Is 4.5 to V5 Worth it? (opinions request)

[rob0203 689]

4 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Playing Devil's Advocate here.....if you are totally happy with your flight simulation experience in P3Dv4.5, why not carry on enjoying it, and only upgrade when you have to? In other words, when stuff that you really want will only work in v5?

That’s why I still fly Fs 95 😂

[BillW 210]

I would wait. I personally see very few real improvements and some bugs. I don't see the need to rush. Wait for updates.

 

Bill W.

[SAS443 1,723]

I fly GA in v5 (JF Warrrior II, A2A Cherokee + C172), and commercial aviation in v4.5

I prefer the looks of v5. Can't wait for the airliners  to be v5 ready.

[Sethos 4,346]

I personally think it's worth it, as v5 runs better, really like the new atmosphere / TrueSky implementation and there's a lot of future potential with the platform. That said, I would probably wait for the first hotfix or two, because it has some glaring issues at the moment. 

[Noel 4,503]

3 hours ago, dpcnh1 said:

Does V5 make enough of an difference / improvement for the cost and more importantly for the time-cost to rebuild a sim?

Thanks in advance...  Dave

v5 is the continuing saga of FSX (and earlier) and so in this regard, w/ the fabulous content in scenery, weather, atmospherics, and everything else already in your install, my sense is it's really just the same sim w/ some improvements once again as w/ all of the myridad incremental updates LM has produced.  Will it, after it various issues are hot fixed, be absolutely an improvement over 4.5?  I would assume absolutely.  But again, it's the same exact product.  No new ATC which many clamor for, and I don't know if they brought the built in crude flight planner up to date is it is about the same vintage as the default ATC is, and all planes will be the same, etc etc etc.   Were ATC upgraded I think I would have believed the 24h of install and configuration effort plus $199 was worth it.  Since 4.5 is nothing short of marvelous already and performance is stellar already and I have the same build as you do, I'm going hold pat w/ 4.5 and wait for something that is actually fundamentally very new to debut and that would be MSFS.  If MSFS bombs for some reason I would consider then moving on to 5.x.

[shivers9 1,174]

Just observations and not really advise. These are based on 4K monitor use. So far with P3dV5 It seems to me that those who have 11GB video cards are having much better results. Things will likely get better with HF1 coming soon. I don't think that optimization will make things so that all of the sudden an older card is going to, like magic, start acting like a new Vid card especially if you don't have the discipline to turn down a lot of the sliders and settings. This has always been true with every flight simulator. This "Truth" is going to hit a lot of folks right between the eyes when MS2020 or whatever it is called get released. You see many folks in the forums who are dreaming that their older equipment is going to run like new with the "new coding". Trust me on this one....there is going to be a lot of screaming when the first version of that gets released. Is Prepar3dv5 a step forward in performance? Yes it is and very smooth to boot IMHO. Is it magic..No it is just another step farther down the road.

Edited April 29, 2020 by shivers9
Added based on 4K monitor.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

26 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

So far with P3dV5 It seems to me that those who have 11GB video cards are having much better results.

I am quite happy with how V5 performs with my 8 GB GTX 1070.

Typical VRAM usage for me is 4-5 GB with a 1080 monitor, GA aircraft, and Orbx scenery.

[shivers9 1,174]

1 minute ago, Bert Pieke said:

I am quite happy with how V5 performs with my 8 GB GTX 1070.

Typical VRAM usage for me is 4-5 GB with a 1080 monitor, GA aircraft, and Orbx scenery.

Good point Bert. I tend to forget that I am running 4K and everyone don't do that. LOL I will do an edit.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

But again, it's the same exact product.  No new ATC which many clamor for..

ATC was not redone, but other things like outdated airports, coast lines were..

So, depending on what you wanted most, you could be disappointed, or pleased

[cwburnett 1,809]

I've been mostly flying my GA aircraft in v5, since I've been trying to just use v5 compatible aircraft, or those that live entirely outside the sim like the Realair Turbine Duke.  I built an add-on.xml to add all of the components of Flight Sim Jewels Hawaii Photoreal into v5 and layer them properly with the FSDT Hawaii airports AND ORBX Honolulu. It is nothing short of stunning.  I have FSXWX running for weather for now, which has been working good enough so long as I stay out of the flight levels...

Also flying around Florida and the west coast with ORBX regions.  Here are some shots:

Hawaii Photoreal: https://i.imgur.com/woHg6qQ.jpg

Puget Sound/Everett w/ORBX PNW: https://i.imgur.com/WfxcLnV.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/eDNTBkq.jpg

LVFR+Free DD Miami City X: https://i.imgur.com/cvvaIPt.jpg

If you can moderate your settings and live within some confinements of what's stable in v5 (which is, for sure, much less than v4.5), you can have some great flying experiences while we wait for LM to iron out the bugs... There are some ugly warts in v5 that LM needs to work out, but even so, I found myself disappointed by performance and visuals when going back to 4.5, so I removed it and went all-in with v5.  I am living with the limitations for now and have been really happy to take the time and revisit my GA aircraft and airports.

