JasonD210

I forgot I am using ORBX Global so this will also affect it I guess.

Hi Can anyone tell me how to fix the elevation problems in P3D when using the Greenland Qeqqata X scenery? In particular BGSF is un even ground with dips everywhere, even on the runway. Thanks Jason

I missed out on the P3d version. I was rather hoping they'd redo it for 64-bit, but reading between the lines I think they are waiting to see how things pan out in the market when MSFS2020 arrives. At least that was the impression I got from their website. There's simplified and simplified. I'm not bother for sims that simulate circuit breakers and all that, so long as the main instruments, systems and avionics are modelled.

I bought FSL Concorde for FSX ages back. Basically everything is right there in that sim. I'm surprised FSL haven't updated it all yet. As for AH, I bought their Boxcar C-119 a while back and it's easily one of my favourites for P3D. I held off their DC-3 because it lacked any special features and was pricey, especially when one considers that there are already two decent DC-3s available, one of which is free. Concorde? It would have to be at least at the level of Just Flight's L1011 for me to even go near it.

I too am confident that LM will improve the performance of Truesky / Enhanced Atmospherics. It is still at Beta stage only. I have just completed a flight around Manchester EGCC at night in the DC-6, my first ORBX / TrueSky / VR experience in version 5. Nice. The ORBX night lighting looks excellent. I had the scenery / AI complexity very high at the airport so while taxying I saw some white texture flickering. I was expecting that. It's a pity version 5 has been getting a bad rap on You Tube and here at Avsim. Prepar3d is an excellent simulator.

Exactly. Spend another $1000 to get the fastest video card available to get a "half-good" result out of p3d. What setting are you using for cloud resolution? I have mine on high and I'm getting 25 30 fps in A2A constellation at a UK Extreme airport, ORBX UK sceneries and Active SKY. I'm happy with that.

I don't understand it, but when the scenery firsts loads up they are all offset. I have enhanced atmospherics on also. They look OK now, apart from the PAPI lights which you didn't alter. How do your PAPI lights look when you are near them? Jason

Well, I went out a bought a GeForce RTX 2070 8GB WINDFORCE 2X as they had one in stock and in my local shop and the price was OK..ish. This will have to do for now.

The 2060 RTX super, which I was talking about getting, is not a four year old mid-range card.

Thanks for the advice. So it's back to throwing tons of money at it again, just to get fluffy clouds. This always happens when I get into Flight Simulation. It's VR that set me off this time. I've been running 4.5 with my old 1060 GTX for the last few weeks since I got my Oculus, and it's just about been OK apart from when I've had a complex aircraft at a complex airport. For example the A2A Constellation at ORBX Stockholm was a no go, but other than that it's been doable. In version 5 performance is better until you turn on the fluff. I have concluded tonight that "enhanced atmospherics" at medium resolution, which is the highest setting I can use, is just not acceptable. It creates ugly, pixelated boundaries where it touches hills. It must be set to at least high to look good, and that of course brings my fps to a standstill.

Hi I justed tested your lights in version 5. For some reason they are all offset by about 30cm. I can send screenshots if you are interested.

I assume you are referring to the 11GB 1080ti which retails new at about $1000, and not the 6GB variant. Pretty expensive. I agree the pricing for the 2080 ti is insane, and not only that, but it eats up an insane amount of power so you have to be careful that your PSU can handle it. I've been experimenting with the new "Enhanced atmospherics" and it looks great but it's a monster of an fps killer. In VR in v5, I normally get a constant 40fps with England ORBX scenery in the default F22. If I turn "Enhanced atmospherics" on just to medium setting (which is the minimum you want or it just looks word not allowed), then the fps hovers erratically between 20 and 40 fps. Any higher setting with "Enhanced atmospherics" is a slide show. So you don't recommend the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER? I reckon you can keep it from going over 8GB by keeping the textures to 2048.

I have an Oculus Rift S. I recently tried V5 of P3D with Stereo VR enabled as opposed to single pass. This is required to experience the "Enhanced Atmospherics" feature, such as fluffy clouds and so on. The performance was not acceptable. With only 'single pass' enabled, as opposed to stereo, it's fine but there are no fluffy clouds. Since my CPU is an 3.6gHz i9-9900K, and RAM is 32GB, replacing the 1060 GTX card seems to be the next move. I don't want to spend a great amount on this, so am thinking of getting a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, but is it enough? Will that really make a significant difference to the performance? I don't want to spend any money just to get a minor performance improvement. I can live without fluffy clouds in that case. Is anyone else using fluffy clouds in P3Dv5 VR? I'd be interested to hear about your specs and settings. Cheers Jason

sorry duplicate post

I was attempting to tweak some dds texture files on some airport buildings today, and the results were unexpected. I had assumed that the _lm dds textures were simply replacement textures for the daytime ones, but it seems that some kind of blending is going on between day and night textures, that results in a brighter highlights. Is this correct? As a test I used the same texture for a yellow window glow for both night and day, and the night version was much lighter and harsher than the day version which seemed dull in comparison. I'm trying to find an explanation for this if anyone can help. Jason

Sorry I had meant to send those to you as PM. Explains why I couldn't find the post.

