Tearing your hair out when it takes minutes to load FSX and you realise, even though you're flying PNW, you've got got FTX central set to AUSWondered how you could know, just by looking at the FTX Central icon on your desktop, which one was loaded. Would it not be nice to see on face value what your region has been set to like below. or Well until FTX (ORBX) automate this process here is a solution for the mean time:now you can create a simple VBS file that will quickly change your icon that you immediately run after you have changed regions in FTX central. To see the method how tohttp://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/topic/5906-tired-of-loading-the-wrong-areaPost 6 contain detail of creating the VBS fileNOTE: this is for Windows 7 and where users have installed FSX and FTX to default installation paths.If you have any thing else the path must be adjusted as explained in the post As always if you not comfortable doing this, rather leave it out, however it is really straight forward. It work perfectly on my machine.use it or loose it..!

Isn't it easier to create a batch file that calls FTX Central first, then launches FSX, and have your FSX desktop Icon point to that batch file?Cheers,- jahman.

Is there a command line for FTX central that can be used?scott s..

Is there a command line for FTX central that can be used?scott s..

Yes, the same command line that is in the FTX Central icon.Then again you have FSPS Multi-Core Environment that will also let you run other programs before and after loading FSX, as well as start/stop unneeded Windows services, etc.Cheers,- jahman.

Isn't it easier to create a batch file that calls FTX Central first, then launches FSX, and have your FSX desktop Icon point to that batch file?Cheers,- jahman.

Well if you like me I fly a region for week or what, so I dont want to launch FTX central everytime, therefore I keep it simple for me. I just want to see on face value what FTX has been set to before I launch FSX. However there are huge number of ways to do it and anybody can do their own methods. This is what is working for me in my own scenario. People can take the idea and explore it more to cater for their individual needs. Afterall it is temporary solution until ORBX maybe incorporate it into there EXE. So that is what it is: - a temporary solution only otherwise I would have written a nice EXE file to do all that but I am not going to do ORBX work for them.

Personally, I think it's ridiculous FTX requires the simmer to change texture sets when changing geographical areas.Suppose I want to fly from Sydney to Seattle. How on Earth (literally!) can I do that without saving my flight, switching FTX Scenery from Australia to PNW, and then resuming the flight?GEX has great ground textures for the US, Canada, Europe, Africa and the Middle East and they don't require switching textures sets when flying from one region to the other!So it can be done.Cheers,- jahman.

@ bliksimpie Thanks a lot for your very helpful method.It works perfectly . :(

@ bliksimpie Thanks a lot for your very helpful method.It works perfectly . :(

I am glad it work. (Did you get the latest one with all 3 selection options - North America / Australia / Default? I updated OZx post this morning as some people requested me to also add a "DEFAULT" as there are still some that use "FSX DEFAULT" scenery.To use a VBS script is really not the best solution and a proper EXE file should have been written. However with the VBS file, people can at least chnage their installion paths etc and I am a bit bogged down now to go write and EXE that will automate this and go read entries to be able to determine all the info for the process is just not worth it, if FTX maybe go and do it themselves. (well we hope ORBX will consider and also add this to their EXE)Like it said, for temporary solution it is not bad at all, and make the process at least a lot easier.After each change two clicks and you can see what is happening before you load up FSX and find you forget to change region. I keep my FSX and FTX central shortcuts right next to each other so that the eye immediaty see what is happening..

Personally, I think it's ridiculous FTX requires the simmer to change texture sets when changing geographical areas.Suppose I want to fly from Sydney to Seattle. How on Earth (literally!) can I do that without saving my flight, switching FTX Scenery from Australia to PNW, and then resuming the flight?GEX has great ground textures for the US, Canada, Europe, Africa and the Middle East and they don't require switching textures sets when flying from one region to the other!So it can be done.Cheers,- jahman.

If that would be the case, I believe that orbx would have figured it out and not include a switch that requires user control. But FTX is much more indepth addon than GEX, and as far as i know GEX only has the ground textures, but FTX like it's name says has everything that belongs to that terrain region. I remember reading that FTXcentral switches also most autogen objects so that they suit the region best. So when u have FTX AU selected, trees and buildings look like they would in AU, and when FTX NA is set autogen looks fitting for that region.Also having done the same mistake myself as bliksimpie, I think that ground textures are still correct in NA if you have AU set in ftxcentral. It just changes autogen and such that needs to be changed. I'm just a customer tho, i don't know how the program works but this is just based on my observations.

If that would be the case, I believe that orbx would have figured it out and not include a switch that requires user control. But FTX is much more indepth addon than GEX, and as far as i know GEX only has the ground textures, but FTX like it's name says has everything that belongs to that terrain region. I remember reading that FTXcentral switches also most autogen objects so that they suit the region best. So when u have FTX AU selected, trees and buildings look like they would in AU, and when FTX NA is set autogen looks fitting for that region....

You are correct, I should have said "GEX plus proper landclass", so with GEX ground textures + UT landclass I can fly anywhere (US, Canada, Europe, Africa, Middle East) without needing to pull a files switcharoo.Cheers,- jahman.

Yes, the same command line that is in the FTX Central icon.Then again you have FSPS Multi-Core Environment that will also let you run other programs before and after loading FSX, as well as start/stop unneeded Windows services, etc.

Thanks, but that's still going to run the gui, right? I was thinking of something along the lines of "FTXCentral.exe -NA" which would cause loading of the NA texture set without user interaction.With respect to the overall problem, we are limited by the terrain engine to a set of regions with texture variants to cover the whole globe. To make matters worse, each landclass value does not have a unique texture variant for each region. In many cases the variant for the main US region is used as a default. Thus it can be difficult to accurately represent the typical terrain in some areas. Also, the region system is used to control various autogen objects. So you can get palm trees in strange locations for example.The typical way to get around the limitations of the terrain engine is to create custom landclasses and terrain vectors in terrain.cfg and also to change the specific textures that are mapped to.scott s..

Thanks, but that's still going to run the gui, right? I was thinking of something along the lines of "FTXCentral.exe -NA" which would cause loading of the NA texture set without user interaction.With respect to the overall problem, we are limited by the terrain engine to a set of regions with texture variants to cover the whole globe. To make matters worse, each landclass value does not have a unique texture variant for each region. In many cases the variant for the main US region is used as a default. Thus it can be difficult to accurately represent the typical terrain in some areas. Also, the region system is used to control various autogen objects. So you can get palm trees in strange locations for example.The typical way to get around the limitations of the terrain engine is to create custom landclasses and terrain vectors in terrain.cfg and also to change the specific textures that are mapped to.scott s.

Yes, you're quite right. GEX developpers seem to go through hoops to ensure consitent terrain textures for the reasons you mention.Cheers,- jahman.