Prepar3D v5 or MS FS 2020?

[Chock 17,769]

54 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Will FS20 have sliders ? That can be expected. Will we have to tweak its innards instead of simming. Hopefully not.

Some flight simmers are addicted to tweaking stuff and they'll do it even if it doesn't need to be done, often digging a hole for themselves in doing so and frequently ignoring the fact that the options sliders are the built-in tweak tools which have been tested so that they don't break the sim.

I can guarantee that when the new FS comes out, within five minutes, some of these people will be @rsing round with the thing, then they'll break it, then they'll be on forums complaining about it 'being unstable' or saying that it 'wasn't beta tested properly' or whatever. Frankly, those people get right on my t*ts.

And if anyone thinks that isn't true, have a look on the P3D Avsim forum at how quickly all the shader and other tweaking threads showed up the moment HF2 was out for V5, with people screwing around with stuff before they'd even had long enough to actually give the default program and its many options a decent try.

This sort of obsession with tweaking stuff is half the reason why people break their base simulators and it always has been. The new MS sim will be no different.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Chock

[Dominique_K 10,143]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

Some flight simmers are addicted to tweaking stuff

True, partially. But incriminating reckless techno-junkie or word not allowed users with a « they should know better » and/or the hardware overlooks the core, P3D. Again, the genuine question of the OP shouldn’t be dismissed by those who hope for a good competitive market between FS20 and a strong P3D.

And any case, the days after the release of the new sim will be a gigantic circus even before people start any tweaking . Where is my house ? I don’t see my house !🤣

 

EDiT the « word not allowed » is the adjective of the verb ignore, not a profanity by any means...

Edited July 4, 2020 by Dominique_K

[LHookins 3,103]

I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be before P3Dv5 is stable, much less mature.  

Many report running v5 without problems, but many others report problems that would be considered showstopper level bugs.  One post on the P3D forums quotes the head of PMDG as saying LM should have waited another year to release v5.  But given the imminent release of MSFS, they couldn't and still expect to sell enough consumer level v5 licenses to make it worthwhile.  I'm not blaming LM on this; they were backed into a corner.

If you have P3Dv4, cherish it.  Do not delete it.  Try v5 if you wish, but keep in mind that it may not be ready for prime time.  If it works for you, great.  Try MSFS when it is released, but keep in mind that version 1.0 of anything might not be as good as you expect, and it won't have your favorite aircraft.

If you are still running FSX or XPlane and considering P3D, v4 is stable and has a lot of working add-ons, while v5 isn't there yet.  You might prefer to wait until v5.1, or at least until Enhanced Atmospherics is out of beta.  Even after MSFS is released, some will prefer P3D, XPlane or even FSX and there is nothing wrong with this.  After all, some people still prefer FS9.

One problem will be that after you've experienced MSFS it may be hard to go back to an older sim.

Even without the prospect of MSFS on the horizon I'd be holding off on P3Dv5 at the current time.  As always, your mileage may vary.

Hook

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

41 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be before P3Dv5 is stable, much less mature.  

 

Well, we know that for P3DV4 it took until 4.5 HF2 or 3..

If that is a guide, we have only just begun with V5..

But guess what... Many of us traveled happily along the V4 journey all the way from v4.0. 🙂

V5 is no different.. just much better IMHO 😉

[Dominique_K 10,143]

7 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Well, we know that for P3DV4 it took until 4.5 HF2 or 3..

If that is a guide, we have only just begun with V5..

But guess what... Many of us traveled happily along the V4 journey all the way from v4.0. 🙂

V5 is no different.. just much better IMHO 😉

The only thing, Bert, guess what 😉... there is a new kid in the block who was not here when you "traveled happily" in the V4 journey. Will "the many of us " still be a large enough, sustainable market during the v5 journey ? 

[LHookins 3,103]

1 hour ago, Bert Pieke said:

Well, we know that for P3DV4 it took until 4.5 HF2 or 3.

I wouldn't know.  I stuck with P3Dv2 until everything I was interested in had been updated to work with v4, including a conversion I made to one plane that I flew a lot.  The first version I flew was v4.4.  By that time everything was already updated and stable.

