Just Fired up P3dV5 for the first time since installing MSFS

[Noel 4,544]

I'm doing IFR flights in the TBM930 and it's functioning as it should.  For me, oddly it's not so much lack of better aircraft, to be honest is the VISUALS!   They are a real mixed bag of positive wonderment right down to "Geez, that looks really cruddy!"   There is a kind of softness/blurriness despite high settings.  Visibility seems like it needs tweaked to give more clarity to the foreground (than it already shows, and it does) to help give more of a sense of depth.   I flew in smoky Nor Cal yesterday and it just looked too homogenized for 400 miles of air time, as if air currents play no role in affecting visibility.  And yes it may well have looked more 'real' than P3D might have.  But a few days ago when the fires were really blazing even more I flew P3D using FireFIghtFX and to me it looked so much more plausible--lots of variablity in the visibility levels all over.   I just TO out of KPDX/PNW to KMSO at dawn in P3D in the NGUx and it was nothing short of gorgeous.   So far for me, MSFS visuals can range from really remarkable and photoreal, to ugly, and everything in between.   In many ways I'm still preferring the IQ in P3D, even if it's less photo-accurate. 

So right now I'm still enjoying learning camera setup in MSFS (what i wouldn't give for unobstructed views in all directions from the pilots location (by hitting W in P3D I get that), and do enjoy the photoreal part for sure, but still IQ needs work still in MSFS.  Also, MSFS as I'm set up has much more frequent periods where the CPU gets nailed for 3-4 seconds as it attempts to load the next big scenery tiles, then settles right back down to relaxed good smooth performance. 

Happy to have MSFS as the return of what started the whole show, and clearly it has serious promise.  If I had to delete one sim right now, or keep one forever w/ no hope for future releases, absolutely it would be P3D, even if a few high end planes showed up for MSFS.  It needs work in some key areas.  I hope HiFi gets in on it as well as REX.  I find clouds and atmostphere look far less realistic in MSFS than in P3D w/ REXSF and ASN4.  I miss crisp edged HD cloud textures.  Seems like all MSFS clouds are soft edged, which is fine ut once again, too homogeneous looking to me.

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Noel

[Recognition 91]

For me now,  its 100% P3dv5 and back in the PMDG QotS II😀

[Pe11e 812]

I will say just one thing - immersion in v4/v5 is amazing! I'm talking about pure immersion of flying, feel that you actually control one complicated virtual flying machine, like 737 or A320. Even GA planes from A2A feels like a real breathing machine that you must take care of.
In MSFS the planes feels like toys, at least for me. Real pilots can say that physics of default MSFS C152 or C172 are pretty good, but that doesn't mean anything for me if the flying itself isn't properly immersive, let alone VERY IMMERSIVE like in v4/v5. If I add the fact that I can customise P3D to such a tiny details to pinpoint and suit my perception of an ultimate immersion, such as - visuals, sounds, cockpit views shaking and vibrations, enhanced air turbulence strength/frequency with EZDOK v3, amazing addons that will inject the feel of live breathing machines like FSLabs, PMDG, A2A, etc, offline ATC addons that are pretty good (like PF3), crew interaction addons, etc. I can even customise how my Buttkicker will react via specific apps. When you summarise all of the above factors, every single one customised to suit your matter of preference, you will certainly get the ultimate sim! That is practically the answer why P3D will be active in my world for months, or even years depending how MSFS will grow as a simulator.
Talking of MSFS, visuals and scenery doesn't mean nothing to me if the planes feel like toys, if I don't have a feel that I'm actually flying virtual airplanes. Admittedly, cockpit camera with that horizon hold effect that can't be disabled doesn't help at all, and a couple of other factors too. I usually end a MSFS flight with a "meeeh" comment, but ending every P3D flight (if every addon worked as advertised) with "well, that was nice!" comment.
To finish the story, P3D biggest problem is that must be bombarded with addons so we can enjoy it, starting from scenery, clouds, sky and other BASIC elements. In MSFS basic elements are already there, but the most important thing - "immersion of flying" is lacking. For me, since it is called Flight Simulator, is a big no no at the moment. I'm waiting and following the development and kinda cheering for it for succeed because it is really a next gen platform.

Thank you for sticking around and reading my comment. 🙂

Cheers!

