P3D 2.3 is Released!!

[luckydog]

Anyone have any graphics settings to suggest ?? That's all gobblygook to me............

Thanks,

LD

[Shane Strong CYHZ]

looks like it could be your nivida drivers the latest are giving problems


QUOTE=luckydog;900139]Anyone have any graphics settings to suggest ?? That's all gobblygook to me............

Thanks,

LD[/QUOTE]

[luckydog]

So far I'm doing great.........my current settings:


Tess factor = ultra
FXAA - off
MSAA - 4 samp
Anisotropic - 16
Tex. res medium
Tess. - on
V sync on triple

I just guessed on these settings.......thought maybe someone might have other suggested settings.......

LD

[DagR]

Looking fwd to installing the upgrade when I get home :-) This seems very promising.


Best regards
Dag

[falcon409]

So far I'm doing great.........my current settings:


Tess factor = ultra
FXAA - off
MSAA - 4 samp
Anisotropic - 16
Tex. res medium
Tess. - on
V sync on triple

I just guessed on these settings.......thought maybe someone might have other suggested settings.......

LD

Here are my settings running on the following system:
3.80 gigahertz AMD FX-4300 Quad-Core
Windows7 Home Premium-64bit 8Gig Ram
NVidia GTX650Ti Video Card 2 gig Ram
2-22" Flat Screen Monitors

[falcon409]

Ridiculous. . .those images are actually large, but by the time they're loaded they get reduced to postage stamp size and you can barely make out what they say. Hope you can read enough to see how they're setup.

"Duh". . .did some cropping, that should make them easier to read now. (Senior moment).

[Chris Sykes]

I can just read them...

[Daube]

I am finally able to provide a bit of feedback on this new 2.3 version.
I went for the patch, I didn't want to redownload 10,5 Gb...Also, my P3D 2.2 had a lot of addons and I didn't really want to reinstall everything.
Also, I didn't read the recommendations regarding the things to save or to delete prior to the installation of the patch :P

The patch installed without issues. But of course, when I launched the first flight, I got a crash upon scenery loading (just after you reach the cockpit, and the screen is still blue/black and the objects solwly appear...). So I thought I had been too optimistic and that a full uninstall, download, reinstall was due....

But before that, somebody recommended me to update FSUIPC to the latest version.... which I did. And that solved the crashes !

I made my first test flight in the following conditions:
- fast aircraft (F-104)
- heavy storm theme
- photoscenery with additionnal autogen
- cloud shadows activated and set to the max
- cloud distance set to half
- most of the shadow boxes set, but not all (vegetation for example, would not cast or receive)
- water to ultra
- FPS limited to 25 in the sim settings

The result was outstanding. The FPS never dropped below the 20's. The global smoothness was constant, that was really a pleasant flight.
In the previous version, I had deactivated the cloud shadows because they were to costly on the FPS. So even with overcast weather, my cockpit was still illuminated by the sun, just like in FSX.
But this time, on the runway the cockpit was very dark, because of the cloud shadow. And then, I started climbing and got above the clouds, and the cockpit got the sunlight inside. That was cool

So I am fully satisfied for now.
The next step will be to perform the same test, but over OrbX scenery instead.

[Daube]

Ridiculous. . .those images are actually large, but by the time they're loaded they get reduced to postage stamp size and you can barely make out what they say. Hope you can read enough to see how they're setup.

First, switch to windowed mode in P3D (ALT+ENTER, just like in FSX), and reduce the size of the window to match the size of the settings area.
Then, instead of just pressing the PrintScreen key to capture a screenshot, try pressing ALT+PrintScreen. That will capture the active window only. Your screenshot will then have less useless black space in it, and that should hopefully allow us to read more easilly

[falcon409]

First, switch to windowed mode in P3D (ALT+ENTER, just like in FSX), and reduce the size of the window to match the size of the settings area.
Then, instead of just pressing the PrintScreen key to capture a screenshot, try pressing ALT+PrintScreen. That will capture the active window only. Your screenshot will then have less useless black space in it, and that should hopefully allow us to read more easily

Daube, I use "Snapper" to take all my screenshots and it's set to capture only the Primary Monitor/Active screen. I cropped the shots to get a better image. Normal screens during a flight suffer the same problem though. I want to show the entire landscape in the shots, but the large images are reduced to thumbnails and much of the beauty/details of the shot are lost because of the way this site displays them.

[Daube]

Ah yes, cropping the images is of course a good solution
Now we can read them correctly.

