Robert R made a comment in the discussion on scenery in the liveries forum that orbx is better than megascenery.

FWIW: I have the Megascenery Earth products installed for all of California and I find them to be reasonably good. OrbX's scenery products are significantly better because they are more than just a photoscenery overlay- but the Megascenery isn't bad at all.

He's probably right in general, but I'm not convinced he's right when we're all planning to be flying a 737 at FL320 in the near future. So it's got me thinking about where I am going to be flying...In preparation for the 737NGs release I've been collecting photoscenery. Modern computers have hit the point where you can use photoscenery well with fast planes, I believe. Which is good, cos it's a bit lame if you're just flying a cessna low down.FWIW, I have all of the the Orbx Australia stuff, and most of the US as well. Orbx has some very small (by jet standards) areas of photoscenery in it, but it's mostly tile based. It's the best for low and slow in a prop plane, but I don't think it's as good as actual photoscenery for flying a plane like the 737NG over. So I thought I'd tell you where I've been flying my 737-surrogates for the last few months - and then ask your opinions on what other scenery would be great for the upcoming wonder-plane.Megascenery: I've got six 'whole' states: (trying to but the whole state at once, cos it's cheaper - look out for the half-price specials etc)Have had megascenery california for a while - good, but check out Vero FS, even though it only covers the north. Resolution and color are better (can easily be seen in areas where my vero fs and megascenery join). Megascenery cali has I think 100 scenery areas and is way slow to load. Megascenery arizona: I enjoy flying over this one. The big canyon and meteor crater etc, Phoenix at nightMegascenery oregon: bought the state on the weekend. Really enjoying it - nice and green, seems more realistic colors than california. KPDX and KEUG are good for jets.Megascenery washington: using this rather than Orbx now when flying the heavy metal. Spokane to Seattle - good flight in a small/medium jet.Bought Utah as well: a fair bit of the state is missing down in the southwest. Pretty good, but not many airports other than KSLC to land a 737 at (KGSU, KENV are possible).Hawaii - lots of people have flown this one - small and cheap and pretty good. Nice for a long flight across the pond to california.Have got the city pack for denver, some texas, some NC and a few other bits - they're OK, not quite as good. Smaller areas which are not so useful for jet flying. Main problem is loading times: with the lot activated it takes a loooong time! (with it all - about 30 mins. Reminds me of loading 16K tape games on the Vic 20!). You do want multiple states when you're flying heavy metal. Two states is OK for loading....about 3-4 mins.Megascenery comes with night lighting - works great at dawn/dusk/night with the UTX night lighting. Am using the FS genesis mesh, and also some of the higher res FS Dreamscapes ones.Megascenery doesn't get much love in the forums - it's all orbx orbx orbx (hurrah!) - but I think on a modern ninja computer (to eliminated the blurries) photoscenery is better for flying a 737/747/767/777 over.Other places to fly: well, horizon VFR v3 UK was meant to release today. I've ordered the 3 sets. Will see how it goes - not sure if it will seem a bit small for jet flying, they're releasing ireland as well which would be an interesting flight.And I'm very tempted by simsavvy - whole of US for $200.So chaps...what are your votes for scenery for the 737 NGX?

Sticking with REX, GEX, and UTX.

I have MS Salt Lake City and those mountains are really cool looking at high altitude but I still get giggity descending down into that beautiful night lighting and terrain in FTX........I think I'll just fly in both. :(

I'm going to fly FTX and VFR Germany mainly. But Mallorca X will be something I'm also going to fly over very often I think, expecially if the NGX will release in the Summerholidays! :(

I was going to fly over PNW but FTX central never worked on my computer so I didn't buy it...But I'll be going back and forth mostly in the US from KJFK, KORD, KDFW, KLAX, KLAS, KFLL, (all fsdreamteam scenery). And then some freeware addons in Europe for EGLL, EHAM, LFPG, LSZH (that one is fsdt though), and other freeware around the globe.

photoscenery is better for flying a 737/747/767/777 over.

You may have a point here but it all depends where you put emphasis on using scenery. I personally don't care about scenery when I fly at FL320, very often I have some weather anyway and can't really see much ground, I want my scenery to shine when I am low, and when I am in the traffic pattern/approach this is where I expect to get the full impact of the scenery and this is where Orbx really shines providing the best possible blend of scenery/airport (their custom airports) - and even generic airports look better with their scenery. So it all depends what your expectations are.

