MilViz P38L.. IT'S OUT!!

[Alan_A]

Well, with P3Dv2x you have to deal with the tessellation factor and video cards...

Thanks for that suggestion. I haven't experimented with tessellation settings much. I'll give it a try. Probably won't be able to get to it for a couple of days owing to real-world intrusions but I'll report back.

[Alan_A]

I see people complaining about the number of paints (too many??)

Too much of a good thing is... a good thing. Keep 'em coming.

[Dimus]

All very good and very nice with another great Milviz product.
But what puzzles me is the Tacpack functionality integrated to the plane (FSX standard version).

And specifically the guns function : to my experience they seem not to work.
Apart from the fact that you cannot use them via a joystick button (as the case is with rockets & bombs) resulting
in impossible aiming towards a target, even by Klicking the button with mouse in v-cockpit, my feeling is that they don't do damage.

The Tacpacked ability was the only reason I bought this plane. Has anyone else a different experience with Tacpack than mine ?



I hope this will resolve the problem, if is not a false misconception from my side.

First make sure you have loaded the guns via the Tacpack window. Then make sure you have switched on the master arm switch on the left side of the cockpit and also the switch on top of the yoke is set to guns and not camera (click twice). You may not see tracers at first. Then guns should work with your normal Tacpack joystick button. Try shooting to the ground and see the effect of rounds hit.

As Kat mentioned, the guns are being worked on. For the moment to see tracers try emptying your guns (shoot all ammo) and then reloading them (Click twice on the ''reload guns'' in the Tacpack window, Shift-2). You will normally now see tracers. They definitely do damage as I have used them to shoot down AI.

[xpelekis]

Thank you very much Dimus.
The "reload guns" did the trick. It is not obvious, nor expected by the way this window looks.
Maybe Milviz should add "Guns load-reload" or mention this at the manual.

But hey, I'm happy. Now we are flying !... (and shooting...)

[PRB]

I'm getting exactly the same stutters with the low textures that I did with the high ones. So that isn't the problem. Went to clear weather, and set frame rate from 35 (locked) to unlimited, which had no affect. With FPS set to unlimited, I'm getting between 50-90 FPS, clouds or no clouds. My FS box seems awesome enough (see sig). Looks like I need to spend the next week poring over the forums and "geekology" on how to eliminate stutters in FSX (again).

O.T. Tried installing in P3D, and got CTDs. Then I learned I need v2.5, not v2.4 (grumble grumble). I downloaded 2.5 when it came out, but didn't install it. Still can't figure out if 2.5 will simply update my 2.4 without overwriting my new clouds in 2.4, etc., of if I have to start all over (again). This is [one of my] beefs with P3D.

[fsxar177]

Single aircraft should never make, or break the sim's performance....

I would guess that if the P-38 is making that much difference, chances are you're pushing the limits with your system as it is..

- Joseph

Edit; Paul.. Certainly you should be able to do a lot more with your current system. Look into your options, for sure!

[Alan_A]

@Paul - unfortunately there's no upgrade path from P3D 2.4 to 2.5. The reason is they've changed the .cfg structure (there are now separate .cfgs for sim objects and a couple of others). In the long run this is supposed to make patching easier, since changes to the p3d.cfg won't affect add-ons nearly so much. But the price is that 2.5 requires a full install. I dreaded it but got through it OK (with a cleaner install, too) and the performance is much better, at least on my machine.

@Joseph - I understand what you're trying to say but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. The P-38 stutters on my system, which is a pretty current one (4790K @ 4.6, 8 megs of GSkill Trident 2400 CAS 9 RAM, EVGA GTX 980SC, Samsung 840 SSDs). The install is relatively light (FTX Global and Vector but no regions, no third-party airports, REX 4 textures at the lowest resolution, ASN at moderate settings). Holding all other variables even, and changing only aircraft, I find that the PMDG NGX doesn't stutter on my system, the A2A B-17 (hardest one to date on my current rig) doesn't stutter, none of my aircraft stutter except for the P-38. The P-38 stutters much less when I use the so-called lower-res textures, but microstutters are still there. Now, I'm willing to play with settings in order to improve its performance because I like the overall package. But those altered settings aren't required by any other aircraft on my system. So wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that the aircraft makes the difference in this case? And as to an aircraft's making or breaking the sim's performance, why should an aircraft be different from anything else I add to my install? Vector graphics can challenge performance, regional scenery or airports can challenge performance, why not an aircraft? Perhaps I'm missing something (entirely possible) - I'd be interested to know why an aircraft that induces stutters automatically means I'm asking too much of the sim.

FYI that I still haven't had the chance to play with my tessellation settings, as was suggested earlier in this thread, and probably won't for another couple of days at least. But I'm open. Will report back as soon as I can free up an hour or so to make the tests.

[Dumonceau]

I'm experiencing stutters as well in my P3D v2.5 setup.

Even though I haven't got the RAM that Paul has, I have an i7 CPU @ 4.2 Ghz, GTX790 with 4 gigs of its own and 8 Gb's of RAM.

Every other model runs smoothly. I only have the stutters with this model.

