Future of P3D

[Juan86270]

Hello everyone

Receive a cordial greeting from me
I want to ask you my question,
although we know microsoft 2020 is about to be launched and we have seen the big changes they have made regarding the terrain and climate among other things...

although I do not trust Microsoft for the reason that 20 years ago we completely forgot and left a simulator with many faults that thanks to the team P3D managed to solve and climb to 64bits

Does P3D have any plans for the site like MSF2020?
What will happen after the launch with P3D?

Thank you for your time, any comment will be a great contribution.

Juan Dino

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

[JorgenSA]

Let's see that much-rumored MSFS in real life before we start speculating.

Jorgen

[FCXEVV]

HI,

Forget the 20 yrs since Microsoft made mistakes, the simulator that Microsoft took over is very close now to 40 yrs ago since I got it and what did Microsoft do then, they made such a simple error that you would have a collision if another aircraft flew over you and it's shadow touched you.

Based on flight sim addicts still using the old combat flight sim and fs2004 etc, I think P3D will be around for many years if they clear out the problems and based on those old sims still with bugs I have no doubt it will continue to be used.

regards

Steve

[Blaunarwal]

Let's see that much-rumored MSFS in real life before we start speculating.

Jorgen

Absolutely agree on that.

[FSTramp]

I was hoping v5 will be released in October, according to the 2 year rhythm.
v3 was released in October 2015, v4 in May 2017, so v5 would be due now.

[JorgenSA]

Yes, or not, or HF3 will come out, or not, or "something completely different", to quote a well-known comic group.

The bottom line is:

WE DO NOT KNOW

so speculation and/or setting your expectations is rather useless.

And we have seen vaporware before....

Jorgen

[miraclemax]

Roger all above. I was at the 2006 FScon in Denver when MS folks were actually giving away x-box controllers as prizes in what seemed like an attempt to ween simmers over to that platform... Imagine that!
max

[mole_man99]

Most of the froth and excitement for MSFS2020 seems to be about the 3d built environment and global sat images. Bing maps is not great. P3d should team up with Google.

I know I would wait for a Google powered P3Dv5 before buying into MSFS2020. It will have to come via the microsoft store and account, xbox console probably. My son spent all his money on a game via that and it simply will not start on his PC. There is no suport. Money gone.

Come on LM, lets have a rumour of our own to work on...

I do wonder how 3rd party developer sales are going this season. Sure they could do with a rumour of V5, and the suggestion v4 purchases will be upgraded free to v5.

[JorgenSA]

Somehow, I have some really serious doubts about L-M being in the rumor business... and they sure aren't going to say anything.

As said earlier in this thread, I want to see something tangible from Microsoft before I believe that MSFS 2020 really is going to come out. I want to see something for the PC platform, I could not care less about a PS4 platform. And I want to see something (this goes for any product) that I buy for a one-time sum of my hard-earned money, not something that I "lease" for a monthly fee, thereby enabling and allowing the manufacturer to have their fingers in my pocket.

Up until now, what we have seen are some nice, flashy pictures and some nice, feel-good rumors.... and then we should remember that Microsoft has scrapped the flight simulation business before, shortly before a product release. Everything is pure and simple speculation and wishful thinking at this point.

Besides that, it is never a good idea to reveal your business strategy until you are ready to do it.

Jorgen

[Daube]

I would also be very interested to know if LM plans anything regarding the upcoming "competitor" that is MSFS...
We all know LM is mainly targeting the military/professional customers, so they probably don't give a sidewinder about what the non-entertained customers think.
However, they might need to wonder what their main customers think about this MSFS...
Military and Professional might be interested in the new scenery and weather simulation worldwide.They might be also interested in the new physics engine.
I don't know if MSFS might also bring improvements to networking, and perhaps allow new things like believable aircraft towing or aircraft refueling ? Who knows?...

