PMDG getting their act together

[fsaviator]

I also see that they say pricing will be out tomorrow (Tuesday)!!

Warren

[bussgarfield]

Indeed.
Could prove interesting. Either way, like most I guess, the credit card will be ready come the day of reckoning.

Gary

[Maurice]

but they have said that they want a perfect plane on the release day.

Phew.

Gary

Thanks Gary...I needed a good laugh  . There will be a frosty Sunday at high noon in the middle of July in the Kalahari desert before that happens. Just watch the forums on day 2 of the release and if nobody finds bugs, I'll be thrilled to eat my words 

Mauricer

[Joe Lavery]

Not long to wait Maurice, PMDG announced today that they intend to realease the 737NGX on 4th August.

Personally I'm looking forward to it. 

Joe.

[bussgarfield]

Time to get your hat and scarf packed then Maurice :-)

Time will tell - of that I have no doubt.

So, Joe. Will you be doing the review in PC Pilot in a few weeks time ?

Gary

[Joe Lavery]

Sadly Gary no, my colleague Jane Whittaker will be doing it.
He's had the beta for the past month and I have to admit is possibly better qualified to do it. As a former captain for Virgin Atlantic flying a 747 and a 737 jockey before that I think he outranks me somewhat. 

Ah well!

Cheers
Joe.

[bussgarfield]

O'h well, never mind.

I have been following Jane's updates and she does seem well versed with the aircraft and systems - no offence meant - so it will be interesting to read her article in the near future.

Gary

Edit - Jane - you refer to Jane as he. His/her posts on the forum are under JaneRachel I believe. It must be an age thing with me or have I missed the bus here !!!!

[Joe Lavery]

No Gary you're not late with the transport... Jane Rachael is a man... I can only say he must have had a very hard life in school. 

We've spoken at length about this anomaly and for many years he wrote under a pseudonym which I believe was John. But after some soul searching he decided to go with the name he was christened with. I think I might have changed my name permanently in his position.

However as you have gleaned he is a very talented writer and has an enormous amount of experience both as a pilot and in the world of computer multimedia.

Joe.

[bussgarfield]

Thanks for clearing that up Joe, I feel awful now

I look forward to his future updates and reviews.

Gary

[Joe Lavery]

Perfectly natural mistake Gary.

One of our readers who took exception to something he said in an article wrote "what does this woman know about aircraft anyway". The offending gentleman was told exactly what he knew about aircraft, for example 5,000 plus hours as P1 in a 747, how's that for a start 

Cheers
Joe.

[727737Nut]

You guys and many others have mentioned cost.  Think about this, what does SIM-A, ProjectMagenta, Prosim, cost?   This plane has all that built in already! Even if it is north of 100.00 it is the deal of the century with the replication you get of the real 737.

[DaveC]

Personally, I think it will be a bargan if it is priced at under $3k.  I don't even care.  I just want it.  I think Ivar said one time "if you can't afford the documentation, don't build a simpit".

Dave C.

[fordgt40]

I think that the $64k question here is will the new 737 allow us to easily access the internal offsets, unlike the FS9 version. I suspect yes, but only as an extra cost option at some time in the future. If we can easily interface our own hardware then it could rival existing avionics packages

Dependent on price, I may buy it anyway just for the cockpit detailing so I can use it for my build 

David

[XOrionFE]

The other thing besides access to the offsets that is HUGELY important to cockpit building is the ability to have networked PCs run the displays.  There is absolutely no way you can get the 4 MIP displays, 2 CDU Displays, along with a TH2GO 3 Screen Visual Display working off one computer on today's hardware and get decent framerates.    The displays would HAVE to be able to be drive from a seperate computer using an FSUIPC WideFS setup or similiar.     Then on top of that you need a way to control all from a central point.    That is a lot to ask for a desktop sim that was designed to be flown from a virtual cockpit on a single PC.     I highly doubt therefore it will replace Sim-A, PM, or Pro Sim.    That said, my wallet is out and ready to buy for my desktop sim!