For that one aircraft I had to extract the artwork from a .gau file (isn't this FS9 technology?) and create my own gauge code.  Along the way I did a lot of enhancements to implement my own version of Accu-Engine.  While another developer made a newer version of this same aircraft, very pretty with lots of gee-whiz features but a lousy flight model and lots of bugs, I can't stand to fly it and instead am flying the FS9 graphics with some of my own minor flight model enhancements.  I can't fix the new plane, it's too broken, but many love it.  Moral of the story:  It doesn't matter how pretty it is or how many new features it has if it doesn't work right.  Pretty is as pretty does.

I intend to stick with my working P3Dv4.5 hf2 until something better comes along.  Of course, my requirements for a flight sim are probably different from anyone else's, and as of today, July 4 2020, v5 does not fulfill those requirements.  

Hook

 

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

The only thing, Bert, guess what 😉... there is a new kid in the block who was not here when you "traveled happily" in the V4 journey. Will "the many of us " still be a large enough, sustainable market during the v5 journey ? 

Not to be too picky.. but the new kid has not arrived yet.. 😉

[LHookins 3,103]

There is no doubt in my mind that P3Dv5 will become a mature and stable platform and retain all its advantages.  It is also my sincere hope that in a few years there will be a P3Dv6+ with some new technology that surpasses what MSFS is attempting.

One problem today is that we have a race.  Will P3Dv5 get enough of its current problems fixed in time for the majority of new purchasers who are now on the fence to want to spend money on it with the release of MSFS approaching?  If you bought v5 today, you can expect to get at least 3 months of use before MSFS, and while that's plenty for some people, it's not enough for others.  Can LM still sell a P3D license when that time gets down to one month?  Honestly, I don't know.  I don't envy LM at this point.

The release of MSFS will be interesting.  As good as it is, it's still just a flight sim with all that implies.  There will be current P3D simmers who will wait to see what the feedback is like before purchase of MSFS, and some will decide to go with P3Dv5 instead.  By that time v5 should be in pretty good shape, and all our current favorite third party aircraft will likely be updated to run.  Maybe even Active Sky will work properly with v5. 🙂  (Sorry 'bout that)  Those are good reasons to fly P3D rather than MSFS.

MSFS has all its own advantages and should be successful in any case, and won't notice the number of people who stay with P3D.  It might take a while to get our favorite aircraft in MSFS versions, and we'll have to find new favorite aircraft.  But I'll still say this:  flying in the boonies is mind boggling.

Hook

[n4gix 4,947]

4 hours ago, LHookins said:

For that one aircraft I had to extract the artwork from a .gau file (isn't this FS9 technology?) and create my own gauge code. 

No, .dll (aka: .gau) files are still very much alive and well in FSX and P3D, and will almost certainly remain useful in MSFS, albeit in a somewhat different fashion.

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

Can LM still sell a P3D license when that time gets down to one month?  Honestly, I don't know.  I don't envy LM at this point.

Maybe LM don't honestly care one way or another, since we are not - and never have  been! - their target market. I honestly doubt that "total sim sales" amount to much more than a rounding error on L-M's balance sheet.

We are to be sure a valued resource for beta testing for their commercial and governmental contracts. We're simply convenient folks who're just delighted to pay for the privilege! 😋

[LHookins 3,103]

1 hour ago, n4gix said:

No, .dll (aka: .gau) files are still very much alive and well in FSX and P3D, and will almost certainly remain useful in MSFS, albeit in a somewhat different fashion.

Well... the 32 bit .gau file didn't work very well in the 64 bit P3Dv4. 😄 I'm surprised that P3D would still use them, but I've never dug into the internals to see how they work.  Creating the .xml files to drive the gauges was easy.

I'm certain that LM won't care about a few lost sales, but what I meant, and probably what I should have said, was "Will people still buy a license when the wait gets down to one month?"  I guess I gave away that I still often think in business terms rather than consumer terms.

Hook

PS.  Merrill Pass was pretty cool and *much* better than in P3D. 😄 

[Dominique_K 10,143]

7 hours ago, n4gix said:

No, .dll (aka: .gau) files are still very much alive and well in FSX and P3D, and will almost certainly remain useful in MSFS, albeit in a somewhat different fashion.

