This post from @Wolkenschreck here reminded me of something.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/592954-add-on-advise-p3dv5/?do=findComment&comment=4446477

Most wanted featured and LM attempt to implement them

....maybe not because it is difficult to use and implement, but at least because it is "never" or "hardly" used for some reasons or half baked implemented feature in P3D

• Speedtrees
• PBR
• Material scripting 
• Volumetric clouds (TrueSky)
• Better looking water (NvidiaWaveworks)
• State of the art performance (DX12) 
• Sloped runways
• Dynamic lights
• VR

ALL above  "big features" we where asking for ARE not really well done on release date, shortly after release or never till present time!

Now LM should really ask themselves WHY....

• Speedtrees - Too expensive and 3th party have to take the risk
• PBR - Optional not Mandatory?? Why is it hardly used? Even the newer releases not use them per standard
• Material scripting - ??
• Volumetric clouds - Half baked implemented, ugly looking first throw (per Default)
• NvidiaWaveworks - Looks very minimalistic, a pain in the.... at rivers, smaller lakes etc., a pain in the ... at higher distances views and at Ultra settings, which is the one with wave-foam, it causes stutters
• DX12 - Bad VRAM management (at least with the initial releases and HF)
• Sloped runways - as stated earlier....difficult or at least to much work and therefor not really usable (from a dev point of view)
• Dynamic lights - Issues in VR single pass rendering. Issues at some airports, especially ORBX ones and at those heavy performance impact at higher resolution monitors and so also in VR
• VR - Half baked implemented. Compared to others very standard. No menus in VR. No controllers usable, 2 clicks to activate/deactivate instead of a key/button shortcut. Issues with Dynamic lights (they ALL get cutoff in single-pass rendering and in stereo they KILL your performance)

They seem to "try" but "fail" at lots of these.

Marcus

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by mpo910

I don't think you're going to find a satisfactory answer. The last major "feature" that they did right was going 64-bit. Everything else has been bungled. 

I'm guessing it's a cost thing. Doing a basic implementation of new technology is time consuming and thus expensive enough. Now imagine LM themselves would develop every aspect of their program as all those add-on devs do (weather, scenery, airplanes & AI etc). Imho it would make P3D much more expensive. But as it stands now, every use can choose which aspect to improve (and spend money on), and I think that's a good approach.

48 minutes ago, mpo910 said:

This post from @Wolkenschreck here reminded me of something.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/592954-add-on-advise-p3dv5/?do=findComment&comment=4446477

Most wanted featured and LM attempt to implement them

....maybe not because it is difficult to use and implement, but at least because it is "never" or "hardly" used for some reasons or half baked implemented feature in P3D

• Speedtrees
• PBR
• Material scripting 
• Volumetric clouds (TrueSky)
• Better looking water (NvidiaWaveworks)
• State of the art performance (DX12) 
• Sloped runways
• Dynamic lights
• VR

ALL above  "big features" we where asking for ARE not really well done on release date, shortly after release or never till present time!

Now LM should really ask themselves WHY....

• Speedtrees - Too expensive and 3th party have to take the risk —> it was more of a show off. But at this moment the price is right but most developers are now at MSFS
• PBR - Optional not Mandatory?? Why is it hardly used? Even the newer releases not use them per standard —> more work. But some developers have mastered the procedure and use it
• Material scripting - ?? —> will make a material look more realistic . But developers need to learn it first
• Volumetric clouds - Half baked implemented, ugly looking first throw (per Default) —> this could be better. With some tweaks it looks good at daytime. Better use non EA at Late dusk / Night / Early dawn
• NvidiaWaveworks - Looks very minimalistic, a pain in the.... at rivers, smaller lakes etc., a pain in the ... at higher distances views and at Ultra settings, which is the one with wave-foam, it causes stutters —> not bad imho and better than the “old” water
• DX12 - Bad VRAM management (at least with the initial releases and HF) —> no bad VRAM management here but I use a VC without instruments 
• Sloped runways - as stated earlier....difficult or at least to much work and therefor not really usable (from a dev point of view) —> agree
• Dynamic lights - Issues in VR single pass rendering. Issues at some airports, especially ORBX ones and at those heavy performance impact at higher resolution monitors and so also in VR —> without VR it looks good on both my pc’s . I have added the tweak that upps the total lights from 250 to 800.
• VR - Half baked implemented. Compared to others very standard. No menus in VR. No controllers usable, 2 clicks to activate/deactivate instead of a key/button shortcut. Issues with Dynamic lights (they ALL get cutoff in single-pass rendering and in stereo they KILL your performance) —> I do not use VR so cannot comment on that

They seem to "try" but "fail" at lots of these.

Marcus

 

I agree with everything you've stated just based on the reports I've read here at AVSIM regarding P3Dv5, which is why I'm still using P3Dv4.5.

I wonder, then, why so many people here claim that v5 is so much better than v4?

Dave

20 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

I wonder, then, why so many people here claim that v5 is so much better than v4?

Smoothness is beyond comparison, also EA is getting better and better. Soon they will iron biggest issues and then v5 will be hugely ahead of v4.5

Backwards compatibility might be one of the reasons why we see not the full potential of the features. Having add-ons ported from FSX to P3Dv4 to P3Dv5 is at the same time a big advantage for the platform but also a drawback. 
However, I have to admit that some features are not so important for me. For example, PBR is nice but I do not really miss it when flying to an airport without HDR. Flight Sims are for me more immersive the more I can simulate (weather, ground service, ATC, systems). Graphics are just one part of the hobby but not paramount for my experience.

