P3D V4 code/SDK

[bribeth]

Good afternoon,

Another developer put out a notice this afternoon about V4 native stuff vs files that were ported over. Are these updates for the V4 scenery using the V4 SDK? Or is this ported? Thanks in advance.

[troykr]

Yes, that would be good to know!

[shiwaz]

Just read the very informative post on the forum in question myself and couldnt help but get the feeling that the whole "copy/paste" and delete of FlyTampa files is a port. While it works and w/o getting more than the expected FPS drops with dyn light (i think), im sure the devs (all of them, no matter the brand) will need some time to fully utilize the new SDK.

They all have my patience and understanding!

[martin[flytampa]]

The short answer is no and if you want to follow the "notice" as gospel I recommend you don't install anything from anyone for a quite some time.

Most airport addons are composed of files from various SDK versions, ranging as far back as FS2004 for ground polygons with seasonal features. No SDK after FS2004 supported that feature so every airport that has this, has been using that SDK for at least those particular files. This is not to say that other Models within the same Addon were not compiled with a newer SDKs. What I'm saying is that devs generally have to use a mix of SDK versions for various things. This is also in part why FSX and P3D always keep some backwards compatibility, they can never just dump backwards-compat because every new SDK lacked something.

V4 appears to have a pretty complete SDK which re-introduces important features that were lost since FSX, but at this point I very much doubt there are even a handful, if any Addons which are 100% made with the new V4 SDK.

In fact, the time when you can rest assured that an Addon is fully made using the V4 SDK, is when the Addon is no longer compatible with FSX and V3 at all, or when separate versions for those older Sims come out at a much later date, after the V4-only release.

We are moving towards P3D releases with a strong possibility that FSX and older versions of P3D will no longer be supported at all in the not so distant future.

[bribeth]

Martin,

Thank you for your response. I kind of figured it was this way, but on a personal note, I just want to make sure that all is smooth as I make the transition over.

I trust your judgement as I own almost all of your sceneries as well as pretty much all of the products from the other developer so I trust both of your companies without fail. I just want to make sure that everything is as stable as possible which I am sure you understand.

I will continue the updating process and will advise if there are any adverse problems. Thank you again for your response.

-B. Neuman

[Bakern]

The short answer is no and if you want to follow the "notice" as gospel I recommend you don't install anything from anyone for a quite some time.

Most airport addons are composed of files from various SDK versions, ranging as far back as FS2004 for ground polygons with seasonal features. No SDK after FS2004 supported that feature so every airport that has this, has been using that SDK for at least those particular files. This is not to say that other Models within the same Addon were not compiled with a newer SDKs. What I'm saying is that devs generally have to use a mix of SDK versions for various things. This is also in part why FSX and P3D always keep some backwards compatibility, they can never just dump backwards-compat because every new SDK lacked something.

V4 appears to have a pretty complete SDK which re-introduces important features that were lost since FSX, but at this point I very much doubt there are even a handful, if any Addons which are 100% made with the new V4 SDK.

In fact, the time when you can rest assured that an Addon is fully made using the V4 SDK, is when the Addon is no longer compatible with FSX and V3 at all, or when separate versions for those older Sims come out at a much later date, after the V4-only release.

We are moving towards P3D releases with a strong possibility that FSX and older versions of P3D will no longer be supported at all in the not so distant future.

Thanks for info. Sooner rather than later.

[shiwaz]

Great response Martin, it makes perfect sense! And i love that you're dedicated to utilizing new tech by disposing the old.

[martin[flytampa]]

Thanks for info. Sooner rather than later.

Great response Martin, it makes perfect sense! And i love that you're dedicated to utilizing new tech by disposing the old.

Thanks for the positive feedback on that. We expect the transition to V4-only Addons with FSX support being dropped to happen a lot quicker then it did with the FS2004->FSX transition where FS2004 versions remained viable for years along with a loud FS2004 userbase demanding them.

This time the transition will be "harder" and more abrupt, and in fact several high-quality developers have been communicating behind the scenes on exactly this topic, which boils down to how quickly they are willing to drop FSX support in favor of V4-only releases. Without naming anyone I can say that what came out of these talks is good news for V4 and bad news for FSX.

[bribeth]

Thanks for info. Sooner rather than later.

Great response Martin, it makes perfect sense! And i love that you're dedicated to utilizing new tech by disposing the old.

Thanks for the positive feedback on that. We expect the transition to V4-only Addons with FSX support being dropped to happen a lot quicker then it did with the FS2004->FSX transition where FS2004 versions remained viable for years along with a loud FS2004 userbase demanding them.

This time the transition will be "harder" and more abrupt, and in fact several high-quality developers have been communicating behind the scenes on exactly this topic, which boils down to how quickly they are willing to drop FSX support in favor of V4-only releases. Without naming anyone I can say that what came out of these talks is good news for V4 and bad news for FSX.

I think there was always going to be the end for FSX, considering the program is pushing what, 12-13 years old now?

