How much would you compromise to fly your favourite acft?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

Question is in the title. I still have the 32-bit P3Dv3 installed purely so I can fly one aircraft. Concorde.

But because of the 4Gb VAS limit lots of compromises have to be made to ensure you don’t run out of memory. These include:-

Reducing resolution on my 4K monitor to 1920*1080. Even though it’s exactly half in each dimension and on a quality monitor the image is far from ideal

My system is more than capable of maintaining 30fps with much higher scenery settings but that will eat up VAS. So I run a powerful computer (for the sim in question) with very low settings.

Discussion on the FSL Concorde forum has dried up. That means either everyone is an expert or they don’t fly it any longer and have uninstalled FSX / P3Dv3.

But my love of the aircraft is greater than my dislike in having to run with such a dreadful looking sim.

How much would you put up with to fly your favourite aircraft?

 

[Beardyman 604]

I am ready to reduce my sim settings as low as needed to have smooth experience, but I do believe that FSL will optimize new Concorde in such way that sim settings reduction will not be required. 🤞

[psolk 3,040]

My guess is that is why most of us are still in this forum.  Semantics with verbiage but I view it as a choice rather than a compromise.  When I decide which OS to boot it is inevitably P3D because of the 777 and 787.  

So my sim choice is directly influenced by either aircraft choice or specific features for that session... 100%  

P3D still logs the most hours because of the 777/787 though.  For me FS9 was the same way...  I held on until all my favorite aircraft were migrated to FSX/P3D.  I do miss the LVL-D767, PSS 777, PMDG MD-11 and others though!! 

[shermank 170]

I downloaded and installed a couple of the recently released Milviz p3d aircraft. I quickly discovered that they required more Vram than the 5.1 available on my 1660ti card. So, the MVz are gone and I can live without them. Most of my flying is Manfred Jahn's DC 3 and C47 series for my VA dc3airways.net. That keeps me perfectly happy without compromise and all scenery sliders set nearly to full.

I also fly, though less often, the A2A Cessna 182 as well as a handful of float or amphibs for Return to Misty Mooring missions. I also from time to time fire up a Connie or two as well as smaller twin engine props such as the Carenado Seneca.

I have been learning to fly glass cockpit planes such as the Kodiak Quest and others, some payware, but others mostly very flyable freeware. The glass cockpits are somewhat unwieldy because of the relatively small mouse click points to manipulate headings, navs etc.

I am satisfied with my current hardware and available software, including all North American ORBX LC sets as well as Western Europe, Africa and SA...

This keeps me happy and occupied as I look forward to my 82 birthday next month. I credit Flight Simulation with keeping more or less mentally sharp..well, maybe not razor sharp...:-)

Sherm

PS All in all, I am happy with limited compromise.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

46 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

 

How much would you put up with to fly your favourite aircraft?

 

Well Ray.. I'm not sure I've ever had an aircraft that I liked as much as you like the Concorde TBH so it is a hard question to give a good answer to, I think. 

That said; I really liked the PMDG 777 / 747 for P3D that's for sure. I would really love to have it in MSFS and can't wait for the guys at PMDG to get it out. I have on occasions fired up P3D to fly said aircraft but the visuals have always made me never even pushing back. I simply cannot stand it any longer. Nothing against P3D really as I've got probably thousands of hours in it, but time has passed and I can't really do it anymore. 

[IanHarrison 522]

Fairly simple answer.

 I will live with P3d v5.3 and PMDG 747 until the end of my "flying" days. At 1080p and a 6th gen Intel processor.

Simply because I do not have the money to fund my retirement and fork out ZAR 60,000 (about GBP 3000) for an up to date new PC and monitor.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

56 minutes ago, Beardyman said:

I am ready to reduce my sim settings as low as needed to have smooth experience, but I do believe that FSL will optimize new Concorde in such way that sim settings reduction will not be required. 🤞

There won't be a 4Gb VAS limit in v5. That is the biggest obstacle I have.

52 minutes ago, psolk said:

My guess is that is why most of us are still in this forum.  Semantics with verbiage but I view it as a choice rather than a compromise.  When I decide which OS to boot it is inevitably P3D because of the 777 and 787.  

