mtrainer

I'll be hanging on to Prepar3D 4.5 for a little while longer. The older I get, the less desire I have to constantly fiddle with updates and new software (go figure - I work in the IT industry too). Call me lazy but I'll switch over to MSFS once the majority of issues have been resolved. I like flying and navigating, most using PMDG products, and they work perfectly in P3D 4.5. For airliner flying, once you're at 25K+ AGL then the scenery doesn't matter so much (I say this but own a ridiculous number of ORBX products just the same, and shamefully I bought Australia but have never flown there as I'm stuck in New Zealand with my PDMG 737 and semi-trapped due to babes and the tasty cocktails at the bar by the beach). Mark Trainer

My two cents - I spent years with the LDS 767 and loved doing VOR to VOR station navigation. Still miss it. My ah-ha moment came from going through the PMDG tutorials twice, and then just "fooling around" with it. It actually will let you do more than you think out of order. So I'd encourage just playing around by stepping through the various menus. I always have skyvector open as I'm setting up waypoints, don't forget to hit the exec button when it goes white and to delete any gaps in the way points. Froogle sim also has a great tutorial a real captain showed him about setting up a flight to do touch and gos at the same airport. Good luck! I spent a few years in your shoes too and there is something to be said about having a real hand-on approach to flying vs. letting the FMC have all the fun. Mark

Exactly - ironic that nowadays, anti-virus programs now exhibit the very behavior they try to "protect" you from. I used Norton Antivirus for many years, and the issues just kept building up. When Apple iOS started getting major market share, Microsoft finally realized they needed to do something serious or they'd be out of the OS market within a matter of years. That is when I saw Windows Defender get a lot better. Thanks, Mark Trainer

I did a clean install of LM P3D 4.5 early this year and leaving behind a lot of junk I greatly increased frame rates. It looks good and is smooth. In fact I vowed to not install an ORBX airport/region until I actually plan to go there. Things are running pretty good on a PC most of you would laugh at (but not for long!). Mark Trainer

No I don't have the add-on "Buildings HD". And am not using the XML method someone complained about it being slower than the old method. Something for sure came along and killed Orbx Object Flow 2 though - apparently I've ready it is responsible for static buildings at their airports as well as things that move. One day it was working and one day it wasn't. The only thing that I did was an update to PMDG NGXu, but it's hard to see how that could be related to ruining Object Flow 2. Just the same, I realized I was spending more time this Christmas Vacation trying to fix this than I was flying so I uninstalled everything (even Prepar3D) and re-installed it. It didn't take more than a few hours but I still have a ways to go, I've decided to only load the sceneries I need as I need them so there won't be a "big-bang" approach w/ ORBX. They leave lots of files in many places...a through cleanup requires visiting many directories. I'll likely load ORBX Libraries, Global, and NA Landclass and then try one of their airports that use and install object flow. If it then works, I'll just start re-installing the airports as I decide to visit them one at a time. One nice thing about the base Prepar3D....it runs FAST (great framerates!). Thanks, Mark

This past week all of my Orbx buildings disappeared (tried re-installing Object Flow 2- no luck) - will open a forum ticket over on their site tomorrow but for now was wondering if "FTXAA_ORBXLIBS" should be at the very top of my scenery library? It's #1 in the order list. Mark Trainer

Hi, I'm on HF1 still myself; I've become paranoid about breaking anything in the sim since it has been running so good lately, and if the latest update (HF2) were to introduce performance issues (although it sounds like it hasn't from what I've been reading) or outright break anything I am frankly not sure I have the time to fiddle around with things (work is nuts)….which might lead me to getting rusty on things due to no desire to fly a stuttery sim so staying put for now out of sheer paranoia. Rob, agree that Vector is brutal on a system, it is the only product I own that I deliberately uninstalled. It's an awesome concept/product but ahead of it's time for what it demands from the CPU. I look forward to the day when I can re-enable it though. Let's face it, landing is a joy and usually spot-on when the frame rates are coming at you fast and furious. It's one of the things I loved about FS9...sheer and unbridled fidelity! Mark

Thanks! Actually found this a few hours ago before reading this here just now. The Hawaiian (fictional) 737 livery looks good! Just purchased the Cityscape Honolulu - but I get a message saying "There are no downloads for this product" though. I guess I'll pull down FTX Central 4 and see if that resolves this issue. Also couldn't find the disk space requirements after a couple of google searches but I think I'll be OK. Mark

Glad to see this. I'll be buying it for certain. A few years ago I posted a thread wondering why no one had taken on the Hawaiian Island Chain - it's been one of my favorite areas to fly in since Level-D's 767 first came out. I wish there was a Hawaiian Airlines Livery for PMDG's 737....even though HA went the Airbus route instead several years ago. Mark

Yeah I had one "back in the day" and it's probably buried deep in a closet as I've purchased no less than 3 different ones since then, am currently using the Thrustmaster Warthog setup which feels pretty decent but is somewhat pricy. I also can't say I was a big fan of the forces either- something about them didn't feel right. Mark

