P3dv5

warchild

warchild

Charter Member
So, with June 1st a week away, I am seriously considering purchasing a license for P3DV5. I've watched a bunch of videos, and I admit it does look pretty decent and I've read a little about it, but thats not enough to quiet the clouds of doubt that i have; So I'm turning to you. Is P3DV5 worth the 60 dollars I will be paying for it??? All answers are welcome..
Thank you in advance.
Pam
 
Currently, in my opinion, V5 is very "buggy". That said, one must assume that LM will, over time, finesse the product to a level which will make it a viable competitor for MS Flight Simulator. V4.5 is now stable at least and with third party improvements from the likes of ORBX it can be made to look exceptional.

From our perspective (development) we would like to see more improvements made in PBR material and texture handling, as I do not believe that the sim is delivering its full potential there.

With a good video card (that is essential- 8gig is a must) it shows great promise and has potential to explore.

Providing that further upgrades are planned and they will be free, I would say that your $60 would be pretty safe.:engel016:
 
Once the major bugs are ironed out things will be fine, but the bugs will drive you nuts. I've experienced several CTDs just using ATC...found it's safer to undock the ATC menu and just leave it open. But then the flashing of the menu is another issue. Then there is the ground texture issue where tiles are suddenly really blurry with a white border around them. Looks horrible, but cycling through the views makes it go away. And an 8 gig video card is the bare minimum. VRAM can cause CTDs too. But when its not driving you nuts, it's absolutely gorgeous, especially with ORBX. I have most of my graphics sliders maxed out but have to keep autogen draw distance down no matter what other settings are because of the VRAM.
 
Pam, hearing P3D v5 was about to break with all the new additions I was ready to jump on it the day it was released. I did so. My first impression was one of disappointment. As Baz mentioned, for a state of the art sim, it is extremely buggy. I do enjoy flying in the new very impressive scenery. For me with all the fund spent on aircraft and scenery I need to be able to import them into the sim. That works most of the time but some favorites are left behind for now. I am one of those guys who like to figure out why things don't work. With that mentioned I have a bundle of things to figure out with version 5.

An example is I spent about six months making a photo real Al Dhafra airfield in the United Arab Emirates. Using the most recent version of ADE I removed all the default objects, taxi links and runways. I thought it worked perfectly as before. Once I flew above the airfield to a pretty good height I noticed the default airfield showing through. I had even made a default airfield bgl file with everything removed placing it in the scenery folder with everything else. The only way to get rid of the default airfield was to remove it from the scenery / World folder. This is just an example.

One thing not figured out yet is all my production scenery has a default runway which is very dark. It covers up my photo real textures. Most all of what I have mentioned is also mentioned in the P3D forum. Still it is fun to fly in P3D v5. No doubt as time goes on it will be improved. At first I was disappointed I spent the funds. Now, I am enjoying trying to figure out the little problems that are always present in a new release.

Hope this helps.
 
Indeed. I think that P3Dv5 was released in a hurry. It is a glorified beta IMHO...

But the latest iteration of P3Dv4.5 is, as Bazzar states stable and more than a bit enjoyable.

I'm waiting for the release of MSFS2020 and am prepared to relive the release of FSX at the time... Forget about those minimum system requirements! ;)

Priller
 
warchild said:
So, with June 1st a week away, I am seriously considering purchasing a license for P3DV5. I've watched a bunch of videos, and I admit it does look pretty decent and I've read a little about it, but thats not enough to quiet the clouds of doubt that i have; So I'm turning to you. Is P3DV5 worth the 60 dollars I will be paying for it??? All answers are welcome..
Thank you in advance.
Pam
Click to expand...

IMHO yes.
:encouragement:
 
Thanks Guys.. I cant tell you how much I appreciate your knowledge and opinion. It gives me something to chew on.. Sixty dollars is not chicken feed any more and welll, it seems its one thing to use it to buy a known variable like an airplane or something, but something as unknown as a whole new program, well, thats a scary thing. I aw a hotfix for V5 on the P3D site already and oddly, it didnt surprise me. Release day fixes and even first week fixes seem to be the way things are these days. It gives me pause and makes me wonder..
I dont know.. P3Dv5 looks drop dead gorgeous straight out of the box. But will my planes work in it?? I've got a lot of FSX planes that ( knock on wood ) still work in P3DV4.5 including most of the planes I made the flight dynamics for.. Those are special too me. Theyre like my children and I do care for them.. I know I fly X-Plane. It's a different sim, but thats all it is. It has different aircraft, a different feel and its own set of problems ( nothing is perfect ). I dont intend to stop using it, but rather too expand my simming to include all three major simulators ( I dont count DCS because everything is charged for in it ). Thats going to take a couple of years of reinvesting in aircraft and addons for at least P3D and FS2020 once its released.. I have X-Plane pretty much where I like it.. I figure P3D ( and please dont take this wrong ) is like flying on rails. It's easy, and not so tiring.. X-Plane can wear me out in half an hour just piddling around in a beechcraft.. Easy is a good thing these days.. FS2020 is an unknown quantity and will bring its own positives and negatives to the table, but it will be fun, I think.. I might be passing around the hat to take collections for a new motherboard and a threadripper to run the game, but itll be fun ::lol::
I dont know.. I probably will buy V5. I just dont feel real secure with it..
 
For all the bugs (and I don't find there are that many - but the occasional freezes and ctd's are indeed really annoying, although I'm experiencing fewer now for some reason), I haven't been back to FSX since v5 came out. The graphics performance is great, and I can finally run the ORBX TrueEarth sceneries without a problem. My average system runs great framerates all the time. But above all, it's the rendition of the atmosphere that has me hooked. For once it feels like a flight simulator,and not an aircraft simulator. It's less about the aircraft and more about the flying.

