Best way to enhance Europe

[jfri 42]

I only have default scenery in Europe and wan't advice to which addons to choose to enhance Europe in the best way? Notice that my system is not high end so performence is important. Also I can't spend much money so buying everything is no option. I intend to fly airliners in Europe. For low VFR I have ORBX in USA and Australia. So how do I best spend money? GEX Europe or UT Europe? Any good airports freeware or payware?

[Chock 17,769]

The best way to enhance Europe, would be to make me the Emperor of it of course, but if you mean in FSX, then Ultimate Terrain Europe is a good choice to improve matters visually for airliner operations, although be aware that the night lighting enhancements, whilst very nice, can be a bit of an FPS hog, but you can turn that off of course, and then it barely impacts FPS at all.

 

To some extent it will depend on what you want to fly and from where, although if you are concerned about performance, but want a decent payware airport that will be suitable for you to fly from to a lot of destinations throughout Europe, then you would be hard pressed to find anywhere better than UK2000's Liverpool John Lennon Airport Extreme for FSX (EGGP), because EGGP is a small airport, so even in its detailed payware form, it gets good FPS. See the video link below for proof of that, where I was recording a commentary, recording FRAPs and running a payware chopper with the detail turned up at EGGP and still getting good FPS.

 

The reason EGGP a good choice destination-wise, is because Ryanair and EasyJet, FlyBe, WizzAir and OLT all operate from EGGP and fly to the following European destinations: Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast, Berlin, Bratislava, Brussels, Cork, Dublin, Faro, Fuertenventura, Geneva, Gran Canaria, Jersey, Kos, Krakov, Lanzarote, Madrid, Malaga, Malta, Naples, Nice, Oslo, Palma, Paris Bodrum, Bordeaux, Gibraltar, Ibiza, Innsbruck, Lisbon, Minorca Rhodes, Riga, Salzburg, Shannon, Tenerife, Warsaw. There are probably some other destinations too which I've missed out, but as you can see, EGGP is somewhere that whilst being small and good on FPS even in payware form, offers a lot of choice for simulating airliner flights in Europe.

 

And the reason EGGP is good for flight simmers, is because all of the main aircraft types flown from there are available in FSX in a number of variations. Ryanair fly 737 NGs from there, which means the FPS-friendly iFly NG for FSX, and the super-realistic PMDG NG for FSX would both suit it. The Wilco PIC A320, or the Aerosoft A320, or of course the forthcoming (and most likely excellent FSL A320) will also serve you well for simulating EasyJet, OLT and WizzAir's operations. OLT also use the ATR-72, which is available in sim form from Flight 1. FlyBe use the Dash-8 Q400, which PMDG are eventually planning to model but in the meantime Majestic have their Q300 available. EGGP also has many GA and business aircraft movements too, so you can fly pretty much anything you like from there so long as it can get up and down onto 7,500 feet of tarmac, which is ILS capable. If you need a bigger runway, I can also recommend UK2000's EGCC (Manchester International), since that also gets good FPS for a large airport, and it offers twin 10,000 foot ILS-equipped runways.

 

There is actually a review of UK2000's EGGP coming up for Avsim, but in the meantime, here's the video preview which I did to accompany the site review (listen carefully and you can hear my co-pilot dog barking LOL):

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Where all those destinations are concerned, Aerosoft is a good choice for payware European airports, with many of the most popular tourist destinations well served by their scenery offerings. If you fancy flying further afield into Eastern Europe, there's plenty of payware airports to be found on simmarket.com, or if you prefer freebie stuff, then give avsimrus.com a look, although of course the real Avsim, i.e. here also has a lot of cool freebie airports for FSX, many for those I listed in fact.

 

This'll get you started for charts in the UK incidentally: http://www.nats-uk.e...&Itemid=13.html

 

Al

[DickB 6]

If you go down the UTX route, then you should complement it with GEX EU, which will give you much (much) better textures and scenery which looks great even flying low and slow. You should also instal a good mesh product (I use FSGenesis) and also consider landclass products like XClass or Scenerytech).

 

These products cover the whole of Europe. For the UK specifically:

 

If VFR accuracy is most important to you, then there is also a range of photographic scenery (Horizon covers the UK) which is very good, although it suffers from the usual photographic scenery problems (single season, flat and blurry at low level etc). Personally I prefer UTX/GEX.

