P3D or FSX?

[JoshFunnell 1]

Hi all!

So this is my first post on AVSIM. I've been an avid simmer for years, but I had been running FSX (along with a medley of addons) at about 15 FPS on a 2015 Lenovo desktop until 2017 when the processor literally melted. Three years later, I've bitten the bullet and bought a pre-built PC (my tech skills aren't quite up to building one myself). 

The specs are:

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G - 4-Core 3.7GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo

1TB Seagate BarraCuda SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM

16GB (2x8GB) DDR4/3000mhz

ASUS A320M-K: M-ATX Motherboard

240GB ADATA Ultimate SU630 2.5" SSD

GeForce GTX 1660 - 6GB

Obviously not looking for any criticism or suggestions on the hardware here as the PC has already been ordered; however, I am just wondering whether I should stick to FSX:SE (and my Orbx, UK2000, Aerosoft and PMDG addons) or invest in P3D? Ideally, I'm looking for performance related pros and cons here, as FSX does everything I want it to in terms of realism.

Regardless, looking forward to getting up into the virtual skies in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks,

Josh

[yellowjack 28]

I had both FSX and Prep3Dv4 up on separate PC's . About a month ago when P3Dv5 mad its appearance I decided that it I had a good run with FSX and it was time to say goodbye (although I did keep a backup on a plug in disk). Then I went and put Prep3Dv5 up on the PC with v4 and  been flitting between v4 and v5 since. I have fond memories of FSX but it didn't take too long to get absorbed in in Prep3D.  The one thing I miss from FSX is quick editor I had for doing minor changes to airports quickly and easily it was called AFX and I wish I could buy an equivalent product for Prep3D. You must make your own choice but taking a backup copy of FSX on a removable device is an option to try the water out without drowning.

[PhotoReal Earth 93]

I would never ever run a flight simulator on hardware below the recommended system requirements.
The minimum is much to optimistic and even the recommended system requirements are very optimistic = unsufficient if you want to improve the sim with some fine addons.

    

    

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by PhotoReal Earth

[JoshFunnell 1]

Fair enough, I didn’t realise P3D was so resource intensive! I’ll stick to FSX!

[mpw8679 428]

14 minutes ago, JoshFunnell said:Fair enough, I didn’t realise P3D was so resource intensive! I’ll stick to FSX!

Don’t get caught up in the system requirements.  Your PC will run V5 probably better then FSX.  Right now the big hurdle with V5 is GPU memory.  You’ll have to keep a close eye on your settings with a 6 gig card.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

And that requirements table understates the FSX RAM requirements, and overstates the P3D RAM requirements..

What is true, is that P3D uses more GPU power and VRAM than FSX.

[Chock 17,769]

First up, welcome to Avsim.

FSX is good but even in its Steam Edition form which was recompiled and souped up slightly, it is still a 32 Bit program, so it is unfortunately on a hard limit of a maximum of 4Gb virtual memory allocation and there is nothing which can be done about that. P3D finally escaped that limitation in 2017 when version 4 was released.

Now even though you say that FSX does everything you want in a sim, unfortunately what it will also do when you get your shiny new computer, is crash when you crank up the detail levels with a bunch of fancy add-ons such as the ones you have, because it will reach that VAS limitation for sure. Even though your hardware can easily handle the stress, that 32 Bit limit of FSX is insurmountable.

You new computer will easily run P3D version 4, and it will easily run version 5 too. The only potential issue you might have with running version 5 (and I stress MIGHT have, not absolutely certainly will have) is if you use the (presently a beta feature) TruSky atmospherics, since that could well take your VRAM usage up to a point where your computer runs out of GPU guts. However, that might only happen if you start pushing things graphically to really excessive limits. But it will happen for sure if you try that with FSX, and that is a certainty.

So my advice would be to give P3D a go. Just be careful not to go overboard with your detail settings and steer clear of using the TruSky beta option (which visually is a bit cack anyway at the moment). I'd put money on your computer running P3D V5 just fine at settings which you'll be more than happy with, and at some point in the future, two things will happen: P3D's developers will get their VRAM usage under control for TruSky by optimising it properly, making it potentially less critical for 6Gb cards, and, you will probably look at getting a fancier GPU with more VRAM, and either of these occurrences will make you glad you stopped using FSX which was bombing out on your new computer and struggling to get good frame rates anyway. 

