So… In a bout of frustration with some of my payware aircraft currently broken, I have decided to give P3D a shot to see what the deal is about… Money is not an issue, so… what the hell, if I can get a sim that has some study-level airliners while we are waiting on MSFS to get them, I could use a second sim (none of that nonsense with stepping away from MSFS - no one ever said you can’t use several different sims for different reasons)… I was prepared to not try to make it look “as great as possible”, cause I already have MSFS for that. The idea is to enjoy deeper aircraft simulation… So yesterday I bought P3D 5.1… Oh boy.
One look at the way everything looks in it as well as a completely unintuitive UI was enough for me to take advantage of their 14 day refund guarantee. It’s ROUGH to look at… I DO know that Orbx scenery will make it look way better, but that’s a few hundred bucks. It also doesn’t have Live Weather, and you need Active Sky, which isn’t even available for 5.1 yet.
But the stunning revelation was the default aircraft. I DO know that A2A etc screenshots look amazing, but I figured the default aircraft in a newly released sim would at least be passable to look at. Wrong. Mooney Bravo was awful. The textures, the pixellation… I also tried the C130 - that was even worse. Basically any aircraft by Lockheed was awful looking. The one I tried from Carenado was way better, but not as good as MSFS by a long shot.
This made me think… AND PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT DEFAULT AIRCRAFT IN MSFS??? Or some scenery issues??? Default scenery in P3D is MINECRAFT! Aircraft makes you zoom in just so you can somewhat read anything it says on dashboard. It’s painful to look at. Again, I know ORBX takes great care of scenery, but comparing apples to apples? MSFS with ZERO addons looks miles above what P3D looks like with ORBX Global and Vector packages!
If you need a quick reminder, do fire up P3D… Going back to MSFS after that was like a dream! Unreal that anyone is complaining. And this ties in nicely with what Aerosoft said about P3D… I am sorry, but it’s a DYING engine. If a version released in 2020 has default visuals that it does, I am sorry, it’s dying. And I can see why developers don’t really want to invest too much more time into it. I am sorry, but I have seen now both X-Plane and P3D and MSFS is the future. The road to go for it is LONG and LOTS is still missing. Supersonic flight, helicopters, etc… BUT, the PLATFORM? There is no question in my mind.
From someone with all three platforms, I couldn’t agree more. I literally only fly P3D for the excellent FSL Airbus, the QW 787, and once in a while, PMDGs 747/8 and 737 NGXu. If/when those aircraft are in MSFS, I quit P3D.
I think MSFS is the future. When I was planning to get my new PC, I was going to make the move from FSX to P3D. I was prepared to re-buy my PMDG fleet, and I was also looking forward to buying the Aerosoft Airbus fleet. Then MSFS was announced and threw a wrench in my P3D plans. I did not want to both buy P3D and MSFS, and then having to potential buy my fleets again for MSFS. So, I made the decision to go with MSFS and skip P3D. Do I regret it? Yes and No. I miss my study level aircraft, but I know in time they will show up in MSFS.
That is incorrect. Both of those are things in MFS, for the default aircraft.
The beauty of an addon aircraft (not Carenado which uses as many default systems as they can…), is an aircraft like the Aerosoft CRJ is going to use a custom coded autopilot that side steps the default autopilot. It’s going to use a custom coded FMC which side steps the default MFS flight planner.
I had bought P3D v3 a few years ago, but never really used it that much. In the meantime I had switched to XPlane 11 and DCS, but really I had somewhat gotten away from flight sims.
Early this year I decided to try P3D v5 and was shocked by how little it had progressed and how dated it looked (mind you, I still wasn’t aware of MSFS2020).
I also asked for my money back. In the return form, they asked why I was returning the product: I wrote I felt the franchise was best left to die peacefully .
Why have you not fixed it, ?
Can you fix it ?
When will you fix it ?
All USELESS questions.
It was discussed in the forum.
Analyzed and confirmed by many. Reported Numerous time to ZoneDesk
AND GOT FIXED
What could be better ?? A great example of the ZenDesk system actually WORKING !!!
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Then the other issue, I posted in the Q&A section, with numerous replies, has now just got Hidden/Burried “Archived” and made Hidden … whatever you want to call it.
Ended up being a total waste of time and effort by all involved !!
1: we were talking about the Q&A livestreams, so not sure why you jumped topics.
2: A lot of questions are asked about bugs in the Q&A livestreams. “I noticed this issue, when are you planning to fix it?”
As explained in another topic, the SDK is not really the bottleneck at this moment. The SDK will catch up but right now goal is to get the code we have to run smooth and reliable.
Also as explained in another topic, getting C++ code to run in the sim is not really a problem. You can make a electrical or pneumatic system system as complex or deep as possible. Beyond what any P3D add-ons has now if you so require. It’s just code. Of course there will be problems as variables from the new sim do not give the same value as on P3D, but you ask Asobo for help and you will get is as long as you are in the correct cycle. You might need to wait for the next update of the sim to get it running on the sim customers have though. But as I said, when needed Asobo/MS will update when needed.
I will give you an example. We have a professional project intended to train people. It is about the electrical system of an aircraft that shall not be named. Very serious stuff. I mean it models the reduction of load when a footwell heater fails. Pure C++ code and and while the output to the displays needs to be redone, it all works without any issue in MFS. 100% the same code as in P3D, just needs new variables in input and output. it can’t be used in MFS as you can’t get professional licenses but if the customer wants proof the code runs we are happy to show it.
As I keep saying, what you hear about more complex systems in the new sim has as much to do with commercial interests as it has to do with what is actually possible. Most people just do not understand what is at stake. If you now start with a new complex airliner from scratch you have to invest 350k (dollars or euro) to even start. We have way (wayyyyyyyyy) more invested in our Airbuses and they have been profitable from the very first sale. These are not small hobby projects. If you do not have a big company with money on the bank as we have, you need to find investors. Now if you are multiple hundreds of thousands of Euro’s in dept and do not have anything to release, it starts to make sense to start to speak bad about the platform you are not ready for.
It is now Saturday evening 20:37. I see most people involved with this project online. I see some Asobo people answering the questions of out devs. Again… Saturday evening 20:37. That is how much this project matters to all parties involved.
They do provide a changelog with every update and I know the SDK team is actually one of their biggest teams so I don’t understand where you are coming from here.
You mean the Release notes? That’s different then changelog, if they change the gear to move with a light button that’s a notible change that should be mentioned… What does their team size have to do with my question?
Oh sorry I didn’t realize developers need more details about the changes. About the size of the SDK team, you said they don’t care much about 3rd party development so I counter argued with the fact the SDK team is one of the biggest Asobo has. That’s a big indicator that it really does matter to them and if you read Matthijs Kok’s posts carefully you should see that without knowing what I just told you. There is people from Asobo helping Aerosoft out even on the weekend.
As I said “a select few”. Aerosoft has a direct line to them, that’s okay because they are a big part in development. Anyway, this will go on for ages and leads to nowhere.
Why would they prioritize one developer over others? Sorry but this makes no sense. They are obviously interested in getting as many 3rd party planes to the platform as possible.
Absolutely. I suspect that after the XBox release comes out for MSFS, Asobo will gradually reduce the team that is supporting MSFS. But still, all the resources that Microsoft had to throw at MSFS, it still makes a huge difference and it’s not something that XPlane can match easily.
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