coastaldriver

Exactly no pros or cons it was merely to politely raise the problem that everybody one way or another (for some aspect of their sim preference) constantly gripe about - lack of developer support for P3D and XP. Now I will state right up that because of the capacity for running legacy products in P3D I have reconfigured, improved and added to P3D to the point there is no more I can do with it or the models. You cannot help but notice as time as gone by that various software people no longer support or fix their products for P3D (some as well in XP). I am done with patching, fixing and tweaking stuff but I have to admit I have sure learnt a lot about a lot of stuff applicable to programming, texture manipulation etc etc over time but P3D is mature for me and also represents probably the sum of nearly 15 years plus of accumulated wisdom and model collecting and tweaking. The observation was not that nobody was doing anything in P3D or XP on the contrary XP12 is a brand new iteration of XP - and yes I have it installed and now run both sims. My XP world is developing but it is a steep learning curve because the underlying approach is not one that fits Microsoft's approach (To understand why you need to appreciate the significant differences between Apple Macs and Unix or Linux etc etc. What I am finding is simple stuff that did work lets use TOGO's Enshade as an example - it stopped working for some reason (I suspect a Windows update did it) and fails to reinstall - no response from the developers so I had to remove it! Apart from Pilot's I have not seen a single upgrade, patch or fix to P3D stuff from anybody else! We all know who has abandoned P3D and XP they get bollocked here in the P3D forum all the time! So really my point and assessment was simple, these are now three different software systems running different coding and requiring different skill sets. So I can see why people in the business of addon development and manufacture have stopped supporting or making for other platforms other than MSFS - it makes commercial sense - do you want to sell 100 units on one platform or 1000 units on the other! The other thing is that life in non sim world is a bit up and down at the moment for anybody in commerce or manufacturing you name it, post Covid things are getting very messy and uncertain. Observation that is all. Answer - I have no idea but I am now keeping a foot in both camps LM-P3D and Laminar-XP. Simple!

Redshift27 - correct that was not the point of the post it was merely to reflect upon the fact that XPlane is no better off or better supported that LM and P3D is by commercial developers any more. Their cataloques are also littered with abandoned products, outdated products and very limited choice. I take your point about the aircraft coming on for XPlane which is far more impressive than what is in the future for P3D (maybe one or two there) but I also note that if it is not a Boeing or an Airbus - what else is there? And that is aviation in the RW as well if is not a Boeing or an Airbus what else is there? Only Virtavia would be the rarity who would offer a high quality WW2 bomber for both P3DV5 and XPlane nobody else does. Most of the well known commercial developers dumped their legacy products out as freeware or just withdrew them for sale permanently (Remember PMDG and the XPlane DC-6?) Private individuals just retired and gave up I think. Got a list as long as my arm of those talented people who just stopped when MSFS came out!

I think for the developers we truly now have 3 different simulators to make product for so the choice for most is obvious go where the market is. The underlying problem is really that the sims are in effect all coded differently now and take different approaches - especially with graphics etc. We all got used to the MS Flight sim platform and its coding and structure and despite its limitations at least it was accessible to amateurs and professionals alike. Not now, LM has rewritten P3D into a 64 bit platform and there will be a lot of fancy coding underneath that LM will keep to itself. Likewise XPland from Laminar Flow, now they obviously have taken a completely different approach to flight simulation so there is not even a compatible file structure similar to P3D and the internal logic is way different XP12 is another major shift incorporating a lot of recent graphic developments and then you see that platform and it is the only one can be obtained to run on a MAC or on a LINUX system so Laminar produce a product capable of being run on three different operating systems, Windows, AppleMac or Linus. And MSFS well again it may be MS based but so much of it is new as well and MS and Asobo are definitely not into sharing with the general populace, get a commercial agreement and we will let you in! So if your doing software like an aircraft model or scenery for example you now need some very skilled and specialist software engineers and programmers and very very few individuals have the skill set to move across all the platforms if any! So the choice is not just the market to support the sales to support the business it is deploying or obtaining the very specialist skilled staff you need to do it - and that is an even bigger ask. You got to sell a lot of B737 models to pay the wages of a coder to keep them and to compete with the salary on offer out of the tech sector anywhere. XPlane still has the capacity to draw in the skilled and active enthusiastic and the tools for you do that stuff and then again having a passion for aviation is also a place of diminishing returns, the current and younger generation have never seen anything else but a Boeing or an Airbus and most have no memory of how exciting and challenging the development of aviation was for those who went along with the journey - and that issue applies not only to flight simulation - private pilot and student pilot numbers in the RW have been dropping like a stone for years as well.

