The Official Prepar3D 2.0 Thread

[ghutchison14078]

This thread is for all discussion relating to Lockheed Martins' Prepar3D V2.0 Flight Simulator

Release details and discussion on avsim forum

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/426105-prepar3d-v-20-will-come-out-in-november/

Some images released from developers now that the NDA is lifted.

All the lighting / bloom effects are "out of the box" with P3D 2.0

 

[ghutchison14078]

Fantastic, do you know how much it is going to cost?

Hopefully similar cost to the current P3D v1.4 Academic license - $50

 

[ghutchison14078]

This looks incredible, when and where will it be available to purchase?

Can more than likely purchase directly from Lockheed Martin, from the website they sell the current Prepar3D version on:

http://www.prepar3d.com/

Exact launch date of V2.0 is unknown, but the developers themselves have said it's looking very likely to be this month sometime

This WILL replace FSX as the dominant PC flight simulator platform

 

[ghutchison14078]

I've spent a small fortune on fsx add-ons, planes, scenery, weather etc etc will I be able to use them on prepar3d I gave up with fsx just over a year ago from frustration and far to many ctd.

Here is a chart showing a good cross-section of addon compatibility

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap28TYpbzOOKdEFuR0h0bTJsZDFLcDRQQWZ4aC1uRFE#gid=0

Also here is a thread on the Aerosoft forum that details how to tweak some of their products to support P3D

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/54998-how-to-get-aerosoft-products-working-in-prepar3d/

 

[ghutchison14078]

Any news on whether LM will license P3D for home entertainment i.e. gaming use? Probably not something that would bother most folks but currently if you use P3D for "personal/consumer entertainment" you are in breach of the end user license - http://www.prepar3d.com/support/end-user-license-agreement-eula/

No it isn't looking likely that the EULA will include an entertainment license....the academic license will be what most simmers will purchase...to "learn" all about flight

 

[ghutchison14078]

Current academic version is readily available to all; as far as i know there are no plans to drastically alter the current EULA for the new version.

http://www.prepar3d.com/frequently-asked-questions/

 

[ghutchison14078]

So help me here chaps. Is this a completely new product, or is it a rebuild of the MS FSX foundations into something new? I'm out of touch, was a bit of a player some years back but last 4 of 5 years I've not really got into Flightsims much, but always found it a good way to lose a few hours and chill out from a busy week.

P3D 2.0 is still based on the FSX engine and code - but it has been heavily altered to make it more efficient.

It will now properly utilize modern multi-core CPU's and now fully supports DX11 and thus can take advantage of current GPU technology.

Details here:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/426105-prepar3d-v-20-will-come-out-in-november/

 

[ghutchison14078]

OK thanks.

Is anyone taking a clean sheet approach to Flight Sims these days, new engine etc?

AeroflyFS is the other platform of interest at the moment.

A recent significant update added navaids and increased autopilot functionality to the aircraft

It is still limited to just Swiss scenery locations at the moment

 

[ghutchison14078]

Official release announced!!

Out on Monday 25th November

$59.99 for academic license

http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/11/4648/

 

[ghutchison14078]

Q&A session with LM

http://forum.avsim.net/page/index.html/_/pri-news/lockheed-answers-community-questions-r1819

Some interesting info in there

Nice find

Similar interview with P3D developer on AirdailyX

http://airdailyx.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/airdailyx-interview-with-wesley-l-bard.html

 

[ghutchison14078]

Downloading now....awesome news from PMDG

 

[ghutchison14078]

Well I'm loving P3D 2.0 so far....very high visual settings with frame rates I could only dream of in FSX

And those VC shadows.....very nice!

For those who are interested, the developers of the FSX->P3D Migration tool have already launched the updated version to support P3D v2.0

http://www.flightsim.ee/

Also, for those of us using FSUIPC, Pete is currently on holiday till the 28th, so expect a fully working P3D 2.0 compatible FSUIPC module towards the end of the week / beginning of next week.

 

[ghutchison14078]

Patience lads...Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[ghutchison14078]

I understand what you saying. But can they really do anything? Somehow I think these guys have other things to worry about.

Can they link a couple of screen shots on a forum page to your P3D account?