So if your thing is GA + visuals, I'd say dive in.

BTW, these are all in 4K with an 8GB GPU.

Edited April 29, 2020 by cwburnett

[mtr75 653]

1 hour ago, cwburnett said:

I've been mostly flying my GA aircraft in v5, since I've been trying to just use v5 compatible aircraft, or those that live entirely outside the sim like the Realair Turbine Duke.  I built an add-on.xml to add all of the components of Flight Sim Jewels Hawaii Photoreal into v5 and layer them properly with the FSDT Hawaii airports AND ORBX Honolulu. It is nothing short of stunning.  I have FSXWX running for weather for now, which has been working good enough so long as I stay out of the flight levels...

Also flying around Florida and the west coast with ORBX regions.  Here are some shots:

Hawaii Photoreal: https://i.imgur.com/woHg6qQ.jpg

Puget Sound/Everett w/ORBX PNW: https://i.imgur.com/WfxcLnV.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/eDNTBkq.jpg

LVFR+Free DD Miami City X: https://i.imgur.com/cvvaIPt.jpg

If you can moderate your settings and live within some confinements of what's stable in v5 (which is, for sure, much less than v4.5), you can have some great flying experiences while we wait for LM to iron out the bugs... There are some ugly warts in v5 that LM needs to work out, but even so, I found myself disappointed by performance and visuals when going back to 4.5, so I removed it and went all-in with v5.  I am living with the limitations for now and have been really happy to take the time and revisit my GA aircraft and airports.

So if your thing is GA + visuals, I'd say dive in.

BTW, these are all in 4K with an 8GB GPU.

I just don't understand how you guys got the water to look like that, in particular. I added FlyTampa St. Maarten and UTX Caribbean and flew around the eastern Caribbean where I normally fly, and the water in v5 looked absolutely comical. I see these gorgeous screenshots, and I just don't understand. Are you using a shaders program?

[cwburnett 1,809]

2 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

I just don't understand how you guys got the water to look like that, in particular. I added FlyTampa St. Maarten and UTX Caribbean and flew around the eastern Caribbean where I normally fly, and the water in v5 looked absolutely comical. I see these gorgeous screenshots, and I just don't understand. Are you using a shaders program?

No shaders for me.  Other than Enhanced Atmospherics=on

Settings: https://i.imgur.com/kgPETTd.jpg  https://i.imgur.com/cnru8LF.jpg  https://i.imgur.com/8StFlpE.jpg

Could be just related to the water masking in the individual sceneries. There doesn't seem to be any water masking in the ORBX regions (at least in PNW), so that's (I think) just plain P3Dv5 water. The Hawaii photoreal definitely has water masking, which is evident in the shot of Maui.  I've actually found that when flying higher, I prefer water set to a lower setting (like medium) for a slightly less comical look...  But I would guess that UTX and FlyTampa maybe didn't update the masks to look quite right with the new water versus the old water? Dunno.  I'm just happy to be rid of the obvious water color tiles I had, despite my efforts to the contrary, in past versions of P3D.

[mtr75 653]

6 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

No shaders for me.  Other than Enhanced Atmospherics=on

Settings: https://i.imgur.com/kgPETTd.jpg  https://i.imgur.com/cnru8LF.jpg  https://i.imgur.com/8StFlpE.jpg

Could be just related to the water masking in the individual sceneries. There doesn't seem to be any water masking in the ORBX regions (at least in PNW), so that's (I think) just plain P3Dv5 water. The Hawaii photoreal definitely has water masking, which is evident in the shot of Maui.  I've actually found that when flying higher, I prefer water set to a lower setting (like medium) for a slightly less comical look...  But I would guess that UTX and FlyTampa maybe didn't update the masks to look quite right with the new water versus the old water? Dunno.  I'm just happy to be rid of the obvious water color tiles I had, despite my efforts to the contrary, in past versions of P3D.

It's a mystery then. Well I'm going to see how the reviews of the first hotfix are, maybe I'll give it another go. Just fired up v4.5 again and gorgeous as always. Then again Environment Force is absolutely crucial for me. Maybe once REX is in the v5 game it will be better. 

[Noel 4,503]

With all due respect as you're seeing the differences first hand, but those photos don't look different than what I'm seeing in 4.5 w/ the various weather and texture additions we all have by now save the photo real Hawaii as I don't have any PR scenery.  The cloud coloration in the first photo I see on a regular basis and w/ at least as much or more drama to the scene it's shocking how much it's improved over v3.4.  I know you're a veteran 4.5 user so surely you're duly impressed by 5 but again, those just don't look any different to me than what I already have.

[CFIJose 5,485]

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

I just don't understand how you guys got the water to look like that, in particular. I added FlyTampa St. Maarten and UTX Caribbean and flew around the eastern Caribbean where I normally fly, and the water in v5 looked absolutely comical. I see these gorgeous screenshots, and I just don't understand. Are you using a shaders program?

In v4, I use PTA to enhance the water color.