abandoned account

I have a weird issue with runway lights. When they get close to the a/c, they change color and/or shape. See screenshot: http://fsfiles.org/flightsimshotsv2/image/Gmp5 It occurs on all runways all around the world that I've tried, stock and add-on sceneries. This is P3D 3.3.5 and I have all the common addons like REX and the ORBX stuff. Unfortunately I can't remember if this happened from day one without the addons. I've tried any and all settings I could think, disabling/enabling sceneries, tried the orbx 3d lights configuration tool, and so on. Switching runway lights within REX changes the lights as expected but the behaviour still remains. Setting HDR lighting to off seem to make the center lights behave this way instead. On the above screenshot, it's set to on. Any ideas why this happens?

Yes, an there are still people out there who thinks that all memory issues will be eliminated just by moving to 64-bit.

Some people might say that choosing a topic that reflects the actual content is key to getting good answers. Some people might say that "Elaine, I could use your help again" is not such a topic. Some people might even say that it should be nominated as one of the worst topics ever.

I think you're missing an important point. What happened from P3D v3.2 to V3.3 was NOT something new and surprising that could not have been forseen by the 3rd party developers. It happend because they use a FIFTEEN year old SDK. This can obviously not be pointed out enough. This way of programming should not exist if you label it P3Dv3.2 compatible, not P3Dv2, not P3Dv1 and heck not even FSX or FS2004. We're talking FS2002. The 3rd party developers have been told for years and years that they should stop doing this. All this whining from developers that P3D is a moving target is ridiculous. Having to change a few lines of code every 15 years... well that's not a moving taget. That's just lazyness from the 3rd party developers who want the most money for the least effort.

Frankly I'm not sure what you're talking about. FSX and P3D compatibility isn't really what we're talking about here. We're talking about addons that use a FIFTEEN year old SDK. FS2002 was released in 2001. The SDK was obsolete a few years after that. People who use really old addons and demand that they should be continue working forever... well, you're holding us back! It's time to let go. If you buy a new door for your house and the door doesn't fit, you don't rebuild the entire house. This is what you guys are demanding. It's time to let go. The fact that LM had to revert this change in the upcoming hotfix is a clear sign that a lot of 3rd party developers are really spoiled and lazy. And the fact that companies like Aerosoft are trying to make even more money out if this situation is starting to smell like a scam.

Instead of taking responsibility for their poorly coded addons that use a 15 year old SDK, they are actually taking the opportunity to take even more money from their customers. I see that a lot of people are annoyed and worried about having to buy the same addon twice or more because of compatiblity issues. Remember that this is completely and 100% the fault of the 3rd party developer and their sales models. LM is in no way responsible for this. They are moving forward. Companies like Aerosoft need to wake up and smell the reality. They charge a lot of money for their addons. Whining about P3D being a moving target just shows how spoiled and lazy they are. The software business doesn't work that way. It's time to wake up and realize that the FSX times are gone.

Remember that the right thing to do is to put some well deserved pressure on the developers of these sceneries instead of just stop upgrading P3D versions. Developers/resellers like Aerosoft are really spoiled when it comes to not having to release any updates ever. If they whink that they can still handle P3D as they handled FSX, i.e. release an addon and never update it, they are dead wrong. They are the ones that should lose money because of this. LM is moving forward, they are doing the right thing. it's time for the 3rd party developers to wake up if they still want to get our money.

Well, "wasn't told" is not really true now, is it?. They where all told many, many, many years ago that it's time to move forward, when new SDK versions appeared. They didn't, and many, many, many years later LM finally decided that enough is enough. This is no sudden move in P3D v3.3 that LM failed to tell the 3rd party developers. If you develop against an SDK that is 15 years old, this is simply your own fault. If you demand support for 15 year old addons and at the same time want a high performance simulator without stuttering, autogen popping, VAS problems... then dream on.

...then blame the 3rd party developers, not LM. Sorry guys but blaming LM for this issue is simply wrong and ignorant. 3rd party developers who still code for FS2002 should be ashamed of themselves if they claim that their software is anywhere near P3D compatible. Come on guys, it's been 15 years. That's fifteen. You really expect P3D to move forward and at the same time keep compatibility with 3rd party software that is developed for a 15 year old SDK? Either the 3rd party developer should tell you "sorry, no P3D support". Or, they fix their broken stuff. Yes, it's their stuff that's broken, not LM. If a scenery/addon isn't developed anymore, you can't expect it to continue working forever. It's about time that LM removes the legacy junk and put some pressure on the 3rd party developers who still code like it's year 2001. I mean, every other topic on every flight simulator forum is about VAS usage, stuttering, autogen popping, blurry textures and so on. Have you ever wondered why that is? I can give you the answer: a lot of legacy code to achieve compatibility with 3rd party addons that is written against an SDK that is older than some of the poeple running the simulator. Think about that the next time you have issues with VAS/textures/stuttering/performance, and at the same time demand that your 15 year old addon should run just as it did year 2001 even though noone cared to update it. If you don't want your simulator software to evolve, then stick to FSX or FS2002 or whatever you prefer.

I fail to see how this is the fault of LM. Developers who still code like it's 2001 is to blame, not LM. Thank you LM for moving forward.

I still have problems with some of the runway lights turning on and off during approach, on both stock and addon airports. Some extreme building flickering on some airport buildings but this may be limited to old FSX airport addons.

