Some comments on 64 bit sims

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

I am reading a lot of nonsense about the 64 bit sims that are coming online. Some people think we'll have 4K textures as standard or models with half a million polygons for the VC. Sorry to say that won't happen. At least not soon.

 

Many people forget we have got a 64 FlightSim for several years now, XP10 was 64 bits and of course XP11 is as well. Now XP never suffered from OOM as bad as FS/P3D but it still was an issue. When it went 64 bits some developers got wild and scenery and aircraft textures got massive. Of course that overloaded the graphics card and every other pipeline and caused very low FPS. So basically not a lot has happened when XP went 64 bits. It always was pretty well optimized, making things bigger simply meant making it slower.

 

Flight Sim World is the odd duckling. We simply don't know. We had very minor information and only beta's a few weeks before we all could buy the beta. We did not expect that from Dovetails, certainly not as they asked us for high end add-ons in a meeting a few days before release. Without an SDK and a lot more information on what will still be changing that is not going to happen. We will not spend a lot of time making things that might now work later. Most important here are lights and animations, both parts that we know are still not set in concrete.  We like what we see, but we need a release version and a full SDK.

 

Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D V4 was the opposite of FSW. We got very early access to beta's, we had ample opportunity to give our input and we did see how the developers listened to comments. They have ALWAYS done that. The latest version, that should be very close to the release version, is stable, the SDK is up to date. We had a lot of time to see what works and what does not work. Basically a lot works and making the rest compatible does NOT seem to be a problem. Making use of the new opportunities, for example in lighting, of course is more time consuming but it all looks good.

What we appreciate is that LM did not waste a lot of time on updating the world and aircraft. They realize that we can take care of that (and of course from a professional point landclass in Siberia is not very important). It truly is a follow up on P3D V3. Personally I think it is the best flight simulator I have ever seen. 

 

--------------------------------------

 

In the end it is important to keep in mind that memory was just one of the bottlenecks. Do not think 64 bits sims mean that things will start to be a lot more complex and detailed. You will run head first into FPS issues (even though it seems faster graphics cards could be the way out for that). 

 

There are other things to consider. Development costs for example. A 2K textures takes a lot more time than a 1K texture. Doubling the amount of polygons on a complex aircraft means tens of thousands or Euro's more in development. And as things are it is hard enough to get your investment back on complex add-ons. Are you will to pay 25% more for something that looks a bit better? Also loading times will be an irritating issue. We all know how long it can take for FS to fill up 3.2 Gb, now imaging filling the 32 Gb that Lockheed advises for P3D V4. Or download sizes, we now have a lot of customers who have problems downloading big files. 

 

These challenges aside, we are seeing a new heyday of flight simulators. It's like 2004 again and that is great news for everybody.

 

Also see this: http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/123481-whats-p3d-v4-compatible/

 

[Dudley 359]

I have just completed a flight in XP 11, so not forgotten. I think Dovetail knew that P3D was on the way, and wanted to be first. I don't doubt they will start to catch up. It's a pity that you haven't got aircraft for XP11 as it is such a nice sim. Whilst the commercial offerings are nice, they don't match Aerosoft's standards.

 

 

Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk

 

 

[Dudley 359]

My error, there is the CRJ 200 for  X-Plane of course.

[CheapCharlie 87]

Mathijs, with the release of 64 bit P3D, will Aerosoft still continue to support installation of your complex aircraft and scenery into P3D V3 as well as V4?  Also, with the great shift to X64 simulation platforms, has Aerosoft determined if FSX/FSX SE will continue to receive support for new titles?    

[Tom A320 4915]

7 minutes ago, CheapCharlie said:

Mathijs, with the release of 64 bit P3D, will Aerosoft still continue to support installation of your complex aircraft and scenery into P3D V3 as well as V4?

 

See his answer to the same question here:

 

 

9 minutes ago, CheapCharlie said:

Also, with the great shift to X64 simulation platforms, has Aerosoft determined if FSX/FSX SE will continue to receive support for new titles?

 

The A330 is a new title. I think this post answers your question?

 

BTW: the CRJ will be FSX, FSX:SE, P3D v3 and P3D v4 as well.

[abermann 1241]

Quite interesting. Thanks, @Mathijs Kok for the insight. It's nice to read some positive and open thoughts regarding all this.

 

Personally, It's my hope that developers will leave the previous ESP itterations behind (FSX, FSX:SE, P3D 2.X/3.X) and just go with the new technology. Since the gap between Prepar3D V4 and FSX (and existing Prepar3D versions) is increasing, my personal opinion would be, that developers should take a stand with regards to discontinue the support and development for 'older' ESP platforms.

