It had been awhile since using P3D but I have to say I really enjoyed the ritual of setting up a flight from KSFO > KDEN in the PMDG 777 and discovered an unexpected positive effect of using MSFS for the past month almost exclusively:  no need to run P3D w/ the highest graphic settings anymore as it's not going to compete w/ MSFS anyway so why bother.  So we unchecked Orbx NCA/SCA, turned down autogen to 'Sparse', vegetation to Normal and made sure I had ample headroom for anything, and indeed did.   So the entire flight was smooth and allowed me to focus only on setting up the flight using GSX II and FSCaptain and executing a perfect flight.  Nice to not have to make P3D visually shine, which can kill performance in the big cities in the PMDG birds on my system.  There are a couple of things, a very few, I like visually in P3D much more than MSFS.   I really detest the way stars and some if of the lighting looks in MSFS.  Often stars look like round solid balls w/o sprites, and to me they do not look natural at all, whereas in P3D stars from dusk to dawn look so much more like what they look like in the real world:  sharp, flickering slightly, and that is what it looks like on a clear dusk/night/dawn in the real world.   Same same for some of the airport lighting and nav lights on aircraft are too bright, too large, round blobs of light.  I posted about this on the MSFS forum but I don't think it got much traction, so it's a pet peave for me.

Nice to have both sims up and running but it's easy to imagine a time when we can say Hasta La Vista Baby to the old sims forever. 

The stars do look terrible. Probably only a matter of time until someone comes up with their own version.

The single screenshot of the night sky depicted in Microsoft Flight Simulator that I have seen to date looked significantly better than the equivalent in P3D. It is extremely difficult to make out constellations in P3D, simply because the stars look almost identical. They can also be seen when the Sun has risen just above the horizon, which is totally unrealistic. The night sky needs to be rendered in a much more subtle way than it is in P3D, and that single Microsoft Flight Simulator screenshot that I mentioned above demonstrated this very well. I could clearly see the constellation of Orion, with Albebaran and the Hyades star cluster not far away. The relative brightness of those stars was much more realistic than anything that I have ever seen in P3D.

Of course, that was only one screenshot......but it spoke a thousand words.

Edited December 17, 20205 yr by Christopher Low

I certainly agree that not trying to obtain all the shimmer and shine visual in P3D pays dividends in performance, especially for us tube liner folks. Personally I just use the default settings in P3DV5 with a few preferential tweaks and I feel my visuals are great without the performance drag of trying to tax my system to it's max. This makes my actual flying more realistic and enjoyable. 

Let's wait for a PMDG 777 in MSFS and then watch the fps.

Karl

31 minutes ago, kaha said:

Let's wait for a PMDG 777 in MSFS and then watch the fps.

Karl

If main-thread headroom is any indicator, and I'm at Ultra in almost all settings most of the time, there should be a lot to exploit for the PMDG 777.  If I had to dial back settings a bit in MSFS this would not be a substantial hit to the total impact of atmospherics and scenery in MSFS.  The unknown to me is how PMDG can exploit the inherent efficiencies in MSFS over P3D.   For example, the addition of PBR to some lighting in the NGXu gives a full 10% impact on GPU utilization for the very small effect for just two small instrument flood lights you can turn on.  And I recall flying over just a few wind turbines and having CPU load hit the roof in P3D, whereas this thing is clearly coping quite well in the big wind farm w/ a main-thread load of only 42% (unless we also count LP15 ).  So who knows what PMDG has to work with ultimately.  I just know more often than not the main-thread is often limping along despite settings at Ultra in MSFS and this bodes well for PMDG in MSFS, at least performance-wise, we reasonably hope.  A significant part of this IMO likely comes from vsyncing to 30Hz wherein both CPU and GPU are not tasked with ever needing to crank out more than 30fps.

Here is the same scene, the first is unlocked w/ settings at Ultra.  Note CPU/GPU loads:

This second is from the same scene vsyn'd to 30Hz.  Smoothness was better in the vsync'd to 30 as well, despite having the lower frame rate.  So you pay dearly for that extra 11fps, and yet to me yields less:

Edited December 17, 20205 yr by Noel

I have fabulous results with P3Dv5.1

I did a clean install on a fast 1Tb M2 SSD module and used the P3DAddonOrganizer to rebuild my scenery and airports as well as aircrafts (A2A, PMDG, Milviz, Majestic, JF, Aerosoft). In addition I use E.A. AND REX Skyforce 3D.  

My system is build with a Z390 mb, 9700K CPU, 32 mb RAM and a GTX1080Ti. NO tweaking, NO overclocking etc. Vsync On and 30 fps.

I am very excited about how my simulator world looks, beautifull skies and clouds, as well as actual weather. NO stutters and very very smooth flying.

And I can fly all the sophisticated planes from and to beautifully modelled airports!

Prepar3Dv5.1 is a real winner!!!

lol yes you bet!

I have been on a P3D install marathon since 2 weeks, also building my new pit with a simlab p1 as base.

