P3dV6

[dbw]

Some indication of V6 are appearing. When you are at liberty to comment it would be nice to hear your plans for it. Thanks.

[Crabby]

This will be interesting as at some point the only way to move forward is stop looking backward.

[Ephedrin]

I read (months ago) that LM would use a totally different engine and approach now? Will definitely be interesting to see what they are about to do "against MSFS" so to say. Sure, their intend is not the casual consumer, but still..

Regarding PMDG.. I guess they'll go where the customer is. Currently it's definitely not P3D.

[matrosov]

If they use different engine that gets them out of that pesky licensing agreement with MS. Which in turn means that they can stand and compete. LM definitely has pockets for it. And given that they want to use the sandbox for .mil training stand to reason that spillover into "enterntainment" market could be quite significant.

[Ephedrin]

matrosov It was always my opinion that someone at LM had the idea to get the licence for their training and someone in the leadership scratched their head and said "jup, okay. But it must carry itself, we don't wanna pay for it"... So the civil release was born and we as a company paid some good money for their development

[matrosov]

Ephedrin I think they treated educational market as a free money. I think back in a day they had grand idea of all encompassing engine to train all branches of DOD and DOJ from pilots to infantry utilizing VR, desktop, mobile, etc etc etc. And because getting ready made engine from MS was great mitigation strategy and it lowered development costs plus free money from consumer market made some profit and more importantly inroads with some smaller scale contracts with the government Now that technology finally caught up with that original grand idea I think they are going to be more serious making it more refined and realistic to make further inroads with governments. Question is will it spill over into consumer space? Army will have no issues paying for high res photogrammetry but is LM going to give it to consumer for free for example.

[AirBadger]

I read (months ago) that LM would use a totally different engine and approach now?

Nope, at least not in V6. They already said they wouldn't make a major engine change that would break backward compatibility.

[Ephedrin]

Nope, at least not in V6. They already said they wouldn't make a major engine change that would break backward compatibility.

hm okay, then it seems it was just a rumour. Pity..

[Steven Silva]

Nope, at least not in V6. They already said they wouldn't make a major engine change that would break backward compatibility.

do you have the sources?

[fahdriyami]

All it takes is a quick web search: https://www.helisimmer.com/news/lock...e-p3d-prepar3d

[RichardMcDonaldWoods]

Perhaps LM is beginning to plan on migrating to MSFS?

[VBHB]

Finish 777 off first!!

[Steven Silva]

Perhaps LM is beginning to plan on migrating to MSFS?

It would be cool where LM could work together with, ASOBO and MSFS so that they can help solve all the weather problems, all the ATC issue, AI Traffic among many things that affect MSFS but it is something impossible since they took the FSX platform and they adapted it to be compatible with some aesthetic changes but obviously they didn't touch the fsx engine since it was almost perfect in many issues. It is also impossible for LM to work hand in hand with ASOBO and MSFS

[Swagger897]

Where are you seeing V6 is surfacing?

[Sylvester]

Hello, Majestic software has updated the Q400 and it has the option to install in P3Dv4,P3Dv5 and P3Dv6.

[SHP]

The new engine is Unreal. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/s...simulation-r-d

I have no inside knowledge on the subject from either side, but PMDG has stated openly that the money in the market has moved sharply to MSFS.

I doubt LM will be able to recapture a sizable portion of the market with their emphasis being on non-entertainment. And even if they can shed the licensing restrictions, why would the masses leave to go to LM? See the story of x-plane.

[Ephedrin]

The new engine is Unreal. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/s...simulation-r-d

I have no inside knowledge on the subject from either side, but PMDG has stated openly that the money in the market has moved sharply to MSFS.

I doubt LM will be able to recapture a sizable portion of the market with their emphasis being on non-entertainment. And even if they can shed the licensing restrictions, why would the masses leave to go to LM? See the story of x-plane.

Right, unreal is what I read.. But P3D would have to step up massively to get back their market share if that‘s what they wanted. This afternoon I took the Tiger Moth up in VR for a flight along the north side of the Austrian Alps using all kind of prime quality freeware airfields, Austrian Landmarks Project, 10m DEM and rex accuseason. It was like a real flight. That visual quality with perfectly smooth performance and impressively correct and great looking weather… That‘s a lot. I doubt that P3D will be a serious competitor to MSFS for me anytime soon and I doubt that many others would change back. And don‘t forget the difference in the wallet. MSFS is extremely cheap in comparison to what we spent for P3D 🤷🏻♂️

[Abriael]

LM simply doesn't have the means to compete with MSFS. It isn't even a matter of money.

MSFS acquired a massive market share overnight because it's made by a gaming company with a giant pre-existing distribution network. Microsoft moves a finger and millions of gamers instantly know that happened.

LM doesn't have any of that. It has openly scorned the consumer market for years (whether it intended to or not, that's irrelevant), and no matter what they do, it'll still be a drop in the ocean because the overwhelming majority of the addressable market barely knows who they are, let alone that they make a flight simulator.

Their situation is even worse than Xplane, which can at least count on a small core of fans that will quaff Austin's Koolaid whatever he does, albeit the videos they've been doing on youtube certainly smell like desperation, nowadays, which tells me that XP12 hasn't retained nearly as many users as they hoped.

[PhilMC_]

For XP12, I think that outcome was kind obvious from the start because just from an observation standpoint, the visual differences between 11 and 12 don't seem (for me) to justify spending 60 bucks especially considering everyone's eyes got too used to FS2020.

