FSX DX10 comparison to P3D V3

Hi @ll,

for those interested in comparisons - as a follow-up to my recent flight in P3D V3 from LIEO to LGKR

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?294940-P3D-V3-CaptainSim-737

I repeated the same flight, but this time in FSX DX10. I tried to get the screenshots as close as possible, so if you open the other thread alongside this one, you can compare how these two sims fare visually.

Other addons used are the same as in the P3D flight, except for three things:

- instead of FTX Global&Vector&UTX I am using MegaSceneryEarth Italy photoreal

- LGKR, this is Aerosoft Corfu and not FlyTampa.

- the texture theme from Rex4 Textures is a different one

For some reason I have issues with a few of the effects in DX10, that is why the smoke trails from the engines are missing and the contrail looks whispy. Yes, I have Steve's fixer and know how to use it :)

part 2

Here I switched from photoreal to FTX Global + UTX just for kicks

And now for the interesting part: did I notice any differences in stability, fluidity or FPS? Err, no. Nothing obviuos. Nothing to make me drop FSX just yet. P3D felt better, but I can't put my finger on the "why". I didn't use the FPS counter all the time, but the numbers I saw when I did were pretty consistent and on the same level. My rig runs both sims on triple-full-HD in Surround mode with all the addons mentioned at 30 FPS on ground and 60 in the air (unlimited mode, hence the fluctuations - but with TrackIR, the higher the FPS are, the better the panning works, even if they drop down to half - which still is 30 FPS).

The differences obvious to me are:

- In P3D V3 it is very easy and fast to change the overall look with the HDR sliders, something you can not do just as easily in FSX

- P3D still has the old navaid database (I switched that one out in my FSX for a current replacement). This was rather irritating, as I had an old FSX flightplan, which, as a consequence had VORs on it that do not exist in P3D.

- And I experienced another problem from the past - at one point ATC decided I had to climb back to cruise, although I was already on approach. Haven't had that one in a while.

- The GUI is way better in P3D, possibly because P3D doesn't go to "real fullscreen", it always remains in a window, even if you can't see the border.

- (because of this) AntiAliasing is worse in P3D, even with near equal settings in sim and NVI I get shimmering and jaggies.

- The new folder architecture and config file system is very well thought out. Use this right and the next full reinstall is done in a breeze. Unfortunately even the addons claiming P3D V3 compatibility do not all make use of it (only the RealAir Duke did until now). So you have to move addons to folders outside of the sim manually if you want to make use of this.

Both of them look equally good!

Agreed. For me personally, the real difference is the amount of work necessary to make it that way. I have been tuning my FSX installation for two years on and off, until it reached its current state with high quality visuals matched by high performance.

In P3D V3 I just pushed all the sliders fully right after a fresh install (except car traffic and without any cloud or terrain shadows) - no further tweaking necessary.

Of course the hardware has already been sorted out while optimizing FSX, so P3D does not have to make compromises.

Your results surprised me a little. Like you I found the two be hugely similar & yes my machine is pretty tweaked, almost no changes needed to go from one to the other. And I didn't find a noticeable change in frame rates or load times. Both programs are on my SSD with all my scenery, no Windows there.

However the P3D always has an undesirable bluish tint, regardless of scenery I'm using. And yes I know there is a fix out there for that, no it didn't work, it made a very slight change only. I can tune the tint out by changing my monitors' settings but then when I go to any program but P3D I have to retune again. I've never had that issue with FSX or any other program, just P3D.

Hi Rupert,

strange that, I never noticed a blue tone all the way up from V2.0. I found the P3D versions before V3 to look awfully dark, but that has been remedied with the new HDR sliders. Could be the shaders, you can provoke such things with ENB or Shade in FSX too. But then changing some setting and deleting the shader files should fix it (?)

The screenies are unedited, they have just been cropped to a more forum-friendly format.