Prepar3D v6.0 Features and Enhancements

[wain71]

well in all honesty these things we see posted not just here but all over the web are work arounds and probably not supported by the developers, I say install, see what you think, 14 days to evaluate then if you think there is not much change in the base sim compared to 5.4 apply for a refund, we all know that new versions of any of our favourite sims are notoriously problematic and most things won't work without some tweaking....

 

I have Majestics Dash installed with an official installer, I'll look around and see how I get on but it should work fine I would think.....

 

I don't see the rush to have all your stuff working from day one, LM ain't going anywhere and like me I imagine most of you have other flight options available....

 

I really can't believe some of the rubbish I have read on some other sites, and people arguing over nothing, lets have a little patience, when the dust settles we will then see who are going to stick with this and update their products...

 

just my thoughts, you may have different opinions and I am happy with that....

[Bullfox]

lets see some v6 screenshots

[wain71]

5 hours ago, Bullfox said:

lets see some v6 screenshots

well you won't see any on here as there is no Orbx scenery unless you've tweaked a bit, but I am not.....honestly though in my eyes apart from maybe some slight difference in atmospherics it looks much like v5, it may just be what else is happening in the background is the difference...another day or two looking around it and I will decide on refunding it or not.....

[Bullfox]

I am following the news and developments but I am inmy summer outdoor hobbies so don't plan on dipping into v6 until the fall.

[RobC]

 

• Overhauled Update Process: Users will benefit from automatic update notifications, patch support, and an installation process that no longer requires uninstalling components before updating.

 

HUGE plus in my opinion.

[toorop58]

 Hello

 

 For the moment I did not get real performances improvements with V6 compared to V5.4 : On my computer V 6.0 without any addon is slower than V 5.4 full of Orbx, Next Mesh and France VFR ORVFR... True on 1980x1020 screen or in VR  / Oculus Quest 2 with official Link cable. (My computer : W11 Hexacore i7 8700 K 3.7 GHz / 32 Go RAM 2400 MHz, GPU 1070 Ti 8 Go RAM, Driver Nvidia 536.40). Both 6.0 and 5.4 installed on same SSD internal NVMe drive

 

 Only improvements on my computer seem to be PBR textures rendering, basic Mesh (really don't mind as third party Mesh will certainly work in V6.0 and I have a lot of very good ones) and update procedure (if working as announced)

 

 So for me no reason to try to install Orbx or any addon using "tricks" if actually using V5.4 : worth to wait for V 6.0 official Orbx Central support and for some other V6.0 bugs to be fixed (night lighting; C130 not displayed, texture bugs on some airports...)

[David Wilkinson]

On 7/5/2023 at 11:35 AM, Larry_R said:

 

The following works only if your Orbx products are installed in an external library.  I’d highly recommend doing so if you are currently still installing in the root sim.

Make sure your Orbx libraries are up to date. Ed has told that the Orbx libs have been modified very slightly to accommodate P3D v6, but if that is not the case, here’s what to do:

Larry,

Thanks for sharing this information. 

I have started to follow through the procedure but am finding a couple of ambiguities a little confusing so I'd like to get you to clarify these for me if you are willing.

I have reformatted your comments to suit my "linear" way of thinking so that you can check my understanding:-

 

Assuming that the Orbx libs have already been adjusted to accommodate v6, follow these steps:

1.     Point v6 to the location of your Orbx scenery entries, thus:

       a.     In C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v6, open the  add-ons.cfg  in Notepad.

       b.     Also, in C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5, open add-ons.cfg  in Notepad.

       c.     Copy all your Orbx entries from the v5 file and paste them into the v6 file. 

       d.     Now fix the numbering so that it is sequential.

           Alternatively; you can simply replace the v6 add-ons.cfg file with a copy of the file from v5.

2.  In the same location, make a copy of the existing terrain.cfg 

 

My questions:-

• Does your procedure following the word "Alternatively" replace the steps I've labelled from a. to b. and then I proceed to step 2?
• In step 2, can you please specify what you mean by "In the same location"?

Many thanks.

 

[David Wilkinson]

Thank you Larry,  I managed to get it to work.

The matter is resolved.

Cheers

[Rob Ainscough]

On 7/6/2023 at 3:25 PM, toorop58 said:

On my computer V 6.0 without any addon is slower than V 5.4

Recommend you post graphics setting from both V6 and V5 ... V6 has a slew of additional graphic settings not present in V5 that can and will have a performance impact and it will vary based on how good of a GPU you have.

