Jefferson County: How's performance?

[Alan_A 1,650]

I've been taking a bit of a vacation from ORBX products for personal reasons related to the recent dramas. No need to elaborate about that. However, I'm considering purchasing Jefferson County since I've particularly enjoyed flying around Puget Sound and the straits. However, I'm concerned about how it performs. I've had challenges with Anacortes, which unlike many ORBX products really, really taxed my system. Now, in fairness, I haven't yet tried it with the Day/Night switcher and I could probably stand to turn down some of the settings in FTX Central. So I need to do that. But, topline - does Jefferson County have a similar impact, or is equally hard to run? FYI that I already have Diamond Point installed and I've read some comments to the effect that the two together can be difficult.System specs below. There's probably a new system in my future, but not 'til midyear when Ivy Bridge arrives.Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

[St Mawgan 1,448]

Interesting. I also have Diamond Point (which seems a bit small and disappointing compared to the Georender version I remember) and was thinking of Jefferson too but the latest couple of offerings have been pretty hard on my system so I've also been holding off. I daren't try Anacortes/Skagit from what I've read about them elsewhere. The Day/Night switcher made no noticeable difference for me unfortunately.

[Ben Cap 89]

Interesting. I also have Diamond Point (which seems a bit small and disappointing compared to the Georender version I remember) and was thinking of Jefferson too but the latest couple of offerings have been pretty hard on my system so I've also been holding off. I daren't try Anacortes/Skagit from what I've read about them elsewhere. The Day/Night switcher made no noticeable difference for me unfortunately.

It seems that they have lost some of their ambition to create more FPS efficient scenery. I've noticed this over the months of releases...

[Guest]

Some of the new offerings are quite heavy on the system indeed. For me Anacortes was the first one that needed some options to be turned off. The problem is that the sceneries are developed by different developers so it's not that all new addons are heavier. Jefferson isn't the heaviest but it isn't ligh too. All those flow things are becoming a bit too much, I think. It really is YMMV thing. The switcher had the biggest effects around places with lots of lights like Seattle and Portland. Around places like Jefferson it doesn't make a big difference.

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I've been taking a bit of a vacation from ORBX products for personal reasons related to the recent dramas. No need to elaborate about that. However, I'm considering purchasing Jefferson County since I've particularly enjoyed flying around Puget Sound and the straits. However, I'm concerned about how it performs. I've had challenges with Anacortes, which unlike many ORBX products really, really taxed my system. Now, in fairness, I haven't yet tried it with the Day/Night switcher and I could probably stand to turn down some of the settings in FTX Central. So I need to do that. But, topline - does Jefferson County have a similar impact, or is equally hard to run? FYI that I already have Diamond Point installed and I've read some comments to the effect that the two together can be difficult.System specs below. There's probably a new system in my future, but not 'til midyear when Ivy Bridge arrives.Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

Hi Alan, I have all the ORBX airports in that section of PNW plus all of OZX and run everything maxed out and have no problem with either Jefferson County or Diamond Point. Anacortes though can be really touchy and can only be guaranteed not to be blurry on my system with BP=0. The last airports of Jefferson County and S43 are fabulous. In fact Jefferson is my new home airport. Your system should be able to handle it I would think.Kind regards,

[1st fltsimguy 468]

Hi, I do not have as robust system as stephen, mine is an i7-920 2.7Ghz, 16 gig ram, GTX260 video card. I have found that the latest sceneries do tax my system and in order to have a fluid flight experience I end up turning off some of the features which are taughted as their latest and greatest. So if your specs are better than mine you might be able to get better performance. My drop dead fps limit is 16 anything less starts to be slide showish and not worth it.

[Alan_A 1,650]

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like Jefferson County will be worth a try - doesn't seem that it'll be more of a challenge than Anacortes so at least I have a baseline to work with. I'm happy to play with settings - haven't had to do that until now but if it's necessary, it's necessary. Some of the "flows" are nice but - to me at least - not essential. People Flow in particular has always struck me as a bit weird but that's just my taste... of course, if they start to capture some of the advanced motions they showed in their recent sample animation I'll be happy to reverse myself and turn it back on.I'll probably wait a couple of days for my credit card to cycle into a new month (old trick I learned in my earliest freelance days) and then pick it up.

[kludger 7]

Yeah Anacortes is gorgeous but indeed the toughest PNW scenery FPS wise on my current system and my previous i7-920, I haven't noticed Jefferson to be bad FPS wise either and haven't had to turn anything off there. Another good thing about Jefferson besides the great character is the nice location which is out of the beaten path from most of the other Orbx airports so it is a great base of operations for exploring the South Sound.

