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Brad27

A rant from the heart

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This is somewhat of a rant, somewhat of a moan but also a plead i guess to devs that seem and i use the word seem in such a way that i can only assume this is the case from what i have seen in the last 6 or 7 months.

 

Where do i start!?

 

I guess it has to start with FS2020...Now when this new and shockingly amazing looking simulator dropped i like all of us that love this hobby drooled over its beauty and possiblities. MS and Asobo had given us all hope that we might be able to get a chance to grab onto something that might in many ways save us alot of money based on its incredible accuracy for land terrain and cities alike. If like me you have spent hundreds maybe thousands of your hard earned money on buying packages to improve your P3D and FSX setups over the years you might have looked at FS2020 and all the pre-trailers and beta screenshots and thought..."Hang on a minute if it looks this good im not going to need things like OpenLC or FTX England, TrueEarth, Global Vector or even a weather engine like ActiveSky because this sim is suggesting that all of this basically comes in one united package"...No brainer right!?

I am heavily into AI traffic in the sim, I think AI brings unpressidented levels of realism, immersion and satisfaction to what you see at a Heathrow, LAX or Vienna for example especially if you are using the ever accurate AIG AIManager utility. It is obvious that AI in FS2020 isnt taken seriously at all, youve got generic A320s all over the place in random airline liveries that dont even operate the aircraft type...I mean come on...a Norweigian A320 at JFK!?!? What is that about!?

Sceneries is whats really gotten me frustrated, we have all seen the masses of airport and 'cityscene' upgrades being lobbed at this half baked simulator and for what!? Now i have voiced this before but the more i witness this happen the more i shrug my shoulders in disbelief at what is happening before my eyes. Now to take this back we have all depending on your own longivity within the hobby have supported some fantastic teams over the decades and poured a far amount of cash into their pockets and in many of cases rightly so but i wonder what teams like FlyTampa, UK2000, GAYA, Simwings and JustSim are playing at.....Ill give you a few more examples:

29 Palms Mykonos

When Mykonos v2 was announced i think back in March 2020 to be getting its well well overdue reboot for P3D we were fed screenshots which boosted excitement that we would be able to get this fantastic rendition back in P3D correctly compliled with the latest SDK and updated features for P3D V4 & V5. Some months later (Feb 2021) after the release of "Failed Simulator 2020" 29Palms released shots of Mykonos v2 (or v1?!) in FS2020!?!? Now take a look at this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYNqKKHxr-s

 

The video shows Mykonos in FS2020...Guess what...thats not 29Palms but agree with me...it looks pretty sweet doesnt it? So im left scratching my massive head wondering WHAT ARE THEY PLAYING AT? Mykonos (in FS2020) IF anything requires an airport upgrade and lets be honest here...LGMK is a pretty tiny airport so there wouldnt be masses to do as to say comparing that to a rendition of Frankfurt Main or Chicago O'Hare which are miles bigger. Now if you go to Mykonos in P3D and what do you see by default?....An absolutely unrealistic visual of what the island looks like in true life and thats even using ORBX OpenLC Europe. So you tell me...which sim would make more use of an full island upgrade? They also then flirted on the difficult workload of bringing an accurate sateilllite image in for the P3D version which would follow the initial FS2020 release.....Im confused? V1 had a satellite base so whats so different this time? It just seems to me like a really weird way of handling a scenery that got them alot of attention when it dropped all those years ago and is now sort of a 'meh...if we can be bothered attitude'.

 

LH Simulations Budapest

65Million years ago LH annouced Budapest was going to get an entire overhaul and be brought to P3D. Now not only being probably one of the longest running development projects ever this was another case of multiple preview renders of the scenery in P3D and then as soon as FS2020 dropped those all vanished and it was annouced that the update would come to FS2020 first and then eventually P3D....obviously a P3D version is great but some of us have waited a long a*s time for this one and to have FS2020 take the upper hand from out of nowhere was alittle dissapointing but hey it might happen before the end of my days...

 

Flytampa Vienna & Athens

This one is real hard to jibe at because i love these guys alot but whats going on with these two projects!? We can literally say Vienna v4 was suggested over a year ago maybe atad longer to being close to a release and Athens...2 years ago? I know like most of us that FlyTampa refrane from saying to much about release dates but ive seen them release 3 FS2020 versions of airports now and i am gagging like many to know when i can start enjoying their LOWW & LGAV reboots which must surely be at a near end?!

