Rogen

How has the Milviz T-38A Adv been installed under V6? Does this thread offer any insight ? Cheers

Hi @Clutch Cargo, Dark cockpits are the standard with v5+ due to lighting changes. Perhaps take at look at this thread There are changes for the volumetric clouds & alternate shader files with the HDR shader built based on v6. Cheers

Also 5.4 introduces a bug in reading C:Vars where an index is applied. Suffice to say to say the bug barfs some aircraft in various ways, mostly those that use the xml tools package. The same bug was also introduced with P3D v6, although in that instance LM did release a fix in their fourth patch. https://prepar3d.com/announcement/2023/09/131908/ Fixed issue where C:Vars would not parse correctly in some cases if an index was present. Since the bug affects aircraft I reguarly fly I've not gone past v5.3 (actually 4.5 is my main sim and I have v5.3 setup for testing). Cheers

A key question to ask "is there statutory approval and availablity for licensing as a commercial use training simulator". And now the post inital release batch of v6 fixes are out they are no doubt working on whatever it is they do according to their own priorities. Although personally and coming from an enterprise level software developement house, that is - software not generally publicly available (typically due to the 10s of thousands of $$ it cost), we would showcase coming plans and improvements at trade shows and in trade outlets, via demonstrations and trade forums, in other words advertise, demonstrate and talk up the software to those who were likely purchasers. Where as LM are just the opposite - they rarely say a thing, plus their commerce website and forum are lacking in keeping up with the times, i.e. the forum is consistantly getting hacked by spammers, and both forum and commerce sites have ancient authentication requirements (likley why they get hacked), where I'd have thought being a big part of the military machine they would have greater emphasis on security and keeping their public facing outlet software up to date, e.g. posting in their forum for anything other than plain text requires hand placing tags throughout the post, sure it was top of the line 15~20 years ago but that's an eon in software time. I assume since they flog P3D to the military, they include long contracts for support and development (probably many millions of $$) and the path of slow and steady is what they will take. I also guess when MSFS is sold to the millitary and commercal use companies for statutory approved simulation it'll no longer be refered to as a game... Cheers

Hi @Hollister56, You are aware this is a P3D post in the P3D forum for P3D users ? Cheers

4.5 still my go to here. I have been playing with 5.3 in relation to this thread where we've been modifying shaders and cloud configs. Coding and testing shader changes has gotten me further into v5.3 than I ever have previously and I've found it's just a dogs breakfast with so many things needing adjusting to function. I can see what LM were trying to do but really even FlightSim World had better implementations. It's far too hazy all the time compared to RL. It's too dark (too much exposure / contrast). The AA 's messed up. Pre-existing Effects are messed up. Airport issues, like I landed at one yesterday and disappeared under the ground, this was one of those landing strips only. Airport building issues. There's no shoreline waves and Orbx's really good looking ones are hit with effects problems. The truesky cloulds are not the best, even with Alexandre's mods The thread order for affinity is somewhat critical and can cause instablity issues, plus P3D will occasionaly automatically set an affinity mask itself that causes the appearance of a hang (it's just running too slow due to the barfed affinity mask). The Milviz radars don't work. The Orbx Vector implementation is still needed, but that too needs the use of a members resolution to function properly. The default wave textures are huge and look quite poor from height. There is a PRO, the half vsync option of NCP does function for 5.3 (doesn't in 4.5), meaning it's super easy to get that smooth 30 hz vsync on a 60 hz monitor with 5.3. Give it a go, set a 60 Hz screen mode, turn off vsync in sim and set half vsync in NCP - I've found it works pretty good. And a PRO is anything that has actually been properly designed and compiled for 5.3 is typically pretty good (not everything though) and the dynamic lighting is certainly improved. Yeah 5.3 does have somewhat better 3D rendering perfomance, as in it can handle a bit more before it chokes, but is still nothing to write home about. Also unfortunately 5.4 has it's own introduced issues that LM are clearly not ever going to resolve, leaving v6 which comes with it's own trade marked issues, at least v4.5 can be used which has PBR, dynamic lighting and where pretty much everything just works. Anyway, for 5.3 I've managed to get exposure / contrast improved with out too many killer side fx and I think I'm done with trying to improve 5.3 further. Cheers

Hi @NATORDEN, The Dunedin package also installs a secondary airport to the North of Dunedin, and it was there I found the 2 airports to be intrinsically linked and managed to resolve my texture flickering issues via trial and error (I'm also not overly familiar with what it takes to put together an airport for P3D). I do have NZCH 110 installed in P3D v4 where I don't appear to have those flickering items as you've shown, that said I do notice flickering of the runway as I fly down it. I'll install the airport into v5 on the weekend and see what turns up. Cheers