 

l recommend checking TAA (enable) and then set MSAA to None ... I'm running 4K res so this works very well.

 

The Auto update working well also and fixed those issues you listed today.

 

 

[DrumsArt]

@Rob Ainscough

Please, will you make some videos?

Thank you.

 

Richard.

[Rob Ainscough]

10 hours ago, DrumsArt said:

will you make some videos?

 

Yes ... couldn't do that until very recently due to bug in V6.

 

To be honest, there needs to be another patch release to fix some issues like:

 

Can't get white, suffering from the brown tint problem XP12 has

 

Clouds are get blown out (too white)

 

 

They clouds also changed from prior builds, seem too  consistently "flat" base.

 

I've been trying to adjust Tone Map, Saturation, etc. but I can't get rid of the brown tint.  But so far most of my add-ons work Orbx and AIG and others.

 

Videos will be coming, but probably not until next weekend.

 

 

[toorop58]

20 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Recommend you post graphics setting from both V6 and V5 ... V6 has a slew of additional graphic settings not present in V5 that can and will have a performance impact and it will vary based on how good of a GPU you have.

 

l recommend checking TAA (enable) and then set MSAA to None ... I'm running 4K res so this works very well.

 

The Auto update working well also and fixed those issues you listed today.

 

 

 Thanks  Rob. Made my tests with TAA only (TAA is a great improvement). Performance loss probably due to the additional settings you are speaking about  (hard to identify for me : tried to test with the same settings as in V5.4 but not exactly the same user interface). Anyway the gap is not so deep. Was only surprised because performance improvements were announced...

[Rob Ainscough]

2 hours ago, toorop58 said:

Was only surprised because performance improvements were announced...

 

Here are the V5 v. V6 graphics differences:

 

 

 

 

In my test, using as close as I can get to V5 setting using V6, I saw an FPS increase.

 

FPS items to watch out for:

 

Mesh Resolution V5 - 1m  V6 - 7cm

SSAO V6 only (GPU loading)

Shadows V6 all shadows types are enabled

Cloud Dynamic Lighting (melt that GPU especially with Vol Clouds at Ultra)

Cube and Planar Reflections

 

TAA, it's not bad, but I prefer SSAA which isn't supported now in V6.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Airwolf]

I just want Global/openlc to work for now...any updates Orbx on official p3dv6 support (if not, I am not going to waste my time tweaking files)

[Rob Ainscough]

I can provide a batch file and/or app that will do the "tweaking" for you, it's pretty simple ... it's why LM introduced the "Add-On" process going way back.

 

Global and OpenLC work.

 

 

[anzac1977]

Hi Rob,

 

Good to see you are still around.

 

I will try TAA over MSAA.

[aguiar]

On 7/9/2023 at 11:48 PM, Rob Ainscough said:

 

Here are the V5 v. V6 graphics differences:

 

 

 

 

In my test, using as close as I can get to V5 setting using V6, I saw an FPS increase.

 

FPS items to watch out for:

 

Mesh Resolution V5 - 1m  V6 - 7cm

SSAO V6 only (GPU loading)

Shadows V6 all shadows types are enabled

Cloud Dynamic Lighting (melt that GPU especially with Vol Clouds at Ultra)

Cube and Planar Reflections

 

TAA, it's not bad, but I prefer SSAA which isn't supported now in V6.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Hello Rob, 

Thanks for clarifying what the slidres are for. 

[aguiar]

20 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I can provide a batch file and/or app that will do the "tweaking" for you, it's pretty simple ... it's why LM introduced the "Add-On" process going way back.

 

Global and OpenLC work.

 

 

Could you also send me this batch file and/or app, that you mentioned above?

Thanks a lot

f_aguiarbr@hotmail.com 

[Rob Ainscough]

4 hours ago, aguiar said:

Could you also send me this batch file and/or app, that you mentioned above?

 

I think I'll make a desktop app, take a little longer to do, but can auto detect paths via registry settings and json config files from Orbx.  Batch file is a bit primitive.  That way I can also expand on my app with other 3rd party add-on migrations to V6.  Most are pretty easy, but hate to have people typing in long paths manually if it can be automated.  Plus I can add backup/restore option just in case something goes south.  It will be "As Is" and "use at your own risk" and NOT sanctioned or supported by any 3rd party vendors.