This was also the consensus between the developers on the live-stream on AirDailyX a couple of days ago. In that forum, there seemed to be an agreement regarding the sole focus on x64-bit simulators - whether it was X-Plane, Prepar3D or FSW in the very near future. Besides, it would also be quite the monumental task to support ALL these platforms. 

 

I sincerly hope you're right, Mathijs. The developers seems to be moving in that direction, that a descision to 'cut-the-cord' to the older platforms seems to be a necessity very soon - purely from a support and developmental viewpoint. I surely remember the screams and crying on forums, when developers - one by one - stopped the development and support for FS9. It may sound a bit harsh for those customers who don't/won't upgrade to the latests version, but everything must come to an end.

 

Anyway - just my 2c... 

[Dudley 359]

I have moved over to Mathijs' opinion.  Take up of P3D V4 will be very fast,  the level of compatibility, and the preparedness of 3rd party developers means that it can be usable from day 1.  Many will recall how difficult FSX was at release.  I even saw an A2A Connie in a V4 screenshot.  And the FPS performance figures that Mathijs demonstrated in his screenshot are phenomenal.  At release FSX was very slow, so I  stayed with COF for a couple of years.  Looking forward to this indeed.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

5 hours ago, KingMusjo said:

I sincerly hope you're right, Mathijs. The developers seems to be moving in that direction, that a descision to 'cut-the-cord' to the older platforms seems to be a necessity very soon - purely from a support and developmental viewpoint.

 

But..... only late 2015 did the sale of FS2004 add-ons drop to a level that made it impossible to create add-ons for it. Developers can think what they want but we'll go where the customers are. It's them why will decide. 

[abermann 1241]

1 hour ago, Mathijs Kok said:

 

But..... only late 2015 did the sale of FS2004 add-ons drop to a level that made it impossible to create add-ons for it. Developers can think what they want but we'll go where the customers are. It's them why will decide. 

 

That is true... you're all in it for the money, so to speak. 

But I also have a feeling many developers think that maintaining 3 (or 4) different platforms is fairly impossible... Especially since, the gap between these platforms are increasing by each new verison.

 

Of course I may be wrong about this assessment...

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

No, I think you got a good point. For smaller companies it will be more difficult, certainly if you do not want to charge separate for every version. It's really a question of money. And for a good long time the FSX:SP2 and FSX:STEAM market might remain the biggest.  We do not know sales data of P3D but we can safely assume it is not even a small percentage of what FSX in all it's forms sold. The only thing that makes P3D important for us is that these customers invest in add-ons. We still have a huge amount of people that fly FS2004, but they do not invest in their sim anymore.

[conchulio 20]

Hello Mathijs,

 

thanks for clarifying up on the 64bit thing. For me personally, i'm not entireley sure in which ways P3D V4 would benefit me in anyway, as i almost never encounter OOMs during my flight sessions due to reasonable settings. A little bit of eye-candy in terms of new lightning models seems to be too little for me to invest into a "new" flight sim.

 

Now i am confused however, if one shifts his/her attention to fluidity and FPS. I recall that in one thread you were demonstrating to us that FPS almost doubled in some cases, e.g. in WADD and in another airport you actually showed us triple-digit FPS counts.

 

A member of the FlyTampa development team also stated that they achieved noteable FPS increases in there new KBOS scenery. FSDreamteam also mentioned increases in fluidity and FPS by demonstrating it on youtube when showing their new sceneries (i think it was Charlotte or so).

 

Well, what can be expect now from P3D V4 from a developer point of view, IF we did not encounter OOMs in the first place? What justifies switching over from V3 to V4 and dedicating an entire week (or possibly more) transfering every possible add-on from V3 to V4 only to gain a sim with a quasi OOM free environment? IF i stay at the same seetings in V4 that i used in V3, will i see an extraordinary increase in FPS AND/OR fluidity?

 

I have the feeling many people expect too much from it without actually analyzing the yet little infos we got from P3D V4.

 

[pmb 139]

vor 1 minute, conchulio sagte:

Hello Mathijs,

 

thanks for clarifying up on the 64bit thing. For me personally, i'm not entireley sure in which ways P3D V4 would benefit me in anyway, as i almost never encounter OOMs during my flight sessions due to reasonable settings. A little bit of eye-candy in terms of new lightning models seems to be too little for me to invest into a "new" flight sim.

