Simple side-by-side comparison of FSX and P3D

[quadraspleen 7]

A simple test, using ORBX AU/Sydney cityscape and CLS Sydney YSSY to test the relative performance of FSX and Prepar3D.It's not scientific. Don't bombard me with explanations of why it's wrong!I just knocked it up this morning after buying P3D yesterday I have been using FS for years and it's a pain in the ar*e (although I love it like a cranky mistress)If you can, do your own. I will do more. If anyone can think of any good objective side by side tests, let me know. I have lots of FSDT sceneries, but am waiting for them to update their installers to recognise 1.3. I tried installing manually and entering lines into exe.xml and dll.xml but it crashed P3D as soon as Couatl tried to index the airports.I also have NZSI but I don't really want to have to spend money to get that and my other ORBX scenery (CRM) into it. I have YBAS but I'm not sure of the legality of using that in P3D (I know I can make it work, but ORBX are quite touchy about it I think)I am trying to be objective, and chosen scenery I have that is quite busy and has stuff in it, rather than flying over simple terrain. I will do that and post the reults in a later test.The first video is FSX, the second P3D. Essentially they are the "same". I have tried to make the settings in both programs match as closely as possible. I'm not sure the same can be said for the flying!In P3D I have used an ORBX SBSL (side by side licence) to "port" Au into P3D.The scenery isn't even running from the same drive (both Velociraptors though)I fooled the CLS YSSY program into re-installing into P3D by using the FSX registry tool that came with Reality XP. It installed, I simply entered my license key and away we went._All_ sliders in both programs are set all the way to max. All terrain, and water (in fact my water in FSX is set lower than in P3D) and all scenery sliders are set to max.Max texture size is 4096 in both programs.Initially I used Nvidia Inspector to match the AA and AF settings on both packages.(8xSQ AA with MS and SS enabled in both profiles; 12x AF in both) but the text was rubbish in P3D so I am letting the program control AA and I am doing transparency multisampling and 4xSS and also 16x AF in P3D with inspector.P3D looks _totally_ different to me. It is still crisp and has few filtering artifacts (possibly the higher AF?) The sky and scenery is also very bright and shiny. I _like_ LM's shaders! Despite FSX' AA settings, I think P3D looks better.I have run both .cfg files through Bojote's FSX tuner at AVSIM. Both have Highmemfix=1and shader model 3.0 turned on. There are other tweaks, but they are the same in both files.Basically both files were given the same treatment by the cfg tweaker, so neither prograam has the "advantage".I have disabled P3D's Bathyscape water as it is pointless for this test.It is default clear weather and the default Baron B58.I am using DX9 in FSX. DX10 in FSX gives my setup bad issues.I know people will say FSX with DX10 enabled will match this, but in the few tests I've done, it has been inconclusive, and not too stable in terms of flashing textures, missing textures, poor airport texture issues etc.That's why it says DX10 "preview".Both programs need a bit of tweaking to get them running like this (some will have much better results in both, I'm sure), but P3D was done in ten minutes. I have been tweaking FSX for six years LOL.The only differences are:1. In the P3D plane I forgot to empty out the fuel and pax, so it lumbers a bit.2. I have slightly different weather textures (only textures, no weather injection in either) due to having ASE2012 on the FSX install. That would have little to no impact as it is mainly the sky colour that's different. The cloud textures are different too, but again, I don't think this impacts much.Make your own minds up. To me the results speak for themselves. Perhaps I just want to poke my finger in FSX' eye after all the money I haave spent on it.P3D also "felt" different. Less laggy and more stable. In the first set of tests I set up, FSX crashed while I was flying (within a few minutes)I usually reboot before running an FSX session. P3D has yet to crash and it seems to work better with either windowed or full screen than FSX does. I've run it after a long session of doing other stuff, too. FSX doesn't like this.P3D really felt more responsive to fly. I don't know if they have done some flight model/dynamics work, so far I've only flown the stock B58 and Mooney in P3D so not got a lot to compare. Both seemed more responsive than in FSX. Perhaps I'm projecting LOL. I am going to fly the NGX tonight.P3D is now available on an academic licence for $49. All you FSX users who are students and budding pilots doing a flying course, or if you simply want to teach your kids to fly, this is for you. All of these scenarios are acceptable use for an academic license.It "is" FSX and it isn't FSX. I don't know what it is. What with Flight, and FSX and P3D, us flight simmers are a bit spoiled atm (depending on your needs) despite this, there seems to be lots of grumpiness in the flight sim community at the moment..!Enjoy.jakeFSX:

http://youtu.be/zpQABivH9gg

Prepar3D:

http://youtu.be/mno9F_wRxD0

[quadraspleen 7]

I should add a slight correction: I did manage to get P3D to crash, but as I have said, only by using "incompatible" addons.Also, the tests were run at 1920x1200x32 if anyone is wanting to do a comparison.bestjake

[Guest treeman]

Good test, I'd like to note that for side by side comparisons FSX should definitely be set to DX9, P3D is currently DX9 only. DX10 Preview was removed probably for obvious reasons...

[kelvinr 58]

Wait for Prepar3d version 2.0. It will come with DX11 :(

[HiFlyer 9,369]

Hmmmmmmm........ Considering that Fraps is running, its doing very well. I am still not convinced though, since my current tweaked FSX does about as well.Still watching carefully, but the differences seemed minimal.To me.

[Zeus67 15]

Hmmmmmmm........ Considering that Fraps is running, its doing very well. I am still not convinced though, since my current tweaked FSX does about as well.Still watching carefully, but the differences seemed minimal.To me.

The main differences are in other areas that are no apparent to you. It has multichannel capability, allowing you to create a 360° video bubble. Camera configuration. Cleaned many SimConnect procs and added a bunch more. Remember the main purpose of Prepar3D is to be the heart of a FAA approved training simulator. The have cleaned many video bugs, because Lockheed Martin don't want stutters or other video problems when you have a student trying to land a C-130 in a grass runway in Swaziland in the middle of a monsoon rainstorm at night.

[quadraspleen 7]

Hi Devon,it's funny you mention this, as P3D seems to lose at least 5-10 FPS when running Fraps, FSX loses a couple at most. I don't really like Fraps, but DXTORY, whcih seems really good, is overly complex to use and costs a bit more than Fraps.I flew NGX last night. Not good at all :( At the same settings, and same airport, my FPS dropped to 15 or so, with the odd bit of 24FPS when not looking outside. I really think this has to do with the CLS YSSY, as i loaded it at the default airport that P3D starts you at and it seemed much smoother. I'm not looking for FPS gains, tbh..I get reasonably good FPS in FSX already; I'm more after smoothness over autogen..I have to say, though that with all sliders to max, P3D is giving Flight a run for its money..Now if FSDT would update their installers to 1.3 and RESPOND to my forum joining email so I can post in their forum, my monday would be complete (I know 1.3 has only been out a week, sorry guys ;-) )I still think the main draw with P3D has to be the ongoing support and development.More testing later.bestjake

[quadraspleen 7]

but the differences seemed minimal.

I sort of agree, Devon but you need to run it to see what I'm talking about. I agree with Zeus67 in that most of the really good stuf is under the hood. It is better graphically, though. I don't really agree with all of the people who say it isn't (have they all installed it? is it set up the same way?) It isn't like comparing apples and oranges, but it is difficult to make an objective test@ Treeman: I didn't realise that (my FSX was using DX9 anyway) I thought they'd fixed the DX10 partbestjake