Making the switch to P3D4.2 Opinions?

[DHenriques_]

I'll be making the switch to P3D4.2 soon and would like a few opinions please.

Basically what I have now in FSX boxed is FSX, GEX, and Ultimate Terrain. I know a lot of you are deeply into Orbx but what I need to know now is how the default scenery in P3D4.2 will compare with what I'm seeing now in my FSX installation.
I've heard some talk about cockpits being dark in P3D. Opinions on that?
I have a large hangar sign that someone made up for me that appears on the sidewall of my hangar at KILG. Will I be able to port that sign over to the same hangar wall in P3D?

Basically, what do you all think about making this change? It will be interesting to get your slant on this so please feel free to speak up if you have the time.
Many thanks.
Dudley Henriques

[rhenson529]

Dudley,

I made the jump last month myself and very glad I did. I can almost “feel” the difference The HD scenery and lighting is much more realistic. I think you will be really find the change more enjoyable. I was an FSX user since ‘91 and the change is welcoming.

Just my 2cents.
Ron


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Dreamsofwings]

Well worth it Dudley. I spent months convincing myself that I didn’t need to make the move and spend money on repurchasing my 64bit compatible addons but I am so glad I did. For the 10 mins or so I flew around in P3Dv4 before I reinstalled all my ORBX I would say its an improvement on FSX but still a very poor comparison to a sim that is all “ORBXed” up!
Apart from the warm fuzzy feeling you get from not waiting for the dreaded OOM crash, it just looks and feels better. It is also getting updated and improved as time goes on (4.3 on its way).
Not sure on your sign. I am no expert but it could work however there are plenty of guys here who will be able to help on that. I wanted to use the freeware ACG IWM Duxford with my Spitfire and ORBX FTX EU England and although it states on the website that I downloaded it from that it is for FSX it works fine.

[bladerunner900]

Hello sir,

I have been using ORBX for a while now but used to run Ultimate Terrain scenery back in the day. The standard scenery in P3D is basically the same as to what is in FSX, but with more light and shade control. So I would hazard a guess that your Ultimate scenery would look superior overall.

I have also ported some FSX scenery into P3D and in my experience, it has not been a big problem. As long as the scenery in question has been designed with FSX Acceleration in mind. Of course, this may change further down the road as P3D continues to diverge further away from FSX and I have had some problems with taxiway markings in some scenery. Perhaps one of your colleagues could test that sign you are concerned about for you.

Cockpit lighting can be dark, which is one of the reasons I use SimTweaks PTA. Amongst other things, it gives full control over cockpit light and shade. It can be daunting to the first time user, with all the options open to adjustment but until P3D offers the same level of control in-sim, with sliders and such, it's invaluable in my opinion.

So basically, yes. It is worth the change. There will be a learning curve and you may have to compromise on some things but I haven't regretted it. Not since v2 of P3D. Especially now that my beloved Spitfire is back.

Respectfully.
Steve.

[patful]

Until last month, I was running GEX and UTX USA, Canada, and TAC with no problems at all, so you wouldn't need to resort to default scenery. I had my scenery sliders full right while running GEX and UTX, 40 FPS in New York and LA (i5 7600k o/c to 4.8 and a 6GB GTX 1060). Had to back them off a little for ORBX NZ. As for the cockpit lighting, as bladerunner said, PTA is the way to go. $20 is a bargain. I don't mess with the sliders, just pop in Adam's preset and I'm good to go. Really makes everything come alive.

[AKar]

For me, P3Dv4 has given significantly improved performance, stability and also visuals. With v4 we also start seeing long-asked stuff such as dynamic rain on the windshield etc, not sure if they are on A2A's roadmap obviously.

Default scenery is pretty much the same it is with the FSX, I think remembering. I've been using Orbx since FSX so no fresh memories of the default sceneries.

The default graphics are somewhat dark yes. They are easily adjustable to one's taste, though, either by settings in the game menu or by 3rd party shader modifiers.

-Esa

[DHenriques_]

Let me insert this thank you here for everybody who replied to my questions. Much appreciated.
Dudley Henriques

[Roadburner426]

I will say Dudley the first thing I noticed last year when I jumped from being an FS user (all the way back to my teenage years when FS98 came out, lol) to P3Dv4 was I thought the lighting was to bright actually. So I find it weird to see you say people find the cockpits to be to dark. For me actually I find it to be the opposite, and now after a year with it I find it actually looks more realistic the way it is. For me a lot of it has to do I think with the light bloom, since you get that initial rush of light and then you can't see anything like in real life when you are blinded by the sun. Plus I really like the fact that the clouds cast shadows, so if I fly under a cloud it does get darker and then brightens back up in the cockpit when I fly back out from underneath in to the sun light again. I think you will like the lighting.

I will say with scenery I am also a UTX/GEX user, and I have stuck with it. I really like it in P3Dv4, and they updated a bunch of stuff if you do the upgrade. I will say though installing freeware scenery, and stuff that requires a manual install gets to be a little tricky at first. Just use the external add-ons folder in your documents folder and you'll be fine. You will probably not be able to use a lot of your freeware add-ons though as some weird stuff happens with old scenery and the dynamic lighting. I would say if all they did is add a texture to a wall, and didn't mess around with the lighting or anything it should port over. You should just be able to move it over from your FSX Add-on Scenery folder and in to the P3D Add-on and add it through the scenery menu.