I recently had a rush of blood (post convalescence shall we say) time on my hands and was intrigued to finally try an alternative simulator platform XP12. My P3D world is very settled, it gives me great performance, great visuals and an incomparable range of aircraft and scenery to indulge myself happily for years to come really. That is the Good. Now all I can say and it is an honest opinion for those who care or are interested is that XP12 is indeed an amazing simulator program. Its methodology and processes for scenery and the world (including its implementation of True Sky and its iteration of EA are simply very well done indeed. I was seriously impressed by the way they have implemented lighting, ground or aircraft. I was completely stunned by the way they have managed to incorporate sloping and undulating runways in an authentic manner - so amazing to see! Visually rain effects like on windscreens, puddles on the ground etc with real time weather were again very very impressive visually and overall their landscape and texturising of the scenery was very very good indeed (in fact close to or equal the quality of MSFS) The inbuilt ground handling and ATC is also superb and the fidelity of the out of the box airports and airport objects is excellent it is a dynamic and very realistic rendition of things aeronautical and that went for the ATC as well. That is the Good too! The Bad? well simply no developer support for the product whatsoever as far as I can tell, so simply, no decent commercial payware addons are in view or likely to be produced. Again backward compatibility is a significant issue so even one version behind XP11 is mostly a hit and miss affair for operability and functionality in XP12. No one is updating products produced for XP11 for XP12 and some have also basically ditched XPlane alltogether the same as for P3D. So Carenado, PMDG to name but a few that dabbled and did do conversions for XPlane 11 have now basically abandoned their products in terms of updating and even patch fixes. I got the impression (and wasted quite a few dollars finding out) that it may have worked in XP11 but not in XP12 - the outcome your left with a very limited range of aeroplanes to use and some real gems (LIke the FJS Boeing 727) are now busted and left on the back lot. The Ugly - well MSFS is devestating the simulator world in terms of participation and attention of commercial and amateur developers alike. Time and time again it was made clear to me that Developer X would no longer support the XPlane product had not patches and in many cases just withdrawn them from sale alltogether. Now MSFS is all well and good if your able to meet its internet speed and bandwith capacity and yes it is probably the future of commercial and consumer simulation BUT and it is a big but - it has revealed how shallow or broken is the developer world and that is both private and commercial ecosystem. So even for XPlane it is now MSFS or nothing it seems! For somebody who has been simming since MS98 this is a solemn realisation, that the real world has so many problems that the simulator fraternity has been hollowed out and lost its vibrancy and to a degree enthusiasm. So you either do it the Microsoft way or its the highway. So I am very very glad that LM got where they did with P3D - end of story. Still a great simulator - pity they could not get the XPlane world to replace the old FSX based scenery and world dynamics. Now a marriage of those functions would be a real game changer!

I might add that it seems that XPlane has suffered the same fate as P3D vis a vis developers abandoning the platform for MSFS. XPlane 12 brings in a number of things similar to P3DV5 volumetric clouds, lighting etc and I do admit their scenery overall is very nice. However the sims achilles heel is again aeroplanes - so many but so few good ones! You can't even get the PMDG DC-6 (originally released for XPlane) anymore, No Milviz, No A2A, No Flght Replicas etc etc and so it goes. Bottom line anything LM can do that can pick up some of the legacy scenery issues (not so much airports most of these are first class) but general landscape etc would be welcome but I am well and truly not abandoning P3DV5 as my main sim platform. I can live with the odd bit of crappy scenery just to be able to fly all those wonderful aeroplanes developed over the years for FSX and brought into the P3DV5 world. The list there is endless actually.

