Expensive month GEX Afrisa now ORBX CRM

[jwenham 1]

I'm in the same boat as you. I will probably never buy GEX Africa since I never fly there, except for the once or twice a year flight out of Cairo, and the fact that you have to run the switcher when you want to fly in North America. For me GEX North America and Europe was enough as that is 99% of my flying, as well as ORBX AU which accounts for my other 1% of flight time.On the ORBX CRM, I will probably never get that set as well since its such a rural area that I basically have zero interest in, as well as the fact that they dont have any custom aiports for the area yet(besides the reworked ADE's). The CRM kind of reminds me of the NRM which is another area that is very rural and doesn't hold much interest for me. Frankly, even the PNW package I have to almost force my self to use every now and then, and if it wasn't for the few payware sceneries I got for the area to fly between, I probably would have uninstalled it already.I think for the moment I am done buying ORBX regions until they start doing more populated areas of the US and not so much of the wilderness and mountain regions, or areas that I am more interested in like south Florida, the southwest- AZ, NM, CO, and if they ever get into South America, namely Brasil, I will be all over it. The day they announce ORBX Florida, I will probably not be able to get my debit card out quick enough.In the mean time, I really need to start being more frugal with my ORBX purchases and stop buying regions or airports that I am really not interested and then feeling later on like I need to force myself to fly in those areas. I buy too many of their products because I am curious to see how they look in my sim, then once I use them a few times I struggle to go back to them again.

Sean, you took the words right out of my mouth on this one. I just bought PNW last weekend mainly due to the sale they were having and I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about with it. While I do find it do be a better rendition of the area I am turned off by its performance especially at KSEA. I dont feel so bad as I only paid 24 smacks for it but after having it now you a week I dont think it is a area I will be visiting regularly. As for GEX Africa I thought.... what the ho, I'll go ahead and get it anyways just to avoid running the "switcher" but after more thought about it I too will be passing on it as after all the years I have spent simming I have never ever done ANY flying there. Dont get me wrong as I am sure there are lots of people out there super excited to have the new GEX release and that great for them, but for me and how I use the sim.... nah.... I frankly am not going to get anything new for a while and enjoy the add-ons I currently have but even that will be smacked down when PMDG day comes.Jim

[rpowers 5]

What do you mean by "no switching"?[/quoteIf you have GEX Africa you do not have to switch between NA and EU and you get textures elseware in Mexico etc..Read Nick's post.He and Anthony do great work and give great support.Ron

[NGXfanatic 85]

I'm in the same boat as you. I will probably never buy GEX Africa since I never fly there, except for the once or twice a year flight out of Cairo, and the fact that you have to run the switcher when you want to fly in North America. For me GEX North America and Europe was enough as that is 99% of my flying, as well as ORBX AU which accounts for my other 1% of flight time.On the ORBX CRM, I will probably never get that set as well since its such a rural area that I basically have zero interest in, as well as the fact that they dont have any custom aiports for the area yet(besides the reworked ADE's). The CRM kind of reminds me of the NRM which is another area that is very rural and doesn't hold much interest for me. Frankly, even the PNW package I have to almost force my self to use every now and then, and if it wasn't for the few payware sceneries I got for the area to fly between, I probably would have uninstalled it already.I think for the moment I am done buying ORBX regions until they start doing more populated areas of the US and not so much of the wilderness and mountain regions, or areas that I am more interested in like south Florida, the southwest- AZ, NM, CO, and if they ever get into South America, namely Brasil, I will be all over it. The day they announce ORBX Florida, I will probably not be able to get my debit card out quick enough.In the mean time, I really need to start being more frugal with my ORBX purchases and stop buying regions or airports that I am really not interested and then feeling later on like I need to force myself to fly in those areas. I buy too many of their products because I am curious to see how they look in my sim, then once I use them a few times I struggle to go back to them again.

