10 minutes ago, Reader said:

Of course I am not a moderator but I believe that NDA stands for Non Disclosure Agreement. I think therefore that disclosing even the fact that one is subject to such an agreement would be disclosing something. It would also provoke an avalanche of questions to which NDA would forbid answers and do nothing at all to satisfy the apparent obsession with the need to know all about something that does not yet exist. 

 

 

This.

I have a hard time trusting someone who is making insinuations, but declines to go into details, claiming he couldn't because he was under an NDA.

 

Right now all we have to look forward to is a pretty sim. If Carenado was to develop a flight sim it would be called MSFS2020.

P3D v4.5 is A2A & PMDG quality even though a few bugs still need to be addressed.

The tittle of this thread came without a shred evidence. We "experienced simmers" know better.

16 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

This.

I have a hard time trusting someone who is making insinuations, but declines to go into details, claiming he couldn't because he was under an NDA.

 

Same here

42 minutes ago, Reader said:

Of course I am not a moderator but I believe that NDA stands for Non Disclosure Agreement. I think therefore that disclosing even the fact that one is subject to such an agreement would be disclosing something. It would also provoke an avalanche of questions to which NDA would forbid answers and do nothing at all to satisfy the apparent obsession with the need to know all about something that does not yet exist. 

 

 

Maybe so.

Avsim policy has been set by people who know the rules of the industry though, don't you think ?.  Any speculation, thought, critic, praise, going in one sense or another, is good to hear if as Jim puts it one "can see where you are coming from when posting."  NDA are great things but couldn't be an excuse to hide that you are an associate with P3D or XP or < choose your addon developer who can be threatened by MS new baby>. 

 

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by domkle

I'm out as soon as FS2020 hits. P3D is such a pile of garbage just like MSFS before it. Sick of just being stuck on one core.

43 minutes ago, domkle said:

Maybe so.

Avsim policy has been set by people who know the rules of the industry though, don't you think ?.  Any speculation, thought, critic, praise, going in one sense or another, is good to hear if as Jim puts it one "can see where you are coming from when posting."  NDA are great things but couldn't be an excuse to hide that you are an associate with P3D or XP or < choose your addon developer who can be threatened by MS new baby>. 

 

Hello Dominique,

I doubt very much if Jim meant to include anyone bound by an NDA, rather he clearly includes those who might trumpet support for a product without revealing that they are associated with it, when they could or indeed should do so.

If trumpeting support for a product is any guide at all, then 99.9% of those who post into the "MSFS2020" forum must be beta testers.

Nevertheless, dependent entirely on the terms of an NDA, it may well preclude even admitting that one is a tester. Of course one cannot say whether one is familiar with the terms of such an NDA without disclosing that one has read it and therefore must be such a tester or otherwise associated. Catch 22 don't you think?

I do admire the stupidity of those who apparently are testers but cannot resist telling the world, or at least apparently reddit. One has to wonder, over here and I expect everywhere else, people who actually have done exceptional things tend not to speak about them, whereas those are entirely unremarkable but need the world to think that they are not, tend to talk incessantly of their make believe exploits.

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by Reader

28 minutes ago, Reader said:

Hello Dominique,

I doubt very much if Jim meant to include anyone bound by an NDA, rather he clearly includes those who might trumpet support for a product without revealing that they are associated with it, when they could or indeed should do so.

If trumpeting support for a product is any guide at all, then 99.9% of those who post into the "MSFS2020" forum must be beta testers.

Nevertheless, dependent entirely on the terms of an NDA, it may well preclude even admitting that one is a tester Of course one cannot say whether one is familiar with the terms of such an NDA without disclosing that one has read it and therefore must be such a tester or otherwise associated. Catch 22 don't you think?

Hi Reader

Supporting is not only bubbling repetitive praises. You can support the products you are closely associated with by denigrating the competition 😏. And why not ? I am all for it, freedom is expression, but a NDA is not a fig leaf.  If you beta test or consult for a competitor, it should be clear. 

On another matter, and I am certainly biased as a frequent participant there, there  are some robust discussions on the FS20 from time to time, about the autogen, the trees, the relief etc. And interesting technical discussions. I am afraid you caricature a little bit what it is😉.

