romangeber

Hi First and foremost, this is less of a question than it is a warning to P3D users who think about new hardware. I've recently upgraded to a new rig. The old one was a decent performer yet had some issues with ground objects. After a while it became a bit boring flying over mostly empty surfaces. The new machine features a GTX1080 and a 7700k with some sane overclocking enabled. The system runs both, P3D v3 and X-Plane 10. Performance is stunning. P3D with GSX comes to life like never before while I still get plenty of fps. Same for X-Plane. A lot of ground activity makes the whole experience a lot more immersive. However, there's a serious problem regarding P3D. It is incredibly capable to render the most stunning eye candy at smooth fps. However it's mostly unable to utilize it's hardware thanks to it's single biggest flaw, the 32 bit address space. So far I'm standing a less than 10% chance to finish any flight at all. Terrible odds. Of course it's all about the settings. Before switching computers P3D ran rock solid. What I'm trying now is to find a sweet spot at which at least some of the visual gains remain without blowing up the address space. Came pretty close today yet 10 miles before touch down the much hated P3D insult about my insufficient RAM (just 32 GB btw) came up, YET AGAIN. Eventually I'll sort it out of course, as we always do. However, is incredibly frustrating. The machine performs phenomenally yet is limited to so much less because most of the RAM in the box doesn't exist within the visible universe of P3D. As a result I have a hugely powerful Sim PC that can't unfold half it's potential. It is very likely that P3D v4 will be a 64 bit simulator, fixing this age old issue once and for all. Until then, anyone thinking about ordering a new computer to increase the visual experience may think twice about the expense. The current high end provides more power than P3D can make use of. cu Roman PS: I'm very aware of how every increase in quality has a VAS price to pay. I have stable profiles which don't look much better than the system I come from. And therein lays my source of frustration. Having hit that software wall where the awesome capability of the simulator engine on powerful processing hardware can't be used simply because the "bookshelf" is too small. The expense pays of for my XP10 setup yet the increase on the P3D side is mainly a jump from 30FPS to 60FPS without much in terms of visual improvement.

@jfriz thanks for the advice. Will do :)

Alright, here's some impressions from the inside: Busy weather ahead :) Everything's working up there :) Notice how one of these covers is a little different? Is it broken? Who knows? Love these little details :) Test your Oxygen. The switches work yet I'm still cold! Bug? The on board library. I've got no key for it, but it looks nice. Forgot your aviators? No problem! Instructions for observers. The cockpit sure is a nice place to be. Plenty of details to explore :) cu Roman

Hi! Yes, I noticed that too, even on the laptop. It too has a 4790K but can only work with a GTX980M. However, when I do limit it, the FPS drops way below the target. Unlimited it runs smooth. If it works fine on a tower that would be a nice way to save on electricity. cu Roman

Thanks @vortex681 This is indeed very helpful. So far the results are encouraging :) cu Roman

Hi, I'm looking for some power consumption figures from users who run an i7 7700K (maybe 6700K) system with a high end Nvidia GTX GPU (1080 or 980). The max. consumption values are in the specs but I'd like to know how much a system like that uses in the real world. And then of course there's all the rest using power. That total average is what I'm interested in. Right now I run P3D and X-Plane on a beefy gaming laptop that uses around 160W. Performance is good but of course a tower would allow for more eyecandy. However, I'd hate to find myself holding a huge electricity bill at the end of the year. It'd also be very nice to know how big a difference it makes when overclocking the system. Thank you very much in advance. cu Roman

I was quite surprised to see such a lot of 747 activity up and down the west coast. But looking at the sheer size of these cities/areas it's not surprising. Cargo doesn't need high frequencies and sending a big freighter rather than many smaller ones may be cheaper and reduces airport congestion. cu Roman

Glad you guys like the shots. Thanks @Curtis Smith for sharing some of your own experiences. Great shots from inside :) The cockpit is certainly worth sharing. I only left these shots out as most pilots are used to seeing this view for hours anyway. But @jfriz is right. No external view in the real world. I do sometimes make an effort not to leave the cockpit ... but during a long haul that's mighty hard. cu Roman

You thought right :) Funny enough that I just landed at SFO ... coming from Narita. Just like the 747 they sent a week ago. Tempting ... cu Roman