 

So your probably wondering (if your still reading up to now) what im moaning about...Its the basic point of FS2020 being still very incomplete and massively still in beta form.

 

Regardless of the sim being released to the public it was never ready and more and more users have reverted back to what?....P3D!

Why? Because its stable and can still look great if your able to select good shaders and get your settings right and it has all of the following included...dynamic lighting, real weather dipictions with ActiveSky, AI traffic with PBR, an extensive catologue of scenery enhancements from ORBX and a decent list of study level aircraft.

All of these airport renditions being thrown at the new sim look lush, no quarms about that..hell they even make JustSim material look pretty sweet but we cant enjoy these airports with a real satisfying 747 or 777.....No accurate A32X fleet..There is a reason PMDG said they were halting dev on the new sim and thats because it just isnt ready for anyone to sink their teeth into.

FS2020 could still be the pie in the sky but its not something that i personally understand at the moment...We are sim hobbiests so i see the current setup in this new sim as basically having something like the old default 737 that you got in FS2002 or even the 747-400 for example and flying into a nicely enhanced FlyTampa Las Vegas with its half baked flightdeck and totally inaccuate AI system that acts miles worse than AI behaves in P3D....you get all that scenery eyecandy and no deep realism to the aircraft you are actually flying or the action around the airport itself unless you use static aircraft models...Many of us have forked out heavily on PMDG material up until now because its the best and many opted for AIGs top notch FREE AI system which further adds to the immersion with a range of realistic highly detailed models and paints.

P3D is still alive! There is still money to be had in this sim. Realistically i do wonder when FS2020 will iron itself out and rectify all the wrongs and kinks it currently has intertwined within its walls. The idea and visuals are there...I love what they've done theres no hate towards ASOBO or MS BUT its just not a complete sim yet and i am totally confused at the behaviour of the 3rd party developers many of us have supported over the years with our money that we decided to hand over for their great work. I feel like FS2020 needs to be put down for awhile, it needs more time in the garage and in the meantime P3D needs to still be seen as the sim that still can deliver alot of pleasure and enjoyment.

If Flytampa or Flightbeam announced a release tomorrow of a P3D Heathrow or JFK your telling me you wouldnt buy it!? It was pretty much a no brainer throwing my cash at WF Scenery for Hong Kong and Shanghai Pudong.

I just dont get what the rush is and why we need to be building FS2020 up with airports and cityscenes when there are fundamental discripencies within the sim as a whole!? Who is buying this stuff up to the levels that the devs think..."Ok lets keep going!"....Bewildering it really is but hey what do i know 😛

 

Lets not forget that P3D gives us stuff like....

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Edited by Brad27
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Brad - P3Dv4.5

AIG Moderator | Afcad Editor | FAIB Beta | FSPX Beta

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Thank your for your open and your honest words! 

In general I can follow you! 

A lot of things you mentioned is why I stick at P3D VX. P3D is a truly Sim and the only sim who offers me the possibility of stable flightsimming with complex airliners, even in VR performing great!

I know P3D must enhance some things like the Atmospheric rendering and lighting engine! They have gone in the right direction with TrueSky but it needs a decent update!

We (some other Beta Testers incl. myself) are pushing LM into this direction and hope they listen to us! I believe in them and hope they listen to our inputs and suggestions!

P3D is the way to go for me....for very good reasons also mentioned in your post above!

I do understand some devs. They need income! And MSFS usersgroup is huge...but I don´t really think they all earn that much money most of the users think.

If P3D gives us a good decent EA update and some further performance gains incl. stable VRAM usage, then I think some Devs and users will come back.....But users really have to let go their "I want everything for free" policy! 

Devs MUST earn money to survive....and we are the only one who can pay and help them through this hard phase......which was introduced with MS/ASOBO MSFS.

Marcus 

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Regards,

Marcus P.

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Hi Marcus, absolutely my point. P3D still has money to be had within its veins...I was so angry at the time ORBX basically said they were werent going to deliver OpenLC Asia...It was the last peice of the puzzle and they were about to drop it probably because it was such a massive amount of work to do. I would not be suprised if it sells seriously well when it now does finally come thanks to the community backing for it to be done. The devs do this for money or additional income and given the current circumstance that FS2020 appears to be in (and no its not unusable but) its far from being technically stable like P3D so surely you would 'milk' P3D now moreso than ever given so many are going back to it.

Edited by Brad27
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Brad - P3Dv4.5

AIG Moderator | Afcad Editor | FAIB Beta | FSPX Beta

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I share a lot of the sentiment expressed here.