Also a big plus here, the VC lighting is greatly improved over v4.5. Exterior lighting could still use some tweaks, and hopefully that'll be done.

My two cents. :)
 
My two cents on the subject.

BUY!

Sure its got issues, but for me, compared to V4.5 I am getting fewer CTD's and its running much smoother. Before V5 came out I was getting quite negative on P3D thinking it had little hope against MSFS 2020 but now I am exited to use it again.

There is little downside to buying it, sure it costs money and will take up space on your disk, but you are not locked into just one simulator. If nothing else it helps support the industry. I have the MSFS Alpha and hope someday it will become a usable product, I have X-Plane, despite that I can't stand it, because I don't want them to go away.
 
Pam, buy it! It is well worth the money. It is so much smoother! And the visuals, especially the skies, as others have mentioned. It handles higher settings much better, although I still have to reduce some of them to keep the sim from freezing or ctd'ing. Doesn't take long to find the causes in the settings. Reducing them from max, one at a time, small steps fixed 90% of mine. I can run much higher than even in v4.5. FSX? Never load it anymore, 10 times buggier and nowhere near as smooth. As for your aircraft, if they are FSX Native, and have .xml gauges, along with a 64bit sound gauge/module, they all seem to work well. Watching the "compatible testing" thread, it seems quite a few that did not work right in V4 are working again in V5. (Still waiting on MilVis, and TacPac tho'.) Haven't had to pay for an upgrade from V4 on any aircraft, yet. It was the FSX/V1,2,3 upgrades to V4 (32bit to 64 bit) that were the costly upgrades on the more complex aircraft. A2A, MilVis ADVanced, and VRS F-18 and TacPac, that cost the most.

I have the new ORBX True Earth Washington State, and it is BEAUTIFUL! They upgraded 98% of the default airports in the state, as well as adding some not in default! They hinted in some posts, that Oregon is next.

An 8GB video card is a must. If you need help with the purchase, I will be more than happy to help out a fellow VETERAN! Just let us know.
 
Thanks Don. I think I'm good on the hardware side.. I started the rebuild back in 2018 just before i had to go into the hospital. Its an asus crosshair hero with 24 gigs of 3200mhz ddr4 ram a GTX 1070 w/8 gig ddr5, and 6 TB of NAS type hard drives The CPU is a mildly underclocked Ryzen 7-2700 (but it still bumps up to 4,2 GHZ just to spite me ). and its all buried inside this monster 2'x2'x2.5foot case with enough fans to keep it at a cool 38 - 54 degrees. I call it Godzilla. The thing is a major beast.. Heres what I got when I benchmarked it.. Please note the I9 directly above it.. ( yeahh, I'm a smart arse ) :adoration: Proud of my lil Beastie.. It handles X-plane nearly maxxed, P3DV4.5 Maxxed and Star Citizen Maxxed at upwards of 60 fps with the lowest being about 35fps.

mn5r0Hh.png
 
Pam, looks more than capable. The only question, is it Direct X 12? I'll admit, I don't know what the 1070 cards run. DX12 is a must.
 
You said you built or started to build this system in 2018. Have you updated to Win10?
I ask because Win10 is required to get DirectX 12. Without that you won't even get it installed.

P3D v5 only fully supports devices at the DX12 or 12_1 feature level.
The critical feature you need supported is Resource Binding Tier 2.
GPU spec sheets don't often list this, but there is a helpful table on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_levels_in_Direct3D#Support_matrix

Hope this helps.
:ernaehrung004:
 
mike_cyul said:
For all the bugs (and I don't find there are that many - but the occasional freezes and ctd's are indeed really annoying, although I'm experiencing fewer now for some reason), I haven't been back to FSX since v5 came out. The graphics performance is great, and I can finally run the ORBX TrueEarth sceneries without a problem. My average system runs great framerates all the time. But above all, it's the rendition of the atmosphere that has me hooked. For once it feels like a flight simulator,and not an aircraft simulator. It's less about the aircraft and more about the flying.

Also a big plus here, the VC lighting is greatly improved over v4.5. Exterior lighting could still use some tweaks, and hopefully that'll be done.
Click to expand...

I was about to write a reply when I saw this one, which covers most of my sentiments! One difference for me is I uninstalled FSX years ago in preference for P3D and have never bothered to install it in new builds.

I would also add that P3D5 is here now, with a range of features ready out-of-the-box (VR, seasons, helicopters etc etc), vs MSFS (which many have erroneously dubbed "MSFS 2020") which may, or may not have these on release or some unknown time later. Speaking of sometime later, it seems to me there is a 50/50 chance MSFS won't be released until 2021. I will surely buy it when released, but until it reaches parity (features wise) I'll be flying P3D5.

I also believe P3D5 was released in a rush, but my positive spin is this was done to get it out there ASAP for lockdown, for which I'm very grateful.

Andy
 
Hello Pam, Place me in the 'Yea' column. As others have said, P3D V5 isn't perfect. However, in my opinion it is already better than P3D V4.5, which was the the best MSFS product ever produced.

I initially has problems with my 4GB GTX 970 cards. (BTW: The 970 card is DX12 ready, so I assume your 1070 will be, also) However, once I replaced one of them with a GTX2070 Super, there was no looking back. I am running at a locked 35 fps with the sliders 3/4s to the right. With these settings I have way more autogen buildings and trees, and greater visual range than P3D V4. Others have already mentioned the wonderful atmosphere and clouds. I have not missed the lack REX products.

Old reliable and 'simple' airplanes, such as Realair's SF-260, Bay Tower's RV-7, and Carenado's Mentor all work. It is the more complex aircraft that work with specialized programming outside of the sim coding that have issues. If you can live without them for a month or two, you should be good to go.

You can add me to the list of friends who will help you out, if necessary.
 
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