Coming soon...P3D-Forensics!! from Flight Sim Forensic Labs
Flight Sim Forensic Labs Facebook pageWith 2018 soon approaching, we at FSFL (Flight Sim Forensic Labs) thought it was an appropriate time to preview a new piece of software for Prepar3D v4 that we're very excited to be releasing early in the new year.
The primary purpose of the new software were calling P3D-Forensics is to help you create and, more importantly, maintain a flight simulation environment that is both error-free and highly optimized for your particular combination of hardware and FS-related software add-ons.
By helping to maintain an efficient, up-to-date environment, this new software will go a long way towards ensuring an enjoyable and stress-free flight every time you hit the virtual skies.
Please see below a summary of the main highlights of this new software suite: P3D-Forensics will maintain an inventory of every major* flight sim-related add-on (aircraft, flight planning, scenery, texture, weather) installed on your system. For each add-on, it will automatically notify you whenever a new update is released/available that you do not currently have installed. In addition, it will direct you to the appropriate place to download the update, whether that be the add-on developers web site or the add-ons own configuration tool. The software will also automatically check all settings for each add-on to ensure there are no configuration errors present.
P3D-Forensics will monitor every Prepar3D configuration file and maintain a searchable case history of changes, at both file and individual setting level. For example, when installing a new aircraft or a new piece of scenery, it will maintain a searchable catalogue of every change made to every setting within every P3D config file. These will include changes to:
prepar3d.cfg, airlines.cfg, autogen.cfg, display.cfg, effects.cfg, gauges.cfg, scenery.cfg, add-ons.cfg, dll.xml, exe.xml
P3D-Forensics will maintain an inventory of all files/folders added to the Prepar3D installation folder during the install of an add-on and (most importantly) monitor changes to any of the files delivered as part of Prepar3D v4. By maintaining a full history of these changes, P3D-Forensics will be able to provide, at any time, a full list of all changes made to your Prepar3D installation since you originally installed it. This will be extremely useful for not only tracking down problems, but also re-applying changes if a re-install of Prepar3D is required at any time.
P3D-Forensics will, at the touch of a button, provide a comprehensive health check of your Prepar3D installation and give you a score based on errors found, update/patch level of all major* FS-related add-ons installed and current settings vs. recommended values. The program will both provide the reasons for a possible low score and provide recommendations for improving any score found to be below the optimum level.
P3D-Forensics will be able to perform an on-demand analysis of your PC hardware, whilst checking every config setting (for both Prepar3D and each add-on) to ensure it is appropriate for the CPU/GPU/RAM combination currently installed.
These are just a few of the highlights. The program will contain some additional useful functions that we be revealing and detailing in upcoming announcements.
Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have. As mentioned, we're extremely excited about this new tool and are confident that this it will soon become a must-have utility in every virtual aviator's FS hangar.
For the initial release, there will be a P3D v4 version only. If there is sufficient interest, we will also consider creating versions for FSX, Flight Sim World, Prepar3D v3 and X-Plane.
More updates coming soon as we wrap up development and begin preparing for alpha testing. Once alpha testing is nearing completion, we will be inviting applications to become a member of our small beta testing team.
*The list of P3Dv4 add-on developers currently supported (with more to follow at user request) include the following: A2A
Aerosoft
AivlaSoft
Drzewiecki Design
EZCA
Flight1
FlyTampa
FSDreamTeam
FSLabs
FS2Crew
iFly
Imagine Simulation
Just Flight
LatinVFR
Majestic Software
Navigraph
Orbx
PMDG
Pollypot Software
REX Simulations
Taxi2Gate
