Been away for a couple years.. whats the latest and greatest

[avi8tir 25]

When MSFS came out, I thought I was done with P3D. I never ended up loving MSFS. Almost 4 years end and the aircraft choices are just not good. Still no PMDG 777, etc. With space running out on my PC, I had to drop P3D. Santa brought me an additional 4TB for xmas, so I just purchased V6. 

My previous installs included pretty much every significant add on..... ORBX, PMDG, FSDT, chase plane, Active sky, etc etc etc. 

So, what are the must have these days? Has anything changed? 

[chapstick 2,758]

FSL Concorde and iFly Max are the only interesting things to release for P3D in the last couple years but neither are V6 compatible. Otherwise, nothing new. 

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 542]

It's so bad to think that instead of correcting v5, LM chose to release v6....

Imagine the good things about v6 (new AA, new atmosphere and lights, etc) in v5 which is compatible with everything...

[Ray Proudfoot 8,999]

@avi8tir, although the Vertx DA-62 doesn't have an installer for beyond v4 it works just as well in v5 and probably v6. No support from the author but plenty here. It's a great aircraft with great systems.

There was a DA-62 in MSFS so if you liked that aircraft you might consider the Vertx one. A couple of fiddles to get it installed but nothing requiring a brain surgeon.😁

https://vertxsim.com/

[Bob Scott 7,722]

With regards to P3D, I truly can't conclude that the latest is the greatest.  From the perspective of the complete sim environment (scenery, weather, aircraft options, flight dynamics, avionics, ancillary utilities etc), P3Dv5 and P3Dv4 have the most complete array of available enhancements and extensions, and you probably already have many of them already.  In P3Dv4, a good number of rather nice payware add-ons were gifted to the community as freeware--the whole Milviz catalog, Simskunkworks, etc.  There are a ton of freeware enhanced small airports published by Orbx for v4, and the author's death precluded anything more than a hope-for-the-best straight port into v5.  P3Dv5 is still my go-to for complex jets into large complex add-on airports, as the performance is somewhat better.  Add-on compatibility for v6 is really spotty--it will require a considerable amount of program-by-program tinkering to adapt add-ons made for v5 and earlier to v6, and some won't be usable regardless.  It's also easy to take the sophisticated tools we have for v4/v5 for granted as well--for example ADE to edit airport characteristics, AIG for traffic, etc.  Some of those capabilities will be diminished, and some will be outright left on the table if you move to v6.

Honestly, the biggest improvements to the P3D environment in the last four years aren't in software at all.  Both P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 have benefitted greatly from significant advances in hardware--the RTX30xx and 40xx series video cards and several generations of fast 5 GHz class 8+ core CPUs have made a huge difference in performance over that time frame.

I greatly enjoy my parallel P3Dv5 and P3Dv4 installations running fast and reliable on modern hardware, however I haven't yet been able to make the leap to P3Dv6 because of all that's gone missing amidst the exodus of developers answering the siren's call of SimZilla.

[Patco Lch 1,468]

4 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

answering the siren's call of SimZilla.

Love it. Now that's one to remember.😂

[Rogen 1,094]

5 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

Honestly, the biggest improvements to the P3D environment in the last four years aren't in software at all.  Both P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 have benefitted greatly from significant advances in hardware--the RTX30xx and 40xx series video cards and several generations of fast 5 GHz class 8+ core CPUs have made a huge difference in performance over that time frame

Couldn't agree more.

[seamaster55 75]

Nice French aircraft for different sims here:

https://restauravia.fr/

High quality, but some - their engines keep quitting when you go back into the cockpit from the outside.😬

[avi8tir 25]

Thanks all. I guess I jumped the gun too quickly and bought V6 when I already own V5!

I just really dont love MSFS still... it looks great but some key things like chase plane, study level aircraft etc are still missing. 

[willy647 193]

7 hours ago, avi8tir said:

study level aircraft etc are still missing. 

What about Fenix / PMDG / Maddog ... and don't forget the A2A comanche pa24 !

[Rogen 1,094]

13 hours ago, willy647 said:

What about Fenix / PMDG / Maddog ... and don't forget the A2A comanche pa24 !

Yeah that's a couple, but lets take A2A as per your example, I've 12 A2A aircraft for P3D (and I enjoy flying them all) compared to the 1 in MSFS.

When I look at Ants airplanes (another fav of mine) I've 6 compared to 3.

So still a way to go in my books...

Cheers

[Bob Scott 7,722]

Let's not turn this into another sim-vs-sim evolution, please.

[UrgentSiesta 936]

Majestic Q400 is one of the only native v6 addons.

FSL Concorde finally released, but IIRC it's for v5 only...

iFly 737 Max came out not too long ago, i think it's not v6 native yet, either (both of them have switched dev efforts to MSFS for now, like PMDG, et al).

I think Bob hit the nail on the head - you either stick with v4/4.5 or go with v5, depending on your preferences for aircraft addons.

If you have tons of addons, then likely best to stick with v4.5 unless you need the substantial performance enhancements offered by v5 (i mean, it's so much faster it's like getting a new computer...).

Other than that, you gotta really be willing to tinker AND compromise if you want to go with v6.

[rocketlaunch 615]

Although V6 is actually pretty good it is too little too late. Most developers have moved on and the lack of support for V6 is quite sobering. I don't think LM really care to be honest. I think the latest and greatest has already happened some time ago in regards to P3D, hope I'm wrong. 

[dbw1 445]

4 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

Although V6 is actually pretty good it is too little too late. Most developers have moved on and the lack of support for V6 is quite sobering. I don't think LM really care to be honest. I think the latest and greatest has already happened some time ago in regards to P3D, hope I'm wrong. 

V6 Comments......

Actually if you fly V6 in Canada between FC Scenery and SimAdOns coast to coast airports plus ASN V6 works quite nicely in Canada. FlightBeam airports install and work just fine worldwide. The only aircraft I use at the moment with a V6 installer is the Majestic.....hoping that more make their arrival eventually. I do miss FSL and the MadDog and a few others.