Prepar3D V4 - Should I keep it?

[james37611 3]

Hello all,

Coming back to Flight Simming hopefully now I have a PC that's a tad upgraded from my old dual core one, that wouldn't handle any payware add-ons, and have been well out the loop with simming. Even got P3D for the last PC, but it wouldn't even load it.

My new PC however takes P3D v4.5 in it's stride, uploaded the ORBX scenery on full max and it's good frames, tried a payware add-on, the temporary free Just Flight Hawk to see how it handles, and it's wonderful. Not got any other detailed add-ons yet, that's when the sliders will need to come down!

Now, I had FSX:SE on Steam before, it's still on Steam so I can download and install if I wanted to, and I have ORBX EU England, ORBX Southampton, Aerosoft A320 Pro, Majestic Dash 8, A few UK2000 airports and Aerosoft EHAM, EGGK, EGLL, EIDW and EDDF airports. Oh and REX, GSX (not the latest one), Real Traffic and VoxATC, though I'd be tempted to go back to WoAI, but that is only an FSX feature.

So I'd have to buy those again for P3D, not a great deal lost in some ways, but with P3D v5 out, I'm wondering is it worth investing in P3D v4.5, buying the above add-ons (bar Orbx) and then finding out anything new is for v5 and above, so would then need to buy v5 and then buy the add-ons yet again...

So only have the default P3D aircraft (and the Hawk until the end of April) so playing with those at the moment until I can decide what to stick with. P3D is running great at the moment, it's a shame that the Hercules is limited that you can't get a RAF one (not that I've found a reskin?) yet can get the full pack for FSX with the RAF Herc.

Just need some opinions, any personal opinions on flying in FSX vs P3D but I don't want any 'Ditch FSX for good, stick with Lockheed' posts without any constructive input! :)

If you were new to P3D like me, would you invest or stick with FSX for the time being until P3D v5 builds up?

 

Of note previously despite frame issues I never had any OOM with FSX:SE on Steam, but then I didn't do trans-atlantic, just UK to Europe, probably a 4 - 5 hour flight time at most.

Current specs are:

Windows 10 64 bit Pro
Intel i5 9600 6-core 3.7GHz
nVidea GTX 1660 at 6GB
16GB of RAM 

 

 

[Ricardo41 5,949]

If you're not having OOM errors, I'd stick with FSX Steam. To me, FSX Steam with all addons looks just as good as P3Dv.4.5. I switched because I was getting OOMs. 

Prepar3dv5 will take some time for all the bugs to be ironed out, by that time I'll seriously consider moving to MFS.

As someone who is almost never swayed by "release day hype" I usually take a wait and see approach, let overeager release-day buyers betatest for me, then reevaluate. 

My suggestion: milk FSX Steam for what it's worth, then see where things stand in about 8-12 months.Stay away from the (irrational) hype here.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I'd wait a few weeks to let the devs catch up and to see if anything heinous materializes in P3Dv5.  I think any compatibility issues will be sorted out in more like 3-4 weeks, not 8-12 months. 

 

[Egbert Drenth 250]

6 hours ago, james37611 said:

If you were new to P3D like me, would you invest or stick with FSX for the time being until P3D v5 builds up?

I would wait a few months, until devs have migrated their aircraft/scenery/utilities to P3D V5
(and also V5 service pack has been released)

[james37611 3]

Thank you guys!

Only thing is on FSX I struggled with Ultimate Traffic (sorry it was that I had not Real Traffic) as FPS really bought it down, it may have ended up with an OOM I can't remember, I worry if this may happen again, or I suppose otherwise World of AI would be easier...I had about 8GB RAM on the last PC, and a dual core 2.9 AMD, and an ancient GT730 GFX card, so a bit different to what I have now.

Also I know I'll be doing a lot of hops, but I suspect a couple of years down the line I might be tempted with a long haul, which I believe is when OOM's are likely to happen? The again maybe a good 777 or 787 will be available for P3D v5 and scenery, or maybe I could just get that for P3D v4...

Very difficult decision!

 

I agree is MSFS, I read (on here I think) about someone saying it would be a good 5 years before we have a reasonable collection of add-ons, then there's probably some bugs with it too (only maybe, not saying there will be), I certainly won't be jumping on MSFS on day 1.