Prepar3D Not Ready for Prime Time

[falcon409]

. . . . .At least not for me it isn't. I've uninstalled P3D for the time being and possibly when the next version is released I'll reinstall and update it to see if it's worth keeping. I was able, for the most part, to separate P3D from FSX. Why they seemed to want to interact I have yet to figure out. At any rate, the last hold out seemed to be the scenery.cfg/Scenery Library. Every change I made in FSX to repair the mess P3D made was mirrored in P3D. When I would add a group of sceneries in FSX, those same sceneries appeared in P3D (I wasn't using any migration tool either). Anyway, the real clincher was that after P3D was completely uninstalled I went back to start adding all the scenery that had been wiped out of FSX (All of Orbx, UTX, Payware, etc.) and what I found was that the original Scenery Library was back, as though nothing had ever happened. Same with the scenery.cfg file. . .all entries intact as though I'd never touched it. . . . .aaaaand, when I looked at the Lockheed Martin folder to delete any remaining files after the uninstall, there as one file left in the main folder. . . .fsx.exe, size "0kb" with the P3D icon showing.:salute:

[stovall]

Sorry to hear of you troubles Ed, I have used Prepar3D from the very beginning and have the latest 1.4 installed. I have never had any problem with double entries from FSX into P3D. I do have Orbx PNW and CRM installed using their tool and still no communication between the two. The last update to 1.4 has made P3D the best yet. Seeing the FSX.exe entry in your P3D folder explains how the installed would be duplicated.

Definitely with the next update give it a try again. Both Roger-Wilco66 and I have used P3D to develop and test all our scenery. I think Mark has gone almost exclusively to P3D after hearing from him recently.

Well, good luck the next time you reinstall P3D.

[falcon409]

Sorry to hear of you troubles Ed, I have used Prepar3D from the very beginning and have the latest 1.4 installed. I have never had any problem with double entries from FSX into P3D. I do have Orbx PNW and CRM installed using their tool and still no communication between the two. The last update to 1.4 has made P3D the best yet. Seeing the FSX.exe entry in your P3D folder explains how the installed would be duplicated.

Definitely with the next update give it a try again. Both Roger-Wilco66 and I have used P3D to develop and test all our scenery. I think Mark has gone almost exclusively to P3D after hearing from him recently.

Well, good luck the next time you reinstall P3D.
Thanks Tom!

[GypsyBaron]

The only issues I had were that once I imported the A2A Accusim aircraft into P3D they were 'sharing' the
DAT files and other A2A-specific files.

My solution was to just create a second user account on my Win7 partition (I dual-boot with Xp & Win7)
and run P3D from the new account. That keeps all the 'user specific' files separate as well as the DAT files.

I haven't tried importing any OrbX/FTX stuff. Just did the TrackIR language.dll mod and that's about it.

Paul

[MudMarine]

P3D has been a sanity saver for me. I had given up on flight simming because of FSX and P3D has me excited once again. I'm sorry it hasn't lived up to your expectations. I for one will NEVER use FSX again.

[Naismith]

P3D is an unfinished product and I am just a bit annoyed that they released it as such and had the audacity to charge money for it. The next version is likely to be V2 and we will be invited all over again to hand over cash. Perhaps their Beta testers in V1 will be offered V2 at a discount. But I shall not hold out much hope in that direction.

[MudMarine]

And FSX was a finnished product? Have people forgotten so soon, it was an $80 nightmare for me. P3D cost $49 and it actually works; at least they're updating and supporting their product. Did MS ever do that for FSX.

[falcon409]

P3D is an unfinished product and I am just a bit annoyed that they released it as such and had the audacity to charge money for it. The next version is likely to be V2 and we will be invited all over again to hand over cash. Perhaps their Beta testers in V1 will be offered V2 at a discount. But I shall not hold out much hope in that direction.
Ya know. . .silly me thought that the next version would be an update to ver.1.4 not another standalone package at the same price. If that's actually the case, and maybe someone here who's really into the inner circle of P3D can confirm this, then I will be requesting a refund and concentrating on FSX. I'm not going to pay to be a beta tester, which is basically what this last purchase turned out to be.:salute:

[MudMarine]

Oh, PS; I forgot to mention the $1,500 bucks I spent on building a new system and FSX still sucked.

[MudMarine]

The idea for P3D, as I understand it, is that it is never going to be a "finnished" product but something that is upgraded when it needs to be. Unlike FSX which needed to be tweaked and played with all the time by the owner.

[roger-wilco-66]

[...]

Definitely with the next update give it a try again. Both Roger-Wilco66 and I have used P3D to develop and test all our scenery. I think Mark has gone almost exclusively to P3D after hearing from him recently.

