Introduction Monaco is one of six European micro-states (just like Vatican City, San Marino etc…). It is nested into the Cote d’Azur coastal foothills of the Alps region of France and is also known as the French Riviera (sigh), it's only 18 km from Italy. Also known as the Principality of Monaco, it is where royalty is still glamorized and where the noblest amongst its 30,000 inhabitants live in Monaco-Ville’s palaces. It is a place of luxury and calm where visitors can relax in the mild and sunny climate while playing casino games in Monte Carlo within sight of their beautiful yachts anchored in La Condamine. Or at least dream they can, as we will do shortly while visiting Aerosoft’s MonacoX aboard our private Bell 206 graciously supplied by Microsoft’s FSX. Monaco has no airport, so tourists can disembark at Nice and will have to get there by other means. Monaco’s entire 2 square kilometers is all there, as is for its one beach, its 173 city blocks in 3 former municipalities now making up 10 wards, and its vertical cliffs that reach heights of 200 feet. It may be the most densely populated state on Earth. The area covered is actually smaller than the coverage of Helgoland’s two islands, another of Aerosoft’s mini, yet highly dense and detailed, scenery reproduction packages I previously reviewed for AVSIM. I was impressed with the latter's fluidity, smoothness, and low impact on frame rates that the developers were capable of rendering in FSX; an otherwise Albatross-like behaving simulator (pre-SP1 of course). I attributed some of their success to the fact that Helgoland was a distant island, isolated from the mainland’s generic textures in a way that the developers could concentrate on one small area without having outside memory calls interrupting the smooth rendering of their small presentation. With the advent of MonacoX, I just had to see if this performance could be carried over to this small islet of scenery on the mainland, with all the ramifications of FSX’s adjacent generic textures and autogen surely affecting performance due its proximity. We will now see… At first glance, we can see from the title snapshots above, that Aerosoft’s Monaco X and the real Monaco are very similar.
Installation and Documentation Unlike Aerosoft’s Helgoland product, MonacoX’s recommended hardware is a bit tougher to match. My system has most of the recommended equipment, but not my CPU: a P4 single core with HT 3.2 GHz CPU whereas a Dual Core CPU is highly recommended. My system does at least surpass their minimum requirements. I bet most readers have not yet upgraded their processors to the new Dual Cores either. Installation is straightforward with a request for your e-mail address and serial number. You can choose the location to install if you do not want it in your main FSX folder, and it will activate the scenery for you in your scenery.cfg file. Two pdf files are accessed from the Window’s start menu/programs/Aerosoft: one for the charts (heliport), and two manuals (Eng/Ger). Finding Monaco:
Since Monaco does not have an airport, you will have to fly to Nice’s LFMN and take a helicopter from there. Aerosoft has included two startup flights but these put you either on a helipad or near the museum in Monaco. I prefer the long route and will come in from Nice using the visual approach charts provided. Another way, is to approach from behind the hills with a suddenly emerging Monaco making for a pleasant surprise. By the way, the over flying of Monaco in real life is prohibited, but as this is a simulation… There is a
heliport at the western edge of the principality. Landing there is
a modest challenge, albeit a pleasant one, with good results
rewarding the perseverance and steady hand of a novice like myself.
If you feel lost, there are two situation files for placing you
at the heliport or the harbor in MonacoX: called “Robinson at
Monaco” and “Goose at Monaco”. You can also now
find Monaco in the Go-To-Airport listed as LNMC for the Heliport
or the museum buoy LNMCW for amphibian planes. Flight plan
generation can accommodate these if you want to fly there using
the GPS. I have also included a comparison shot of the default and add-on western limits just before getting to the heliport: note the stadium is a default object within FSX, but MonacoX’s is more accurately placed and has better textures. Speaking of which, FSX default scenery has a number of customized buildings for the Monaco area that are smaller and less detailed than what Aerosoft gives us. The autogen (AG) is custom made for MonacoX and follows the graphic slider like other AG does. A full right position is desired, if possible, as a lack of AG will severely thin the scenery detail. In the snapshots “Maximum autogen and without autogen” it can be hard to tell the difference of minimal AG due to the same underlying satellite image making up the texture.