I think the ORBX stuff looks incredible, but I would think that they are geared more to the low and slow GA flyers. For them, it offers plenty of enjoyment and value. I (and I believe yourself as well Sean) are primarily tubeliner jockeys, and I'm so deeply immersed in pre-flight calculations or heads down monitoring of the systems to even look out the window and take in the beauty that ORBX offers. Maybe in cruise above such areas it can be nice to look at, but in the end if you are just flying to the major airports in IFR conditions (or VFR even, but using IFR to stay on track with terminal procedures) it can seem like a waste to spend the money on this scenery, and I'm sure it has some effect on frame rate with payware heavies as well. When I watch all those bush flying Alaska/PNW shows on cable, I tend to see why the GA crowd is gaga over ORBX and and I'm sure if I was not such a jethead I'd be in love as well, but I can't justify the purchase due to the kind of flying I enjoy the most. I may change my mind when I see what they do for California, Florida, or the Northeast (if ever, its all mostly urban and flat up here), as I will be putting in plenty of time on short hauls in the PMDG NGX.

[B747400F 0]

I don't get why ORbx didn't release SEA or PDX along with a medium sized airport that would have pleased a lot of heavy and medium iron fans. The default airports are so bland even with sprucing up

[NGXfanatic 85]

I'd imagine the reason is that they would not delay release, and also their core audience are GA flyers, not airliner types. I had heard that Seattle is such a frame rate dog, that an enhanced KSEA may never be released. Last I heard KPDX is/will be worked on, and I think they have enlisted the help of the developer of the FS9 Flightzone KPDX.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Sean, you took the words right out of my mouth on this one. I just bought PNW last weekend mainly due to the sale they were having and I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about with it. While I do find it do be a better rendition of the area I am turned off by its performance especially at KSEA. I dont feel so bad as I only paid 24 smacks for it but after having it now you a week I dont think it is a area I will be visiting regularly.

Yeah, every ORBX product in my sig was purchased on sale as well. Their products for me are ones that aren't must haves and I will only buy when on sale. That being said, I get fine performance when flying a/c such as the Quest Kodiak, choppers and other light a/c, but as soon as I load up something like the LDS 767 and fly into or out of KSEA or KPDX I get the dreaded blurries, although FPS and fluidity are fine, I just cant take the blurries. However a flight into/out of KSEA, with everything turned up using the LDS or PMDG but with GEX textures, UTX and Scenery Tech landclass doesn't result in any blurry textures at all. I'm sure some of the ORBX PNW texture blurries when flying fast a/c can be attributed to the fact that I am running a 32 bit OS and only 2GB of RAM, but then the same area works fine with GEX and UTX enabled, it makes me not want to use the PNW for heavy flight into or out of the area.Like you I dont really visit the area often and even bought Orcas, Darrington, and Concrete just to give me some nice fields to fly some g/a flights out of, but I admit I still dont use the area very often. Frankly, even as nice as AU looks and performs better than PNW, I rarely fly there as well, which is kind of ashame considering I have purchased quite a few of the AU airports. It's just hard for me to get into flying areas that I am not really interested in, no matter how nice they look. You could even go as far as to say that even if someone came up with a complete photoreal Africa that included night textures, a load of hand placed autogen, and looked better than anything else ever created for FSX, I would probably still skip it just because its not an area that interests me.

As for GEX Africa I thought.... what the ho, I'll go ahead and get it anyways just to avoid running the "switcher" but after more thought about it I too will be passing on it as after all the years I have spent simming I have never ever done ANY flying there. Dont get me wrong as I am sure there are lots of people out there super excited to have the new GEX release and that great for them, but for me and how I use the sim.... nah.... I frankly am not going to get anything new for a while and enjoy the add-ons I currently have but even that will be smacked down when PMDG day comes.Jim

I'm sure there are a lot of people excited for Africa, but since there is a complete lack of after market airports for Africa as well as the fact that I never fly there it would be a complete waste of money for me.On the switching, I dont need to buy GEX Africa since I stopped updating North America at version 1.092 and Europe at version 1/025. Had I updated to the last two versions of North America and Europe I would either have to run the switcher or buy Africa to not need the switcher. Thank God I read the release notes before proceeding to the last two updates or I would be stuck getting Africa to avoid using the switcher.