Edited September 6, 2020 by Pe11e

[micstatic 4,337]

Just did a flight on vatsim with v5. Was fantastic. Bdl-yul in a pmdg 738. Nice having chaseplane also. Performance was perfect. I still love this sim 

[pinepix62 64]

I think I figured out the most significant difference in the style of the sims. MSFS is meant to be flown from the chase view outside the cockpit (3rd person view most gamers prefer) so you can see the landscape around you while still seeing most flight parameters on the gauges provided while P3D is meant to be flows from the pilots seat in a first person view. 😃

[Noel 4,544]

14 hours ago, Pe11e said:

In MSFS basic elements are already there, but the most important thing - "immersion of flying" is lacking. 

I can relate to this but I'm not exactly sure why, and it's not necessarily a consistent impression I get either.  For example, I flew the TBM930 from PHKO>PHLI last evening and was really impressed with so many elements of the entire experience.  That plane doesn't feel like a toy plane to me and its flight modeling in many ways seems more plausible than what I get in P3D even in the wonderful Maj Q400.  Not saying the Q400 as a total package is lesser of couse, but for how the plane behaves in the air the TBM930 is giving it a run for its money.  It is a real mixed bag, MSFS is, but it is a killer start of a new platform and yes I hope it continues to evolve.  It needs mostly fine-tuning of its basics:  clouds and visibility need seriously more variability than they show now.  All skies look essentially the same in MSFS right now.  Cloud types seem like they are all the same.  Perhaps HiFi and REX can play in this and add this level of variability.

The built-in flight planner is pretty impaired.  Can't believe you can't chose your own VOV-to-VOR routes it seems you're stuck with their canned routes only, though you can delete waypoints.  Hopefully I'm missing something.

[threexgreen 3,152]

Adding my two cents, I think it's likely I and many others will switch to MSFS in the future as their main sim for both VFR and IFR. But it's not there yet in terms of IFR where P3D (with addons, mind you) is for me. So P3D v5 is still my main sim while I'm following MSFS as well.

Yesterday, I flew the NGXu in VR from KSFO to KDEN. Departed a busy KSFO in daylight and arrived at KDEN in the dark. It was yet another really immersive and realistic flight experience. That's what MSFS needs to get to to win me over and the first step is by adding VR this fall. At some point next year the NG3 will follow and by then IFR capabilities in MSFS will also probably have evolved to provide a richer airliner experience.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

5 hours ago, threegreen said:

Adding my two cents, I think it's likely I and many others will switch to MSFS in the future as their main sim for both VFR and IFR. But it's not there yet in terms of IFR where P3D (with addons, mind you) is for me. So P3D v5 is still my main sim while I'm following MSFS as well.

Yesterday, I flew the NGXu in VR from KSFO to KDEN. Departed a busy KSFO in daylight and arrived at KDEN in the dark. It was yet another really immersive and realistic flight experience. That's what MSFS needs to get to to win me over and the first step is by adding VR this fall. At some point next year the NG3 will follow and by then IFR capabilities in MSFS will also probably have evolved to provide a richer airliner experience.

MSFS might evolve. But it's not really designed for hi-fidelity airliner flying. I'm not convinced that the performance will be there for the smooth VR you want without significant sacrifices, and am also unconvinced that streaming orthoscenery can ever match ortho coming off a fast SSD.

There's a lot of talk that these problems will be fixed, but it remains highly speculative. Maybe it'll turn into a full-depth IFR sim, maybe it won't.

I'm happy with P3D v5 for most of my flying for now, with some sightseeing/gaming with MSFS when I'm in the mood for that.

 

[Pe11e 812]

1 hour ago, OzWhitey said:

MSFS might evolve. But it's not really designed for hi-fidelity airliner flying. I'm not convinced that the performance will be there for the smooth VR you want without significant sacrifices, and am also unconvinced that streaming orthoscenery can ever match ortho coming off a fast SSD.

There's a lot of talk that these problems will be fixed, but it remains highly speculative. Maybe it'll turn into a full-depth IFR sim, maybe it won't.

I'm happy with P3D v5 for most of my flying for now, with some sightseeing/gaming with MSFS when I'm in the mood for that.

