Okay, so I already have Ground Environment X North American nHanced (GEX) and I'm really happy with it improving my performance by about 5 FPS and eliminating microstutters. I especially love the difference between GEX autogen textures vs. FSX default.Now I have some spare money on hand, but I'm stuck between two landclass products: Scenery Tech and Ultimate Terrain X (UTX). Both seem like legitimate and high quality landclassers, but I'm not sure which one I should purchase.I basically want all my cities, towns, beaches, and mountains correctly placed and lined up nicely to increase the realism of the simulator without heavily decreasing performance. Both seem to accomplish that, but UTX seems to be a bit more robust and adds special extra textures as well as night-time effects, and also works in conjunction with GEX. Unfortunately, it is almost $20 more than Scenery Tech's North America Landclass.My question is, is UTX worth the extra $20 over Scenery Tech? Or is Scenery Tech the biggest bang for the buck? Thanks for your feedback =)

If you want accurate coastlines, roadways, streams, rivers, lakes and such, UTX is the product. I won't fly anywhere that it does not cover. It also does more than that, such as special night lighting effects, road traffic,etc. But all of these options can be turned on or off so as to balance performance. UTX Alaska adds some extra components as well.GEX is 'simply' ground textures, so it does something completely different than UTX, but again, it beats the heck out of the default textures and works great along with UTX.Then you have landclass, which is different again. Landclass simply 'calls' where certain ground textures should be placed based on the data used. Yes, UTX has landclass included, but I also have Scenery Tech, Cloud 9, and FS Genesis landclass on my machine. Most the time I prefer Cloud 9 over the others but will 'sandwich' some UTX over the Cloud 9, typically their urban landclass, but will also use Scenery Tech in some locations (especially the SW area of the U.S. which I think Cloud 9's data depicts poorly). With FSX you can switch between the two during flight if you desire without booting out of FS.Don't forget good quality mesh either, for some areas that adds a great amount of detail.Then you have the areas FTX and ORBX covers, and that is a whole nuther animal.Bottom line, you are looking at products that do different things.

I have GEX, ST and UTX. (As well as ORBX and some photoscenery, etc.) Scenery Tech and Ultimate Terrain aren't apples and oranges - they're more like oranges and tangerines. Similar, but each with their own strength.ST - as continental-scoped landclass - will determine which GEX textures are placed on a given point on the map. UTX does have landclass elements, but IIRC they're more urban focused. ST covers the entire continent that each package covers. (North America in this instance.) ST is simple to use like GEX in that you install it and use it.UTX includes vector elements - roads, water, shoreline. Their night lighting works very well IMO, and UT complements both GEX and a landclass package as well as photosceneries. UTX has a lot of options that will allow you to tweak various aspects for appearance and performance.In short, you can't do wrong with both ST and UTX. And yes, there is a certain way that they need to be arranged in one's Scenery Library to use them to full effect. (Simple, really.)Finally, there are other landclass packages that can be installed alongside ST (Cloud9 and FS Genesis spring to mind) and depending on the area you're in you might find you prefer the appearance of one landclass over the other.

To answer the OP question - yes UTX is worth the extra $20. For the extra $20 you are going so much more then what ST can give you. Having UTX, GEX, ST, ORBX, REX, and more for add-on's i can just repeat what others have said, they are all great products, they all work well together, and all add something to FSX. But if you have to decide simply ST versus UTX, UTx is going to give you the most bang for the buck. I do not think you will be disappointed, if anything you will be amazed how much better FSX looks.Yes UTX may hit your performance levels a little, but it does allow you to turn on/off features that may reduce that hit.Kyle