FSX Vs P3D.v3

[Kike Arribere]

Hi, could I ask you guys for some piece of advice here...:

 I have a FSX installed in my gaming laptop with the following specs:

msi i7 6700HQ 2,66Ghz - 16Gb RAM - win10 64bits - GTX960M 2Mb GDDR5 - SSD hard drive 

I'm wondering if P3D v3 would run smoothly on my laptop....? And V4....

I read that P3D is much more stable with A320X.... and my Vas is quite low with FSX....

Does someone has both sims installed in the same computer?

 

thanks in advance for your tips....

kike

[Vitalijus Montrimas]

I believe your laptop is similar to mine, I wouldn't try running P3D on it, unlike FSX Prepar3D is GPU heavy and 960m is pretty weak, it will most likely get hot and start throttling. Even if it runs you will definitely going to have to reduce all sliders to very bottom to have some fps.

As of A320X it's pretty heavy addon. I have 1080ti on my rig and I still need to reduce graphic settings to have 30+ fps and not to run out of VAS. I would bet that 960m will struggle with this addon big time.

I would probably buy V4 version tho, most of addons tend to run better in V4 than V3, hopefully A320X will run better too.

For VAS, I never tried A320X on fsx, but on P3D it eats quite a lot of it, it's pretty much heaviest addon on my library, I have separate settings on P3D for A320X so I don't run out mid flight.

While I don't have fsx anymore I still hope some of it will help you decide and sorry for my slightly broken English

[Lars Hajema]

Hey,

the golden rule is never to run FSX/P3D or any sim for that mater on a laptop as the cooling is not designed the handle the high CPU (FSX) or GPU (P3D) load. Laptops are just not made to handle that, not even a 'gaming' laptop, even though other people wil beg to differ. That being said, no I think P3D V3 or V4 will not run smoothly on your system purely because the card is to weak. Bare in mind the FSX uses a high CPU load and P3D uses almost everything your GPU has to offer. If you are thinking of switching to P3D, I would suggest you first buy a desktop with a GTX960 as minimum and then switch to P3D.

Cheers,

Lars

[Kike Arribere]

Thanks for both answers....

Thing is, I don't have space at home to have a fixed computer.... so I have the sim in a laptop and we'll, it runs smooth enough for my needs... I don't need a high graphic quality, just to be able to train manoeuvres and abnormal procedures..'m

But ONE DAY I will switch

 

Thanks again,

Kike 

[Vitalijus Montrimas]

The thing is your laptop has strong CPU and fsx uses CPU mostly and thats why it runs decently on your laptop. P3D on other hand loads gpu to 100% pretty much all the time, while it might be able to handle default aircraft or some addon GA's it will struggle with A320X. If you switch to P3D I believe you won't see any upgrade to graphics and it will run worse for you.

And a lot of developers still support and make products for FSX / FSX:SE as there is still market for it.

[Roman Geber]

On 20/06/2017 at 3:19 PM, Lars Hajema said:

the golden rule is never to run FSX/P3D or any sim for that mater on a laptop..

A rule I broke for two years very successfully. However the laptop in question has a desktop CPU clocked at 4GHz and a lot of cooling mass. It weighs in at almost 4kg and when it's cooling gets going you don't need to worry about engine sound packs anymore.

I ran P3Dv3 and X-Plane 10 on it without issues. However, it's performance isn't comparable to a desktop, even a much cheaper one.

High end gaming laptops are incredibly expensive and I slightly regret having spent so much money on it. My new build is stuffed with pretty much everything a simmers heart desires and cost me only 2/3 of the laptop.

