I've been flight simming since FS2002 and one of the reasons I never liked the flight sims of the past was due to the very poor ground textures. It always seemed like buildings were popping up out of the great plains.. flat, unrealistic ground surrounded by detailed buildings.I'm wondering what the big limitation is? Would it really take a big performance hit to beautify the land? Why can't we see realistic looking grass and other things like higher quality looking roads rather than poor resolution (worse than cell phone picture quality) flat renditions of them? I know the idea is to see it all from the air, but if you land or if you (like me) enjoy flying low, it just doesn't look very realistic.I still like MS Flight and FSX, etc.. but I've always wondered about this.

Because it's a Flight Sim and not a first person shooter. The ground textures in MS Flight are an improvement over FSX though. Runways look fine, taxiways look fine, GA parking looks fine.. That's all most any flight simmer really cares about as far as the ground is concerned.. It would be a gargantune waste of resources for any developer spending a ton of unnecessary resources on ground textures that will be 99.9% of the time be viewed from the air for 5 minutes.

It would be a gargantune waste of resources for any developer spending a ton of unnecessary resources on ground textures that will be 99.9% of the time be viewed from the air for 5 minutes.

Matter of opinion, tell that to ORBX with their 7cm per pixel imagery which I freaking love in FSX. I do lots of photoscenery myself and have some airports where the blades of grass show. While I feel the Flight textures are not as detailed as i would like, it works and isn't a deal breaker.To the OP, it's all a balancing act, super high def textures take a very large amount of storage space and use lots of memory and as you see, not everyone cares for it.

Because it's a Flight Sim and not a first person shooter.

Well with the walk around capabilities, it is a lot closer than before, that is one of the big things i love about Flight. I have probably ran around the islands as much as I have flown.

I agree with Michael, IMO you can keep Flight and drop XP10 in the trashcan where Orbx scenery is concerned. Simply awesome textures and quality. I suggest eliyahu, that if you haven't expereinced the Orbx world, then you do yourself a favour and download a free demo from their site at http://www.fullterrain.com/product_demos.html

I think they could have make it better for the ground. At least a high res version for people with good pcs. It wouldnt be to hard to improve a lot of the grass at least. I can understand textures on the citys becuase it would probaly be really time consuming to make that look really good. Not that big of a deal just the blurry textures remind me of Nintendo 64 and I know it could be better. Some games have been doing high res texture packs for there games(Skyrim) lately so who knows maybe they will someday but thats a big maybe.

I agree with Michael, IMO you can keep Flight and drop XP10 in the trashcan where Orbx scenery is concerned.

Probably you intended FSX, not Flight, concerning Orbx. Just to avoid confusion to our friend on what dropping in the trashcan :-)A.

Probably you intended FSX, not Flight, concerning Orbx. Just to avoid confusion to our friend on what dropping in the trashcan :-)A.

Thanks.. sure, IMHO, Flight + XP10 into aforementioned trashcan, FSX+Orbx = Ultimate scenery!

Outerra shows that you can create scenery very differently from how Microsoft has done it with a much more realistic look. The lack of good ground detail is because little money has been invested in creating a better and more modern terrain engine. Since the market for flight sims is small it is hard to imagine where money would come from to develop state of the art scenery. Great scenery technology is here today, but it will likely never reach desktop pilots.Even Flight which is aimed at the mass market has been treated with very poor scenery compared to state of the art games. A lot more is possible with multicore CPUs and GPUs.

Thanks.. sure, IMHO, Flight + XP10 into aforementioned trashcan, FSX+Orbx = Ultimate scenery!

Agree. I held off buying a sim waiting for something better/prettier. Turns out FSX with addons is the best there will be for a quite while it would seem.

Wow, I have never even heard of ORBX. I am assuming (since I looked around and couldn't really find it quick...) that it is for FSX? That is some stunning stuff!! I've been debating on wheather Flight is worth sticking with or if I should re-buy FSX (can't find my copy.. :() or wait and see what Flight does. I have to admit, that scenery is just drop dead... It really is a tough call. The upcoming DLC Alaska looks great, but still, the cities look bland, compared to some of those ORBX airports and such...Such a dilema...

Hey, can you find $29.95?If yes, then go get it now, please, we need an "FSX Revival" - and with ORBX and many other 5* addons FSX will be here for a while...http://www.microsoft...uctID.216458700Enjoy.. :Party:

Flight is perhaps a great beginning, and it really already is, but it has to earn its way, if it can, into the hearts and minds of many of us. Is it there yet? Not entirely. Will it ever be? Possibly, maybe even probably. However, if you already have the right FSX equipment, as I do, and the right FSX software already, as I do, to already run FSX as I do, it is not hard to love FSX an much as I already do. There is already room for both sims on my computer and in my hopes and dreams.Kind regards.

Wow, I have never even heard of ORBX. I am assuming (since I looked around and couldn't really find it quick...) that it is for FSX? That is some stunning stuff!! I've been debating on wheather Flight is worth sticking with or if I should re-buy FSX (can't find my copy.. ) or wait and see what Flight does. I have to admit, that scenery is just drop dead... It really is a tough call. The upcoming DLC Alaska looks great, but still, the cities look bland, compared to some of those ORBX airports and such...Such a dilema...

No dilemma, run both, most of us do. keep in mind that the higher detailed addons will impact performance. I run a i7 4 g, 64 bit system and it runs FSX great, but I always have performance issues around ORBX airports with real weather , AI, and high def aircraft, which is why I am enjoying flight, no performance issues with everything maxed so there isn't that nagging feeling in the back of my mind on what i might be missing since everything is maxed. With FSX there are always compromises and for me it gets old at times. I bet if we threw in people flow and vehicle flow into Flight, the performance would be affected as well.

Wow, I have never even heard of ORBX. I am assuming (since I looked around and couldn't really find it quick...) that it is for FSX? That is some stunning stuff!! I've been debating on wheather Flight is worth sticking with or if I should re-buy FSX (can't find my copy.. ) or wait and see what Flight does. I have to admit, that scenery is just drop dead... It really is a tough call. The upcoming DLC Alaska looks great, but still, the cities look bland, compared to some of those ORBX airports and such...

Yes, at present Orbx is only for FSX. One of the hot topics concerning the new Flight platform, as maybe you know, is just the problem that good external developers, as Orbx and PMDG, have not found an agreement with MS for producing content for Flight. So for now it is not clear if the DLC for the new game/sim could reach the quality of the best FSX addons (scenery, aircrafts, ATC...), so it is still largely debatable if it represents an evolution or a regression.A.

The thing is, I don't think the market for technical flight sims is large enough to support the development budget that goes into the better "pure" video games that sell in the millions. Even racing Sims are in better shape, though admittedly the landscape they have to recreate is smaller.In fact, that's usually the excuse; that flight Sims cant go into such huge detail in their expansive environments, but I think that excuse is wearing thin. Many many flight games have come out in the last few years using the latest graphical advancements and huge, detailed environments, but still the technical Sims lag at almost every level.In the era of multi-core processors, it cant even be blamed on the complexity of the calculations anymore. I think its just that the market is so small that nobody is willing to go to the effort. Hopefully flight will succeed in helping to change that, but as it stands, even flight pales in comparison (graphically) to something like ace combat.XPlane10 Is probably the closest a large area technical Sim has ever come to revolutionary rather than evolutionary graphics.Edit: Well, Outerra has the whole world in 12gigs, but its a work in progress.