3 hours ago, Mace said:

It won't matter to you anyway though, as in most aspects of GA flying outside of A2A GA flying, the new sim will be outstanding, and in that we'll have the A2A Aero Commander soon enough, too. 

Thanks for the info.  I wasn't asking to compare to MSFS.  I am trying to find out if it's worth $200 to upgrade from v4.5 for *me*.  

I have been saying all along, "Don't delete your old flight sim."  I may be the only person on Avsim saying this.  What I am trying to find out is if my "old flight sim" should be v4.5 or v5.  

I have read many posts about a performance increase in v5, but the results tend to be pretty varied and not necessarily dramatic.  I'm not willing to pay that kind of price for a 5% to 10% increase of frame rates when what I have is working for me.  If everyone were getting a 50% increase I'd take notice.

----

So tell me about the mesh.  Is there any improvement in autogen?  Have they done anything with ground textures (especially desert terrain)?  I know about the cockpit flashlight.  I don't care about additional detailed airports unless they're small ones like Yakutat (which is somewhat above standard anyway) as I avoid large airports.  Are there any additional high definition cities?  Is there anything I haven't thought of?  Note that I am only interested in default P3D, not in add-ons except Active Sky and aircraft.

Because there are still lots of reasons to stick with P3D.

Thanks.

I have high hopes for P3Dv6. 😄 

Hook

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by LHookins

15 hours ago, Mace said:

Hours of tweaking?  Where did that come from?   v5HF2 has no tweaking.   I have not had to do a thing to it.

My guess is he mis-stated the issue:  it's HOURS OF INSTALLATION when it comes down to it, for example in my P3D 4.5 install I did maybe 5 months ago now:

1.  Install P3D 4.5.  Easy Peasy!  Not a tweak required save inserting the correct AM for my needs.

2. Update ORBX Control Center or whatever it's called.  Now this entails a boatload of updates to all of the many sceneries I bought from them.  Hours of install time.

3.  Now download and install compatible versions of all of my aircraft from PMDG, Majestic, Carenado.  Every ones needs some setup and customization!

4.  Now download and install compatible versions of all of my other 3rd party airports, FSCaptain, ASN4, REX Skyforce, ETC ETC ETC.

So while there may not be a whole lot of 'tweaking' there is an insane amounts of downloads, installs, and setup for every single one of these!  In fact, enough so that I purchased a 2nd NVME M.2 2TB stick so that I could clone one and have an instantaneously available boot that works w/o out the need to install all of that ever again!  HOURS N HOURS N HOURS before it's all restored to perfect.

3 hours ago, Noel said:

My guess is he mis-stated the issue:

Did he though.  

There's been enough misinformation put out about P3Dv5 in the last couple of months to fill 10 years worth.  And of all places, it's invaded HERE now, in the P3D subforum.  I expect that sort of thing in Hangar Chat or MSFS subforums, but not here.  

And noel if you think there won't be install after install with any sim...well...I have a bridge to sell you.

I can't help but wonder why there is so much discussion of our right to ask a simple question --and/or our motivation in doing so.   Perhaps someone is interested in simply providing a usable answer.  We already know that "any sim" will require installation after installation.  The question is what justifies the installation of *this* sim.

To put it as simply as possible:

There is undoubtedly a cost in time and money of installing v5.  We are simply asking what that expenditure buys us -- in demonstrable terms.

Can someone simply post a "before and after screenshot" or two showing the dramatic improvements that are being touted.  I know there are many shots on this subject that have been posted in various places, but none of them seems to show a very marked improvement.

This is simply a request for information--not an attempt to start an argument or foment a controversy.

I'm just in the finishing stages of a rebuild with both P3Dv4.5 HF3 and P3Dv5 HF2 installed in parallel on their own SSDs.  A third SSD awaits MSFS.  A full rebuild here is a 4-5 day job, 12-hours a day.  300+ add-on sceneries and more than 20 add-on acft.