So in a way it holds true. Laptops aren't ideal for simming. But then again, if you have one and nothing else, use it and enjoy it. I flew X-Plane 9 on a Lenovo X1 Carbon (first generation) for a while and enjoyed it

Most current laptops should be able to run FSX in a decent fashion. P3D may be more demanding, but it always depends on ones settings of course. You can always try running P3D and ask for a refund if it's not working for you.

cu
Roman

[Lars Hajema]

1 hour ago, Roman Geber said:

A rule I broke for two years very successfully. However the laptop in question has a desktop CPU clocked at 4GHz and a lot of cooling mass. It weighs in at almost 4kg and when it's cooling gets going you don't need to worry about engine sound packs anymore.

I ran P3Dv3 and X-Plane 10 on it without issues. However, it's performance isn't comparable to a desktop, even a much cheaper one.

High end gaming laptops are incredibly expensive and I slightly regret having spent so much money on it. My new build is stuffed with pretty much everything a simmers heart desires and cost me only 2/3 of the laptop.

So in a way it holds true. Laptops aren't ideal for simming. But then again, if you have one and nothing else, use it and enjoy it. I flew X-Plane 9 on a Lenovo X1 Carbon (first generation) for a while and enjoyed it

Most current laptops should be able to run FSX in a decent fashion. P3D may be more demanding, but it always depends on ones settings of course. You can always try running P3D and ask for a refund if it's not working for you.

cu
Roman

Hey Roman,

like with a lot of things in life, there are always exceptions to a rule ;).

Indeed if you spend the money, you will eventually get near the prefomance of a desktop. But most people don't have that money to spend. The better choice is to go with a desktop if you seek prefomance and a latop if you want something compact to travel with :D.

I do not know If you can buy P3D and then refund it. I know some companies have a no refund policy (PMDG, FT, Aerosoft). So if he buys P3D he should be almost sure he is able to run it on his laptop. I will take a look at the P3D website regarding refunds and then edit my post below.

Cheers,

Lars  (LarsTheAviator)

EDIT:

I looked at the P3D website. You can get a refund, but you have to request it within 1-2 weeks of receipt. Be sure to read the FAQ that states the info about refunding your P3D

[Tom Wright]

My FS2004 days (which was the sim that started this hobby for me) were spent on an old HP DV2000 laptop! I used that happily for years until I bought FSX and killed it due to the GPU frying.

Wouldn't even try to run P3D on the mobile GPU in a laptop. Not unless you want to really sacrifice your visual settings and run the risk of burning out the GPU.

[Luca vom Bruch]

I think you can run it pretty good on 960M. Just connect an external monitor, keyboard, mouse and joystick. Dont close the lid on the laptop. Just expect it to get very loud as the fans try to keep it cool.

I went from various AMD GPU's (desktop) to various NVIDIA GPU's (desktop) and the difference was always minimal.

CPU upgrades however were always much more signficant.

[Roman Geber]

On 6/26/2017 at 5:29 PM, Lars Hajema said:

Indeed if you spend the money, you will eventually get near the prefomance of a desktop.

Sorta. There are bottlenecks even in a really beefy build. I highly recommend desktops over portables. But the golden rule should not discourage from flying. My gaming monster was just the peak of my portable "time". As I mentioned even a business notebook with no dedicated GPU worked well enough for some basic X-Plane 9 flying. A decent notebook with some Nvidia M chip should work fine as a base for FSX. Even P3D might work fine as long as you don't go crazy on the settings.

Have fun flying

cu
Roman

[Robert Ruprecht]

Hi K

I have a laptop with a l74600 processor and NVidia 970M  happily running P3dv3.4 P3D v4 , Xplane 11 at 30 fps solidly.

Granted, no A320X on P3dv4 (yet), but A320X working well on P3dv3. I have had no problems at all with FSL spotlights, or with some of the quoted other issues on the forums with A320 X, and with sliders about midway on most settings, a couple at higher settings. Active Sky 16/ASCA, on p3dv3 and AS 4 on P3dv4 . FTx Orbx on both, PTA on both. Apart from noisy fans ( tolerable) it's all fine. No VAS problems on P3dv4, and with flights under 4 hours none, on P3dv3. Go for it.