NZFF

So it's been a good 2 or 3yrs since I last was simming. Fairly sure I had an account here too, well I'm 100% sure, but perhaps it was purged.

I installed FSX last night, but I admit I'm not looking forward to the customary 5hrs of tweaking. I booted it up this morning and for starters it seemed to stretch the image so that 75% was on my main monitor and 25% was on my secondary monitor. I actually only want it on the one monitor so I'm not sure why it did this... but soon after it crashed to desktop anyway. Doh. I'm sure I can get it working (I'm an IT technician so these things don't phase me) but I'm thinking of getting P3D as it takes advantage of DX11, which should see some of the load transferred from the CPU to the GPU.

If I go with P3D can anyone confirm if Orbx NZSI and NZNI work? My goal, and my favourite type of flying, is small to medium sized prop powered aircraft over short distances. I really enjoy trying to land and takeoff on runways that are pushing the limits of the aircraft. I also like NZ because it's quite small and sparsely populated, which means less load on the computer. Lastly, I like to have AI traffic relevant to the area. From memory I used to use World of AI and some sort of GA AI generator - I also remember hours of downloads and setup. Fun! Is there any decent AI packages in P3D?

s0cks wrote:

QUOTE (s0cks @ Mar 25 2014,1:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So it's been a good 2 or 3yrs since I last was simming. Fairly sure I had an account here too, well I'm 100% sure, but perhaps it was purged.

I installed FSX last night, but I admit I'm not looking forward to the customary 5hrs of tweaking. I booted it up this morning and for starters it seemed to stretch the image so that 75% was on my main monitor and 25% was on my secondary monitor. I actually only want it on the one monitor so I'm not sure why it did this... but soon after it crashed to desktop anyway. Doh. I'm sure I can get it working (I'm an IT technician so these things don't phase me) but I'm thinking of getting P3D as it takes advantage of DX11, which should see some of the load transferred from the CPU to the GPU.

If I go with P3D can anyone confirm if Orbx NZSI and NZNI work? My goal, and my favourite type of flying, is small to medium sized prop powered aircraft over short distances. I really enjoy trying to land and takeoff on runways that are pushing the limits of the aircraft. I also like NZ because it's quite small and sparsely populated, which means less load on the computer. Lastly, I like to have AI traffic relevant to the area. From memory I used to use World of AI and some sort of GA AI generator - I also remember hours of downloads and setup. Fun! Is there any decent AI packages in P3D?

Hi S0cks,
I had the same trouble re the monitors, I had to disable all but the main monitor , then start FSX, make it in a window. Exit restart then from there on all OK.. changed the wide screen value in the FSX.cfg to TRUE so I could spread the window over some extra monitors and hey presto.

I use ORBX-FTX free AI for NZ & Australia, works a treat.

Thanks Sonny! Makes sense, will check out the Orbx AI

You can try P3D2.1 and if you're not satisfied they'll give you your money back as I remember.

I like it more than FSX because it's a lot smoother, the lighting is better (with HDR) and the whole flying experience just seems more real. It's possible to run NZNI and NZSI using the Estonia Migration tool but it might cause other problems with scenery, - worth a try on a clean P3D2 install. In any case, these sceneries are high on the priority list for OrbX and should come out soon with P3D2 installers.

The downside is that not many planes are natively supported yet. It's also limited by being a 32 bit program, which causes issues with memory which haven't been fixed yet: long flights can end abruptly with an out of memory message unless you turn sone settings down.

I recommend trying it, - the academic license is little more than a FSX third party plane, and you get some good default aircraft included.

Yeah, I've already had FSX crash multiple times. Probably because I'm on Win8.1.

Done some research and P3Dv2 is missing quite a few addons. No native support for the ORBX NZ scenery yet, nor the FTX AI (although you can get it working minus some Cessna's). Will see how I go anyway and let you know! Cheers.

Question: Is the VLC addon compatible with P3Dv2? That looks like a good alternative to ORBX for the time being.

s0cks wrote:

QUOTE (s0cks @ Mar 26 2014,9:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Question: Is the VLC addon compatible with P3Dv2?

Yes it is. So are Godzone Auckland Supercity and Nelson, with more in the pipeline.

OrbX Australia is available for P3D2 as are FTX Global and Global Vector

There's an announcement here that a new patch will be out soon that reduces veg autogen memory usage by 17 times, - which hopefully will reduce ooms too. It will also introduce cloud shadows.

Scupper wrote:

QUOTE (Scupper @ Mar 26 2014,10:50 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OrbX Australia is available for P3D2 as are FTX Global and Global Vector

Can you explian what FTX Global is? From what I've read it replaces standard textures with modern, realistic HD versions. It sounds like this, mixed with VLC would be an awesome experience. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Adrian did a comparison of FTX NZ and VLC with Global textures here. This would be my choice, although I haven't yet bought Global.

It is going to take a while for everything to finally make it to Prepar3D, and some people might want to wait a little longer, but it won't be long before we see a steady trickle of P3D releases. I wouldn't worry too much about reports of issues with Prepar3D, yes, there were some memory problems introduced with the 2.1 patch, but the consensus is that this was caused so some over-zealous script checking, which was fixed with the hotfix. So from issues reported here with FSX on new systems, P3D is a lot more stable than FSX if you are starting over.

