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General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: pgde on April 08, 2020, 12:30:59 am

Title: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: pgde on April 08, 2020, 12:30:59 am
Hi Umberto:  Now that v5 has been announced, can you let us know what your plans are for updates, etc? I know you can't get specific but generally what can we expect?

Many thanks and stay well!

P.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 08, 2020, 12:01:57 pm
Thanks for asking, so I don't have to open a new post...

We have been working with P3D V5 for a while, in case someone might have wondered why the usually constant flow of updates seemed to have slowed down recently and, of course, we couldn't even tell, because an NDA was in place until yesterday.

In general, the sim offers a fairly good backward compatibility with add-ons, which means you can expect lots of stuff will work without too many issues, requiring minimal updates. Sure, we'll have to update all installers, but this is not really a problem, so you should expect to see updated installers for all FSDT products on release day, or very shortly after that.

And yes, every FSDT update for P3D5 will be FREE. Nothing to do, other than installing the updates, no reactivation needed, unless you also take the chance to reformat Windows in the process...

This would be a first step, to let users USE the products, without costing anything extra.

However, the change to DirectX 12 and other changes LM did to the basic rendering engine, have some impact on our products, which will require quite a bit of work on our side, which has been undergoing for some time, and is still is right now, because we are one of the few developers who used the sim PDK quite extensively and, in this specific case, we used DirectX 11 for the "Render To Texture" option, which allows us those basic features:

- Drawing text in the scenery using any Windows font you have installed. Some examples are the customizable Jetway numbers in GSX L2, the GSX Marshaller distance readout, the GSX Fuel counter display, the Active Info Panels and the AI displays in KORD V2, the ULD with their own individual ID codes.

- Drawing textures inside textures. This is likely the most important one, which allows you to customize ground operators and jetway logos in GSX by simply picking up an image, without having to configure a repaint. And, not using a repaint, meant we reduced the number of objects in GSX by about 7000 compared to the FSX version, thanks to this feature.

These two main features were made with DirectX 11, so they'll have to be rewritten for DirectX 12. And this is not easy as it sounds, since while DirectX 11 was a moderately/highly complex API, but still reasonably manageable to learn, DirectX 12 is a completely different kind of animal. Yes, the performance gains are REAL and not only that, they can get better and better with time, the better the code becomes in using them. This is no place to explain how DirectX 12 works but, in general, the main differences with DirectX 11 are:

- DirectX 12 is designed around multi-core CPUs, because it's way more efficient in using all cores to send more commands to the GPU at the same time, so you should finally see your precious GPU being used more, to do actual stuff, instead of waiting for the CPU to send data. This has increased complexity for developers, A LOT.

- DirectX 12 moves a lot of the responsibility in managing resources to the developer. With DX11, lots of memory management ( what goes in and out from RAM to VRAM ) happened inside DX11 itself or the video driver, nobody really knew and nobody had to care about it. Which means, if you had your settings too high, even more than your actual VRAM, the sim would just become slower and start to stutter, textures would start to appear slower than usual, but nothing worse than that could happen. With DX12, you have a budget, which the OS sets up for you ( I'd guess it's about 80% of your entire VRAM, since Windows still needs some for itself ), and you MUST stay within, and if your app needs more, you are supposed to manage memory in your own code. This clearly have a performance advantage, because none the developer of the graphic engine surely knows better when and how HIS app needs more memory, surely better than the video driver or the OS. This, again, causes an increase in complexity, and the potential for developers to mess up, but also to get better performances.

If you see uninformed people saying "DX12, no big deal, it looks the same to me" or "I have this DX12 game, it's just 5% increase in fps compare to DX11, so what ?", it's because DX12 is so complex compared to DX11, that even the high-end games still haven't used it as they could. Just to put things in perspective, I think it has been YEARS since X-Plane developers discussed moving to Vulkan, and it came out just now, and it's still in Beta, and it doesn't provide ANY visual enhancement, just an fps increase.

Am I talking about DX12 so much, because I'm going to say in order to get all these new features back, you'll have to eventually pay for an upgrade, when they'll be available ?

