mrmertz

No prob, yes...Battle of Stalingrad. Developed by 1C in conjunction with 777 coming onboard to help out after the success of Rise of Flight. It's a total re-do of the old IL-2. But what I like is that it isn't something just re-vamped - totally new engine which takes advantage of todays rigs, something I wish a GA flightsim would come and do - and be stable while doing it! I have never had one crash or glitch with ROF even with everything maxed out, full-on weather and max aircraft dogfighting, so I know it can be done. Due out this September. For a taste of visuals, iL2sturmovik.com. Sorry OP, wasn't meant to hijack thread! Enjoy, and remember, these are just MY opinions in which the OP was asking for, so if you disagree that's fine by me too. Your entitled to them just as much as I am! At least we can ALL AGREE on one thing - we all stand on common ground which is constantly striving to push for the best that simming has to offer and enjoying in it's content.

Back to the OP's question...I vote for neither. FSX I had spent more time fiddling with things than I did way more than flying in order to try to figure out the latest CTD, or why this isn't acting right or that isn't acting right. It has been taken off my HD completely. P3D from what I can tell, is the quite old FSX engine still running under 32 bit. True, P3D has LM behind it which to me personally means its on life support and to top it off not licensed for casual sim user which ironically seems to be what most people here are actually using it for. Now if LM had come out with a totally new much more stable engine with 64bit technology and was meant for simming in all realms and the coding took advantage of all the eye candy and gizmos todays machine are capable of offering, then I'd be flying right now instead of posting this. Until then, it's more advanced engines like ROF and soon to be released BOS for me as far as flying goes. As for a GA sim, I'll just sit back and wait for one based on a newer flight engine and which takes advantage of 64bit technology.

...LOL! I knew that response was coming at some point. That was too easy. Once the bugs are mostly ironed out and more major third party players come onboard I'd think about it. However, since I'm not currently enrolled as a student though I'd have to fork out the $200. for the Pro Version, which is a chunk of change just for a desktop flight simulator but hey, cheaper than the real deal. So to actually answer the OP's question again, switch to P3D? Probably - once the bugs are ironed out since FSX is just too high maintenance for me to keep running smoothly and stable. MSFS A Century of Flight (FS2004) was to date the flight sim I have had the best luck with in regards to headaches.

FSX, since I would be violating ML's EULA if I used it like FSX all of these years, so no choice but to stay with it.

Let's hope that L/M doesn't decide a year from now that it's loosing contracts and cuts the dev team from P3D in order to reign in budgets. Here we go again...

Just saying that if given the same product but at a reduced savings of 250%, most people will take the 250% savings and pocket the difference, honor system or not - though I do see that simulation is not included with the academic license and is within the pro license. .

Thanks! Good stuff. I know "realistic" is subjective. Not knocking anyone but the night lighting within UTX regarding the street lights just seemed out of scale to me, otherwise fine.

Question 1: How is L/M going to ensure/enforce verification on who is eligible to purchase which license? They must have a means otherwise I don't understand the point of all of this. If they are going to rely on the method of the honor system, refer to Question 1. It's 2013.

Getting slightly off my OP, but just watched a video as someone was flying a C172 in P3D and showed the differences between stock, FTX Global, FTX OpenLC, FTX Vector and FS Global mesh. The differences is what I got flying FSX stock and FSX with GEX and UTX - in other words no comparison. It's on YouTube: Orbx FTX Global Base+OpenLC+Vector+Mesh (P3D) Like mentioned above, if they both pull off the same thing and do it well, why wait? Never having used them before, how is Orbx on updates and all? What about realistic night lighting? I see they have a special running with 10% off Vector if FTX Global is purchased before December 31st.

Hmmm...thanks! Going to check out this FTX Vector right now. Sounds like FTX Vector and Global work harmoniously like GEX and UTX do.

So really, for $140. more for the pro license they remove the little watermark in the upper right corner, and for $2,100. above that you get to play with a destructible environment.