We'll have to wait and see :-)

Scott

[Bob Reed]

Yes! I agree with Scott. This is the reason to go to multiple computers. 1 machine can not do it all and give acceptable frame rates in heavy scenery. Even with todays high end machines and video cards you need 1 with a very good video card and at least 1 or 2 more with with lesser video cards. Just my 2 cents.

[MLeavy737]

 Looks to me like its going to be a great desktop sim thats for sure. Im sure ill buy it just because. Prob just to see how accurate it really is. Definately gonna skip on the manuals though only thing i would be concerned with is the performance of the PC running this thing. Sounds like its going to be pretty taxing. This stuff needs to be split up on multiple computers, as others have said.
  Will be interesting to see how much PMDG allows builders to get to the internals..

I hope they actually make this thing fly like an airplane and not drive like a train in the air on tracks like all the other flight models usually do. Although i think thats a flight simulator issue.

Well C

Mike Leavy

[ivar hestnes]

I dont see any problems running NGX with all its displays on computer number 1, and the visuals with 3 projectors on a second computer via wideview, or using prepar3d for both computers.

Should be possible as it is possible with most other addons. Limitation as I would see it would be ligthing if this is done in "PMDG" software. We will see soon 

[ivar hestnes]

My theory...

If you run FSX and NGX with its displays on one computer with all the "FSX/prepar3d" settings as low as possible...
Then run three undocked views on a high performance computer with "Higher" FSX settings. I would guess that the "FSX/prepar3d server" can run on much lower settings compared to the "visuals-client" if the NGX computer is not used for visuals. I would assume that you also can have full realism settings on the visuals computer without strange effects also, as there is only one visuals computer...

Ivars theory only... 

[fsaviator]

Time will tell on all the connections...  don't misunderstand me, I fully plan to purchase PROSIM and all it's modules, regardless of how NGX works out. 

I've been playing with it here while on vacation and really like it.  Once I get home and go into relocate sim/rebuild mode, I'm going strictly PROSIM.  The time, effort, and service that Marty has put into PROSIM is worth every penny it will cost.  There is a lot of good software out there but very few developers match Marty's responsiveness to the user and the simming community.

Marty had nothing to do with that plug for his software, I just hope the PROSIM users don't forget the effort towards, and expanse of the "beta" he is providing when he is ready to go to market.

Warren

[727737Nut]

I have PM and Prosim, i now use only Prosim. Works great with my OC cards and SIOC.

[Joe Lavery]

Hi all, this thread is getting longer and longer.

I understand that PMDG have coded the NGX independently from FSX, so effectively the aircraft is running purely on their own code, FSX is in fact simply an external viewport. Which means they can make use of muti core processing etc. to drive the cockpit, the result being frame rates similar to the default Cessna but using the most complex aircraft ever designed for FSX.
So running with a single PC may be possible.

Joe.

[bussgarfield]

Hi all.

Told you that you might be surprised. Just this minute released on the PMDG forum are the pricing details as follows ;-

PMDG 737NGX PACKAGES:
=====================

PMDG 737NGX Base Package: $69.99* ETA: On/Before 04AUG11 Contains the 737-800/800WL, 737-900/900WL

PMDG 737NGX 6700 Package: $24.99 ETA: 4-8 weeks after base Contains the 737-600, 737-700/700WL

PMDG 737NGX ER Package: TBA ETA: 4-8 weeks after 6700 Contains the all 737ER variants.

PMDG 737NGX BBJ Package: TBA ETA: TBA Subject to interest Contains BBJ/BBJ2 variants.

PMDG 737NGX Mil Package: TBA ETA: TBA Subject to interest Contains the P-8 and "Wedgetail" variants.


Download size: Base Package is appx 540MB

Have a look here http://forum.avsim.net/topic/340470-pmdg-737ngx-pricing-and-availability/
to get the full run down of the release packages.

70 bucks - I can live with that.

Gary

[fsaviator]

That is pretty nice!

I'll take one of each

Warren

[bussgarfield]

Having gone through the forum comments about the pricing, PMDG have cleared up the situation with the asterisk against the $69.99. They have said that the base package (800/900 variants) price will be $69.99 up until the release of the 600/700 package and then it will increase to $74.99. So to get the lower price you have 4 - 8 weeks.

Gary

[jackpilot]

Five bucks...that's an incentive!!