Hey you should all check out the freeware airports on the Orbx site, www.fullterrain.com . They are all AWSOME and FREE!!! They are at least as nice as the payware Coffs Harbour. I think they must have been payware at some time in the past. Some of them are served by the 737-800's from Qantas and Virgin Blue/Pacific/Austrailia. There is also a really neat grass strip freeware for the PNW that is just across Puget Sound from SeaTac on one of the islands.Hiram Hunt

To make photoscenery work you need large areas and you need a computer that loads the textures fast enought so you can fly a jet. I love Orbx/FTX for flying my bonanza, cessna or the duke. In a 737 it's like positive rate, gear up, flaps in, after takeoff checklist...oh, I've missed all the cool orbx stuff. This is where I'm finding photoscenery shines more than any tile based solution. Even on a short haul flight I'm still cruising for 30 minutes. It's great to have the real world to look at - you can see all the patterns of nature and civilisation than you get when looking out the window of a real jetliner. I hook FSX up to a map on the ipad (using FSWidgets) so I can learn what all the little towns I'm flying over are called.There does however seem to be a limited amount of the world where you can do this. US is well covered, aerosoft germany was mentioned by a previous poster - good thought, and can use the netherlands VFR to link up to UK photoscenery.I must say in the last day the idea of using Horizon VFR and flying west to the new East Ireland scenery has grown on me...maybe something to consider once they release it in a few weeks.I don't know of any africa/Sth america/Asia large-scale photoscenery that would give the same experience though. Am I missing anywhere?P.S. for the orbx fans...NZ south island should be fun I think.BTW, I did try flying to New Zealand from YBBN once in the J41. Nice long flight, in real time. Happy to report the J41 has plenty of fuel to allow a solid sighting of the west coast of NZ.Pretty sure NGX should allow for a less-wet landing!:)

.......P.S. for the orbx fans...NZ south island should be fun I think.BTW, I did try flying to New Zealand from YBBN once in the J41. Nice long flight, in real time. Happy to report the J41 has plenty of fuel to allow a solid sighting of the west coast of NZ.Pretty sure NGX should allow for a less-wet landing!:)

Hi Oz,I come from the West Coast area of the SI in New Zealand- you probably saw my mother waving a sheet at you as you made your (wet?) landing! :)is the ORBX New Zealand scenery out yet? I had heard that they were doing a scenery package.Also looking forward (hoping) they will do a Rockies scenery that is further south than the current "Northern Rockies" package, would be good for where I now live in the Denver area (Boulder).Thanks, Bruce.

i will be around the Orbx Aus Scenery to start off. Will see how it goes but having all 4 parts is nice because it gives you an entire continent to fly in. Short flights along the gold coast or longer trips like Melbourne to Perth etc. And yes New Zealand is coming but I think they are also working on the areas south of the PNW scenery also. Would be nice if they did San Fransico area =)

Sticking with REX, GEX, and UTX.

Yeah same. Covers whole of north amerca and looks really crisp once you sort out resolutions. Although I always wondered difference between those and say megascenery.

RE REX, GEX and UTX

Yeah same. Covers whole of north amerca and looks really crisp once you sort out resolutions. Although I always wondered difference between those and say megascenery.

GEX (like the larger Orbx scenery areas) is tile-based - like generic FSX, but (much) better. With these types of scenery you can get a more interesting low-down experience because you can place autogen well on a limited number of specific tiles. There's two downsides: one, you're not looking at reality - you're looking at a tile placed based on what sort of landscape (landclass) you're flying over, so when you're flying over a rural town there will be a small town tile. but it doesn't show the actual building of the real town you're flying over.The second downside is that the effect doesn't work well at high altitudes, because the fact that it's tile based starts to become apparent, and you lose the large-scale sense of 'patterns' on the ground that you'll see in real life (or from google earth).Megascenery is one brand of photoscenery. Photoscenery is the actual aerial (or satellite) photo placed in the correct position on the landscape. This has a couple of advantages - it's real (so you're actually looking at what the world looks like - I'm enjoying learning about all sorts of areas in the US I haven't visited - it's like google earth from a cockpit). It also means the landscape matches the real topography that a terrain mesh provides. If you use UTX which upgrades the real roads, you find the roads also now match the landscape perfectly. With a tile-based solution if you look the real roads all just run through the buildings etc - cos you're combining generic 'town' tile with the eact coordinates of the actual roads.The downside of photoscenery is that autogen generally doesn't work well with it. You have to hand place relaistic 'autogen'. Megascenery basically doesn't do this, so the low and slow experience suffers.One of the posters mentioned San Franscisco. Vero FS have released photoscenery for this - with upgraded autogen for half moon bay airport (worth checking out if ou haven't, and the area they've produced is big enough to go jet flying in KSFO to KSMF, KACV etc)I personally think this is the ideal future solution for flying a 737 through - large scale photoscenery with hand-placed autogen around the departure and approach routes to the airports. Orbx do this with their airport add-ons - but the photoscenery is only a small areas around the airport and then you're back into tiles. I'd love an orbx airport, good autogen around it and then 1000 miles of real-world photoscenery to fly over.At the moment I'm tending to live with the lower quality airports and 60 seconds of flat terrain experience for the trade off of an hour's flying over reality - but that's just the mood I'm in right now.CheersWhiteyPS Lol the 'white sheet' comment - didn't see it, but was kind of distracted at the time...what's the best glide speed of the J41 again?? :)