 

UK2000 have three volumes of excellent UK airports, as well as some (as mentioned above) which are available separately. Scotflight provide similar airport/landmark scenery for north of the border. Both of these packages work with photo scenery, UTX/GEX, or default.

[AliB 0]

GEX EU is just simply horrible.

 

Have a look at Aimé Leclerqs WWW:

 

http://secure.simmar...ful-world.phtml

 

- and FSX European Ground Textures by Adam Mills:

 

http://simviation.com/fsxscenery3.htm

 

I remember FSDreamscapes had some good products too, but apparently they closed shop..

 

http://fsdreamscapes.blogspot.com/

[DickB 6]

GEX EU:

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/gex-europe-and-other-regions-update-coming_topic41657.html

 

Scroll down for lots of pix.

[MrBenevolent 0]

GEX EU is just simply horrible.

 

Have a look at Aimé Leclerqs WWW:

 

http://secure.simmar...ful-world.phtml

 

Hmm - that actually looks pretty good! Odd I have never heard of it before...

 

Does it actually function as a substitute for GEX Europe?

[vc10man 732]

Brilliant video,Al. What chopper was that you were using?

[Johan_Dees 84]

https://sites.google.com/site/aimecreations/freeware-fsx

 

fre, big download, but very good ones imho!

[TurboTomato 90]

GEX EU is just simply horrible.

 

Have a look at Aimé Leclerqs WWW:

 

http://secure.simmar...ful-world.phtml

 

Have to agree with MrBenevolent, that looks pretty darn good (and that's coming from a UTX and GEX Europe user). Might have to give it a try.

 

Other than that I pretty much agree with what Chock has said - UTX and GEX are a very good combo and although GEX gets a bad wrap, it's still miles better than default. And another +1 for UK2000 free airports, they are very good.

 

I would add a decent mesh makes a huge difference as well as the more intricate contours really come out. FSGenesis were doing a really good offer recently (may well still be on?) and I picked up Europe for £13! A big download though. This works particularly well if you have something like Shade as well.

[MrBenevolent 0]

 

 

Have to agree with MrBenevolent, that looks pretty darn good (and that's coming from a UTX and GEX Europe user). Might have to give it a try.

 

Other than that I pretty much agree with what Chock has said - UTX and GEX are a very good combo and although GEX gets a bad wrap, it's still miles better than default. And another +1 for UK2000 free airports, they are very good.

 

I would add a decent mesh makes a huge difference as well as the more intricate contours really come out. FSGenesis were doing a really good offer recently (may well still be on?) and I picked up Europe for £13! A big download though. This works particularly well if you have something like Shade as well.

 

I am running UTX and GEX Europe plus the FSGenesis NextMap mesh and it is all pretty good!

 

Considering the Horizon Gen X vfr plus airports for my birthday in order to bring the UK to life. Something about being able to fly over a photorealistic coy of the airports and land I grew up around (Farnborough, Blackbushe etc) really appeals.

[TurboTomato 90]

Considering the Horizon Gen X vfr plus airports for my birthday in order to bring the UK to life. Something about being able to fly over a photorealistic coy of the airports and land I grew up around (Farnborough, Blackbushe etc) really appeals.

 

I have Horizon GenX, though not the airports but it is very good. IMO you *have* to use it with Treescapes otherwise it looks too flat.

[Leclercq A. 44]

Hi,

It's kind of you to talk about WWW, but don't forget also I've reworked default FSX textures because WWW don't cover cities textures.

 

http://sites.google.com/site/aimecreations/30cm-project

 

Friendly

Aimé

[FLEX1978 373]

Hi,

 

I'm in the process of building FSX in preparation for the PMDG 777, just had a look at the VFR scenery and it say's sold out, what is that about?

 

http://www.playhorizon.co.uk/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=2

[TurboTomato 90]

Odd. I guess it's not available to download because it's massive (4 DVDs per volume). I think it might be available at other suppliers, or do they just direct you back to the PlayHorizon site?

[FLEX1978 373]

Hope so, I was about to give them £80 and they can't afford a few DVD's?