Finally got P3D v2.4 installed and running

[Dumonceau]

Hello,

After reading Flaviossa's thread on the new Nvidia drivers and SLI support for P3D v2.4, I've Finally got P3D v2.4 installed and running and I must say that I am peasantly surprised indeed! I especially love the cockpit shadowing and the shaders of the sim!

For the time being I've only slightly tweaked the cfg but am happy to report rock steady frames and hardly any stuttering. Of course, the only addon that I installed is FTX Global which I find a must for any flightsim. (just MHO of course).

But, as is to be expected, I have a few questions about the sim.

- Although reflexions are on, the bare metal P-38J looks dull. Any thoughts on getting the aluminium to shine?
- The stock clouds are horrible IMHO. What clouds do you guys recommend?
- Was looking to turn off the "underwater thing" (can't remember the exact name) to improve performance further, but can't seem to find it. Any pointers would be appreciated!
- Military freeware scenery addons that work in this version. Which ones would you guys recommend?
- Airplane addons (military and vintage) which ones do definitely NOT work in this version?

I am a bit dissapointed though that the gui is so radically different to FSX where you have the possibility to leisurely chose your plane, time and place. Here you're dropped into the cockpit of a stock plane on an airport... I'll have to get used to it!

For the time being, I feel like a kid in a candystore! :jump: But lots of reading and tweaking to do!

Dumonceau

[flaviossa]

Welcome to P3D world Dumonceau! Glad you´re liking this version now. I did very little tweaking to make it good in my computer. Used nothing in prepar3d.cfg. Here is my inspector if you wanna take a look:
http://fsfiles.org/flightsimshotsv2/...1/10/EyOJA.jpg (http://fsfiles.org/flightsimshotsv2/images/2014/11/10/EyOJA.jpg)

About your questions:
- This buid in P38 model is a little "ugly" endeed. I don´t think it´s textures are good enough as you like. Try Milviz P38! The metal shine is marvelous!
- I´m using REX4 for the clouds witch works perfectly with p3d. Just don´t install water textures for now (The default is better and they are going to launch a service pack with good water textures soon)
- For that, just disable "bathymetry" in p3d parameters window
- Don´t instaled free ones till now, but for sure DON´T BUY Team SDB AFB´s sceneries. They don´t work at all with P3D.
- Not working: SUPERBUG, Harper´s Mirage, ALS Flanker that i know. For SSW addons you will have to buy all the licences again :dizzy:

If you have problems with free sceneries with taxiways and approns not showing, please take a look at this topic. It´s in portuguese, but you can put in google translator. It´s easy:
http://www.voovirtual.com/t36257-pro...-como-resolver (http://www.voovirtual.com/t36257-problemas-com-taxiways-como-resolver)
(Don´t know if you can see without a user in that forum, but you can try)

Hope that helps a bit.

[flaviossa]

Forgot: you can configure p3d to start with a user GUI as the same as FSX. There is a cheeckbox for that in the main screen, but i forgot it´s name now .......

[Daube]

Hello,

After reading Flaviossa's thread on the new Nvidia drivers and SLI support for P3D v2.4, I've Finally got P3D v2.4 installed and running

Welcome to the dark side !
Ah wait, you were already using FSX... err... welcome to the darker side :')



For the time being I've only slightly tweaked the cfg but am happy to report rock steady frames and hardly any stuttering.

For information, P3D doesn't need any tweaking in the CFG.



But, as is to be expected, I have a few questions about the sim.

- Although reflexions are on, the bare metal P-38J looks dull. Any thoughts on getting the aluminium to shine?

Just like FSX, you have to install an alternative envmap texture. BananaBob's package is excellent.


- The stock clouds are horrible IMHO. What clouds do you guys recommend?

HDE v2 cloud textures, in 512x512 for your first tests.
Keep in mind the sky textures in this package are incompatible with FSX/P3D, only the cloud textures will work.
The sky textures have been later on recompiled in FSX format and uploaded in a separate package, but I don't know if they work with P3D.


- Was looking to turn off the "underwater thing" (can't remember the exact name) to improve performance further, but can't seem to find it. Any pointers would be appreciated!

It's called Bathymetry, in the graphic options of the sim. Keep it unchecked.


- Military freeware scenery addons that work in this version. Which ones would you guys recommend?

Most sceneries made for FSX (not "made for FS9 but FSX compatible") will work fine in P3D. I love the Solenzara X military airbase in Corsica, for example.


- Airplane addons (military and vintage) which ones do definitely NOT work in this version?

The VRS Hornet and TacPack won't work at all. I believe the Milviz F-15 is problematic as well, if I remember correctly, but the Sabre do work quite well :)
The Me-109K from Flight Replicas suffers from a slat sound loop bug, which is solved by renaming the corresponding sound file (temporary workaround).
The freeware military jets that I use are working without problems so far.


I am a bit dissapointed though that the gui is so radically different to FSX where you have the possibility to leisurely chose your plane, time and place. Here you're dropped into the cockpit of a stock plane on an airport... I'll have to get used to it!
There is an option (general/realism options I think, not the graphic ones... I don't remember) where you enable the flight creation menu on startup. So you reach the menu instead of reaching the cockpit when you launch the sim :)



For the time being, I feel like a kid in a candystore! :jump: But lots of reading and tweaking to do!
Dumonceau
No tweaking. Forget that. P3D is not FSX. Just enjoy your flights ;)

[Daube]

Caramba ! Flaviossa was too fast :biggrin-new:

[hschuit]

Assuming you also want to keep FSX, you can save lots of SSD space by making symbolic links from P3D to FSX folders like: Addon Scenery, Effects, Gauges, SimObjects, Sound and Texture. This way you can use most of your FSX installed addons without needing to re-install or migration tools.