 

[aguiar]

1 hour ago, Rob Ainscough said:

 

I think I'll make a desktop app, take a little longer to do, but can auto detect paths via registry settings and json config files from Orbx.  Batch file is a bit primitive.  That way I can also expand on my app with other 3rd party add-on migrations to V6.  Most are pretty easy, but hate to have people typing in long paths manually if it can be automated.  Plus I can add backup/restore option just in case something goes south.  It will be "As Is" and "use at your own risk" and NOT sanctioned or supported by any 3rd party vendors.

 

That's great news Rob, thanks a lot. I'll be waiting.

[timmo32]

On 7/11/2023 at 1:24 AM, Rob Ainscough said:

I can provide a batch file and/or app that will do the "tweaking" for you, it's pretty simple ... it's why LM introduced the "Add-On" process going way back.

 

Global and OpenLC work.

 

 

Gday Rob love your work mate i have V6 also installed and have V5.3 installed and running great i would love too install my Orbx scenery and addons into V6 i have been following these V6 post and if its not too much trouble am i able too get these files,tweaks emailed too me branch_timmo@hotmail.com please so i can try and transfer stuff from V5.3 over too V6 as i think Orbx may take some time too release a V6 version in Orbx central thanks and appreciate people like you in our forums as im not tech savey and sometimes afraid too touch any files incase i stuff it up.

[Rob Ainscough]

Will do, probably will not be this week as I'm going to be on a mini-vacation, July 13th to 16th.  

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Airwolf]

4 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Will do, probably will not be this week as I'm going to be on a mini-vacation, July 13th to 16th.  

 

Cheers, Rob.

Rob, let me know if you want me to test anything.  I do know myself around filesystems and what not (I did Unix work, and yes I started PC from the Dos 2.0 era).  About the batch script, thanks though.  Yeah, I am able to migrate P3Dv5 addons inside P3Dv6 (on which work) easily.  I was just trying to see if Orbx is going to push for official v6 support on their app.

[toorop58]

On 7/10/2023 at 4:48 AM, Rob Ainscough said:

 

Here are the V5 v. V6 graphics differences:

 

 

 

 

In my test, using as close as I can get to V5 setting using V6, I saw an FPS increase.

 

FPS items to watch out for:

 

Mesh Resolution V5 - 1m  V6 - 7cm

SSAO V6 only (GPU loading)

Shadows V6 all shadows types are enabled

Cloud Dynamic Lighting (melt that GPU especially with Vol Clouds at Ultra)

Cube and Planar Reflections

 

TAA, it's not bad, but I prefer SSAA which isn't supported now in V6.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 Thanks a lot for all these details and explanations and for taking time to share

[Aussie123]

Has anyone figured out how to separate out the various water reflections, as we could in V5?

The Own Aircraft reflection has never worked properly, along with the Vegetation reflections. I have always left them OFF, and want to in V6 as well.

Aussie

[Rob Ainscough]

1 hour ago, Aussie123 said:

Has anyone figured out how to separate out the various water reflections, as we could in V5?

 

That's the planar reflections slider, see my settings images above.  I use Ultra because it presents the most accurate reflection of all objects otherwise it looks weird with building reflection but no land mass reflection.  It would be nice to be able to reduce the reflection detail, they seem a tad over reflective on water ... tends to be over dramatic from common real world situations where water surface aren't smooth as glass.

 

[DonMuskopf]

2 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

It would be nice to be able to reduce the reflection detail,

I agree. I'd also like a way to stop cloud reflections on water. I've never really liked the way that looked in P3D.  It would be great if we could adjust the bloom level, too. It can be way too intense for me, especially when auto exposure is on.

 

Thanks for the nice explanation of V6 settings.

[Rob Ainscough]

Anyone having issues with Orbx Central connecting to servers for product downloads?

 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,
I have found out that over the weekend, there was an outage.
Apologies for that and it appears that it has been fixed.

[Dean Salman]

If there is any time for Orbx to patch anything for P3D 6 I know that Southern Alaska is an issue.  It does seem to be in the Custom folder with some of those files.  

Basically the water comes into the mountains along the shore.  I know Orbx is busy with MSFS so hopefully sometime in the future.  Alaska looks different but I can live with it since it only some places by the shorelines.  If it helps I think it is only where the default scenery has a forest alone the slopes

Edited July 18, 2023 by Dean Salman

[Dean Salman]

I did get this fixed with Alaska.  I moved everything over to the Orbx Library expect the Base and Orbx Libraries themselves.  I went back and migrated these, but the Orbx Libraries would not migrate.  I clicked on it and the option came up to pick the library, but it would not migrate.  So I uninstalled is and reinstalled it to my Orbx library, and not everything is good with the Southern Package.   Moving from P3D 5 to 6 I think your best option is to migrate everything to the library and then the add the discovery Path to the addon.cfg file.   

