P3Dv2 Update

[Mark Hargrove]

After playing around with P3D v2 for a bit over a week now I thought I'd give everybody who's interested an update on how my conversion from FSX is going.

First, bottom line: P3D v2 is a keeper. It (mostly) looks better, flys better, and performs better than FSX. I've only spent time flying the stock Beech Baron and the Carenado Cessna Skymaster so far, but both fly beautifully. FSUIPC works perfectly (using the latest version). OpusFSX works fine. I've not installed REX textures yet, but the stock textures looks good. I'm using the Orbx FT Global scenery and it's beautiful. v2 works fine with the PE client just by editing the DLL.XML file to get the right stuff in there and then copying over the stock aircraft models from FSX to the SimObjects/Airplanes folder in P3D (although I can't swear this part is perfect; I didn't have any traffic near me to look at during my one-and-only PE flight so far).

As many of you know, I have a moderately complex sim, with 6 PCs and 7 LCD displays. One of the disappointing things about P3Dv2 is that they completely dropped multi-channel support (multi-channel is what they called networked displays). It had some bugs in P3D 1.4 which I hoped would be fixed in v2 -- but instead they dropped the feature completely (for now; I've heard from a good source that it will be coming back in a future point-release). This bummed me out significantly for a bit, but I figured I could just continue using OpusFSX or Wideview as I did with FSX. Turns out there is another option: P3Dv2 makes full use of DX11-capable GPUs (FSX doesn't really take advantage of GPUs). Lockheed-Martin claimed that P3Dv2 would be able to work quite well on a single-cpu/multiple-graphics card system (as many of you have found from hard experience, FSX performance is pretty awful when trying to run windows on multiple displays).

I decided to check this claim out and learned that it's true! I plunked a pair of decent graphics cards into my master PC (an nVidia GTX 670 and GTX 780) and connected five monitors. The GTX 780 is driving three 1920x1080x32 displays for external views (-45/forward/+45 degrees), and the GTX 670 is driving two 1920x1080x32 displays for a virtual cockpit and panels. With very little fiddling around I'm getting 30 fps with this setup -- FAR better than is possible with FSX, and this is with no tuning at all yet. P3Dv2 also has much better tools for customizing cameras, so getting views to align took me about 1/10 as long as it did with FSX (partly just because I know more about what I'm doing -- but the tools ARE better as well). The really good news about this (for me, anyway) is that I can simplify my simulator set up, probably down to two PC's instead of six!

There are teething pains, to be sure. Somewhat mysterious CTD's (crash-to-desktop) still occur, but (so far) never during a flight -- they happen on loading new aircraft or new positions. LM seems to know about many of these and have posted a list of stuff in their forums that will be fixed in the 2.1 release. Also, graphics, while generally beautiful, seem to have been partially "improved" by pumping up the color saturation. For a lot of stuff, especially scenery, this has the desired effect -- it looks good. For cockpits, eh...sometimes not so much. Carenado cockpits, in particular, are significantly over-saturated, especially with panel lighting turned on. I'm sure this will get sorted out, but it's a small issue right now. Other folks are noticing that small things don't work on some aircraft -- a switch here, nav lights that don't illuminate there -- stuff like that. Nothing major that I've read about so far.

Carenado and several other sim aircraft publishers have committed to having airplanes for P3Dv2, but only Carenado and Iris Simulations (who provides some of the new stock airplanes, including a T-6 and F-22) have much "inventory" out there yet. Most FSX airplanes that I've tried do work with the notable exception of Flight1 aircraft, who seem to have gone out of their way to make the latest versions of their aircraft deliberately NOT work with P3D. The RealityXP Garmin 430/530 GPS simulators do NOT work with P3D.

If anybody has any specific questions I'll do my best to answer -- but the main take-away here is that P3Dv2 is a totally viable platform -- it's really good to have development going again on "FSX".

-M.

[Rick Stratman]

Mark

Thanks for the report. Does sound very promising, of which I am glad the Orbx items will still work.

what is the processor and memory you are running?

Are you running in window mode? or full screen mode? If full screen, does LM remember what views are on what screens?

Thanks

[Keith Smith]

Great thread, moved to P3D forum.

[Mattimus]

I also have enjoyed P3Dv2 so far, only complaint is that the flight1 mustang isn't compatible, that's one of my favorites.

