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Guest PizzicatoUK

FS9 scenery / environment questions...

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Guest PizzicatoUK

Hi guys,At the moment, I'm still running FS9 with FS Global SE, FS Scene, Active Sky 6.5, Ultimate Terrain USA & Canada and Roads & Rivers of Europe. For the most part, I'm really happy with the overall effect, but being human and a flight simmer, there's always that slight worry that I'm missing out on something better...That being the case, I've been idly looking at Ground Environment Pro II and Flight Environment as my next purchases. However, I have a coupe of questions...- Is GE Pro II liable to give me much of a visual difference beyond what I get with my current add-ons? (particularly FS Scene, I guess)- Is it even worth considering Flight Environment if I already have Active Sky 6.5? Can teh two of them work together or is it a case of either/or?Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have on the subject.Pizzicato

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Ground Environment Pro will put FS Scene to shame, definitely a great add on. I used to have FS Scene but dumped it for Ground Environment. The ground textures are MUCH better and more realistic and as a bonus, it lines up the autogen buildings with the surrounding roads correctly.I also like Flight Environment as well. You can choose many combinations of cloud types, sky colors, water colors and textures, and the sunrise and sunset colors, the imagination has free reign. Someone here on this forum also asked the same question concerning Active Sky and Flight Environment and claims that they work just fine with each other, although I can't verify that since I don't own Active Sky.Kim

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Pizzicato,I agree with Kim. I love Ground Environment Pro II and Flight Environment.- GeProII will install textures according to average weather along your route, should you so wish. When the weather is bad, let's say you're having an overcast skies on your route, GeProII will install much darker ground and sky textures... yes, you get nice new horizons as well with GeProII. The OVC effect is stunning IMHO. Everything is much darker, as it should be. - GeProII ground textures are superb! If I remember correctly, autogen was aligned to the new textures and everything seems much more real. - Initially, it will take some time to get different sets of textures, (which GEProII will prepare for you) but that is a one time job. - Flight Environment gives you plenty of different sky, dawn and dusk variants; water, sun and contrails, not to mention all sorts of different clouds. There are matched sets of clouds which go together really well, but then again, you are absolutely free to choose whatever you wish. In my opinion, FE clouds are the best out there. I've done a lot of cloud designing in the past for the Fly! series so I guess I am a bit picky when it comes to cloud sets. :)- you can easily add your own sky/dusk/dawn/water textures. I use some of my own "mixtures for water and a few adapted AS Graphics dusk/dawn sets, all incorporated into the FE interface.- both, GEProII and FE work flawlessly with Active Sky v.6.5.EDIT: to use FE, don't use ASG; don't set it to automatically submit textures to FS. To use AGS, don't use FE. You can use FE exclusively, ASG exclusively, or a mix of the two. Endless possibilities!- I run FE and GeProII on my main FS machine (because you do the choosing before flying) and Active Sky is happily running on my secondary machine via WideFS. FSFK and RC4 run on the third machine but that's irrelevant in this case. I mention it because WideFS opens all sorts of possibilities. GeProII could, for example, also run via wideFS...- I usually start FE first, choose my clouds/sky/water/dawn/dusk textures. Then comes GEProII and I let it choose ground/horizon textures according to my flight plan. Sometimes, I then start ASG and let it install my favourite dusk textures on top of everything. And maybe cirrus clouds... :) As I said, possibilities are endless.Regards,Jure

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If I was limited to only one add-on for FS9, it would be GE Pro. It's that good.


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Guest TomOOO

GEpro is excellent - one of the best addon. The textures are stored in an RDMS - this means that it reducesblurries over native and addon textures as they load "more easily".Better textures and less blurries !With FE and AS : use the weather model from AS and cloud texturesfrom FE.Tom

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Definately second and third the GEPro argument. I use activesky and gepro and i let activesky dictate the texture sets from the latest metar, however while i have activesky running and before i start fs9 i run real environment pro and install its sky water and runway lights and textures. they are in my opinion far and above the sky and sun from activesky. this gives me a more than satisfactory world in which to fly. Aslo, and this may seem strange I turn water effects to none and I think it looks way more realistic. George

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George/all- I'm running FS9 with synched triple views LFwd,Fwd,RFwd on triple monitors with my "Smithsonian" class AMD XP2200 1.8 system. Runs really well but no doubt I'm pushing the envelope, performance wise.I run Ultimate Terrain full blast with no FPS hit & Autogen Off- who wants trees/houses on the edge of runways?Q. Any opinion as to whether I could/should also add Ground Environment without my ancient processor having a nervous breakdown?Alex Reid CYYJ

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I see the check box on the configuration screen in Ground Environment Pro for WideFS Client, but how do you configure the program to work on the client machine so that it installs the textures to the server machine using WideFS? I can't seem to get it to do so.Just to add my two cents, Ground Environment Pro and Flight Environment are MUSTS for me -- I can't fly without them.

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Chuck- I'm not using WideFS nor multi processors. Just a single, little old AMD 1.8 with 3 video cards: one processor x 3 views= 180

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Alex:I haven't noticed any performance hit. Supposedly, the textures are the same size as the default ones.Give it a try if you want. You can always get your money back from Flight1 if you don't like it -- I have personal experience with that and they are very good about it.

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Jure:From my post below: I see the check box for WideFS Client on the configuration screen in Ground Environment Pro, but how do you configure the program to work on the client machine so that it installs the textures to the server machine using WideFS? I can't seem to get it to do so.

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Chuck,I actually run GeProII on my main FS machine, but have another copy on the other (which used to be the main FS PC) and I gave it a shot. I tried to get GeProII submit textures to the server PC and failed! - I put the checkbox on and that accomplished nothing. - I have the FS main folder mapped and it has it's own drive letter on the client PC. Nothing...I am sorry, but I can't imagine what else needs to be done, so that GeProII will copy the textures to the right place. Regards,Jure

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Thanks for trying, Jure. I can't think of anything else either.

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Alex, if you run 3 differant monitors do you have to have 3 differant video cards? Are these three video cards in the same computer case?Is it possibe to get 2D panels with your setup? jerrycwo4

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Guest PizzicatoUK

Wow! Thanks for all of the responses, guys. I was away for most of the weekend so didn't have a chance to read or reply. Anyhow, I took your combined advice and bought both GE Pro II and FE. I must confess that I'm not seeing a huge difference with FE over what I already get with Active Sky (even though I know they do different things), but maybe it's just a little too subtle for me. GE Pro II, on the other hand, is utterly fantastic. The difference that it has made to my virtual world is massive and there's no question that I made the right decision in buying it. Thanks again for taking the time to respond in such detail to my questions.

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