What is the point of downloading addon scenery??

[barryward12345 0]

While I admire and thank all creators of Fsim add-ons for their work , I have to ask a question of scenery creators. I have a P3-1000 with 512 meg RAM - not the most powerful of machines I know -- but I am quite happy with it when using it with "most" areas of default scenery. But I have given up downloading addon y because I am finding that most of them are so framerate unfriendly to be actually unuseable.Now , I know others will say that they have downloaded scenery that works fine -- I might just be a bit unlucky. The scenery areas I am mainly referring to have been in my own country of Australia. Yesterday I downloaded and installed a local airport which I was VERY pleased to find - only to find that framerates while simply sitting on the runway in the default Cessna dropped from 20 to 5!!!! - making it unuseable. Frankly, unless the scenery creator has a monster computer , I can't understand how they would not realise this themselves.Any comments ThanksBarry

[Guest]

Barry,You make valid points. I used to be a scenery download fanatic back in the FS95/98 days, but FS2k solved so many scenery issues that downloading became almost unnecessary. With FS2k2 I haven't installed any 3rd party scenery. Like you, I find the default airports good enough. It's not that I dislike 3rd party scenery, truth is I would love to install as much as I could get my hands on. It's just a matter of performance.My system is a PIII, 733GHz, 384MB RAM, and a 16MB TNT2 video card. It runs FS2k2 rather well, but would come to a grinding halt with 3rd party scenery.Thanks,Joe FosterKIAD

[Guest]

Hi Barry,Look for Gmax created scenery, It will have almost no effect on frames compared to older progs. Heres an example...I made a scenery with a standard freeware prog with about 100 trees...slideshow, 5 frames...badI made a scenery with Gmax, went crazy and put over 10,000 trees in it...smooth as silk...good. I lock my frames at 25 on my middle of the road computer and when I flew over my forest, nothing, nada, nil, just a minor almost undetectable drop in frames.Keep looking, I have a feeling more people will start coming around.faceplant

[barryward12345 0]

>Hi Barry, >>Look for Gmax created scenery, It will have almost no effect >on frames compared to older progs. Heres an example... >>I made a scenery with a standard freeware prog with about >100 trees...slideshow, 5 frames...bad >>I made a scenery with Gmax, went crazy and put over 10,000 >trees in it...smooth as silk...good. I lock my frames at 25 >on my middle of the road computer and when I flew over my >forest, nothing, nada, nil, just a minor almost undetectable >drop in frames. >>Keep looking, I have a feeling more people will start coming >around. I have "suspected" this for some time now -- I did download a Gmax scenery for an airport in Turkey -- not very relevant for my Sim flying because I don't know this airport in real life -- BUT I did notice that it had virtually no impact on framerates -- it seems to me that the standard freeware scenery creator which has been around for some time is the culprit in this.Barry

[ChrisJake 0]

i agree barry...i HAD alot of addon scenery for FS2K2 installed, but with the advent to AI traffic i have pretty much removed most of my addon airports. now, seeing the correct airlines at the correct airports with the default scenery is all i need.i've left my terrain mesh in, but thats pretty much it.chris

[1mikel151 71]

It will take time for more GMAX scenery, while some have had no problems learning it, others like myself are having some difficulties. I design scenery and have several uploads to my name and my biggest thing is detail, but with that comes a severe FPS hit with conventional methods. What takes me 30 minutes to create with NOVA or EOD takes me a day to do with GMAX. I think part of it is that with the others, they are made specifically for scenery design, while GMAX is a very powerful tool with many other uses and options. Maybe I should do smaller airfields! LOL I am curious to see how GMAX scenery translates to FS2004 since I understand it doesn't support BGLsRegards, Michael

[Guest]

the difference in fps was pretty well scientifically proven in the scenery design forum...identical object arrays of saftey barrels were created both ways, with amazing differences in fps.And because of this I've focused all my attention to only gmax work, and as a result I've not uploaded anything since that day....everything takes longer, but I'm learning and finally I'm almost as good on gmax as I was on fsds.The biggest difference is that gmax presents the display engine with the level of object (triangles) that it can display without additional object manipulation, while previous techniques presented polygons that mostly needed to be broken into triangles prior to display...work done realtime which is a distraction to your processor.Bob B

[Guest Kurt]

Barry,Many of the addon sceneries have different levels set up. You can turn down the scenery complexity slider a notch or two, you will lose some of the objects, but it still looks better than just the default most times. Also if the scenery has static aircraft they may be in a seperate .bgl file, by removing that .bgl you will lose the static aircraft without losing other scenery.Kurt M

[Guest ScottPilot]

Hey Barry,I have the same sys. specs as you and I am using Eddy Denny's RealScene on my system and it looks great! But the coolest thing is I have had NO frame rate loss with the scenery!It cost $29, but it is very much worth it since it enhances the default scenery alot.I do also use the "free" scenery from FS Genesis, and it works well also.Now, when it comes to the autogen scenery, esp. buildings, I do lose my perfomance somewhat, but it's barable in those areas.Anyways, thought I would voice my opinion on the subject.I will continue to use add-on scenery for the most part.Scott :-)

[Guest]

Barry, another reason to buy add-on airports, at least, is for on-line flying. I know from another thread that you're contemplating this. It's enormously good fun and totally transforms the simming experience if you can get into it. What you may well find on-line is that you are given taxi and parking instructions based on real-world airport charts which only the add-on stuff accurately reflects. Now, this is not a total requirement because controllers can ask you what scenery you're using and then instruct accordingly, but it's so much better to be told to taxi "...via Alfa, November and the south taxiway to hold at D1" and actually see the signs for those routes and know that you're seeing pretty much what you would do if you were in the real place. You won't get that from many of the default airports.In the UK, you can usually tell which VATSIM users aren't using the more popular sceneries for the major airports (mostly Gary Summons' stuff) because they'll be the ones you see taxiing on the grass .Cheers,AndyEGTR

[Guest Lindy]

Barry, I too fly around in Australia quite a bit and have lots of scenery areas for Oz installed as well as the SATPAC mesh files. With few exceptions (the airport at Sydney being the most notable) I have perfectly acceptable performance on a PIII 700 mgz, 320 mgs RAM, 64 mg DDR video card. My FRs are locked at 20; I have MOST of the Display options turned well above 75 percent, the exceptions being Dynamic Scenery (Very Sparse), AI aircraft (10 percent) and Clouds (15 percent).I have no idea whether my scenery areas are GMAX or not. I know I couldn't get along without some addon sceneries. Then again, I do mostly bush flying in small GA planes and don't often have to go into the really big airports.The performance you get from your system does surprise me though. You don't say what video card you have, but if it's 16 mg or 32 mg, you might consider upgrading to a 64 mg card -- I know that really helped my machine's performance.-Lindy :-wave

[barryward12345 0]

My system isn't much "bigger" than yours and I get roughly the same sort of performance that you do. It is those "exceptions" that I posted about - the Sydney and Bankstown sceneries , the latest Brisbane scenery and now the Amberley scenery are computer "stoppers"!!! :)Barry