CO2Neutral

I'm not being apologetic to hurting MSFS users feelings ... they clearly have A LOT of feelings THEY need to deal with. I fly P3D because it's the simulator that supports the level of depth that I prefer with acceptable visuals and performance and my vision is not based on how much is "out of the box" or "free" but what it can actually challenge me with. As far as compromises, what I'm NOT willing to give up: 1. Historical Weather 2. Accurate Weather Radar 3. AI that for the most part work well with a high density and don't "spin while on taxi". 4. Flight dynamics more accurate to weather conditions 5. Accurate fuel consumption matching weather/winds from departure to destination 6. INS support 7. Undocked windows 8. Fully functional EFB (used in combination with Foreflight) 9. GSX full functionality fuel trucks that actually add fuel 10. Hardware device support 11. More accurate LoDRadius for buildings 12. Ability to manage core processing to best utilize my CPU (AffinityMask, P3DCoreAffinityMask, MainThreadScheduler, RenderThreadScheduler, FrameWorkerThreadScheduler)

No pilot would make this statement. Visibility needs to be very accurate for training and historical weather data is used for flight training ... it's how one learns the process of flight in all conditions. Never said it was for "all aircraft", why are you injecting what wasn't said? However, if you want to do any sort of serious aircraft development for MSFS, one will need to use WASM. Because it's a checkbox, like "weather" ... the implementation is significantly lacking and that's a result of not implementing computational loads that would significant reduce performance (those who measure FPS) ... and that is mostly likely due to the computational restrictions of the XBox hardware. If you feel the CFD as implemented in MSFS is good, then you haven't flown an aircraft to know the difference. Sure, whatever you want to decide ... but there are differences between "games" that are used by the FAA and the US Navy to train pilots vs. "games" that don't have any of the features necessary to accomplish such training. Like I said, MSFS is a good "average" game, my opinion and based on ratings it's a very common opinion. I never suggested that, again you really need to stop implicit injection of false information and re-read what I said. Yes I have, I guess you didn't understand the phone call reference pre-release. You're not trying to debate the MSFS, you're simply deflecting to "qualifications". You don't know me and I don't know you, doesn't change my statements if you'd read them correctly and not inject or imply things I never written. If you have no idea, then you really shouldn't be name calling me "silly"? Odd, there are numerous games and professional applications and trainers that don't use WASM and are very secure. But ask yourself how does a "sandbox" become "more secure" ... you get it now? And what exactly is being "secured" in a game/sim.

Weather is #1 when it comes to real world flights, you never ignore it ... if MSFS ever wants to graduate from "game" to "simulator" status it needs to address weather depiction. Many here seem to hunt for FPS, I'd have no problem giving up 50% or more of my FPS for accurate weather, and historical weather (can't train without it), and an accurate weather radar ... but I guess that wouldn't work well for the XBox users. I don't need or want another free aircraft or another free airport or another free scenery pack ... plenty of 3rd party developers able to provide that as needed.

That's false, WASM was selected due to the requirement to make MSFS available on XBox. None of the existing development community wanted an abstraction layer to the hardware (WASM) and was the primary reason why it took so long for some 3rd party aircraft to migrate to MSFS while missing a slew of important features along the way and why some existing 3rd party aircraft still have never made it to MSFS. Yes, being able to access the hardware directly is less restricting (and doesn't work on XBox) than having to hope a WASM layer can provide. What about having computational fluid dynamics? This isn't "new", been around for decades. The implementation is the problem, when users are suggesting to add a "dead zone" to controller input then CFD is clearly broken or just not well implemented. Weather modeling is frankly horrible in MSFS (both visually and in it's accuracy) ... but what's the point in modeling any weather if it can't be scanned to a weather radar with any level of accuracy? Weather is kinda important to get right for flight, in fact it's the first thing I look at when planning any real world flight (as do most pilots that want to live another day). Without historical weather and accuracy MSFS will NEVER get any FAA flight simulation certification. I have no issues with MSFS being a game, but some of you seem to be very offended by that, why? The MS Store ratings and Steam rating is feedback from users ... this should have been valuable data to MSFS. I see no restrictions for any platform P3D, MSFS, XP12 that can't accommodate the beginner and be accessible out of the box? Completely agree that P3D "out of the box" looks terrible, circa 2005. Yes I know BlackShark.ai is used in MSFS and it's now available to any developer and is in fact being used by Lockheed Martin along with UE5 at a "global" level ... I guessed you missed this information? Please stop resorting to "troll attempt" comments, that's just a sign of weakness in your POV. I want to like MSFS, I keep trying to like MSFS, but 3 years later and I'm just becoming less and less interested as I'm not seeing the kind of change that fits my desires in a flight simulator ... MSFS didn't even have an SDK on initial release ... don't you think that's odd? Most developers did think that very odd ... Jorg at one point suggested MSFS wouldn't support a 3rd party community at all ... remember those private one on three phone calls? 😉

I use MSFS, P3D, XP12 and don't have a problem maintaining them all. The weather in MSFS is comical ... just look at some of the pictures posted and I'm guess some folk think that's realistic? Do any of you actually fly real world? What's wrong with some of you, can't you be objective at all? Seriously, you defend MSFS problems that are VERY apparent with an zealous dose of ignorance that boggles the mind ... often many revert to P3D comparisons, why what the heck does P3D have to do with MSFS issues? The problems are with MSFS and the forum is MSFS ... why do you name call people "pathetic" because they point out a rather glaringly obvious problems in MSFS? No wonder nothing ever gets better in MSFS after 3 years with so many just sit there in defensive apathy. You really think that's good for MSFS?

Foreflight (used by professionals also) ... has everything, even checklists (real ones).

