[Prepar3D v5] - Are these FSX Aircraft, Scenery & Utils Compatible?

[kronovan]

Hello everyone, it's been some time since I last posted. I moved about 1-1/2 years ago and since I'm now living in a much tighter space, it's been a while since I had my flight gear setup. My son just graciously upgraded my PC and that motivated me to finally config my gear. It's also finally got me considering making the move from FSX-SE to Prepar3D. I tried FS2020 after my recent upgrade, but I wasn't too impressed. Meanwhile, I own a fair amount of addons for FSX and I know the flight sim fans here are about as knowledgeable and helpful as they get. So I'm wondering if anyone here can confirm whether these addons work with P3D v5:

AIRCRAFT

• A2A Simulations: Piper J-3 Cub
• Aerosoft: Twin Otter Extended
• Lionheart Creations: Air Quest Kodiak
• Milviz: DHC-3 Otter
• Flight 1 Software: Britten-Norman BN-2A
• Virtualcol: De Havillan Canada Dash 8

SCENERY

• ORBX Southern Alaska
• ORBX Pacific Fjords
• ORBX Pacific Northwest
• ORBX Wales
• Flight 1 Software: Ultimate Terrain X Canada
• Flight 1 Software: Ultimate Terrain X Europe
• FS Dreamteam: Vancouver International
• Victoria Plus

UTILITIES

• Pete Dawson: FSUIPC v4
• Natural Point: TrackIR v5

I also own Hifi Simulations Active Sky Next. I bought that via Steam, so I know I'll need to buy a new version. Question is, HiFi offers a 30% discount on Active Sky P3D for previous owners of Active Sky 16 and Active Sky X. So I'm wondering if that applies AS Next owners too?

Any confirmations on what I've listed, would be much appreciated.

[nbrich1]

Welcome back kronovan. I don't really know when you tried msfs2020 but it has come a long way and personally, it is my preference of sim.

To progress from FSX boxed or steam to p3d v1, 2 or 3 is not an issue but to p3dv4 and above can create many issues with compatibility and can cause a world of issues. Beginning with P3DV4 (and above), Lockheed Martin went to 64 bit unicode which changes the functionality of the SIM where has all previous Sims are programmed under a 32-bit operating system and the previous used add-ons, for the most part, are not compatible with P3DV4 and P3DV5 which are programmed under 64-bit.

All to say, most add-ons previously used for 32-bit systems can cause problems or are not fully compatible with p3dv4x and above.. these include add-ons for aircraft as well as scenery type add-ons.

Almost every Sim designer has upgraded their products to be compatible with p3d 64-bit. There are compatibility lists on many sites such as avsim, simouthouse, the p3d site and many others but most older add-ons are not fully compatible. The modeling is different in the 64-bit system whereas older add-ons that might contain FS9 modelling components which cause ctd p3d version 4. Ie: Victoria plus, Tongass Fjords x cause ctds in p3dv4/5x if the Simobjects are not modified
. Many aircraft do not work mp3d4 and above due to transparency issues. Many of which have been updated to work in the 64-bit Sim.

All to say you can try what you want but it will not be fully compatible. Some old products might work while others will not. And some will work for a while until you hit something and the same all of a sudden crashes to desktop. It's a hit and miss exercise.

As far as your utilities are concerned active sky will not work in P3DV4 and above unless you upgrade to that 64bit version and you will have to upgrade to the correct version of fsuipc four p3d version 4 and above which is for 64bit.

And all honesty you'll have to do a lot of upgrading to get the same quality of add-ons working in p3dv5. In my mind it sure is not worth it. (Have done it, been there.. but msfs 2020 was not out at that time so that's what we did!)
But I am as fs2020 which you already have, is released and is much better than previous Sims. In that regard, I would either stay with FSX or try msfs2020 again and not bother trying to upgrade to p3d version 5 at all.. but that is just my opinion.

If you want to go through each item on your list can do that but just looking at them, most have been upgraded for use in p3dv4 and above to make them fully compatible with that version of sim.

Norm

[kronovan]

Norm, many thanks for the welcome back and all the info. It reads like Prepar3D v5 might be much more pain than I anticipated. I only have FS2020 standard edition via a Microsoft Game Pass subscription, so not like I'm heavily invested in it. I did reinstall it yesterday and noticed that it performs more satisfactorily since I last tried it. I don't know if that's due to my PC upgrade or updates to FS2020 - probably a bit of both.

I downloaded all of the RTMM scenery so that I can give FS2020 a better try out for bush piloting. I am very happy to see a PC-6 Porter seaplane, as although I've never owned one for FSX-SE, I considered buying the MilViz  - very nice ride.  My biggest issue with the sim is the HOTAS configuration. I though I encountered a poor control UI in IL-2 Cliffs of Dover, but IMO the FS2020 UI is even more cringe worthy. I find it annoying that in order not to have my Xbox hand controller auto-configured, I need to either unplug it before staring up the app, or go through and delete every assignment.

I also find the sensitivities for control axis to be off, whereas the sensitivities for both my throttle quadrant and rudder pedal are good right out of the box for Xplane 11 and for FSX-SE + FSUIPCv4. I do remember them being even worse the last time I tried FS2020, so I guess there's been some effort to improve. Biggest struggle for me is to get my slider throttle on my stick working for elevator trim. While it works just fine in XP-11 and FSX-SE+FSUPIC, it's hyper-sensitive in MSFS. Meanwhile the sensitivity tweaking is much more finnicky and archaic that one I've experienced in XP-11 or FSUIPC.

Other big issue for me is hydrography and water effects - woah do they seem to be lacking. There not XP-11 bad, but much below what I even have in FSX-SE with the Accu-feel addon. Every water surface is like a glass lake - almost like those old museum dioramas where inches of lacquer were poured in for water. Maybe I'm missing something though, but I looked through all the general config menu, but couldn't find anything for better water effects?

I did try running in DX12 beta for graphic settings, but I didn't notice any visual changes - just much choppier frame rates?

[nbrich1]

MSFS2020 is up to snuff,, just make sure you do all of the updates. There is a special update coming in November we hear which will include a Beaver!!

[kronovan]

...just make sure you do all of the updates.

Well I just reinstalled FS2020 which downloaded 118 GB of files. Surely the updates were included in it - wouldn't they have been?

There is a special update coming in November we hear which will include a Beaver!!

A DHC-2 will be nice as not having anything DHC seems lacking as far as bush piloting goes. While a download from MS will save me the cost of buying an addon.

[stiletto2]

I think the system updates would be part of the install but then you have to install all of the World Updates from the Marketplace...I think...

Rod