No PBR or EFB update

[sivart2000 96]

From FSELITE; "

U

nfortunately, the announcement of MSFS has postponed this update that was previously scheduled for the end of 2019. PMDG has now announced they would likely not bring the EFB to the 777 and instead push the various fixes without it."

The assertation by PMDG that these features would be brought to the 777 is the primary reason I chose it over the QW 787 for my heavy long haul twin. I bult a computer specifically to take advantage of the full potential of the P3D 4.4+ SDK. And although at the time of building it, these features were not part of the 777, I found many posts in which the PMDG developers stated that this was going to happen. In fact, I submittted a post that specifically asks this question to which the answer was yes but with no time frame. From rsrandazzo; "

It will be brought into the 777. Not sure what the timeline is for that just yet- as we have quite a few moving parts at the moment." 26Feb2019. That is just an example, there are many more instances where this is asserted.

So now, I have to admit, I feel like I spent $140 US based on a promise by PMDG that is now not being followed through with. I bought the NGXu, which is phenominal, and after flying it and then sitting in the 777 cockpit, the 777 looks like a cartoon. Unfortunarely in the world of flightsim and software in general, the consumer has no recourse when a developer is disengenuous or provides a shoddy product. To be clear, I do not think PMDG's products are shoddy in fact they are the opposite, top notch. But, that is a different issue than telling a community that you are going to provide something, they spend a lot of money for your product, and then just decide; nahhh, we have more important stuff to do.

And a quick thought on MSFS2020. Everyone is super jazzed about this, it looks spectacular. I remain cautious about my optimism though. All that "spectacular-ness" will come at a price as far as computing power goes. Even with a top end machine, to run P3D with a top end PMDG AC and settings to give a truely good looking immersive experience, I still run 20fps sitting at the gate of FSDT KORD, with DD Chicago X. To get a truely smooth experience one needs to sacrifice traffic or shadows or autogen or some of all. If you think MSFS2020 is going to be better with the visuals and effect and a complex add on........................well, I'm very skeptical. I think we will see a lot of folks sticking with P3D.

[edpatino 1,960]

2 minutes ago, sivart2000 said:

And a quick thought on MSFS2020. Everyone is super jazzed about this, it looks spectacular. I remain cautious about my optimism though.

Don't forget MS guys have tremendous marketing experience. I remain cautious too, and I think we all should move on and continue enjoying our sim, the way they're now. Due also to internet limitations, I personally will stick with P3D, even after a successful release of MS2020.

Cheers, Ed

[sivart2000 96]

1 minute ago, edpatino said:

Don't forget MS guys have tremendous marketing experience. I remain cautious too, and I think we all should move on and continue enjoying our sim, the way they're now. Due also to internet limitations, I personally will stick with P3D, even after a successful release of MS2020.

Cheers, Ed

I also find the reliance on internet frustrating at times. Many of the P3D add ons wont run without an internet verification of serial number, etc. My feeling is, I paid for it so I should be able to use it at my leisure and sometimes that means with no internet connection. This is one of the reasons I have good old FS9 still loaded in my PC. Good to go anytime which is nice when the internet is down. 

[sivart2000 96]

Quick update; The official PMDG announcement stated "it is looking like we will instead do a rollup of recent changes to the 777 and push that, without making an effort at this moment to add the EFB" which included the "not at this moment. This was not included in the FSELITE announcement. I would however say that the PMDG statement is a bit like a girl saying maybe when you ask her out. It really means no. I will be extremely surprised if the EFB happens. 

If it is postponed long enough, the old 777 will probably be surpassed by much more advanced features thus requiring the purchasing of a whole new aircraft such has happened with the NGXu. Diabolical.

 

[threexgreen 3,135]

I understand your frustration with the situation of the 777, but I think everyone should be wary that this entire hobby comes down to software development. This industry is always subject to sudden upsets and radical change and while PMDG are working full time, they are still a smaller group of developers with limited resources. There is always the chance of roadmaps and development plans changing. As unfortunate as this is, they have their reasons and those are not to screw customers over. I also think you should post your sentiment at the PMDG forums so the team can weigh in on this if needed.

As for your performance concerns about MSFS, you don't need to have any. P3D, while better optimized, is still FSX and over 13 years old. There are entire dimensions between game development in 2006 and 2019. You simply can't compare P3D and MSFS. Plus, one could argue that FSX wasn't even fully optimized for the hardware available back then. There have been several occasions so far where MSFS was showcased to the public running on modest machines of i7's and 1060s at 60 FPS in 4k at the highest settings. Like I said, game development today is on a whole new level than it was back in FSX days. But this is off-topic.

