NZFF

I'm not buying it right out like I would usually do as i'm waiting for feedback on performance, and compatibility with the raft of addons I have not to mention VR compatibility.

If anyone here does get it, i'd love to see a feedback thread.

EDIT: given FS2020 is pending, i'm a little hesitant about buying the same base platform again.

https://www.prepar3d.com/home-slider/2020/04/116313/

I paid my US$10 for the monthly developer sub, although I do notice that whereas I used to pay under NZ$17 per month, the NZ dollar's poor performance means that it's closer to $20 at the moment...
Currently installing, I'm probably not the best person to comment on a new sim, though, but I will say if there's anything outstanding. Though I'm certainly ready to move to MSFS when it's finished, or even before:)

Watching this thread also. I'm the same, I'm not buying yet, if at all, pending MS2020. I *might*, if absolutely no issues reported with the add-ons I use, and no additional major cost to those also. To be fair, I did get a little fed up with constant & confusing updates to add-ons. Rex stuff was the most confusing; was never quite sure which product combination required which updates, etc. Despite being in IT myself, when I get home I am a 'plug and play' kind of guy --- I have better things do do than mess around just trying to get computers or programs or games working!
I did see a 4.5 hotfix out, though that might have been a delayed RSS feed as I hadn't checked it for a while.

I decided i was going to stick with P3D as my sim of choice because it allowed some options that I'm not sure if MS will allow and which are not available as far as I know in XP. Therefore i decided to suck it up and jump on P3D V5 early and try to make it work.

To date i have flown slightly over 5 hours without an issue. If you are looking for the next big thing in Flight Sims then V5 is not it for you. If you are looking for a smooth and accurate reflection of real world aircraft you fly ( for when you are locked down and unable to fly IRL) then it is a good choice.

In comparison to V4.5 it is a great deal smoother with the controls and as close i think i will ever get to a home simulator. Frame rates are smooth, ORBX scenery works well and the mesh looks to be worldwide so no need for an add on there. Flying around the areas i know ( North Island of NZ mainly) i find the orbx scenery is a good representation, and best of all i can max out my sliders and i am not on a very powerful system ( it needs an upgrade for the MB and Ram).

I regularly use the A2A C172 in V4.5 and it works perfectly ( apart from one file which needs to be deleted). Some of the issues i had with it in V4.5 (trim and seemingly overpowered) appear to have gone and the flight dynamic now feels much more relaistic.

Unfortunately none of my weather add ons work at this stage but i am enjoying the updated sky in V5 and apart from some wind ( which i could load myself if i wasn't meant to be working form home and not simming). This evening i will be trying a flight on VATSIM to see how it goes but for me this is a keeper.

Well, it installed without incident, although I did need to clear some space on my system drive to allow it to install, as as always it has eaten into my system drive, but I normally get around to fixing that at some stage.
Worked great out of the box, so I changed a few settings to suit me -- the dynamic trees are better, but still not great, so back to normal it goes. Default settings are very low for me, so I tweaked just a few without going overboard. I installed a couple of my own sceneries, simply by copying the addon.xml files to the v5 addons folder, and they mostly work, except that there is an exclusion issue at Nelson, with the default terminal showing. I do like the sky/clouds/water, but as I've said before, too little compared to MSFS.
I installed Orbx NZSI and NZNI as recommended on their site, since then I get a CTD once the flight is loaded, without any display. Uninstalling NZSI didn't fix it (flying in the South Island) so I'll need to uninstall NZNI as well and see what happens. I did manage to get it to work by restarting the PC, but I'd hate to have to do that all the time.
It looks like updating Real NZ scenery should be easy enough.

Thanks all for your comments. We'll recieved.

One issue i have found with V5 and Orbx scenery is that they don't play well together when V5 has sloped runways. Landing on Rwy 21 at Matarangi the touchdown point is fine but as you complete the landing roll you slowly sink through the surface as the slope decends. If you turn around and taxi back to the threshold then you slowly emerge through the surface. I'm sure it will be resolved in time but it is a bit of light humour for now.

I couldn't get Active Sky to work but Opus FSI 6 works mostly ok. There are a few anomalies with winds aloft and direction/strength changes but at least now i have more realistic winds in the sim.

I have also just changed the sim location in REX Environment Force since both V4.5 and V5 use Perpar3d.exe as the execution file and it seems to be working although i can't verify it 100% (The weather info changes to NZAA, NZWN or NZCH but wont use any VATSIM weather sources form the looks of it. I never noticed if this was the case in V4.5 or not.

I've just this minute got mine working well again, I removed the prepar3d.cfg file, and reinstalled Orbx NZSI, and it's now looking good. I have yet to play with settings (apart from turning the trees up a bit, I like trees) but the new atmospherics certainly add a lot of, well, atmosphere...
It's funny going back to no PTA tweaks, but it does look a lot better than v4 without PTA.
The file size is a lot bigger, which I assume is mostly elevation data. I've yet to check this out, I'm not sure how this will impact NZ. I've just figured out how to test this, since I don't have NZNI installed, but do have my Coromandel, which includes a 5m mesh, I'll just disable that and see if the pointy bits are still pointy....
I'll get back.

Interesting stuff. *IF* (big if) I do go to v5, I will strip v4 completely and all add-ons and start again from scratch once all add-ons are properly v5 verified compatible. Its a bit of work, but since I will only add NZ it wouldn't be too bad.

Just downloaded P3DV5 so will see how that works. Not sure if my old GTX Titan card will handle it or not. The P3DV5 specs say DX12 and feature level 12.0 where as my card is DX12 capable but only to feature level 11.

Anyone considering Prepar3d v5 recommend watching well known and outspoken, opinionated Flight Sim Community You Tube content creator from across the ditch Aussie Tristan aka Novawing24 he has just done a vanilla download and installed with no add-on's. He takes a look at whats new and a look at the new interface with his commentary on P3Dv5 Release First Impression and Opinion

cowpatz wrote:Just downloaded P3DV5 so will see how that works. Not sure if my old GTX Titan card will handle it or not. The P3DV5 specs say DX12 and feature level 12.0 where as my card is DX12 capable but only to feature level 11.

I didn't realise there were 'levels' of DX12 ... I guess I'll need to look into that if I go that way. I have a Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX1080 8GB but I can't seem to find what level, just that it supports DX12.

I'm part way through setting up my rig again (in that I have all the car stuff removed, and the pedals and USB hubs back in. I'm also downloading the newest update to 4.5 but not sure I'll actually install it ... I just like to store old versions in case they are ever needed.
Actually I checked space on my 1TB SSD and no way I'd get v5 on there without stripping v4 and all add-ons first...

It is interesting starting to see v5 info coming through now though.

I'm in a similar boat to you Jeff. Not quite able to add v5 just yet as am running copies of both v3 and v4 on the same disk (because some add-on's I love to use that just don't work v4) and space is a premium on the SSD

Guess at some point I'll have to either get another disk or just migrate the v4 stuff to v5 when the time is right.