3 hours ago, mpo910 said:

• DX12 - Bad VRAM management (at least with the initial releases and HF)
• Sloped runways - as stated earlier....difficult or at least to much work and therefor not really usable (from a dev point of view)

These two! I just couldn't tolerate the absence of sloped runways (yeah is there but literally didn't see any third party airport uses it) after getting used to XP11 and MSFS slopped runways. 

Also the bad VRAM management and the instability on my machine, couldn't tolerate it any longer, removed P3D completely , it hurt how much I invested on it. Anyway happy to have XP11.51 (Vulcan) as my airliner sim.   

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by omarsmak30

30 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

These two! I just couldn't tolerate the absence of sloped runways (yeah is there but literally didn't see any third party airport uses it) after getting used to XP11 and MSFS slopped runways. 

Also the bad VRAM management and the instability on my machine, couldn't tolerate it any longer, removed P3D completely , it hurt how much I invested on it. Anyway happy to have XP11.51 (Vulcan) as my airliner sim.   

Sadly I'm not happy with X-Plane 11 either, I just can't find good airliners. Even the best airliners for X-Plane like Flight Factor A320 have lots of things missing compared to their Prepar3D counterparts. At this point I really don't know what simulator I want to use: X-Plane has better global scenery and better aerodynamics, while Prepar3D has better sky environment and better airliners. I just can't find a "no compromise" experience.

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by BiologicalNanobot

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I agree with everything you've stated just based on the reports I've read here at AVSIM regarding P3Dv5, which is why I'm still using P3Dv4.5.

I wonder, then, why so many people here claim that v5 is so much better than v4?

Dave

It's not a claim.

Honestly, part of the puzzle (in my own experience in implementing these in my own projects) is simply that as a developer you have to learn new tools and techniques that take time to learn and can be quite complicated. It certainly also doesn't help that sometimes the previews that tools give you and the final result in the sim can be very different. For exmaple, I've spent part of the holidays trying to understand how to use Substance painter to make PBR textures for my projects. I have to learn first how to sue the software, then how to effectively use it in my workflow, then to figure out the best way to get things into P3D, and now I'm struggling with trying to figure out how to translate the preview I get from SP to something that also looks good in P3Dv5. Because honestly, there is a world of difference there. All of that has cost me a number of days for a fairly small and easy project and I'm not there yet (though getting closer). And that is just PBR!

And indeed, in combination with this there is @Wolkenschreck's point, which is backward compatibility. Unfortunately it seems as though everybody is on a different sim and everybody gets offended if an addon is not made for their specific version. Well I'm sorry, but I already know that my projects won't be coming out for anything besdies P3Dv5 for now 😅 Perhaps MSFS in the future. Mostly because I don't feel like investing all that time translating the PBR textures to v4, and I don't even have any sim older than v4 installed currently. Fortunately I'm in a good position because I'm not doing any of this for the money, so it gives me the freedom to do what I want!

To be honest, it'd probably be worthwhile for many to try and make a basic scenery addon with all the bells and whistles. I think threads like these will then soon come to an end...

13 minutes ago, Mace said:

It's not a claim.

Please *prove* that P3Dv5 is much better than P3Dv4.  Not just "better", which I'm sure it is in some respects, but "much better".  Then it will no longer be a claim.

Thanks.

Dave

1 hour ago, Beardyman said:

Smoothness is beyond comparison, also EA is getting better and better. Soon they will iron biggest issues and then v5 will be hugely ahead of v4.5

I get very smooth movement in v4.5.  Rarely have stuttering.

Perhaps v5 will be worth it once LM fixes all the problems. 

Dave

3 hours ago, mpo910 said:

This post from @Wolkenschreck here reminded me of something.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/592954-add-on-advise-p3dv5/?do=findComment&comment=4446477

Most wanted featured and LM attempt to implement them

...

I read a lot of subjective perception here. 

 

18 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Sadly I'm not happy with X-Plane 11 either, I just can't find good airliners. Even the best airliners for X-Plane like Flight Factor A320 have lots of things missing compared to their Prepar3D counterparts. At this point I really don't know what simulator I want to use: X-Plane has better global scenery and better aerodynamics, while Prepar3D has better sky environment and better airliners. I just can't find a "no compromise" experience.

I've never used Xplane.  But two planes I really wish we had in P3D that look really good are the inibuilds A300 and the FlyJSim 737-200.  I've seen some you tube videos and would love to have those.  The night lighting is also fantastic in xplane.  I'm ok with what LM is doing.  I really like the commonality with previous generations so my past purchases do not become obsolete.  If they were to get rid of that then I'd really have to do a huge cost benefit analysis to see what I would do.  

Regarding sloped runways.  meh.  They are cool no doubt.  But only a handful of the airports I fly to even have very noticeable slopes in real life to begin with.  Quite honestly it's not the sloped runways I'm missing the most.  It's the sloped landscapes immediately around the airport.  A big example is imaginesim atlanta.  The airport has dips and valleys all over in real life but nothing in the sim.  

I'm mostly a content simmer these days.  The thing that is the worst right now is that developers have been pulled in all directions.  I'm still buying, just less is coming out.