MilViz P38L.. IT'S OUT!!

[fsxar177]

I'm assuming the 'low-res' Textures are in fact DXT5, and not actually any less resolution? (Just a different compression, compared to the 888-8)

- Joseph

 

[Mach3DS]

An update - I did in fact uninstall the high-res textures and reinstalled using the low-res ones. Made a big difference in performance, though even using low-res, she taxes my system a bit - I still had microstutters even with frames locked at 33 and autogen trees dialed back one notch. I tried the identical flight with the A2A/Accu-sim military Mustang with one of cdfi's paints, and that gave me smooth performance and higher FPS with frames unlocked and trees left at dense. So I still have some experimenting to do to find the best settings for the P-38. Again, this is in P3D 2.5. Worth the effort to get her running - she's really enjoyable. So I'm looking forward to getting her completely smoothed out.

In case you're wondering - the low-res textures look fine. I'm sure there are differences between them and the high-res ones but under normal circumstances (concentrating on flying the aircraft and glancing occasionally at the outside view) I couldn't really see what the differences were. So if you're having performance problems with it, reducing the texture size is the first thing to look at. Hope this is helpful.

unlock your frames for use with this bird...I had to do the same thing during beta testing. I unlock mine and use p3dv2.5 and this solved it for me. but she is slightly heavier on performance but still quite reasonable for me. I get about 22-28 FPS with tacpack version. But no micro-stutters!

 

[Alan_A]

Strangely, I had the opposite experience - heavy stuttering with unlocked frames, much less (though still some microstutters) with frames locked at 33. One of those system-specific things, I guess. Or maybe there's a variable we're not thinking about - traffic package, weather engine, vector graphics, video driver, something along those lines.

 

[Mach3DS]

Well, with P3Dv2x you have to deal with the tessellation factor and video cards...try adjusting that. It's very much a trial and error I've found. FSX works great. However, there's team members running P3Dv2 with no issues at all...so it's very rig specific sometimes.

 

[xpelekis]

All very good and very nice with another great Milviz product.
But what puzzles me is the Tacpack functionality integrated to the plane (FSX standard version).

And specifically the guns function : to my experience they seem not to work.
Apart from the fact that you cannot use them via a joystick button (as the case is with rockets & bombs) resulting
in impossible aiming towards a target, even by Klicking the button with mouse in v-cockpit, my feeling is that they don't do damage.

The Tacpacked ability was the only reason I bought this plane. Has anyone else a different experience with Tacpack than mine ?

Hi

We are looking at making an upgrade available for Tacpack.

That at will be decided today.

Thank you.

Kat.

I hope this will resolve the problem, if is not a false misconception from my side.

 

[Katoun]

Hi,

You should be able to assign any keys you wish to the firing of the guns.

We will be releasing shortly (today or tmrw) an update for the guns firing.

Thank you.

Kat.

 

[jankees]

I see people complaining about the number of paints (too many??), so I apologise in advance for uploading a few more:

 

[stovall]

Jan, please disregard any of the complaints about to many repaints. The stuff you produce is manna from heaven. Keep the paints coming for those of us who are addicted to your fantastic work. Off to OZX to see what I can download.

 

[jankees]

so sorry, you'll have to make do with there is now on OZX, I'm off to the south of France for a few weeks, fieldwork with 69 students...


one last paint:

(though the shot is of an early version)

 

[stovall]

so sorry, you'll have to make do with there is now on OZX, I'm off to the south of France for a few weeks, fieldwork with 69 students...

That will give you time to conjure up your next creations. Umm, lets see, I think about six new P-38L liveries sounds about right with the time you will be gone.

 

[Alan_A]

Well, with P3Dv2x you have to deal with the tessellation factor and video cards...

Thanks for that suggestion. I haven't experimented with tessellation settings much. I'll give it a try. Probably won't be able to get to it for a couple of days owing to real-world intrusions but I'll report back.

 

[Alan_A]

I see people complaining about the number of paints (too many??)

Too much of a good thing is... a good thing. Keep 'em coming.

 

[Dimus]

All very good and very nice with another great Milviz product.
But what puzzles me is the Tacpack functionality integrated to the plane (FSX standard version).

And specifically the guns function : to my experience they seem not to work.
Apart from the fact that you cannot use them via a joystick button (as the case is with rockets & bombs) resulting
in impossible aiming towards a target, even by Klicking the button with mouse in v-cockpit, my feeling is that they don't do damage.

The Tacpacked ability was the only reason I bought this plane. Has anyone else a different experience with Tacpack than mine ?



I hope this will resolve the problem, if is not a false misconception from my side.

