Optishot vs. P3Proswing

[-Andrew-]

Been doing a lot of reading but I keep going back and forth...

Online play and graphics aside, just wondering if anyone who has owned and/or used both can provide opinions on which they liked better & why.

(though if you have experience with World Dunes I'd love to hear it.)

thanks,
Andrew

[gotenks94]

Hi Andrew,

Just go to Home Simulator General and scroll through the topics you will find a ton of info about both sims. Bubba22, Zmax and Cory along with others give great reviews on these sims. Good Luck.

[-Andrew-]

Yeah, I've seen some - I just haven't found what I'm looking for, so I'll dig around a little bit.

cheers,
Andrew

[pingB]

p3pro has more sensors, but requires you to tape your clubs, but also has online play and arguably better gfx.

Neither is exceptionally accurate, but we'd need to probably know exactly what you want out of a golf sim. If you want to fine tune your swing and play people online p3pro is probably the better choice. If you just want to play golf indoors with moderate accuracy then the optishot is a fine solution at half the price.

[gotenks94]

I have the optishot and will say it's ok, as far as what i have seen and read the p3pro is a upgrade from the optishot then protee sim and GC2 sim. You get better data with the p3pro versus optishot so my suggestion is its all about what you want with the system. Wanna just no club path optishot, wannna no more the that the go with the other simulators mention. Also you can pull them sims up on youtube and get a better view of them.

[gotenks94]

p3pro has more sensors, but requires you to tape your clubs, but also has online play and arguably better gfx.

Neither is exceptionally accurate, but we'd need to probably know exactly what you want out of a golf sim. If you want to fine tune your swing and play people online p3pro is probably the better choice. If you just want to play golf indoors with moderate accuracy then the optishot is a fine solution at half the price.

Great point pingB what sim do you have if I may ask.

[Stonebattle]

Andrew:
I have a P3pro but have played on a friends Optishot. To me the Optishot is a terrific value. Likewise the P3pro is a terrific value. My friend and I agree the P3pro is more accurate and useful for swing analysis and game improvement. Still the Optishot is still useful for game improvement and is fun to play with the guys over a couple of beers.

Neither will give you accurate ball flight for all kind of shots. Right now I'm a 3.4 handicap and I still use my P3pro to analyze my swing, but I pay little attention to the simulated ball flight. I instead look at the swing videos and the data generated.

P3proswing's online play is well done. They are still improving the sight, but its up and running, well done and one heck of a lot of fun.

I would like to say you can't go wrong with either and I think that's about right, but one cannot expect to much from either system. It seems to me they both are swing analyzers with simulated ball flight results. That's not a bad thing, that's just what they are. For the price, both systems are tough to beat.

If you want a system for your man cave that will be very cost effective, provide some game improvement and you and your buddies can have a great time playing. Get the Optishot. If you want a system that can also do these things and provide more game improvement help, then get the P3pro. If you want a system that will also do these things and provide much more accurate ball flight info, then you will have to step up to a system such as Protee or GC2.

[CPA]

Andrew
If you want to see the GC2 in action I just ran around the front 9 at Brabazon with an ipad.

Link to hole 1 here , rest to follow.

http://youtu.be/NJhJarAbrS0

[-Andrew-]

Thanks for the notes everyone!

It really is a hard choice.

FWIW I called P3 yesterday, and they confirmed that if done properly, using spray paint on the bottom of club would work in lieu of taping - i.e. if done properly, you can put flat, nonreflective black paint down first and then a reflective / metallic paint for the stripe.

[edit] whoops, submitted before I was done...
Anyway - yeah, I use Youtube pretty heavily. (Annoying when a "review" is a product endorsement! - not related to these, but looking at club-mounted swing analyzers..)

What I plan to get out of this: I love golf but am not really good (don't play more than a few times of year... yet), and have only broken 100 a few times. My son (11) just started. I am backing off official instruction for him so he can feel his way for a bit.

As far as I'm concerned, at this point, I really can't justify $5000+, so it's Optishot or P3. I do like the idea of online play but the site STINKS and can't find much else on it. (Would love to watch some videos)

By the way, I'd also love to be able to create courses but I think that's out of the question for now... (who knows, maybe DD with partner up with Perfect Parallel..)

Doing my homework!

[edit 2] I should add that though I can't remember where, I remember reading some criticism of the P3 courses beyond sub-par (get it?) graphics. Honestly, I don't understand why any course couldn't let you just drop the ball anywhere you like, but this was something to do with odd playability restrictions. I'll look for it again. Can one just take mulligans if you want to practice from a certain spot?

Andrew

[pingB]

Great point pingB what sim do you have if I may ask.

I have the Protee.

[pingB]

Andrew I believe P3 uses the red chain software. It's very good courses and graphics are nice. If you don't have a decent machine you wont be able to run at high quality. It is immersive enough in my opinion. That's the same software they use for higher end systems like protee and GSA.

Also if you play in practice mode you can put the ball anywhere and replay shots or whatever.

I've not run into any limitations that I can think of off hand.

check youtube for protee online golf. You'll see online play in action.

