I'm confused about what exactly Prepar3D is and how it's different from FSX.

Is it a completely new sim that is compatible with FSX addons? Or is it somehow used in conjunction with FSX?

Also, how do the system requirements compare to FSX? If I can run FSX "maxed out" how can I expect P3D to perform?

Prepar3D IS FSX. It was licensed by Lockheed Martin, who did a lot of work optimizing code and repairing crap that Microsoft should have done for their customers. I guess some features were added and what not, and now you can have the product that Microsoft should have provided to you for a mere $500, provided you agree not to use it for "entertainment purposes".

Cheers!

Rick...

I see. $500 is rediculous. But $10/month is reasonable. I pay that much for Netflix.

Four years and three months later you'll wish you had bought the $500 package.

Not everything is free in the $500 version either. I think some major updates or upgrades are still extra, IIRC.

I get a lot more entertainment mileage out of my flight sims.

No, you'll not.

With the $10/month dev subscription, you'll receive continuous updates, while the $500 version will only net you a few patches and the necessity to buy it again after a major jump in version.

From my knowledge, the above quote is true. If you were to buy the $500 version now, you would get updates until version 2.0, which may be another year away or more. After that, you would have to purchase the next version. That’s why many of us who use P3d, choose the $10 a month developer license and then maybe down the road on V2, I’ll go for the full license.

Right now, I have all my FSX Add-ons working great in Prepar3d. I no longer even have FSX installed. A lot of add-ons install right into prepar3d without you having to do anything, but a lot have to be manually copied from FSX or tweaked in some way to get to work correctly. For example you have to edit an .xml file to get the hud to work in the PMDG NGX. Other add-ons require you to rename the P3d.exe to fsx.exe to install. It’s different for every add-on and you need to be familiar with both FSX and P3d to get everything to work well. It’s not terribly hard, but if you’re not comfortable with doing that sort of stuff, then stay away from Prepar3d.

So why do I bother with it you may ask? Well, it’s not because the frame rate is better than FSX. Sure, you will see a 2-3 FPS increase over the same settings in FSX. No big deal. But what is a big deal (for me at least) is that the scenery textures always remain clear and don’t suffer from the blurries that I would get in FSX, especially on long flights in dense scenery areas. Everything always remains clear even at a distance. It also appears much smoother. P3d uses Shaders model 3.0 among many other under the hood changes made to FSX. It is under constant development and will only get better with each update. There may come a time when Prepar3d gets so far ahead of FSX that compatibility becomes an issue. The folks at Lockheed have said many times that keeping compatibility is a priority for them as some of their commercial customers (the group they are really targeting) require this compatibility.

This leads to another issue with Prepar3d, that you should be aware of. And that is the target audience on Prepar3d. It’s been said numerous times on forums and on Lockheed’s site, that Prepar3d is to be used as a simulator and for training and not as an entertainment product. How do they enforce this? They really can't except have to read the EULA which states(in other words) that it can't be used as entertainment or a game. It will never be sold in stores at GameStop nor can it be marketed as such. If you are a flight school looking for a low cost simulator, or a company looking to simulate anything, Ships, Submarines, whatever in an engine that can be highly customized, Prepar3d is for you. If you are a gamer looking to fly around under bridges and crash into things, then prepar3d should not be used. How to they enforce this? I don’t know. It seems more like a don’t ask don’t tell kind of thing. They (Lockheed) have no way of knowing what you’re doing with it, but from what I get out of what Lockheed is saying, is that anyone can use it (and they encourage it)as long as you use it as a simulator and not as a game. Anyhow, I am enjoying it, but I used FSX to simulate flying a plane and use prepar3d in the same way. I don’t feel like I’m breaking any laws by using it and have posted screen shots on Lockheed’s site which showed what I’m doing with it. They seem to encourage use of prepar3d, just as long as you don’t call it a game or say your using it as entertainment. I know, this all sounds ridiculous, but that’s just how it is. This is what happens when lawyers get involved!

One last thing is add-on developers stance on Prepar3d. Some like Aerosoft, FSDT and a few others, have embraced Prepar3d as another Simulator for which to sell add-ons for. Others have a wait and see attitude and say "go ahead and use it in p3d, but we will not support the product if it doesn’t work right or give any assistance on porting it over". Yet others have clearly said in no way can our product be legally used in Prepar3d. Flight1 is the only one so far that has taken that stance. This may change down the road, but that’s how it is right now. How can any of this be enforced? Well it really can't. They can't come into your home and see what your doing. It’s not like your pirating anything or giving anything away, In fact in most cases, you’re not even installing the add-ons 2x. your just pointing prepa3ds scenery library to FSX's, so I’m not sure how this is breaking any EULAS, but that’s how they see it.

Anyhow, I hope this sheds some lite on what Ive dealt with in Prepar3d. I’m glad I got everything working in it and I think its way ahead of FSX in a lot of ways, but would I recommend it? Not at this point and time, too many things to deal with. Version 2 is supposed to have DX11 support and more optimizations for the GPU and Multicore support as well as bug fixes etc.. I would wait for that and see what happens. Also I wouldn’t rule out flight yet either, although things look bleak right now, Microsoft may either open it up for 3rd party developers or expand on it themselves by the time P3d v2 comes out flight may be a lot different than the beta is now. So just wait it out a bit and continue with FSX or Xplane for the time being untill we know more down the road.

Rob

P.S.
Here are some links to screen shots I took with P3d and posted a while back.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3498709/Random_Sunset_shots.html#Post3498709

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3501454/Southwest_Shamu.html#Post3501454

I was joking but I admit I don't completely understand what Prepar3D is either. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate about the licenses.

So far, have you seen any performance benefit to using Prepar3D instead of FSX?

Just to give those who don't know. There is a free months trial for Prepar3D.

ComputerPilot magazine, free download code is on page 37 (Code: COPILOTMAG)

http://www.prepar3d.com/ComputerPilot/