Absolutely not. As I've said before, All our updates for P3D V5 will be and will always be FREE, I only wanted to explain quite clearly that, even if the sim is very similar to V4 when backward compatibility is concerned, in OUR case, with some products, the amount of work required to make them compatible with all their features, is quite significant and, because DirectX access is something that can potentially crash the sim, we need to test it, to be sure it's safe.

All of this to explain that, while all our updates will be free, even in their final version, we'll likely proceed in steps, like this:

- On P3D V5 release date, or very shortly after that, we'll have updated installers, which will let you USE our products as soon as possible.

- The "Render to Texture" feature will likely be initially DISABLED. This basically means no Logo on Jetways or ground vehicles, they'll be generic with only their base colors. And no Font, so no distance readout for the Marshaller and no Fuel Counters. Other than that, the program will continue to work exactly as before. KORD V2 requires DirectX/RTT for the Info and AI panels, so those won't work either, initially.

In the following weeks, we'll work on restoring RTT using DX12 first, and provide small updates to sceneries that might require them. P3D V5 renders objects a bit differently than V4, especially in relationship with Transparency and Dynamic Lights, so we might have to adjust some textures for some of our products.

- One of the main difference in the V5 graphic engine, is that now almost everything is PBR, including the base Terrain/Landclass. This was a bit of a problem in V4 when doing airports, since we couldn't make a 100% PBR airport before, it was more like 90%, because for ground polygons, we generally use PBR only for Aprons, since the other background ( grass, snow, etc. ) had to offer a visual continuity with the surrounding scenery, which didn't use PBR so, it was as if they were living in different worlds, and if we did everything in PBR, it would look very weird, since the ground from the airport would react to the light in a different way than the ground outside.

In V5, the base Terrain is PBR as well, which means it looks better over different times of the day, it's more integrated with the sky lighting, so now it's possible to make an airport 100% PBR and wouldn't stick out so badly as it would have in V4.

We already have an update ready for KORD V2, which will be released in the next weeks, and we'll release a similar one for LFSB. These are our two "90% PBR" products that requires it, older sceneries that ran in FSX too are less affected, since they weren't using PBR.

We plan to continue to offer updates in steps, when issues are found, and when the inevitable Hotfixes for the sim will come out, another area that might require some work are Dynamic Lights over PBR textures, we already updated most of them for KORD V2 and LFSB, but it's still something that might change, even this week of final testing.

Again, all of this will continue to be free for the whole P3D V5 lifetime.

And yes, we are also working in parallel to a big feature in GSX L2 that many users asked for...
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: rick66 on April 08, 2020, 12:16:50 pm
Fantastic news. Thank you very much.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Paulo92 on April 08, 2020, 12:21:17 pm
Many thanks for the update !

And yes, we are also working in parallel to a big feature in GSX L2 that many users asked for...

What could it be ?  ;D ???
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Ifikratis on April 08, 2020, 01:04:19 pm
Amazing news and super amazing explanation! Thank you so much Umberto for taking the time to give us details about what DX12 means for the sim and sceneries.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: pgde on April 08, 2020, 01:16:45 pm
Thanks Umberto for the reply to my post!!!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Beat578 on April 08, 2020, 01:45:03 pm
Oh, finally the people walking to the plane from the gate are coming? :)
Thanks umberto, great news.
Stay safe and have a great Easterbreak!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: c912039 on April 08, 2020, 02:09:53 pm
Will we be able to have P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 installed side by side and have GSX/GSXL2 work with both?

If so, will GSX be able to turn fn and on features automatically, depending on which P3D is running? (like interim disabling render to texture functionality with DX12/P3Dv5)
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 08, 2020, 02:14:52 pm
Will we be able to have P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 installed side by side and have GSX/GSXL2 work with both?

Sure, just as you were able to install GSX in FSX and P3D 1, 2, 3 and 4, side-by-side.

Quote
If so, will GSX be able to turn fn and on features automatically, depending on which P3D is running? (like interim disabling render to texture functionality with DX12/P3Dv5)

Of course.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: ols500 on April 08, 2020, 02:37:58 pm
Will the FPS hit be gone from when people load onto the plane with GSX in DX12 ? It normally goes from like 35-25fps when all those models of people render in.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: sbucknerbcs on April 08, 2020, 04:10:05 pm
Is there any way to produce an Update to KMDW?