There are a lot of buildings in this small area, which makes for a nice view while doing a slow approach in a helicopter. The night textures for custom buildings and autogen are thoughtfully done so as not to make all the windows seem “on”; there is a realistic distribution and ratio of lit to unlit windows.
There are ships, with schedules, included in this package. The Lady Moura, which departs at 10am, and the Atlantis 2 both have helipads. I was able to land on the Moura where space is at a premium, but hey, I’m getting real good. The pad on the Atlantis is so small I am still trying to land there, so I’m not that good. There is also a beautiful stationary cruise liner just offshore in Monaco-X that is not in the default scenery. It has a forward helipad that I was unable to land on even using SLEW, so it’s probably not usable, unlike those on the 2 included yachts. There are three marinas here with lots of smaller boats that may be from the default FSX set.
Included Missions: To get to the missions, you have to scroll down in the category window to “Aerosoft Flights”, where you’ll find:
1) Monaco mission – Part 1: Helicopter flight from Monaco to Nice. This mission is a simple tour where you are to fly out of Monaco to Nice to pick up some passengers. The weather and the view along the way are rather pleasant. Tuning into AZR (109.65) I see that it is only 9.3 NM away. The first part of this mission calls for you to proceed to waypoint EC, which can easily be found on chart #1 above. At the second waypoint, EB, you start getting simulated pilot-ATC voice interactions between you and Nice Tower, giving you landing instructions for pad 1. The green arrows are there to help you, but you could use the charts yourself to do your own approaches to and from Monaco. Although each waypoint has its radial distance printed on the chart, I would find it difficult to change these settings on the VORs too often while trying to fly a helicopter. But it would be interesting to try using the two onboard VORs to get there in near-zero visibility IFR conditions. Along the way, there are a few default custom buildings and castles to look at. I did find the female voice from Tower hard to understand (German accent) but the pilot’s voice is clear and well articulated, and, thanks to read backs, allows you to get the messages in time. Don’t come in for a landing too fast or you will crash like I did (whoops, no pics). Like I said, this makes for good practice. 2) Monaco mission – Part 2: This is the reverse of Part 1. Helicopter flight from Nice to Monaco: Directed to Nice Harbor then Cap Farad, you are then in simulated two-way communications with Pad Alpha. I did not find the voices to be clear enough, but this did at least add some realism to the mission. Using TileProxy: I am including a short section here for those that like to use the popular satellite scenery enhancer known as TileProxy (see TileProxy in AVSIM forum’s non-commercial section). This application is available for free in the AVSIM library. Since MonacoX is built on top of a satellite image of the area, I found that TileProxy made a good match with the surrounding non-MonacoX textures when only looking at roads and such. Naturally, autogen outside MonacoX’s limits was absent, and all too obvious, causing the TileProxy tiles to seem more barren than they do elsewhere. So I prefer the default FSX here where forest and autogen continue after the borders of MonacoX, as well as the water borders that seem unnatural using TileProxy. Frame rates were higher with TileProxy.
Summary / Closing Remarks With SP1 installed, I found helicopter handling much better, with frame rates often 20+ and smooth as opposed to 12- without the SP1 patch. Although some snapshots were taken under the RTM and others the SP1 version, I cannot tell them apart except for the already discussed popping into view of AG and some shimmering of scenery objects from a distance (see AVSIM forums). With the SP1 patch, I was able to increase scenery settings, autogen, and move the terrain res sliders to max while getting an increase in fps. This scenery is ideal for helicopters, usable for amphibian craft, but somewhat limited for fixed-wing aircraft. The frame rates were always higher than I’d expect, without any flashing on/off of object textures. With SP1 I did notice quite a bit of shimmering of facades on the buildings from a far distance (beyond the stationary cruise ship), but this cleared up as I got within a half-mile or so. I appreciated MonacoX for its beauty and fluidity fps-wise, but found it somewhat limited to sightseeing, as opposed to Helgoland that has an airport. Both do not have customized AI present. The two included missions were useful in getting familiar with the local approach and departure procedures from the helipads, but that was all there was. Hopefully more will be made available in the future, maybe one including one of the customized yachts with usable pads. TileProxy makes for a smooth fit with adjacent tiles, but I preferred simply using the default FSX textures for its source of autogen trees. |
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