 

I work in a networked configuration using a hardware panel and only fly GA, thus I very very rearly experienced OOMs, if any. However, the virtually internal memory used in Prepar34 allows a number of fundamental improvements of the visuals (and beyond).

 

(i) One is the limited texture LOD which has been hard-coded by LM so far to prevent OOMs.

(ii) Another one is the really ugly limited autogen radius where autogen pops in at a certain distance, which will be gone.

(iii) You are no longer limited to 1028 or 2056 textures. Intead, you can opt for razor-sharp 4096 textures without fear of OOMs now.

(iv) Plus, you can run heavy tubeliners together with advanced airports and ORBX scenery in the background at the same time.

 

These have been annoyances many users kept from using Prepar3d so far, and they will be history now.  There will be more improvements, related or unrelated to 64 bits, but these alone are fundamental to me.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

If you do not suffer from OOM's (like you I have actually never let my sim run out of memory) the main advantages will be that the sim indeed seems seriously faster and smoother. But also keep in mind that we get new lights that are not the stupid fx of FSX but actually light sources that light up the cockpit and terrain. There are also many other smaller things that will assist developers, some will just save a LOT of time (like the new lighting) but others that make things simpler.

 

For example there are new axis:

Please login to display this image.

 

That something we had to do up to now via the configurator. Worked well but some other developers had serious problems with that and it is nice that Lockheed listened to them. There are dozens of things like that. 

[conchulio 20]

Thanks a lot Michael and Mathiijs for your elaborations!

 

I guess i will be among those simmers who will wait and see how the add-ons, once translated into 64bit, will behave performance-wise in P3D V4. Eye-candy does play an important part in terms of an immersion factor, however I primarily hope for positive reports concerning FPS and overall fluidity.

 

 

 

 

[abermann 1241]

Interesting, Mathijs...

 

- Is the effects format (.fx) file gone in Prepar3D V4?

- Also, are light textures un-necessary with the new lighting engine?

 

Can't wait to try it out in the next couple of days...

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

No there are still FX files, but indeed for a part night textures will not be needed anymore. Certainly in the Virtual Cockpit we can simply delete them. This will speed up development a lot.

For scenery things are different. All the lights on the airport terrein you see in this images 'could' be replaced by real light sources, meaning the developers only need to place the lights. The lights of the houses in the city (Genoa) might be possible as real lights but it means you got to make houses with 3d modelled windows etc. Making a night version of the textures there is a much better option.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

But here is a nice thought... you know those rotating white lights on airports? Or the lights of light houses? They now might light up the scenery. And believe me that looks absolutely stunning.

 

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Or look at this tree (animated!)... That's default P3d V4.

Please login to display this image.

 

Now I could be mistaken but I have never seen any tree like this in a add-on scenery.

[MrHalfknight 44]

Does the new lighting system mean that the aircrafts at the apron aren't pitch black anymore during the night?

[abermann 1241]

Yes, if the scenery is developed with support for these new lighting technologies.

Have a look at FlyTampa's images of the upcoming KBOS or the videos from FSDT's GSX enhancements (or their upcoming KCLT which features these new techniques).

[smiley 1]

Mathijs,

 

Thank you for being up front about LM V4. Great to hear your thoughts and for me I will stick with LM due to its support by third party developers such as Aerosoft and its affiliates.
Cheers

[Dudley 359]

On 2017-5-28 at 5:21 PM, Mathijs Kok said:

Or look at this tree (animated!)... That's default P3d V4.

Please login to display this image.

 

Now I could be mistaken but I have never seen any tree like this in a add-on scenery.

Should we be seeing trees that close up in an aircraft?

[Herman 1591]

A helicopter on the other hand...

[Vindeballe 16]

8 hours ago, Dudley said:

Should we be seeing trees that close up in an aircraft?

When I am crashing it could be 

[Bender39 0]

Hey guys, I'm not writing so often, but i use Flight Sims for 15years now.

 

Its really nice to hear that the communication between LM and all the developers works so good. 

So I cant understand the behavior of companies like Dovetail. Not working together with 3rd Party developers and maybe get inspirations from the community... maybe. Honestly the rain effects are great but I didn't see much more.

 

Since I started it was very clear that you only enjoy Fs with Addons, at least for me 

So all in all I will stick to LM as the mayor Plattform. They take the Sim to the next Level (64bit) and also managed it that we can use the Addons (not all but some) in the Future. They also could say, like in the past, it will not be possible. In my opinion this was a decision made by listening to the community. 

 

Thank you all for making it possible 

 

Regards Bender