So my sim choice is directly influenced by either aircraft choice or specific features for that session... 100%  

P3D still logs the most hours because of the 777/787 though.  For me FS9 was the same way...  I held on until all my favorite aircraft were migrated to FSX/P3D.  I do miss the LVL-D767, PSS 777, PMDG MD-11 and others though!! 

I congratulate those of you who place the aircraft you like flying ahead of the simulator. To me the aircraft is everything. I suspect you won't have to wait as long as me in seeing the aircraft of your choice in whatever simulator you prefer.

27 minutes ago, shermank said:

I downloaded and installed a couple of the recently released Milviz p3d aircraft. I quickly discovered that they required more Vram than the 5.1 available on my 1660ti card. So, the MVz are gone and I can live without them.

I am satisfied with my current hardware and available software, including all North American ORBX LC sets as well as Western Europe, Africa and SA...

PS All in all, I am happy with limited compromise.

Time to treat yourself to a new graphics card/ 😁 If only that would solve my problems. 32Gb of fast RAM and I can't even use 4Gb of it.

23 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

Well Ray.. I'm not sure I've ever had an aircraft that I liked as much as you like the Concorde TBH so it is a hard question to give a good answer to, I think. 

That said; I really liked the PMDG 777 / 747 for P3D that's for sure. I would really love to have it in MSFS and can't wait for the guys at PMDG to get it out. I have on occasions fired up P3D to fly said aircraft but the visuals have always made me never even pushing back. I simply cannot stand it any longer. Nothing against P3D really as I've got probably thousands of hours in it, but time has passed and I can't really do it anymore. 

That tells me you can't put up with the limited graphics in P3D even though you can enjoy a 64-bit sim. I take it you use P3Dv4 or v5? Not v3?

Once you're airborne the depiction of the ground is not very important to me especially as 90% of my Concorde flights are over ocean. It's all about systems for me and managing the fuel. Even flying over the best scenery available if you look out of the window too long events will overtake you.

[shermank 170]

As stated, I am happy enough since my 1660ti supports all of my current needs. The Milviz planes would be icing on the cake, but I have never had much of a sweet tooth...:-)

BTW in answer to the question I fly P3D V5.3

Sherm

Edited March 15, 2023 by shermank

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

6 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

 

Once you're airborne the depiction of the ground is not very important to me especially as 90% of my Concorde flights are over ocean. It's all about systems for me and managing the fuel. Even flying over the best scenery available if you look out of the window too long events will overtake you.

Yup. You are absolutely correct in this. The Concorde is a really special case as you are cruising over the pond at 60k feet doing Mach 2.0 or thereabouts. Suffering from 'get-addonitis' as I sometimes (read: 'often') relapse into, I will probably be tempted by the Concorde when released for P3dv5. I remember enjoying it in V3, and I guess if I reach your level of knowledge (I kind of never really learned it) the love for it would grow. 

A good example is the Felis 742. Being a not-so-automated airplane I haven't looked that much outside the window on the current 4000NM flight. I am keeping my eye on the weight and fuel and planning my future optimal step climb. Yesterday I took the 'Salty 747' (MSFS) for a spin and it felt so 'meh' compared to the 742.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

10 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

The Concorde is a really special case as you are cruising over the pond at 60k feet doing Mach 2.0 or thereabouts. Suffering from 'get-addonitis' as I sometimes (read: 'often') relapse into, I will probably be tempted by the Concorde when released for P3dv5. I remember enjoying it in V3, and I guess if I reach your level of knowledge (I kind of never really learned it) the love for it would grow.

It is unique in so many ways. Yes, it takes time to unlearn Boeing and Airbus procedures but if you’re prepared to put the effort in the rewards are considerable. I left fuel management alone for many years but around 4 years ago decided to learn it. There’s always the fallback of the Virtual Flight Engineer if things go pear-shaped.

I look forward to overtaking all those subsonic aircraft at Mach 1.15 as I cross the pond. 😁

[Luis Hernandez 570]

Since I don't use payware airports (except for my hometown), and the default v5 airports and terminals are not that good (and no 3rd party solution in sight), I've had to return to v4 for better default airports and terminals (thankz, Zinertek and Ray Smith!). This works for almost all the birds I have (PMDG, QW, MJC, Aerosoft A330 and even CS 737 and 767).