My new machine AMD Ryzen 5900, with RTX 3080 is just pure joy for P3D...lately it's like a dream come true, flying heavy metal with all the traffic in to big hubs and never under 30 FPS...just a fluid dream! 

McDan out

 

4 hours ago, Noel said:

It had been awhile since using P3D but I have to say I really enjoyed the ritual of setting up a flight from KSFO > KDEN in the PMDG 777 and discovered an unexpected positive effect of using MSFS for the past month almost exclusively:  no need to run P3D w/ the highest graphic settings anymore as it's not going to compete w/ MSFS anyway so why bother.  So we unchecked Orbx NCA/SCA, turned down autogen to 'Sparse', vegetation to Normal and made sure I had ample headroom for anything, and indeed did.   So the entire flight was smooth and allowed me to focus only on setting up the flight using GSX II and FSCaptain and executing a perfect flight.  Nice to not have to make P3D visually shine, which can kill performance in the big cities in the PMDG birds on my system.  There are a couple of things, a very few, I like visually in P3D much more than MSFS.   I really detest the way stars and some if of the lighting looks in MSFS.  Often stars look like round solid balls w/o sprites, and to me they do not look natural at all, whereas in P3D stars from dusk to dawn look so much more like what they look like in the real world:  sharp, flickering slightly, and that is what it looks like on a clear dusk/night/dawn in the real world.   Same same for some of the airport lighting and nav lights on aircraft are too bright, too large, round blobs of light.  I posted about this on the MSFS forum but I don't think it got much traction, so it's a pet peave for me.

Nice to have both sims up and running but it's easy to imagine a time when we can say Hasta La Vista Baby to the old sims forever. 

Weird post title. This sub is for people who fly P3D, why would you have to ask if we’ve been “back to it lately”? Would make sense to ask this question on the forum for microsoft’s flying game, but is nonsensical here.

Also not sure why you’re deliberately trying to make p3d look ugly (“because it can’t compete anyway”, lol). 5.1 should fly fine on a decent system, sure maybe if you’re running it on a potato but in that case MSFS is not likely to work well either, it’s hardly a performance champion.

As for the last line - yes, i get that some people can’t wait to be able to say “hasta la vista” to p3d, but most of us here don’t share that sentiment. 5.1 is a very good sim, and i hope 5.x/6.x prosper for many years to come.

Yep that is my experience as well on an Intel I5-10500 (6Core)and NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super. P3DV5.1 clean install. Loads in 30 secs, flying in 45 if you want it to but I like the EA and TrueSky but most of all this sim program runs absolutely smoothly, as for FPS does not matter to me at all, there are no delays, crashes or anything actually, straight out of the box. Maybe it is not quite on par with MSFS2020 for scenery but with basically an ORBX LC world I really cannot tell the difference from up high and well at individual airports it is a matter of taste. 

My biggest problem is not that a lot of old favourites do not work in P3DV5 but the surprise that how much of the well coded 64 bit stuff that was FSX Native works flawlessly. I have all my old favourites up and running in P3DV5 with no issues. The only problems I have had are with a number of payware developers whose P3D4.5 versions (or earlier) of models are a bust in V5 or have done nothing at all and those who appear to making no attempt to fix the lurking legacy issues within their models that they thought they could port over but cannot - caught out a few so far. 

Yes I tried MSFS2020 and abandoned it and got a refund. It will be 2 years plus before it even comes close to P3D for performance and accessability (especially the issue of internet connectivity and band-with). Having done every version of sims since the early 90's I think this sim is the logical outcome its integration with modern graphics and the way it is using tried and tested graphical software from the gaming world is proof they know what they are doing. Go back to MSFS2020 is more the question - will I? Um no what for?

Edited December 17, 20205 yr by coastaldriver

4 hours ago, Noel said:

Nice to have both sims up and running but it's easy to imagine a time when we can say Hasta La Vista Baby to the old sims forever. 

Some of us have said Hasta La Vista Baby to MSFS 🙂.............

No. But even FSX/FSX SE still offers great experiences.  REX textures. AS16 weather.  Realair TDv2. RXP avionics.  Had some nice contrails to look at as well.

 

Edited December 17, 20205 yr by fppilot

BACK in the U.S.....BACK in the U.S....BACK in the U.S.S.R.!!

You don't know how lucky you are! Boy!  (whooo)

Nothing like a little Beatles.

yeah.  Never left p3d.  Did the alpha for MSFS and bought it also.  The disappointments were massive despite a few "oh wow" moments with graphics.  Maybe one day.  @Noel Welcome back

3 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

Weird post title. This sub is for people who fly P3D, why would you have to ask if we’ve been “back to it lately”?

Just a simple mistake--I thought I was in the MSFS forum when I made the entry that is all--don't read another thing into it.  It is a tacit invitation for those who haven't been back in P3D to consider doing it.  That was the entire purpose of the post.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/591799-been-back-in-p3d-lately/?do=findComment&comment=4433196

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Noel