FSX is 14 years old. It served us all well, but it's just not suited to modern hardware, nor to the expectation levels which steer the production goals modern add-ons for your flight sim shoot for. The simple truth is, you'll be driving up a technology cul-de-sac if you keep on using FSX, and your computer is well able to use the far more modern P3D, so it makes no sense to do that. Running FSX on your PC would be like buying a Dodge Viper, putting the wrong fuel in it, then driving it in first gear to the local shops and wondering why the engine has exploded before you even got halfway there.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Chock

[JoshFunnell 1]

On 5/19/2020 at 12:02 AM, Chock said:

 

Thanks for this seriously in depth reply. I really appreciate it.

 

What sort of frame rate do you think I can expect from FSX or P3Dv5 with my set up? Ball park figures would be appreciated. Obviously I appreciate I'd probably struggle with a PMDG 777 at LHR with Orbx England and GSX running, I'm a little concerned I haven't done my research quite well enough here.

[Chock 17,769]

40 minutes ago, JoshFunnell said:

What sort of frame rate do you think I can expect from FSX or P3Dv5 with my set up? Ball park figures would be appreciated. Obviously I appreciate I'd probably struggle with a PMDG 777 at LHR with Orbx England and GSX running, I'm a little concerned I haven't done my research quite well enough here.

If I were to suggest a figure, we'd be going well into W.A.G. territory (wild-@ss-guess). And that's because, leaving aside the add-ons, which will make a big difference in how things run too of course, a big factor in what frame rates you get is what resolution you choose to run the simulator at; this is where a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot. There is no denying that running everything in super-duper high resolution will make things look pretty, but if doing this is at the expense of stability and frame rates, then it's not a smart thing to do and whilst not having your sim running in 4K is not as pretty as doing so, it's not as if running it at a standard resolution looks terrible, and in comparison to having run FSX at 15 FPS on a small laptop screen, as you said you were doing, standard definition on your new PC is probably going to look brilliant by comparison.

The trouble with flight sims is, people find a setting which their sim runs well at, then they don't content themselves with that. Instead they think, 'hmm, it runs okay on these settings, so I think I'll push it a bit more...' and so on, until they end up with something which crashes or locks up or runs like a P.O.S. and the next thing you know, they're all over the internet on forums saying 'this software sucks' when what they really mean is, 'I'm stupid and can't leave those option sliders well alone when I had previously had them on the best settings'.

You stated that you had been used to running FSX on a Lenovo laptop and whilst your FPS was not stellar, it was if not the most enjoyable experience ever, then at least one which afforded you some enjoyment, so it seems to me like you are an eminently sensible chap who can accept that sometimes you have to drop those option sliders a bit to get some enjoyment out of a flight sim. So I'm willing to bet that if you keep the resolution down to a standard setting rather than going for 4K at very large pixel dimensions, you'll be more than happy with not only how it looks, but also how it performs.

Coincidentally, I do also have a Lenovo laptop, which I don't use much, but one of the things which is installed on it is P3D V4 so that if I have to travel about, I can have a bit of a fly around on things, and that thing  runs P3D V4 pretty well.

Back to that W.A.G. though, since you asked for one, here goes... I am inclined to think that in P3D V5, on your shiny new computer, if you had all the sliders at the middle position, and you didn't go mad with the screen resolution and did not choose the TruSky option (which as I say looks a bit cack anyway, so that's no great loss as it stands), you'd probably get 50 FPS flying around and it'd drop to maybe 25 when you came in to your fancy airport.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Chock

[Charlatan 68]

25 minutes ago, JoshFunnell said:

Thanks for this seriously in depth reply. I really appreciate it.

 

What sort of frame rate do you think I can expect from FSX or P3Dv5 with my set up? Ball park figures would be appreciated. Obviously I appreciate I'd probably struggle with a PMDG 777 at LHR with Orbx England and GSX running, I'm a little concerned I haven't done my research quite well enough here.

Only thing I will say, for about £10 more than the 3400G you could have had the 3600, a 6c/12t chip, instead of 4c/8t 3400G.  You've paid a premium there for the 3400G's onboard graphics which you aren't using.  P3D would make decent use of the 1660, however FSX would probably have been fine with the onboard.

P3D has a 14 day money back guarantee.  May be worth getting it and trying it.  Your Orbx will work with it.

 

[JoshFunnell 1]

23 minutes ago, Chock said:

 

 

.