And wasn't P3D used for military/flight school training or something in the first place?

[vadriver]

Abriael


so you enjoy driving a toyota (agl)...... great views, lousy handling, cheap as but great in reverse

[Want2BFlyin]

I'm not entirely sure that I understand your analogy, but if we are comparing that three year old Toyota with a seventeen year old high-mileage Volkswagen that was just detailed, then yes, I would prefer the Toyota.

[DDowns]

Hey, I love my Avalon. A true old man sedan with 114000 miles and never had to fix anything.

[ctruong183]

Toyota is the proven reliable product in the world.
Their premium range, Lexus, is proven with reliable product.
Their customer support program is in the top 5 in thew world ...

[dsalman1]

If P3d 6 does come hopefully everything in 5.3 will still work. Everyone jumped to msfs 2020 but there are many that have not. I probably would just stay will 5.3 because it is very solid and everything works. Still, 5.3 was a big improvement so if 6 does that maybe moving to 6 makes sense if it comes out.

[Ephedrin]

Regarding P3dv6 this is what Majestic shared on their site:

We have released an updated version (1.025) for Prepar3D v5.x & in development v6. […]

There have been users providing misleading information among various user groups speaking to LM's newer P3D v6 which is currently in development. Yes, our new installer does show an option for the new version but this was merely for our in-house testing purposes. Majestic does not have any information or knowledge as to when LM plans on releasing the newer version, nor would we share/hint any info even if we knew as it is not information for us to share.

I will not put the link here since this is part of a release announcement and we‘re in another dev‘s forum. But everyone can check it at their website.

So probably v6 isn‘t just as close as it might sound.

[BeerBong89]

Despite MS's ability to market, I could absolutely see this platform eventually being the top choice for hardcore simmers.

Granted they can nail the flight modeling. A newer engine like UE could be a MASSIVE generational leap for flight sims. For graphics, performance and hopefully realism as well..

[gordon24]

Unreal Engine on P3D6 is probably just a rumor. The only real fact we know is that LM doesn't want to break the backward compatibility. I doubt that you can have a massive improvment in term of graphism if you want to keep that backward compatibility.

As Abriael said, LM will never have the communication power Microsoft has. Outside the niche world of simmers, nobody ever heard about LM or P3D. Droping all backward compatibility is probably possible to make P3D6 as good as msfs but because LM doesn't have this communication power, I doubt it will catch new simmers. And why would msfs users drop all they bought for msfs to come back to P3D if it's not ten times better?

On the opposite, keeping backward compatibility won't make P3D6 very attractive for msfs users. In fact, they can only hope to catch the P3D4 and P3D5 users and it's not that big anymore. Worse, even if P3D6 keep backward compatibility, it will probably like each time, need small tweakings and I'm not even sure all developpers will update their products for the new version. So a lot of P3d5 users might chose to stick to the old version.

For all those reasons, the odd for P3D to win back it's crown is close to nil.

[Want2BFlyin]

Outside the niche world of simmers, nobody ever heard about LM or P3D.

You may be surprised to learn that Lockheed-Martin is, in fact, a very well-known company "outside the niche world of simmers." You may have heard of this little thing known as the F-35?

Also, it is indeed a fact that LM is using Unreal Engine 5 for something related to simulation. They may be re-doing P3d using Unreal Engine 5, or it could be a completely new simulation product. We don't know that for sure, but we do know that they are using Unreal Engine 5. P3D was never intended to be used by the flight sim community. There was always a bit of a grey area in the EULA that allowed flight simmers to use P3D, and the flight sim community did provide a tiny bit of side-income for Lockheed-Martin, but it was never a significant source of income for them. P3D is not even mentioned in their latest financial report.

In my opinion, LM was never seeking to obtain part of the flight sim market with P3D. The license that they offer for P3D never seemed as if it was written with the general flight sim user in mind. It would not surprise me at all if LM did revamp P3D using Unreal Engine 5, but I doubt they will do so with the intention of trying to regain any of the users who have migrated to MSFS. They don't need to regain any of that market share.

[gordon24]

You may be surprised to learn that Lockheed-Martin is, in fact, a very well-known company "outside the niche world of simmers." You may have heard of this little thing known as the F-35?

.

Sorry I should have be more precise. Of course, we know LM as an aircraft manufacturer. What I wanted to say is that outside the hardcore flight simmers, who knows LM has a public simulation division and who heard about P3D in the public?

On the contrary, each time Microsoft publish a video on their xbox youtube channel, it reach a large audience and it brings more people to the flight simulation and to msfs. you see the video on all the game industry medias. I've rarely seen those same media taliking about P3D. It's a whole different world, no comparison possible.

[rsrandazzo]

Gents-

To anyone reading this thread and wondering if they should be excited about P3Dv6 and/or Unreal Engine and/or a massive graphic engine overhaul and/or none of that but something else:

Please know that about 95% of what is written in this thread regarding P3Dv6 is speculative, even when represented otherwise.

I offer you that opinion from a well informed standpoint that is first hand, not second hand, nor inuendo.

As Winston Churchill said: "The internet is full of folly to lure in the uninformed."

[Kevin Hall]

People seem to forget that P3D is not in competition with MSFS, not in LM's eyes at least. P3D was from the outset aimed at professional and student training and Microsoft granted them the licence to develop its ESP simulation platform on that basis. MSFS is aimed at gamers and simmers. Neither of whom are LM's core market for P3D, which is the Professional Plus product, priced at $2,500 per single licence.