Off topic maybe - So is this for X-Plane users or about LM and P3D, if for XPlane then the plugin capacity is genuinely very exciting. I have long thought that XPlanes scenery appeared much better than FSX and even P3D. Not sure about the lighting but it has lots of fervent and dedicated scenery builders - for example I find it hard not to think of some weird out of the way place about the globe that there was no available scenery for in FSX or P3D but there it was for XPlane. It is only the lack of some models alltogether that has stopped me jumping over the fence and going with XPlane. Laminar flows flight dynamics and aircraft performance engine is really first class. As for the MSFS v P3D thing - it seems that MSFS has become some form of electronic cult- and yep I am tired of P3D threads being hijacked by the alcolytes calling upon us to repent the error of our ways and see the light! How many threads have the mods had to lock down because of it! Nearly time for the mods to lock this one as well.

It seems my initial assessment of where LM were taking Flight Simulation was basically correct. They are refocusing on their main customer base - military and commercial. LM will build the models required (With acres of CADCAM data for LM products should not be too difficult with help from A2A or BlackBird or whoever they wish) and this Unreal Engine is too deliver what they are fond of referring to as Scenarios (Probably right down to nuts and bolts engineering and vehicle technical support) This makes sense. What LM did not say but I have long suspected is that they have hit the wall with the coding of P3D (aka MS Flight Simulator circa FSX vintage) and distributed processing and multicore CPUs - the MS DLL daisy chain issue. It is not really suited to multi-core systems with 4-6or 8 cores running efficiently and well. It seems to me that is what Unreal Engine is for that and of course to pull in high quality graphic outcomes for various models (The high quality gaming visual environment referred to). What does this mean for P3D as we know it - hard to say but one could say the Unreal Engine graphics and distributed processing engines and software will be applied to selected LM vehicles (Namely those of their customer based whether it be the F35 or drones or missile systems and of course the ability to interface realistic onboard CDU's and their operation. So we will not be getting access to that and basically Unreal will only be for Commercial and Military customers not the Amateur or Academic P3D user. Look their may be some carry over into an update for P3DV5.3 but I am not expecting much at all. Seems they acknowledge that as far as scenery ground objects goes that it is just a bunch of polygons so no doubt the Unreal Engine will be able to selectively enhance and modify the graphics of particular points or areas as required. This also makes sense because military and commercial training basically does the same thing over and over and over. You might have at maximum 30 different areas to worry about for basic flight training and more dependent on the training for operational or tactical training. To pull together high level packages that overlay on the basic P3D process then makes perfect sense and is much more cost effective and LM seem satisfied that what they have seen will work. Their may be some improvements in the base scenery accuracy and look for P3D but the days of bulk updates to world scenery etc are I would hazard a guess are over! You could see with how P3D progressed to V5 that this where they were going, multi core processing, addons processes and keep the main engine lean and mean - that is rely on 3rd party software people to bolt in proven technology that was suitable. Basically they will removed the clunky and unworkable SIM DIRECTOR part of the sim and let UNREAL package as required. They already have hundreds of thousands of high quality 3D models of building vehicles etc to work with so no biggy - just takes up a lot of programmer time and resources for small outcomes. I hate to say this but I will be blunt this is the end of the line for the MS derived flight simulation program P3D LM have taken it as far as they can in the 64 bit world but its achilles heel has always been multicore processing and the daisy chain file system that is core to MS products all over. I never expected them to pick up a world scenery such as Bing Maps or Google Earth - why they are both only day time photgrammatic representations and a lot of fudging has to go on for night and to create that 3D building look. Google or MS both. But you never know it just may be possible that Unreal Engine will be made available in some form to be able to work on P3D scenery and fligth models as it is. IF so great but I am not holding my breath, I just keep V5.3 rolling along improving scenery where I can and when it is available. As for aeroplanes there are none that I want or need that are not already available to me either. It still hits the nail on head for accuracy, repeatability and correct flight simulation for the IFR environment.

