rsrandazzo

Captains, Just a quick drive-by to let you know that our support team has been collecting reports from users on various and sundry items that need development team attention, from the serious (a control freeze) to the mundane (an equipment option that doesn't save state) and everything in between. As is normal during this period post initial release, we are doing a bit of triage on significant items that have potential to ruin your day, and also nipping off quite a bit of the low-hanging-fruit that is easy to clean up with an interim release. Some items will take a bit longer (negative interaction between our implementation of the navigraph login and certain reshade applications) because they require detailed research and/or the fixes are high risk and merit significant time with our beta team to make sure we don't create more problems than we solve. The plan for now is to push an interim update to you via micro-update sometime before the weekend- with the goal of smoothing out some rough edges and generally improving things in time for you weekend long haulers! DANGER: I am absolutely allergic to folks who jump up and down and ask if the bug that they reported has been addressed- so do not do this or we may mail you an invoice for the $324,999,930.01 price difference you paid from our original list-price. That being said- a couple of BIG items that we have captured and killed (list is not complete- these are just the ones i can think off of the top of my head...): Loading a flight plan that includes certain types of LOC approaches leads to a rapid consumption of FPS and eventual sim lockup. (Recommend you avoid LOC only approaches for a few days, please) Engine pylons begin flexing at random intervals when such motion is unexpected. a handful of panel state loading related reports. a handful of panel state saving related reports. IMPORTANT NOTAM: Some users of certain reshade programs have reported that when they bring up the login screen for the Navigraph chart interface, the login screen is blacked out and unusable. We have been coordinating with Navigraph and they have recommended a solution that we are in the process of implementing. This is a high risk modification to the software and will require some testing to be certain the fix is actually a fix. In the mean time, if you disable the shader, you can log in via the Navigraph screen. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible for our customers who do use experience this negative interaction. Okay- i think that covers things... If you are having trouble with anything specific we are here to help- and of course our tech support team is available as well. Thanks again for your support of our product line- we really are happy to see how much you guys like this product.

Gents, I **think** I was finally able to nail this down. The issue was the bane of game coders everwhere: Unstable FPS disrupting a computational process that is heavily dependent upon dT. (differential equations are heavily involved in the computation of a flexing engine mount with thousands of pounds bolted to the end of it.) I just spent the afternoon working through a change in the method in order to make the dT process a bit more robust and resistant to sudden, instantaneous hiccups in the refresh rate of the sim. It'll need the wide data scatter of a real world test to be sure we have it nailed down. It is hard to test locally because you guys load more stuff into your sim than I do- since I don't want all manner of things interfering with baseline testing during code development. Stay tuned. (I'm going to lock this thread, as such threads tend to attract lots of "OH ME TOO!" that actually is unrelated and clouds the data points... Lets reconvene after we get the update to you guys!

Stefan, What you are describing is not actually the subject matter at hand. What you are seeing is a long standing issue within P3D in which large aricraft develop a "cold dog shake" if the parking brake is not set and the engines are at idle power. Nothing we can do about that until we complete our acquisition of Lockheed Martin Corporation. I'm still working on that- but still about $300B shy...

Gents, Our experience in chasing CTD reports during beta testing of the 747-400 and 747-8 correlate the idea put forth by Marc. We found that many of our beta testers magically ceased seeing CTDs that were simply untraceable through our debugging efforts when they removed certain combinations of COUATL/BGLMANX protected products. The JFK scenery figured prominently in the statistical results.

Steve, Interesting. we have seen a few rports of this but haven't been able to duplicate it yet. We're digging.

Tim, Thanks! We do appreciate the kind words!

Gents, Wait. ahahahahahaha If the airplane is being jostled about, the engine mounts will flex. They are designed for this. I'm specifically chasing an issue in which they will seemingly pick up motion for no apparently reason while the airplane is parked. Unless you are parking in the clouds, in which case we need to talk about your application of normal procedures. 😎

Gents, And the engine motion triggering while on the ground... I'm chasing that... It is peculiar to say the least since none of the motion triggers are in play while parked. I'm still digging... It gives me something to do while ignoring the fact that ALL the rest of Christopher's complaints result from his eagerness to remain blissfully uninformed by not reading the documentation provided in order that he has something to complain about.

Konstantin, I STRONGLY recommend you dive into the introduction document we prepared. There is an entire section in differences between the 400 and the 8, and the fun part is that you can access it right int the EFB, for added realism and in-flight reading.

