Which simulator are ORBX scenery products designed for?

[Anxu00 176]

ORBX products listed "compatibility" with FSX to P3Dv3, but notice that the products don't claim that they are specifically designed to take advantage of each sim strengths.  Which made me wonder which sim platform is the primary one where this stuffs really shine.  I happen to have P3D v1 all the way to v3, FSX and FSX-SE and have been using ORBX products in P3D for a while, now on v3 (using only those that have compatible installers).  Recently following a post by a fellow simmer and came across another post at ORBX forum claiming that ORBX products are better in FSX, I pulled out my FSX-SE license, reinstall ORBX again in there.  To my surprise, they are better in FSX, texture are crisper, details in high LOD are better and better, smoother performance.  This have me thinking that ORBX products are probably designed for FSX and evolved to be compatible with other FSX derived platforms.

 

 This is not limited to ORBX, I have products from other developers which provide installers for P3D, because of my dual sims, I was able to try the same scenery in both, and more often than not, I found that the scenery perform better in FSX.   Curious, I peeked at the timestamps of the files that the installer put into the P3D folder (effects, texture etc.) and  I saw dates as old as 2008, which means these are not touched at all recently.  May be they don't need to, but also may be the developer did not do the extra work to take advantage of new capability. 

 

As a multi-platforms developer, this approach makes sense otherwise development cost will balloon.  However, as buyer/user of these products, I now don't know what to make of the label "support P3D".  The only product that make the explicit claim of designed for P3D is the GEXP3D product from Flight 1.

 

Some foods for thought from my own experience that I want to share.  In my case, I had hope to reduce the number of sims, however because of this finding I still have two sims to maintain.  What do you think, do you have similar experience?

[StewartH 66]

I think you will find many P3D users would disagree that Orbx products work better on FSX platforms than P3D platforms.  It no doubt depends on the individual flight simmer's rig, how he/she has tweaked it, and what flying experience the simmer enjoys the most, IFR vs. VFR, jetliners vs. GA, short hops vs. longer flights, etc., etc.  Many folks have both P3D and FSX on the same rig, and they switch back and forth depending on the circumstances.  I don't think there is one best answer that fits all situations.  Just my 2 cents--your mileage may vary, of course.

[MartinRex007 390]

With the correct settings Orbx products work just as well with FSX, FSX-SE and P3D platforms...no noticeable differences when using the correct computer  settings for each simulation platform.

[raymar 969]

With the correct settings Orbx products work just as well with FSX, FSX-SE and P3D platforms...no noticeable differences when using the correct computer  settings for each simulation platform.

That is not necessarily totally true. The FSX:SE version only has two Orbx sceneries and I wrote Avsim reviews on both of them (KFHR and KCGX). I asked both authors about any differences in the Steam version vs the FSX/P3D versions and there are more than a few differences. One of the most notable would be the People flow, and two or three of the other Orbx Flows. (You don't see the butterflies or guy walking the dog in Steam, and a lot less movements - nobody walking around).

 

One of the Orbx guys can weigh in with the exact details.

 

Regards,

Ray

[MartinRex007 390]

Hi Ray, I was only referring to the OP saying that "To my surprise, they are better in FSX, texture are crisper, details in high LOD are better and better, smoother performance. Yes, the Object and People flow might be different....

 

Cheers

Martin

[Anxu00 176]

There is a thread in ORBX forum where the OP has the same experience as I, where ORBX products look better, more crisp and much less shimmering.  Also I don't think that this phenomenon is limited to ORBX.  I happen to have other scenery from other developer and to my surprise, the P3D version perform worse.  I realize that this is not the same comparison as P3D is different than FSX.  However, unless one product is specifically designed for P3D, compatibility alone is not sufficient.  Unfortunately unless the developer is willing to share the info, buyer like me will never know.  Believe it or not, folks on these forum are usually the cutting edge type where newer platform like P3D have more users.  However, people may be surprise at how many users out there are still using FS9 let alone FSX.  We may find out that scenery product is probably designed and tested first with FSX then additional work, if any will be done for P3D compatibility, which possibly explain what I am seeing.

[pmb 5,138]

Than I'd have a simple suggestion: If FSX is better, than stay with it and be happy. Why care for something worse?

 

Kind regards, Michael

[JimmiG 244]

At the core, addon scenery is just a collection of standard textures and 3D objects and the information required by the sim to place those in the simulated world (X, Y, Z coordinates etc.). This is not simulator-specific. A DXT5, 2048x2048 texture created in 2008 is no different from one created in 2016, because it's just a texture.

However the way the different sims take this data and display it differ. P3D v2/3 add shadows, tesseation and other efects that FSX/P3D v1 lack, and obviously everything gets rendered through DX11. Transparent textures like vegetation tend to get rendered more "faintly" than FSX or P3D v1, making vegetation seem less dense and sharp. However in my experience, shimmering is also reduced for a smoother, less rough look.

FSX:SE is a bit different. Since DLC cannot interfere with the core sim, they cannot use the same trickery such as injecting .dll files or changing the default world scenery files. That's why Steam-specific scenery and aircraft might lack some advanced features.