[Dumonceau]

Ok, time for a wee sitrep:

- Clouds issue resolved (copied them from my FSX install)
- Aerosoft Weeze X (Niederrhein) copied from FSX works like a charm
- same thing with AS Dillingham (my holliday feel-good airport)
- Found the box to tick to have a menu startup
- underwater thingy disabled
- Addon planes that work: Warbirdsim Mustang tales and VS F9F Panther.

Still have some blurries though... And I can hear my two GTX560ti's working hard! Oh well, I've been eyeballing some GTX790's lately. I guess that one of those will do a better job than my two older GTX560ti's!

Thanks for that pointer Henk, but I'm afraid it's too late. Already installed P3D on my data disk for lack of SSD space.

As soon as I get the nack of this new sim, FSX will probably disappear and P3D will take its place on the SSD

Henk, another question: Does the Phantom portover work in P3D v2.4?? A sim without a Phantom simply isn't a sim!

Cheers,

Johan

[Dimus]

Well, your questions were answered really fast by the guys above. Daube nailed it! Welcome to the darker side! (literally with HDR;))

I use REX4 with very good results. Looking forward to their update for the water. For the F-4, wait for the final Milviz one, a P3D version will be included.

[Dumonceau]

I must say that this maybe the darker side, but a very helpful one!!!

Thanks all of you! ;)

The blurries have been solved but most of all I am awed by the cockpit shadows and the smoothness of the sim. I wonder what will happen when I put the sim on the SSD!! Even now on a simple HDD, the frames never ever drop below 25, even over AS scenery.

Bloody impressive. I fear the lifespan of FSX just got knocked down a bit!

Johan

[Dimus]

I agree. My old rig can barely run v2.4 but even with low fps the smoothness is great and the looks are awesome. I still wait for better looking water animation, despite the 3d waves hoping the REX4 patch will do the trick. I find myself flying only P3D for fun and using FSX only for scenery development, beta testing and flying on line with my buddies who do not yet own P3D. I am now eying an Asus 970 in place of my barely acceptable 460GTX to boost my P3D experience without yet changing my mobo and old trusty Q6600. In P3D, a video card can help immensely, unlike FSX as most of the rendering is handled there (tesslation etc). There is good future here for simming experience.

[hschuit]

....Henk, another question: Does the Phantom portover work in P3D v2.4?? A sim without a Phantom simply isn't a sim!
Cheers,
Johan

It works except you cannot click anything in the VC (which is the case with all FS9 compiled models). So, you have to start the engines with CTRL+E...
And sometimes I see a strange yellow light near the fuselage, not sure where that comes from.

[CG_1976]

Assuming you also want to keep FSX, you can save lots of SSD space by making symbolic links from P3D to FSX folders like: Addon Scenery, Effects, Gauges, SimObjects, Sound and Texture. This way you can use most of your FSX installed addons without needing to re-install or migration tools.

Ah do tell please. My Fsx and P3D are on the same 2TB drive and dont fight. Can I cross link to FSX Scenery Lib??

[hschuit]

Ah do tell please. My Fsx and P3D are on the same 2TB drive and dont fight. Can I cross link to FSX Scenery Lib??

Making P3D use the FSX Addon Scenery, Effects, Gauges, Sound and Texture folders through symbolic links should give no problems, just make sure you backup the P3D folders for a while just in case you need a particular file which is in the P3D folder and not in the FSX. The main P3D Scenery folder is almost the same as the FSX one but be aware some files in P3D are newer. If you want to crosslink that as well I would recommend to do it the other way, meaning keeping the P3D Scenery folder and replace the FSX one with a symbolic link into P3D.

How to do it:
1. Open elevated CMD prompt
2. Enter command: Mklink /d "new symbolic link name" "path that the new link refers to"

Example Mklink command which makes P3D use the FSX Addon Scenery folder:

Mklink /d "D:\Prepar3D v2\Addon Scenery" "D:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Addon Scenery"

BTW: Make sure to rename the original P3D folder (or move it to backup storage) first.

More instructions how to create symbolic links : http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/278262-mklink-create-use-links-windows.html

[CG_1976]

One other ?. Does Instant Scenery 3 work with current P3DV2? I've got three Arctic Airports in Canada I made in FSX that I need to come up to P3D building codes lol.

[hschuit]

One other ?. Does Instant Scenery 3 work with current P3DV2? I've got three Arctic Airports in Canada I made in FSX that I need to come up to P3D building codes lol.

It does, I recently got the v3.03 upgrade which works with P3D v2.4.

[CG_1976]

Thank you. Now time for me to get cracking on P3DV2 Canadian Arctic small and missing Airports.

[Dumonceau]

And all of a sudden now I get stutters. Rock steady frames, but stutters. Especially when switching views...

Any idea's??

Dumonceau

EDI: got rid of most of the stutters by turning off tripple buffering and vsync.

[daisan]

Dumonceau, just a question: Do you have a weapons folder under simobjects?

[Dumonceau]

No I haven't! Is that relevant?

[daisan]

Just thinking about weapons capabilities in academic versions. Thank you!

[roger-wilco-66]

I have the professional version and it does not have weapons in the simobject subfolders. However, there are weapon related objects (tank, AIM9) in the SDK - one just has to move them into the simobject folder and do the XML stuff to make them work.
Since the academic version might have a different SDK (I think) it would be a hint if these objects are in the SDK!

Cheers,
Mark

[daisan]

Mark, could you check if the weapons work?

[roger-wilco-66]

I can check that, but it's not going to be soon. I'll have to read (and understand :-) ) the SDK documentation first.

[Dumonceau]

What I have got now is a brilliant sim with exquisite graphics!!

15223

Dumonceau