P3D V3+ - Just Asking

[Deleted]

OK, I'm just musing (at this point!), but with P3D V3, is anyone running Active Sky Next, Orbx products, Carenado aircraft and Flysimware aircraft?

Comments in general and specifically if you don't mind, and screenshots (especially showing the difference in atmospheric effects between FSX and P3D V3) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Deleted]

These are a few of my observations after running P3Dv3 since its introduction until yesterday when I uninstalled it (explanation later).

First, my system:
Intel i7-4770 (3.9GHz)
ZOTAC GTX 750 Ti 2GB
1TB Seagate Hard drive (7200rpm)
8GB RAM

The installation of P3Dv3 went without a hitch. My first impressions were better looking default clouds and water and impressive shadowing. The frame rate was lower than FSX but it ran with less micro stutters. Unfortunately the anti-aliasing was worse than either FSX or FS2004.

Next I started playing with settings in NVIDIA Inspector and got things looking fairly good, but not as good as FSX. The only addon aircraft I installed were some default FSX ones and my modified Carenado 172 (RealAir flight dynamics with default FSX cockpit). Note that P3D includes the Carenado Beechcraft Bonanza A-36 as a default aircraft.

Next when Orbx came out with their quad installers for P3Dv3 I installed FTX Global Base, FTX Global Vector, FTX Global open LC NA Alaska/Canada, NA Pacific Fjords and NA Pacific Northwest. I also installed FlyTampa's St Maarten.

With a very similar setup now to FSX I was disappointed in 2 areas. First, the frame rates were 30-50% worse than FSX even with the sliders set modestly and the air and ground traffic set to zero. But the straw that broke the camel's back was the anti-aliasing which ruined the immersion factor. Note that people with 4K monitors seem happy with AA in P3D.

So yesterday I uninstalled P3Dv3 until such time as I have a more powerful system with a 4K monitor. I would say that the limiting factor on my system is the video card; so if you have at least a GTX 970 card with 4gb memory you should be good to go with P3Dv3.

[Deleted]

Thanks Mike. I was looking at that card you mentioned, but maybe best to wait a while yet. Appreciate the input.

[Deleted]

It's rather interesting to see some of the remarks made at AVSIM with regards to 4K monitor usage (which apparently solves the problem of poor AA in P3Dv3).

What doesn't work so well?
"Started experiencing some microstuttering (running single 6GB 980Ti)."
Not good for a video card that costs north of $800.00 here in Canada!

What does it take to be a happy P3Dv3 4K monitor user?
"Running dual water-cooled 6GB 980Ti cards here".
I didn't bother pricing this option, but the owner of this system reported having no problems!

[Deleted]

Hmmnnn, hang on a minute. Let me check my 649 tickets.

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Nope. Guess I'm still with FSX

Thanks Mike. I have priced out a new video card (970GTX) and I'm going to have to know I'm really going to get superior performance before I start throwing $600+ at this sim.

Appreciate the feedback Mike.