jahn

Hi there everyone, since some of you seem much more knowledgable in this area, I'm being offered a tempting bargain deal on a second hand ( as new ) Dell Precision tower 3620 with the following specs: CPU: Xeon E-3 1240 v5 4 Core 3.5 GHz 8MB chache GPU: Nvidia Quadro 4 core with 2 GB ram Essentially it is a Dell workstation that I can buy second hand at a bargain price. Would this be good enough for P3D and PMDG 737 simulation? I know does not have a gaming card, rather it has a four core workstation grade card? Greame, Paul, Ray and Hiflyer...many thanks once more for the feedback. Regards Jahn Drink

Hi there everyone, I hope this post is made in the right sub-forum. As I've stated elsewhere I'm new to this forum and have returned to the world of flight sims after a 14 year absence. That's why I am out of touch with the technology. It appears these days that ___the___ most fundamental component affecting smooth performance of a flight sim ( P3D ) with complex add-ons loaded ( PMDG and ORBX ) would be the Graphics Processing Card GPU. I have a technical background and know CPU's RAM etc but almost nothing about modern GPU technology. Can I ask for hints and pointers to on-line resources, tutorials or videos that would help me thoroughly understand GPUs so I can make educated choices when selecting a GPU for complex flight simming? I've tried googling but the information in a lot of links is out of date and I am so out of touch with this aspect that I'm also experiencing trouble judging the relevance of my findings. Kind Regards Jahn Drink P.S.: I don't mean to offend anyone...so should I have posted a tabu topic or posted to the wrong sub-forum please advise...Thanks!

Hey everyone, thanks for all the helpful feedback! Really helps. I'll have to try out all the suggestions. I have tried `disabling` the crash ( I think it's somewhere in the Controls Options )...doesn't work. After initialisation, the AC starts veering/creeping port-side into the grass next to the runway...and sort of hobbles......to me: a clear sign the simulation is majorly corrupted. All try things out and get back to this thread if any questions. Question to Russel: What is FSiPanel? by the way...some sort of add-on? or a P3D subsystem? Regards Jahn Drink

I installed P3D and PMDG 737. Next I took the default Piper cub and did some low-level flying.....awesome framerates.....at least good enough for me. With the 737 I've seen the scenery do one or two isolated jerks ...sort of like the the aircraft was moving ( as you could observe on the gauges ) but the secenery was stuck in one place for 1-2 seconds then it refereshed. Sure better card, better rig...plan to do so in the future.....but my laptop will have to suffice for now. Jahn Drink

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies and contributions. So you can't reload the plane in any one session of the P3D sim ...accepted. Here is a related issue/concern and since I am new to P3D and PMDG I might as well raise it here: Background & motivation of my concern: To me the PMDG 737 is more of a learning experience ( at least for now ). So I would want to use the sim to try out things and different situations. Obviously one will make mistakes, screw things up and so on....so you would want to start all over again and repeat a certain procedure, operation or maneuver.That would be one use of simulator like the PMDG ( IMHO ). Use case: Now lets say I'm at a certain altitude and a certain course and I want to try out x, y or z. Now I hope I won't have to take off and fly the airplane into that exact situation/state before being able to try something out.... Question: Can I start P3D, load the PMDG 737, position my aircraft at the desired speed, altitude and heading or place the aircraft in the desired situation or spot and save this as a situation/scenario?? From what I've gathered, if I screw something up in in the scenario I've saved/created I won't be able to reset or reload the same scenario since I would be loading another instance of PMDG 737 on top of the previous one ( in memory ..I presume? ). HOWEVER is it OK to exit the sim __after__ saving the situation / scenario, then re-starting P3D and loading the saved situation from a sceanrio??? Summary: Can I create, then save certain training scenarios/situations with the PMDG 737 and load them up repeatedly ( each time taking care leaving the sim and re-starting it of course )? I.e. recreate the same situation, state and conditions over and voer again for training? Thank You Jahn Drink

Hey Jim, thanks for your tip. I tried re-loading the PMDG via the intermediate step of loading a default P3D aircraft first, then loading the PMDG 737. Same result, the aircraft ends up gears up and crashes to the ground. Seems that after launching P3D, you can only ever load the PMDG once, after that you would be `loading the aircraft on top itself` as you mentioned. Kind Regards Jahn Drink

Hi everyone, Right off the bat, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2019 I've recently installed P3D v 4.4 and then the PMDG 737 NG. I am amazed by this simulation!! However right at the start I've noticed an issue which is somewhat annoying: I've noticed that whenever I reset the scenario I was in the aircraft would be re-positioned gears up and would crash into the ground, the sim then automatically proceeds to re-load and the same thing happens again...ad infinitum. The only way to get out of this cycle, is to exit P3D and re-launch it. I even tried creating a new scenario with the PMDG 737 as the 'vehicle'. Again when you choose the PMDG as a vehicle the first time after P3D start-up or load a secnario with the PMDG 737 as a vehicle, everything is OK. Eventually as you are trying things out in the aircraft you reach a point where you'd like to start anew and proceed to reset the scenario.....the aircrafts ends up positioned gears-up and crashes on the spot ( presumably what would happen if the gears could actually be retracted on the ground ). This happens every time once Reset, Load or Resume are attempted after the first system initialization right after P3D startup and loading of the PMDG 737. So first time load of PMDG 737 after P3D start-up the gears are down and everything works as advertised ( at least the parts I have been able to explore so far ) BUT after that when you need to reset any scenario containing the 737 PMDG it ends up gears up and crashes into the tarmac. Regards Jahn P.S.: I'd like to offer my respects and compliments to the folks at PMDG. I've flown planes for real ( was an FO on a turboprop ) and I have been an engineer in the aerospace industry. I have also flown both the 737-400 and 737-800 full motion sims a few times. Always phantasized owning a full-motion 737 sim. The PMDG comes very close to realizing my pipe-dream. The detail and the realism is breath-taking. Thank you for making this happen!

Hi eslader, thank you for your `encouraging` remarks regarding the specs. They describe my laptop ( docked to a hi-res DELL display ). This setup must do for now...until I procure a rig that's dedicated to simulation. As for the RAM number......YES indeed 36G does sound screwed...should be a power of two!......My bad!! I apologize! Many thanks Jahn Drink

Hey thanks everyone: eslader, downscc and scandinavian13! Got my bearings. Looks like the OS is going to be windows, and P3D with a preference of v4 over v3 ( scandinavian13: I take it that in your product's sim requirements statement, Prepar3D v3.3+ implies v.3.3 onwards including v4?? ) Hoping to get it going on the iron I have ( 64-bit Win7, core-i7, 36G RAM, 2G Nvidia ). Thanks once again for taking the time to reply Kind Regards Jahn P.S.: Currently I am more interested in the sim as a 737 systems simulator with flying capabilities...once I learn the aircraft I'll get more serious and put together a rig that would be customized to comfortably host the sim and the add-on.

Hi there, I'm thinking of getting the PMDG 737 base package. I have no sim yet and it appears the PMDG 737 is available for both MS FS and Lockheed's Prepar3D. My preference is for the Prepar3D version. I would appreciate if anyone who has experience with this combination would care to tell me if there are any * problems * caveats * pitfalls e.t.c....anything to look out for? Does the Prepard3D version choice matter ( v3 versus v4 ?? ) Many thanks for your feedback Jahn Drink P.S.: If I sound clueless, that's because I have not been `simming` in 14 years. Last I was using X-Plane and Elite ( so Prepard3D is new to me ). I got interested again because I'd like to use the PMDG 737 package mostly as an educational/intellectual experience to play around with the aircraft systems and FMS.