Well, I installed P3Dv6, as well as HiFi's Active Sky P3Dv6, played around with it for a couple days, and have decided to uninstall it and go back to P3Sv5.

Reasons?  Well, several, but the main overall reason is that it's just not that impressive and IMO is barely better than P3Dv5.  The v6 clouds were a bit better, but about the same as P3Dv5 clouds on the Ultra setting.  The atmosphere was also about the same as EA - I noticed very little difference.

The scenery is the same.  The Antialiasing was no better than v5 using 4xSGAA, and the TXAA caused annoying shimmering effects.

Performance was about the same.

The only thing I really liked about it was the more realistic taxiway lights and taxi signs.  The airport buildings weren't really any better.

Perhaps in the future, maybe when P3Dv6.2 or 6.3 is released and more addons are compatible, I'll make the switch, but for right now v5 is better for me.

Dave

     Same here. I've been playing with it for a while, but some of the addons I have in P3Dv5 simply don't work well v6. I'm personally not a big fan of altering registries or making other 

changes to software. For those who do that kind of thing, that's great if all goes well. I just don't feel comfortable doing it. 

 

   

The brown tint/layer is off-putting to say the least. I also noticed that TE Norcal does not work with oceans. KMRY to KSTS over Half Moon bay was borked. Using the ORBX Base worked fine. So there's that.

4 hours ago, newtie said:

The brown tint/layer is off-putting to say the least

Yep.  I forgot to mention that.  I'm sure that LM or third party shaders can fix that - yet another reason to wait until v6 matures.

Dave

 

6 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Well, I installed P3Dv6, as well as HiFi's Active Sky P3Dv6, played around with it for a couple days, and have decided to uninstall it and go back to P3Sv5.

Reasons?  Well, several, but the main overall reason is that it's just not that impressive and IMO is barely better than P3Dv5.  The v6 clouds were a bit better, but about the same as P3Dv5 clouds on the Ultra setting.  The atmosphere was also about the same as EA - I noticed very little difference.

The scenery is the same.  The Antialiasing was no better than v5 using 4xSGAA, and the TXAA caused annoying shimmering effects.

Performance was about the same.

The only thing I really liked about it was the more realistic taxiway lights and taxi signs.  The airport buildings weren't really any better.

Perhaps in the future, maybe when P3Dv6.2 or 6.3 is released and more addons are compatible, I'll make the switch, but for right now v5 is better for me.

Dave

I couldn't agree more.  There is NO DISCERNIBLE difference between 5 and 6 IMHO.  If 6 were significantly better and different, then I would make the switch.  I bought 6 and have it in a folder on one of my less important drives. It is NOT worth the work or aggravation to change to a sim that represents so small a change.  The work necessary to convert is beyond reason. I am SO happy with 5.4 and I have invested in it heavily.  I will only change if Lockheed Martin provides a brand new sim with Unreal Engine or something that literally overhauls the entire sim.  My clouds in 5.4 are awesome with AS and Cloud Art.  I couldn't expect anything better. 

I was really looking forward to something more like MSFS in scenery and realism.  It did not happen, and until it does, I will be very happy with 5.4 for the foreseeable future.  I fly every day with 5.4 for IFR flights and I fly MSFS for VFR to enjoy the realistic scenery.

Stan 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by spilok

I’ll continue to futz with V6 but 5.4 is my main sim for sure.

I agree with most of what has been said in this post. 

My thoughts, I thought when they released the 5.4 update not to long ago that maybe V6 would be a new product from the ground up. Maybe the 5.4 update would be a final update to the old FSX/ESP engine to tie up any loose ends and V6 would be something new. That didn't happen.  Will probably stay with 5.4 until at lease ORBX comes up with a ORBX Central installer for V6 for there Global Range of products. P3DV6 still has the same issues with the vector data where I live and in Northern Canada that version 5 had, missing rivers and water bodies, water body elevation issues in Northern Canada. In other words, still need ORBX vector and Freemesh X to make it look nice.  I have to admit, I do like the fancy new runway lights in V6. Also there some more buildings with proper dimensions and in the right location in V6.  Not enough IMHO to move everything over yet to V6.

11 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Perhaps in the future, maybe when P3Dv6.2 or 6.3 is released

This is my way for every version of P3D.

