Prepare3d

I Spent the last day or so installing Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d and trying out some of my FSX addons with it. So far, I only installed a handfull of things with it,(PMDG NGX, FSDT scenery and Megascenery) But I really like it. Textures seem very sharp and FPS are slightly better than FSX for me. No blurries and its seems smoother overall. but that may change once I have all the addons installed. I also like the interface, which takes a little getting used to, but seems more professional looking.

Its stable and hasn't crashed yet, but does crash when I exit the program. That started happening after I havd to edit some .xml files to get the PMDG NGX hud to work with it.

Until developers fully support it, there is some hacking or editing to do to get everything to work well or install at all. Once Im done with it, I may take some time to compile a list of addons that work and dont work with it and what you have to do to get it to work. Its not for everone, unless you like to play around with this stuff and find a challenge to be fun. If, not, stick with FSX for now.

I can't say for sure if its a keeper, until I spend more time with it. Its $10 a month and I spend more than that on coffe each day, so its not a big deal. Im willing to pay for it if it works well. Once V2 with DX11 support comes out, I think it will be amazing.

Rob

What is Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d? I've never heard of it.

Prepar3d is a Lockheed Martin Complete Re-Build of FSX that they use to train pilots.

Lockheed Martin bought ESP, a Commercial version of FSX from Microsoft about 2 years ago. They also hired a few of the original aces programmers who worked for MS on FSX along with new people and are continuing the development of the code to fix bugs, update it and give it better optimizations for Win 7 and todays hardware (such as DX11 support).

It’s not meant as a consumer product since it cost $500 for a single license. However, they also offer a monthly subscription for developers at $10 a month. The thing is anyone can say they are a developer and download it as long as you pay $10 a month or $500 once. According to their agreement with Microsoft they are not allowed to sell it in stores or market it as a commercial product, but at the same time they encourage anyone to try it. It gets a little confusing and People get worried they will get in trouble for using it, but Lockheed has been very supportive of it and wants to see developers jump in and make their FSX add-ons work with P3D.

http://www.prepar3d.com/

They have a website for it and forum, and are very supportive. They always ask for feedback and work with people and take suggestions on new features or help to work out bugs or issues anyone is having with it. Way more than Microsoft ever did.

Some add-on companies like Orbx have already struck partnerships with LM to develop add-ons for it. Orbx has already announced that all their existing and future add-ons will work with P3d. FSDT has already made all their installers P3d aware and installing their scenery is a breeze. For other add-ons it requires copying files over or pointing p3d to use the directories already installed under FSX. It’s not that hard, just time consuming at the moment.

I would recommend to anyone interested to hold off until V2 comes out soon with DX11 support. Then it will really be worth the effort. Unless you’re like me and like to tinker a lot.

Rob

last i heard MS was about to let them go retail (online only) with it.

Great shots Scoobe, and good info on Prepar3D, I look forward to trying it once the 2.0 release comes out.

Hopefully now that Flight info is out and it is obvious MS is not targetting the same hardcore sim market, hopefully they will allow Prepar3D to grow and fill the FSX evolution market.

PS. Just received my 737NGX DVD package from Aerosoft today and look forward to learning how to fly this, I have a lot to learn.

So, if you pay our 10 bucks a month to play, is the whole world immediately available just like FSX?

There are two amazing things I took away from that first post Scoobe:

1. Your screen-shots. Sweeeeeet.

2. The fact that you spend more than $300 a month on Coffee.

I'm pretty sure you're putting some starbucks managers kids through college!



BTW, @ Skatezilla, where did you hear about retail prepar3d? (also, it's not a complete rebuild yet, but it pretty much will be soon. The orbx guys were saying that the event-horizon includes shifting a lot of work to GPU, making FSX capable PC cheaper to build. Obviously an advantage from the commercial side, as deploying the sim is now more affordable.)



Yes, it's the whole of FSX but with some awesome-sauce poured on top (with MUCH more still to come). It lacks some of the stock FSX planes, but gives you a very nice model of the LM Constellation. Fair trade IMHO. It also features a lightly redone Norfolk area to fly out of as your default runway.

I'd gladly pay $20 a month for what boils down to FSX with an active and aggressive dev team behind it, constantly evolving the software.