LM - P3D V5.2 - What is the ambition?

[LGKR 36]

I have just updated from v5.1 to v5.2.  After 6 months the update seems to focus on bug fixes/more bugs. And, yes, EA. After a full year, EA still only seems to generate two kinds of cloud patterns- clear or overcast. Wow. Nice waffles and pancake clouds. And to top that, lets make it all disappear in a great haze and mist.

What is going on over at LM?
A team of developers and programmers working full time, and all they produce are a couple of bug fixes every 6 months? Fixing a bit of dis and that?

The graphics are still the same. Nothing really new in 20 years. EA has only developed an inch in a whole year.  No terrain overhaul, no enhanced regions, weather, colours, no nothing. Still cartoon FSX style.

New updates trigger new bugs and hotfixes to be worked on. Wow, lets work on those bugs. And lets have a whole team of professionals do it full time.

Dont get me wrong. P3D is better now than before. Maybe even fewer stutters in 5.2 compared to 5.1? I dont know. But basically it is the same stuttery product. Looks the same cartoon and performs the same.

What is the ambition? What is the vision for the future? Where is the wish to create and develop? Where are the fresh thoughts? What is the plan? Bug fixes?
Come on LM: Have a dream - make P3D shine and come to life! Get out of the past, grab the steering wheel and push to the future.

[CaptKornDog 286]

1 hour ago, LGKR said:

What is the ambition? What is the vision for the future? Where is the wish to create and develop? Where are the fresh thoughts? What is the plan? Bug fixes?

Simple.  Whatever their primary government/commercial clients require and contract funding directs.

Edited July 1, 2021 by CaptKornDog

[Gabshall 43]

LM's aim is fairly simple - stability for their commercial customers (the one's that pay >$100K for a training platform).

[craigeaglefire 197]

1 hour ago, LGKR said:

make P3D shine and come to life!

5.2 HF1 latest works well here...

still a valuable, dare i say 'professional', flight sim in 2021 - & greatly helped with some available quality addons.

[mikealpha 266]

1 hour ago, craigeaglefire said:

5.2 HF1 latest works well here...

still a valuable, dare i say 'professional', flight sim in 2021 - & greatly helped with some available quality addons.

100% agreed! 

For me with A320 Homecockpit (Skalarki/FSLabs) the current P3Dv5.2 is perfect. Excellent performance, and stability has greatly improved. No need to look elsewhere, and here and there a bit more eye candy is welcome. But not primary purpose. 

Edited July 1, 2021 by mikealpha

[Bryn 72]

It might be because I've been simming for 35 years, but P3D has everything I ever dreamed of in a sim, so I am very happy with it. It's realistic, immersive, stable and mature, with many great add-ons, and excellent performance. Any developments from here on are a bonus to me, just as long as they don't break it.

[Afterburner 374]

I don't think it's fair to say that there has been "nothing new in 20 years". After all, the little things and performance improvements may seem small, but they bring the sim step by step closer towards more realism - and further away from FSX (which looks cartoonish, I agree, but that's primarily due to the lack of atmosphere). As far as terrain, with the release of MSFS, people expect nothing less than photorealistic textures and photogrammetry (ideally based on Google Maps), so even if LM changed the global textures and landclass, it would not measure up to what is possible. And ORBX does a good job with Global Base + OpenLC, so I don't think that LM could do it much better.

I agree though that the progress has been slower during the last three years, with the main focus on EA which is still bugged in some respects. From 2013 to 2018 (going from v2 to v4.4), LM added milestones like the new lighting system, volumetric fog, HDR, 64 bit architecture, PBR and other features, while from 2018 to 2021... there has not been that much.

[thepilot 583]

I don't know what people's expectations are. I have been using P3D V5.1 HF1 for half a year or so now and it's by far the best looking and performing sim I've ever had, and the most stable one at that, too. Can't recall a single CTD in dozens of flights and hundreds of hours with lots of addons. That, simply, is amazing. No comparison at all to FS9 or FSX in terms of anything. Yes, some updates are "one step forward, two steps back" in some regards but please look at the overall direction... 

PS: With V5.2 it's now possible to keep the default clouds (or from ASCA etc.) with EA on, which I personally find visually appealing. I'll likely stay with this option as it also produces better weather radar returns.

