Prepar3d

[TSR2]

If I've understood it correctly, one of the most interesting things will be models that are built outside the sim but use sim connect to fly in it. That should allow for some extremely detailed models.

[Kevin Farnell]

A few more finds -

I've managed to get REX to work in both FSX and Prepar3D.
To upload new REX themes to Prepa3D, you need to go into the REX configuration manager and change the paths in the 'FSX.CFG location' and 'FSX folder' location to point to the required Prepar3D folders. In my case, this is

C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

And

D:\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

Respectively.

Initially, to get the REX weather engine to work, I was starting FSX, waiting for the REX weather engine to start, closing FSX and then running Prepar3D. This worked, but was a bit laborious.
Later, looking into the FSX.cfg location (C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX) I noticed a file exe.dll. On opening this with Notepad, it was quite obviously related to REX. The same file was absent from my Prepare3D.cfg location (C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D) but was found sitting just outside in C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin. Cutting and pasting it into C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D resulted in the REX Weather Engine starting automatically with Prepar3D

Also, I tried copying over my Carenado aircraft. Having found (or thought I had), all the related files, I started Prepare3D to find many of the images in the aircraft selection window to be unavailable. Looking into the files, it seems that Carenado place the thumbnails outside the Texture folders and Number them 'Thumbnail0.jpg', 'Thumbnail1.jpg' etc. then refer back to these in the Aircraft.cfg file. Moving each thumbnail into its relevant Texture folder and then renaming it simply as 'Thumbnail' allows it to show when selecting the aircraft in Prepar3D.
I still don't have strobe and navigation lights with Carenado aircraft so a little more delving is required - perhaps they are Shockwave related?

Anyway, I hope the above is of some use to some (or all) of you running Prepar3D.

Regards

Kevin

[TSR2]

I'll give this a go later tonight. REX definitely makes a big difference to FSX, so it will be great to get it in P3D. Many thanks indeed. I noticed that if I changed the texture size back down to 1024 x 1024, the performance with the genx VFR scenery was much better, even in the hunter at silly speeds.
The trouble I have at the moment is my SSD is rapidly running out of space.

[DaveG]

I've tried a fair few add-on aircraft now (both free & payware). Only ones I've found that don't work at all are the VRS Superbug, the Milviz T-38 (both crash the sim on loading) and the Virtavia Seaking (will load, but the anti-piracy protection kicks in & removes half the heli, and put the continually puts sim in pause).
A2A Spit works great

Not noticed any issues with any others, but I've not checked every little detail in depth.
I've copied over all my gauges & effects from FSX, taking care not to overwrite any existing files.


With reference to the IFR only flightplans for AI, I edited the prepar3d.cfg entry that Ben noticed, and my VFR AI came back, but any change to the sim that causes AI to reset, such as changing time or AI levels caused it to disappear again and only a sim restart would get it back again.

[SkippyBing]

Quick note on the exe.xml, it's not REX specific it lists any add on programmes that FSX/P3D need to activate at start up. Various other sceneries/add-ons may place an entry in there as well, I'd actually been looking for it so I could get AI Carriers to load up automatically so that mystery has been solved!

[Adrian Petford]

I've had some success with GA AI traffic. Henry Tomkiewicz' Cessna Single-Engine Props works worldwide as do a number of specialist New Zealand traffic packages I use. These are The Great New Zealand Light AI Project and 10 AI Squirrels for New Zealand (Charl du Toit) and NZ AI BizJets (Dean Stringer, Charl du Toit, Ian Nunn). All of these packages are FS9 native models but with traffic files converted to FSX format in AI Flight Planner before use.

I saw GA aircraft parked, in the air, taxing out and taking off and landing so everything seemed normal and as per my FSX.

The section of my P3D config file is this:

Code: Select all

[TrafficManager]
AirlineDensity=59
GADensity=59
FreewayDensity=12
ShipsAndFerriesDensity=30
LeisureBoatsDensity=30
IFROnly=3467952
AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=3

The settings are those recommended by Nick Needham in his tuning guide. I've changed them from the defaults but IFROnly= must be a machine generated value as I have not touched that. In my FSX it is IFROnly=0.

I did notice some of the same odd behaviour Dave has seen above. When testing the NZ packages I got a good range of traffic at Wellington but switching airport to Woodbourne or Ohakea didn't generate anything new, but kept the same planes in the air. Although those airports are in reasonable proximity to Wellington, in FSX I'd get mostly local traffic spawned around each airport with only a few of the same flights carried over.

Regards,


Ade

[DaveG]

That IFRonly entry looks weird Mine was set to -1 by default (same as Bens). Changing it to zero gave me the VFR traffic back, (flying around Duxford with the ACG scenery & AI package)

Found the Virtavia BN Islander crashed P3d too

[Adrian Petford]

I'll try it with IFROnly=0 and see what happens. I was pleased with the results but something still didn't seem quite right about the traffic behaviour. P3D certainly seems a different beast to FSX, in terms of the subtleties.

Shame about the Virtavia Islander, that's a favourite of mine. I don't think Flight1 are supporting P3D either. It seems most aircraft will port fine apart from those which rely heavily on custom gauges, modules or systems. FSLabs' Concorde X works flawlessly apart from one .dll but that's sufficiently "broken" it'll need a patch to fix. Thankfully they are on the case.

If anyone needs to restore a clean copy of their default Gauges and Effects folders for transfer into P3D (taking care not to overwrite existing files), I'd recommend the Gauges Recovery FSX utility on Simviation.


Ade

[TSR2]

Hi chaps,

This may be a stupid question, but is there any point in having AI traffic as VFR? I've always set mine to IFR in both FS9 and FSX previously.

[GHD]

This may be a stupid question, but is there any point in having AI traffic as VFR? I've always set mine to IFR in both FS9 and FSX previously.

IFR gives a minimum of 30nm from the airport, VFR will give a normal circuit.

Another difference is that with VFR touch-and-go, the aircraft lands and takes-off. In IFR, the aircraft does a missed approach.

George