Well, good luck the next time you reinstall P3D.


Exactly, since 9 months I go 100% P3D. All my development is based on it. I never had problems, but I must say, I do don't install as much stuff as others do and I don't mix the FSX/P3D installation, except for the common use of the addon_scenery folder.

Cheers,
Mark

[luckydog]

The idea for P3D, as I understand it, is that it is never going to be a "finnished" product but something that is upgraded when it needs to be. Unlike FSX which needed to be tweaked and played with all the time by the owner.

That was my impression as well........
I'm running both flight sims ( less and less of FSX ) and never have had any problems. I'm thinkin' that someone did a little TOO MUCH "tweaking"......

[Naismith]

It is a circular and pointless argument. Some are impressed, others not so much. The fact is that it is 6 years since FSX was released, one would have hoped that most of the bugs had been ironed out before LM bought the rights and released it to the public.
It was similar with that failure called FLIGHT. Some folks were praising the graphics over FSX (its one saving grace). After 6 years one would hope that things like that had moved on. We're a fickle bunch us simmers eh? :icon_lol:

[MudMarine]

That was my impression as well........
I'm running both flight sims ( less and less of FSX ) and never have had any problems. I'm thinkin' that someone did a little TOO MUCH "tweaking"......

No, it wasn't because of tweaking. It never worked on either of my systems or new HD's or anyother of the multiple upgrades I attempted. After multiple reinstalls I learned it wasn't me. FSX was trash from the begining, releasing a game that you needed a super computer to run with any decent success....well I won't finnish that because it would involve four letter words. I'm glad it ran for people, very happy for them, for me it SUCKED and I'm very happy I never have to look at FSX again.

[luckydog]

No, it wasn't because of tweaking. It never worked on either of my systems or new HD's or anyother of the multiple upgrades I attempted. After multiple reinstalls I learned it wasn't me. FSX was trash from the begining, releasing a game that you needed a super computer to run with any decent success....well I won't finnish that because it would involve four letter words. I'm glad it ran for people, very happy for them, for me it SUCKED and I'm very happy I never have to look at FSX again.


Sorry, Mud...... I can see how you mis-understood me. I was referring to Falcon's interaction problem between FSX and P3D. I can't see that happening unless he's gone in and "tweaked" something he shouldn't have.......

LD

[falcon409]

Sorry, Mud...... I can see how you mis-understood me. I was referring to Falcon's interaction problem between FSX and P3D. I can't see that happening unless he's gone in and "tweaked" something he shouldn't have.......LD
Clutch Cargo, in another thread in this forum, stated that he made a copy of his FSX.cfg file, renamed it to prepar3d.cfg and let it overwrite the existing Prepar3d.cfg file. I looked through mine, after making a copy and saw some things that were related directly to the FSX installation (multiplayer, trusted programs/gauges, aircraft folders (mine are much more categorized than the default) and a few other things). I removed them or corrected them, saved it and allowed it to overwrite the prepar3d.cfg file. There are no directory strings in that file that would direct the functions of prepar3d back to FSX. I also edited the prepar3d "language.dll" file in order to get TrackIR to function. . .also a well documented "tweak".

There you have it, that's the extent of the "tweaks". Do you see anything in those two that would set in motion the interaction between P3D and FSX to the point of replacing both the FSX.cfg file, the scenery.cfg file and the scenery library listings to mirror the P3D information?. . . .and then. . .as part of the uninstall of Prepar3D have FSX completely restored to it's original settings, as though nothing had ever taken place? I sure don't.

[luckydog]

Clutch Cargo, in another thread in this forum, stated that he made a copy of his FSX.cfg file, renamed it to prepar3d.cfg and let it overwrite the existing Prepar3d.cfg file. I looked through mine, after making a copy and saw some things that were related directly to the FSX installation (multiplayer, trusted programs/gauges, aircraft folders (mine are much more categorized than the default) and a few other things). I removed them or corrected them, saved it and allowed it to overwrite the prepar3d.cfg file. There are no directory strings in that file that would direct the functions of prepar3d back to FSX. I also edited the prepar3d "language.dll" file in order to get TrackIR to function. . .also a well documented "tweak".

There you have it, that's the extent of the "tweaks". Do you see anything in those two that would set in motion the interaction between P3D and FSX to the point of replacing both the FSX.cfg file, the scenery.cfg file and the scenery library listings to mirror the P3D information?. . . .and then. . .as part of the uninstall of Prepar3D have FSX completely restored to it's original settings, as though nothing had ever taken place? I sure don't.


no comment........

