Geez guys ... you can take better screen shots than that. There is a really nice tool called Osm2xp http://osm2xp.com/ you can use it to quickly populate cities and airports with buildings.Here are some examples which took less time to create than it takes XPX to load...Before Osm2xpAfter Osm2xpNow what was basically a town has now been turned into something that looks like a plausible cityNow the down-town section of Seattle looks more like a populated city

I don't know-that looks pretty funky to me and not at all like the Seattle I know..imho we need to get this readily available and free data into the sim

Is it me or are there some new city buildings ?? I see dirt and cement in some of the backyards that I didn't notice before today.

May be more-but Seattle it doesn't look like..

Onya Carrotroot! I was just telling Benny the same thing, that Seattle's not too bad. How many hrs ago did you run OSM2xp to get that? Cos Ben and I were feverishly doing some more CBD OSM updates about 3hrs ago :-). The more the merrier, it will make the CBD even busier.Could you post the zipped OSM directory here, others could use your file already. I'll be investigating on the weekend, to see if the textures can be improved.Really good!

Are you guys familiar with the area-have you flown over it?

Nope for me Geofa. We are just trying to see if we can get a more plausible look. You sound very familiar with the downtown, if you can send any pics of the buildings for texturing to contribute to our attempts, that would be great.

Go to Google...it is free and accurate..

Thank you so much. No it's not really meant to be used for textures, original pictures are better..

Not sure what this means. Every building is represented in reality in Google.Yes I've flown over it and I have original picts-but doubt they would have the fidelity of actual building models from google.

clear shots are surprisingly difficult to get in google. In anycase it'd be a massive job to model and texture accurately (payware :-) ) We'll just have fun seeing if it can get more plausible - it looks alot better than earlier!

Things that really hurt fps: cloud densities, volumetric fog, HDR.

So, the things that are better than in FSX.The thing that really bothered me with FSX and FS9 is the fact they were doing the sims for hardware that doesn't even exist yet.. or never... (at the time of the release). That's why the majority of simmers always had performance issues. Just now the hardware is catching up, kind of. When I heard XPX is going the same route now I was instantly put of. Let me explain why I think this approach is total bull-poo-poo. It seems like the actual MS sim becomes enjoyable (smooth and stutter-free) for the majority of people when the new sim is announced or released (FS9/FSX, FSX/FLIGHT).. this by itself is complete insanity. Why not make a sim (default) for today's hardware because than there are addons, like 737NGX, FTX stuff, weather, AI,.. addons, ... that are very hard on the "today's" system but will be enjoyable on "tomorrow's". The situation now is that sims are not really playable on today's hardware (I don't care for minimum settings that make a sim look like Commodore 64 game) and not very enjoyable on tomorrow's for majority of simmers that don't have state-of-the-art supercomputers. Now to me it looks like XPX is going this route. I don't like that.

Onya Carrotroot! I was just telling Benny the same thing, that Seattle's not too bad. How many hrs ago did you run OSM2xp to get that? Cos Ben and I were feverishly doing some more CBD OSM updates about 3hrs ago :-). The more the merrier, it will make the CBD even busier.Could you post the zipped OSM directory here, others could use your file already. I'll be investigating on the weekend, to see if the textures can be improved.Really good!

I did 4 quick xml exports around 7:00pm EST -- but I did notice that the area was looking more populated today than the last time I looked at it (which was about a week ago).@Geofa - Google's 3d Warehouse content is not free for redistribution outside of their services11.4 Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, without Google’s prior authorization, you may not: (i) aggregate Content obtained from Google Services for redistribution (http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/3dwh/tos.html)It would be great if we could collect their models and distribute it as a package, but unfortunately their terms of service strictly forbids this.

Why not make a sim (default) for today's hardware because than there are addons, like 737NGX, FTX stuff, weather, AI,.. addons, ... that are very hard on the "today's" system but will be enjoyable on "tomorrow's".

But there already is a sim made for today's hardware- Xplane 10. It runs slick on my pc. But hang on, it might be because it's not hobbled by other addons for weather, AI, textures. And don't forget, the optimization is yet to start.

But there already is a sim made for today's hardware- Xplane 10. It runs slick on my pc. But hang on, it might be because it's not hobbled by other addons for weather, AI, textures. And don't forget, the optimization is yet to start.

I meant not on the minimum settings, with no AI, clear skies,... did you turn on HDR maybe?Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against XPX but the developer said numerous times that the sim is made with future hardware in mind. Everybody were also able to run FSX in 2008