Lockheed Martin Prepar3d

[JNicol]

(not trying to sound cynical).

Too late.

Also is there a FSX like demo for it? i.e. a small region with 30 minute run time?

No, that isn't something that is in the pipeline at the moment.

Any word on performance improvements over FSX SP2?

We are not necessarily comparing apples with apples when it comes to performance. There are new features and there have been a number of issues fixed. "It depends" is the answer. People are generally finding performance improvements because we have upgraded to Shader Model 3.0 and made some fixes. If you have the new global texture resolution cranked up to max (now 4096 instead of the FSX default 1024) and you have the new Bathymetry (underwater) setting on, you are probably going to find some fps hits. If I was flying, I probably don't need bathymetry. If I am doing litoral/maritime ops or driving a submarine, I probably don't need general aviation or road traffic turned on. I suggest that you go to the support forums at the Prepar3D website to read the various posts and answers regarding the new features. www.prepar3D.com

Lastly, have you guys worked on the flight model at all/are you planning on working on it at all?

No on the flight model. Yes on planning to improve it in the future and if you have any specific problem areas in the flight model that you would like us to look at, please feel free to drop us a line in the forums so that we can look at it. The developers are very receptive and we are always looking at ways in which we can improve the product.

Thanks for your comments.

Regards,
John

[Atomic_Sheep]

There are a few addons for FSX which utilise 4096 textures. I think Real Environment Extreme uses 4096 clouds and ORBX utilises 2056 (or something of the sort) textures for its scenery. To be honest It's kind of hard to tell whether there is a performance hit between the different texture sizes. The way I see it, there's a greater video card hit with these higher resolution textures? CPU shouldn't be affected all that much? The only difference that I notice (apart from a greater video card load would be load times i.e. hdd get a better work out and really anything other than SSD doesn't quite cut it. Since FSX is so CPU intensive, I was wondering more along the lines of whether there are noticeable performance increases in this department? Users with a GTX 580 appear to get more than sufficient fps in the video department but they are still struggling somewhat when it comes to CPU. Memory isn't really a problem either I think, from personal experience, I've got just the plain vanilla 12800 memory but it seems quick enough and with 12Gb, I've never come anywhere close to maxing this. I think the most I've ever reached was something like 6Gb and that's including OS and I think I had other apps running as well.

[JNicol]

Hi,

The settings for Global Texture Resolution and the comparison between FSX and the new range in Prepar3D are listed below:

FSX/ESP: 64 128 256 512 1024
Prepar3D: 256 512 1024 2048 4096

These relate from left to right from Very Low to Very High. What you are pointing out is the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD= setting in the FSX.CFG which indeed will allow textures to be greater in resolution for those add-ons. The above figures are the new default. We are actually also going to be expanding and relabelling them in the next release update to the following (Very Low to Very High isn't that descriptive to those of us that tweak!):

64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096

The software is still tied to the CPU as FSX is, but as mentioned, we have updated the Shader model from 1.1 to 3 so there is a small performance and visual quality increase. We are looking at upgrading the DirectX version next year as well and moving some of the current CPU overhead onto the GPU. I can't comment on performance on the GTX 580, I am not using one, but interested to see what your experiences would be with P3D.

Regards,
John

[Atomic_Sheep]

I'm not using a 580 either. I've just seen some performance comparisons between a 480 and a 580 I think it was running on FSX butnot sure how the comparison would go with P3D vs FSX on the same machine. Would be interested to see that also. I was thinking about trying it out, but haven't decided on giving it a red hot crack just at this stage but I'm certainly quite interested in the project and will keep myself as up to date as I can.

[Neil Hewitt]

Signed up for a Developer Sub today and I'll have a play over the weekend, see if I can see any performance improvement on my reference system.

NH

[JNicol]

Hi Everyone,

Just letting you know that I posted news about the upcoming release 1.1 of Prepar3D. I think that there are a few features that cockpit builders will like, including multi-touch support on multiple monitors and we have fixed multiple window repositioning on start-up as well. More here:

http://www.prepar3d.com/2011/03/08/p...elease-update/

John

[Kennair]

I have it running on a multi-monitor i7 980x in tandem with FSX but haven't noticed any performance improvement however I certainly look forward to this update. It looks very comprehensive and responsive. When was the last time you heard that about FSX?

Ken.

[halroach187]

hello folks. I'm here representing a group of enthusiasts from FSX and current and ex pilots and controllers. We have been using add ons and squeezing every bit of simulation we can from FSX for a long time. Avid users or VATSIM SQUAKBOX FSINN ECT... we also rent our own server space for creating and shareing aircrafts and scenerys we develope for FSX. With the announcement of MS flight 2012 many of us have absolutly no interest in using this closed sourch and childish GAME. We wanted FSX to be built on and improved.... now just by chance i come across this Prepar3d product as i was reading a dev article about making the transition away from microsoft due to the new structure in Flight 2012. So I have noticed a very large price point that many of our users cant afford. but in the same token we are going to be left for dead when ms flight comes out.... we need a realistic simulator, creator, editor, mp, tower controller, we need everything fsx had and want so much more.... this was a perfect program for us but again too pricy..... so why no demo? or at least a smaller version to play with at a lower price point. we all fly with homeade cockpits and controls. We want to use this product! We want a group licenceing deal or some form of purchase program to be able to make this transition.... simply put it costs too much for us FSX hardcores..... Please enlighten me as to any plans to make this a widly avaiable program attainable for us fsx folks.? lookhead does not know the market they are missing out on by making prepar3d a commercial drivin product only... make a dulled down or smaller version for at home simmers please.... please reply as we are closing on the ms flight release date of feb 29

[weyes]

I found this very interesting http://forum.avsim.net/topic/361758-...w-other-items/
look at the section titled "PMDG Development for Prepar3d"