 

 

Thanks for this! You’re right. Frankly I’ll be happy to run the sim in 720p if it would push up the frames. I’ve only ordered two 40hz Samsung HD Monitors so frankly anything too intense won’t make a difference anyway. 
 

I think I’m being overtly worried about something I’ve spent a lot of money on. I should suspect I’ll be fine! 

[Chock 17,769]

1 minute ago, JoshFunnell said:

I think I’m being overtly worried about something I’ve spent a lot of money on. I should suspect I’ll be fine! 

Aah, well in that case, you can either go with this response, which is undeniably serious although not always entirely rational, or when that feeling of buyer remorse threatens to kick in, you can simply go with this response instead. 🤣

[JoshFunnell 1]

11 minutes ago, Chock said:

Aah, well in that case, you can either go with this response, which is undeniably serious although not always entirely rational, or when that feeling of buyer remorse threatens to kick in, you can simply go with this response instead. 🤣

My god, I laughed an awful lot at that!

[Ray Proudfoot 8,955]

21 hours ago, JoshFunnell said:

Thanks for this! You’re right. Frankly I’ll be happy to run the sim in 720p if it would push up the frames. I’ve only ordered two 40hz Samsung HD Monitors so frankly anything too intense won’t make a difference anyway. 
 

I think I’m being overtly worried about something I’ve spent a lot of money on. I should suspect I’ll be fine! 

Josh, just to clarify those HD monitors will be running at 1920*1080, not 720. That went out yonks ago.

[PhotoReal Earth 93]

Josh,

I'm very astonished that nobody of the P3D guys have warned you that P3Dv5 still has severe problems and that LM has announced another hotfix (can take some weeks) and that they are waiting for a Win 10 update to solve the problems with DirectX12.

So here I give you some links to get informations about these problems:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/575497-p3dv5-running-out-of-vram-all-the-time/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/573151-p3dv5-excessive-vram-usage/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/573411-p3d-v5-ctds/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/575580-p3dv5-hf2-next-hotfix-in-the-next-couple-weeks/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/575154-lets-be-more-critical-of-p3d/

And let me add that MS / Asobo have announced that there will be a legacy mode to run FSX addons in the new MSFS (MS2020). So your investments in FSX would not be lost, but surely your investments in P3Dv4/v5. Several important developers have announced, that they have switched to MSFS and would not develop for P3D furthermore.

So if I were you I would first adapt your existing FSX to your new PC (adjust your settings), get some good photorealistic sceneries (freeware or payware) and buy the one or other new (recently released) aircraft addon which runs both in FSX and P3Dv4/v5. Than make a lot of screenshots and note your frames per second (informations about speed, height and fps with Shift+Z), so that you exactly know what you can expect from FSX on your new PC.
After that you can give P3Dv4 a try and when the problems with P3Dv5 and DirectX12 are solved, you can give P3Dv5 a try. As they have told you, LM gives you a 14 days money-back guarantee. Be aware that a clean (default) flightsim without addons always runs better than with a lot of addons loaded for the flight.
So it's necessary to compare under the same conditions.
And if you try P3D why not trying MSFS in the alpha tester program?

If you don't like to experiment I would happily stay with FSX for these few months until MSFS is out and until there are enough reviews to make a good decision for the next future.

And to be honest: I would not buy a car from those guys telling you that your PC probably will run P3Dv5 better than FSX, whilst you can read so much about the enormous hunger of P3Dv5 and DirectX12 for graphic card memory and about all the other still existing severe problems. If you understand what I don't mean.

The next ???vendors / social media managers / influencers??? are waiting to talk you into ugly landclass sceneries, I can bet every sum.
You would not be the first one who was talked into P3D and orbx, spent a lot of money, got bad results (strange looking Frankenstein textures, plopping trees and buildings, ugly coloured trees and bad performance with microstutterers and regularely short pauses, low fps, ...) and left frustrated our fascinating and multifaceted hobby.

So if you are happy with what you've got I would not let me talk into big investments, especially now in 2020: with the release of MSFS all cards are remixed.
May I add 2 links how fine FSX is looking with good photoreal sceneries:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/572289-12-pics-mixed-potpourri-with-photoreal-landscapes/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/572331-fsxpr-12-pics-paris-the-city-of-love-and-romance/

Just a last hint: maybe Aerofly FS2 could be another alternative to look for, especially if you like VR.

Stay sane and always good landings whatever your choice will be
Torsten