No probs and message sent. I primarily put the package together in v4.5 as that's my main sim, that said I've been flying it a bit in 5.3 while working through some shader mods for this thread and have noticed a couple of funky things with some of the effects, plus I'm missing the weather radar too. So my next update will be to have a look at the effects and see what I can do, as well as add Rolan's Radar v5 as embeded for Active Sky integration. Cheers

Which Carenado C208 was it ? (steam or glass gauge). If it was the Steam there are a number of improvements available, like PBR model, immersive cockpit sounds and improved flight model. Cheers

Regarding the Vector data product of Orbx. It is available for p3D v5 because LM's is a fairly half a job harry type of implementation, as in yeah it's better than their previous rleases, but not complete and really Orbx vector is still an improvement. That said the Orbx P3D v5 implementation was also a bit of a half a job harry type of implemetation, where they updated and combined the excludes down to just 10 files. The result is much slower loading times (due to the bigger files) and resultant stutters. Luckely one of AVSIM's members has reworked the files so that the 9 are now 866 individual files for fast loading and file size stutterless performance, I think you'll find them quite the improvement performance wise. Of course the Orbx vector product is a layer providing extra resolution and visibiltiy improvements, it does also have to be loaded into the sim and does add to overall performance costs, personally though I've never found it to be excessive on my hardware. Cheers

Hey @NATORDEN, Just be aware you've posted 1 too many allowed pics and the soup guys might take offence. And now with that out of the way, I do have the airport installed in v4.5 but not installed in v5. I do have the following link in my store of issues. https://nzff.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31257&sid=1c2bfa8834d66b3f22500367c32ebbea And I also have Dunedin which did have texture flickering issues where I resolved according to the below link, it might provide some insite perhaps. Cheers

I actually host all my pics on Steam. And I also have my browsers set to clear their cache on close. No website disk space usage problems at all. My suggestion was for a separate P3D only media forum that can be easily browsed and linked. Cheers

I don't see an official reponse past the reply of "Possibly some of your suggestion may be discussed at future Board Meetings." But given that was over a year ago I assume the modest proposal was not progressed any further than the response in the thread ? I guess placing my faith in corporate boards is not yet validated. Cheers

How about a separate P3D screenshot/video forum i.e. a media forum under the P3D Forums heading (and same for XPlane and other sims under their own headings) ? That way posting pics and vids don't have to go in what is essentually the MSFS screenshot forum... Times change, personally I'm about to update my phone and internet to 5G, better than the internet options otherwise available and cheaper too. And yes I've seen many posts disappear, some times right in front of my eyes including what seem to be innocuous postings, but hey when you have absolute power... Anyway these are my thoughts as a member.

I've used it from time to time when I wanted to totally clear out driver files. Typically when troubleshooting and chasing resolutions to issues it is good to have a known and clean start base which DDU achieves. Cheers

Hi @Alexandre Blumberg, Yeah sure I'll send you the changes I've made, just PM me your email address and I'll zip and send. List of changes in the spoiler below. I also made a few changes outside of those files, being in Cloud.fx and PrecipParticle.fx. And in HDR.hlsl I implemented the uncharted2 tonemap, which was a little tricky due to the following code. #if(QUAD_RENDER_SHADER_FLAGS & SHD_FLAGS_MISC_2) #define SHD_CUSTOM_TONEMAP #endif From my testing I don't see how "#define SHD_CUSTOM_TONEMAP" is conditionally set. Also in my testing I couldn't see #define SHD_CUSTOM_TONEMAP ever being enabled, so as a workaround I just defined it directly at the level of the uncharted2 tonemap where a manual comment/uncomment will enable either ACES or UNCHARTED2, noting uncharted2 makes a big overall difference. If you have any ideas yourself ? HDR.hlsl with ACES enabled HDR.hlsl with UNCHARTED2 enabled Cheers

Hey nice effort. I plugged the files into P3D 5.3 (5.3 because 5.4 has introduced some breaking bugs LM are clearly not intending to resolve). Where in the first couple of minutes the content error log filled up with approx. 7700 lines of shader errors relating to the changed shader files, I also had the wierdest looking clouds... ☹️ The above said, I spent this morning going through the errors and testing changes until I had successfully compiling and functional shaders. A couple of relatively minor changes really, more info to follow tomorrow (I've other things scheduled for the rest of today). A few pics in P3D 5.3 (post fixes). These two show the dynamics of shading the clouds based on light direction. Here is a nicely defined cloud shadow. Sunset definitions. And finally a pic of my P3D 4.5 custom dynamic lighting cloud shader as a comparision to the P3D 5.3 pic above. Cheers

Hey @ValinHawK, Came across a Lorby utility today that might help with what you're after. https://www.lorby-si.com/downloads.html FREE: "PayloadManagerX" (Prepar3D V4.2f/V5.x) With this tool you can Add 3D persons to your aircraft (10 models included with 100 textures to choose from) Cheers