FSX continues IMHO because alot of the addons developed for that platform have either not been brought forward to P3D or the developers are flat out of business. I am hoping with the 64bit platform that this will generate enough excitement to bring people back or jumpstart development again. You kind of see it with XPlane developers...and not having the OOM's to really worry about, it should open alot of doors.

[aceridgey]

Hi Martin,

Absolutely great response and I think your stance is the correct one. FSX has had it's day and it's time to move on (to p3d v4 )

I have seen the poor performance mentioned in that thread referred to.

Question to you, are most of your current offerings going to be fully compiled using p3d V4 SDK?

I think the community would be willing to wait if guarantee's were to be made so we can plan when to drop V3.

Thank you again

Alex

[martin[flytampa]]

Absolutely great response and I think your stance is the correct one. FSX has had it's day and it's time to move on (to p3d v4 )
I have seen the poor performance mentioned in that thread referred to.
Question to you, are most of your current offerings going to be fully compiled using p3d V4 SDK?
Alex

I will say this... Some of the statements being made in other threads are exaggerating the issues and creating a level of fearmongering that I do not think is warranted.

If Lockheed needed V4 to remain so "pure" and untouched by non-V4-SDK files, they could have just dropped backwards compatibility. Instead they went through some extra trouble to ensure compatibility, which is no minor achievement considering the 32->64bit switch. A stock v4 install itself contains many BGLs and other content that was not recompiled by Lockheed, so a V4 base installation isn't all that "pure" to begin with.

As far as airport Addons go, there are certain parts or types of BGLs where you will see a benefit from removing or switching them to a newer V4 tech, but this isn't true for every single file of every addon in existence. So it is a matter of devs needing to look at their files individually and figure out how to selectively alter them. With the bulk of files of a given airport, which contain 3D models of terminals etc, there is no automatic performance or other benefit by just recompiling them with the V4 SDK. Of course we are conducting tests with our airports and of course I understand that Aircraft are different since its usually a single massive MDL that gets compiled.

So the answer is not as simple as a guarantee to recompile every single file of every airport no matter how old and it will all be amazing.

Right now, I would not install every non-essential obscure Addon without making regular backups of the whole P3Dv4 folder as well as user & program data/ folders just in case. Its unrealistic to wait for every old Addon to be "V4-purified" in the sense that is being talked about in other threads. Devs are more likely going to invest their time focusing on new Addons that will be for V4 only, instead of messing around with their 10 year old stuff for too long. The average 10 year old Addon, even if "V4-purified" and (guessing) 10% faster , would still look and feel like the same 10 year old Addon.

[Lude2Envy]

Thank you Martin for explaining all of this to us. I see with your addons you actually have replacement files that need to be copied into the scenery folder as well as old files that need to be deleted. Some other scenery devs are releasing v4 installers or saying to just "point" the installer to the sim folder. I suppose there's no way to tell if these devs are doing their due diligence without installing the scenery and seeing first hand how stable our sim is. There is one dev out there in particular who makes beautiful scenery but tends to leave us hanging once they have our money and it's pretty frustrating.

[B777ER]

Thanks for info. Sooner rather than later.

Great response Martin, it makes perfect sense! And i love that you're dedicated to utilizing new tech by disposing the old.

Thanks for the positive feedback on that. We expect the transition to V4-only Addons with FSX support being dropped to happen a lot quicker then it did with the FS2004->FSX transition where FS2004 versions remained viable for years along with a loud FS2004 userbase demanding them.

This time the transition will be "harder" and more abrupt, and in fact several high-quality developers have been communicating behind the scenes on exactly this topic, which boils down to how quickly they are willing to drop FSX support in favor of V4-only releases. Without naming anyone I can say that what came out of these talks is good news for V4 and bad news for FSX.

Bravo I say. About time. Will look fwd to these P3D v4 sdk compliant sceneries very much.

[martin[flytampa]]

Thank you Martin for explaining all of this to us. I see with your addons you actually have replacement files that need to be copied into the scenery folder as well as old files that need to be deleted. Some other scenery devs are releasing v4 installers or saying to just "point" the installer to the sim folder. I suppose there's no way to tell if these devs are doing their due diligence without installing the scenery and seeing first hand how stable our sim is. There is one dev out there in particular who makes beautiful scenery but tends to leave us hanging once they have our money and it's pretty frustrating.

The recompilation of the Installer for V4 is the simplest thing to do, its often just a matter of adding a single line of code so it reads the V4 registry key (Setup-Path). Just having a recompiled Installer that "seems" V4 aware, does not tell you anything about the actual Addon content having been updated or not. Based on the speed some of these are getting released, I assume that they contain mostly specific file-patches (like we have) but in a recompiled installer. There are of course exceptions like Flightbeam's latest using new V4 features properly etc.

The reason I haven't just recompiled our Installers is because I will only do that once i'm confident that most V4 issues are fixed. The current ZIP patches work, but there are still issues being reported here and there, which we are looking into. I don't want to have to re-issue 2 or 3 versions of the main v4 installers later on, its easier to just use the small ZIP patches for now.