Hi Stein-Ove, Here are some screenshots. Let me know if these are OK or if you need better ones. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uen39ud70scxtx3/Lights.zip?dl=0 Everything works as expected and the lights are a huge improvement! I wouldn't do any more, I think it is enough. Taking into account visibility is an improvement on the default settings, but it still doesn't allow for dull or cloudy days, and as I mentioned before the buildings are dark. This of course is a problem on all airports in p3d and FSX, and for that reason I am currently having the lights on all the time in the simulator. Will your lights work without the scripts, if I delete the dark textures? Jason

Sorry, no idea. If it's add-on scenery, then make sure it's installed correctly. All this tweak does is determine when the simulator swaps textures for night time ones.

Hi I noticed recently that with some 3rd Party Airports that have custom runway lighting, such as Longyear ENSB, that the lights are off during the day, even during bad weather. This makes doing approaches and landings unrealistic. There's an old tweak for the prepar3d.cfg file, where you can specify the light duration by adding a couple of entries. Well, if you set them as follows: [GRAPHICS] DAY_THRESHOLD=65535 NIGHT_THRESHOLD=0 ...then this tells the simulator to keep the lights always on. That might at first seem a strange thing to do, but it does solve the problem of landing in poor visibility conditions. Also, I found that flying or taxying around an airport on a dull, grey day seems far more realistic when you can see lights on in the buildings, rather than having everything dark. Interestingly, if the weather is bright and sunny, you can't see the lights when they are on, so I figured why not leave them on? I guess there is a performance hit for that, and I haven't tried this in version 5 yet, but so far its made a world of difference flying around Europe.

Thanks. Yes this is what I see (although the fat needle seems to be more white than yellow). There is no needle for NAV 2 it seems, which means you must use one VOR and one NDB to navigate, unless you want to switch back and forth between stations. I've just tried this aircraft in VR and it's amazing.

Hi Alan Thanks for the reply. As you say it is an RMI. It says so in the manual too, where a diagram states that gauge 28 is an RMI (ADF 1 + VOR 1) dial. So considering this and the fact that there are NAV receivers on the pedestal, one would think there'd be a VOR needle on the dial. I tried setting the frequency of both NAV receivers to a nearby VOR but no dial responded to that. This was at 12000 feet and a distance of about 10 nm from the VOR. May be there just isn't one and that's OK, but perhaps there is a hidden switch I am missing. I'd like to know for sure so I can use the Flight Planner properly. Jason

I don't know how many people are using the Aeroplane Heaven C-119 boxcar add-on, but it seems hard to find any information on it. I just bought it recently and it is a real nice add-on. Whoever made it has gone to a lot of trouble to recreate an authentic look and feel to the aircraft, and the cockpit controls and systems are definitely above average. Anyway,. my question is, does anyone know if there is a VOR in this aircraft. One is mentioned in the manual, but the only functionality I can get out the said gauge is as an ADF indicator... Cheers Jason

Thanks. I noticed now that many of the top-range cards are reference cards. That's good for your CPU, but they still suck in warm air from the case. I've always invested in a top of the range CPU fan, and then added two fans to the case, one sucking from the front, and one at the back expelling air. It's always worked for me.

What does "non-reference design" mean?

Hi I came to this forum with almost exactly the same question in mind. I have almost identical specs to yours and I also have recently moved over to P3D v3. I was expecting to see a nice increase in frame-rates and stability. Instead they are the same - disappointingly low when you have heavy aircraft and scenery add-ons. With the ORBX England package, I was getting about 9 FPS when flying low using the P3D F-22. I don't have all the sliders to the right, and I have turned off all reflections. So, yes, I was surprised and disappointed. Especially after playing other simulators like DCS where I get much higher framerates. Even games like War Thunder, where you have amazing scenery and many players connected with superbly detailed aircraft, I'm getting well over 25 fps. I suspect the real problem lies in the nature of aging Microsoft ESP code. It's not optimised for today's hardware. But like you, I looked at my aging PC and wondered if upgrading the video card might help. I can tell you that it will, but don't expect a miracle. One test you can do is to set your resolution in p3d to the lowest possible setting, and then see if there is an improvement in frame-rates. Resolution is determined by the GPU, so if having your simulator set to the highest GPU setting causes a lowering of frame-rates, then a newer, faster GPU will help. In my tests, with my resolution set to the lowest setting, I was getting 15fps, whereas in the same area with the highest resolution, I was getting 8 - 9 fps. Not a great difference but enough to make landing more than a slideshow. However I'm not sure what card to get. I had a look at this chart and the ASUS nVidia GTX 970 seems to be reasonable card to go for in terms performance per buck. The aforementioned Radeon R9 fury X is just below and carries a much higher price tag. So I'm thinking of going for nVidia GTX 970. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html Hopes this helps. /Jason