Prepar3D Academic Owners :

[T Square]

I am not a developer and don't have $200.00 in cash to play with so that would put me in the price range of the Prepar3D Academic option. My question is this how is it, as far as adding options, aircraft, scenery etc; as compared to FSX ? When I see the title "Academic" the first thing that comes to mind is, school such as "Man's first experince in flight was basicly falling straight down and uncontrolled, from a great flight." (Being a bit sarcastic). If I saved my lunch money (no beer for a year or so) and pleaded on my bad knee humbling myself before my lovely wife I might come up with $50.00 or so bucks. However before I sink to this degrading level I want to know, is it worth it. Will it make me want to chuck FS9 and get out my FSX stuff again ? Is it what FSX should have been, or could have been ?

[Flyingsub]

I am not a developer and don't have $200.00 in cash to play with so that would put me in the price range of the Prepar3D Academic option. My question is this how is it, as far as adding options, aircraft, scenery etc; as compared to FSX ? When I see the title "Academic" the first thing that comes to mind is, school such as "Man's first experince in flight was basicly falling straight down and uncontrolled, from a great flight." (Being a bit sarcastic). If I saved my lunch money (no beer for a year or so) and pleaded on my bad knee humbling myself before my lovely wife I might come up with $50.00 or so bucks. However before I sink to this degrading level I want to know, is it worth it. Will it make me want to chuck FS9 and get out my FSX stuff again ? Is it what FSX should have been, or could have been ?

Go for it,

I haven't even looked at FSX since I installed the academic version. P3D is basically FSX which has been tweaked and tuned and therefore runs better.

I have 100s of add ons and haven't yet found one that doesn't work well with P3D. Performance is smooth and loading times are (generally) quicker than FSX. It also looks great, especially the water.

[Naismith]

I'd wait for at least the next patch to see if they have ironed out a number of issues. I got so fed up with the quirky ATC menu and the inability of it to quickly ALT SPace to a window and back again quickly amongst a number of other issues that I haven't touched it in weeks. Another annoyance is the complete lack of a start up screen, you go straight into a flight. There are other things all minor and on their own too insignificant to point out but cumulatively they add up to an annoyance. That said it looks good for the future and LM seem dedicated to it's development further.

[VCN-1]

I am very pleased with the results I have obtained with P3D.

I no longer use FSX.

There are a few addons I have not been successful in getting to work in P3D such as the VRS F-18 and Shade.
Those are not deal breakers to me.

VCN-1

[Lionheart]

I tried it and loved it. I actually left FS9 completely because of this. I hate the quirks of FSX and never got into it. With P3, I have smooth flights, no stuttering, blinking, hopping, etc... and, I have traffic on the ground, in the air, clouds on, etc, etc.

Notes to think about; differences over FSX.....
* It does not have a opening screen, no setup. You must setup in a default flight.
* You do not have 'active weather'.
* The aircraft selection center is different then FSX. Alot of the menus and things are different, but you can tell its based on FSX. The P3 version is faster, quicker.



Bill

[T Square]

Lionheart

* You do not have 'active weather'.

When you say it has no "active weather" would the latest version of Active Sky for FSX or whatever the FSX version is now called provide "active weather" or is it not compatable ? To have a person with your knowledge and expertise recommend this program just about seals the deal. Well this means I'll have to pull out all the stops, there are 2 inch thick Sirloins in the back of the frig that I have been hoarding for just such occasions along with a bottle of local wine she likes, the problem with the wife is after 39 years of marriage it's extremely difficult to get one over on her, but that's why I luv her so, it's the challenge !

[kjb]

I don't have a weather add-on, but I've heard they do work with P3D.

[Penzoil3]

The new REX Essentials works with Prepar 3D quite well, and the weather engine is great!
Sue

[Lionheart]

Yep. Sue is right. The weather programs work fine in P3.

[vgbaron]

And the latest AS2012 weather engine and textures work perfectly also!

I run both P3D and FSX on two different high end systems and I find myself flying P3D more and more. Go for it!

Vic

[tommieboy]

I kept getting memory errors with the Academic version; FSX runs just fine. I have since removed it from my computer and will wait until the next release of Prepar3D to give it another go. What did bother me from the get go with Prepar3D was that the pull-down menu interface was very low resolution as compared to my FSX install. If there was a solution to that issue, I never found it.

Is it what FSX should have been, or could have been ?

Prepar3D is not even close to what FSX could have been; I believe for the most part the graphics are still CPU bound. If you have a robust computer system, this may not be such a big deal. My older Win XP system (as noted in my signature) will need to be updated when the newer version of Prepar3D is released. But I'm ready for an upgraded computer system in any case; I have been wanting to upgrade to Windows 7 (64 bit) for some time now, but still need some time to pull together the required funds to upgrade the computer.


Tommy

[billythe]

(The new REX Essentials works with Prepar 3D)i have the first rex version and works too...only the waves and sea i didn't like on prepar3d but with rex is all fun now. What could be really interesting it could be exploring the underwater possibilities and missions.

[T Square]

Prepar3D is not even close to what FSX could have been; I believe for the most part the graphics are still CPU bound. If you have a robust computer system, this may not be such a big deal. My older Win XP system (as noted in my signature) will need to be updated when the newer version of Prepar3D is released. But I'm ready for an upgraded computer system in any case; I have been wanting to upgrade to Windows 7 (64 bit) for some time now, but still need some time to pull together the required funds to upgrade the computer.

This should not be a problem with my system:

Windows 7 64 bit
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Processor (3.30GHZ)
8 GB RAM (upgradeable to 16)
AMD Radeon HD6900 2048 MB GDDR5 memory
2 TB internal HD
4 TB external HD

[ZEUS67]

I kept getting memory errors with the Academic version; FSX runs just fine. I have since removed it from my computer and will wait until the next release of Prepar3D to give it another go. What did bother me from the get go with Prepar3D was that the pull-down menu interface was very low resolution as compared to my FSX install. If there was a solution to that issue, I never found it.

Is it what FSX should have been, or could have been ?

Prepar3D is not even close to what FSX could have been; I believe for the most part the graphics are still CPU bound. If you have a robust computer system, this may not be such a big deal. My older Win XP system (as noted in my signature) will need to be updated when the newer version of Prepar3D is released. But I'm ready for an upgraded computer system in any case; I have been wanting to upgrade to Windows 7 (64 bit) for some time now, but still need some time to pull together the required funds to upgrade the computer.


Tommy

Hurry up or MS will stick you up with Windows 8 and its Metro interface.

[tommieboy]

Hurry up or MS will stick you up with Windows 8 and its Metro interface.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about.......

[tommieboy]

This should not be a problem with my system:

Windows 7 64 bit
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Processor (3.30GHZ)
8 GB RAM (upgradeable to 16)
AMD Radeon HD6900 2048 MB GDDR5 memory
2 TB internal HD
4 TB external HD

Seems I'm always behind the curve on computer technology.....