What I see with v5 is better distribution of the workload across the CPU cores, with some of the work that used to slam the main thread on the first core (autogen?) now running on the third and fifth cores.  As a result, I can fly a tubeliner through ORBX SoCal into KLAX smoothly for the first time.  And that annoying big pause as airport scenery loads while approaching the field is conspicuously absent, too.  I have been able to bump up the autogen LOD distance and density while keeping frames above 30 fps to feed my Vsync-30Hz monitor.

The UTC vs local time mismatch bug on scenario startup seems to be fixed.

The GPU is clearly more heavily loaded in v5...good to see its expensive capabilities being leveraged.

I don't use the EA...that feature was never that important.  If/when ActiveSky can get it under control, and if/when its VRAM use doesn't put the sim session in peril of a VRAM OOM crash, then maybe I'll tinker with it.

On the down side, the AA seems to have taken another hit with DX12.  I was able to run 4xSSAA with no NI tweaks before...now in some places (e.g. ORBX Bozeman) 8xMSAA + 8x transparency SS (in NI) is needed to get a half-presentable AA configuration.  I'm hoping this is a DX12 thing that can be improved.

 

Thank you, Sir.  This is the kind of information I was looking for.

Hook

Thanks to w6kd for taking the time to provide the detailed and granular analysis of the differences between the versions.  This is very  close to what I was looking for and helps a great deal in making a decision.  

Your response was an objective and balanced appraisal of what can be expected on a near state of the art system.

I would still be interested in any comparative screenshots that v5 users may be willing to post.

Thanks again

 

1 hour ago, TASCHMANN said:

Thanks to w6kd for taking the time to provide the detailed and granular analysis of the differences between the versions.  This is very  close to what I was looking for and helps a great deal in making a decision.  

Your response was an objective and balanced appraisal of what can be expected on a near state of the art system.

I would still be interested in any comparative screenshots that v5 users may be willing to post.

Thanks again

 

I am not sure that any one screenshot will give you what you are looking for.. but in my experience, V5 is less "cartoonish" than V4.5. 

Here a comparison at Cushman Meadows.. note that V4.5 has less depth, when you look at the trees in the foreground vs the background..

Major difference... maybe not.. depends on what you are looking for..

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by Bert Pieke

Thanks Bert.  This is exactly what I was asking for.  Very helpful.

13 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

I am not sure that any one screenshot will give you what you are looking for.. but in my experience, V5 is less "cartoonish" than V4.5. 

Here a comparison at Cushman Meadows.. note that V4.5 has less depth, when you look at the trees in the foreground vs the background..

Major difference... maybe not.. depends on what you are looking for..

More brightness in the second screenshot. By moving the brightness/bloom slider you can make them look (almost) identical.

I really do not see any issue or problem here ( 6 pages .... )

14 minutes ago, GSalden said:

By moving the brightness/bloom slider you can make them look (almost) identical.

Look on the right side of the screen.  The second shot shows more haze attenuation, which looks more natural.

Hook

36 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Look on the right side of the screen.  The second shot shows more haze attenuation, which looks more natural.

Hook

Shaders have changed but with brightness/bloom you will get them very identical.

 

20 hours ago, Mace said:

And noel if you think there won't be install after install with any sim...well...I have a bridge to sell you.

No I think noting of the sort.  Is it worth the install and setup time let alone the $200 if you're honest, or the $60 if you are fine with misrepresnting your use under the EULA, that is the question for those who are immenently happy with v4.5 and are on the fence regarding setting up yet another version of P3D, so it's completely relevant.   Now it may be for YOU, and many others, but it will not be for everyone. 

"A full rebuild here is a 4-5 day job, 12-hours a day.  300+ add-on sceneries and more than 20 add-on acft."  I rest my case.  And further, while Bob's detailed overview highlights some of the improvements in v5 over v4.5 it does zero to inspire me to cough up another $200 to help reduce 'long frames', essentially.   

Edited August 8, 20205 yr by Noel

36 minutes ago, Noel said:

No I think noting of the sort.  

You literally said that though:

 

On 8/7/2020 at 8:41 AM, Noel said:

 HOURS N HOURS N HOURS before it's all restored to perfect.

That's not going away with any sim.   Finis.

5 minutes ago, Mace said:

You literally said that though:

Quote please