Johan

[Dumonceau]

That will give you time to conjure up your next creations. Umm, lets see, I think about six new P-38L liveries sounds about right with the time you will be gone.

Tom,

Would you mind shedding some light on the liveries you have planned??

Cheers,

Johan

[fsxar177]

Single aircraft should never make, or break the sim's performance....

To quote myself..

The keywords are 'should never'..

I fear the consensus might be right, from you folks experiencing performance issues. I'll just have to get my hands on her..

Maybe a combination of key-events flooding, and textures?

- Joseph

[jankees]

Ho, I found one more:

[Katoun]

Hi,

We are investigating the stutters that some appear to be having.

We hope to have an answer soon.

Thank you.

Kat.

[Naruto-kun]

There is a small hotfix over in the Milviz support forums that resolves a CTD in FSX SE.

[Dumonceau]

Hi,

We are investigating the stutters that some appear to be having.

We hope to have an answer soon.

Thank you.

Kat.

Thx Kat!!!

[Stickshaker]

Downloading Aboob now. Thanks for all your hard work, Jankees!

[Alan_A]

Hi,

We are investigating the stutters that some appear to be having.

We hope to have an answer soon.

Thank you.

Kat.

Thanks! Very much appreciated.

[stovall]

Tom,

Would you mind shedding some light on the liveries you have planned??

Cheers,

Johan

Johan, surprised to see this post this morning and very much honored you would think I would even attempt to paint this beautiful aircraft. The reason I say this is Jan's creations raise the bar considerably. I see he has shown us Billy Boy this morning before heading off to southern France. I have downloaded them all and will be getting this one as well.

I did check out the paint kit when it came out and will be studying it in more detail today. My thought was to find a paint that for sure hadn't been done but was a little unusual as well as being nice to look at. In my search I found Billy's Filly. What do you think?

[Dumonceau]

Johan, surprised to see this post this morning and very much honored you would think I would even attempt to paint this beautiful aircraft. The reason I say this is Jan's creations raise the bar considerably. I see he has shown us Billy Boy this morning before heading off to southern France. I have downloaded them all and will be getting this one as well.

I did check out the paint kit when it came out and will be studying it in more detail today. My thought was to find a paint that for sure hadn't been done but was a little unusual as well as being nice to look at. In my search I found Billy's Filly. What do you think?

This one? BRING IT ON!!!

[stovall]

That's the one. I will see what I can do. Again, Jan has given us all something to shoot for in quality.

[PRB]

Hi,

We are investigating the stutters that some appear to be having.

We hope to have an answer soon.

Thank you.

Kat.

I started going through my aircraft settings and discovered that if I uncheck "Aircraft cast shadows on itself", the stutters are eliminated almost completely, to the point that I no longer notice them unless I try really hard. Heck, I never noticed any planes casting shadows upon themselves anyway, so I haven't lost anything.

Before trying that, I went through all the graphics and scenery settings, which are currently mostly maxed out. Reducing any of those had no effect on the stutters.

Thanks for the hard work. It really is a beauty!

[Alan_A]

@Paul - sounds like a possible workaround though I have to admit I like the self-shadowing when seen from the VC - adds nicely to the immersion for me at least. I hope the Milviz guys can come up with another cure, but if not, I'll try this. Life is tradeoffs!

[DaveB]

Hmm.. I turned 'Aircraft cast shadows on itself' off a while back after it was giving some unreal effects.. mostly from things like wire aerials which seemed to cast very large shadows in some cases.
Interesting to hear that going low-res (for want of a better term) hasn't sped things up any. Have had too much time at work so haven't spent much time in the old girl yet. I'm frame-locked at 30fps (half the monitors refresh) so I may try going unlimited.

ATB
DaveB

[Dumonceau]

I started going through my aircraft settings and discovered that if I uncheck "Aircraft cast shadows on itself", the stutters are eliminated almost completely, to the point that I no longer notice them unless I try really hard. Heck, I never noticed any planes casting shadows upon themselves anyway, so I haven't lost anything.

Before trying that, I went through all the graphics and scenery settings, which are currently mostly maxed out. Reducing any of those had no effect on the stutters.

Thanks for the hard work. It really is a beauty!

I'm sorry, to me that is just not on.

I'm a P3D user and cockpit shadowing is one of the reasons why I switched over to the modern sim.

IMHO the devs should (in this case) look at the modelling and the code to alleviate our problems. This is not a cheap model, so we as customers have a right to expect not only quality, but also smoothness.

Just look at the specs of the machines involved.

Johan

[fsxar177]

In regards to cockpit shadowing;

3d Mesh complexity doesn't have a lot of effect on performance in the simulator. (relatively). However, in P3D, when the self-shadowing is enabled, it can compound performance, when the object casting the shadow is of high-detail.

Probably just a trade-off for the highly detailed model.

- Joseph

[heywooood]

I appreciate all the candid reviews so far...helping me avoid purchasing something that just wouldn't perform well on my old I5 rig.

Still can't understand the developers who overreach the capabilities of the mean average PC in use at time of their respective releases.