P3D V5.4 is available

[Christopher Low 5,352]

4 hours ago, BerndB said:

I think about revert back to MS-Flight Simulator 5.1. Would be interesting to see, if the actual hardware would handle it without stutters. ONLY THEN real satisfaction can be felt.

The problem left is, that i do not have a Floppydrive for 3.1/4" in my PC. Hmmmm....🤔Problems, problems everywhere....

The big problem with this is that MS Flight Simulator 5.1 was rubbish even back in 1995, so super smooth framerates would be pointless

Edited May 27, 2023 by Christopher Low

[Howellerman 104]

2 hours ago, neilhewitt said:

I appreciate others may feel differently, but if //42 were selling a product that I wanted on MSFS, say, I would not refuse to buy from them on principle because I felt that they let me down on P3D support for ChasePlane. If there were other equally capable alternative products, then my feelings about their past behaviour might come into play, but short of them having done something so outrageous that I feel morally obligated to boycott them, I'm not going to get that upset about it. I mean, people remember the FSLabs spyware debacle, but they still buy their products. But that's just me. I would not claim to speak for anyone else. 

Not having ChasePlane in MSFS is one of the key reasons I have not migrated to the platform. I own it, routinely update it, but don't enjoy using it. The reason why is that I use an Xbox controller to manipulate my camera views in P3D. It is a brilliant combination, as the Xbox controller fits under one hand, offers keys and toggles and joysticks (oh my!) and I can do ANYTHING with the ChasePlane camera views. Unfortunately, we all know how the Xbox controller is dominated by MSFS, and the conflict drives me bonkers during use.

[ggerolamo 108]

On 5/26/2023 at 4:18 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m holding fire until SimStarterNG is compatible. The author has said it might be a few weeks due to real life commitments.

Little info:
an unsupported alpha scheme with which you should be able to start P3Dv5.4. was released 🙂
https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/176274-support-for-prepar3d-v54/&do=findComment&comment=1109381

[KL Oo 698]

7 hours ago, Howellerman said:

Not having ChasePlane in MSFS is one of the key reasons I have not migrated to the platform. I own it, routinely update it, but don't enjoy using it. The reason why is that I use an Xbox controller to manipulate my camera views in P3D. It is a brilliant combination, as the Xbox controller fits under one hand, offers keys and toggles and joysticks (oh my!) and I can do ANYTHING with the ChasePlane camera views. Unfortunately, we all know how the Xbox controller is dominated by MSFS, and the conflict drives me bonkers during use.

Mate I've got an X-Box controller for Windows and have it setup using drone camera exactly as I did with Chaseplane when I was using P3D. It was a bit more difficult to get it setup but once done, I really don't see a need for CP - using drone camera does everything I used CP for. Happy to show you my settings etc via private message if you're interested. 

[IanHarrison 522]

On 5/26/2023 at 6:30 PM, Sparkrite said:

I have gone back to 5.3HF2, for the time being. Chaseplane just did not behave itself in V5.4.

 

So have I. Also AS is not yet OK with the new version.

[Joseph29 225]

1 hour ago, IanHarrison said:

So have I. Also AS is not yet OK with the new version.

Is AS ActiveSky? If so the latest version (8538) works with v5.4.

[Luke 782]

8538 works just fine with 5.4 for me.

Cheers

[IanHarrison 522]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

8538 works just fine with 5.4 for me.

Cheers

Thanks. I have not received any form of notification of an update. Unlike Chaseplane, which told me it wasn't compatible.

[DD_Arthur 1,048]

On 5/27/2023 at 4:40 PM, Howellerman said:

Unfortunately, we all know how the Xbox controller is dominated by MSFS, and the conflict drives me bonkers during use.

Do you mean the white dot during external view transition?

Drives me bonkers too but I use my wireless controller with TrackIr which can mitigate it.