Maybe LM don't honestly care one way or another, since we are not - and never have  been! - their target market. I honestly doubt that "total sim sales" amount to much more than a rounding error on L-M's balance sheet.

We are to be sure a valued resource for beta testing for their commercial and governmental contracts. We're simply convenient folks who're just delighted to pay for the privilege! 😋

You say two different things.

P3D is most certainly a minute revenue for LM.

But the common wisdom that LM does us a favor is yet to be proved. How do you know that the consumers market is so unimportant compared to institutional sales ? To the best of my knowledge, LM does not publish the financial data to assess their relative parts. With no data to check, I see that as a marketing argument to deflect user criticisms.

On a related topic do you think that the institutional buyers were happier than the simming community by the release of v5 ? Do you think they relish in tweaking FFTF, frame limiters, AM, do they use 30 Gz monitors and so on and so forth ? What will we happen when MS has stabilized FS20 and starts selling on the institutional markets ?

As a simmer who has used P3D for seven years and be happy with it, I wish that they did a better job that marginally improve the core leaving some FSX not so good legacies, graft not even ready modules and release a version with glaring flaws.

There is a need for a true overhaul and enhancement. Lets hope for v6 as v5 looks so far like a miss.

10 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Not to be too picky.. but the new kid has not arrived yet.. 😉

indeed but you spoke of a journey for the whole shelf life of v4, until 4.5+++. The new kid should move in way before v6. If the FS20 release is bumpy and 5.1 reasonably playable, P3D may have a chance... if FS20 fulfills its promises that is going to be harder. As always the truth should be half between.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Dominique_K

[G-RFRY 1,712]

I have lost count of the number of things MS has dropped in the past 30 years FS being one of them Mobil phones over a billion wasted, they change tack at the drop of a hat and if the Phil Spencer plan does not payoff that too. 

And Phil is not competing with Sony he is more worried about Amazon, They have made inroads into the film industry and they have big plans for gaming.

Edited July 5, 2020 by G-RFRY

[honanhal 1,420]

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

MSFS was announced a long time ago and new P3D/XP aircraft, scenery, and many other DLC continue to be released.  So DLC movement for MSFS is going to be slow and cautious and not immediate. DLC providers  will need to see some significant sales numbers before allocating resources.

I think there are understandable reasons DLC creators might be cautious in moving to MSFS — especially if there’s doubt about the SDK or uncertainty about the way addons can be sold, say.

But sales numbers? From what we’ve already seen, there’s no scenario in which early sales figures for MSFS don’t exceed — handily — every copy of P3D ever sold (ok, licensed). There’s going to be a massive marketplace, even if MSFS turns out to be a huge disappointment. What percentage will buy addons? That’s a genuine question. But even if it’s a fraction of one percent, that’s still going to be a larger addon market than exists for legacy sims.

And by the way: what percentage of existing P3D and Xplane users will buy MSFS? I think it’s at least 90 percent, likely higher (not saying here they will necessarily dump their existing sims, just that they’ll also dabble with MSFS). So you also have to take that addon market into the MSFS accounting, which by definition is comparable to the addon market for legacy sims.

To be blunt, any addon creator who’s adopting a wait-and-see approach to MSFS solely because they don’t think it’s going to sell more copies than the niche legacy sims may want to reconsider their business career.

James

[LHookins 3,103]

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Why...

Bizarre.  Truly bizarre.

Hook

[LHookins 3,103]

35 minutes ago, honanhal said:

To be blunt, any addon creator who’s adopting a wait-and-see approach to MSFS solely because they don’t think it’s going to sell more copies than the niche legacy sims may want to reconsider their business career.

I really like P3D (at least version 4) but given the potential market for MSFS DLC I think I'd be working on that sim instead, or at least side by side development for both sims.  If I currently had a P3D product being sold, I'd be working on a way to get it into MSFS.  If my product had no place in MSFS I'd be looking for a new product to make rather than trying to discourage people from getting MSFS.  It's not like anyone could influence enough people to matter.

PMDG has already committed to making aircraft for MSFS, and Orbx has apparently found a niche to exploit.  We're gonna need lots of aircraft, that's for sure.

Hook