I think the ORBX stuff looks incredible, but I would think that they are geared more to the low and slow GA flyers. For them, it offers plenty of enjoyment and value. I (and I believe yourself as well Sean) are primarily tubeliner jockeys, and I'm so deeply immersed in pre-flight calculations or heads down monitoring of the systems to even look out the window and take in the beauty that ORBX offers. Maybe in cruise above such areas it can be nice to look at, but in the end if you are just flying to the major airports in IFR conditions (or VFR even, but using IFR to stay on track with terminal procedures) it can seem like a waste to spend the money on this scenery, and I'm sure it has some effect on frame rate with payware heavies as well. When I watch all those bush flying Alaska/PNW shows on cable, I tend to see why the GA crowd is gaga over ORBX and and I'm sure if I was not such a jethead I'd be in love as well, but I can't justify the purchase due to the kind of flying I enjoy the most. I may change my mind when I see what they do for California, Florida, or the Northeast (if ever, its all mostly urban and flat up here), as I will be putting in plenty of time on short hauls in the PMDG NGX.

Agree A.J.!! If I was into GA or bush flying, I would be in heaven. Your right though, if you like to primarily fly airliners its not really that great for that, altough the complete AU package works well for flying heavies since it seems to be more performance friendly that the PNW. Its weird that in AU I can fly around Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane in fast, complex a/c and get good FPS and NO blurries, but I take the same a/c to PNW and its blurries galore.For heavy flying I just need to stick to GEX, UTX, MegaScenery titles(not MSE) and some FSDT and FlyTampa airports and I am about as happy as I can be.

I'd imagine the reason is that they would not delay release, and also their core audience are GA flyers, not airliner types. I had heard that Seattle is such a frame rate dog, that an enhanced KSEA may never be released. Last I heard KPDX is/will be worked on, and I think they have enlisted the help of the developer of the FS9 Flightzone KPDX.

Actually, they have denied a few times that the Flightzone guy named Vauchez has anything to do with ORBX and is in no way involved with their upcomming KPDX. From what I have read KPDX is primarily Bill Womacks project, although its possible that he will get assistance from some of the other ORBX devs.On the subject of KSEA, John Venema recently posted some pics on their site of a totally reworked Seattle downtown where they have actually designed the building and other items in the area to us their own models and pick up some performance. It will be released in due time.I think they also said that KSEA might still get done at some point, although not long ago either Martin or George at FlyTampa said that they might seriously reconsider re-doing KSEA due to all the requests that they get for it and also since Seattle doesn't seem to be as much as an FPS hog as it was when FSX was first released due to computers finally catching up.

[NGXfanatic 85]

On the subject of KSEA, John Venema recently posted some pics on their site of a totally reworked Seattle downtown where they have actually designed the building and other items in the area to us their own models and pick up some performance. It will be released in due time.I think they also said that KSEA might still get done at some point, although not long ago either Martin or George at FlyTampa said that they might seriously reconsider re-doing KSEA due to all the requests that they get for it and also since Seattle doesn't seem to be as much as an FPS hog as it was when FSX was first released due to computers finally catching up.

Interesting. I think you were involved in a topic on stutters at Fort Lauderdale, where the default FPS heavy cranes/ships are located and could be attributable to poor performance in their vicinity, namely the approach to KFLL. And I had also read that Flightbeam's KSFO, as jaw droppingly beautiful and full of life as it is, is more framerate friendly than the default airport because it does not use the FSX default jetways, which are also supposedly fps heavy.After reading this, I find it disturbing that the reason there are lots of the stutter and fps drops in areas like New York/Seattle/any city with lots of urban buildings/cranes/etc is because the models hard coded into FSX are heavy in polygons and/or animations that suck the life out of our systems. It's refreshing to hear that a developer is creating replacement city objects to cure that issue, which I assume is to offer nicer looking objects AND better performance. I used to assume any scenery object that was nice looking would cause a frame rate loss, but I have seen plenty of reports on products (airports and scenery) that can offer breathtaking visuals and better performance than default because the developer took the time to carefully optimize LOD levels, or adding mipmaps or reduced size textures as necessary. It's a shame ACES didn't have the foresight to go to this level of optimization. I'd pay for a replacement FSX object set that was designed with this purpose in mind, it would be a neat project for an enterprising team to take on. Instead of creating an addon airport or texture sets (i.e. UTX,GEX) , why not create replacement autogen objects. But this is a niche market, I figure the costs would outweigh the expected return on investment. I love this hobby and FSX, now that hardware has finally caught up. But it hasn't caught up enough, being that FSX was designed at a time when the ACES team expected cpu raw speeds to increase incrementally with time, whereas instead we just have more cores, and FSX fails to take advantage of that new paradigm of hardware evolution. And I read about the stupid limits FSX has on mouse click spots, or animations, that hinder developers like PMDG with the level of detail they can stuff into the NGX. I can only dream of the performance of FSX, PMDG's NGX, 100% AI and all the wonderful scenery packages out there would be if FSX had a decent multi-core graphics engine that was on par with most other modern games/software. All hope is with Flight, but even then it could be a while before the payware products we are used to make the switch.