Edited May 28, 2023 by DD_Arthur

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:09 PM, Greggy_D said:

I’ve never understood the need for developers to lock their addons to a specific point release/build.  Literally, one of the biggest pain in the asses surrounding P3D.

For all addons you have to make a decision which SDK build you use for compiling/building/creating them. That is where the "lock" comes from. You can choose to stick with P3D 5.0 SDK - but then your products will not benefit from any improvements that have been introduced. With every new point release of P3D there is a new SDK too, and there are usually fixes mentioned in the release notes concerning the SDK as well, not only in-sim. And when there are mentions of "Fixed CTD when ... does ..." then I definitely want to upgrade...

So you can either decide to stick to an old SDK version, hoping that every new P3D release is actually backwards compatible (and then scramble madly when it actually isn't 100% compatible and all customers are complaining). Or stay with the "flow" and upgrade your addons to the new SDK when/if necessary every time.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Lorby_SI

[Sparkrite 188]

2 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

So you can either decide to stick to an old SDK version, hoping that every new P3D release is actually backwards compatible (and then scramble madly when it actually isn't 100% compatible and all customers are complaining). Or stay with the "flow" and upgrade your addons to the new SDK when/if necessary every time.

So what's the difference?

If 'locked' it definitely will not work, so 100% of your customers are complaining. So you will have to, as you say, "scramble madly" to update/lock to new version.

If not 'locked' it may well work and if so, happy days. If it doesn't then you are no worse off than the above.

So again, I ask, why not just have a warning appear when a new P3D version number is encountered?

Edited May 28, 2023 by Sparkrite

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

3 hours ago, Sparkrite said:

So what's the difference?

If 'locked' it definitely will not work, so 100% of your customers are complaining. So you will have to, as you say, "scramble madly" to update/lock to new version.

If not 'locked' it may well work and if so, happy days. If it doesn't then you are no worse off than the above.

So again, I ask, why not just have a warning appear when a new P3D version number is encountered?

But - as I tried to explain, it will always be "locked", no matter what you do. That is just how this works, you don't have the technological option of "not locked". This is not a choice that the developer makes, it is a technological fact, common to every piece of software. 

What good would the message do when the addon is incompatible anyway? I'm not sure that I understand the reasoning here.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Lorby_SI

[jdbp 1]

3 hours ago, Sparkrite said:

So what's the difference?

If 'locked' it definitely will not work, so 100% of your customers are complaining. So you will have to, as you say, "scramble madly" to update/lock to new version.

If not 'locked' it may well work and if so, happy days. If it doesn't then you are no worse off than the above.

So again, I ask, why not just have a warning appear when a new P3D version number is encountered?

Considering you have to add the chaseplane exe to the anit-virus exclusion list, they are probably accessing p3d process memory directly for some functionalities. These memory addresses will be different with each p3d build, so it will definitely not work, even if not locked.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

16 minutes ago, jdbp said:

even if not locked.

What does "not locked" look like with a programmatic addon (or any program really) that you've built with a specific set of libraries? I fail to see the point of this discussion, this "lock" is an inevitable fact of software life.

Granted though, that SimConnect addons, built 100% to spec, should not require an update. I know that mine don't. But I remember when P3D V5 came out and suddenly color progression in the effects worked differently, and all fires and smoke in FireFighter X looked like word not allowed. This was never "fixed", Lockheed said that this new logic was there to stay. So we tried to work around it, but it was never the same visually, not like in V4. So not only there is the necessity to upgrade at times - the fun part is that you have no guarantee that your addon will even work properly ever again (that was actually the case for all stand-alone WASM modules in MSFS a few versions back - that was quite the scare for everybody).

Edited May 28, 2023 by Lorby_SI

[jdbp 1]

15 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

What does "not locked" look like with a programmatic addon (or any program really) that you've built with a specific set of libraries?

Not locked simply means there is no hardcoded version check that prevents some addons from event attempting to run on new p3d releases. I was just explaining Sparkrite that there is a good reason for chaseplane to have this, while other addons don't need it.