Stefan, AH! You know- you just gave me an idea to investigate this. We have had a few testers report this shaking on the ground, even though the vibration model is turned off one the airplane slows- and i have been trying to reproduce it while parked without success. I bet it is some kind of interaction with the camera model... Nice idea- thank you! I'll dig a bit and see where it leads.

Gents, (And you too, Tavendale. 😋) Jason will have the paintkits up officially in a short bit. Sorry for the delay...

Nameless, Yes- the other thing you should do is sign your posts in this forum. We require it.

Gents, Thanks. Was definitely a team effort to get it sorted out. The first few hours post release were a bit rough- but we have a really good team and everyone jumped in to take on a task and we got things moving in the right direction. On a personal note- I appreciate that you guys maintained a sense of humor about it. Few things are worse on our end than disappointing you with a dumb error on release day- but at least it was MINE. Gives the rest of the team something to swing at me in the next team meeting... (Perhaps I'll skip that one... hmmmmm)

Eric, Oh- i avoid that place like the plague. Normally you'll find me further east up king street. ESP is my favorite coffee joint. nobody makes coffee like ESP, but i buy my beans at Misha's...

Patrick, Fantastic! I like solutions! Enjoy the Queen!

Gents, Normally I roll right from the release itself to pushing the paintkit... We got a bit overrun by issues that needed to be addressed, so the paintkit got overlooked this afternoon. Give me a bit to find some food and I'll see what i can do.

Thanks Jeff! Hope you enjoy it!

Patrick, What problem are you having, which Prepar3D platform, and have you hit up the guys at support yet?

Jack, Thank you for the kind words, we really do appreciate it. We love making these products- and it is always affirming to know that you guys enjoy them. Have fun with her!

Mike, Come on over here so I can kiss you on the head! YES, I am that happy about it. 😎

Gents, For anyone tracking this thread that might miss it, please check the stick post at the TOP of the forum regarding replacement of the FSX 744 and 748 installers. Please follow those instructions, and let us know that we have you up and running, please? (I'm going to close this thread so that we can keep track of things...)

Captains, A few moments ago we have replaced the installers for the following products: PMDG 747-400 Queen of the Skies II FOR FSX & PMDG 747-8 Queen of the Skies II Expansion FOR FSX If you are an FSX customer reading this message and you own these products, it does apply to you. If you are a P3D customer reading this message it does NOT apply to you. For all customers for these products, you should do the following: Uninstall the PMDG 747-400 (and 747-8 if you installed it) Download the installers once again (please: just go get them again. we replaced them at 0300Z...) Run the new installers, activate and enjoy! It appears we introduced an installer-side problem to both of the FSX 747s which prevented you from being able to activate and run the product. THIS BUG WAS MY FAULT. I hope you will accept my apology- as I'm quite embarrassed to have missed this little detail that was pointed out to me at different times by two different members of our beta team and two members of our development team. The fault was not theirs- it was definitely mine. The good news is that it was easily resolved- and these installers should get you up and running. If not- please do let us know!

Yet he bought it 11 minutes after it released. He wasn't TOO worried...

Captains, A few moments ago we have released the PMDG 747-8 Queen of the Skies II for both Prepar3D and FSX. An FSX license may be used in both FSX and FSX-Steam Edition. A P3D license may be used in both P3D v3 and P3D v4.3+ That is all for this announcement- I'm going to keep it short so that I can jump in with the support team to help out anyone that needs it!

Captains, For those of you flying the PMDG 747-400 Queen of the Skies II: We have just released a major update to this product that you will want to download. To obtain the update, you MUST follow these instructions: Go to PMDG eCommerce and log in to your account Go to your purchase history. Redownload your PMDG 747-400 uninstall the version currently in use on your machine. (DO NOT DEACTIVATE YOUR LICENSE. This is not necessary and wastes your time.) Install the new 747-400 (is build 3.00.9008) That is all you need to accomplish! Why Not A Micro-Update?: It was necessary to make MASSIVE core changes to the 747-400 in order for the base product to carry the PMDG 747-8 as an expansion package. For this reason, we want to be absolutely certain you have the correct and properly installed base package in order to smooth the user experience and minimize fuss on the support side. We simply want to wear belt and braces, for lack of a better way to describe it! Please don't worry about the servers... we distribute via cloud servers so you will get the fastest server available in your part of the world... How to know I have the correct version?: Easy! Run the PMDG Operations Center, and go to the 747-400 Versions button. You should see this: And now... on to releasing the 748!