I can certainly understand the attraction many developers felt towards FS2020 upon release; this was a shiny new platform with advanced visuals and a whole host of new casual players coming into the market. I do agree however that the phenomenon we're seeing that in many ways constitutes an effective abandonment of P3D as a platform is at present largely unjustified and certainly at the very least Premature.

Flight Sim has always been a bit of a niche hobby, and it is those who curate high-quality study-level aircraft and put so much emphasis into realistic operations who generally form the core, particularly outside of new releases (the arguable drought that followed the end of FSX development by Microsoft comes to mind for me). And it is for these reasons that P3D is still a top-tier simulation platform in that it offers this range of high-quality aircraft and remains a well-understood and familiar platform for development. So an abandonment of P3D at this stage doesn't make sense.

I'm still an active P3D user awaiting several new aircraft in the Pipeline (Namely the Just Flight A300 and 747 Classic along with the TFDI MD-11 and the long-awaited 64-bit edition of FSLabs' ConcordeX). I will more than happily spend on P3D scenery and the like for at least the next few years. In reality even when I do eventually adopt MSFS upon it's becoming a more mature platform I will still maintain P3D simply for the fact that it's the platform with the range of good, Study-Level aircraft I want to fly.

I think the best approach we as a community can take at the moment is to to continue vocally demonstrate that there is still demand for P3D Addons, and to support and promote the development (or at least improvement of existing) addons. I think some developers like PMDG hitting a bit of a wall in MSFS development is hopefully a promising sign that with the hype around the new Simulator deteriorating there will be some capacity released to continue supporting P3D Addon-Development; there is still money to be made and I think abandoning P3D, as well as making many of us unhappy, would simply be detrimental.

Edited by SimeonWilbury
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PUT In the UK.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x & Radeon RX570 8GB. Prepar3Dv5.3 @1080p

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May I ask what monitor you are using ?

your pics are crisp and clear without EA

for some reason lately I don’t k is if it’s driver related or windows 10 but the antialiasing is really bad. It has always been there burn it as prominent.

8xmsaa with 16xaa
i have a 1080ti with a lG 49inch 4k 

Cheers 

mike

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Hi Brad and Marcus,

I totally agree with your points. The day MSFS got released I was just as hyped as all of us I am sure... However I held my horses back and stuck with P3D and went ahead and happily bought P3D 5. I was expecting some developers to totally jump onto the MSFS bandwagon and never to be seen in P3D anymore. However what came after that is just incredible. After all those years buying and mostly supporting their work they just abandoned us. Now there is life in P3D scenery market but it's a lot less then before. As Brad explained after all those long months and sometimes years of waiting for a particular product to be released some developers just went very silent about P3D products and some just literally dumped it altogether. That hurts the most. As far as I know their customers, us, helped them through years to be wherever they are. I am not saying that is only us customers that got them wherever they are now - because that required their talent and time, effort and many more things we don't even think about but as in everything if you have a great product but there is no demand for it - no matter how good it is - you will just disappear. But that didn't happen to most of the developers because their products were great and most of us found them to be good enough to buy them and hence support their work. With this expectation grew and from developers like FlyTampa, Flightbeam and many others we excepted that they would deliver what they showed us months and years ago.

My partner and I were even discussing why don't developers keep their products up to date and thus earn money with that between airport releases. For example imagine, Flightbeam's awesome KSFO product that is now so outdated. They could just introduce a monthly or quarter yearly subscription model where they would charge us 10 euros for example and they would keep the airport's up to date. Instead of having a really outdated airport for years and years and then introduce KSFO v3 as a brand new product costing let's say 30 euros. This model would support their continuous work and fund their upcoming products in the future.

I truly feel abandoned by some scenery developers that promised something and then didn't deliver at all.

Now to keep this post positive - I am very happy to have MSFS as a competition because if many of us remember back to the days of FSX with no competition, now that was terrible. Now there is at least a choice of whether you would like to be simming in P3D or MSFS or Xplane (though it's not my cup of tea). I am looking forward to see what happens in the future.

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Balint Szarka

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11 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

May I ask what monitor you are using ?

your pics are crisp and clear without EA

Hello Mike,

My monitor is pretty basic tbh...I have a HP 2011x 20" i believe. (GFX card is a Nvidia GTX 1080)

I think i set my AA up via the Nvidia control panel if i remember correctly and take screenshots using the NVIDIA screenshot function.