In regards to P3D prior to Mondays release this is what I have so far. Please feel free to correct, actually I prefer that you would! 1. GEX is slated to be releasing their version for P3D in March of '14. 2. Active Sky Next when it is released will be P3D ready. 3. FSGenesis meshes are compatible with P3D. 4. UT2 can be used with P3D but is not supported by Flight1 to be used as such. Now, the fuzzy points. With the new version coming out of P3D Monday, apparently it isn't just your usual run of the mill update. Perhaps the following questions or points are mute until 2.0 comes out, perhaps not. I haven't used P3D att all so can't say how much different the new version 2.0 will be over the previous version. 1. Barring UT2, would the updated Traffic 360 or My Traffic 2013 3D be a better choice. Must say, the models in Traffic 360 look pretty good. How is AI traffic out of the box with P3D - or isn't it? 2. Would like to see UTX and GEX being able to be used in P3D as I got excellent results from it in FSX. In particular the coastlines were much improved. FTX Global I have never used and seems to do nothing for coastline changes as the old FSX right angled coasts still appears (since I assume FTX just changes global texturing). So, mesh I'm all set on, will wait for Active Sky Next to come out along with GEX (which in no time UTX will follow hopefully). AI aircraft package is up in the air (no pun). Really confused on points about P3D from third party developers though, if somebody can chime in here. Seems like some developers say they don't (and sounds like they never will) have plans to support P3D because it's not an entertainment based program, but rather a licensed training aid. What difference does that make? If some commercial developers like IRIS, HiFi and Carenado can, why can't others...or is this more of a question of marketability? In other words, if and when the masses shift more towards P3D and away from FSX then we would see a shift in marketing by the "hold out" manufacturers. Thanks for any and all input. Perhaps the info can help others too, particularly since I have not yet flown P3D.

Back to the original OP's statement... Yes, you are correct except on ONE HUGE POINT (at least in my eyes anyhow) - FSX is dead aka the devs were slashed from the MS payrolls years ago, effectively killing the MSFS line. P3D is just beginning to awaken aka the devs are very much alive and with each version you can actually see progress being made by the very people who have continued its development - not third parties. FSX was killed off before further development could be made, leaving commercial and private sources to "pick up the pieces". True, P3D is picking up where Microsoft left off with the FS engine, but would people be griping less if Lockheed Martin would have come out with a totally new engine on their own forcing owners of FSX to purchase yet another set of commercial add-ons since nothing would work with P3D? So in summary, for me at least, having a more stable simulator and knowing that the development team that produced P3D is actively working on making improvements to it with each official update, beats a sim which is no longer supported by it's original developer and requires high user maintenance just to keep it running correctly. I have used MSFS since Fly! was around for Mac. I just don't see what's so wrong with a person aligning themselves with a product that is not 5 years outside a dead development team and in tune with the latest hardware and hence software developments.

Excellent...it should be released soon too!

Would be nice if the people over at Hi-Fi have thought of using Active Sky Next with P3D too. Wouldn't mind sliding FSGenesis and UT2 in there either along with GEX and UTX.

Never mind the light issue fix. I just checked out P3D as suggested. Tossing FSX. I'm done with it. Jim, this was all your fault!!!! : )

All I can say is... ...drool.

Definitely switching! As posted in the forums, I spend waaaay too much time uninstalling, reinstalling, and tweaking than I ever do flying in FSX. Having an up-to-the-minute flight sim involving commercial and GA traffic is overdue. No more layers upon layers of fixes and utilities just to have it run right. I will miss UT2 in the air and all of the ai traffic running around on the roads though. If the screenshots are exactly what you'll have in game, beautiful. Now to see if the new ActiveSky coming out any time soon will fit into this. Also have tones of FSGenesis meshes. Good timing though, as my GeForce 780ti arrives tomorrow too.

Thanks Jim! Interested in the aircraft it contains out of the box and all. Going to check into it further. It's just that FSX is so labor intensive for me I spend more time looking for fixes than flying - literally. Funny, because I have not been on these forums for a long time, FSX as well. Been flying 777 Rise of Flight and every now and then I would see this P3D "thing" mentioned but just figured it was another FSX add on program, never realizing it was an entirely up-to-date sim! Going to look into it more. And my new GeForce 780ti arrives tomorrow. What timing.