[Naji 5]

Jefferson Co has become a favorite.If you can fly satisfactorily around Skagit and Anacortes, then you will be fine around J-Co and Diamond Point

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Jefferson Co has become a favorite.If you can fly satisfactorily around Skagit and Anacortes, then you will be fine around J-Co and Diamond Point

Well said. I love the trash trailer courts near J-Co . It make things hyper real. Oh, plus the deputy on patrol in the Crown Vic. The police style hubcaps are a treat in itself! Not so sure I am looking forward to a flamingo dancer on the diner patio though. :Party:Kind regards,

[Alan_A 1,650]

If you can fly satisfactorily around Skagit and Anacortes, then you will be fine around J-Co and Diamond Point

Well, that's my challenge - right now I have a hard time around Skagit and Anacortes. But with some setting tweaks I ought to be able to manage. Jefferson sounds like fund and I love the location, so I'll be checking it out.

[Alan_A 1,650]

Not so sure I am looking forward to a flamingo dancer on the diner patio though.

Me, I'm all for her partying - hope I can join her group... :wink:Here's a weird personal reason for wanting to visit JeffCo - I don't know the area at all, have never been there, but there's a writer I know of (goes by the name of Red Pine, real name Bill Porter, who does great translations of ancient Chinese poetry) who lives there. I sort of like the idea of dropping in. And then there's a photography magazine I follow - Lenswork - that comes out of Anacortes. So there's some personal backstory I can bring along on local flights. I sometimes wonder if other people do similar narrative things so it's not just point-to-point. Maybe a topic for another thread...

[Clutch Cargo 388]

I think we find our personal favorite airports to visit/purchase base a lot on personal experiences. That being said I would go for Jefferson for that reason. I have it... I do find it a bit more taxing compared to my other Orbx airports considering I am running at 4.8GHz. You could just move some of the sliders left, apply the day/night switch and probably get satisfactory results.

[Alan_A 1,650]

Just to round out this thread, I bought Jefferson County and installed it alongside Diamond Point. I've only had time for some quick and unscientific testing - not really testing in the true sense of the word, just some trial runs that produced some impressions. Topline - it's a little challenging for my system but not as much so as the Skagit-Anacortes combo, and does well after a little tuning of features. Initially, with all settings left as installed, I was getting frames in the low- to mid-teens. That was with Ant's new Tecnam Eaglet and ActiveSky 2012 producing real weather, including a low overcast. Traffic sliders were at 40 percent. Switching to the A2A Cub, I saw a little improvement - nothing dramatic, just a couple of frames. But after resetting some of the features in FTX Central - all flows off except PeopleFlow at level one, grass textures at one step above minimum, static aircraft and custom traffic at the lowest setting (but still on), and sounds off, I was able to bring frames up to the high teens on the ground and the mid-twenties, sometimes touching 30, in the air, which is about par for me for other PNW locations.Over the next couple of days I'll try to test more systematically, using a weather theme and a single aircraft so that everything stays constant. While I'm at it, I'll try doing some tuning on Anacortes and see what I can accomplish there.I have to say that it all looked really good even with the settings lowered. Actually, I liked PeopleFlow better after I'd toned it down - it was more like a neat accent, less like a mob of people wandering everywhere. As for the rest, there's plenty of atmosphere to go around even without all the textures and animations.So if you were worried about it like I was, the news is that you can tune it to run well, and if you do, it's extremely worthwhile.I do have to admit that I'm looking forward to reinstalling all of it on my upcoming Ivy Bridge/Kepler build, probably in the second or third quarter. My only dilemma there was whether to go to SSD's but thanks to ORBX my answer is no - I won't have room on SSDs for all the scenery and I don't want to give up any of it. So my Velociraptors will travel with me into the new construction.Again, more detail to follow, but I hope this is helpful in the meantime.EDIT: Oh, one last detail - I noticed that on the ramp at Jefferson County, my landing gear was sinking into to tarmac. It didn't affect my taxiing (I keep crash detection turned off) and resolved once I was clear of the ramp and out on the taxiways, so it's just a minor glitch, not a showstopper. Has anyone else seen this, or is there an issue (terrain resultion, maybe?) with my install?

Edited January 30, 2012 by Alan_A

[lateagain 45]

Can't seem to find an Author(s) credit for Jefferson? Anyone fill me in?

 

I've been doing some analysis of which PNW fields get comments on performance to see if there's a common factor .....there isn't :Thinking: hope that saves the rest of you some time .

 

BTW having your system specs in the signature helps assess your feedback so I must get MY act together on that one :Loser:

 

Geoff