[Rob Ainscough]

On 7/18/2023 at 9:17 AM, Dean Salman said:

Moving from P3D 5 to 6 I think your best option is to migrate everything to the library and then the add the discovery Path to the addon.cfg file.

 

Agree, absolutely the best and easiest way to do V5 to V6 and no replication needed.  I'm actually amazed at how easy it was to get everything reference, even HiFi ASP3D6 network setup was easy.

 

No worries Nick, all good now. 

 

Now that I have ChasePlane for V6 installed and all working correctly, it's video time.

 

[Rob Ainscough]

Still working on the code, as always I have a bad habit of expanding a project scope to include other key features to help with visuals in V6.  There are still pending items from LM that need to be addressed:

• brown tint
• haze line that doesn't blend
• over saturated bloom
• dawn/dusk transitions

V6 has lots of potential, but these need to be addressed.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Driver170]

Hi,

 

Not sure what has happened. But EGNX airport terminal building has now gone. It does show in V5.4 install.

 

I tried all the methods. Reinstall the airport, verify files for object flow, copy past addon.cfg etc

 

anyone know the problem?

[gaab]

On 7/5/2023 at 1:35 AM, Larry_R said:

Hi guys,

 

go to [your install path]\Orbx P3D Library\p3dv5\Orbx Libraries\Orbx\Scripts\custom.gb_base

Rename AutogenDescriptions.spb to AutogenDescriptions original.spb

Make a copy of AutogenDescriptions_Legacy.spb and rename it to AutogenDescriptions.spb

 

Assuming that the Orbx libs have already been adjusted to accommodate v6, do these two steps:

 

1:  In C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v6, open the  add-ons.cfg  in Notepad.

2: in the same location, make a copy of the existing terrain.cfg (306 kb, then replace the original with the same file from P3D v5.  The size should be 905 kb.

 

Note: all of the above is more or less an unsupported workaround and may become obsolete if v6 ends up officially supported. 

Cheers,

What I did wrong

 

I followed these steps, but I get HORRIBLE trees.

I tried with and without Trees HD, Terraflora V2.

I even tried without the Autogen renames (no tree at all !)

 

I have everything in Libraries and I have "resynchronised".

 

Any suggestion is very welcomed (even how to recover the standard V6 trees ?)

 

Eagerly waiting for the anounced official support

 

An update and a likely schedule would be nice.

 

Thanks

Gérard

 

[Aussie123]

It is amazing the amount of official silence on this issue. 🤔 A bit frustrating for people that check every day.

Another month has passed after Orbx's only official comment on the forum.

I believe it would be nice to have an update on the words "we are now considering".

I presume they have now 'considered'.

Maybe they could update their customers on their considerations?

 

Aussie 

[aguiar]

13 hours ago, gaab said:

What I did wrong

 

I followed these steps, but I get HORRIBLE trees.

I tried with and without Trees HD, Terraflora V2.

I even tried without the Autogen renames (no tree at all !)

 

I have everything in Libraries and I have "resynchronised".

 

Any suggestion is very welcomed (even how to recover the standard V6 trees ?)

 

Eagerly waiting for the anounced official support

 

An update and a likely schedule would be nice.

 

Thanks

Gérard

 

Agreed, 

[Bullfox]

I am trying to decide if I want to spend $350.00 for a Professional license.  I understand that the Personal license requires one to be on line while in the sim which I really don't like.  What does the on line connection do?  

 

Also what is the unzipped file size for the Personal license and the Professional license?   I spent some fair amount of time trying to Google the answers to these questions with no luck.  Could not even find the answers on the LM p3d official site.

 

Once the question of getting Orbx scenery into v6 is officially resolved it appears that for me there is already enough developer support for the type of flight simming I do so that I can transition from v5 to v6.   What I have seen so far on Youtube looks pretty good.

[gaab]

On 8/24/2023 at 12:33 PM, gaab said:

What I did wrong

 

But what now I did right ?

Don't ask, but after a thorough review of Libraries add-on.xml  "special V6", I get back the usual trees.

 

Can't wait an official follow up of Anna's promise.

 

Gérard

[timmo32]

Yep a update would be nice or even some indication on when we will be able too enjoy the new sim with Orbx central support. I tried a couple of things the guys recommended on here and they were so helpfull with there advice tho ended up uninstalling the sim and reinstalling it as a complete stock setup as i wasnt happy with airports and trees ect so the waiting game is getting painful now for some of us.