They send an F-35 over to drop a JDAM on your house

 

[ghutchison14078]

I'm loving 2.0

Just installed UK2000 Glasgow and the QW146...both work perfectly and looks the business

Had to go back to FTX Global for my UK scenery at the moment as Orbx are in the process of updating all the FTX region installers for P3Dv2

 

[ghutchison14078]

Sim720 Stornoway released today.

P3Dv2 Compatible

http://flight.sim720.co.uk/products_stornoway.php

 

[ghutchison14078]

Can't take the P3Dv2 smile off my face

 

[ghutchison14078]

Performance seems good, but damn, moving those sliders to the right HURTS.

My recently built Haswell system can be brought to its knees and loading times even with a fast SSD are horrifying when addons are enabled in a built up area. I'm amazed at how slow the loading becomes!


FPS are generally 22-30fps.. but I do like to keep those sliders to the right and when I do I see more like 15fps.

There are a few issues I've come across. Namely after 20 minutes or so flying I am sometimes met with a low memory warning and P3Dv2 closes. During flying in a busy area my 7950 card has 2.8GB of 3GB consumed! I am thinking though that this isn't the problem (?) and that 8GB system memory isn't enough.


Also.. there is this:



Autogen buildings will sometimes lose their textures and turn to a random colour, I am thinking this is driver related and will play around with different drivers, but it is annoying.

I'll try and answer some of your points here Steve.

SSD's do nothing for performance once you are flying...they only speed up the initial loading process - (the bit with the progress bar before you jump into the cockpit) - they make ZERO difference to texture loading times and "smoothness" of graphics.

With regards to your FPS dropping in built up areas - well you will just have to make compromises with the sliders - building and vegetation autogen density and shadows effect performance the most in P3Dv2, experiment with these until you find the balance of eyecandy and performance that best suits you (you can have everything unfortunately)

The autogen building slowloading textures is the engine showing the limits of your 7950 gfx card - either ease back on the autogen density or buy a GTX780Ti

Also P3Dv2 is still only a 32-bit application - as such it can only address a maximum 4Gb of memory or VAS (virtual address space) - basically it can't utilize more than 4Gb of system memory - this is why you are getting out of memory (commonly referred to as OOM's). Urban areas with lots of autogen and complex addons and sliders all pushed to the right will break the 32-bit memory barrier - adjust your slider settings to compensate.

It can however use much more VRAM (graphics card memory) than FSX thanks to the new DX11 engine - this is a MAJOR benefit of the new engine in P3Dv2


To sum up - if you intend to use hi-definition complex addons you will have to make compromises on the slider settings, or buy a more powerful gfx card to help you achieve your performance targets - you could also overclock your CPU a bit more if you wanted more system grunt

 

[ghutchison14078]

Thanks for clearing some things up there ghutchison14078. I totally forgot that it's still a 32bit application! Do you think it will ever be coded in 64bit if there ever was a 'game' that needs to be 64bit to allow for more memory use it's this!

I'll push my 4770K some more over this weekend.

I'm thinking that a 4GB graphics card would make more sense (R9 290) over a 3GB card?

64-bit would certainly be a huge step forward but it would also render ALL addons ever developed for FSX/P3D useless, unless all the developers were willing to recompile all their addons into 64bit code (unlikely due to massive costs).

With regards to the gfx card, if you only run a single display @ 1080/1440p then a 3Gb card will be plenty memory, with current graphics cards you would run out of GPU power before you would run out of VRAM
Head over to the Lockheed martin forums hardware section to get recommendations on Nvidia vs ATI for P3Dv2, it's not really my area of expertise...I just bought the most powerful DX11 graphics card I could afford when P3Dv2 was released - the GTX780 Superclocked - I rarly see more than 2.2 - 2.5 Gb VRAM usage even using complex addons and weather.

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?mingleforumaction=viewforum&f=24.0

Nvidia geforce cards were always best for FSX due to the terrible AMD driver support for FSX, but things may have changed. I tend to stick to Nvidia cards though (personal preference)

 

[ghutchison14078]

I think I have now been convinced to take the plunge on this!

60 day refund policy if you don't like it (which wont happen )

Nothing to lose by trying