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P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:16 am
by pete
In case you missed it, P3D v5.2 is now out and available to download


https://www.prepar3d.com/news/announcem ... 06/120786/

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 4:39 am
by cevans
Wonder if it's really a noticeable difference.

I do know that v5 is a great simulator and quite an improvement on v4 and pretty well ahead of FSX. P3D v5 is best in my opinion and I've been a simmer since about 2000. I have tried FS2020. Outside cities the ground detail is not that accurate in fs2020 (and most buildings and forests in my area are just not realistic at all. I find it gamey overall and irritating to use)

I prefer the real sim experience of P3D5. It's like the best that FSX could have been and still improving.

Now if someone could come up with a GE maps or similar, and maybe real reflections in P3D it would be the best by far.

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:26 pm
by Northwest102
cevans wrote:Wonder if it's really a noticeable difference.

I do know that v5 is a great simulator and quite an improvement on v4 and pretty well ahead of FSX. P3D v5 is best in my opinion and I've been a simmer since about 2000. I have tried FS2020. Outside cities the ground detail is not that accurate in fs2020 (and most buildings and forests in my area are just not realistic at all. I find it gamey overall and irritating to use)

I prefer the real sim experience of P3D5. It's like the best that FSX could have been and still improving.

Now if someone could come up with a GE maps or similar, and maybe real reflections in P3D it would be the best by far.


Good to know Chris. It worth having Orbx with the new upgrades or not really?

Thank you,

Mike H.

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:24 am
by Daube
cevans wrote:Wonder if it's really a noticeable difference.

I do know that v5 is a great simulator and quite an improvement on v4 and pretty well ahead of FSX. P3D v5 is best in my opinion and I've been a simmer since about 2000. I have tried FS2020. Outside cities the ground detail is not that accurate in fs2020 (and most buildings and forests in my area are just not realistic at all. I find it gamey overall and irritating to use)

I prefer the real sim experience of P3D5. It's like the best that FSX could have been and still improving.

Now if someone could come up with a GE maps or similar, and maybe real reflections in P3D it would be the best by far.


MSFS ground is derived directly from Bing maps, so if the area around your area was "not realistic at all" to you, then it will be exactly the same in P3D with scenery imported from Google Earth.
Or maybe you didn't turn on the online data options properly in MSFS, and ended up flying over regular landclass scenery ? (which is what happens when Bing Maps data is disabled).
According to your comment, this is the most probable cause.

Concerning P3Dv5, I hesitated to buy it to replace my P3Dv4 at the beginning, then finally I gave up.
Although they *finally* got rid of the ugly 2D clouds, they somehow managed to make the 3D clouds look even worse (waffles everywhere...) and I'm not sure the performance increase described by only a small part of the users is worth the buy...

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:42 am
by cevans
MSFS ground is derived directly from Bing maps, so if the area around your area was "not realistic at all" to you, then it will be exactly the same in P3D with scenery imported from Google Earth.
Or maybe you didn't turn on the online data options properly in MSFS, and ended up flying over regular landclass scenery ? (which is what happens when Bing Maps data is disabled).
According to your comment, this is the most probable cause.


Well not exactly. MSFS used autogen to create 3d ground imagery and this is where it is not so accurate.

The forests are not accurate. there are woodlands where there are none in real and visa versa. Likewise with waters. Lakes where there are none and no water where there is some.
I can get screenshots but it's a bit of a PIA, especially if I start FS2020 and then again it wants to download a 2 hour file as is often the case.

Also the buildings outside cities are mainly just cubes and blocks like soviet blocks instead of the reality. Where there are beautiful country houses or castles there is just a soul less block. At least in GE and Bing some of these are modelled but not all by any means.

The upside of FS2020 scenery is that is is way better on average and does indeed represent a real to life from a distance. Close up sight seeing (ie 300 feet agl) in areas I live is just a waste of time.

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 1:22 pm
by Daube
cevans wrote:
MSFS ground is derived directly from Bing maps, so if the area around your area was "not realistic at all" to you, then it will be exactly the same in P3D with scenery imported from Google Earth.
Or maybe you didn't turn on the online data options properly in MSFS, and ended up flying over regular landclass scenery ? (which is what happens when Bing Maps data is disabled).
According to your comment, this is the most probable cause.


Well not exactly. MSFS used autogen to create 3d ground imagery and this is where it is not so accurate.

Ok, let's be precise here.
Autogen is autogen. It has nothing to do with "ground imagery". These are two different things.

The forests are not accurate. there are woodlands where there are none in real and visa versa. Likewise with waters. Lakes where there are none and no water where there is some.

Indeed there are quite a few inconsistencies in the position of the autogen. That doesn't really make it bad, and it's anyways miles ahead of anything we had in FSX or P3D.
XPlane11 may have the most precise autogen, but that's mostly thanks to addons like XEurope. And even with that, a lot of forest and individual trees are still missing or incorrectly placed, which kind of ruins the global scenery rendering even more than MSFS.
In the end, when I'm flying over my area in MSFS, it actually looks like my area, contrary to FSX, P3D or XPlane.
Let's not forget that MSFS has another strength, regarding the autogen trees: the colors of the trees are derived from the color of the ground underneath, which gives nice variations of their tint, leading to even closer result to reality, despite the lack of accuracy of the trees placement.

Also the buildings outside cities are mainly just cubes and blocks like soviet blocks instead of the reality. Where there are beautiful country houses or castles there is just a soul less block. At least in GE and Bing some of these are modelled but not all by any means.

The upside of FS2020 scenery is that is is way better on average and does indeed represent a real to life from a distance. Close up sight seeing (ie 300 feet agl) in areas I live is just a waste of time.

I'm not seeing that, at least not in the areas I'm flying. The trees around my areas are not too badly placed. Not 100% correct at all, of course, but any progress is welcome.
Globally, the autogen buildings are far from being precise in their choices of shapes, but at least they bring some variations based on the area, so that I'm not getting the same kind of houses and building when I'm flying in US, in France, in middle east or in asian countries. If you want 100% precise buildings, the only way is to create your own scenery extracted from Google Earth photogrammetry data, where it's available.

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:00 am
by cevans
A little example of the trees being just a little wrong in FS2020


Cork airport Google Earth comparison. FS2020 trees all aound the airport and runways but in real life there are none, or a few small areas of bushes

Image

Image

Google Earth

Image

Re: P3D 5.2 out now

PostPosted: Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:04 am
by Daube
You might want to do the following two things:
1- use Bing instead of Google, because as we all know, MSFS uses Bing maps and not Google maps
2- zoom out a little bit more, which would let you see there are actually some trees around

I made a comparison just like you. But instead of doing it from ground level, I did it airborne.
First picture is from Bing maps, showing all the small forests areas around the runway 34 (forests, trees alongside the roads, and trees between fields):

Image


Then this is what I see in MSFS:

Image

To me it looks pretty close to reality.
I certainly wouldn't say it's so far off I can't even use the sim, or anything like that :D