FSX to Prepar3D v4

After many years as FSX Simmer i weighing up the pro's and con's of the move over to Prepar3D v4

The main reason for the possible move is to take advantage of the 64bit Architecture of P3d compared too FSX's limitation of only using 4gb of memory and the OOM usage

My rig is

Core i7 3820 3.60GHz Sandybridge - E overclocked to 4.20GHz

16GB (4x4GB) 2133MHz C11 DDR3 Quad Channel Kit

ATI radeon 6850ICEq 1gb gfx card

running siatek panels, saitek throttle quadrants , thrustmaster mfd panels also an X55 Hotas.

The investemt ive put into FSX over the last 8 years is alot of paid software including

Orbx Global & Vector and mutilple landclasses with orbx airports (circa£400)

Aircraft - carenado (c£150), Milviz (c£100) A2A(£200) plus misc other just flight etc c£250

So investment in software is around £1,000

So my question is any of this exsting fsx software compataible within P3d v4 or parts? Or is it the case im going to have to repurchase a whole new software suite to bring it up to my current requirements usable for P3dv4.

Im a keen user of Airhauler 2 , being my main go to sotware for flight enjoyment

any advice much appreciated. Im hoping for some good news but 'prepared' for the bad.

Some is, some isn't.

Orbx is a free upgrade, but not easy (Tip: Do not delete FSX until you've migrated the scenery over)

Carenado aircraft in many cases have been ported to P3Dv4.x

A2a and Milviz are separate purchases

Most of the hardware will work just fine.

But realistically your system is not really P3D-ready. You need:

More RAM

A better GPU with a LOT more VRAM

The right OS - Win 10 64-bit

thanks for the reply

I was intending to upgarde RAM to 4 x 8gb sticks / 3 x 16gb sticks, instead of the 4 x 4gb i have in there at present.

GFX card. .was going to upgrade to 2gb ATi card, advice would be wecome as to which card.

Id ideally like to stay on Win7 OS due to other programes i run . .problem p3d with with win7

No problem with Win 7 as long as it's 64-bit.

Go for as much RAM as you can afford - P3D with a few addons can easily top 10+ gig use.

No way will a a 2gig card be optimal for P3D for the same reason as above - you want 4gig as a minimum; preferably as much as you can get to work with that mobo (but not SLI/Crossfire). I see a `sweet spot` at about 6-8gig of onboard VRAM. Budget accordingly.

You also will want a large capacity SSD both for the OS and for the sim - Tip: Do NOT try and load the sim on anything other than an SSD - as you add aftermarket stuff the load time will get exponentially longer. There are easy methods to install addons (and especially large scenery files) outside of the main sim folder so they can be located a a large local hard drive.

Lots of people are running P3D with 16Gb of RAM. That should not be a problem. I run P3D with lots of addons and it never comes close to 16

Agree with Mallcott, your GPU needs 4Gb. If you are using a 4K display you will need more.

An SSD is nice to have, otherwise you just need to be a little bit more patient to start things up.

All depends on your budget :)

SSD is probably the single best upgrade you can get for your PC overall, not just for P3D. It will transform your PC without doing anything else! Put operating system and programs on SSD, data on hard disk (documents, photos, backups etc)

Agree about GPU, minimum 4Gb, more if you run resolutions higher than 1440p

I have Win7 64-bit and P3D4 runs perfectly. I prefer to stay with Win7 due to legacy software issues and several annoyances with Win10 which are non-existent in Win7.

16GB memory is sufficient. More than that may only improve things marginally, if at all, and you get diminishing returns. Several gaming benchmarks also showed that memory speed is inconsequential, so don't go for fast and expensive, thinking that it will boost performance, because you won't even notice it.

Like the Captain, I am thinking of getting P3D also.

But I do have a couple of questions in that regard:

Can FSX and P3D co-exist on the same system without too much trouble?

And, since I have Win 10 Home Single-language 64-bit now, which can only use up to 16 GB of RAM, I would maybe like to upgrade to Win 10 Professional to be able to use more RAM. But will that upgrade entail a full reinstall of Windows?

Thanks for any help -

Jorgen

And, since I have Win 10 Home Single-language 64-bit now, which can only use up to 16 GB of RAM, I would maybe like to upgrade to Win 10 Professional to be able to use more RAM. But will that upgrade entail a full reinstall of Windows?

 

Thanks for any help -

 

Jorgen

You don't need to reinstall to upgrade to Pro.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12384/windows-10-upgrading-home-to-pro

And FSX and P3D can exist just fine on the same system. In fact different versions of P3D ( v3, v4) can exist on the same system with no issues.

The difficulties, if any, usually arise when one tries to use the same add on in both sims without having a dedicated installer for each. But if the add on you use has an installer for FSX and P3D you are good to go.

Vic

Thanks for the replies, guys. That settles my biggest issues.

Jorgen

So today I took the plunge and bought, downloaded and installed P3D v. 4.1 - or at least it said 4.1. Now I have a couple more questions:

1. How does one see that it really is 4.1

2. How does one update, if necessary

3. Is there a tweaking guide out there on the lines of Kosta's guide for FSX

Thanks in advance -

Jorgen

I have found a tuning guide that gave me some tips.

New question:

From Googling installation of scenery, it seems that if the scenery should work with P3D, but is installed somewhere in the depths of FSX, I should be able to use it in P3D without reinstalling.

Is that assumption on my part correct?

Thanks -

Jorgen

Partially.

If the scenery uses elements that are no longer recognized by the new 64-bit architecture the scenery will not work. If the scenery uses library objects that are not installed and appropriate for P3D, the scenery will not work.

Secondly, if the scenery is optimised for FSX that really doesn't mean it is optimised for P3D.

ALWAYS look for P3Dv4.x-updated scenery.

You need to be very, very cautious shovelling FSX stuff into P3D, but technically, it is easier to do so than in Microsoft versions of old. YOu can test by simply adding .xml links, but you need to research how to do that as if you get it wrong it's curtains for your installation.

That said, the installation is far quicker to updates, repair and reinstall than in any version of FSX.

I found out the assumption was correct, it works very much like Scenery Configuration Editor in FSX.

Jorgen