After reading years of these types of debates, it would be nice if LM built into the product a performance measure page. I know we get FPS but every flight might be a bit different- but QUAKE (the original I believe- yeah I'm old), in the old days had a way of running through a known scenario and timing it and reporting the average FPS. Mark

Yeah lately I'm into the airliners too and probably wouldn't get to much value out of it, although I did add it to my "buy someday list" as I may return to the low and slow "hands on" flying later this year. Kinda miss that....but hey the video looks great. Mark

As for taking LM FS to the next level, I would suggest: Step one would be re-organizing the existing executable into multiple plug-and-play software modules that have a well defined user interface for communicating between them. Then, work on one module a time (because doing it all in one big-bang approach could take years and get really confusing quick from an engineering perspective). Separate the render engine, the terrain engine, the atmosphere engine, the flight modeling engine, AI engine, flight dynamics engine, etc. and then work on revamping each of them one step at a time. Instead of throwing everything away and spending years rebuilding from scratch, it could be done in manageable phases. But it all starts by carving up the existing MSFS code in modules that can be invoked, inserted, removed, and replaced with minimal impact to other modules. Mark

Level D 767 Rocks. Flew it for many years. Agree with Bill - the flight model on this aircraft is solid. I can land that aircraft with greater precision than any other aircraft. Don't care if it doesn't look...."state of the art"....it flies right. Mark Trainer

Agree with Paul Smith (my childhood friend's name! - and we're still in touch) in that you should take the Cessna for some flights (if you haven't already) and master the taking off, flying, and landing of it. Things happen fast in the big iron, and you literally, mentally, have to have your brain way out in front of the aircraft. The PMDG tutorials are great, and every now and then I'll redo them. I still catch on to something new every time because the first time through things don't always "click". Mark Trainer "That's right sir. You are the only person authorized to do so. And although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like General Ripper exceeded his authority." - General Turgidson,from Dr. Strangelove, best B-52 movie ever made. Funniest too.

Darn Cool. Excellent work! Mark Trainer

Well at least we have more options than ever before. I stuck around on FS9 a lot longer than I should have, but the frame rates it provided made for some really butter smooth landings. I found the stutters in the boxed version of MS FS X intolerable. Mark Trainer Prepard4.3 User - been to lazy to update to 4.4 but will soon.

I've made just about every mistake imaginable over the years (well with regards to simulations and girlfriends mostly). Reminds me off a line Tom Hanks had in Apollo 13 as he came out of the simulator: "If I had a dollar for every time they killed me in this thing, I wouldn't have to work for you, Deke." Mark Trainer

Good Job PMDG. While I probably won't get around to the update for another week, I appreciate your efforts. I work at a large firm and we deal with epic issues with incompatible software modules more often than anyone realizes. When it happens we do the same thing- all hands on deck, roll up the sleeves, and as Larry the Cable Guy would say, "get 'er done". Mark

Grew up on AFB bases through the 70s, never once saw a pilot who didn't keep a pen-light in the front pocket of the jump suit. It's your last line of defense at night if all else should fail (electrically). To the fellow who wanted to carry a candle around the plane after a refesh refuling, I'd have to agree that things might indeed get lively quickly! Mark

Of all my add-ons, ORBX Vector hit my performance the hardest, so I uninstalled it. However, when I upgrade my PC next year I'll be adding it back in. Thanks, Mark

There's never a perfect time to upgrade. I spent 5K on PC parts for a decked-out rackmount PC in 1994 that my cell phone could probably now outrun. Nature of the beast. If anything, it seems the pace of required hardware upgrading has slowed down a bit. I'm hoping the next major "gains" for Prepar3D will be engineering enhancements to the code base. Mark

Good point. No aircraft manufacturer would want that kind of negative crash publicity floating around on youtube and such. Mark Trainer

Using the same plane for each hop? Seems that for the long ocean distances you'd need a jet, but the jets aren't going to get you into some of the smaller airports....so I suppose you'll be mixing up the aircraft types as you go. You have a heck of a lofty goal to be sure. I'm taking a PMDG 737 BBJ around the world, currently sitting in New Zealand's North Island awaiting the pilot to sober up for the next hop. Been stuck there a month now... Mark

Agreed that there needs to be something in-between "bouncing down the runway" and a simple but sudden freeze of the sim with the small letters at the bottom simply saying "crash". Not sure how to pull it off with all the different aircraft types though. But it would be nice if some add-on airplane manufactures could at least support breaking off landing struts and adding sparks. I once landed the 747-8i coming in to fast, which required FULL braking to avoid running off the end of the runway. Sat there for a few minutes watching the brake heat indicators climb, and when I went to taxi I was surprised at how much throttle was required just to get moving again. Switched to an outside view and the heat-plugs on the tires had blown and they were flat. Pretty cool stuff. Mark Trainer