What I learned in class today.

[OldAirmail]

There's a lot of little things with Prepar3d V2.1.99. Some small and insignificant. And others that are killers.


One of the little things is that Prepar3d, over all, is darker than FSX.

At first there was so much new that I thought that it was just me.

But switching from one to the other you can easily notice the difference.

And that applies to both native P3d planes, and those that you "import" into P3d.

P3d



FSX


Same monitor, same system.

If there's any built-in system for changing that, I haven't seen it.

True, I could adjust the screen to make it as light as FSX, but that seems excessive.

Is there anyone with a non-AMD video card who sees the same differences? That could be the reason for the difference.

[OldAirmail]

Thank you.

[OldAirmail]

What I'm going to do here is make some notes on the things that I "discover" in/with/about Prepar3d V2.x.

Do join in. The more the merrier.

And there is no one topic, so long as it has to do with things Prepar3d V2.plus.

There's lots of reviews about Prepar3d V2.1.+, but there's too little info on the details.
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So here's another "detail" that I learned today.

High Definition Cities in Prepar3d (P3D)

When I found out that there were 33 cities in all, I had to find a list and see just what "High Definition Cities" meant.

It didn't really take that long, but GadgetMutt was the first full list that I found, so I'll stick with that.

This is their list:

Latin America ( 3 )
Rio de Jeneiro
Sao Paulo
Mexico City

Europe ( 30 )
Moscow
Munich
Berlin
Dublin/Cork
Istanbul
Stockholm
Copenhagen
Brussels
St. Petersburg
London
Lisbon
Gibraltar
Helsinki
Paris
La Defense
Amsterdam
Rotterdam
Barcelona
Madrid
Oslo
Trondheim
Monte Carlo/Monaco
Salzburg
Lyons, France
Milan, Italy
Lisbon
Malmo, Sweden
Athens
Glasgow/Blackpool
Lake Geneva

US ( 9 )
San Francisco
Los Angeles
New York
Miami
Chicago
Atlanta
Salt Lake
Washington DC
Seattle

Africa, Middle East ( 7 )
Capetown
Jerusalem
Tel-Aviv
Cairo
Dubai
Riyadh
Mecca

Asia ( 16 )
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Shanghai
Singapore
Beijing
Taipei
Seoul
Saitama
Sapporo
Nagoya
Kyoto
Fukuoka
Kobe
Chiba
Nara
Incheon

Australia & NZ ( 7 )
Melbourne
Perth
Brisbane
Sydney
Canberra
Wellington
Auckland

Canada ( 5 )
Toronto
Vancouver
Montreal
Edmonton


There's a significant difference in quality, one city to another. And none of them will put any scenery makers out of work.

But before I get in to that, let me say that I have Orbx GlobalFTX. This has improved many locations in FSX all by it's self. How that skews the results, I can't tell.

Even so, there were still changes from FSX-GlobalFTX to Prepar3d V2.x


The airports are, generally, better. Some of the airports in FSX that had no airport building at all, now do.

I think that if you went from standard FSX to Prepar3d V2.x it might be a good improvement for the above cities.

But no always.


Some places like Rio de Janeiro in Brazil look much better.

But some like Washington DC look significantly worse.



I'll just post the DC picture comparison as I think that Washington, DC was the worst of the lot.

This is a map of the area.



FSX - Washington, DC



Prepar3d V2.x - Washington, DC



There's no way that I would describe the cities on the list as "High Definition Cities in Prepar3d"

[Bass]

Well, until further notices, i'll stick with FSX
Thanks for showing this.

[OldAirmail]

Thanks, Bass.

Right now I'd say my time is split 55/45, FSX to P3d.

Where I can, I find ways to port FSX stuff over to P3d.


One of the things that P3d doesn't have is a Cessna 172/182.


The Cessna 310 works very well with P3d V2 right out of the box.




But I haven't found a 172 freeware package that works. I did copy the 172 from FSX into P3d.

Everything works as it should, but the plane is usually all white except for the registration number.



What's strange is that the paint markings do occasionally show up.


And some planes actually work BETTER in P3d!

I didn't think that the Cessna 150 would work at all, but it does.







This part is probably due to different settings in FSX and P3d.

OpusFSX works absolutely great with P3d. So if if's a windy day outside, it's a windy day in P3d.

Anyway, I just noticed the pitot cover/flag blowing in the wind.







Neat!

[Jetranger]

It is "High Defination" Scenery ,,,,,,

if its compared to Flight Simulator 1998 or 1995

as usual, a lotta "HYPE" and over the top BS, to sell a product, put a fancy cover on it, make it look good, throw in some fancy words, like Hi-Defination scenery and all kinds of other "Fancy Wancy Smazy word'ology" and it'll sell to sum body


I've got some Hi-Def Scenery out too !!

its so Hi-Def, you can even Smell the cities

Guaranteed to give that, its as real as it gets feeling and then some !!

[OldAirmail]

HEY! THIS AIN'T HYPE!!!!!!

This is "new & improved".


Or like my signature says "FS11".

