world airports

[Guest shaunm]

Hello I was thinking of buying world airports and i was just wondering if any one out there has got it on their system and what do you think. I have read all the reviews and it sound promising,but would like to here some other views on it. Thanks in advance shaun.

[Guest]

Hi Shaun,I just got my copy yesterday evening which was waiting in the mail when I got home from visiting the folks for Thanksgiving. I have only thoroughly seen one airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield; however, I am pretty familiar with ATL.They have done a great job with the layout and knowing what planes go where from the T-Gates to the International terminal E. There are little trucks running around and all of that sort of thing. As far as building layout and static aircraft, I give it an A. It was anoying, however, to watch a truck run right through your aircraft. Aircraft always have the right a way. The buildings look like they were rendered using old technology however and don't look as tight and as glimmering as sparce default ATL. Also, I can't seem to display the scenery in 32bit color because my aircraft shadows are not transparent. I will keep trying, however, to correct this, which might be the reason the buildngs appear like FS98/FS2000 technology.Framerates are not bad at all. I expected losing quite a bit but am losing only about 2 per second from the default ATL scenery with all options maxed. I am getting about 11.6 as opposed to about 13.6 with the default scenery.Hopefully, others will comment on this product as well.Best of luck!!Robb

[Guest]

Hi Shaun,The airports in the package look great but there are a couple of things to consider. Your frame rates are going to take quite a hit unless you have a very fast machine. I'm runing a P3 with 866 which is fine with default scenery. Full bore World Airports really slows it down.Part II - I don't like the way the ground vehicles/appliances pop in. It would look much more realistic if they approached the aircraft from "off screen". Sorry to say I've turned off this package until I can get a faster machine.Warm wishes from the desert.Chuck

[Guest]

I was pleasantly surprised by the performance.I had tried the demo versions of the SimFlyers scenery (which this is a boxed version of) in the past and it was extremely slow.The full version if a lot faster making me think the performance problems I encountered are specific to the demo only.now for some appraisals:Very good, though as said objects pop into view at too close a distance for my taste. I'd have liked an option to tweak that (though I think that may be impossible in the current BGL file format as set by Microsoft).Most of the airports in the box were originally released for FS2000 and progressively updated, so will miss some of the latest gizmos like reflective and transparent textures. I don't miss those though (IMO many authors overuse those options a lot leading to unrealistic effects (and a big impact on performance)).Accuracy seems good. Though I haven't visited any of the airports a lot and some of them never, they "feel" correct.The worst part of them is the slightly strange taxiway texture that is used on all the airports (rather than give each a texture more closely matching the local conditions).You can remove the static aircraft (which are functional but not especially goodlooking) to make place for AI traffic (which comes in very handy when using ProjectAI for Delta at Atlanta...).

[Guest Stamatis]

Thank you for taking the time to share your views!One piece of info, if I may ask: Can you please state your fps with default ATL loaded (or any default airport which is featured in World Airports) and your fps with the World Airports equivalent airport loaded, everything else exactly the same/unchanged? I am only interested in the percentage hit, so no need to state your Display settings, etc. (I find the % change to be the best indication of performance degradation. The absolute numbers of frames lost is kind of meaningless to others, unless using exactly the same CPU/video card and settings)Thank you,Stamatis

[Guest]

Framerates are not bad at all. I expected losing quite a bit but am losing only about 2 per second from the default ATL scenery with all options maxed. I am getting about 11.6 as opposed to about 13.6 with the default scenery.Also, are the flight line lights accurate? There seem to be way too many or they are just too bright and don't look real.RH

[Guest Stamatis]

I agree that roughly a 15% hit is not much at all. In fact, I am pleasantly surprised, especially in relation to what I have read here re Wilco's Airports 2002...Stamatis

[Guest shaunm]

Hi everyone Thanks for responding. It has been really helpfull Shaun.