I am posting this question here rather than in Justin Thyme's forum since I am looking for a balanced opinion. My question is simple - The name of FS Genesis and Justin Thyme seem to be held in high regard in these forums. His service and products are apparently outstanding. However, I have a few questions:I have always thought that mesh is mesh...How can there be good mesh or bad mesh if it is all sampled at the same resolution and the anomalies have been corrected?Recently, a large amount of freeware SRTM terrain mesh has become available in the library. Is this stuff somehow inferior to Justin's meshes, or is it different in some way?Or, simply put another way, I want to upgrade the terrain in FS2004 over most of the planet (if you've ever looked at the default Cape-Town scenery you will understand this desire)- do I wait for freeware scenery to appear and download it, or do I send Justin $100 for all his stuff on CDs. Are FSGenises' products worth it? GreetingsDave Britzius(Cape Town)

Indeed for most of the covered area you will be well served by the free stuff. However, some points. The amount of interpolation is always important. The resolution of the base data should be close to the that of the end product. Otherwise you have lumps and bumps instead of craggy mountains or well defined depressions for water. The other is the FSGenesis mesh is always under correction should someone discover an anomaly. Justin is devoted to the production of clean mesh while others may drift into other areas.One final note. STRM is far from perfect. Justin uses commercial programs and a tedious scan of the covered area to insure that the product is a "clean" as he can make it when it leaves his site. This is usually different from simply running a program that converts STRM to a BGL$10.00 US is a small price for the assurance that you are receiving the most accurate product available today.Dick Boley @KLBE

Are FSGenesis products worth it?You answered your own question in your second paragraph.Victor

Thank you for your reply, DickBut tell me, what is then the difference between Justin's freeware mesh and his payware mesh of the same area?

I own a lot of the FS Genesis mesh and landclass files. The difference for me is simple: quality and support. The FS Genesis has very few errors in it, and if you do find one, you can report it and have it fixed in a future version. I have just found that with other mesh files, there are just too many errors and problems. Now I certainly haven't tried them all, especially now since I own the FS Genesis stuff. Also, I do not want to speak ill of any of our great freeware authors. It is obviously impossible for anyone to check every square foot of mesh. However, the FS Genesis files have all gone through cycles of bug reports and fixes. And even now we still are getting updated versions all the time.

Big point here. Justin's does meash and landclass full time. He has been around a long, long time and his quality of work and support is unequalled -- IMHO-------------------Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what

You can wait months and months for freeware, which may never appear,like Ive been waiting for Korea for years. Think I'll ask Justin to make it.If you want to upgrade the terrain over most of the Planet, especially Cape_Town you can do it today. South and Central Africa has been completed. Europe from England east has been. Russia, good chunks of Asia, Australia, South America, etc.

Nobody answered his question about "the difference between Justin's freeware mesh and his payware mesh of the same area" though.I have been wondering this myself.

"You can wait months and months for freeware, which may never appear, like Ive been waiting for Korea for years. Think I'll ask Justin to make it."AVSim File Library: Korea Mesh Scenery. Filename: kor_dcman_129568.zip, file size 60 Mb.Since 27th November 2003 in the library, no need to wait any longer.Jozef http://pluizig.ath.cx/signature.jpg

I've used a lot of freeware mesh files and I've encountered several of them with glaring errors in them, particularly those made from SRTM data. The biggest complaint I have with most of these sceneries is that the mesh is not seamless in FS, where several regions of high resolution mesh are separated by significant gaps of mesh, which gets filled in with default mesh. Also, quite often I'll find large expanses of terrain adjacent to the target area that is simply leveled to sea level. There are some nifty freeware tools out there that make mesh design easy -- but they don't address important issues such as seamless mesh design and sophisticated interpolation of missing data. It is not my intention to mock these tools nor their authors. The problem is that some mesh designers use these tools without delving into mesh design deep enough to solve these issues.Not all freeware mesh scenery is like this, though. Some of it is high quality.

About the freeware meshes, it's impossible to generalize because there is so much variation. I've used freeware mesh in places like Japan which aren't covered yet by Justin Tyme's mesh. Worked fine. I've also used a freeware landclass file that crashed the sim. Did I get mad at the author? No, he was offering something that he made for his own pleasure and he wasn't charging any money for it. As the saying goes, "Your mileage may vary." This time, my mileage varied.On the other hand, it's easy to generalize about the stuff from FS Genesis: it's good-looking, it's reliable, and it doesn't cost very much.

So how about the differences between the freeware & payware versions from FSGenesis?

for some most-of-the-world free mesh, try this site: http://www.simviation.com/fsdterrainsrtm.htmits a bunch of large downloads...but it covers quite a bit.chris

AFAIK (someone correct me if I'm wrong), the difference is that the freeware is released "as is" and will not be further updated in the future. The payware on the other hand is continuously updated and improved, as either better data becomes available, or people report bugs that they've found to Justin, who then fixes them as soon as he can.I have a galaxy membership, and have everything available from FS Genesis, and IMO it is simply the best, and well worth the money. I also bought the mesh for the whole of Europe from Lago back then for example, but since then I've changed it all out for the FSGenesis mesh, 'cos it is simply more accurate, totally bug-free, and is a breeze to install. No freeware mesh I've ever tried has come up to FSGenesis standards, but other peoples mileage may vary, as I haven't tried everything available by any means.But like the people who say "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going", my opinion is: If it ain't from FSGenesis, I don't install it! Hope this helps.BestGrahame (EDHL)

I have been very happy with the freeware mesh I have downloaded . I can see no difference between this freeware stuff and the formally payware mesh (now freeware) of the same resolution. A bigger issue for me is that the more detailed the mesh the greater is the visual impact of anomalies such as rivers not following valley floors and mis-aligned roads. If the payware mesh can fix these things then I am more than happy to pay up. Other problems such as innappropriate landclass are easier to fix by the user.Bruce