[logjam]

1st time I've seen BS spelled that way!

[OldAirmail]

Often, I'll turn a VERY simple procedure into a long detailed account.

It's my hope that if you learn how to handle a problem, you'll be able to easily take care of future problems.

So, please bear with me. The actual solution IS simple, and shouldn't take more than a minute or two.
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In a post by jphespe, Maule-d in Canada..., he posted pictures of Orbx freeware (CBB7) scenery in Canada.

But if you try to install it in Prepar3d V2.1.x, you'll get this pop-up;



Normally, when you can't create a file or folder, it due to user rights & permissions. But not in this case.

This error pop-up is because ObjectFlow_CBB7.dll isn't compatible with the new V2.1.99 of P3d.

Orbx is working on fixing the problem, and will no doubt get everything sorted out.



So what does ObjectFlow_CBB7.dll do? As far as I can tell, it makes weeds and stuff move.

Yeup, that's what it's for all right. It's for those people who want to get close down to the ground and watch the grass wave.

There's going to be whole new industries springing up catering to the potted plant people. Right.


But suppose you want the scenery for P3d?

According to Orbx, there's nothing you can do. Except wait for them to come up with a solution.



There is, however, another way.

Remember me harping on and on about the Estonia Migration Tool?

Long story short: it makes software installers think that Prepar3d is actually FSX.

Does it always work? No. But quite often, it will work.



So you use the Migration Tool, and get the scenery installed without any problems, right?

Kinda.

If you want to see the CBB7 scenery (or any Orbx scenery that contains ObjectFlow_CBB7.dll), you'll see this pop-up when you start P3d;



If you click "Run once", then Pr3par3d V2.1.x does it's amazing vanishing act. In less than a blink of an eye it's gone. No warning. Nothing. Just gone.


So don't hit "Run once", ok?

If you hit "Don't run", everything goes the way that it should.


The only problem with this solution, is that this pop-up will appear EVERY time that you start P3d. Not fun.

A better solution is to go to the Orbx folder, in the Prepar3d folder, and rename ObjectFlow_CBB7.dll to something like ObjectFlow_CBB7.dllX.

Now you can use Prepar3d & CBB7 without any problems. Other than not seeing the weeds move, that is.



BTW - I'm pretty sure that if I install another scenery that uses ObjectFlow_CBB7.dll, I'll have to eliminate that .dll again.

But it really isn't going to be done all that often, and you DO have a shortcut on your desktop for that folder, don't you?

[logjam]

Old Airmail, you are clever.

[OldAirmail]

Thanks, logjam.

I only wish that I was smart and clever.

But sneaking through the back door will sometimes work.

[Jetranger]

Weeds moving

well if they can make weeds move, then how about Skirts blowing

now if it'll just work with that "Smell.DLL" File I made that allows users to smell objects in the sim too

To Smell that Jet Fuel, and AV Gas and smell those Roses and "Outhouses", I call the program "Smell'ology"

[Daube]

Just to comment on the original post (a little bit late, I know ), yes P3D is much darker than FSX.
However, this can be explained easilly: it's due to the new lighting system of the P3D graphic engine.
The problem is not that P3D is too dark. It's FSX that is too bright. Things get illuminated when they shouldn't be. For example, when you are flying with the sun in your back, your panel gets the sunlight, but it shouldn't, it should be in the shadow.
In P3D, this is much more accurate. Things are dark when they should be

That being said, even in the external view, where sunlight is due, colors and lights are a bit weak, aren't they ?
Compared to my FSX with ENB bloom, P3D looked like a black&white picture sometimes
But I found the solution for this => it's called SweetFX. It works a bit like ENB, and you can download presets that alter the following elements:
- colors
- bloom
- contrasts
- saturation
- and many other things which are a bit too technical for me.

Thanks to this, I could keep the native lighting system in P3D, but enhance the general colors to make them closer to what I get in FSX

[OldAirmail]

I'm sorry that I didn't notice this sooner. Unfortunately "View new posts" postings disappear from SimViation even on the day that they're posted.

THEN, I have to remember to check "View unread posts".

I do wish that "new posts" would stay up for AT LEAST 12 hours, if not for 24 hours. Once read, they can go away.


Anyway, I'll certainly give SweetFX a try.


Your explanation does make sense for scenery shot in low light with a camera. But the human eye/mind makes adjustments: the interior of my car as I drive down a city street at night doesn't seem dark & dingy.

So Prepar3d being "dark" inside the cockpit would only make sense if someone was making a training video, and wanted to get across the idea that the real-time situation was dark.


At any rate, THANKS A MILLION in advance for the tip.

It may save what little sanity I have left.

[Daube]

After you install SweetFX, read well how the "presets" are installed and selected.
Presets are basically text files, which you drop directly in the game folder, next to the other files.
Then, you have to edit a file (text), to change a line to make it match the filename of your preset.
And then you're good to go.... At least that's what I remember.

That being said, I'm still looking for a preset which would give me the same satisfaction as the ENB mod in FSX DirectX9. I found some nice presets, but the results were not perfect...