 

Hello Dominique,

an NDA may not be a fig leaf but it may well be a clear instruction to keep one's status private. If one is subject to such an NDA then the correct thing to do is keep quiet, as instructed. As I mentioned, we do not know the terms of the Microsoft NDA and therefore are not qualified to state whether or not those who are subject to it will be in breach if they reveal their status.

I do agree that if there is not such a bar, then a tester should reveal their allegiance before posting comment on their own or another's product, whether positive or negative. Given the number of those who insist on denigrating the existing simulators in favour of the proposed new one, should I revise my estimation of the number of testers down from 99.9% to exclude them?

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by Reader

19 minutes ago, Reader said:

Hello Dominique,

an NDA may not be a fig leaf but it may well be a clear instruction to keep one's status private. If one is subject to such an NDA then the correct thing to do is keep quiet, as instructed. As I mentioned, we do not know the terms of the Microsoft NDA and therefore are not qualified to state whether or not those who are subject to it will be in breach if they reveal their status.

I do agree that if there is not such a bar, then a tester should reveal their allegiance before posting comment on their own or another's product, whether positive or negative. Given the number of those who insist on denigrating the existing simulators in favour of the proposed new one, should I revise my estimation of the number of testers down from 99.9% to exclude them?

Here is a kind of a preview of the MSFS NDA that is shown when applying for the Alpha.

https://www.flightsimulator.com/guidelines-nda/

It doesn't say anything about not being allowed to state you are part of the Alpha, but obviously it isn't the full NDA which will probably be part of the final admission to the Alpha.

I agree that either a tester is allowed to say he is a tester, then he should reveal it when posting here. Or he is not even allowed to say he is a tester, then he should just remain silent and just stay away from the forums.

 

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by RALF9636

A NDA is not a fig leaf per se but it can be used as one, or so it seems. 

My experience of the FS20 forum is that the participants denigrating existing sims are a minority. The « regulars » know better than that. A lot of old simmers.  I generally put the obnoxious types rather rapidly on my ignore user list. But do the sins of some excuse the sins of others anyway  ?

EDIT To be perfectly clear, I respect what a NDA is and will never ask anybody to breach it but I find rather unpleasant that some distill venom under its cover

 

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by domkle

59 minutes ago, VBHB said:

I'm out as soon as FS2020 hits. P3D is such a pile of garbage just like MSFS before it. Sick of just being stuck on one core.

I am sorry, but I strongly disagree here.

1. My Prepar3d is not stuck on one core. In hard terrain, core 0 is working between 90-100%, but the remaining ones (of my 4+4) are between 60 and 80%. Given core 0 does all the management, I feel this is a healthy relation. I am not a software engineer but I doubt you can (and should) have all cores working at 100% all the time. If your Prepar3d is running on core 0 only it's misconfigured, perhaps by a faulty AM.

I observed core management to be an area where LM has worked quite successfully to the better, notably during the 4.x versions.

2. Having set out with FS4 in 1991 and followed all MSFS (and some XP and other) sim versions inbetween I just can't call my present Prepar3d4.5 a pile of garbage. I just bought the new Rhone Alpine package by France VFR a couple of days ago, and boy, does it look great. Just have a look at their hompage (https://www.francevfr.com/product_vfrra2p3d.htm), and no, the shots are not doctored and I can double them.

This doesn't mean I would eat my words about long-standing issues of Prepar3d above, but sometimes it's goo to see things from a perspective - what has been achieved and what is left to do.

Kind regards, Michael

2 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Let me add some more of the immersion-breaking fundamental flaws of P3D:

- rain that looks like a star trek warp jump

I agree with your list.
Let me help you, or anyone else who still suffers from this problem with rain.

I found a post somewhere desribing how to remove this problem:
 

Quote

1. Locate the PrecipParticle.fx file in P3D4\ShadersHLSL
2. Create a backup of that file. Don't come crying if you break it without a backup!
3. Open the file and locate the following block of text:

//Control how long streaks face and how big they are.
float height = cb_fQuadSize * cb_fQuadSizeHeightScale;
float width = cb_fQuadSize * cb_fQuadSizeWidthScale;

4. Divide the height and width of the rain particles by adding the following code (highlighted in bold). You don't HAVE to divide both, experiment to your liking!

