Prepar3D V5: compatibility with existing products

[cromagnon]

No one is forced to change from P3Dv4 to P3Dv5.
Chris

Totally agree. A2A, ORBX, and others have left some of their products between V1 and V5. Provided the price is reasonable, which seems to me to be.

[RicardoGroizard]

We all bought our products for a specific simulator product (like P3Dv4), and it will always be possible to use them within this specific P3D version for as long as we want.

If you want to switch to another simulator platform (like P3Dv5), it's kind of a logical thing you need to acquire the respective compatible releases for any addon you want to use within this new simulator as well. Some developers might be able to provide those new versions for free, others just are not.

I really don't understand all the buzzing here. No one is forced to change from P3Dv4 to P3Dv5.

jm2cts...
Chris

Yeah, and nobody is force to stay on this line of products and invest their money in other developers that update their products for free after a p3d upgrade. That's why I keep investing my money in the second ones. Some of us are just trying to help milviz to know why we quit.

[JonathanBleeker]

To each his own. Some devs are able to do their updates with minimal change but then they are using older tech that we moved on from, and moving back would cost us more in time and effort than is worth, not to mention loss of capabilities that are critical for our commercial contracts and level of detail.

[Rainero]

If you want to switch to another simulator platform (like P3Dv5),

Hi Chris,
I must strongly disagree your argumentation. P3Dv5 is NOT a different simulator platform. X-Plane is one and the new Microsoft Flight Simulator will be.

P3D is an evolving platform. And therefore I see P3Dv5 more like a version P3Dv4.6. That the simulators improve constantly is nothing special, but it is in the nature of simulators. Developers should know that. All serious simulators I know, are always improving.

If you want, a platform change happened from P3Dv3 to P3Dv4, because it changed from 32bit to 64bit.

The opposite is true, some people are complaining that P3Dv5.0 has so little new to offer, that they see no reason to change. Well this might be true for 5.0, but lets see what 5.x brings. As LM said, this is just the beginning.

[Rainero]

Some devs are able to do their updates with minimal change but then they are using older tech that we moved on from..

JB, sorry but this statement makes me laugh. Okay I will tell PMDG, FS Labs and A2A that they are using old technology.

However this statement might be true for some older low level payware and freeware planes.

I simply don't understand why it is always such a drama with MilViz planes when a new major or minor version, or even a hotfix comes out?

Even with a hotfix MilViz plane usually don't work anymore and we have to wait weeks, months until they are working again. This is not a complain, I simply would like to understand the reasons behind.

I understood that there are some changes (DirectX 12), issues (lights) and surely a few bugs in the current P3Dv5.0 HF1, but what makes the MilViz planes so special that even a minimal change of the platform (HF) make MilViz planes unusable?

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely a fan of your products and they a worth the money. You are one of the top FS developers and that is especially true of the military sector. Beside DCS may be, but this is complete different story.

I'm really looking forward to all the products that are in the development pipeline. But in the future I will have to think twice, keeping in mind such an update policy, before I buy something from MilViz.

Please think over your plans, especially for your loyal customers that bought more than one plane. If you loose them, the game is over.
Don't sacrifice them for fast cash.

Rob

[Raptor]

Again. PMDG just charged you 99 bucks for a "neu" old 737. How many times have they milked that cow? And they are doing the same with the 747. 8? Max? 8i? And people pay anywhere from 30 to 150 bucks for "improvements".

As far as the Milviz products, other than weather radar, I have no problem going from one P3D hotfix to the next. But heck, even Active Sky breaks so...

[Rainero]

@Raptor:
Sergio, this is not the PMDG forum. Complain there. However, it is not totally wrong what you said. From the users perspective, the difference between the to versions are not that big. In this case I was lucky, because I didn't own the first P3D version of the 737. I bought the new version, only because they promised to fully count the price on the MS Flightsimulator. I will only have to pay the difference, if any.
And no, I'm also not fully happy with PMDG price policy. But this is in no way an excuse for what is MilViz doing.

But what is your point? They do not charge for the update from v4 to v5. For non of their planes. This is my point, because the difference doesn't seem to be that big. But hey.... I just learned that is because they are using old technology.

Rob

[Raptor]

My point is, they ARE using old technology and pricing for it.
My point is people paid happily for the 737 that is the only version that will be ported to V5 which, has little improvement. People ALREADY paid for their V5 port.

And my complaint to PMDG is to not buy their products.

[ScruffyTheMongoose]

Guys. We are not PMDG... nor A2A... nor any of the others. We haven't been charging for updates for a long time. This is a big one for us because it does, for many of our products, require significant work.

We are also trying to add value to this by giving our products PBR as well as fixing (some) bugs.

We are looking at how we're going to implement this upgrade in terms of who, when, what and where... we will advise.

For now, feel free to give your point(s) of view but, the decision has been made. We are charging for the updates. If we lose you as a customer, that is sad. But, in order for this business to keep on going, we have to pay our people.

[MTN1794]

I will buy an update. Business is business. I think that is understandable.

[JonathanBleeker]

I understood that there are some changes (DirectX 12), issues (lights)

This right here. We switched from using old tech like visibility tags for indicator light on/off states and GDI+ for glass displays to our own internal DirectX based graphics library connected to P3D's PDK, which, though designed to be portable to any new version of DX or even OpenGL/Vulcan etc, requires significant work to be updated.

[ccmh15]

P3D is an evolving platform. And therefore I see P3Dv5 more like a version P3Dv4.6. That the simulators improve constantly is nothing special, but it is in the nature of simulators. Developers should know that. All serious simulators I know, are always improving

No matter how you define it, in my opinion, if a developer releases an add-on he can only ensure that his product is working with the simulator version that is current on that very day of release.

If let's say two days after that, the developers of the simulator platform decide to release another new version with whatever changes, and you as a customer decide actively and voluntarily to upgrade/change to this new simulator version, you can't really expect the developer of the add-on to always release an update instantly and for free. I could imagine that sometimes, add-on developers are at least as surprised by such new simulator versions as we customers are...

Yes, you are right, P3D is indeed an evolving platform. But one could argue, it is technically just an derivative of FSX, which is just an improved version of FS9, which again was just the third update of FS98 ... and no one can seriously request a free update for an add-on from back then to run with P3Dv5.

I think add-on developers naturally try everything they can to always make their products work with the latest version of the simulator. But they just can't predict the future, and if at some point it suddenly means some hundred man-hours of development to implement the required changes, it's just an easy business calculation I guess... Of course, it's really annoying if some major upgrades are released within a very short period of time, and it feels like you have to pay for the same product a few times within a couple of months.

But again, no one is forced to always upgrade to the latest version of P3D.
In fact, my personal approach here is "(almost) never touch a running system"

Cheers!
Chris

[vvince]

We are also trying to add value to this by giving our products PBR as well as fixing (some) bugs.

While I understand and can agree with your point regarding the PBR aspect, I don't think that it is legitimate to argue that fixing the bugs is an added value for which the customers should be charged. Some bugs are to be expected when a product is released, but in my (naive ?) world bug fixes are expected to be free.

For now, feel free to give your point(s) of view but, the decision has been made.

At least we can thank you (and I appreciate it) for not closing this thread : i know many developer forums where the discussion would not have gone that far

Cheers

[NeilG]

Lets see how it turns out. There are significant visual improvements that are possible within the context of he new platform, if the Milviz models come out looking beautiful we might all feel its worth it.

[deandejoseph]

NICE. Bought your t38 a week before v5 came out. Oh well, live and learn.....