Lockheed Martin Prepar3d. A Cockpit Builders Perspective.

[Kennair]

I recently loaded LM's Prepar3d and thought I'd share some initial findings.  Firstly let me say that my investigations are focused solely on its application within a home cockpit, therefore I won't be looking at things like gauge design, panels, aircraft texture mapping etc. as these aren't seen nor taken into account in a full hardware cockpit.  I will be looking at network systems integration, FS scenery and aircraft model compatibility as well as general performance compared to FSX.

Prepar3d is available from Lockheed Martin's website HERE and requires a full purchase at $499 USD or for $9.95 per month you can join the developer network and get 2 licensed copies for testing and evaluation (which is what I did).  Download is a meager 10Gb! so go make a few cups of tea while you wait, better still go to bed.  A download manager is highly recommended in case it fails mid-stream.  Full instructions for unzipping, installing and activating are contained in a pdf from the main download section and is pretty straight forward.

I install FS on a separate drive, not in the recommended "Program Files" directory.  There's way too much security crap that MS associate with files and folders in this directory and you can simplify lots of sharing and access options if you do this.  Mine is located in "F:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\" so I also installed Prepar3d in "F:\Lockheed Martin\".  To avoid any possible complications you must follow the installation instructions fairly closely which mainly encompasses running the install and first program launch as an Administrator.  Upon purchase or becoming a developer you will receive a license key which you need to use to activate the program.  It has no limited time or function option so you must activate in order to get to see anything at all, hence the developer system which acts as a cheap way to evaluate the program.  If all is well, as it was for me, you will get a P3D icon on your desktop along with a Learning Centre icon which has some helpful tips on tweaking your system for P3D and other general use information.

LM made a lot of cosmetic changes to the user interface, which I'm not really convinced was worth it, but essentially its got the same information and facilities you are familiar with.  They also added "Bathymetry" which is underwater textures (not really applicable to us unless you want realistic ditching!) and multichannel support, which is highly applicable to cockpit builders using a multi-projector view setup, but at a price.  In order to use this you will need a separate PC for each projector plus one for a supervisor, therefore a 3 projector setup will require 4 PC's.  Added to that you will need a licensed copy of P3D on each of the 4 PC's!  A big investment, but you won't need applications like Wideview.  It also has in-built support for image warping software from Scalable Displays.  Other changes and additions have also been made, and these can be researched on their website.  This of course is in the first release of the application, but a next release is imminent as I'm to understand which addresses some bugs and adds further enhancements.

So what works:

I'm happy to say most addons.  As P3D isn't yet supported by most FS addons you will need to have either FSX already loaded on your system or have a dummy directory in order to fool them that FSX exists.  Some addon software needs to see FSX in order to install.  One exception to this lack of in-built support I'm happy to say is Pete Dowson's FSUIPC.  This has been P3D aware since v4.638 and will look for FSX, ESP & P3D on install.

Assuming you have FSX already installed you can get your addon scenery to run by simply activating them in the P3D Scenery Addon menu, no need to re-install them into P3D.  The only one I had issues with is Fly Tampa Boston which resulted in large areas of black in the sky but this may just need some more tweaking.  Others listed below worked fine upon activation in the scenery list:

• Aerosoft Heathrow
• Aerosoft Paris Charles Degaulle
• Aerosoft Innsbruck
• Fly Tampa Kai Tak
• Fly Tampa St. Maarten
• Frank Dainese Everest, Holger Sandmann mesh and textures for Everest
• FS Genesis Mesh

I use the Posky 777 model and this works fine with no difference from FSX.  Due to the fact that FSUIPC and therefore WideFS works fine, other network systems such as Sim-Avionics & REX2 work as well.  In REX you can point to the Prepar3d directory and clouds and textures will load correctly.

The only addon I had a little trouble with is Flight1's Ultimate Traffic 2.  This won't load into anything other than FSX and must see a valid fsx.exe file.  There is a way around it however by copying over some UT2 directory files and adding a modified copy of an xml file into the corresponding P3D directory.  I'm not sure how this effects any licensing issues with any of these addons but I'm sure that will become clear as Prepar3d becomes more prevalent.  Attached is a screenshot at Heathrow with REX clouds and UT2 traffic.

What about performance:

Well this is where I haven't been too impressed.  Performance seems a little down on my FSX install and I've tried to replicate most of my configs over to P3D in order to do a direct comparison.  LM state they have made some changes to the graphic engine and modified shader support and what I see is frame rate numbers down on my FSX version however this doesn't necessarily translate to a slower system.  It seems that scenery generation is implemented a little differently resulting in better performance at lower numbers, however overall it appears it's a poorer performer than FSX.  The good news is there is an update in the pipeline which promises better performance.  You won't hear that about FSX!

