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Those shots are some of the best I've seen from P3D. Great work! -Elliot

You sir would certainly know. Really looking forward to Eaglesoft's XLS+ and Challenger 605. Brilliant. That Avanti done to Milviz standards will be stunning and will become one of my go-to aircraft. In short, it's a great time to be a flight sim enthusiast. Keep up the amazing work, gentlemen! -Elliot

Great work by Ddenn. I truly, sincerely hope that the systems on this aircraft are well-modeled. Otherwise, it's all just eye candy. But I have faith Denis will do a fantastic job, and X-Plane will finally have a beautiful, complex, versatile GA aircraft! -Elliot

ltbatower, those are stunning screenshots! #5 (near Oludeniz, I'm guessing?) might have to be my new desktop background. 13-17 are equally great. By the way, what scenery are you using for Turkey? -Elliot

To the OP, I'd save your money and wait for two upcoming gems. Check this out: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/469593-for-which-ga-airplanes-would-you-pay-for-a-version-2/page-2 The Eaglesoft Citation X 3.0 and Citation XLS+ 3.0 are coming and will both likely be P3D compatible. These are the aircraft you're looking for. Nobody does biz jets like the Eaglesoft guys. -Elliot

Well, it isn't a Lear 45, but I believe Milviz is going to model a Lear 60XR - check out their Facebook page. -Elliot

Simply put, this looks amazing. While much has been said regarding the rough requirements for overall system RAM, I haven't seen any mention of the demand placed on GPU memory. Insights? -Elliot

I'm going to take a completely different view here...I'm hoping it's an AI traffic package complete with the ATC we've all wanted for years and years. Think about it - this is the perfect team to undertake such an ambitious project. Their combined experience in working with the Flight Simulator platform is staggering. With each release, PMDG has pushed the envelope for what's possible in a computer simulation; they gained a deep understanding of the code involved in the simulation engine, learned its limitations, and pioneered brilliant ways to get around those obstacles. And that's the key: this team knows the sim inside and out. I can't even begin to imagine the complexity in developing an all-new ATC system, a novel AI traffic suite, and integrating these elements into a cohesive unit that interfaces with Navigraph and can be updated with real-world routes. But then again, these guys spend years building complex airliners that are true to their real-world counterparts. If any company can develop an AI/ATC package, it's PMDG. What's the current market for AI traffic packages? Flight One's Ultimate Traffic 2: EOL product, will eventually lose "compatibility" with P3D. MyTraffic X Pro 5: will eventually be updated for P3D v2, but there's only one developer for this complex add-on, and with the constant updates to P3D, it's hard for him to keep up. Just Flight's Traffic 360 - not updated for P3D v2 (will it ever be?). None of these are fully integrated with ATC, and Radar Contact 4 isn't getting updated any time soon either. That's the state of affairs for such an important part of our simulation. Say nothing of X-Plane, but that's an entirely different story. Is it a massive project? Yes, especially given that PMDG is now developing for 3 platforms (FSX, P3D, XPlane). Would everyone buy this package day 1 of release? Absolutely -Elliot

Honestly, get the current best of all worlds - the EVGA GTX 780 6 GB version http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487040 In doing so, you get the on-board memory of the TITAN with the performance of the GTX 780. You can run a high-res display setup with high-def textures in X-plane and not worry about being right on the edge of available VRAM. And with the recent release of the GTX 980 and 970, prices on the current-gen 700-series cards may drop in the coming weeks/months. Just a thought. -Elliot

Glenn, You raise many interesting points regarding Carenado, a development company that has generated more mixed opinions about the consistency and quality of its products than probably any other developer. However, I have to disagree with the notion that they should go "back to their roots" and exclusively stick to what they're good at. There is definitely a need for high quality (key phrase), sophisticated GA aircraft. Looking at the current field of developers producing said aircraft: Eaglesoft - while they deliver excellent products (Citation X being their best example), their development cycle is very slow and the visual quality of their aircraft is no longer state-of-the-art Milviz - C310, Baron, and now a King Air 350i - a particularly promising effort upon which I hope they capitalize (P180 Avanti and other aircraft with Collins Pro Line 21 avionics). However, they're not entirely focused on GA aircraft and they tend to have (what seems like) many projects in the pipeline/active development Flight1 - once again, fantastic products (Citation Mustang, B200), but their current lack of support for P3D and XP10 is unfortunate RealAir - hard to beat the quality of their Turbine Duke. Hopefully they continue to expand their portfolio A2A - great C172, but I wish they would make some faster, flashier aircraft I probably forgot a few, especially those producing for X-plane. I think many would agree that visual immersion is a huge part of the overall "illusion" of being in the cockpit and flying, and there really is no one better than Carenado when it comes to aircraft visuals. The other advantage that Carenado has over the competition is a larger team than most developers. What Carenado really needs to do is work on their weaknesses, that is, systems programming and long-term product support. Releasing comprehensive service packs at the expense of a rapid development cycle of incomplete, bug-ridden aircraft would make many simmers happy. If those guys combine their outstanding visual modeling with at least halfway decent systems in a mature, thoroughly beta-tested package, they would have a winner. And I'm hoping (though currently skeptical) that aircraft is the Hawker 850XP. It's been ages since a great business jet was released. IMHO, the following would be ideal: have Alabeo be the product line of "steam driven, often older style, simpler GA aircraft" that Carenado used to exclusively develop and to which you refer, Glenn, and have the Carenado product line push the envelope with increasingly advanced aircraft. In my book, that's the best of both worlds, even if it means slowing down the development cycle. -Elliot