Fortunately there are other more mature and capable platforms for HiFi Simulation Technologies and other weather engine developers to share their talent and skills. There are many SDK MSFS limitations, weather is just one in a long long list. Unfortunately the consumer market favors visuals over anything else as demonstrated in this thread and some of the comments ... predictable unfortunately ("default state", good grief, seriously?). Over 2.5 (3+ for some of us) years and Asobo are restricted by whatever can be accomplished on the current Xbox platform (the real reason we don't see more is due to performance considerations of the Xbox hardware). Microsoft's business perspective that's good for their ROI, from someone who's more interested in all the complexity of flight, MSFS is a dead end road with little hope of graduating (it still hovers around a 2.5-3 star rating among users in MS Store ... strictly "average"). But Microsoft/Asobo have left the door of opportunity wide open and I guarantee another vendors/developers will step in and step up ... UE5 is a significant leap forward and BlackShark.Ai is now available to all ... put the pieces together watch this space.

I'll disagree, going above 8 cores in P3D V5.3 will increase the scheduler load and waste cache resources to the point it will saturate the main core for no benefit. Agree P3D will use all the cores when fetching terrain but it'll be fetching redundant data (confirmed by LM). Take a look at Process Monitor on the prepar3d.exe and do a File Summary. Completely agree on the Random read/write importance, but there are other factors such as Windows OS File Caching and the lazy writer process and FlushFileBuffers. With that said, setting affinity to external processes like Chase Plane, AIG Controller, HiFi Weather, etc. so there could be some benefit to going beyond 8 cores. Most CPU's with 6 or more real cores will see a benefit with SMT (AMD) or HT (Intel) OFF. AMD has other considerations also such as staying on CCD0 only pending core count usage (even more relevant with 3D vCache). Intel's eCore and AMD's 3D vCache have introduce more complexity to the quest for optimal performance over any given application/game in a given OS version.

Yes, I'm aware, but NCP setting doesn't always work as well, I find RTSS to always work and it also provides addition limiting methods. Not using any external limiter is the best option, but for those that don't have VRR and the monitor at 60Hz only, I would still recommend RTSS over NCP. RTSS can also provide for a wealth of other good information and system metrics.

Dynamic 3D Vegetation looks better and responds to wind/light sources better (PBR based), however, I agree to disabling. Sadly the 3D Vegetation isn't blended well and is too spread out. In addition, no one has attempted to use the SpeedTree SDK to improve 3D vegetation ... it's yet another P3D technology made available that was never fully utilized by the community (most likely due to the cost of the SpeedTree SDK license). SpeedTrees are visually the most impressive of any platform I've experienced, but yet again, poor implementation, performance, and adoption.

With your hardware as listed, I would do the following: Disable HT (hyperthreading which will give you some additional OC headroom), P3D will not benefit from more than 8 real cores. Use RTSS to lock frames to 30 if you're monitor is unable to work at 30Hz or introduces too much latency, set unlimited target (as suggested) Installing to another SSD/drive will make no difference for P3D so long as your existing drive can operate 200MB/sec sustained (used to be significant many years ago but not today and not with your existing hardware) Setting the Job Scheduler will make a difference and will work better with real cores (HT disabled), you'll need to experiment as results can also be OS dependent (Win10 vs. Win11) and if Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is enabled. Basic idea is to stay off core 0 (leave that for OS tasks) and use your best cores 1-7 (I think that CPU does provide best core indicators) ... stagger the cores based on physical die layout of cores as to provide for better heat dissipation. Most important with that CPU is to disable HT.

Here is a comprise using P3D V5.3 EA enabled using EnvPlus: Your 4th image down seems to be too blue to me but really depends on the weather and atmospheric conditions and your global location ... this is LA area in CA where haze is "normal" and the sky is less deep blue (on average but again weather plays a big roll in clearing out particles in the air). I've not really found any clouds in any simulator that depicts clouds accurately. P3D V5.3x with TrueSky implementation can look good in some situations like (NZAA): But as in this image below over KSEZ, the cloud tops come out a little flat but the sky texture seems accurate for that time of day and weather conditions (A2A Bonanza doesn't use PBR materials so it looks very flat): From EKCH during winter, partly cloudy with snow the sky is a little more blue: If you want to see more pictures and settings with EA + EnvShade/Plus feel free to PM me ... I've only posted 4 image links here but don't want to get a warning again. I am getting some banding which I need to investigate ... I'm currently not using EnvTextures for sky. But where I see significant visual problems is when using Fog (low visibility) with EnvShade/Plus. Again, this is all in P3D V5.3 EA mode with Volumetric Clouds.

This setting has been around for several years now. The TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10 setting is much noticeable at higher resolutions and larger monitors. BTW, this setting REQUIRES the following: HIGH_RESOLUTION_TERRAIN_TEXTURES=1 in the prepar3d.cfg in order for TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP to work.

You just need to install SimConnect again from P3D redist: D:\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\redist\Interface\FSX-SP2-XPACK\retail\lib run SimConnect.msi then reboot run VAInterface control panel, bring up CDU on iPad, hit connect and you should see the device connect here: Make sure you have the latest version VAInterface_2.28.1.21684.msi EDIT: I recommend you install VAInterface on a separate drive or outside of any Windows protected folders ... i.e. D:\Virtual Avionics

That setting will provide you with 1024 That's a link from 2017. TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10 works on both PhotoReal and Landclass in V5.x Per LM: This is one reason why I use P3D much more than other simulator platforms as those other platforms can't achieve this level of LoDRadius texture detail and seem very blurry to me. Yes, it doesn't consume more VRAM but I haven't notice any difference in FPS.