I will tell you as well the way the P3D menu's are set up is frustrating sometimes. To access your pilot logbook you have to load a flight, and access it from the in game menu at the top. There are certain other things that only work from the in game menu, and cannot be done from the splash screen. For me this is the only part of P3D that I dislike, but for me it is not a huge detractor. Just more of an annoyance and felt it was worth mentioning.

The last plus I will mention is the weather. Since you are a real world pilot I think that along with the lighting would be the 2 biggest changes for you. Flying in and out of cloud bases is WAY more realistic in P3D. Riding in the back of helicopters and such throughout my adult life that was the one thing that bothered me with FSX was the weather. Makes IFR flight much more challenging for me, and the first time I actually flew in bad weather in P3D I actually had flutters in my chest cause of how different it was from FSX. I was used to in FSX the clouds just kind of vanishing once I get close enough to the airport. In P3D you can see the runway lights barely through the mist, and the runway come in to view at minimums. Was a very freaky experience the first time I did that as I actually had to rely on the ILS to guide me down. Even stock weather looks pretty good, but it does not have live weather so you will need some sort of weather program if you want that.

[WB_FlashOver]

I made the jump last year as well. I have to agree with what is said above about OOM's being a thing of the past. I like long flights in the Connie and nothing is more frustrating than an OOM on final after a 7 hour flight. And it always seemed to be during the last 5 minutes of flight too.

As far as lighting I rather enjoy the lighting as S. Jordan says. Your "eyes" have to adjust as you change your view from looking out the window to back into the cockpit. This is immersion in my opinion. Night lighting is fantastic! I run a very low Bloom effect (0.10) and it seems good on my system. HDR enabled with Dynamic Lighting and it's very nice, night or day.

As stated, stock for stock scenery is about the same. I'm running all Orbx global stuff as well as all NA regions. I also have FreeMeshX installed. I'd say a custom mesh is invaluable to give the terrain some definition. I have also gotten Duxford to work well on my system.

Weather was the big factor for me. I only fly RWW so had to purchase HiFi Active Sky ASP4. Got it on sale and then purchased Cloud Art on last sale. Both have been a game changer for me. Well worth the expense!

Dynamic reflexions are fantastic as well. Looking at a reflective surface and actually seeing the current terrain reflecting back at you instead of some desert scene while over the ocean is a bonus.

The lack of numerous config tweaks to get it to run smooth is another added bonus. I have not touched a thing in my config. I have not touched a thing with Nvidia Inspector either. The sim just runs as-is with all the control you need being inside the sim settings and options.

Volumetric Fog is a feature that brings realism and pleasure to my flying as well. No more dancing and poorly depicted ground fog. No more instant 0-0 visibility. You actually fly into 0-0 vis instead of that "Whoa, what just happened?"

I could go on but you get the picture we are trying to paint. The effort and cost of the move is well worth it!

Cheers
Roger

[thunderstreak]

I was definitely an FSX holdout, didn’t make the change to P3D until v4 came out.
Most importantly for me since I made the switch, I actually spend my time flying as opposed to tweaking.
In all the years I had FSX I didn’t really accrue many flying hours, there was always something I felt needed tweaking or there was some issue that needed fixing.
My flightsim use is intermittent at best, and mostly in the winter, usually short flights.
I already have over 100 hours logged in P3Dv4, which for me is a lot.
That’s almost double what I put on my real airplane during the same period.

I find the lighting and visuals are different but definitely adjustable to suit your taste.

I can’t comment on the default scenery because I installed my ORBX sceneries right away.

I have found transferring other sceneries from my FSX install straightforward and trouble free.

Also, I haven’t used FSX once since I made the switch.
It’s still installed and I definitely miss my A2A warbirds, but P3Dv4 is so much better I just can’t be bothered with FSX.

Hope this helps,
Cheers, Bernard.

[Ron Attwood]

P3D v4.2 is great. The downside is you will have to re-purchase all your A2A products again. Oh and you'll have to wait for the Mustang...

Seriously, once you get used to the lighting, shadows and a general loveliness you'll never go back. No brainer Sir.

[pressler]

Meh....I jumped to P3D last year and I found it meh compared to FSX. I don't mean to knock P3D as it has moved simming forward, but for the life of me, I cannot get past the updates because they are donkey and the process is just stupid IMO. I recently went back to FSX:SE cause I missed my A2A Comanche and Cherokee, F1 BN-2 Islander and 152 Skycatcher. But to your question, go for it as you'll be the best judge on whether the jump is positive or negative.

[DHenriques_]

If anyone has installed the Lotus L39 into P3Dv4.2 can you give me the exact path to accomplish that?
It's installed now in FSX boxed and I'd like to have it in my new P3D sim if possible. It's the only non-A2A aircraft I would like to keep.
Also, if you have installed it in P3D does it contain any issues in P3D?
Thanks a lot for any help and assistance with this.
Dudley Henriques

[patful]

I don't have the L39, but a quick search turned up this: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5115 ... s-not-die/
Sounds can be fixed, not sure about the strobes.

[DHenriques_]

I don't have the L39, but a quick search turned up this: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5115 ... s-not-die/
Sounds can be fixed, not sure about the strobes.

Thanks. That's an interesting thread.
DH