However, I can't fly the FSL buses there, they are too heavy for the sim. Sometimes I use the 2D panel, but flying 2D in a 24" screen is not the same as in a 14" laptop. I have to endure the V5 terminals and airports if I want to enjoy FSL at a decent framerate.

1 hour ago, shermank said:

I downloaded and installed a couple of the recently released Milviz p3d aircraft. I quickly discovered that they required more Vram than the 5.1 available on my 1660ti card. So, the MVz are gone and I can live without them.

Why don't you reduce textures? I think they are 4k. Reducing them to 2048 or 1024 (with mips) may do the trick. That's how I did when I had my laptop with a 2GB 1050, and my desktop with a 4GB 1650.

 

[shermank 170]

45 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Since I don't use payware airports (except for my hometown), and the default v5 airports and terminals are not that good (and no 3rd party solution in sight), I've had to return to v4 for better default airports and terminals (thankz, Zinertek and Ray Smith!). This works for almost all the birds I have (PMDG, QW, MJC, Aerosoft A330 and even CS 737 and 767).

However, I can't fly the FSL buses there, they are too heavy for the sim. Sometimes I use the 2D panel, but flying 2D in a 24" screen is not the same as in a 14" laptop. I have to endure the V5 terminals and airports if I want to enjoy FSL at a decent framerate.

Why don't you reduce textures? I think they are 4k. Reducing them to 2048 or 1024 (with mips) may do the trick. That's how I did when I had my laptop with a 2GB 1050, and my desktop with a 4GB 1650.

 

my texture is already set at 2048. I do not recall if I tried the 1024 set, but that is worth revisiting. Thanks, Luis

[Luis Hernandez 570]

Not the texture setting in P3D, but the texture size in the addon.

Reason: if the texture is 4096 with no mips, it will be loaded entirely in VRAM, no matter the setting you have. With 2048 or 1024 (with or without mips), the load is smaller. I'm not sure about the VRAM behavior with 4096px textures with mips, but I always add mips anyway.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I have set graphical quality limits in P3Dv4 that I do not compromise for anything. They are as follows:-

• Extremely Dense Scenery Complexity
• Extremely Dense Autogen Building and Vegetation Density
• 16x Anisotropic filtering
• 4x SSAA (significant difference compared to 2x SSAA @ 1920x1080 resolution)
• 2048x2048 textures (noticeable difference compared to 1024x1024 when up close to objects)

LOD Radius and Autogen Draw Distance are set to MEDIUM, although I would prefer them to be HIGH. That is a compromise that I can just about accept, considering that I generally trundle around the countryside no higher than 5000 feet. I think I saw Ray's contrail once up in the stratosphere, but I blinked and it was gone

[Bob Scott 7,720]

Occasionally some compromise can still be fun.  I still keep FSX installed on my portable rig because there are a few planes I like to dust off and fly on occasion.  The primary driver for reinstalling FSX was the PMDG MD-11F, but now I have the Rotate MD-11 in XPlane, so the PMDG version isn't getting much attention now.  And the LDS B767 was finally replaced by the FlightFactor 767 in XP11 last year.  The old Eaglesoft Citation X, the MAAMSIM DC-3, and the Digital Design Navaho are a few of the retro birds I'll still take for a spin in FSX on occasion, usually when I'm travelling and restricted to my portable rig (a 9900K with a 1080Ti and a 24" G-Sync display).

I maintain multiple sim platforms: P3D v4/v5, XPlane 11/12, DCS, FSX, and MSFS.  Every one has something to offer...and every one has its drawbacks.  I've even considered trying to get FS9 running again for a few retro nostalgia flights in the Flight1 Piper Meridian, the Captainsim 707 etc.

Most of the time, though, it's minimum-compromise ops in my 64-bit P3D favorites--the PMDG 737/747, FSL Scarebusses, Real Air Turbine Duke, Majestic Dash-8 Q400, and Maddog MD-88.