Prepar3D v5 or MS FS 2020?

[OzWhitey 3,353]

 

12 minutes ago, honanhal said:

With MSFS coming on the fairly close horizon, I was naturally inclined to hold off on upgrading from P3D v4 to v5. If v5 had turned out to be amazing, though, that would have been a hard decision to stick to until MSFS is actually released.

But it turns out it was a very easy decision to stick to! P3D v5 seems to be a dumpster fire between DX12 bringing back the joy of OOMs (in a new form), the lack of addon compatibility, and general instability. The new v5 clouds are genuinely a big step forward for P3D, but they can't even compare to what MSFS will bring in the weather department.

(Before the usual suspects jump on me: I understand that some people are having no problems with v5. But my feeling is I'd have to be nuts to pay for the privilege of rolling those dice, for gains that remain evolutionary, with MSFS close at hand.)

James

It's a "dumpster fire", based on exactly how many hours of using the sim? Oh, that would be - zero, like most of the other people on Avsim who like to tell us how bad the sim they haven't tried is (this phenomenon is actually getting better, but threads like this do seem to bring the v5 haters out of the woodwork).

OP, my advice is that if you're thinking about whether you should try v5, talk to people who have actually tried v5. You need decent hardware, but you're going to need that for MSFS at any rate. The only people who can tell you how MSFS and v5 stack up are not allowed to talk about it.

For my money, if you've already invested in the addons I think v5 is worth a go for sure. You're trading a bit of stability for better visuals and performance. It's now compatible with just about everything (FSL bus - tick PMDG NGXu - works already, but should have official installers next week, they were the two big missing items). Compatibility with your v4 addons will actually be excellent overall.

So, in short, if you've got the funds, consider giving v5 a go and see how you like it. If you're happy with v4.5 and in no rush to try something new, sure, wait til MSFS comes out. At the end of the day, as you know, it's a personal call.

 

 

 

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

I'm in the MFS Alpha and I own P3D V5.  It's really hard to answer without breaking a NDA but I have to say that I don't believe P3D is going to disappear the day MFS release. I think you will see a lot of curious mind trying it and go back to P3D to their favorite plane until all their 3rd party addons are converted to MFS. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by fogboundturtle

[BMW969 126]

The weather in 2020 is really out of competition. I think I will have to buy 3090Ti for all add-ons to work with 16Gb 

[peppy197 165]

5 hours ago, ha5mvo said:

Depending on hardware as well....

No point in going for p5d for anyone with a gpu of less than 8G vram.

Or RAM for  that matter.   Last  flight  I  reached 23G in usage, so if you  need to use virtual RAM  it  will s-s-stutter..     I  have 32G DDR4 = smooth-h-h

Edited June 30, 2020 by peppy197

[GCBraun 2,392]

I think there is no discussion on which sim has more potential. In any case, I am enjoying V5 a lot by using mostly my purchased add-ons. MSFS will need at least a year to be somewhat supported by 3rd. parties.

Edited June 30, 2020 by GCBraun

[OzWhitey 3,353]

17 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

I think there is no discussion on which sim has more potential. In any case, I am enjoying V5 a lot by using mostly my purchased add-ons. MSFS will need at least a year to be somewhat supported by 3rd. parties.

v5 is a lot of fun and, as you say, you get to use your existing addons with a bit better performance and better graphics through the use of EA.

Does MSFS have more potential? Yes. Prepar3d v5's strengths are that 1) it is available right now and 2) it has a huge back catalogue.

The timeframe for release and the timeframe for 3rd party support - and what that will look like - are the big unknowns.

MSFS is a massive, disruptive change to flight simulation. The LM team had to come out with something pretty impressive in v5, and I think the combination of DX12 and Truesky/EA keeps them in the game, but only just.

I actually moved to X-plane as my primary sim for a year or so after a comment you made about it having better VR. I'm back with P3D v5 now, because I like how that sim looks more than I like XP Vulkan.

If P3D, X-plane or Aerofly want to flourish, they're going to have to make some pretty rapid progress, and honestly Asobo are going to be a very hard team to compete against given the slow pace with which those three teams have been improving their sims.

 

 

 

[LHookins 3,103]

17 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

In addition, since MSFS isn't a released product and P3D V5 is ... how is it NOT rolling the dice with MSFS?