Thank You,


Steve
sbucknerbcs@yahoo.com
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 08, 2020, 04:17:36 pm
Is there any way to produce an Update to KMDW?

We might first have to do the scenery, before being able to do an update...
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: c-mattio on April 08, 2020, 04:58:55 pm
Amazing news, really looking forward to trying out all your products in P3D v5 - the video from Rob Ainscough looked incredible.

From the changelog:

"Added sloped runway support including AI takeoff and landing capabilities."

Is this something you'll be adding to existing airports of is it too much additional work?

Thanks,

Matt
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 08, 2020, 06:39:20 pm
Is this something you'll be adding to existing airports of is it too much additional work?

When it makes sense, meaning if the airport runway slope is significant. There's an fps cost to it, we haven't really tried, but the V5 SDK is quite clear about this: only use if really required, because it comes with a cost in performance.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: mark767 on April 08, 2020, 07:24:57 pm

Great support from FSDT, thank you.

Just out of interest, what is the impact for you on the addition of sloped runways to P3D v5.  Will these be available with your updated product?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Doratown on April 08, 2020, 08:26:37 pm
Although I'm not going for v5, but thank you. since FSX time, you never charged your customer for upgrading.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 08, 2020, 11:06:08 pm
Just out of interest, what is the impact for you on the addition of sloped runways to P3D v5.  Will these be available with your updated product?

I think I already replied to both questions in my previous post:

Quote
When it makes sense, meaning if the airport runway slope is significant. There's an fps cost to it, we haven't really tried, but the V5 SDK is quite clear about this: only use if really required, because it comes with a cost in performance.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: airbadger on April 08, 2020, 11:52:24 pm
Have you noticed if V5 is better at loading SimObjects in the background to prevent stutters, e.g. loading GSX jetways when on final approach?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: GodAtum on April 09, 2020, 09:24:01 am
Thank you for the update, that's invaluable info for us.

Will you be updating your older products like JFK, KLAS and SFO?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: kihew on April 09, 2020, 11:23:31 am
Most interesting read, thanks for this inside perspective.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Pit on April 10, 2020, 12:27:16 pm
THANKS for the detailed infos abour P3DV5 and your support UMBERTO!  :)
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: jnel492002@yahoo.com on April 12, 2020, 04:29:39 am
Thank You!!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 13, 2020, 03:48:48 pm
Have you noticed if V5 is better at loading SimObjects in the background to prevent stutters, e.g. loading GSX jetways when on final approach?

Not really but, of course, it won't affect just GSX, but every other scenery out there that use Simconnect to create objects, for example everything that use SODE so, while years ago we were the only scenery developers using Simconnect to create objects, nowadays lots of scenery use similar methods, so we can only hope LM will eventually start to look into this, for a future upgrade.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: fire508 on April 15, 2020, 12:42:02 am


We already have an update ready for KORD V2, which will be released in the next weeks, and we'll release a similar one for LFSB. These are our two "90% PBR" products that requires it, older sceneries that ran in FSX too are less affected, since they weren't using PBR.



So the older sceneries (IAH, LAX, MEM, etc) will have new installers before/after ORD, need to be redone completely before released to v5, or are not affected by v5 and can be installed now?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 15, 2020, 02:44:55 am
All installers has been updated now.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: cteixeira on April 15, 2020, 03:50:41 pm
… And yes, we are also working in parallel to a big feature in GSX L2 that many users asked for...

Didn’t have the opportunity to update, so, can someone please comment on this? :-\
Thanks
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 15, 2020, 05:57:06 pm
Didn’t have the opportunity to update, so, can someone please comment on this?

It's not already included in the latest update, which only features P3D V5 compatibility. We are still working on it. It's not a big secret: it's jetways working for AI, which is one of the most wanted features.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: mcdonoughdr on April 15, 2020, 07:40:43 pm
Someone in an update, we should get the text and logo's back with a simple live update?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on April 16, 2020, 01:15:04 pm
Someone in an update, we should get the text and logo's back with a simple live update?

