I just finished a short jaunt from Kigali, Rwanda to Kisangani, DRC...wow, what a difference. With the new GEX and SceneryTech's Africa landclass, it's looking pretty close to how I remember it there. Lots of these airfields just need a little sprucing up with a scenery program to add some clutter.

After reading all those good things about Scenery Tech Landclass, I've bought their Africa package too.Lets go Africa now.

I'm looking for some African and Mid East repaints for:Carenado Caravan C208B, Kodiak, BN-2 Islander, Aerosoft AirbusX, JF DC-3?Any suggestions?

So.... Asia is the last step??

According to Nick, I think Asia, Sth America, then finally Oz & New Zealand. All subject to change of course.

I did some tours now, mainly around Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, seeing some greener and all the sandy parts so far. Together with the Scenery Tech landclass (which was really, really cheap at FSS and really is THE tip to be run with GEX, thanks for that) this one is a nice experience.Those textures (even the "boring" sandy parts) are well done, don't impact any fps and offer a sharp look at some undiscovered country for me. Of course, it's only a sim's rendition, but I'm having much fun exploring it now, working my way from North to South. I'm in the middle of Algeria now, flying the ERJs in the hot climate. On the bigger fields, the 737 or the old 707 will come into play.31 degrees Celsius and some haze, every engine must love that. :(

Anybody been to Kourou Arkenne (Z23L) yet? Can anyone explain a 9,300 ft paved runway in the middle of absolutely nowhere? Do they need such a runway right there to export sandbags via airfreight? (Check Google for Street View and Traffic Advisories: "Traffic: Slow moving sand dunes at 1/2 inch per day.") Seriously, what's the deal with Z23L?BTW, great Africa (and Europe) mesh on 5 double-sided DVDs from the folks of FS Global 2008 and 2010.Cheers,- jahman.

Great, thanks for HU guys! Where is my CC??

After reading all those good things about Scenery Tech Landclass, I've bought their Africa package too.Lets go Africa now.

CoolP,as I value your advice, just been looking into this. Never ever had any GEX stuff,etc.Am seriously considering this buy but do I have to have a previous version or anything like that? Or can I buy from scratch and install as a brand new scenery add-on? And what is the FPS impact? Nothing like the Aerosoft Megas I hope.Thanks.

Well the GEX stuff are "just" textures, replacing the FSX standard ones for e. g. "desert sand" or "desert populated area" (don't mind those names, they're just examples). GEX also stays well within any normal resolution limit, so no extra load through extensive "HD" there. In short, there shouldn't be any fps impact at all and I can conform that so far.So whenever you are flying over a sort of categorized area in FSX (which happens all the time), you won't see the rather dull default textures but the more vivid and matching GEX ones now.Since populated areas in Africa or the Middle East look different than the populated ones of e. g. North America, the special GEX editions take care of that.Now those textures are just one side of the image impression, the definition of the landscape itself and the vegetation there would be another one. That's where the Scenery Tech is helpful and valuable since it defines those things and compliments the nice GEX textures with e. g. a much better autogen placement and density, matching the African continent much better than the default FSX definitions.So to represent a certain area in FSX, it roughly takes two things. Those textures with the right tones and those definitions with the correct placement of roads, streams, cities and also a unique vegetation style. If you go for the GEX + Scenery Tech buy, you will have accomplished this approach for a huge area in fair detail, far beyond any default FSX scenery.By design, the Scenery Tech stuff could influence framerates (since it places autogen), but it doesn't since the African area isn't heavily loaded at all, so you shouldn't see a negative impact there too.If there was a very heavy area with tons of autogen buildings and trees, there would be an impact though.I've paid 19.50 Euros for GEX and around 10 for the Scenery Tech stuff now, which is a great combination and also, in my eyes, a very cheap one for this nice outcome.

