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Johan_Dees

Tired of non smooth addon sceneries....

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So, I reached the point where I simply had it with non smooth addon sceneries. :-(I just deleted each and every addon airport ! :-) Since I like more to have accurate aircraft/liveries at the airport, and the fact that FS2002 already comes with quite good default airports, the need of addon airports is zero. :-)This alows me to add more AI aircraft without having to takeoff or land on an jumpy/hacking airport. :-)My specs are:Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 Ghz512 Mb SDRamGeForce 2 GTS 32 MbFly safe, :-waveStaffan AhlbergFreeware Flight Group


 

Staffan

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StaffanYou make a good point; one that was raised also in another thread by Barry Ward this week. There is nothing more frustrating when completing a flight to find your frame rates drop to unacceptable levels on approach.I love all freeware design on principle and on that basis will NEVER complain; but to comment only, the sign of really good design is when this fluidity aspect of "add-on" scenery is treated as a priority, both with aircraft and scenery itself. Camil Valiquette was famous for it in FS98/2000; modern contributions such as the Falcon 50 come with light versions (as do our "Red Arrows"). I understand nothing about airport scenery design but it does appear that gmax scenery is a lot more frame-rate friendly, so here's hoping.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitak.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/reds.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitakv3.jpg

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Guest Shocky

I agree that add-ons make flyin a hell sometimes but we need them soo bad as MS didn't care much about Europe Africa Asia and Oceania :-madI wish there would come a day that smoothness and detail are gettin along just fine :-hahmaybe 2004 :(:-wave shocky :-hah

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Guest Stamatis

"it does appear that gmax scenery is a lot more frame-rate friendly, so here's hoping."Indeed. Right now I am not aware of any scenery design tool being available for GMAX. Once such tools are developed, I am sure we will be able to enjoy dense but still framerate friendly airport addons.Until that time, I can highly recommend the German Airports collection of airports (they come in 3 volumes). They are very dense and extremely frame rate friendly. Wish they designed non-German airports too...Stamatis

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Guest

To each, his own!To me accurate airports are part of the "FULL" Simulation experience.I guess if one doesn't have the horsepower, than one needs to make a choice!Pete S

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Guest

I agree, I love the high level of accuracy and very detailed sceneries different people have come out with. Really appreciate their efforts. But most important to me like most of you say is the framerates, I want to fly smooth :).

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Yes, Pete; but I run 1.8GHZ with 512MB RAM and still have frame rates under 10 with many sceneries. I shudder to think how people with less than 1GHZ cope with some of these. My point is that the clever designers do seem able to keep the frame rates up without sacrificing desired detail. People knock Microsoft so often; but what they themselves have achieved given the world wide scope of their software is impressive enough.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitak.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/reds.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitakv3.jpg

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I agree. In fact, it's been my experience that airport scenery is not the primary factor that destroys your framerates. Rather it is the amount of AI traffic, the type of AI aircraft, the current activity of the AI traffic, the time of day lighting, and whether you have general scenery items such as shadows, dynamic scenery and autogen activated. The only thing within the add-on scenery that you should do to enhance framerates is the removal of static aircraft.I only have an 800mhz, but even at airports like KEWR and KPHL with the Simflyer's scenery and realistic AI plans with the resulting quantities of AI aircraft on the ground, the framerates on approach with the entire airport in view, though they fall to about 5fps, are still adequate for control of the aircraft. Once on the ground, with a limited portion of the airport in view at any single instant, framerates jump back up to 10-15fps.Now at an unmodified airport such as KORD, where I only have default scenery, but with the amount of AI aircraft at that airport, the framerates I get are about 1fps on approach, making it completely unflyable. Taxiing and departing is possible since FR during those phases are between 5-10fps. But still, the one airport I find unuseable is still an airport that is just using default scenery.At KCLE with an add-on that only puts gates at the terminals and adds the D concourse, my framerates are the same as that of Simflyer's EWR and PHL on approach. Even though there are fewer AI aircraft and less intensive airport scenery, the hit is just as bad since most of the AI traffic there are the Gmax ERJs, instead of the simpler PAI aircraft at the other two.And finally, at KSNA, with Shenryar's scenery, I get framerates in the 10-15fps range on final. Why? Because there are usually no more than a dozen AI planes at the terminal and these are all PAI models. Again, an add-on scenery airport with good framerates.So my point is there is no need to nuke your airport scenery for the sake of framerates. It doesn't buy you back all that much. There are other things that are burdening your cpu more than the terminal building and gates. There are better things to trade away that will have a larger impact on framerates while on final. In my case, I've given up shadows and autogen in order to be able to have realistic looking airports and realistic AI traffic, things which I feel provide a more complete virtual flying environment.

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Usually, just downloading an AFCAD file for the airports is enough. Most airports look pretty good and with a couple of more parking spaces there's really no need for an update. Some addon-airports don't fit well with the terrain around it.For me, it's more important to have realistic scenery, and a detailed mesh. It is a FLIGHT sim, not an airport simulator after all.


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
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>"it does appear that gmax scenery is a lot more >frame-rate friendly, so here's hoping." >>Indeed. Right now I am not aware of any scenery design tool >being available for GMAX. Once such tools are developed, I >am sure we will be able to enjoy dense but still framerate >friendly airport addons. >>Until that time, I can highly recommend the German >Airports collection of airports (they come in 3 >volumes). They are very dense and extremely frame rate >friendly. Wish they designed non-German airports too... >>Stamatis PC PILOT issues 17 and 18 gave some G-MAX tutorials including scenery design in issue 18. The included CD for the issues contained the newer G-MAX 1.1 (free web registration required) and 17 or 18 contained the the patched MS makemdl.exe, which in the case of scenery is used to place the object at specified coordinates. The coordinates can be obtained by slewing around an area and reading the coordinates off the screen, or by other means.The scenery tutorial guided you through creating a simple billboard, (two tubes and a box), texturizing it, and placing it near an approach at an existing airport.It looks like you can build a library of a few base objects, adjust texture, and place them as needed. For one I'd like to see mushroom water towers in place of cyclinders. I might try it!

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...i've done exactly what Staffan has done. i've kept only a handful of framerate friendly sceneries installed. my priority is with correct airlines at airports. PAI has done wonders with their add-ons.chris

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Guest Stamatis

Me too. If I don't see around 18 fps one mile from touchdown, I experiment with Scenery Density, and if still not happy, I revert to the default airport.But I am sure that when a GMAX Scenery Designer is released, if ever, we will experience a vast improvement in frame rates with the same amount of scenery density.Stamatis

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I couldnt agree with you more.I also dont use any airport scenery these days. Much to much problems during approach.Only full AI add ons, and mesh is what I use, and a little FSSE at the small fields. For example at LOWI that has no impact, but at EHAM it is unflyable.Johan[A HREF=http://www.phoenix-simulation.co.uk]Phoenix Simulation Software[/A]Unofficial PSS website:www.people.zeelandnet.nl/johdMy help may not me much usefull, or usefull much..eh?http://people.zeelandnet.nl/johd/index2/Ar...s/Leg1/klm5.jpgTrue Blue! K L M!

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