Obviously this is just my initial findings and isn't a comprehensive expose of P3D but I thought it would be useful to other simmers eagerly waiting for news of a supported FS program and what it might offer over our current installs.  Overall I don't see much to rave about with P3D.... yet!  The fact that it is fully supported by such a reputable real-world aircraft developer is highly promising so I will be very interested to see the next release and what that offers over this initial release.  I will certainly keep you posted with a further review.  I would also welcome any other P3D user to add to this post with their findings. 

Next I will be testing it on our 3 projector wraparound system running Sol7 for which I'll post finding in the near future.

Ken.

[Bob Reed]

Ok, here is a question. I see references made to FS. What is this software?

[Emesis]

Ken,

Very interesting! Thanks a ton for taking the time and detailing this software. Always nice to see some new flight sim tech thrown into the mix.
I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to your next review, I know I will.
Any chance of any future videos?

Cheers

[Kennair]

Ok, here is a question. I see references made to FS. What is this software?

Bob the software is Microsoft ESP, which was the commercial arm of FSX back when it was first released.  Primarily the same code but was aimed at commercial entities rather than gamers.  I don't know what happened to it in this sphere nor how successful they were at marketing it however last year Lockheed Martin purchased the core code and began redeveloping it with the intention to provide a cost effective training platform for military and civilian flight and underwater training.  Due to its FSX heritage they also decided to maintain compatibility with FSX addon software such as scenery, aircraft and other applications such as FSUIPC.  So essentially its MS FSX but with the promise of real development, hence my interest.

As for videos and other screen shots, there's really nothing different to see from FSX, it's exactly the same, however should it be particularly relevant I can certainly provide one.

Cheers,

Ken.

Ken.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for the explanation Ken!

[ETomlin]

Ken

Thank you very much. The one thing I was hoping to learn from this was a major performance fix, but as you stated that's not the case YET. I have to believe that they may make it better. However, since it is basically the same engine from FSX, then who knows how much they can tweak it. As you said, one thing's for sure: they are working in the code and MS is not doing the same for FSX. Wait, yes they are. It's called  Flight. 

Appreciate your insight. I'm guessing that it will likely work on matrox TH2Go as well? Sounds like it. Also, to clarify- Sounds like you can either pay a one time fee of $499 or the $9.99 per month, correct?

[Kennair]

Hi Eric, yes you are correct on all fronts although I haven't tested it via a TH2GO but I see no problem.  As you say it is just FSX.  The screenshot I included was taken via 3 screens connected to an ATI Eyefinity 5870 GPU, no need for a TH2GO with this card.  And yes you can pay an upfront fee of $499 or join the developer network (yes anyone can join) for $9.95 per month and cancel at any time (I assume you would then have to delete your copy otherwise you'd be in breach).

I too wait in eagerness for MS Flight as this promises a complete new engine based on current day graphics cards and hardware systems.  FSX, ESP and therefore P3D is still hampered by outdated core components and judging by LM's forums will take a major overhaul and rewrite to address some of these.  Rewriting for DX11 compatibility for instance would essentially require a whole new sim but that's not to say they aren't looking at it.  At least there's something on the horizon and possibly two.  Exciting stuff!

Ken.

[Bob Reed]

Not to hijack here but, has someone heard that Flight will give the builder access to it's inner workings like FS does or are we just assuming here. My understanding is it would not work like FS for builders.

[Kennair]

Not to hijack here but, has someone heard that Flight will give the builder access to it's inner workings like FS does or are we just assuming here. My understanding is it would not work like FS for builders.

Hi Bob,  hijack away, its all relevant.  Not enough known about Flight as yet to make any judgments or assumptions but here is an excerpt from their news page addressing a similar concern:

• We want to directly address the concern that by dropping the "Simulator" from the name, we're dumbing down the experience. Quite the contrary! We've developed on the "simulation" aspect for many years and have no intention of losing that legacy. What we're doing now is improving the total experience while building on this legacy, enhancing the enjoyment for all who share a passion for flight.

They also mention that they'll be improving the performance on today's hardware, which I think you'll agree will  be welcome news to us all who struggle with the limitations of FSX currently.  I would also hope that Pete Dowson was in on the development so that FSUIPC is fully supported.  It that is so then builders can breath a sigh of relief, if not we may be in trouble.

Ken.

[Kennair]

A further update to my thread.  I loaded up Prepar3D on the main sim today and am happy to say it works better than expected.  Sol7 was more than happy with it as was nvidiaInspector.  Certainly better performance than it did at home (which has the same PC but not the same video card).  Framerates were as good as FSX so no big change there but water texture is much nicer.  P3D like FSX is much more successfull using an nVidia card.  My home PC uses an ATI 5870 but the other sim uses a GT480X and once its tweaked with nvidiaInspector it performs very well.  Also adding the same cfg tweaks as FSX helps enormously (AffinityMask & Bufferpools).

Looking good.

Ken.