I've been using both FS9 and FSX and am currently torn between the two. My FS9 is quite well decked out with addons listed in my sig below that enhance the experience in some cases to beyond what FSX offers at the moment, but the ground textures look quite dated and bland. On the other hand, FSX is such a pretty thing with the new details, features and AI categories turned up, but this prettiness comes at a price that I find unacceptable in terms of either performance or smoothness and in a world currently bereft of quality addons.Since it'll be a while until FSX comes into its prime, I'm looking at giving my FS9 a bit of a leg up on the ground scenery front to close the gap. I've seen a few posts talking of products like megascenery, UT, landclass, ground enviroment pro etc, but I'm still not sure which one will give me the best bang for buck. Quite simply, I am looking for the product that will do away with those blotchy low res default textures that cover most areas of the FS9 globe and replace them with something a little closer to what FSX gives us and on a global scale. Any thoughts on the best product to do this (or even freeware if someone has done it)?Gary

UT + GE + FE + FSG Mesh + Active Sky, the magic bullet as some call it.Photoscenery, some love it, some hate it, good for vfr slow flying.

What he said, but if you are able to run FSX at reasonable performance, there is nothing you could do in FS9 to top it (Visually) but you can get close!! If performance is an issue on your system, I would go with FS9!

>What he said, but if you are able to run FSX at reasonable>performance, there is nothing you could do in FS9 to top it>(Visually) but you can get close!! But what particular product of that lot makes the most drastic improvement to ground textures? I'm sure it's not AS6!>If performance is an issue>on your system, I would go with FS9!I actually get very good FPS on FSX, but after 30 mins of flying it turns to a stuttery mess when panning, which requires an FSX restart to fix. Anyway, I didn't come here to pick on FSX, rather I'd like to put some FSX ground texture spice into FS9.Gary

GE ( or BEV ) will do the most for ground textures, IMO they look better than the FSX textures.FE will give you better water, but not FSX water.Try some photoscenery, Tucson photoreal is free, and the coverage area is not to big so load times and blurries are not an issue. You can get it here at avsim.Tongas Fjords, Vancouver +, honestly with the right add ons FS9 is much better than default FSX.Replace the PAI planes in Ultimate Traffic with Aardvark, Evolve and CDAI planes if you haven't already done it, better fps than PAI and they look a million times better.The one thing everybody can agree on is Vauchez's Portland blows away anything in FSX.

Well IMO this screenshot from the AVSIM review of Ground Enviromment Pro shows the same pixelated ground textures of the default FS9. Do you get better ground textures than this with your GE installation?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167656.jpgGary

This GE Pro over/near Vancouver.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/horsesass/GEc-130.jpgI think the level of detail you're looking for is unavailable. There will always be the shmooshy textures as they are the foundation of FS9. But with GE Pro + UT + FSG mesh (and FE and AS6.5) you simply won't care because everything looks so good.Bush and mountain flights can be made amazing. This is GE Pro + UT + FSG mesh + FE.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/horsesass/best3.jpg

If you are happy with FSX, and get good performance then maybe you should stick with FSX. I use GE to "fill in the gaps" between add on scenery. I fly in areas with add on scenery probably 95 percent of the time, and I love photoscenery. My GE looks maybe a little better than that. There is no point in bringing up the FSX vs FS9, that's been done to death. You should check out the FSX photoscenery, Georender, megascenery, and the UK stuff. I agree with the poster above, sounds like 1 meter FSX photoscenery is what you are after.

Thanks guys, that pretty well answers my question.Gary