The new queen from PMDG has been available for a month now and boy what a month it was. I started flying her on day one scrapping a planned 777 flight. Since then I haven't seen another (virtual) cockpit for a while. This new model is a huge improvement over the great but now outdated version I used to wrestle with in FS9. It's like they don't even belong in the same solar system anymore. I love the smooth intrumentation, the 3D cockpit, the shiny fuselage, all the details in the wing when it's flaps come down and so on and so forth. The attention to detail is incredible and I can only imagine how much painstaking work this must have been. But from a simmers view ... it was so worth it. So a big thank you to everyone involved to making this homage to the 747 possible. You guys did a phenomenal job. Having ramped up almost 160 hours of 747 flight time in the new 747 since it's release I'd like to share some of these moments with you in the form of screenshots. My first departure on Feb. 1st. Catching the last rays of sun while approaching Phoenix. I've been on a 747 the first time when they still had this livery. What a classic. Getting pushed around at Fraport. Sunrise over San Fancisco Man and machine Denver crosswinds. Four windmills over Amsterdam Lots of ground activity in Bangkok surrounding the phenomenal plane. The official liveries are just unbelievable. Crossing the British landscape in style. A United 747 back home at SFO Leaving Frankfurt for one last flight in February. Back where it all started. To me, there's no better or worse PMDG model in the current lineup. Both, the NGX and the 777 models are phenomenal and a true joy to fly. But as a 747 lover, this is the plane I wanted the most. And PMDG most certainly overdelivered on it's promises. So once again. Thank you. cu Roman

Great to read. Have a lot of fun! cu Roman

It'd certainly be a welcome sight. Yet I'm not sure X-Plane is big enough to carry such a large investment. cu Roman

Found the solution exploring the aircrafts config file. There's a block describing the coordinates for the exits: [exits] number_of_exits = 5 exit.0 = 0.4, 37.008, -11.030, 6.158, 0 //Door 2L exit.1 = 0.4, 67.605, -10.033, 6.158, 0 //Door 1L exit.2 = 0.4, 49.639, 10.121, -3.736, 1 //Fwd Cargo exit.3 = 0.4, -46.387, 10.121, -3.736, 1 //Aft Cargo exit.4 = 0.4, -61.272, 5.341, 2.906, 1 //Bulk Cargo In order to make 1L the primary exit I switched out the first two entries: [exits] number_of_exits = 5 exit.0 = 0.4, 67.605, -10.033, 6.158, 0 //Door 1L exit.1 = 0.4, 37.008, -11.030, 6.158, 0 //Door 2L exit.2 = 0.4, 49.639, 10.121, -3.736, 1 //Fwd Cargo exit.3 = 0.4, -46.387, 10.121, -3.736, 1 //Aft Cargo exit.4 = 0.4, -61.272, 5.341, 2.906, 1 //Bulk Cargo That way jetways dock with 1L rather than 2L when Ctrl-J is pressed. Mind you, these changes are from the 747-400 file. Other models like the Combi or domestic might be different. The process should be the same however. It's true that a lot of boarding happens via 2L. However the simulator isn't always capable enough to simulate everything. I rather have a bit of an unrealistic scenario than jetways ripped into floating blocks Hopefully this is useful to some folks in the future. Have fun! cu Roman

Hi, is it possible to reconfigure the primary door to be 1L rather than 2L? Some jet bridges aren't long enough to reach it without being torn to "floating bits". cu Roman

It depends on your goals and tastes. The 777 is the new king of the skies in the real world. If you're after copying real world flights the 777-300ER offers plenty of choice while the 747 is a less frequent sight at global airports these days. However, the 777 base pack contains "only" the 200LR versions. That's a rare plane in the real world unless you're looking at cargo. Again, if you're looking to clone reality, the 300ER expansion is a bit of a must have. The 747 package on the other hand is stuffed with all the 400 models you can possibly want. It may no longer be as popular with airlines these days, but the PMDG package most likely contains the right 747 for you. If real world schedules don't interest you, here's another compaison that might help. The 777 is a more modern plane. There's a lot of automation in there. It also handles in "modern" ways. It's efficient and a bit easier to fly by hand. The 747 on the other hand is a bit more hands on. You have to worry about the fuel tank configuration throughout your flight. Some systems and screens you'd find in the 777 aren't there in the 747-400. And it handles a bit heavier. Meaning it descends and slows down quite quickly compared to it's more modern brother. As far as the models go, the 777 is pretty much debugged, a great piece of stable software while the 747 was released today. My first flight with it went smoothly but it may contain bugs. Other than that, none of the planes is "better" than the other. Both models rock and deliver that level of quality only PMDG can give you. If you really can't decide, flip a coin. Any one of the two is worth it and should give you a great experience. Have fun! cu Roman

Installation without issues (Win10/P3D) Same goes for PMDG ops center update and livery downloads. 777 flightplans work fine with the 747. GSX pushback is bit "bumpy" in the cockpit. Missing some mouse wheel controls like for the Baro knob. Got used to these, would be nice to have that. Did I miss some setting? No serious problems, the plane handles extremely well. No drop in FPS and VAS looks similar to the 777. Fantastic job, PMDG. Thank you so much. cu Roman

Wow. It really happened! Thank you, PMDG! cu Roman

Hi, would like to +1 this feature request. If there's an opening in your schedules, that's something I'd buy cu Roman