Their initial releases are 'half baked' to be soft with words, after 3 solid service packs this sim is worth of attention.

Personal opinion - as for 3 years of development changes between v5 and v6 are pathetic.

Edited July 27, 20232 yr by Beardyman

I often wonder what the point, or intent, was of this release. They had to have known that scenery/aircraft was going to be a word not allowed shoot and further development of those is currently next to zero. For our market, LM is dependent on those sources to appeal to the flightsim hobbyist and fanatics. I wonder if this is a controlled release where updates accelerate over time and have easter eggs to boot. Conversely, what would the point of that be?
Now I have confused myself. Again. 😀

I think that LM are probably well aware that v6 is not going to be all that attractive to the average home user, now that Microsoft Flight Simulator is dominating the market. In my opinion, this version is targeted specifically at their military and other commercial customers, apart from the switch from "Academic" to "Personal" licence (which enables ALL home users to purchase the product at the $60 price tag).

Me, personal can understand the arguments, but i don´t agree. 

My 5.4 with AS and TOGA and Legacy clouds etc. was also very very nice and realistic, same as for Stan and i could have stay with that for a while. But there was a major flaw in the old ESP till V5 which came more and more present for me as immersion destructive. This was the unrealistic Nightsky with thousands of stars poping up way too early at dusk and the whole duration of the twilight phase which was way too short and unrealistic though. These two major wrong parts left are much much better now, not perfect but a lot better, while everything else is as good as in 5.4 at least.

So why should i stay on 5.4? Because of the workload that has to be done to get the V5 add-ons into V6? NO! With Lorbys AO this is a quite easy task to do so, and honestly, do you really exspect less issues from a V7 (if this will be done that way) based on Unrealengine, in case of backwards compartbility?

I think this is not the way LM will take to come out with a V7 or V8. I think they evolve the actual V6 more and more to integrate unreal coding where it provide advantages for the Graphics, as they already did for V6 with the new athmosphere, lights and cloud system, and keep the base for compartibilty.

I also don´t think that a complete new V7 with a complete new engine bla bla, will solve magical the issue that add-on devs will immediatly provide updates for their P3D add-ons. 

Even more than 3 years after release there are so less add-ons for European airports for MSFS.

Just something i would think about 😉    

I never left 5.4 for 6. I can't expect A2A, PMDG, iFly, CS to name a few, to udpate their aircraft.So why in heavens name does LM introduce new techniques breaking these addons? Is it so overwhelmingly important like the step from 32 bit to 64 bit? This was quite a success and costs us users and the devs lot of time and money. But again and again they do it and never lern from bevore. If this was just a bug correction, sorry but that could have been done somewhere the last 10 years I fly this sim.

I fear, the real market are real world pilots training with P3D. They don't need tons of addon airports or many different planes. Maybe some flying schools employ somebody to create a plane for them. They find a solution. For all uf us here, LM does not produce P3D. Were just on the side and our wishes are not necessary to sell to the commercial market. 

So sorry v6, there's nothing I could gain changing the sim. Also matured, in 2-3 years, it will be a standalone thing without many addons from earlier times. Maybe MSFS dies and all come back to P3D one time. Maybe then, things will change on the addon side. I don't see this coming the next few years.

3 hours ago, BerndB said:

.....but there was a major flaw in the old ESP till V5 which came more and more present for me as immersion destructive. This was the unrealistic Night sky with thousands of stars popping up way too early at dusk and the whole duration of the twilight phase which was way too short and unrealistic though. These two major wrong parts left are much much better now, not perfect but a lot better, while everything else is as good as in 5.4 at least.....

Yes, the "stars visible with the Sun above the horizon" issue is something that is very evident in P3Dv4.5HF2. I watched the Sun rise directly in front of me the other day during a flight, and I also watched the (easily visible) Pleiades star cluster rise with it!!

@BerndB,

Lorby's AO is another BIG reason to stay with 5.4.  Absolutely love that program for Scenery organization!  

Edited July 28, 20232 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Long quoted post removed

16 minutes ago, spilok said:

.

Lorby's AO is another BIG reason to stay with 5.4.  Absolutely love that program for Scenery organization!  

Are you aware that Lorby has an AO for V6 released now ?