PAY AGAIN FOR MY ADDONS?

Each developer will decide on his own if he will charge your for the update to Prepar3D v5. We already have the confirmation from many developers that they will not charge you for the update if you already have a license for their products under Prepar3D v4. We hope that as many developers as possible will give us the possibility to update their products free of charge.

BENEFITS OF PREPAR3D V5?

Lockheed Martin has implemented many new features and updates for already existing features. Prepar3D v5 now uses a brand-new rendering engine built on DirectX 12. In addition they have intergrated tureSKY, NVIDIA WaveWorks 2.0 middelware, refreshed the entire globe, included sloped runway capabilities, and added additional aircrafts, landmarks, wildlife and more. There is so much to get excited about. Further they improved  over 24,000 airports on the globe via updated airport and land class textures as well as new PBR textures for runways, taxiways and taxiway signs. Added sloped runway support including AI takeoff and landing capabilities. Updated time zones to match real-world boundaries. Updated user interface design. An much much more…

You want to see the full changelog? No problem, here it is: Changelog Prepar3D v5

BENEFIT OF DIRECTX 12 INTEGRATION?

You can definitely expect improved performance and enhanced visuals with v5. With DirectX 12, the LM development team can transition more work from both the CPU and the GPU, which has an improved ability to process multiple threads. Basically, this allows Prepar3D v5 to use the hardware more efficiently.

PREPAR3D V5 OR MSFS2020?

This depends on your personal taste / preferences. Both announced simulators do have many good arguments.

P3D v5 have many addon products ready at or soon after release. Many developers offer an update of their products free of charge. The UI is very similar to the one you are used to (Prepar3D v1 -4). The effort to update products will be much easier if there is already a version for P3D v4 available so we expect to have our beloved addons in P3D v5 soon, too.

MSFS2020 showed us really great visuals, new techniques and so many improvements compared to the old Microsoft Flight Simulator X. This will be definitely a very interesting release. We will not judge based on preview pictures or trailers yet. The marketing at Microsoft / Asobo doing a really good job teasing us over months with great visuals. Let’s see when we are getting closer to release what happens.

WHAT ADDONS ARE COMPATIBLE?

Check out the Prepar3D v5 compatibility list. Many developers have upgraded their products free of charge for P3D v5.

LIVE / REAL-WORLD WEATHER?

By default, Prepar3D v5 does not offer real-world weather, however, the Software Development Kit (SDK) supports all the required interfaces to permit integration of real-world weather. So we will still need REX Simulations Sky Force 3D or Active Sky.

WILL AVIATIONLADS PRODUCE FREEWARE STUFF?

Yes, definitely! We already started the produce the first movies featuring Prepar3D v5 and the awesome products of our partners and developers. We will also update our freeware library with as much products as possible to deliver the community an additional benefit. Check out our checklists, they are of course not binded to a specific flight simulator version so feel free to use them already.

1) Much better Performance (frames per second), doubled compared to Prepar3D v4.5
2) No longer micro stutters (tested with both GPU’s: GTX 1080 or RTX 2080 Ti)
3) Much better usage of the implemented hardware of your computer
4) Awesome new clouds (still in beta so they will be improved over time), sky and atmosphere -> usage of trueSKY
5) Enhanced visuals: For us P3D v5 looks much more realistic out of the box
6) Sloped runway’s: Now it’s time for 3rd party developers to use this technology
7) Updated global terrain, elevation, water/shoreline data: This is so good, that even Orbx said they will not update Orbx Vector, as it is no longer needed
8) New User Interface design for better access to all settings
9) You can still use your big library of addons you already bought for P3D v4. Also many developers have announced to update their products, to ensure compatibility with Prepar3D v5, free of charge.
10) Usage of NVIDIA WaveWorks 2.0 middelware to enhance the default water
… and many more to find at the changelog (see above), but these are the most important ones for us.