Ooooo! P3D, huh? Went to the website. So I'm just wondering how much of all these add-ons I bought I will be able to use with P3D? I'll chuck FSX in a minute if it actually is as good as it sound. To be released this Monday you say Jim?

Ugh...will look at the link you posted. I'm sorry, don't want to rant (but guess I am) but this sim and this type of stuff is what drives me nuts. Why can't this all be tested before its released? I understand that there are too many variables within each home computer, but if something is a known issue doesn't this mean it's more than one rig sitting at home having the problem? Perhaps come out with a patch? If I had the money, I'd invest and start up a company that would put out a HIGH QUALITY, RELIABLE and STABLE new generation GA/Commercial flight sim to replace FSX in a heartbeat and would incorporate all the cool things add-ons provide already bundled in order to minimize the layering effects that Microsoft is so adept at. Anybody got spare change lying around?

Running FSX on Windows 7, GEX and UTX installed (latest updates), UT2, SP2 over an otherwise vanilla install. CH peddles, stick and yoke after yet again another reinstallation. Also Have FlusiFix 2006 v.5 installed. Made some adjustments to the sim through it. Upon getting everything in order, took my first flight during the day and wow...everything looked and ran beautifully! Finally. Be forewarned - this gets weird! Installed a freeware fix for the ugly ai gas globes in FSX roaming the skies. Came with a.bmp image and changed some configurations within the .cfg file. Okay, no big deal as I had everything backed up "just in case". Started at dusk with the stock C-172 and everything seemed fine until I went outside to view the aircraft and noticed no strobes on even though I had selected them to be on. Also noticed as I panned the camera around the plane horizontally the strobe on the opposite wing would flash, but not the closer one. Disgusted once more, shut everything down and went to bed as I have spent 100's of hours more deleting and reinstalling than I do flying. Today, I decided to go ahead and put the original texture .bmp back in, overwriting the old one (halo.bmp) and reset the .cfg file back to the way it was. This time though, I chose the stock FSX Baron at Friday Harbor once again to see if the strobes and lighting worked on it figuring was this an isolated problem or one that now screwed everything up. Yeah, it screwed everything up. Upon starting up the Baron's engines at dusk, I pressed the strobe button on the yoke. Ahhh...now all the GEX installed street lights flash in the exact way my plane's strobes should, except the Baron shows no strobes! Oh wait, it gets better! I can turn the street lights on and off over the entire area by switching my landing lights on and off! (Ironically, my landing lights work too in the Baron). I don't understand the correlation between changing out one image .bmp and a few lines of data and how it has managed to infect both my FSX planes AND GEX. Even though I spent countless hours trying to get this sim right, checking and double checking the instructions for installs and reading reviews and spending hundreds on extras, I'm getting at wits end with something that is so extremely touchy and high maintenance. Soooo...now that this "fix" screwed up FSX do I spend another 4 days working on re-installing everything? Because if this is this case everything goes out in the driveway for our yard sale this spring. Seriously. I waste too much time on it only to keep having it turn to doo-doo like this example. Sorry this was long winded. My apologies. Have this posted over at Flight1 forum also.

Okay, Found out FSX wanted to have sound to default, changed to optic and now have ATC sound. But...UT2 traffic showing...yet its like there is no flight plan installed. Nothing. No inbounds, taxiing, zip. Going over to UT2 forums also...

Check. Uninstalled every piece of FSX that I could find going by PMDG's sheet of uninstall/reinstall. Rebooted each time, removed all freeware and payware addons. Rechecked again and again. Fresh install of FSX using G>FSX pathway. Then SP1, start sim, reboot. SP2, start sim reboot. Fresh install of UT2, pathway to FSX on G drive. Now after all that UT2 traffic shows up in all its glory at he gates - but no traffic movement. No planes taxiing, no planes in sky, no one on approach. No GA aircraft. Shadows off, all sliders set to 100% in both programs. Turn on radio stack... go to listen to ATC on ground and tower, nothing. ATIS, nothing. - no sound, just text scroll at top of screen. No in cockpit radio transmissions either way. Walking Dead syndrome. Sure wish 777 would pick up where this high maintenance sloth left off. Thanks for trying to help though.

Thanks all! And yes, I think I'll need the "good luck" too!