I still wonder why so many people keep asking questions like "will setting X work". Some people will always respond with "you will get your FPS hammered", some people will anser "no problem". It depends on so many other things, like all your other settings. So I wonder - instead of asking, why not simply try for yourself? Trying different settings and starting a few flights to see if it looks good and if your FPS gets hammered in heavy clouds (for example) will probably take less time than it takes to ask on a forum if heavy clouds will get your FPS hammered. And the answer will be more accurate. I still think that the only person who can answer the original question of "is it overkill?" is the creator of this very thread.

The only person who can answer this is... well, you. It depends on so many other variables, including your personal preference. I'm not sure what we're supposed to say really?

Same thing with P3D v3 here. I'm using REX4 and ORBX but I'm not really sure where the problem is. All kinds of runway/taxi lights are changing looks depending on the distance and viewing angle. Sometimes they go back and forth from small to large. It happens at all airports, stock and addons.

By old I didn't necessarily mean the physical age. I ment the lack of interest in improving and moving forward. If you've decided that FS9 or FSX or anything else for that matter is the ultimate solution and your mission is to always point out everything that is wrong with other solutions even though you really have no clue what's going on, you will not evolve. Any correlation with physical age is of course coincidental. If you're happy with what you have, that's perfect. If you however for example claim that you stay with FS9 because the lowres tetris shaped looking clouds look better than the highdef hardware accelerated clouds in P3D, I find it hard to take you seriously.

From this thread we can confirm two well-known facts: 1) The flightsim community is full of old guys who will defend their 15 year old FS9/FSX versions till the end. The fact that they even think it looks pretty and performs well is a clear indication that they've totally lost contact with reality. 2) Lots of people still think that going 64-bit is some kind of magic silver bullet

There is no "the recommendation". Just because some guy on a forum who sounds credible tells you that some value is better than the other doesn't mean it's right. If a person says that 244 or whatever value "gives silky smoothness" like in this case, I would say that this is the right value for that particular system. Every setup is different.

I know that you can change the sound device for the 737NGX-specific sounds via the options in the FMC, but this seems to apply to all NGX sounds. I would like to use a separate sound device for e.g. the voice callouts. Mixing the voice callouts with e.g. the engine sounds or ambient sounds in the same speakers is not very realistic. Is this possible somehow, or do I have to disable the 737NGX callouts and use some separate software like PM sounds instead?

You will see this kind of hallelujah post from someone every time there is a new driver version. This has been the case for every driver version in every version of P3D/FSX/FS9 for about ten years now. In about 99.9999999999% of the cases where someone installs a new graphics driver and gets a massive FPS boost though, it's because some settings have been reset to default values and/or that some really terrible old cache files have been cleaned up. The graphics drivers are already optimized to the extreme and the likelyhood of a huge FPS boost from one driver to another is close to zero.

Windows Vista? Do you realize that this is the worst operating system in the history of mankind? Did you also know that Microsoft dropped support for vista in 2012? That's four years ago. If you manage to run anything else than a calculator, you should be happy. Sorry but there is no nice way to say it.

I've never been a fan of Nick, partly because of his terrible attitude but mostly because of lacking knowledge in some area where he thinks he is an authority. I'm also not a fan of the "my configuration is the only right one and if you do anything else, you're an idiot" kind of approach From the hyperthread discussion, for example, it should be clear that Prepar3d configuration is not one size fits all. This time Nick recommends setting your texture resolution to 1024x1024, i.e. something that will literally take you 10 years back in time. And then people think he is a genius for making your Prepar3d go smoother?

If you suggest that this software (which is based on historical code infamous for its bad performance, memory leaks and bad memory handling) is so perfect that it can't be optimized any further, and that it is running out of memory just because of the hardware limit and not because of non-optimized programming, then yes, you are absolutely correct... Going 64-bit without fixing the cause of the issues will make us very unhappy simmers.

No, it does not do that automatically. You kind of wrote it yourself, like more memory is *supported* and the processor *can* perform more calculations per second. This is does not mean that this will happen automatically just because the software is 64-bit. For example, if a 32-bit software runs out of memory because of memory leaks and bad coding, adding the double amount of memory is not the solution. It will just make things worse.

No, they did not. In my opinion it sounds like you got P3D for a wrong reason. Changing a software from 32-bit to 64-bit will NOT automatically solve any issues. It will not go faster, it will not get better memory management, nothing. The reason you should get P3D is that it contains major enhancements in pretty much every part of the simulator, everything from eye candy to its inner workings. This is much, much, much more important than spending the enormous time it would require to go 64-bit. People tend to think that going 64-bit would solve all "out of memory" issues and so on, but without fixing the actual reasons for the memory issues, going 64-bit would actually just make things worse (i.e. use even more memory, go even slower and so on.). If the simulator is not optimized to run well as a 32-bit application, going 64-bit would only make things worse. So first fix the issues, and then, and only then, slowly convert to 64-bit to allow for further development. Right now, the fact that P3D is a 32-bit application is not the bottleneck.

Noone said the techology won't work. I said that Prepar3d will not benefit from it. Good hardware can not compensate for bad software. A runner usually upgrade both shoes at the same time, not just the left or right one. Otherwise there is no benefit. Today's hardware is capable of running stunning games at an amazing performance at 4k resolution. Flightsimmers are commonly not aware of this as they tend to only use the flightsim, and many people simply compare FSX and Prepar3d to older versions of MS flightsim. I mean, people actually get excited about some Tree addon which pretty much looks like the trees did in games 15 years ago. Just as an example. I assume this is why many people on flightsim forums are desperately always looking for a new silver bullet hardware technology instead of software fixes. The bottleneck in Prepar3d is not today's hardware. Not the memory, not the IO, not the storage, nothing.