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I ran across this Flight Simulator in Computer Magazine called, "Prepar3d", put out by Lockheed-Martin. It consisted of two big zipped files. I unzipped them but there was no read me file nor any instruction as to what you supposed to do with them.
Has anybody got any ideas.?
Looks like something designed for military aviation training and simulation. This means the visuals are probably way less than we've come to expect in FSX. And at $500 per license, not something us riffraff would be likely to get into. Probably designed to run on those current generation military simulators with racks of PCs running them. Just a guess though.
Prepar3D is the tweeked-up commercial version of FSX, licensed to Lockheed for distribution.
It is nothing more-nor-less than a one-month trial license for Prepar3D. Prepar3D is a commercial version of ESP1 (which itself was pretty much FSX+SP2).
It is intended to introduce new folks to Prepar3D. As previously described, Prepar3D is primarily aimed an what is known as "Serious Simulations," that is to serve as the base platform for commercial flight training, military battlefield simulations, underseas exploration, et cetera. It also is being used as the engine for hardware solutions, such as those built by Redbird, and others.
Aside from the $499 "seat license" for end users, there is a less expensive option for "developers" (very loosely defined), for a modest $9.99/month. The "developer's license" allows up to two installations on two separate computers, so that the "developer" can build/test multi-user applications, or "multi-computer/monitor" applications and/or solutions.
Aside from the ability to use Prepar3D for commercial applications, Prepar3D has the advantage of being a "live" product. It is under continuous development and incremental improvements are periodically released at no additional cost to the end user. Since the initial release, Prepar3d has already released two incremental updates.
All that said however, Prepar3D is not a product for the casual simmer. Lockheed-Martin has realized that there are some pretty "Serious Simmers" in the world, and they are therefore making Prepar3D available to those who's home-based simulations fall into that category.
As for the two unzipped files, simply launch the Setup.exe and install it as you would FSX. :mixedsmi:
There is no set up file. That's the problem.
It also adds night vision simulation capability and instead of water being a surface effect, they've added the terrain maps for the bottom of the ocean and submarines can be simulated in it as well now. They've also upgraded the visual system, such that it runs as if you already have shade installed and some other features as well.
Did you get it from a legitimate source?Quote:
Originally Posted by Helldiver
Do yourself a favor, Bob, and just ignore it. You'll go through a whole song and dance trying to get it set up, only to find that it looks just like the stock FSX with no addons.
I agree with Bill..... :kilroy:Quote:
Originally Posted by spotlope
I agree with Francois agreeing with Bill. Prepar3d is really only for commercial/educational organizations, developers or extremely hard-core simmers (to the point where they may have their own dedicated simpit). As a home user, there's really no reason to be using Prepar3d over FSX SP2/Acceleration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Francois
I suppose that absolutely nobody here has been reading the various users feedbacks on the other forums ?Quote:
Originally Posted by orionll
On one of the french forums, there is quite a long topic about Prepar3D. The summary so far is: yes it looks like FSX with no addons... and no bugs, and no microstutters, and no OOM, etc...
The feedbacks are quite positive so far. Also, the devs are still acting, and they plan to make the executable become 64 bits.
Finally, quite a lot of FSX addons work, including the OrbX PNW demo...
I have not switched to it yet. The fact is that FSX will no longer evolve, while P3D will. So I'm keeping a close eye on it.
Yes, I have been reading the forums for sure. And hence the advice to the 'casual' FSX user remains unchanged: keep away from it for now. Too much hassle and not enough benefit. Of course that may change in future, we'll see. ;-)
A 'casual' FSX user would be breaking the Prepar3D EULA which states that it can be used "only for purposes other than personal/consumer entertainment."
..... which is rubbish, of course ;-)
So as long as you learn something from every flight, it is educational and not entertainment :-)
Dave
A casual FSX user would be part of the 99% of the Prepar3D users. Occupy Prepar3D ! :icon_lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by mmann
This EULA is obviously written for legal issues. LM has a contract with MS stating they should not produce an entertainment program that could make any harm to Flight, so they wrote this EULA knowing that nobody will ever respect it, excepted MS lawyers.
Besides, the developper stuff states that you can use it for testing your stuff. That's perfect, I'll be testing my FSX addons, for example.
So as long as you promise not to be entertained then that's fine!Quote:
Originally Posted by mmann
That would actually be "edutainment..." :icon_lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sieggie
Bill, I took your advice and deleted it off my computer. It looks though as it may add some scenery enhancements for FSX
I agree with orionll agreeing with Francois agreeing with Bill.:icon_lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by orionll
Intended as a commercial app and really does look like FSX. Not worth the pains to get it to coexist with your FSX... and as the license says.... not intended for personal/entertainment use.
It's interesting that the Fs9 Connies do not suffer the same "prop behind the clouds" as FsX SP2 according to their site info, so I wonder if prepar is actually SP1 modified to be actually very good?