Upgrading from FSX to FS 2020

[emerydc8]

Thanks. Looks like I'll do the professional version. Has anyone used P3D with Windows 7 Pro?

[brian747]

But just before you make up your mind, Jon....   

This is an interesting thread (and mercifully free of the heat-not-light-generating comments in threads on this topic in lesser fora). However, even in the shadow of the still largely unknown quantity that is M$ 2020, for someone in your situation who is looking for great outside airport views with minimum setup hassle my vote would still be for X-Plane 11.

But first, allow me to comment briefly on something that Hoppie said.

The original FSX was an old school single-threaded beast that could use only one of your CPU cores, no matter whether you had 2 or 4 or 8 or 16. P3D has changed this and will happily use everything you have, including more modern GPUs.

Not so about the CPU cores, in my (long) experience of it, Hoppie. P3D still uses fundamentally the same engine as FSX, and so it still hammers the first core, although it will utilise others to a lesser extent. To try and compensate for that behaviour many people use Process Lasso, although my solution is to use SimStarter NG which can change the affinity mask of P3Dv4 and every add-on that it starts.

Anyway.... My suggestion would be X-Plane 11, as I said. A long-time user of FSX and P3D, I tried X-Plane about six months ago and have stayed with it for the following reasons.

* First and foremost, the visuals are better than P3Dv4's — less cartoon-ish, as mentioned by andrej. And at night the difference is enormous.

* The runways are not all unrealistically flat!

* There is an abundance of freeware airports available, many of payware quality, and many excellent add-ons too.

* When driving X-Plane 11 from PSX via Xview I get perfect smoothness (regardless of Xview's age!)

* Maintenance is so much easier than P3D. For example when adding an airport, there's no need to worry about whether to use the scenery.cfg method or the add-on.xml method, you just copy the scenery into the right folder — job done.

* There is the promise of improved performance (although it's extremely good already) with Vulkan, although as an old software man I discount that slightly in view of the inevitable bug-fixing and settling-in period that we will go through initially following a major engine change.

* There's also a free (time-limited) demo that works around the Seattle area, IIRC.

But OK, there's always a serpent in paradise, and like everything else in life X-Plane 11 isn't perfect.

* There are no winter textures, although for me that isn't a limitation.

* My only irritation with it is that whilst many of the free airports are very similar to the real thing, at times the gate positions aren't accurate, so that if you start at a particular gate in PSX and connect to X-Plane you may find that you are not at that gate in the visuals. Runway positions are OK, but the gates... not so much. Although this only affects you at startup, of course. (And it isn't X-Plane's fault, to be fair).

Incidentally, X-Plane 11 is supported on Windows 7. (It runs on some Linux versions, too, and even OS X). You can find the full requirements list at this URL:
https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-11-system-requirements/

Whether it's worth waiting for M$ 2020 (and whether, when it comes, it will work on de-supported Windows 7), who can say? The mighty marketing machine makes it look very pretty, it's true. But I know for sure that I'm not about to start renting my sim software.   

Just my 2₵....   

Cheers,

Brian

[Britjet]

Jon,
You only need the academic licence.
Peter.

[ahaka]

Brian,

I would love to use XP11 as a scenery generator, but:

Can you share how you have achieved perfect smoothness with the current plugin? You do not mean the old-school "25Hz is smooth", do you? :-)

I can run XP11 perfectly smooth at 50 or 60Hz, but with the PSX plugin it gets extremely stuttery and basically the total opposite of what anyone would call "smooth". This is with or without the interpolation option. It must have to do with the way the plugin handles the network traffic or frame interpolation.

Perhaps I have missed some step to make it work flawlessly in XP11?

[Hardy Heinlin]

Antti, have you tried setting the frame rate limiter in PSX to 48/2 or 60/2 instead of 73/1?


|-|ardy

[ahaka]

Hardy,

Yes, as far as I remember I did try this as well as it was also helpful in XP10.

[cagarini]

Jon,

if you're going to use P3D and PSX on the same Box, I will be interested in finding out what you think of the final outcome.

TBH, all my tentatives to like external visuals, being it XP10, 11, FSX or P3D were not convincing, unless I restrict the use to the ground operations / taxiing to and from the gate, and even so....

I always revert back to PSX standalone, specially for the more tricky approaches ending in a manual landing.