The thing that worries me, is that LM has not done much for the flight model in 4 versions of P3D. They have implemented the 64 bits transition, they have improved the graphic engine... but despite all of these improvements, P3D still suffers from major performance problems, terrain blurries, micro-stutters, and other issues. I'm not sure they can really propose a product that could compete with MSFS at this point...

[JorgenSA]

I take the liberty to quote:

"P3D still suffers from major performance problems, terrain blurries, micro-stutters, and other issues."

With all respect, not correct. With the proper hardware and settings, P3D by itself does not have these issues.

However, if you pile add-ons galore, especially marginally or non-compatible ones, on a system that lacks the horsepower and/or settings to handle them, then you can certainly be seeing the issues you speak of.

Jorgen

And a PS: the much-rumored MSFS is still vaporware at this point. It is completely pointless to speculate what it is going to be a competitor to - if anything at all.

[FSTramp]

The missed release of a version 5 this fall may indicate several things. Maybe LM throws in the towel, maybe they are integrated into the development of MSFS2020 and are already working on the adaptation of their military extension to this new simulator base.

One more word about MSFS2020. I think it's logical that this simulator will be a combination of one-time payment and possible subscription. The subscription will be necessary to download the detailed data of the real world.

[Daube]

I take the liberty to quote:

"P3D still suffers from major performance problems, terrain blurries, micro-stutters, and other issues."

With all respect, not correct. With the proper hardware and settings, P3D by itself does not have these issues.

However, if you pile add-ons galore, especially marginally or non-compatible ones, on a system that lacks the horsepower and/or settings to handle them, then you can certainly be seeing the issues you speak of.

Jorgen

And a PS: the much-rumored MSFS is still vaporware at this point. It is completely pointless to speculate what it is going to be a competitor to - if anything at all.

I understand your logic.
However, P3D by itself is made, just like FSX/FS9 and all the predecessors, for running addons. Nobody uses that sim seriously without any addon planes or addon sceneries. What would be the point ?
And currently, even just one addon, like a photorealistic area (with autogen), or an OrbX region (in P3Dv4-specific version), or a major airport scenery, is enough to create blurries or micro-stutters or FPS loss.

Actually, even on pure default scenery, simply bringing a big airport (default) on the screen already creates a major FPS decrease, way too much for such poorly detailed generic buildings. I'm talking about a computer with an i7 8700k and a GeForce 1070ti, which is far from today's top level, but also far from being outdated, especially for such a poor graphic level (no SSAA, no extra-LOD distance, no "high res" clouds, no addons for scenery or plane, etc...).

Truth is, with such a low graphic level, P3D should run much better than what we currently get. It suffers from the old architecture of its various engines (graphics, physics, game/gauges/sound etc..). Yes, if we disable EVERYTHING, we can get some very nice FPS, like more than 150... but how ugly will it be ?

Concerning the "vaporware" MSFS, let's also remember that many people have now been able to give it a try, not only in Seattle but also during that more recent event (in London, maybe? I don't remember), and ALL of them reported the experience was beyond the official promises.

Yes, it's not available to buy just yet. And yes, once tech alpha stage will start, we just won't get any additionnal feedback because of NDAs etc... but for the moment, all the things that have been described precisely in the promotion videos and the various users feedback, is exceeding everything we will every have in P3Dv4.

[KevinKaessmann]

In my opinion, regarding MSFS, it's a trade off between local processing power (CPU, GPU) and internet speed.
The more processing remote in the cloud, the more internet speed is needed.
The less internet speed, the more processing locally.

And it's not just the plane and the earth,
what about flight realistics, ATC, weather, local attached hardware (throttle quadrants, switches and knobs, TrackIR, moving map - I use two of them with wifi connected android tablets) ?
Flight planning ?
And communication between the local machine and the cloud, exchanging the necessary informations,
how fast will it be, how much lag ?

Many questions - currently few answers.

[jellowiggler]

Has anyone thought of the possibility that LM has licensed the new MSFS engine for education/training purposes and v5 could be based on the new MSFS technologies?