By placing the Orbx Airports and Regions at the top of the "Default" P3D entries and selecting to insert Orbx Global open LC below Orbx Airports and Regions everything should be fine, being as non-Orbx can then be placed above Orbx. I actually use specifly located empty marker folders to help keep everything in their appropriate place. In anycase Orbx can place things a little strangly which is why I prefer to manage via the Lorby Addon Organiser. However if all you've got is Orbx then the Orbx placement manger is fine and it's also good as a tool to place the default orbx order in bulk, otherwise Lorby is a far better option once an understanding has been gained on how order affects items. Cheers

Yes please do confirm the Orbx insertion points where any Orbx Global OpenLC should be below Orbx Airports and Regions, and I put Orbx Airports and Regions at the top of the P3D default entries. Plus I use the Lorby Addon Organiser to manage my addon positioning of sceneries etc. Also if you have Little Nav Map you can click on the airport in question and select the Infomation/Overview Tab where you can check/confirm what data sources are being used. This is what I see for the main building @ EGNT (it's one of Orbx's defaults with a few extras). Also came across this interesting image on the way to the AP, is it a maze ?

I mean was the latest Visual Studio 2015 redistibutable installed ? The link is MS's main landing point to downloading the most current VS redistributables. The iFly issue related to a count of lines where Navigraph supplied a file with less lines prior to ifly releasing an update, potentially you could trial something similar to narrow down the issue. I don't have either navigraph or the 787, so please take my suggestions with a grain of salt. Cheers

How about the VC registributable version itself ? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 I was also reading about a CTD in the iFly 737 relating to a Navigraph update, it was last year though, something to think about perhaps ? https://ifly.flight1.net/forums/navigraph-airac-2310-crash-to-desktop_topic21174&FID=13&PR=3.html Cheers

The term "all of a sudden", usually implies an unexpected change resulting in (some problem). First thing I would check for is dust clogging and CPU fan function, in fact I just cleaned 3 machines in the last 2 weeks for dust related problems. Compressed air will do the job, you can get it in a can or via a compressor, take the machine outside though and mask up as there can be a lot of fine dust blown out. Perhaps also reseating the CPU with new paste too. Otherwise, are you limiting the fps ? I ask because the higher the fps, the more resources will be used,P3d functions best when fps are set to unlimited, however the fps must then be limited externally either via vsyncing or via something like riva tuner or NCP vsync or max frame rate settings (30 is a good fps to set assuming you would normally get 30 fps). Additionally perhaps some software is chewing cpu cycles, a process of elimination might be the best approach here, e.g. disable AS & GSX and other apps one by one until you hit the app chewing the CPU cycles, then reenable the other apps one by one to confirm the problem app. Hope the above helps. Cheers

Hi Ethan, Yes I too made the move from FSX-SE to P3D some years ago, initially to P3D v3 (for testing and comparision) being 32 bit like FSX. Then to P3D v4 64 bit once I'd gained an understanding of P3D. I personally have P3D v4.5 and P3D v5.3 currently installed, however I use v4.5 as my daily drive and v5.3 for testing for pros and cons between the 2 versions, haven't bothered with v6 as it's quite different and has very limited 3rd party support atm. Most scenery shouldn't be an issue, other than maybe changing some windows registry path pointers so the scenery installers can find the chosen version of P3D, or you could manually install the scenery, Orbx will be fine up to P3D v5, for v6 you'd need to perform some path trickery as the Orbx Central app doesn't yet support P3D v6. Any aircraft or addon that's of the 32bit variety would need an update to a 64 bit supporting version, this would include the Majestic Q400, also I don't see any P3D options for the Flight1 Pilatus PC-12 assuming it's this one ? If it's the Carenado PC-12 you can move forward to 64 bit P3D v4 & v5, plus there is a nice improvement package discussed here. Active Sky has a version supporting both P3D v4 and v5, with a separate version for P3D v6, you'll also need to create an Active Sky Account for ActiveSky to connect to their serves for weather. You can see what I'm using on my v4.5 install here Performance with P3D v4.5, is good as long as your hardware it up to it (see my sig), I vsync @ 30Hz for a very smooth 30 fps covering almost all situations, note my monitors are 30 Hz capable being something most quality UHD TV's should support. I certainly am enjoying my flying in P3D v4.5, plus there are a lot of freebees for this version as well. Cheers A couple of my tuned v4.5 pics. Combo Gibson/Orbx Aust2 over NSW Autralia Custom cloud shader in action. Carenado Phenom 100, currently a wip for bug fixing.

The gauges require the Garmin Trainer packages which are Windows only. From the URL of https://reality-xp.com "Requires the free Garmin GTN Trainer (v6.62.4, v6.21). Instructions and download link provided during installation. Garmin GTN Trainer requires Windows 7 minimum (v6.21 Vista minimum)". I guess you're just plumb out of luck... Cheers