Well, I jumped on this as I've been wanting a good KSTL for a long time. I have had no prior experience with this developer, so I knew I was taking a risk. In summary, it looks pretty good, but it's an absolute FPS killer. I have many Fly Tampa, FSDT and Imagine Sim airports, and they all work much smoother. After realizing my poor frame rate with default GA aircraft, I thought I better look at the owner's manual for possible tweaks. No, there is no manual as far as I can see. So now I will dive into the scenery folder and start deleting things to find the culprit(s). After a time, I may be able to make this workable, but for now I'm very disappointed.

+1 curt1, I was looking forward to KSTL also. Lived there for about 10 years and flew out of there many times. The FPS are in the tank.

 

I don't think it has moving Jetways. I was unable to get them to move.

 

The vasi lights are huge as well. I thought I was looking at a large red building. They just blur together and make a big BLOB.

 

Not very happy at the moment.

 

Glen

 

That's a shame, I was really excited to see this yesterday. I did kinda half expect it though since there was so little info on their other releases, and I wasn't at all impressed by their videos either. Sorry you guys had to be the guinea pigs but maybe there's still hope of some patch or fix. GO BLUES!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Steve

I was really excited to get this Airport, if it seems a wash then forget it, maybe it will get better with an Update. I cannot get into there Forumss either to ask questions.

Well, I've been removing some scenery files to see if I could improve things. I've determined that the runway.bgl files are part of the problem, but the problems run much deeper than that. The clouds are flashing, even disappearing at times. I think the combination of all the files is too much for my graphics card, and it has 1 gig of memory. I'll leave it on my system for several weeks and see if the developer releases an update or communicates some suggestions. If I don't hear from them, than I'll uninstall it and call it a bad gamble.

Curt, have you opened the texture folder and checked it out to see if they are using DXT3's rather than 32 bit textures? I have had some problems with some other lesser know scenery developers using some large 32bit textures in place of either DXT1, DXt3, or DXT5's and by converting them to a DXT series it fixed a lot of the performance problems. On top of that if it has a bunch of 32bit or even DXT5/3 files that have blank apha channels you could make them DXT1 and cut the size down even further like FSDT does with not really much difference in texture quality.

 

I would like to buy the scenery but hate to gamble on something that I might not be able to fix either with the textures or by decompling the scenery bgl's and looking inside of them to see what's going on. Nothing more disappointing than buying a scenery you have to spend hours converting and messing with just to get good performance, plus lack of discussion or help from the developer is a turn off as well.

 

 

POST EDIT:

 

Curt, I was looking at the screen shots at Simmarket and noticed that it looks like it has a lot of volumetric grass which is know to be potential FPS killer due to the high poly count. Have you tried to locate and remove the grass and see if that improves the performance?

Curt, have you opened the texture folder and checked it out to see if they are using DXT3's rather than 32 bit textures? I have had some problems with some other lesser know scenery developers using some large 32bit textures in place of either DXT1, DXt3, or DXT5's and by converting them to a DXT series it fixed a lot of the performance problems. On top of that if it has a bunch of 32bit or even DXT5/3 files that have blank apha channels you could make them DXT1 and cut the size down even further like FSDT does with not really much difference in texture quality.

 

I would like to buy the scenery but hate to gamble on something that I might not be able to fix either with the textures or by decompling the scenery bgl's and looking inside of them to see what's going on. Nothing more disappointing than buying a scenery you have to spend hours converting and messing with just to get good performance, plus lack of discussion or help from the developer is a turn off as well.

 

 

POST EDIT:

 

Curt, I was looking at the screen shots at Simmarket and noticed that it looks like it has a lot of volumetric grass which is know to be potential FPS killer due to the high poly count. Have you tried to locate and remove the grass and see if that improves the performance?

 

I don't have any experience in converting textures, but all of them in the texture folder are either 1.33 MB or 682 KB. I removed the 3D grass right away, and that didn't improve things. Just so you know, there are two scenery folders, KSTL_FSX and KSTL_FSX_TERRAIN. I unchecked the terrain folder in scenery settings, and the fps were still terrible. After looking at their forum (with almost no activity at all), I suspect I'm pretty much done with this.

I don't have any experience in converting textures, but all of them in the texture folder are either 1.33 MB or 682 KB. I removed the 3D grass right away, and that didn't improve things. Just so you know, there are two scenery folders, KSTL_FSX and KSTL_FSX_TERRAIN. I unchecked the terrain folder in scenery settings, and the fps were still terrible. After looking at their forum (with almost no activity at all), I suspect I'm pretty much done with this.

 

Looks like from the file sizes the textures are probably ok. Too bad the grass removal didn't help. I guess I would just chalk it up to bad design with way to many polys and maybe too much FS9 code built in. Too bad because I have been wanting a St Louis for a long time for FSX but I dont feel like possibily throwing $25 down the drain.

 

BTW, I went to the T2G website and clicked on the Forum button and it tried to redirect me to the now defunct Intersim website. How did you try to access the forum?

Junk junk junk. I just blew 25 dollars down the drain. DO NOT buy this scenery or anything from these people. Terrible junk. I have a very powerful computer and was getting 3.5fps on 15nm final to 30R. Deleted all of it from the HD.

You guys post any reviews on the Simmarket page where you bought it? Might not be a bad idea to give fair warning to other purchasers.

You guys post any reviews on the Simmarket page where you bought it? Might not be a bad idea to give fair warning to other purchasers.

 

I just did. It needs to be reviewed before they post it. I wonder if they filter out negative reviews so as not to hurt sales.

Wow, the one Airport I was waiting on. :Cry:

BTW, I went to the T2G website and clicked on the Forum button and it tried to redirect me to the now defunct Intersim website. How did you try to access the forum?

 

Here's the link to their forum: http://taxi2gate.freeforums.org/. Their primary language appears to be Spanish, so being bilingual is helpful. I will post a comment on Simmarket, and hope it saves others from this disaster.

Hey guys just read your posts having some problems with my credit card that kept me from getting it, its a shame there are so many problems I think Sean's right if the grass or other files removed and didn't help. it seems the scenery has to many polygons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon dragging frame rates. hopefully its not that and some other hidden file somewhere that's causing it. It just doesn't make sense to me why the developer would release it in that state I was really looking forward to this airport like many of you, so much especially when it was twa's home base years ago hopefully he can fix it.

Ok well, after reading this short Thread I'm not going to buy it. Im not getting into modifying files and converting textures, its all a bunch of crap, if it doesn't work decent on peoples average computers then forget it.

I just bought KSTL. It's a frame rate killer, which does note make sense with my specs. Also AFCAD assignments are not real world in some cases.

Looks like from the file sizes the textures are probably ok. Too bad the grass removal didn't help. I guess I would just chalk it up to bad design with way to many polys and maybe too much FS9 code built in. Too bad because I have been wanting a St Louis for a long time for FSX but I dont feel like possibily throwing $25 down the drain.

 

BTW, I went to the T2G website and clicked on the Forum button and it tried to redirect me to the now defunct Intersim website. How did you try to access the forum?

 

Here is their forum: http://taxi2gate.freeforums.org/taxi2gate-f1.html

 

I wrote a negative review on SimMarket, and I hope they solve the FPS problem. I also own Monterrey, and that airport works fine. I'm surprised they released KSTL with virtually no FPS. I get about 7 during the day and 3 at night with my fast system.