[emerydc8]

Thanks to all for the advice. I am planning to go with the P3D academic version. If I have trouble with it, I'll try X-plane. I'll report back once it's set up. Cheers.
Jon

[G-CIVA]

I am planning to go with the P3D academic version.

Good Choice Jon.

Before Install can I suggest you go to the p3D forum & have a good read of the installation "how to's". Its really important to get p3D installed outside of the native Windows file architecture ... a 'factoid' that you may or may not be already aware of.

Depending on what you are going to use your scenery generator for will depend on what additional p3D addons you might require ... in your case (UNLIKE ME) yours will be fairly limited ... as a more purely training simulator I suspect.

I'm always available offline to help & advise since I have just about every piece of airport scenery that in real life would be 'useable' by a B744 plus all the extras like Orbx, Weather Engines & Terrain Mesh etc. I do not for one minute suspect that you will require even one hundredth of the stuff I have but I am always available to help/advise since it can seem like a bit of a minefield out there.

As for connecting or interfacing PSX to p3D there are only two choices, one is freeware & one now payware. Both are stable & very reliable.

Best

Steve

[emerydc8]

Before Install can I suggest you go to the p3D forum & have a good read of the installation "how to's". Its really important to get p3D installed outside of the native Windows file architecture ... a 'factoid' that you may or may not be already aware of.

Now this is starting to get me concerned. By "outside the native Windows file architecture," does this involve a cmd prompt? I'm waiting for the download to complete. Only 21 more hours.  I was using Gary's VisualPSX program to interface FSX. Will this also work with P3D?

[ahaka]

Now this is starting to get me concerned. By "outside the native Windows file architecture," does this involve a cmd prompt? I'm waiting for the download to complete. Only 21 more hours.  I was using Gary's VisualPSX program to interface FSX. Will this also work with P3D?

Do not use VisualPSX, use the ExternalSim: http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=3629.0

You do not need cmd prompt for any install, I think the user meant it is recommended to install P3D on a separate drive from the Windows one.

[cagarini]

Jon,

if you have more than one virtual drive in your sim box ( in mine I alwyas have had C: and F: ) you should preferably install PSX and P3D into the non C: drives. If they're on separate physical disks ( I have 2 240 GB SSDs, one for C: one for F: ) that's even better.

With a single drive simply make sure you don't install Prepar3d into the default ( suggested by installer ) "Programs" folder. You can install directly into C:'s root folder, or create there a folder ( i.e. C:\SIMS\ ) and install bellow it.

When the installer prompts for an install into C:\Program files\Lockheed...  simply change the initial string before the Lockheed root folder into C: or C:\SIMS :-)

[emerydc8]

Thanks for the tips. I only have one drive and it's an SSD. I believe I installed FSX to the default Programs file. Why would I not want to do that with P3D?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It depends on a lot of things, but the \program files (x86)\ subtree tends to be protected by all kinds of "security" and "friendly" monsters on more recent Windows versions. In practice, many older programs that want to adjust stuff in their own folders get bounced, bitten, and beaten up by these monsters. Either it does not work, or you get "friendly" popups during final approach, or it is "almost" working.

By staying out of those subtrees, Windows leaves your programs alone. Mostly.

Hoppie

[emerydc8]

Thanks Hoppie.. Did you notice if P3D did this with Windows 7?

[JohnH]

Hi Jon,

I have installed P3D on both Win 7 and 10 and always install to the root of C;\ drive. So for example,,

C:\Prepar3D v4

Here is a nice guide to installing P3D from there forum..

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6322&t=120676

Also if you ever want to un-install P3D make sure you un-install 'Prepar 3D v4 Academic Client' first, then when prompted select de-activate'. That way you will not have problems when you re-install.

John

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Thanks Hoppie.. Did you notice if P3D did this with Windows 7?

Windows has been steadily adding these "protections" since about Vista. 7 certainly has it, as does 8, but 10 excels. In some cases you can get around it a bit by installing and running everything always as Administrator, but then you expose yourself to popups.

[asboyd]

In some cases even installing and running as admin still does not work later on when you attempt to do updates and add-ons. The default C:\Program..... Directories are "owned" by System and even Admins get blocked if a dll or a "system" recognised file attempts to be overwritten.
I have started installing all apps that require regular updates and changes in non default directories in Windows 10.
Even with UAC turned off...

Cheers,
Alex B

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Here comes /opt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

[asboyd]

 

Yeah same as Unix....

Shame the guys that joined Microsoft didn't incorporate their unix knowledge into windows (dos)....

Cheers,