[B747400F 0]

They may say that, but does anybody really get that great performance at PDX with their city rework scenery? I still get bad frames

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Interesting. I think you were involved in a topic on stutters at Fort Lauderdale, where the default FPS heavy cranes/ships are located and could be attributable to poor performance in their vicinity, namely the approach to KFLL. And I had also read that Flightbeam's KSFO, as jaw droppingly beautiful and full of life as it is, is more framerate friendly than the default airport because it does not use the FSX default jetways, which are also supposedly fps heavy.

Yep, that was me. I actually made some exclude files for KFLL and attached them to my ADE file for the airport, that way I can elimate the cranes and cruise ships without having to lower my scenery complexity slider. It worked like a charm!! I cam't say that I have ever noticed any negative effects from the FSX jetways since they are not in use by anyone but me. Although, in UTX I have the jetways disabled so that AI cant make them move, so that is probably why I haven't noticed any negative effects.Another word on the cranes. I noticed that some of them also have animated birds animations attached to them. I noticed this a few times when flying a helo around the cranes at KFLL and the birds were either comming from the cranes or cruise ships. Once I excluded the cranes and cruise ships the birds were gone. I'm not sure how much effect the birds have on performance, but it might contibute to the crane FPS losses.

but I have seen plenty of reports on products (airports and scenery) that can offer breathtaking visuals and better performance than default because the developer took the time to carefully optimize LOD levels, or adding mipmaps or reduced size textures as necessary.

i.e. Aerosoft, lol. Yeah, some developers are better than others at optimizing their work. Frankly speaking, FSDT airports are the ONLY ones that I never have to tinker with. Even FlyTampa airports I usually end up doing a little work on my own to improve performance. Aerosoft airports I always look at as a do-it-yourself project because I always end up spending hours resizing and mip mapping textures to squeeze extra performance out of.

I'd pay for a replacement FSX object set that was designed with this purpose in mind, it would be a neat project for an enterprising team to take on. Instead of creating an addon airport or texture sets (i.e. UTX,GEX) , why not create replacement autogen objects. But this is a niche market, I figure the costs would outweigh the expected return on investment. I love this hobby and FSX, now that hardware has finally caught up. But it hasn't caught up enough, being that FSX was designed at a time when the ACES team expected cpu raw speeds to increase incrementally with time, whereas instead we just have more cores, and FSX fails to take advantage of that new paradigm of hardware evolution. And I read about the stupid limits FSX has on mouse click spots, or animations, that hinder developers like PMDG with the level of detail they can stuff into the NGX. I can only dream of the performance of FSX, PMDG's NGX, 100% AI and all the wonderful scenery packages out there would be if FSX had a decent multi-core graphics engine that was on par with most other modern games/software. All hope is with Flight, but even then it could be a while before the payware products we are used to make the switch.

I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a universal crane mdl that could be repaled the the default one to help the issue world wide in the sim, rahter than just on a location by location basis. Usually in trouble spots in the sim where cranes come into play, I usually just spend some time building excludes to get rid of them. I've done a fair amount of working the New York and Newark area deleting cranes to boost performance.

They may say that, but does anybody really get that great performance at PDX with their city rework scenery? I still get bad frames

Yeah, I get good FPS in the KSEA and KPDX area even in heavies, its just that the textures get blurry vs. using GEX/UTX in the same area. Altough from what Holger has said, the blurries in the PNW are most likely due to the wide array of landclass they use in small areas compared to using a landclass like Scenery Tech which isn't as detailed. Basically what it comes down to is if you have a 20 square mile area that uses two or three different landclass files it will be easier for the sim to calculate which textures need to be called and displayed for that area. Now, take the same 20 square miles and squeeze 10 different land classes into the same area and the sim is going to be a lot busier calculating, calling for and dispalying all of those different textures that are needed. On top of that, add a fast moving a/c to the equation and the sim will have a hard time keeping up with the textures which results in the blurries.

