How Do You Think The New 3D XPoint Technology Will Effect P3D Developement?

[shivers9 1,174]

If you haven't heard of it, not to worry, you will very soon. I have been doing some reading around the net and it looks like our life as simmers is going to be very bright indeed. Several sources are saying this new memory will start to show up in early part of 2016. I will not even try to explain how it works but in a nut shell....Computer will not be limited in how much memory you can use. Memory will run 1000 times faster. Yes one thousand and at far less heat and power requirements. Looks like the near future will be a unit that is both your harddrive and memory sticks. The internet guessers from Forbs Mag. think the cost will be in the area of what SSD's go for now. Things like 8K monitors running games and medical type 3D monitors will very quickly replace the stuff out there today.

 

It does make sense that by the formal announcement by intel, that things will come fast. As folks find out about it and the fact that the cost of this mega jump in performance is not expected to be that steep then consumers will hold up on purchasing products like the old school TiTan X supercharged gold plated hot rod cards. LOL! Looks like the first products will use PCI express because currently they have the largest pipes. Work is being done to re design motherboards to handle these new advances. 

 

I know it sounds like Pie in the Sky but it is not. Just do a bit of google searching and you will see it all. This new Tech sounds like the real Tweak to make P3D run with out ooms or studdering!!

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

Advancements in technology have proved to have little to no effect on P3D or FSX performance or development. The platform is still very limited and unless it serves a larger commercial application to Lockheed's core market, you likely wont see much come of it in the sim. if you want to take advantage to the advents of modern tech, its best to wait for a modern sim platform than have hopes that an old one will be reinvented for hardware. 

[shivers9 1,174]

OK....I will put you down as undecided. LOL!!

[abandoned account 171]

Every once in a while topics like these pop up, where someone think that this new exiting technology will be a game changer for the simmers.

It can not be repeated enough that the limitation of FSX/Prepar3d is not and has never been the hardware. If you think that faster memory will be a silver bullet, or even matter at all, you really don't get what the problem is. The real problem is the extremely outdated code base. LM is doing a good job catching up but it will take a long time.

 

Many simmers really should try to look outside of the small sim world and look at what modern games really looks like and how they perform. This would really be an eye opener for people who have been stuck with flightsims for too long. To be honest, even the most pimped FSX or Prepar3d with all the latest and greatest addons still look and perform like any other game from like 10 years ago. Look at any modern game and look for "ooms and stuttering". You're not going to find any. Still it performs at 80 FPS on a 4k resolution with all the eye candy you could think of. In the sim world, after all these years, we're still disussing autogen popping, flickering clouds and slow loding textures and so on. Issues like these simply does not exist in any other game. The issues in the fligmtsims has absolutely nothing to do with limitations in the hardware. Zero.

 

(By the way, this is pretty much the same issue as with people who think that going 64-bit will automatically solve all the memory problems. This is far from true. It is not the amount of usable RAM that matters, it's how you use it. Using 32 gigs of memory in a bad way could actually be worse than using 8 gig in a bad way.)

[Fi5kuS 57]

(By the way, this is pretty much the same issue as with people who think that going 64-bit will automatically solve all the memory problems. This is far from true. It is not the amount of usable RAM that matters, it's how you use it. Using 32 gigs of memory in a bad way could actually be worse than using 8 gig in a bad way.)

 

Well, a 64-bit game (or a flight simulator for that matter) is able to use far more virtual memory, thus "solving" OOM issues.

[louisdecoolste 12]

I suppose we can add this to the list of `gamechanging` technologies, not a single one of which has actually substantially changed the game, despite the plaudits.

 

It's the code that limits, as others have said. A flight sim is far more than just pushing ever-larger masses of bits, bytes. Memory limitations are just one in a long list of hardware and software requirements.

[ErichB 3,638]

How far is Outerra from becoming a usable flightsim?  Usable by the likes of us bunch of moany, whingy gits.