First make sure you have loaded the guns via the Tacpack window. Then make sure you have switched on the master arm switch on the left side of the cockpit and also the switch on top of the yoke is set to guns and not camera (click twice). You may not see tracers at first. Then guns should work with your normal Tacpack joystick button. Try shooting to the ground and see the effect of rounds hit.

As Kat mentioned, the guns are being worked on. For the moment to see tracers try emptying your guns (shoot all ammo) and then reloading them (Click twice on the ''reload guns'' in the Tacpack window, Shift-2). You will normally now see tracers. They definitely do damage as I have used them to shoot down AI.

 

[xpelekis]

Thank you very much Dimus.
The "reload guns" did the trick. It is not obvious, nor expected by the way this window looks.
Maybe Milviz should add "Guns load-reload" or mention this at the manual.

But hey, I'm happy. Now we are flying !... (and shooting...)

 

[PRB]

I'm getting exactly the same stutters with the low textures that I did with the high ones. So that isn't the problem. Went to clear weather, and set frame rate from 35 (locked) to unlimited, which had no affect. With FPS set to unlimited, I'm getting between 50-90 FPS, clouds or no clouds. My FS box seems awesome enough (see sig). Looks like I need to spend the next week poring over the forums and "geekology" on how to eliminate stutters in FSX (again).

O.T. Tried installing in P3D, and got CTDs. Then I learned I need v2.5, not v2.4 (grumble grumble). I downloaded 2.5 when it came out, but didn't install it. Still can't figure out if 2.5 will simply update my 2.4 without overwriting my new clouds in 2.4, etc., of if I have to start all over (again). This is [one of my] beefs with P3D.

 

[fsxar177]

Single aircraft should never make, or break the sim's performance....

I would guess that if the P-38 is making that much difference, chances are you're pushing the limits with your system as it is..

- Joseph

Edit; Paul.. Certainly you should be able to do a lot more with your current system. Look into your options, for sure!

 

[Alan_A]

@Paul - unfortunately there's no upgrade path from P3D 2.4 to 2.5. The reason is they've changed the .cfg structure (there are now separate .cfgs for sim objects and a couple of others). In the long run this is supposed to make patching easier, since changes to the p3d.cfg won't affect add-ons nearly so much. But the price is that 2.5 requires a full install. I dreaded it but got through it OK (with a cleaner install, too) and the performance is much better, at least on my machine.

@Joseph - I understand what you're trying to say but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. The P-38 stutters on my system, which is a pretty current one (4790K @ 4.6, 8 megs of GSkill Trident 2400 CAS 9 RAM, EVGA GTX 980SC, Samsung 840 SSDs). The install is relatively light (FTX Global and Vector but no regions, no third-party airports, REX 4 textures at the lowest resolution, ASN at moderate settings). Holding all other variables even, and changing only aircraft, I find that the PMDG NGX doesn't stutter on my system, the A2A B-17 (hardest one to date on my current rig) doesn't stutter, none of my aircraft stutter except for the P-38. The P-38 stutters much less when I use the so-called lower-res textures, but microstutters are still there. Now, I'm willing to play with settings in order to improve its performance because I like the overall package. But those altered settings aren't required by any other aircraft on my system. So wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that the aircraft makes the difference in this case? And as to an aircraft's making or breaking the sim's performance, why should an aircraft be different from anything else I add to my install? Vector graphics can challenge performance, regional scenery or airports can challenge performance, why not an aircraft? Perhaps I'm missing something (entirely possible) - I'd be interested to know why an aircraft that induces stutters automatically means I'm asking too much of the sim.

FYI that I still haven't had the chance to play with my tessellation settings, as was suggested earlier in this thread, and probably won't for another couple of days at least. But I'm open. Will report back as soon as I can free up an hour or so to make the tests.

 

[Dumonceau]

I'm experiencing stutters as well in my P3D v2.5 setup.

Even though I haven't got the RAM that Paul has, I have an i7 CPU @ 4.2 Ghz, GTX790 with 4 gigs of its own and 8 Gb's of RAM.

Every other model runs smoothly. I only have the stutters with this model.

Johan

 

[Dumonceau]

That will give you time to conjure up your next creations. Umm, lets see, I think about six new P-38L liveries sounds about right with the time you will be gone.

Tom,

Would you mind shedding some light on the liveries you have planned??

Cheers,

Johan

 

[fsxar177]

Single aircraft should never make, or break the sim's performance....

To quote myself..

The keywords are 'should never'..

I fear the consensus might be right, from you folks experiencing performance issues. I'll just have to get my hands on her..

Maybe a combination of key-events flooding, and textures?

- Joseph