[bsmfinegan 12]

They may say that, but does anybody really get that great performance at PDX with their city rework scenery? I still get bad frames

FTX Seattle/Portland are quite likely the most frame rate intensive area in FSX, and this is despite the vast majority of the "real estate" already consisting of custom ORBX models.As regards FTX Seattle I see zero drop in fps when looking directly at these cranes that people have mentioned and the same result when lowering the scenery complexity slider to remove the cranes.Bryan.

[Andydigital 93]

I take it you guys forgot about the fact that the Middle East is covered by this latest version of GEX, it's not just Africa.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I take it you guys forgot about the fact that the Middle East is covered by this latest version of GEX, it's not just Africa.

I admit I didn't know that the Middle East was in there as well. All I saw was Africa and made a decision off that. However, for me its still a no buy since I dont fly the Middle East either in FSX or about as often as I fly Africa. I'm sure a lot of others will enjoy it though.

[Benjamin J 751]

I admit I didn't know that the Middle East was in there as well. All I saw was Africa and made a decision off that. However, for me its still a no buy since I dont fly the Middle East either in FSX or about as often as I fly Africa. I'm sure a lot of others will enjoy it though.

In all honesty, GEX AF/MEA does more than just add etxtures for those regions. it's also a major overhaul for GEX USA, replacing files so that coloration is better. There is no switching involved! Everything works seamlessly.Regarding KFLL, I don't know. Removed the cranes and such, but FPS is still quite terrible. Come to think of it, all of the Miami area returns me lousy FPS. I wad flying with the Trike the other day over KMIA (all default scenery), viewing the city, and had a meagre 20FPS. In just about any other areas, save for cities like NYC and Chicago which I rebuilt from scratch using several payware addons, I get 30+ FPS (default scenery).As for FTX, their stuff is great and love it, but I agree with those that went before and said that for them it's not really that fitting. I have their AU regions and some of their AU airports (those that see scheduled commercial traffic), and I always leave that region activated. Why? Because that's a region that I would fly heavies around. Not just heavies by the way: it's one of those places that sees the J41 in regular operation. I can take the PMDG J41 for some very nice flights around the FTX enhanced AU, which I simply can't really do at NA. Well of course I can, but I like flying aircraft in existing liveries in locations that actually sees their operation. So, flying Qantas in and out of Portland for example is a no-go for me. I have done some GA flying with the BN2 Islander around NA, however, and while I loved it, it ultimately is too slow for me. Besides, I can take those same aircraft and fly them over Aerosoft's Iceland scenery, and I won't have to switch regions in FTX Central for that.So yeah. I guess I have their FTX AU sceneries mainly for the PMDG J41, and the NA sceneries... well, not quite sure. I guess I was curious. I won't purchase stuff from them as readily as I previously did before. That's not just the regions though, also their airports. Because, ya know, I dislike it when developers use ground textures for aprons and such. I usually can't put the texture resolution all the way to 7cm because my sim will grind to a halt. The result is that the OrbX airports have blurry grounds. I rather sacrifice a bit of realism and get "normal" aprons instead of ground textures. Besides, 7cm really isn't that good yet. You will never get the crispness you can otherwise get. Luckily, the PMDG J41 performs very well for me, and if it's true what I read on the PMDG forums, then the 737NGX will performs very well also.

[MarkW 1,502]

OK I understand the discount of 15% for prepay, just not for me. Even the most respectable developer (I know ORBX is top notch) could still face significant delays (ahem, PMDG). Mark.

[Valcor 9]

OK I understand the discount of 15% for prepay, just not for me. Even the most respectable developer (I know ORBX is top notch) could still face significant delays (ahem, PMDG). Mark.

They don't release for pre-pay unless they are certain it has a release window of no more than 6 weeks IIRC. As far as I know, they have never missed on delivering on that promise and often don't even come close to that long. And it's not like they have just kept that promise for a couple projects now. They have released a ton of quality products and it's all arrived within the pre-pay time frame.If I bought (1) stock cert for $41 in a company and was guaranteed $6 back within a few weeks, that's a pretty good Return on Investment if you work out the numbers. <shrug>