Mostly, because anyone currently flying in MSFS is doing so for free. 🙂 

Any time there's a new flight sim it's a gamble for early adopters.  How long before everything is stable, how long before all the add-ons you want to use are available, etc.  What are the compelling reasons to switch to the new flight sim.  In this case, I'm talking about P3Dv4 versus P3Dv5, and yeah, it applies equally to MSFS.

Right now I have a known stable flight sim in v4.5, lots of add-on aircraft I like, and no compelling reason to get v5 along with all the problems mentioned above.  I'm not ready to "roll the dice" with v5.

MSFS at its current state is somewhat of a curiosity, but a very enjoyable one.  The only gamble is that I won't like P3D after getting used to MSFS.

@honanhal, is this what you were talking about?

Hook

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

I don't think MFS is such a gamble at this point. Thousand of people have played the game already so they have a good idea of what's coming. It's just P3D v5 is a more mature product at this point.

[micstatic 4,319]

3 hours ago, fogboundturtle said:

I'm in the MFS Alpha and I own P3D V5.  It's really hard to answer without breaking a NDA but I have to say that I don't believe P3D is going to disappear the day MFS release. 

this exactly sums up my feelings. 

[honanhal 1,420]

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Have you personally tried P3D V5?  In addition, since MSFS isn't a released product and P3D V5 is ... how is it NOT rolling the dice with MSFS?  I'm not jumping on you, but your logic doesn't seem to flow and exhibits considerable BIAS.

Cheers, Rob.

No. I'm also not an MSFS tester. I fly P3D v4.

I genuinely don't think I'm being unfair here. Let me put it in these terms, leaving aside all the other factors (e.g. cost, addon compatibility, etc.) to make this as simple as possible. From what I've seen from others about P3D v5, if I buy it I can expect a range of possible outcomes from about 40% better than v4 (new clouds, better performance), to about 70% worse (crashes, errors, and worst of all, having to keep an eye on VRAM instead of just flying). It's impossible to know before you try it with your system, unless you have VRAM coming out of your ears. Sure, the outcomes aren't evenly distributed in that range, but I don't know ahead of time where I'm going to land, because user feedback shows a lot of unpredictability in outcomes.

When v4 came out that range looked more like 10% better (I guess maybe if you didn't use any addons so you were in no danger of OOM?) to 100% better. What did you have to lose by upgrading beyond the purchase price?

That's it in a nutshell. And you'll note that MSFS comes into this part of my logic not at all.

James

[Kilo60 660]

For me I'm not sure I want to repeat the dance from 4.5 to 5...

 

Trying to find all my digital certificates and hunting down numerous links to reinstall all of my add-ons just seem like a daunting task!

 

Although, I just received a new, much faster system, and now have a 2080 super (8G of Vram) so I'm still wondering if I'll get those nasty OOM's anyway (Planning on waiting for the 11G and up Vram cards prices to drop).

 

 

[LHookins 3,103]

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I don't understand this, so "cost" determines enjoyment level?

You know exactly what I'm talking about.  "No cost" means NO GAMBLE.  Why are you pretending that you don't understand?

Hook

[iFlySimX 751]

All I can say is just wait...I don't think people realize what MS is doing... Something INCREDIBLE is in the works. 

[LHookins 3,103]

1 minute ago, Le Français said:

All I can say is just wait...I don't think people realize what MS is doing... Something INCREDIBLE is in the works. 

MSFS isn't finished, it still has a ways to go.  But it's already incredible.  

In any case there will be people who still prefer P3D or XPlane the same way some still prefer FS9.  There is nothing wrong with this.  And there is no way to guess how long it will take to get our favorite aircraft available.

But the future does look bright.

Hook

[iFlySimX 751]

3 minutes ago, LHookins said:

MSFS isn't finished, it still has a ways to go.  But it's already incredible.  

In any case there will be people who still prefer P3D or XPlane the same way some still prefer FS9.  There is nothing wrong with this.  And there is no way to guess how long it will take to get our favorite aircraft available.

But the future does look bright.

Hook

I'm sorry but there is NO way someone will still prefer x-plane or P3D....I fly MSF2020 every day.