Yes, of course it will be a Live Update, but we can't say right now how long it will take.

We'll have to convert all our Render to Texture code from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12, which is not the easiest thing, especially because Microsoft removed the integration with DirectDraw from DirectX 12, which is what allowed Font rendering, so we would have to use a very complex technique of inter-operating DirectX 11 and 12.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: kconlon on April 16, 2020, 01:47:17 pm
I recently upgraded to v5 and downloaded and installed the latest FSDT installers.  When I go into Add-On>Addon Manager to register them the serial number for the purchase is there but the status still reads Product Installed, in TRIAL Mode.  Even after i hit the Register button.  
How can I activate?


***** UPDATE ******
After clicking the registration button and re-starting v5 the addon seem to be registered.



Thanks
Kevin
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: mcdonoughdr on May 18, 2020, 08:33:27 pm
Any update on the text to render feature of GSX?
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on May 20, 2020, 01:00:01 pm
Any update on the text to render feature of GSX?

As already discussed here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,23644.msg157728.html#msg157728

At this time, we don't know exactly when we can add this, because there are still some stability issues in V5 that makes the Render To Texture function not fully usable yet, it will likely require another Hotfix from LM first.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: fatback on May 24, 2020, 09:25:58 pm
Thx for the great support! Reminds me why I have most of your airports.  ;D
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Airbus_Fan on August 12, 2020, 07:31:10 pm
Any update on the text to render feature of GSX?

As already discussed here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,23644.msg157728.html#msg157728

At this time, we don't know exactly when we can add this, because there are still some stability issues in V5 that makes the Render To Texture function not fully usable yet, it will likely require another Hotfix from LM first.

Hello
What about the logo problem in P3D V5
Are there any news when it works again ???
Because until now it still doesn't work for me.

Best Regards
Torsten
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Captain Kevin on August 12, 2020, 09:21:00 pm
Hello
What about the logo problem in P3D V5
Are there any news when it works again ???
Because until now it still doesn't work for me.
Hasn't changed. If anything, this was posted yesterday.

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,24064.msg159999.html#msg159999
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: micstatic on September 09, 2020, 03:33:00 pm
I may have missed it.  So sorry in advance.  I was just wondering if you guys will still be supporting/updating P3DV5 or if you will shift all focus to MSFS?  thanks.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on September 09, 2020, 10:44:40 pm
I may have missed it.  So sorry in advance.  I was just wondering if you guys will still be supporting/updating P3DV5 or if you will shift all focus to MSFS?  thanks.

Even if most of our time right now is focused on bringing our products to MSFS, we'll surely continue to support P3D as well. In fact, some things we had to do to support MSFS, will have a benefit for P3D users too.

For example, we'll release two separate new 64 bit versions of our Couatl interpreter, one for MSFS and another one for P3D4/5. This should make it more reliable and less dependent on issues on the user system, since they won't depend on old version of Simconnect and/or old version of the VC++ runtimes, as the FSX version did. Also, the way GSX works, which is a Python program that runs entirely external to the sim, means that every new line of code we'll add to add new features, behaviors and bugfix, will make it to P3D as well, since there's no difference whatsoever in the program logic.

The real problem is DX12 here. There are other developers that used DX11 in P3D4 and ported their code to DX12, and they are having lots of issues with crashes and DGXI errors right now, and DX12 is so complex to use, that is not very easy to even tell if the problem is our fault, or something in the sim.

That's why we removed everything related to DX rendering for P3D5, to be sure the crashes users are seeing are not our fault, and we'll look again into it when we'll be sure the simulator itself will be rock-solid.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: wdylm on September 11, 2020, 07:04:29 am
Hi, is it still possible for v5 to support RTT in predictable time? Because of long way to go for MSFS2020, I will still insist on p3dv5 for a long time. So it's a big pity if i cannot customize my own logo texture, thanks
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on September 11, 2020, 12:03:31 pm
Hi, is it still possible for v5 to support RTT in predictable time? Because of long way to go for MSFS2020, I will still insist on p3dv5 for a long time. So it's a big pity if i cannot customize my own logo texture, thanks

We don't have an exact timeline for this. It first require some V5 update we can be absolutely sure it's rock solid when VRAM handling is concerned. Then, when this will be out, we can start working on it.