Mark: do you know if there is a way to make P3D load a custom flight at launch instead of the F-22/Langley flight?

[Mark Hargrove]

Mark

Thanks for the report. Does sound very promising, of which I am glad the Orbx items will still work.

what is the processor and memory you are running?

Are you running in window mode? or full screen mode? If full screen, does LM remember what views are on what screens?

Thanks

I'm running a stock Core-i7 @ 3.4 GHz,16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for all of my systems.

P3Dv2 switches seamlessly into full-screen mode from windowed mode, but it has a serious bug if you LOAD a flight that was saved in full-screen mode and have windows on several monitors -- it tends to NOT display the main cockpit view . I keep my saves in windowed mode, load them, then Alt-Enter to switch to full-screen. One really nice thing is that the switch between full-screen and windowed mode is nearly instantaneous, with none of the screen flicker and pausing that accompanies the switch in FSX. All of the monitors go into full screen mode and you can drag borderless views around to any monitor while still in full-screen.

[Mark Hargrove]

I also have enjoyed P3Dv2 so far, only complaint is that the flight1 mustang isn't compatible, that's one of my favorites.

Mark: do you know if there is a way to make P3D load a custom flight at launch instead of the F-22/Langley flight?

...and according to the Flight1 forums, they have no intention to ever port any of their airplanes to P3D. Jim Rhoads gets incensed whenever the issue is even surfaced. Prior to version 1.8 of the Mustang, you could use the FSX-to-P3D migration tool that Estonia Software wrote to get the Mustang into P3D. When Flight1 learned of this (besides calling anybody who used it a thief, pirate, terrorist, and/or Justin Bieber fan) they released an update that just happened to make it impossible to run the Mustang in any version of P3D. If you have an earlier version (1.4 or 1.5) still stowed away somewhere I understand that the migration tool WILL work (but I've not tried it). The Mustang is one of my favorite aircraft as well, so it's a disappointment that they're taking the attitude that they are. MANY people have said in forum posts to Jim Rhoads, "look, we'll PAY for a new version if that's the way you feel -- just port it for heaven's sake!" So far, their official position seems to be "No way."

Their reasoning for this is a bit odd, partly reflecting the insanity of the US legal system (and PMDG seems to be leaning in the same direction): there is too much potential legal liability because P3D is specifically NOT positioned as an entertainment product, but rather as a training platform. Therefore, if they port an aircraft to P3D and you buy their simulated aircraft and fly it and then decide that since it's a "training" simulator that you're now qualified to fly the real thing and somehow get in one and crash it into a ambulance full of sick children and kittens, they'll be a party to the subsequent litigation because, hey: it wasn't a GAME they published -- the EULA said it couldn't be. Sheesh. But I kind of understand, and until this sort of silliness gets sorted out there may continue to be reluctance from some of the aircraft publishers.


Yes, you absolutely can save a different default flight but it's not obvious HOW you do it. This is one of the significant UI mistakes that a lot folks have pointed out. There is no way to load a saved flight from the 'Training Scenario Setup' screen. What you have to do is this:

• Let the F-22 flight load
• Use the menus to change your location, aircraft, time, etc.
• Select "Flights/Save..."
• Give the save file a name and then click the 'Default' button on the lower left corner of the thumbnail picture. It will turn dark blue when 'default' is selected and will be light gray otherwise
• Click 'OK'

Next time you start up P3Dv2 it will load the saved flight.

[Mark Hargrove]

Great thread, moved to P3D forum.

I'm not totally thrilled that this thread got moved to the P3D subtopic for "PE Client Software" -- it's not really about the PE client

[Keith Smith]

I'll rename the forums, then. There is more and more sim-specific discussion in the General forum and I'd like to try to avoid that.

[Mattimus]

Mark -

Thanks for the info on how to change the default flight, they should make that more obvious!

At least PMDG seems to have decided on supporting P3D, they're planning on releasing the 747-400, 777 Series, and
737NGX Series, with the 777-200LR/F being the first release sometime in the first quarter of the year, at least they're actually actively working on taking care of any licensing issues unlike flight1.

-matt

[Mark Hargrove]

Matt,

That's really great to hear about PMDG -- I was just starting to learn the NGX when I shifted gears to convert stuff over to P3Dv2.

-M.