time to move on if you want to adopt new ways of emptying your wallets. 👍

[188AHC 2,138]

There is no concrete evidence that some vendors aren't already working on addons. 

I'm not going to be too concerned about things early in the game. 

[LHookins 3,103]

I'm not worried about having to repurchase any of my add-ons, mostly because much of what I use will probably never be ported to a new sim.  I've already waited months for some things to be ported to P3Dv4. 

My favorite aircraft is FS9 vintage and I had to do considerable work to convert it to P3Dv4 anyway as it appears to be no longer supported by the developer.  There is a new version of that aircraft by another developer that is a lot prettier, has a lot more features, and I can't stand to fly it.

We'll have to give up a few of our favorite aircraft, but we'll find new favorites.  

Hook

[rhumbaflappy 113]

If the majority of the computing is done server-side, we'd need only an average CPU and GPU. We'll see. As far as buying new aircraft and scenery. I'm sure little or nothing we have would be compatible. 

[188AHC 2,138]

I think this question is very premature. At this time, nobody outside MS can answer this question. 

If you need to repurchase then so be it. Either bite the bullet or no. Your choice. 

 

[bonchie 2,305]

6 hours ago, shivers9 said:

This will be true for many of us. With all the excitement, many seem to forget that P3d Ver 5.0 is going to happen before the MS release and that may give us a lot of new options also.

Been hearing that since V2.

I suspect V5 will be yet another small, incremental improvement with a lot more changing under the hood than on your monitor.

[rtodepart 761]

you gotta pay to play . Im ready for what ever MS brings up this comes with new changes . 

since FS95 till today I had blown so much money on simulator related things that i stopped counting . starting in  2005 sim spending got out of hand to the point i would be at a 2K to 3K a year on crazy multiple monitor setup and the like and that number has only climed every year trying to keep the current machine up to date and now with this 2020 thing coming im ready to start a new PC built again .

By the way i think im staring to compare P3D updates with apple new product releases . 

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by rtodepart

[Chock 17,769]

We may well have to buy some add-ons again, but at least we won't have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford a PC capable of running the thing, and here's why...

Ironically enough, for most people who've ended up having to get a 'sledgehammer to crack a walnut' PC in order to run FSX or P3D acceptably, this will probably mean they actually won't have to buy a new PC to run MS's new flight sim, since the new MS sim will be using the GPU to calculate most of the stuff it does, and you've probably already got one of the best GPUs money can buy. Even if it's not the very latest one, it's probably still very good as far as the average gaming PC is concerned. Essentially even though we might struggle for frame rates in FSX and P3D when we tick all its options and have every add-on known to man installed, the fact is, most flight simmers have what would generally be regarded as a 'kick@ss gaming PC'. So...

There is one very easy way to test this if you are curious: Download and install one of the latest online RPGs, or first person shooters games with decent graphics, or maybe War Thunder if you insist on what you install being a flight sim (the full client download is about 13Gb for War Thunder if I recall correctly if you go for the high resolution graphics option, but it is free so it wouldn't cost you anything to try it).

You will notice that War Thunder for example, has very many fancy advanced graphics options, including a good deal of post-processing and colour correction stuff which makes the kind of thing we get in XPlane, P3D and FSX look like something from a ZX81 Spectrum. Not only this, War Thunder (and online games like it) is streaming tons of data to your computer in real-time, since the battles are against other users, so if your computer can run this okay and your ISP can provide a decent enough connection to make that possible, and I'm betting if you have a decent FSX-capable PC you'll be able to do that no problem, the chances are you'll be able to run MS's new flight sim okay too.

War Thunder's Graphics options all selected on, on PC (note the bottom left clickable option where there is even more fancy post-processing stuff available, and yes, I've got a lot of that stuff selected too):

What was that getting me in FPS for an online battle with every fancy graphics option which War Thunder can possibly do turned on? (which they actually don't recommend unless you have a good gaming PC). Well according to FRAPS, which as we know takes your frame rate down when recording video, I had a constant solid 55 FPS when recording video at 30 FPS in full screen. Graphically, WT looks like this, so it's decent visually and compares pretty  favourably to what we've seen in those MS teaser clips:

Ultimately, MS are not spending all that money on developing a flight simulator so that a few nerds who've spent literally thousands of quid on a PC will be the only people who can run the flipping thing. Their new flight sim is in large part going to be aimed at the kind of people who would play War Thunder, i.e. gamers who like flying stuff, and so they are not going to aim a product at those users, who generally have a pretty decent gaming PC, only for them all to find that it runs like a slide show, because that would be commercial suicide. This is not a guess, it is common sense.

So yeah, we probably will have to buy some add-on again, but as was the case previously with versions of MSFS and P3D and XPlane, some developers were inclined to treat customer loyalty better than others, so it's an opportunity for them to play the long game with us all by doing that.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Chock

[Superdelphinus 718]

Possibly. Or it could be like Arma 3. 

[Dominique_K 10,149]

5 minutes ago, Chock said:

MS are not spending all that money on developing a flight simulator so that a few nerds who've spent literally thousands on quid on a PC will be the only people who can run the word not allowed thing. Their new flight sim is in large part going to be aimed at the kind of people who would play War Thunder, i.e. gamers who like flying stuff, and so they are not going to aim a product at those users, who generally have a pretty decent gaming PC, only for them all to find that it runs like a slide show, because that would be commercial suicide. This is not a guess, it is common sense.

I kinda love your demonstration. Common sense and all that.

And I remember.

FSX.

A huge promotional campaign on TV targeting families and casual gamers.

The rest is history. 

Sometimes, history repeats itself you know 😄

[G-RFRY 1,712]

3 minutes ago, domkle said:

I kinda love your demonstration. Common sense and all that.

And I remember.

FSX.

A huge promotional campaign on TV targeting families and casual gamers.

The rest is history. 

Sometimes, history repeats itself you know 😄

You mean most will still be using it 13 years later and loving it 😁