Just a comparison shot for interest sake - nothing else implied. This is MSFS - image posted another forum by JAC27 of AH Dakota inbound to SCEL in Chile. This is P3D - Jahn C47 PAA paint inbound to SCEL about same time same position, AS and EA on. ORBX SA LC and Mesh.

Newtie I have the Milviz Beaver and Otter in P3DV5.3 all they required was modified xml installer(provided by Milviz - there is a link on their forum) this enables the xml files for the Milviz aeroplanes correctly for P3DV5. They all then work perfectly without any issues. What happens with Milviz is that they have a variety of xml installers packaged but they do not work correctly with V5 hence the updated installer from Milviz - which by the way was quite generous as there is no charge and that they have effectively abandoned the P3D/FSX market for other things! Should work for the other aircraft they have as well. The Coolsky DC-9 I had (have) (there were a few issues)but upgraded to the F1 Package (It was quite cheap). F1 have the rights to the Coolsky models and packaged the Classic DC9 with the DC-9 80 and Super 80 all together. They install without issues into V5 and run perfectly. A2A by contrast made you pay for a 64 bit upgrade for the Connies, I did that but it was quite expensive, the rest of their stuff I got from them as freebies subsequently (B17, P40 and P38 for example). I have to confess I rarely use the A2A Connie now as I much prefer the Manfred Jahn's team Constelattions (749 and L1049G are available via Cal Classic as upgrades to P3D and FSX Native - Tom Gibson did the work. I grafted in the Virtavia L1049 VC which is a recent P3DV5 release and is actually very nice indeed. So I get all my preferred Connies with a modern and good VC. By the way if I have the urge I do take out the A2A version but it is an L049. PMDG's DC-6A/B also went into V5 also (That just requires the registry hack to trick installers into putting into V5) Any much off topic hope this helps.

Gabe777 - you will not be disappointed. Your earlier query. I use both Active Sky and True Sky depends on what I am after. I really like True Sky and think it has a depth and solidity to cloud display that is quite obvious but it just cannot managed high level cloud such as cirrus very well at all. Lot of people have issues with haze but that is the nature of true sky and EA it is more realistic. I no longer use ENVTEX or ENVSHADE - it worked for a while but something is now broken with it (I suspect it may have been a MS update of some sort - because it worked fine with 5.3) and I cannot get it to work anymore. Not that I miss it really. To be honest I have not bought much new stuff in the way of aircraft for 5.3 ( a few specifically but they were done properly for 5.3) A lot of older stuff you will find was upgraded before everybody ran off to MSFS. I got most of my earlier stuff to install via the tweak that you set up a registry entry to get the installer to think it is doing V4 but it reroutes it to V5 no problems. The only models that have not gone across are those that had 32 bit and older gau gauge files (Captain Sim in particular) and for which the developer has refused or has not been prepared to upgrade to 64 bit. I have all my Carenado, Milviz and A2A models operating perfectly and few others as well (such as the CoolSky DC-9). As a long time simmer I have to say and it is my opinion others would probably disagree (fair enough) P3D as it is, is the kind of quality flight simulator program I always hoped would emerge. The graphics are crisp and PBR really picks it up not to mention the shaders and the Enhanced Atmospherics and True Sky. Thanks to LM keeping the original ACES-MS ESP engine I have been able to retain a quite extensive collection of older models and some are simply amazing now in P3D. Ray is right about coastlines etc and quite frankly once you get higher you cannot tell the difference between MSFS and P3D and in some areas P3D is streets ahead visually not to mention bug free performance with no update breakages. All in all it stays on my box I do not need a high speed bandwith internet to work, I get real time and historical weather thanks to AS so what more could you want.