[Naismith]

I, after judicious backing-up, renamed the p3d.cfg to fsx.cfg, put it in d:\FSX. sent it up to the Jesus tweaking utility, had it do its thing, then did the re-naming back to the original slipped p3d.cfg back to its usually resting palce fired up P3D, it worked OK, cannot say whether for the better or not but it worked. Fired up FSX it also worked OK. So I don't know where you went wrong. Someone at the P3D forums is suffering a similar fate where they interfered with each other and he is adamant he didn't do anything untoward.

As an aside, just to illustrate how these two are really one and the same even though their various files name differ, I exited P3D in the usual manner, it hadn't quite fully unloaded even though the icons had all gone, I attempted to fire up FSX, the PC threw up an error message telling me that it could not run FSX as it was already running it. A wait of 10 seconds resolved the matter, but hey, they are identical to the PC. Having said that same happens between FSX and FS9. Maybe computers ain't that dumb after all. :icon_lol:

[falcon409]

. . . . .Someone at the P3D forums is suffering a similar fate where they interfered with each other and he is adamant he didn't do anything untoward. . . . . .
Yes, that's my lengthy description of these events for the knowledgeable people involved with prepar3d.. .and yes I am adamant that I didn't do anything untoward. Look this is a mute point, I say that I didn't do anything beyond what I documented in my posts, no one can point to any of the steps and say "ah, right there, that's where you screwed up, you should have done this first. . . . . and you shouldn't have done that. . . . ." It's just assumed that there must be something else I'm not divulging, some secret personal "tweak" that I did that messed this whole thing up. I'm done with the conversation. If, when version 2 is released and it's a free upgrade to 1.4, I'll give it another shot. For now, I'm very happy to have FSX back and functioning.

[Clutch Cargo]

Hey Falcon, Clutch here.

Sorry to hear about the issues your were having. I can definitely understand the frustration when things don't go as planned. Though I haven't had that with P3D I have had it in the past with 3rd party add-ons. Reading your posts, maybe I did not catch it, did you install P3D on a separate drive than FSX or were they on the same drive (or partition), using the same drive letter? That's my only thinking as to how paths got intertwined?

But no matter really since you got FSX back up and running. And that's what counts - enjoying the hobby. I'd tell anybody if they are unhappy with P3D for any reason they should go back to FSX and wait and see what 2.0 holds for them next year.

[falcon409]

Yes, Prepar3D and FSX occupied separate HDD's.

[Lionheart]

I have had no problems, aside from my credit card expiring and starting a new Dev account. I have 2 Dev accounts for my 3 computers.

My FSX and P3D installations do not effect or overwrite each other at all.



P3D is an unfinished product and I am just a bit annoyed that they released it as such and had the audacity to charge money for it. The next version is likely to be and we will be invited all over again to hand over cash. Perhaps their Beta testers in V1 will be offered V2 at a discount. But I shall not hold out much hope in that direction.

Naismith, I find it hard to believe you coud say that. P3 was (was) ESP, which was selling for a massive amount of money by Microsoft and was a reduced version of FSX. ESP was also still being improved by MS for contractors. Lockheed saved its life and have updated it 3 times now with the latest being 1.4. It works very well for me. Even MassEffect 3 had bugs, Apple OS and iOS have bugs. Most all software is either abandonware or 'work in progress.


And FSX was a finnished product? Have people forgotten so soon, it was an $80 nightmare for me. P3D cost $49 and it actually works; at least they're updating and supporting their product. Did MS ever do that for FSX.

Yep.



Ed, you told me later that you had accidentally installed P3 into your existing FSX folder, and that you had a backup folder of FSX which you repaired your FSX with. If I remember correctly, by changing the name of your folder of FS, you effected the name of the My Documents Apps folder location source for settings, (recalling Golden Wings and Silver Wings installations where you created new locations with those folder names for the configs for the diff sim versions). mind you this was for FS9, not FSX, but FSX and P3 share existing features of FS9.

My guess is that if you were to totally delete P3, and reinstall all of it from scratch, in 'new' folders, you would have no problems, but if you have created, recreated new root folders in the App sections, then there are probably fragments left in there that will screw things up again, so much cleaning would have to be done.


My humble advice is that if FSX is running fine for you, stay. If you intend to mix FSX with P3, that will be bad, as the core of the sims are different in many area's. You cannot load up P3 over FSX and expect it to work. You will have extra file fragments in it that P3 will be effected by.


I have never had the mixing issues that have occurred with yours, thats my expeirience with it. I have also had exemplary customer service and I have heard of others having questions answered where the team at Lockheed had answers. I still support them, I think they are pretty cool and I still love the sim. Its nothing like FSX was.



Bill