[-Andrew-]

Thanks pingB,

I could swear I read that you can only drop balls on one or two "practice" courses... ? (P3)

How is dropping/practice handled in Optishot?

[pingB]

Optishot I believe you can switch to "practice" at any point during a round. In redchain software you have to decide to play a practice round.. where basically you pick where the ball goes and you just hit that shot over and over.. then move it.. then you can decide to switch holes.

In optishot you can "play from here" and basically resume the round..


It's a little better in that regard, but in red chain you can take as many mulligans as you want if you set it to unlimited.

So if you are just trying to practice a specific shot during a full round you can stop to do that by just taking mulligans.

[-Andrew-]

Good info, thanks. I've just called and asked them to email me a user manual so I can poke around a bit.

Andrew

[pingB]

If you are just wanting to try it out the optishot is a good choice because of it's price point.

The p3pro has better features plus I believe you can get the launch angle add on. In optishot the launch angle is calculated and not necessarily accurate.

I feel the p3pro has more potential to evolve into a better system, but if you've never used a sim maybe you wont even really care about that..

In the end if you get way into it like I did you'll want something way more accurate. But that goes into the price point of 4-5k.


SOOOO.. if I was just starting out and wanting to dabble in the world of simulators I"d start with the optishot knowing full well what I was getting into then save up money for the next couple of years and upgrade.

Which is actually exactly what I did

[-Andrew-]

OH - I totally forgot about the launch angle capabilities of the P3 unit. That's a big plus. I haven't used a golf sim (not counting trying a few clubs out at Golf Galaxy...) but I'm a big fan of simulation (used one extensively for my pilot's license and now for instrument training) so I'm familiar with using it as a tool and not as a substitute for real-world activity.

[pingB]

P3Pro might be the way to go then. I think it's got better potential where as the optishot is meant to be a low price point golf game system.

[ZMax]

P3pro users will correct me but I don't think the LA data works with the Premium courses yet. Last I checked, it only works with the two basic courses. Don't know if there are any plans to get LA to work with the Premium courses. They use the Premium courses for most if not all of their online tournaments.

The folks at Optishot should really add a LA option if they were smart.

[gotenks94]

Optishot needs a LA they say something is coming new next quarter but thats all they are saying, they don't want to give any info out which to me thats bad business to your customers leaving them in the dark. But i guess in due time we will see.

[-Andrew-]

Hi all-

You know, I'm having a VERY tough time finding representative screenshots of the courses for P3!

(Optishot has tons..)

Any leads? Opinions on the graphics?

thx
Andrew

[SFR]

Why don't you just download the P3Pro all in one software and at least you can zoom around and see what it looks like. I am quite sure anyone can download it. It won't be much good without a pad to play it but you can still see what the graphics look like and see the menu options. It will give you a warning that the pad is not found but you can still open things without a pad hooked up.

[bubba22]

Andrew, P3pro uses Red Chain. Same graphic as ProTee, Foresight etc. There is plenty of pictures, videos and opinions of the graphic comparisons between Optishot (Simway) and P3pro (Red Chain).

[-Andrew-]

Thanks guys-

SFR- sounds good! I'll try that out.

Bubba, trust me, I looked... I cannot find a comparison, video or otherwise. I'll look for screens of ProTee if you're saying its exactly the same...

Thanks!

[CPA]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etBK...e_gdata_player

[CPA]

Just go to youtube and search p3proswing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoj0...e_gdata_player

[gotenks94]

Nice videos CPA P3 looks good I just hate to have to keep taping my clubs.

[-Andrew-]

Hi Guys-

Yes - saw those. Youtube is actually one of the first places I'll go to review... pretty much anything!

However, I took SFR's advice and downloaded the program... and was quickly HORRIFIED at the circa-1993-graphics!

Luckily I then downloaded the "World Dunes Edition" software and saw a few much, much better examples. (I feel relieved...)

IMO, Sports Vision Technologies is doing themselves a huge disservice by not keeping up to date with posting their best examples.

Can anyone comment as to whether their other courses are the same quality as, the ones that come with World Dunes, and if all the settings are the same, e.g. time of day, graphics detail levels, camera choices, etc. ?

[edit] Also trying to figure out the level of course / range / practice area compatibility with the launch angle monitoring capabilities.

thanks again...

Andrew

[bubba22]

The Red Chain courses are from Custom Play Golf and designed by various people. Therefore the quality is not consistent. There at over 90 courses to chose from though and many veery well done courses.

Optishot has no launch camera although there is talk about that development. P3pro has a launch camera but as far as I know it doesn't work with the premium courses. Perhaps SFR can update us on that. I will add that he launch angle camera for P3pro is video basedw and in my opinion slow and finicky, but it worked.

Course range and practice area are comparable between P3pro and DD.

http://forum.OttawaGolf.com/showthre...g-on-first-sim

[-Andrew-]

Great, thanks again Bubba.

I figure that even with varying quality, they have to be (generally) better than the two original courses...

That stinks about the launch angle cam compatibility, but maybe they'll address in next update if they haven't already.

[bubba22]

I agree, it does stink. I worked with P3pro to test the premium courses and tried to get them to add the launch angle. I finally gave up. I hope they do add this features. I suspect Optishot may also be looking into it.