[Daube]

I took a look at your settings. and I have a few remarks:
- you should try to install, if not already done, an alternative cumulus texture. The default ones are heavy on the FPS and ugly. That should allow you to push the cloud draw distance slider to half distance, which is much nicer when you fly at medium altitude. I currently use the HDEv2 culumus texture in 512x512, if I'm not mistaken.
- you should enable the building cast shadow option. It has no impact on the FPS, and the look of the buildings gets much nicer (especially the hangars, which will cast shadow inside and on your plane too)
- you might want to try to set both the special effect sliders to the max, just to see the impact.

[falcon409]

I took a look at your settings. and I have a few remarks:
- you should try to install, if not already done, an alternative cumulus texture. The default ones are heavy on the FPS and ugly. That should allow you to push the cloud draw distance slider to half distance, which is much nicer when you fly at medium altitude. I currently use the HDEv2 culumus texture in 512x512, if I'm not mistaken.
- you should enable the building cast shadow option. It has no impact on the FPS, and the look of the buildings gets much nicer (especially the hangars, which will cast shadow inside and on your plane too)
- you might want to try to set both the special effect sliders to the max, just to see the impact.

Actually, I'm using REX2 graphics in P3D for clouds, water, etc. not sure now what texture size though but I would guess I went with 1024
I had building shadows enabled at one time but I guess with changes over time I failed to recheck, thanks
I had the special effects sliders maxed at one time, but really saw no advantage to them. Even now, despite there being some work done on the water engine, I see no difference. Water is still static (no movement) and no wave action like I had in FSX, so I'm not sure, at least in my case what it is exactly that those sliders are supposed to do.

[Daube]

I believe the water won't move unles you set it to "ultra"...
Also, concerning the water, you might want to check the "Simobject" reflection. The aircraft carrier will look nicer this way

[n4gix]

...but the large images are reduced to thumbnails and much of the beauty/details of the shot are lost because of the way this site displays them.

Click on the first picture. It will be shown "full size". Use the "Next" button to advance to the next image.

[falcon409]

Click on the first picture. It will be shown "full size". Use the "Next" button to advance to the next image.

lol, Bill, I'm old. . .but I haven't lost it yet, lol. I'm aware of how to view images. The original size of this image is 1033x777. . .that's not the size it displays at, so "no" it doesn't display full size. It displays at the size the forum limits it to.

[falcon409]

I believe the water won't move unles you set it to "ultra"...
Also, concerning the water, you might want to check the "Simobject" reflection. The aircraft carrier will look nicer this way

I'll try the ultra setting and see what happens. To me, the water is the least spectacular of all the environments within P3D. . .I think FSX was much better. Having said that, I don't fly over water much at all, certainly not enough to be concerned about it, it's just something that's noticeable to me because of what I remember from FSX. I don't do any Carrier Ops either so that's another reason it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Thanks!

[falcon409]

Well, forget all that gibberish I just spouted, lol. With water set to "ultra" and both special effects sliders to "max". . .wow, the water action on the surface is awesome. I took the Deltasim Sirocco upriver from Pensacola to the airport I've been working on and the water at eye level is amazing. Also, and even more amazing is that I saw less than 2 fps drop during the trip (set to 30fps. . .so around 28fps). Thanks Daube!

[dvj]

Big frame hit with REX clouds. Clear sky: 30 fps, add REX clouds , easily down to 4 fps. So no improvement here with v2.3.

[Chris Sykes]

Well more flying last night, im getting better FPS but now im getting really bad terrain shadows, trees are ok but hill shadows just flicker and dissapear.

[Chris Sykes]

Doh looks like my nvidia drivers got updated to the broken version...

[UKTrafficPilot]

Big frame hit with REX clouds. Clear sky: 30 fps, add REX clouds , easily down to 4 fps. So no improvement here with v2.3.

Am using the HDE freeware cloud textures but also getting massive FPS hit with more than a few cloud layers when using the FSRealWXLite freeware weather engine. Hoping ASN will have less of an FPS hit once they bring out a patch for V2.3

Cloud and texture shadowing is much improved though. Can now use both without any significant FPS hit.

Back to tweaking...!

[Dumonceau]

That's it! I'm getting rid of my two GTX560ti's and will replace them with a GTX770! I desperately want to try out this sim!

[Chris Sykes]

That's it! I'm getting rid of my two GTX560ti's and will replace them with a GTX770! I desperately want to try out this sim!

You wont regret that as I did just that before getting v2! Went from 2x 560ti 2gb to a 770 4gb!

[Dumonceau]

You wont regret that as I did just that before getting v2! Went from 2x 560ti 2gb to a 770 4gb!

Ok, so I've got a question for you people: does P3D need an SSD like FSX does?

The reason for my question is that I only have an 256Gb SSD and not much space on it is left due to my humongous FSX install.

Will P3D run well on a SATA3 disk? Or should I consider buying a bigger or second SSD?

Thanks for the info!

Dumonceau

PS: could you tell me what 770 you have exactly?