 

Scenery streaming was never the issue. Try to slew the airplane fast around certain area, ortho and autogen load pretty fast. In fact, the streaming will be able to catch up even if you fly at 300kts, of course depending on your connections. Also I enabled rolling cache, 500gb in size, dedicated one old 5400rpm hard drive for it. That is useful if you are flying around one area often.
The only issue regarding airliners is FPS. Most of you know that for MSFS airliners that PFD/MFD performance tweak must be applied so we can see decent fps. Default 787 is quite heavy on frames, and yet quite light on systems. It will be interesting to see how will PMDG and other devs do optimisations, It certainly is not an easy job.

[SAS443 1,729]

43 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

But it's not really designed for hi-fidelity airliner flying

Prepar3d is succesful because it allows for value driven services to connect, modify and augment the P3D experience. And we use lots of these services.  Lets not forget that many sim enthusiasts has completely gutted the content under the hood. Texture packs, weather engines, tree models, building models, Landclass, Mesh, turbulence modules, camera modules, scenery addons, aircraft addons, sound addon ( @Pe11e your Q400 pack is fantastic!) ...the list goes on.  P3D enables us to replace a plethora of its default elements and even introduce new ones. If that is what you mean by "designed for high fidelity airliner flying", then I agree, I have spent thousands of hours with this franchise, loving every bit of it pretending to fly advanced airliners.

But looking ahead, P3D itself, stand alone, is quite bland for many of us. Merely it is a hub for bringing together various bits and pieces. And that is a very vulnerable position when there are new market disruptors / competitors. As I see it, LM doesnt own the value, what they own is a venue.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

22 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

If that is what you mean by "designed for high fidelity airliner flying"

I didn’t say p3d was designed for this. I said msfs was not!

the design decisions of the msfs team favour (very) low-level vfr flight/exploration.

they threw a couple of half-baked airliners in there, but it’s far from the heart of the sim.

nobody knows when or if MSFS will be able to be extended to a hi-fidelity IFR sim platform, but p3d is able to fulfil that role right now.

[duckbilled 310]

Fired up P3DV4 for the first time after the release.

Given where FSX was a few weeks after release, I think MSFS will be a winner in the future. I really do like the visuals, but I miss everything I have crammed into P3D. My flight yesterday was in the NGX from KMSP (Flightbeam) to MMUN (FSIMStudios). I always use MMUN for testing something IFR, because I know the approaches well. It was a really nice flight, and performance was really good - almost like the sim was trying to win me over.

What I really miss in MSFS the combination of things I have running in P3D that create the immersion (AS, REX Skyforce, REX Environment Force, AIG, UTL, ProATCX, Navigraph Charts/Data, Chaseplane and of course, all of the airport scenery). it really isn't just one addon; it is how all of the addons work together.

Still, it is important to remember that every sim was word not allowed out of the box. Everything I mentioned above was built off of 1-2 decades of development, innovation and iteration. I think we'll get there eventually, but the big test will be the NGX for MSFS, IMO. I couldn't really fly FSX when it was released, and I know I had a decent custom built rig back then. I know a new GPU is in my future, so we'll see. I have achieved pretty good performance in MSFS with 30Hz refresh rate on my cheap 4k monitor with vsync on a FPS locked to 60 in the sim. This produces a smooth 30FPS for me, so I'm ahead of the game right now. What this will look like once we load it it is anyone's guess, but for now, I don't think it has the necessary headroom.

I'll continue to fly P3D, but I'll also test out some of the mods and do VFR flights in MSFS.

 

 

[GSalden 4,689]

V5 pc wallpaper 

This is how my V5 looks like all over Europe. With real life AI traffic and real weather...

 

 

[Michael Moe 496]

I am just so happy that i can enjoy my flight dreams on these two platforms and they even gets better.

Think about it if you are as old as i. Maybe some comments come from the younger generation that is used to improvement and  updates on smartphones every 5 minutes.

The elastic to patiences is also a past i am afraid. 

That said i am mostly a cockpit simmer so flying is for me passion to learn from there.

Michael Moe

 

[OzWhitey 3,353]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

V5 pc wallpaper 

This is how my V5 looks like all over Europe. With real life AI traffic and real weather...

 

 

This is how my v5 looks all over Australia...

(YPKU Kununnura Airport, in the remote northeast corner of the Kimberly, last night's flight. Ortho with Orbx AU2 airports).

Cruising way up high in a systems-rich, semi-modern airliner never gets old. A beautiful sim!

Edited September 8, 2020 by OzWhitey