I can't get this to work at all. When I open the sim, I get the error message "this feature requires that {smartassembly} is available on this computer". This is what I did: 1) Copied Prepar3D.exe and renamed to FSX.exe 2) Used the fsx_reg_utility from TweakFS to search for my FSX folder path as recorded in the windows registry (in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\10.0 and set the path to my FSX root folder (C:\Prepar3D), checking the option for “add to current user key”. When I go into regedit, I see that under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\10.0, the AppPath is “C:\Prepar3D” 3) Edited the Prepar3D.cfg with SimObjectPaths.9=SimObjects\UT2 Aircraft 4) I didn’t have an EXE.xml, so I made my own. Here’s what it looks like: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?> <SimBase.Document Type="Launch" version="1,0"> <Descr>Launch</Descr> <Filename>exe.xml</Filename> <Disabled>False</Disabled> <Launch.ManualLoad>False</Launch.ManualLoad> <Launch.Addon> <Disabled>False</Disabled> <ManualLoad>False</ManualLoad> <Name>UT2</Name> <Path>C:\Prepar3D\Flight One Software\Ultimate Traffic 2\UT2Services.exe</Path> <NewConsole>True</NewConsole> </Launch.Addon> </SimBase.Document> 5) Created a fake FSX config directory under C:\Users\(my profile)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX and copied the corresponding Prepar3D directory into this folder. I also renamed prepar3D.cfg to fsx.cfg 6) Installed Ultimate Traffic 2 to C:\Prepar3D What am I doing wrong? I suspect it's something with the registry step. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. -Elliot

It's an interesting time for flight simulation, no doubt. Like many others in this thread, FSX has been my primary sim platform for longer than I'd care to admit (hard to believe it came out in 2006). Even with its poorly "optimized" coding, less-than-stunning visuals, sometimes unrealistic flight dynamics modelling, and a quite a few other problems, it is enjoyable. And the chief reason for that enjoyment stems from the incredible 3rd party add-on community because their products ameliorated (or swept under the rug) many of the core issues of the sim. For me, the release of Prepar3D in 2010 was both exciting and frustrating; exciting because a well-funded development group was tasked with fixing and improving upon the core engine of FSX, but frustrating due to the EULA and its implications for the add-on community. I stayed on the P3D sidelines until recently: I just installed P3D 2.3 a few days ago, and I'm very pleased but not blown away. The sim still loads one processor core very heavily, and the comments of Rob and Beau suggest this is deeply ingrained in the coding of the sim. Even with improvements in dolling out tasks to other threads, the need for one main managing thread to synchronize everything is potentially troubling (IPC isn’t improving by leaps and bounds). Visually, P3D2.3 is a significant step up from FSX in many areas (no surprise), but autogen instancing and the LOD radius still leave much to be desired. In addition, cockpits are still too dark (IMHO) and cockpit shadows are jagged and don’t respond to increased levels of anti-aliasing. Cooperation between LM and Nvidia and the eventual move to 64-bit will undoubtedly help with visual issues and the ever-increasing complexity of 3rd party add-ons, respectively. But sgreen91 brings up some excellent points regarding the FLIGHT SIMULATION aspect of P3D. I haven’t seen any talk of improving the sim in the following areas: -Flight dynamics and ground physics modelling -Updating cira-2006 airports and navigational aids -An overhaul of the ATC system Granted, it's a project in development, and I understand that right now the team is in “performance mode”. I fully support that, and it’s about time our venerable sim got a boost in overall performance. I just wonder when we’ll hear about some of these important issues. For now, P3D2.3 is a good step in the right direction. -Elliot

Robert and PMDG Staff,This 737 is truly going to be an amazing release for FSX, and i know I've been looking forward to its release since before the project was started :). I've been absolutely floored by the screenshots above, and I know that the flight characteristics and coding of the systems of the aircraft will match the quality of the visuals. Just two quick questions regarding the quote above. Though the BBJ will not be included in the initial release, are you planning to release the BBJ as an add-on with a separate price point soon after the initial release? Furthermore, what BBJ variants will be included? Thanks.Regards,Elliot Farney

Randy and Nick,Thanks a lot for your responses!Elliot Farney

Nick,When I select the "737-600 - 2D Cockpit only" option, for example, the graphics problem does not occur. However, when "737-600 - Virtual Cockpit" or "737-600 - Virtual Cockpit & Cabin" is selected, the problem is present. Can this be fixed? Elliot Farney