[threexgreen 3,135]

11 minutes ago, sivart2000 said:

It really means no.

Quite frankly, it really doesn't. It means exactly what was said: things needing to be taken care of have disrupted the original plans and while the EFB update will come later as a result, they are pushing out other features and improvements in the meantime which I think they wouldn't even necessarily have to do.

[sivart2000 96]

Honestly, I don't quite understand what needs to be updated besides the PBR and EFB. Maybe The PBR is what is taking priority? They haven't said. If that is the case, I could muster more patience. The 777 is probably the most stable, glitch free product I own. Any bugs are super minor. I think to make it perfect, it just needs to be brought up to P3D V4.5+ standards. 

I am a bit cynical when it comes to developers I must admit. You get that way when you've been waiting 2 years for Traffic Global to come out of early access(after paying for it), paying for Skyline KCVG which is an unmitigated disaster, paying for other addons before they are ready for release to line the pockets of unscrupulous devs while they promise updates. Remember the days of optical media software? That junk had to be tested, finished and 100% usable before it was published!

Its not that I don't appreciate PMDG. They make the best FS software. I don't appreciate having a carrot put in front of my face that I may never get. If you tell someone you are going to provide a good or service and you fall behind, it is a bad business model to put off the customer. In the world that is not software development, where you see people face to face and have to provide a tangible good or service, you figure out a way to get it done or you go out of business.

[sivart2000 96]

25 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Say what? eeeer ... 

You got me confused ... are you talking about the NGXu or the 777?  NGXu has PBR and an EFB.  Or, are you saying PBR and EFB will not make it to the 777 for P3D because of MFS delays?  Not sure how MFS delays would have any relationship on the 777 for P3D?

I'm going to be flying P3D for many years to come, I have zero doubts about that ... so I'm puzzled about what you are suggesting PMDG is doing on not doing?

Cheers, Rob

Hello Rob! I used The NGXu as an example of applying so many upgrades that it is a whole new aircraft requiring a whole new purchase and that if the 777 upgrades are allowed to wait for any period of time, we may just be buying a whole new 777 as well.. I did buy the NGXu and it is amazing! But the updates in question (for the 777) are ones that have been promised for some time.

My original issue and reason for posting is that when researching to buy a long haul AC, I found posts by PMDG stating that the 777 would be getting a PBR and EFB update thus swinging my decision from QW 787 to the 777 in anticiapation of these upgrades. We now find out that that is all on the back burner because MSFS2020 evidently has caused PMDG to refocus or restructure development or some such thing. So, while they are issuing an update sometime soon, cough, we don't know what will be in it but we do know the EFB won't be. Also, no mention of PBR. I love PMDG but I don't like how this particular thing has been handled. It's been quite some time that these improvements have been promised but it feels like PMDG is in a panic to not miss the 2020 train at the expense of established, money paying customers. Just a bit frustrating.

[Captain Kevin 586]

One thing to keep in mind that most people weren't aware of until this was clarified later on was the person who was responsible for the development of the EFB passed away at the end of May, which meant the work ended up needing to be divided among other developers. This happened right in the middle of development for the NGXu.

[Snowfalcon 18]

Quote

PMDG 777 Updates:
I mentioned under a different header that the announcement of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator threw our entire development process for a loop. We had a carefully mapped out strategy that got tossed out the window shortly after the MSFS announcement- and we haven't yet nailed some of those pieces back to the board yet. For example, we had planned to do a late 2019 update to the 777 product line, which was planning to add the EFB and a batch of fixes we have accumulated since the product was last updated in 2018. This didn't happen- and with all of the chaos surrounding the development transition to MSFS, it is looking like we will instead do a rollup of recent changes to the 777 and push that, without making an effort at this moment to add the EFB- as that is a very large undertaking. I don't yet have a schedule for this- but the good news is that it shouldn't be terribly difficult (famous last words of the damned!) and will be a simple distribution via the Operations Center 2.0.

I'll let you know once I have an idea when this will happen...

EDIT TO CLARIFY SOME CONFUSION: When I originally wrote this, a few folks thought the above paragraph was intended to indicate that we have deleted the EFB from the 777 development agenda. We have not done this. We are merely de-linking EFB from the next update cycle in order to allow non-EFB updates to the 777 to flow out to users rather than holding them while we work on EFB. (EFB is taking longer than planned due to overflow in other areas of the workflow around PMDG...) So, yes- EFB is still planned...

PMDG is working on multiple products at the same time. Do to the Beta test NDA that is all I can say at this time.