Well the GEX stuff are "just" textures, replacing the FSX standard ones for e. g. "desert sand" or "desert populated area" (don't mind those names, they're just examples). GEX also stays well within any normal resolution limit, so no extra load through extensive "HD" there. In short, there shouldn't be any fps impact at all and I can conform that so far.So whenever you are flying over a sort of categorized area in FSX (which happens all the time), you won't see the rather dull default textures but the more vivid and matching GEX ones now.Since populated areas in Africa or the Middle East look different than the populated ones of e. g. North America, the special GEX editions take care of that.Now those textures are just one side of the image impression, the definition of the landscape itself and the vegetation there would be another one. That's where the Scenery Tech is helpful and valuable since it defines those things and compliments the nice GEX textures with e. g. a much better autogen placement and density, matching the African continent much better than the default FSX definitions.So to represent a certain area in FSX, it roughly takes two things. Those textures with the right tones and those definitions with the correct placement of roads, streams, cities and also a unique vegetation style. If you go for the GEX + Scenery Tech buy, you will have accomplished this approach for a huge area in fair detail, far beyond any default FSX scenery.By design, the Scenery Tech stuff could influence framerates (since it places autogen), but it doesn't since the African area isn't heavily loaded at all, so you shouldn't see a negative impact there too.If there was a very heavy area with tons of autogen buildings and trees, there would be an impact though.I've paid 19.50 Euros for GEX and around 10 for the Scenery Tech stuff now, which is a great combination and also, in my eyes, a very cheap one for this nice outcome.

Although I very much agree with what you say and I thank you for your nice comments, there is something that needs to be cleared up here... no landclass product be it SceneryTech, Xclass or UTX determines autogen calls. The GEX textures have autogen notation applied to them, including the forest tiles which can be disabled in the GEX interface, and that annotation defines the visuals with respect to autogen and the performance. Several years ago Nick developed a formula for reasonable autogen calls per texture tile based on hardware and the autogen slider and taking into account the future of hardware development. The result is most modern computer systems can run GEX areas smooth and clear on 100% autogen slider running the most demanding aircraft. Landclass does one thing.. it defines the type of land displayed. Be that swamp, farm (wet or dry), desert, suburb, metro, etc that is ALL a landclass file does. GEX defines the amount of autogen is placed on any tile the landclass calls and we take great strides to assure the number of object per tile is scientifically defined to work in conjunction with the autogen slider so those ho do not run the latest and greatest hardware see the highest volume of autogen scenery with the least performance impact possible.I hope that clears up the technical side to landclass and autogen use. ;)

There you go, I thought that the autogen comes from the landclass addons. Always something to learn, thanks for that input. :(

There's some amazing freeware available for the guys looking for some fields with the nice GEX textures surrounding them.This one is the most impressive so far. FDMS - Matsapha International Swaziland - matsapha.zip Benjamin, you have to watch this one. It was released today.50 airports in Algeria come in here. algeri_fsx.zipEgypt VFR is here. egypt_fsx.zipMorocco and Sahara can be found under morocco_and_sahara_fsx.zip.Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe,Africa also is amazing work. harare.zip A huge part of South Africa comes with Aeroworx stuff. http://library.avsim...xscen&Go=SearchEnjoy this "new continent" in FSX. :(

There's some amazing freeware available for the guys looking for some fields with the nice GEX textures surrounding them.This one is the most impressive so far. FDMS - Matsapha International Swaziland - matsapha.zip Benjamin, you have to watch this one. It was released today.50 airports in Algeria come in here. algeri_fsx.zipEgypt VFR is here. egypt_fsx.zipMorocco and Sahara can be found under morocco_and_sahara_fsx.zip.Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe,Africa also is amazing work. harare.zip A huge part of South Africa comes with Aeroworx stuff. http://library.avsim...xscen&Go=SearchEnjoy this "new continent" in FSX. :(

Thank you for the detailed advice and the HU on the above. As usual,you are the guru to come seeking advice from.But I'm still reeling from the wonderful impact just having acquired some ORBX sceneries and their Lancair is having on me.WoW is all I can say.

Ah, that Lancair is a blast indeed. Maybe not THE plane for Africa, but surely for the current Orbx sceneries. No need to excuse there, this stuff is hot and worth exploring it for months to come. :(