It's been a while since I studied X-Plane seriously, but one thing stands out -- the default textures. They are great, especially in the flight levels. While the landclass may not be always accurate, the default textures are very nice, especially in the flight levels.One thing that bothers me however is the textures and max vis do not extend far enough. Are there any manual config settings of X-Plane that can be tweaked to extend the texture visibility? Even 60 miles out would be an improvement. I live and fly in the desert Southwest, and 60 mile vis. is considered a hazy day :)Regards,John

I had just done a scenery update for Sky Harbor Airport in Duluth, MN for FSX. Last night, for kicks, I loaded that airport in XP9. I was blown away. Aside from the missing airport buildings, it was far better depicted in XP9. The runway and taxiways were more accurately placed, the land and water, and surrounding landclass looked much better in XP9.Jim

It's been a while since I studied X-Plane seriously, but one thing stands out -- the default textures. They are great, especially in the flight levels. While the landclass may not be always accurate, the default textures are very nice, especially in the flight levels.One thing that bothers me however is the textures and max vis do not extend far enough. Are there any manual config settings of X-Plane that can be tweaked to extend the texture visibility? Even 60 miles out would be an improvement. I live and fly in the desert Southwest, and 60 mile vis. is considered a hazy day :)Regards,John

I think that is one of the biggest overlooked reasons xplane runs smooth. If fsx'ers likewise limited their visibilities they would have a smoother ride too.As far as I know there is no way to increase the visibilities-and doing so would probably cause a slow moving sim. As it is -xplane will reduce them further if it detects poor performance-something fsx could use!

I think that is one of the biggest overlooked reasons xplane runs smooth. If fsx'ers likewise limited their visibilities they would have a smoother ride too.As far as I know there is no way to increase the visibilities-and doing so would probably cause a slow moving sim. As it is -xplane will reduce them further if it detects poor performance-something fsx could use!

I suppose I need a super computer update (isn't going to happen for the time being), because X-Plane is really limiting my visibility lately. Guess, I'll have to go through a list of cut backs on settings. Fact is, when I usually head out on cross countries in the mountain west (real life), visibility is usually 100+ miles of scenery. When X-Plane starts out with mountains in the background, but covers them all up while in flight........................ it drives me nuts! :( P.S. --- Scheduled today, was a fantastic three day trip to the southwest areas of Monument Valley and Lake Powell in the RV. Bad weather, once again has destroyed this opportunity. Is the scenery in X-Plane or MSFS good enough to partially make up for it? Not even close! :( IMO, scenery is VERY important in a desktop simulation; as that's a major reason why flying is so fun and worth all the trouble. When a simmer claims that the flight model is top priority and scenery can wait.................I just shake my head................because I fly for the scenery.......period! :( L.Adamson

It's been a while since I studied X-Plane seriously, but one thing stands out -- the default textures. They are great, especially in the flight levels. While the landclass may not be always accurate, the default textures are very nice, especially in the flight levels.One thing that bothers me however is the textures and max vis do not extend far enough. Are there any manual config settings of X-Plane that can be tweaked to extend the texture visibility? Even 60 miles out would be an improvement. I live and fly in the desert Southwest, and 60 mile vis. is considered a hazy day :)

Could this be due to the (insiduous) X-Plane habit of reducing visibility to maintain FPS? But you're right, I cannot get better than this on a nice sunny day (though the concept of "sunny" in X-Plane would be similar to a very cloudy day in FSX). At least there's a nice gradation of sharp to blurry with distance, which is how my poor 'ole eyes work anyway. :(

Pontius,What aircraft is that?

Pontius,What aircraft is that?

That's the freeware Pilatus PC7 by Bertrand Augras. The reflections on the gauges aren't real, by the way (but the effect is nice, nevertheless).