There are a couple of developers that already support DX12, one of them is TFDi with their RealLight/TrueGlass products, and I see they have lots of issues with it with crashes and VRAM OOMs, so we want to play safe this time.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: wdylm on September 11, 2020, 12:20:51 pm
Hi, is it still possible for v5 to support RTT in predictable time? Because of long way to go for MSFS2020, I will still insist on p3dv5 for a long time. So it's a big pity if i cannot customize my own logo texture, thanks

We don't have an exact timeline for this. It first require some V5 update we can be absolutely sure it's rock solid when VRAM handling is concerned. Then, when this will be out, we can start working on it.

There are a couple of developers that already support DX12, one of them is TFDi with their RealLight/TrueGlass products, and I see they have lots of issues with it with crashes and VRAM OOMs, so we want to play safe this time.
thanks for your greate job!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Llondon on September 27, 2020, 08:58:16 pm
Is there an upcoming update regarding logos, gate numbers, fuel read outs fo P3dV5? My version of P3dV5 has been operating stable for several months.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on September 30, 2020, 03:40:59 am
Is there an upcoming update regarding logos, gate numbers, fuel read outs fo P3dV5?

We don't have any news about it.

Quote
My version of P3dV5 has been operating stable for several months.

That's because we haven't added DX12 yet and, if you read the explanations why we haven't, it was to prevent people to thing GSX made the sim unstable.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: tkemp66 on October 08, 2020, 08:07:24 pm
I am about to uninstall P3dv4.5 and install P3dv5. Should I uninstall all my FSDT product as well and reinstall them for P3dv5 or is there an easier way?

Troy
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Captain Kevin on October 09, 2020, 08:12:15 am
I am about to uninstall P3dv4.5 and install P3dv5. Should I uninstall all my FSDT product as well and reinstall them for P3dv5 or is there an easier way?
That would be the best way to do it.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: tkemp66 on October 09, 2020, 10:04:34 pm
Thank you!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Raphael on December 03, 2020, 12:33:55 am
I just wanted to say thanks for supporting the fscommunity...   Happy Updating!  8)
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Chuck Dreier on August 19, 2021, 02:30:03 pm
I realize this is a VERY OLD thread but is there any progress on getting logos in GSX using P3Dv5.2?  Thank you!
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on August 20, 2021, 10:23:27 am
I realize this is a VERY OLD thread but is there any progress on getting logos in GSX using P3Dv5.2?  Thank you!

We are working on it.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: fowler on December 09, 2021, 04:59:33 am
Just want to say big thanks to Umberto. You have been there in the flight sim business since a long time and you have proven your dedication to your work numerous time. Your business ethic is way above most other players out there. You have the patience of a saint when it comes to support, and for all these reasons I really find I'm blessed as a customer to have you. Keep up the good work Umberto, and yes it is a very nice gesture to offer free upgrade to P3D5 for most of your products. Best Regards. A happy customer.
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: virtuali on December 09, 2021, 09:59:26 am
Thank you very much for you comments. Coming next February, GSX will celebrate 10 years of free updates...
Title: Re: P3D v5 Announced
Post by: Andreasmb on December 15, 2021, 01:33:04 pm
Just want to say big thanks to Umberto. You have been there in the flight sim business since a long time and you have proven your dedication to your work numerous time. Your business ethic is way above most other players out there. You have the patience of a saint when it comes to support, and for all these reasons I really find I'm blessed as a customer to have you. Keep up the good work Umberto, and yes it is a very nice gesture to offer free upgrade to P3D5 for most of your products. Best Regards. A happy customer.

Dear Umberto,
somethimes a message like the one from fowler lets on stop for a moment in this rushy world, rare moment, but so good:
Yes, Umberto,
I wish to fully chime in in thanking you for your great products and professional support.
Cannot put it better than fowler did, from his very 1st to his last word of above message.
Andreas