[Vainte 1]

Yes, the legacy code is a chokepoint. But storage a 1000 times faster might eliminate stuttering for some. Can't hurt.

[shivers9 1,174]

Well this whole thing is not just about gaming alone. It's more about a new memory Tech that uses new materials and does away with using transistors and such. It's way above my knowledge level. I guess you all know that it is useless info. I am sure that New motherboards, unlimited memory, less power input and far less heat and an increase on the order of 1000 in the speed of chips can do nothing to improve computing. Thank God I get my advice from AVSIM and not the Holiday Inn Express!! LOL I will notify Intel that it your guys opinion that this whole thing just won't work.

[ErichB 3,638]

I will notify Intel that it your guys opinion that this whole thing just won't work.

This forum is full of armchair IT professors with an abundance of theories on everything. The relationship between our vast number of PC's configurations and P3D seems so random that no-one really knows what the answer for anything is.  While some speak with actual knowledge, most just shoot from the hip.   There is still no agreement as to whether NI is beneficial for P3D or not. Some swear it is, some swear it isn't...   I wouldn't pay much heed to early opinion.

[louisdecoolste 12]

The only game changing technology is proven technology. Proven to work, proven to have market penetration, proven to have longevity. By definition new technology can be none of those things. 

 

Early opinion is always polarised. And therefore may be heard, but not heeded. 

 

In IT, proof of game changing comes about a year down the pipe. In the sim world, about two.

[shivers9 1,174]

I hear ya....just sort of wishing we could get through the normal rift raft that like to Poop on everything. There are some pretty smart guys here also. I so wish someone would build a website that was just for those who actually enjoy Prepar3D. Something that required log in and real names. Only validated P3D users and like ORBX just dumps the whiners out. AVSIM is great for the library and such but they have tried for years to be everything to everybody and the result is a lot of folks here that just like to spout off. Each program and version has it's place.

[MistyBlue 8]

I'm glad you mentioned this.  Hadn't heard about it but after Googling it certainly sounds promising.  If not for P3D, then for all the underlying operations on the system.  I mean we already see overall performance improvements going from slower to faster RAM, like CL11 to CL8 and 1600 to 2133 that do affect P3D.  Things like faster tile loading, and as mentioned previously, reduced stutters.  So 1000 times less latency has to mean some nice performance gains system-wide that should spill over to P3D, if not directly within P3D itself. 

 

And by the time this comes out, LM may have optimized the code further creating a double-bonus.  I'm hopeful!

[abandoned account 171]

! LOL I will notify Intel that it your guys opinion that this whole thing just won't work.

 

Noone said the techology won't work. I said that Prepar3d will not benefit from it. Good hardware can not compensate for bad software. A runner usually upgrade both shoes at the same time, not just the left or right one. Otherwise there is no benefit.

 

Today's hardware is capable of running stunning games at an amazing performance at 4k resolution. Flightsimmers are commonly not aware of this as they tend to only use the flightsim, and many people simply compare FSX and Prepar3d to older versions of MS flightsim. I mean, people actually get excited about some Tree addon which pretty much looks like the trees did in games 15 years ago. Just as an example.

 

I assume this is why many people on flightsim forums are desperately always looking for a new silver bullet hardware technology instead of software fixes. The bottleneck in Prepar3d is not today's hardware. Not the memory, not the IO, not the storage, nothing.

[MistyBlue 8]

...I said that Prepar3d will not benefit from it...The bottleneck in Prepar3d is not today's hardware. Not the memory, not the IO, not the storage, nothing.

 

I'm not sure I can agree with that.  Otherwise people would find no benefit to upgrading their components.  We all know a faster processor is going to yield better results than a slower one given everything else being the same.  So while the software may not yet be optimized to perform as good as it could given today's hardware that doesn't mean P3D, or any other software for that matter, won't benefit from it.

 

In my opinion, I believe it WILL have some sort of positive effect.  Just how much is yet to be seen.