Prepar3D development after the release of 2.0 has been a bit of a roller-coaster, and I suspect that we'll see a lot more incremental releases than we saw with MSFS, but that's a good thing. LM are committed to a stable product, whereas MS were committed to a 'finished' product.

So if I was starting out now, I'd go for P3D unless there's an addon you really need right now. I'd easily give up FSX, except that I'll want to develop scenery for it for a long time yet. I miss a couple of things -- a good AI package, for example -- but at least I know that it won't be long before we get a good choice, and I can be patient until then. There's plenty to do in the meantime.

Thanks toprob. I have to admit the ORBX looks more pleasing to the eye, but at this stage I'm happy to sacrifice some of that eye candy for a stable & smooth flying experience.

I think my first step will be to get P3D and VLC, then go from there. Hopefully I can get some of my old FSX payware aircraft ported over.

Thanks everyone!

So I purchased VLC but I cannnot open the tool because the installer didn't create the XML file?!

Can someone paste their VlcConfig.Config.xml file into here please?

Are you installing into P3D or FSX?
Do you have a file called VLCConfig.config.xml.p3d (or the FSX equivalent) in your VectorLandClass folder? If so, just delete the last suffix including the '.'

Hmm this P3D now a 2.2 incoming, be interested to see what the updates continue to show .

toprob wrote:

QUOTE (toprob @ Mar 26 2014,6:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Are you installing into P3D or FSX?
Do you have a file called VLCConfig.config.xml.p3d (or the FSX equivalent) in your VectorLandClass folder? If so, just delete the last suffix including the '.'

P3D. I cannot see any file by that name so I created my own but no idea what needs to be in it. Can you possibly copy the contents of yours and paste it here? Even if it's the FSX one I can modify it as per the documentation. Cheers!

s0cks wrote:

QUOTE (s0cks @ Mar 26 2014,10:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

P3D. I cannot see any file by that name so I created my own but no idea what needs to be in it. Can you possibly copy the contents of yours and paste it here? Even if it's the FSX one I can modify it as per the documentation. Cheers!

I can send you the file, just contact me via my site.
However it would be interesting to figure out why it isn't there. Some details of your install would be useful -- let me have a few details in your email:
OS, etc
Did you install with admin privileges?
Did the installer report any errors?
Where is your P3D installed?

toprob wrote:

QUOTE (toprob @ Mar 26 2014,10:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can send you the file, just contact me via my site.
However it would be interesting to figure out why it isn't there. Some details of your install would be useful -- let me have a few details in your email:
OS, etc
Did you install with admin privileges?
Did the installer report any errors?
Where is your P3D installed?

Sent!

Thanks toprob for helping me out.

Another question (to whomever). Are the free airfields and airports here compatible with P3Dv2? Also any other recommendations that will help spice up my P3Dv2 experience around NZ would be appreciated. Thanks!

s0cks wrote:

QUOTE (s0cks @ Mar 27 2014,10:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks toprob for helping me out.

Another question (to whomever). Are the free airfields and airports here compatible with P3Dv2? Also any other recommendations that will help spice up my P3Dv2 experience around NZ would be appreciated. Thanks!

There are dual installers to come, first will be the two airfield packs. The South Island pack should be ready to go as-is, I just need to get it uploaded.

My other airfields on the Vector Land Class website (Murchison, Kaikoura, Ashburton, as well as Timaru which is on Avsim) are on my list, I just need to give myself a deadline... They'll all work in P3D, they just need installers and a minor Windsock tweak. (My windsock models don't work in P3D, so I have to revert to ugly default windsocks until I can sort out a P3D version of the old FS2004 turn-to-wind models.)

I was hoping that the South Island LINZ images would go online reasonably quickly so I can look at some photo bases under some of the South Island airfields, but since I don't know when this will happen I'll upload them as-is.

Have you contacted Doug about his West Coast towns? They should drop straight into P3D. And Hokitika has a dual installer.

Thanks mate,

So if I use your other airfields they will work, but there will be no windsock? If that's the case then I can live with that for now. I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty and manually installing (did it for years with FS9 and FSX). I even recall editing land classes to remove unwanted autogen - it's been a long while though.

The south island is by far my favourite place to fly so if you can push that dual installer up as-is that would be awesome. I'm sure others would appreciate it too. With the north airfields, can I install these manually, or are they not compatible?

I haven't spoken to, or know who Doug is sorry... where can I grab his work from?

Really appreciate your help here. If it was FSX I'd be away laughing, but there seems to be a lot of compatibility issues with FSX addons on P3D so I'm a little hesitant, and a bit in the dark. On the plus side, I found that I had purchased ORBX PNW way back when it was released for FSX, and this is now working in P3D - but I may hold off as I'd prefer to be flying around NZ for the time being.

Socks simply drop in here http://nzff.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...p;#entry8348714

Thanks Ian, you are quite the artist!