[kand 205]

Main concern for me, P3D relies on the 3rd party market to make it look pretty...out of the box its not up to my standards and never has been.. 3rd parties are devoting more effort to the other side as there is more return for the investment so this area is entering decline. The native eye candy of v5 (truesky) can only be tinkered with, it cant really be expanded on and I am yet to see a wx scene which has blown me away

I have gone back to v4 for my home cockpit simply because that was the last release that had a full suite of tweak tools like tomatoshade etc, as soon as the other sim is ready for my needs P3d will enter the recycle bin and the Gbs of data that go with it 

[CaptainIronside 52]

Quote

The graphics are still the same. Nothing really new in 20 years.

If I saw what P3D looks like now, 20 years ago.... I'd think it's the 2nd coming of flight sims. Even booting up FSX then P3D v5.2 consecutively, if you can say that again I'd be surprised tbh. I do share the frustration with scenery though, but that's a different beast altogether, versus something like lighting or even skyscapes/weather. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

10 hours ago, LGKR said:

The graphics are still the same. Nothing really new in 20 years.

How can that be the case when with a 32-bit FSX or P3Dv3 the sim was limited to 3.8Gb of VAS. Once v4 and now v5 arrived there is a huge increase in available memory. As a result the detail in scenery, clouds, buildings has improved enormously. Some airports now use nearly 10Gb of VRAM and 16Gb of RAM. What a difference in just a few years.

Moving to DX12 from DX9 has also ported a lot of processing from the CPU to the GPU. The result is a huge improvement in performance even with far more scenery complexity.

10 hours ago, LGKR said:

No terrain overhaul, no enhanced regions, weather, colours, no nothing. Still cartoon FSX style.

To the basic sim I have added a Orbx FTX Global, Ultimate Terrain X for Europe, North America and the Caribbean. FS Global redefines mountain ranges giving unprecedented accuracy. The scenery is transformed. Active Sky have continuously improved the weather engine and the skies look great. I don’t recognise what you’re describing.

10 hours ago, LGKR said:

Dont get me wrong. P3D is better now than before. Maybe even fewer stutters in 5.2 compared to 5.1? I dont know. But basically it is the same stuttery product. Looks the same cartoon and performs the same.

Of course it is. I get virtually no stutters with my scenery settings, buying a monitor that runs at 30Hz and configuring FSUIPC to reduce Ai to keep the fps to 30.

And talking of Ai the superb package from the AIG gives me accurate passenger aircraft at just about every airport in P3D. Nearly 1000 different airlines from just about every country in the world makes flying anywhere a real pleasure.

10 hours ago, LGKR said:

What is the ambition? What is the vision for the future?

A process of continuous improvement is my guess. That is working very well. I can fly anywhere I wish without needing to download gigabytes of scenery. The BGL method of scenery design has stood the test of time. I will be keeping P3D v5 until v6 is available knowing there’s a very good chance my scenery designed for earlier versions will still work.

And finally, I’m patiently waiting for FS Labs to release a 64-bit Concorde at which point I will have reached flight sim nivarna.

[Afterburner 374]

18 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

And finally, I’m patiently waiting for FS Labs to release a 64-bit Concorde at which point I will have reached flight sim nivarna.

I admire your patience when it comes to waiting for the new Concorde. I really do...  I for one am not so patient. 😉

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

1 minute ago, Afterburner said:

I admire your patience when it comes to waiting for the new Concorde. I really do...  I for one am not so patient. 😉

I tear my hair out with them if I’m honest. They seem to think that silence doesn’t really piddle people off. 😡

[d.tsakiris 418]

18 hours ago, LGKR said:

No terrain overhaul, no enhanced regions, weather, colours, no nothing

On the contrary. V5 saw an almost complete overhaul of the base scenery: New mesh, new vector data (coasts, rivers, roads), and objects (airports). Weather and colours were improved with EA.

[LGKR 36]

I would compare P3D with Mindcraft. Both are stable. But no one in their right mind would say Mindcraft is particulary realistic.

There is however one big difference between the two - Mindcraft looks like it does intentionally. With P3D.., well I dont know.

Take for example autogen. Who doesnt love the massive oversized autogen taking you back to the 90's? Gives you that distinct Mindcraft feeling. With P3D v5 you can even turn the autogen sliders further up, giving you a really intense Mindcraft feeling.