Gabe777 I know a lot of people are still using older versions of P3D (same for the older MS range (MS2004, FSX) but I certainly would go with V5.3. It is very good indeed and I have to say has been completely trouble free for me no matter what the complexity of the model or the density and complexity of scenery. It runs smooth as silk constantly heavy weather or complex scenery. I get no blurries no stutters and no lags as the GPU tries to catch up with the CPU. Now I am running P3DV5.3 on an Intel machine (I5-10500 running at 3.10Ghz with an NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super with 8GB RAM is a modest 16GB. When installed I let the system run the presets it calculated and have only tweak via the program sliders, I limit FPS to 30 I have water set at ultimate and Cloud density at very high. Everything else is very dense. The only thing I have turned off is shadowing for a variety of parts (buildings, vegetation etc) for the simple reason nice to do but not visually obvious in flight even in a real aeroplane. I use EA and HD. Now I have the latest version of FSUIPC and a substantially ORBX world for reasons of the better quality of LC ORBX offered compared to standard. I do not use Global Vector you don't need it. I have a heck of lot of addon scenery (up to 700 separate airports) from a variety of developers (a whos who of that sort of stuff) never have any issues with these airports displaying or load times etc. I do limit AI traffic to 50% and airport activity to about the same (matter of personal choice really) To be honest the stock ATC in P3D is woeful and no better than it was in FSX so yes the Radar Contact ATC does work and Ray is the guru on it (lots of info on the thread) so the answer there is I rarely use ATC at all (prefer the peace and quiet) but more importantly I can never anticipate the logic of what the program (P3D) is trying to do as it is never what ATC does except fleetingly in real life. Why is this so? well the answer is that high level training organisations do not use the automated AI ATC of the program but an instructor or other person to feed in ATC stuff as required. So yes V5.3 is well worth the effort and the addon xml method is a winner. Oh and by the way I keep all my scenery (even all of ORBX) on a separate drive from the sim program and let the scenery config manage it - no problems with that at all) I think a lot of users do not see the many refinements the programmers have made to P3D particularly with the way it is geared to bolt in and addon applications so the less you tweak it the better it does and if you work with not against it it runs just fine. Many of us are still coloured by earliery sim experiences that were dictated by 32 bits poor CPU-GPU communication. This is is now a proper 64 bit architecture program and quite robust as well. FWIW.

For those interested the relevant sim models are: Dave Garwood's Dragon Rapide V4 Flight Replicas DH 114 Manfred Jahn's C-47 (3.1406 Version) Richardson's Airspeed Ambassador (still available in the Library at Sim Outhouse only) The great Jen Kristensen (JBK) Viscount 700 and 800 FSX Native Versions which work fine in P3DV5 because they have been converted to FSX Native and hence have an interior model.

Good to see this type of posting for flight sim - bit of history some pics from the sim. One of the great things about flight simulation you can go down so many rabbit holes once something takes your fancy - just chasing down the history reveals lots of interesting and fascinating facts and figures and many surprises.

Guess that must be the old Aerosoft version being sold by JF. Understand not wanting to shell out the dollars for the Milviz only reason I have it is because it like the Otter was from FSX days and they gave us the patch to get them running in P3D. Come to think of it still have the JF Otter as well which came out before Milviz's version well and truly parked in the hangar that one! Typical JF product looked great flew like a wet tea bag!

Not sure who did the default one in P3D but its not bad not 100% functional though. Virtavia did one for FSX but the caveat it probably is not as good as the stock P3D aircraft. IRIS did a very good one with Tacpak capability not heard if it ports ok into P3D unfortunately but even when it came out it made heavy demands on your PC so if you did not have at least 16GB of RAM it was a no go! Mine is parked in the Virtual Hangar which is about where the USAF's one are as well. Supposedly superseded by the F35. Guess you could see what the feedback is about the IRIS version - their military stuff was usually very good.