P3D v5 is DX12

[mikced76 57]

I feel the same. I enjoy P3d v4 very much right now and with the addons I have purchsed over the years its pretty darn realistic so no real reason to upgrade until MSFS2020 given the new rather pale features in v5.

Edited April 7, 2020 by mikced76

[Benjamin J 751]

Well, I for one did not see it coming so suddenly, out of the blue, so quickly...

A couple of people are reacting with disappointment, but I think you should keep in mind but every version had incrementla imrpovements. v4 wa s alittle weird in that point updated included some pretty major stuff, and so it probably make sit seem like v5 is not a step up. but honestly, isn't the rework to Dx12 a really major thing?? I get it, it's more of  a back-end thing, but so was 64 bit. I have no idea whether Dx12 will enable the sorts of improvements that 64 bit gave us, but I certainly hope so. I cna only imagine that the improved skies are a direct result of the co-option of Dx12.

It's also great to hear that sloped runway will be a default thing now, and I'm looking forward to see how exactly this cna be implemented, both by other develoeprs,a s well as myself 😉 Frankly, I found it major frustrating as a scenery developer that sloped runway haven't worked by default so far. since it really changes some aspects of the scenery. Of course, I wonder how this will affect the creation of ground polies (the runways etc that you're driving over), which so far have always been completely flat - now they won't be of course.

I look forward to this, and I see myself buying it. However, I do NOT look forward to configuring the sim, as my current P3Dv4 setup works very well... Of course, because everything is via addon.xml, I hope I can literally just apply my current scenery library to v5!

[CFIJose 5,485]

1 minute ago, Benjamin J said:

Of course, because everything is via addon.xml, I hope I can literally just apply my current scenery library to v5!

That would be something.

[chapstick 2,757]

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm back!  😉

If I stopped buying products because they didn't include a feature or two I desired or fixed XYZ, I wouldn't be flying the virtual worlds in any current flight simulator including MSFS.  Moving to the DX12 graphic engine is looking to the future and not staying in the past ... as most know, LM provide 2+ years of free updates that improves the base product.  LM has always been about giving content providers opportunities and retaining as much compatibility as possible without compromising the product's progress.  If anyone is interested:

Cheers, Rob.

Planning any comparison videos showing performance between V4 and 5?

[Amon1973 1,421]

7 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

 

A couple of people are reacting with disappointment, but I think you should keep in mind but every version had incrementla imrpovements. 

Things have moved on though with the competition making an Generational leap in many respects especially MSFS and Xplane 11 less so, which meant to compete LM needed to make a large leap in the sims capabilities themselves.

Edited April 7, 2020 by eaim

[simbol 5,774]

15 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

Of course, because everything is via addon.xml, I hope I can literally just apply my current scenery library to v5!

 

14 minutes ago, DJJose said:

That would be something.

That is exactly how tested lot of stuff! 🤐

[YoYo 374]

What about VR? Does it work in v5 not worse like in v4.5 ht2?

[Benjamin J 751]

2 minutes ago, eaim said:

Things have moved on though with the competition making an Generational leap in many respects especially MSFS and Xplane 11 less so, which meant to compete LM needed to make a large leap in the sims capabilities themselves.

You're very right! But I do think it's misguided to assume that v5 is going to be like MSFS, which is what some people seemed to think... I think it's also worthwhile considering that MSFS's route may really not be for everybody. Photoreal sounds great, but I can see it being a nightmare for some with slow connections. Even my connection, which is usually fine, has it's moments of slowness. And it sounds like downloading enough data for a good offline representation is either going to take a lot of disc space, or be rather underwhelming. So, P3D's 'ancient' landclass system may not be a bad idea. it all depends on the data that is used!

Meanwhile I did some looking around the release notes, and found some little things that I'm really quite excited about, outside of the obvious things:

• Updated time zones to match real-world boundaries. About time!!
• Updated over 24,000 airports with new data across the entire globe. Very welcome - even if the buildings may still be default, at least it's great that we get some updates. Some of the Navdata was ancient and unusable. Can you imagine actually flying into FAOR instead of FAJS???
• Updated global terrain, elevation, water/shoreline data, and traffic routes. Also great! I just wonder about the resolution of this data. As I mentioned above, for LC-based scenery, data resolution is very important.
• Added surface perturbations to 2D water.
• Added SIDS and STARS visualization support for gauges. I'm not too sure what this means for SIDS and STARS support in general, but the fact that it gets mentioned is great!
• Updated runway surface textures to 4k PBR textures/Updated various airport and land class textures/Updated various road, railroad, stream, shoreline, and wake textures/Updated taxiway signs to use PBR textures. This is a good thing - it means that PBR is officially taking over the P3D world on a large scale. That said, with EnvTex and the likes probably updating their texture sets, I'm assuming the default textures will not be around for too long.I can only hope developers such as EnvTex have been included from the beginning, so that upon release we have access to third party updated PBR tetxures!
• Adjusted autogenerated building height Jeez FINALLY. I wonder about the trees, though?
• Scenery Library items can now be dragged to different locations. This made me curious, even if I have no idea what it means.
• Fixed environmental forces for turboprops. Similarly, don't know what that is, but anything that fixes turboprops is a good thing...

And from a developer point of view:

• Airports can now be created with sloping runways. I'm really immensely curious to read how this was implemented in the tools.
• Updated the Autogen Editor UI. Thank god.

Given that P3D versions have always had somewhat incremental improvement, I'm really quite happy with what I'm reading!

[simbol 5,774]

What is my favorite thing from V5? nobody is going to ask?? 

Ok.. here it goes.. bear in mind I have access to all current sims being on A, C, RC, etc.

My favorite thing under V5 are the clouds!!!, they feel so real than under IFR conditions you must really pay attention to your instruments or you will be in trouble! it is difficult to describe with text, but I got disoriented many times flying in clouds during my tests because I was "looking outside" to report back at LM and not looking my instruments.

This never happened to me with any other sim (including V4).. so if you enjoy IFR.. you will love V5.. plus the clouds really looks stunning.

S.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by simbol

[Benjamin J 751]

11 minutes ago, simbol said:

 

That is exactly how tested lot of stuff! 🤐

That is AWESOME to hear. Man, am I glad I invested all those hours in getting my scenery library set up the right way...

[simbol 5,774]

1 minute ago, Benjamin J said:

That is AWESOME to hear. Man, am I glad I invested all those hours in getting my scenery library set up the right way...

Just do a copy of the .XML, copy it to Prepar3D V5 Add-ons and you are done.. providing it is backward compatible now it works now on both sims..

However it is always advisable to ask the original developer for an update. My add-on's will be updated to do this on behalf of the user, plus other changes that are require to make things work "visually" correctly.

S.

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 513]

@simbol what about performance, it is better than v4.5?

[simbol 5,774]

Just now, otreblA said:

@simbol what about performance, it is better than v4.5?

I answered this here:

 

[simbol 5,774]

Just to give a grasp of how much interaction LM has had with developers, even ADE (Airport Design Editor) has been updated to work with V5 as the developer of this wonderful tool is part of LM Beta team and kindly updated the tool so other devs could use it to edit and test their add-on's for V5.

S.

Edited April 7, 2020 by simbol

[flyblueskies 142]

Any word on mesh and terrain popping? Would be great if that too is better...