Edited by Brad27

Brad - P3Dv4.5

AIG Moderator | Afcad Editor | FAIB Beta | FSPX Beta

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1 minute ago, Brad27 said:

Hello Mike,

My monitor is pretty basic tbh...I have a HP 2011x 20" i believe. (GFX card is a Nvidia GTX 1080)

I think i set my AA up via the Nvidia control panel if i remember correctly and take screenshots using the NVIDIA screenshot function.

Thanks 

do you mind sharing your settings?

So I may try. If I can’t get it right.

I may just buy the Samsung odyssey g5 32 inch. 2k

cheers 

mike

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15 minutes ago, Balint Szarka said:

Hi Brad and Marcus,

Indeed and lets make it clear, in many cases and for the sake of it lets use Flytampa as an example....They havent come out and said "We no longer support P3D"..Thats not happened and i actually dont think any of the devs have said that but alot of them have gone quiet. UK2000 is one for example that i really enjoy especially the HD range they started. I was and still hope Gary brings a rebooted HD Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester but he also now has GAYA that listed about 55 airports on the agenda and Stansted is one of those so one would say.."think on ya toes".

Flytampa have suggested Dubai and Amsterdam will also come to P3D along with the already mentioned Athens and Vienna but its just been ages for the 2 latter projects to the point that you wonder whats happening yet FS2020 stuff and X-Plane versions have emerged.

You cant please everyone and the world isnt perfect OBVIOUSLY but in this field and on this particular topic i do wonder if P3D is kinda being downgraded ahead of its time.

 

Edited by Brad27
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Brad - P3Dv4.5

AIG Moderator | Afcad Editor | FAIB Beta | FSPX Beta

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This reminds me about big hype about battery operated cars. It looks like by 2035 or so EVERYONE will "stop" making cars with IC...they just forgot one thing. Infrastructure. But announcements are massive and very costly. Will see who will be big to fail...and very soon. But I hope I am wrong.

 

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Virtual Air Canada - Alex Luzajic

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Supply, demand, changing market conditions, changing technology in a niche hobby that's divided across multiple platforms.  While I share some of the same sentiments, and feel like I'm finally getting P3D v5 where it's enjoyable in nearly scenario I typically fly in on my system.  Heck, even got some hardware upgrades sitting in my office waiting to be built.  But, I was in the exact same spot with FSX when P3Dv4 started gaining traction.  Guess I'll just perpetually always be behind the curve since I like the stable, "tried and tested" approach to simming than necessarily the latest and greatest with kinks to work out or addons missing.

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Kyle Weber (Private Pilot, ASEL; Flight Test Engineer)
Check out my repaints and downloads, all right here on AVSIM

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This thread is perilously on the brink of the usual "my sim is better than your sim" playground bickering.

Don't go there.

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Bob Scott | President and CEO, AVSIM Inc
ATP Gulfstream II-III-IV-V

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I also wonder why everybody calls MSFS FS2020 instead of MSFS.  It's weird to me 

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5800X3D, Gigabyte X570S MB, 4090FE, 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14, EVO 970 M.2's, Alienware 3821DW  and 2  22" monitors,  Corsair RM1000x PSU,  360MM MSI MEG, MFG Crosswind, T16000M Stick, Boeing TCA Yoke/Throttle, Skalarki MCDU and FCU, Saitek Radio Panel/Switch Panel, Spad.Next

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1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Cheers, Rob.

 

Hi Rob,

 

Indeed interesting points.

 

FS2020 is hands down a superior looking sim but once again for anyone reading through this thread the point i make more than anything else is i just dont see how a sim thats constantly being patched and updated to fix stuff that was broken but then breaks other stuff is meant to tempt a serious simmer in, all the while my favourite devs are throwing sceneries at it like Steph Curry shooting 3 pointers in an NBA Allstar game.

Its time will come im sure it but i just dont see why theres such a rush to build content for it at such an early stage when its still enduring a difficult birth.

Edited by Brad27
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Brad - P3Dv4.5

AIG Moderator | Afcad Editor | FAIB Beta | FSPX Beta

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The shift to MSFS happened because sales for P3D stopped. That's because the "simmers" in P3D were curious how MSFS at release time will behave and how they will like it.

Today the "gamers" generate sales in MSFS, much more than the "simmers" that are back to P3D can compensate for.

We have this situation now and I don't think we can change it. I'm sure that some of us hope that MSFS matures in regard to system depth. I think this is possible. Others stay with P3D, also because they want to protect their investments. I'm very curious about the next P3D releases.

Karl

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