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Just out of interest...

With the downfall of XP in January, the 32bit world will start to fade away. I think 32bit apps will go the way of 16bit apps in the not to distant future. If LM wants to continue to sell to government entities, I think 64bit is going to be a prerequisite.

Dave
 
Backward compatibility or 64bit... seems like you can't have both at the same time. I'm pretty sure that backward compability is way more important for most users at this point. That may change in time for a P3Dv3...

Being a GA guy my last OOM was about a year ago :beguiled:
 
Yes, P3D2 is a 32 bit application. And the most striking changes are cosmetic. But I highly suggest to anyone to give it a try.
I am testing the Beta 4, and it is pretty good - the engine is much more modern and efficient than FSX - and after flying with P3D2, switching back to FSX is kind of a letdown. This is quickly becoming my preferred simulation platform.
 
I'm in. Impressed by what I'm hearing from developers - Flightbeam, for example - about range of features, smoothness and overall improved feel. A smoother-running FSX with an active development team in play sounds to me like a good prospect.
 
For the people who still think there are only "cosmetic changes" I'll give a rough rundown on what's new "under the hood" (feel free to correct me):

- single core, single thread -> multi core, multi thread
or in other words: my quadcore hyperthreading CPU will not freeze himself to death while performing FS calculations. The Intel generations in the last years from Nehalem to Ivy Bridge to Haswell did not increase the processor frequency by any means. Moore's Law is broken for several years now. I guess it's because of Heisenberg (the physicist, not the chem teacher!). FSX won't get any faster with only a single thread.

- All on CPU -> CPU + GPU
The graphics calculations are now where they belong: on the GPU. The GPU still has a lot more performance potential than CPUs simply by adding shader units or improving the DirectX depending microcode. The performance boost between GPU generations is still impressive. Also, direct calculations on the GPU don't use up precious VAS... so less OOMs even in 32bit.

- dx9 -> dx11 (incl. volumetric fog, new lighting, dynamic shadowing, tesselation, object instancing)
A little reminder: The step from FS9 to FSX was DX9 to DX9 + totally bugged "DX10 preview". I just spent a lot of money for ironing out the "DX10" bugs.... GNAAAAH! :frown-new:

- flight modeling can be made externally
Because of backward compatibility the limited flight model of FSX is here to stay. So they opened up the model for injection of external flight models. My understanding is that this was what A2A accomplished with FSX all by themselves. I maybe wrong, feel free to correct me.

- 64bit modeling tools in the free SDK
You better ask Bill about it... LM uses his quote as advertisment here: http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/05/4320/

- new mission system "Sim Director"
Completely new scenario editor. We'll see how it goes. See http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/10/4561/

- new multiplayer code
Read something about it, but can't remember nor find it, so :bull_head:


IMHO the step from FSX to P3Dv2 is anything but "just cosmetic". For me it is the step to FSXI that never came.
 
DaveWG said:
Of course that's great if you can afford a copy of 3DS MAX 2012+
Click to expand...

...which is why I'm waiting to see which modelling tools are supported by the new SDK. Word so far is models built with the existing SDK will work with P3D v2, but I can't afford to upgrade from Max 2008.
 
vora, you have made some persuasive points. My interest is increasing.... :)
 
Sieggie said:
With the downfall of XP in January, the 32bit world will start to fade away. I think 32bit apps will go the way of 16bit apps in the not to distant future. If LM wants to continue to sell to government entities, I think 64bit is going to be a prerequisite.

Dave
Click to expand...


You're kidding right, the government entity I work for only just got rid of IE6 a few months ago and I suspect the Win 7 update we're due to get before the end of XP probably won't be 64 bit either. Even then, it's not as if you can't run 32 bit programmes on a 64 bit OS so that's kind of a red herring.
I also suspect with the less open ended scenarios you use in a training environment that OOM issues would be less of a problem.
That's not to say I'd turn down a 64 bit sim engine, I just don't see it being a major change in the way offloading stuff to the GPU should be, so it's probably not a #1 priority for LM.
 
vora said:
In the long run MSFS is a dead end street IMHO.
Click to expand...

Kind of. The community is going to dissolve into legacy MSFS titles, X-Plane and P3D. This probably means less add-ons for everyone.


My call will be a multiplatform title, i.e. X-Plane (with a win in the lottery) or FlightGear (with a lot of time for contributing).
Linux...:love_heart:


vora said:
Because of backward compatibility the limited flight model of FSX is here to stay. So they opened up the model for injection of external flight models. My understanding is that this was what A2A accomplished with FSX all by themselves. I maybe wrong, feel free to correct me.
Click to expand...

Don't forget Majestic. They've tied in YASIM* through SimConnect.


*Open source and also used by FlightGear. (Maybe also X-Plane.)

- 64bit modeling tools in the free SDK
You better ask Bill about it... LM uses his quote as advertisment here: http://www.prepar3d.com/news/2013/05/4320/
Click to expand...

I honestly fail to see the big thing there. An exporter for Max 2012 was necessary because Max 7 and 9, for which FSX/ESP's exporters were written, are not available anymore. The "64k polygon limit" per object was more of a bug (as FSX' exporter did not have it) and the only thing worth of significance is the lifted 64k polygon limit per material plus any other potential internal changes regarding compilation speed.






Has anything changed regarding AI behaviour and ATC?
 
Im going to say im really interested in the 64 bit vers when it comes, im also liking the screenies of V2 also! The only thing holding me back would be tacpack.
 
If I understood correctly, VRS has officially announced that they didn't exclude a TacPack migration to P3D.
2300$ is a high price. And if it's like TacPAck, you'll need planes specially built with for these military features of the sim.
With such a price, I don't think anybody is going to create any of these planes, freewares or paywares.
 
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