//Control how long streaks face and how big they are.
float height = cb_fQuadSize * cb_fQuadSizeHeightScale / 3;
float width = cb_fQuadSize * cb_fQuadSizeWidthScale / 3;

5. Save the file
6. Locate the Shaders folder in %LocalAppData%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4
7. Delete the Shaders folder
8. Load the simulator and enjoy your new rain!

A sim-changing experience!

 

1 hour ago, VBHB said:

P3D is such a pile of garbage just like MSFS before it. Sick of just being stuck on one core.

No, just no.
You're doing it wrong if you believe that P3D is only a one-core program.
 

On 1/25/2020 at 7:13 AM, Rob_Ainscough said:

Fair enough I guess we disagree in some aspects and agree in others.  Sorry if I sounded "irked" wasn't my intent ... perhaps just getting tired of these types of threads being repeated over and over and over.

Understandable. My pet peeve is the "no buy until FS 2020" crowd.
A close second is the unnecessarily pessimistic crowd, bashing MSFS for being just 'visuals' or speaking with almost certainty that MSFS is going to suffer at launch, just like FSX did.

I call both out, for both groups polarise and antagonise what is a relatively small community.

If P3D v5 makes a compelling argument for me to buy it, I will, so long as most of my current add-ons will work with it. Otherwise I'll stay with v4 and top-up with any add-ons that will improve it.

MSFS will take some time to mature into the sim that does everything that P3D v4 does currently and more. However, it is the sim that excites me most.
 

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by F737NG

5 minutes ago, F737NG said:

Let me help you, or anyone else who still suffers from this problem with rain.
 

Thanks for that! Will give it a try.

 

5 minutes ago, F737NG said:

My pet peeve is the "no-buy until FS 2020" crowd.
A close second is the unnecessarily pessimistic crowd, bashing MSFS for being just 'visuals' or speaking with almost certainty that MSFS is going to suffer at launch, just like FSX did.

I call both out, for both groups polarise and antagonise what is a relatively small community.

If P3D v5 makes a compelling argument for me to buy it, I will, so long as most of my current add-ons will work with it. Otherwise I'll stay with v4 and top-up with any add-ons that will improve it.

MSFS will take some time to mature into the sim that does everything that P3D v4 does currently and more. However, it is the sim that excites me most.
 

Amen to that. Thanks for adding a balanced and sober perspective to the discussion.

On 1/24/2020 at 9:16 AM, Cognita said:

I had this same thought a couple of months ago. Why would Lockheed Martin continue with P3D when they can have access to what certainly seems to be at this point a much higher quality platform with substantially greater fidelity. And I am confident that this commercial market segment is an important one for Microsoft, likely generating far more revenue from MSFS than from individual users paying a relative small price or agreeing to a subscription. Of course we do not really know what the new MSFS will be like, but all the signs are promising, and if I was operating a related business I would be looking carefully at the new platform and not investing more in P3D.

P3D can (with an appropriate license) be used for real world training - not only for aviation, but for other scenarios.

That is not the case with any of the previous incarnations of the Microsoft simulator (FSX, FS2004 etc), sold to the general public for “entertainment”. The associated software license has always carried a restriction that the product is not to be used for real world flight training. I’m sure the new MSFS will carry a similar restriction.

That’s not to say that LM could not license the underlying technology of MSFS for incorporation in their own product, but they would probably lose most non-professional customers. The main reason P3D has been the “go to” flight sim in the last few years is because Microsoft stopped development of the FSX line, and P3D offered continuing improvements of the core ESP code - (especially 64 bit compatibility, which was a game changer).

The thing that might prevent LM from adopting MSFS technology is the fact that it is heavily dependent on downloading data in real time from Microsoft owned-and-operated Azure servers.

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by JRBarrett

For Europe I use pr scenery + custom AG only so for me MSFS ground looks formiliar ....

P3Dv4 : 

Edited January 26, 20206 yr by GSalden