UTX/Orbx Style steet lights world wide?

[z06z33 393]

Is there anything to add street lights world wide? I want fly tampa's Dubai but it looks wrong without street lights and I always fly at night so I want realism.

[Alan_A 613]

Haven't tried it myself but this comes highly recommended.

[Alan_A 613]

Following up - I've just added the Experience X lights to a new FSX installation I'm building. They're quite good. Not quite the equal of the X-Plane 10 night environment (nothing in FSX really comes close to that - it's the best thing about X-Plane 10) but very good. No performance hit to speak of - much better in that respect than the UTX lights. Should be what you're looking for.

[fritzgohl 29]

added the Experience X lights

 

one of the reviews said the lights look square, did you experience that?

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

[catchman 13]

I've heard only a little about Experience X, can someone post a review that shows it compared to the UTX night lights?

[Alan_A 613]

one of the reviews said the lights look square, did you experience that?

 

With the caveat that I've had time for only one very brief test... the answer is no. Close up, the lights look round (and a bit big, but there are options for resizing them - I need to play with those settings). In the distance, they look like point sources. There are some quirks - when you pan quickly (I do because I'm using TrackIR), the lights are missing at first, then fade in after a second or so. I suppose that's how they keep up performance (which is good - they barely hit the system at all, unlike the UTX lights which can really drag it down), but it's a bit strange. This might be less of an issue at high altitude - I'm currently using one of the default helos to check textures and effects as I go through a very long re-install on a new system. I'll keep working with them and will try to share more impressions.

 

I've heard only a little about Experience X, can someone post a review that shows it compared to the UTX night lights?

 

You'd really need a video comparison to get a sense of performance impact and also that fade-in effect with the Experience X lights (if that is, in fact, an issue - I'm not sure yet). Unfortunately I have no talent for video and only marginal talent for screenshots. But if no one else steps forward, and if I have time during my FSX rebuild (along with other life obligations), I'll see what I can do.

[Alan_A 613]

There's

, which gives a pretty accurate impression. It includes a UTX comparison in the first few seconds. As one commenter points out, this shows only the Experience X highway lights not the city lights.

 

The user's UTX lights look better than mine - I'll have to do some work on them, maybe use NickN's alternate halo.bmp instead of the default one. But the video should at least give you an idea of the Experience X... ah... experience...

[6FingerSays 99]

If you want to have good FPS, than stay away from 3D night lights!

[Alan_A 613]

If you want to have good FPS, than stay away from 3D night lights!

 

Agreed. The UTX night lights cut my frame rate in half. The Experience X lights didn't seem to have any impact - they reminded me a bit of the X-Plane 10 lights (does that mean they're point sourced, not 3D? Sorry, am out of my depth here). Overall, they look to me like a better solution but as I said, I have more work to do. Another caveat - all of my tests are on a 3770-k running at stock speed. I'm trying to get through most of my re-install before I overclock. So others' mileage may definitely vary.

 

EDIT: According to the Experience X page at Simmarket, those are also 3D lights. But as I said, they don't hit my system nearly as hard as UTX. Better rendering, maybe?

[Alan_A 613]

OK, I've spent the afternoon working on settings for these lights and wound up giving up on them and going back to GEX night textures, without any 3D lights - am using neither Experience X nor UTX lighting. The performance hit for Experience X turned out to be pretty severe - anything from 10 to 30 percent depending on settings. I have no idea why that didn't show up in my test last night. But props to Scarlett for pointing out the limitations. It also takes a fair amount of work to get the Experience X lights configured - most of the experimenting reported in this thread is now included in the setup interface, but there are still issues with getting it to work with UTX roads. I'm trying to keep things simple in my new install, and this product, as attractive as it is, is taking me in the wrong direction. That's my personal assessment. For my night lighting addiction, I'll stick to X-Plane 10, which has lots of issues, but its night lighting is the gold standard.

 

Having said all that - Experience X is a very good product, though, and depending on your needs and your system specs, you may want to check it out. Support is said to be excellent and it seems you can work directly with the developer on things like custom terrain.cfg settings - that has to count for a lot. So take my experience into account but by all means don't take it as definitive.

 

Hope this helps.

[fritzgohl 29]

OK, I've spent the afternoon working on settings for these lights and wound up giving up on them and going back to GEX night textures, without any 3D lights - am using neither Experience X nor UTX lighting. The performance hit for Experience X turned out to be pretty severe - anything from 10 to 30 percent depending on settings. I have no idea why that didn't show up in my test last night. But props to Scarlett for pointing out the limitations. It also takes a fair amount of work to get the Experience X lights configured - most of the experimenting reported in this thread is now included in the setup interface, but there are still issues with getting it to work with UTX roads. I'm trying to keep things simple in my new install, and this product, as attractive as it is, is taking me in the wrong direction. That's my personal assessment. For my night lighting addiction, I'll stick to X-Plane 10, which has lots of issues, but its night lighting is the gold standard.

 

Having said all that - Experience X is a very good product, though, and depending on your needs and your system specs, you may want to check it out. Support is said to be excellent and it seems you can work directly with the developer on things like custom terrain.cfg settings - that has to count for a lot. So take my experience into account but by all means don't take it as definitive.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for the report

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

[DJJose 968]

I decided to do away with these lights too. I find that the performance hit is way too much. There is a way to increase performance with less lights, but it doesn't looks as good. There are other issues with photo sceneries and it does have issues when you enable/disable ORBX.

 

I'll wait for FTX Global. It will have worldwide lighting and amazing textures.

[Alan_A 613]

I haven't reinstalled any ORBX scenery yet and I'm not sure if I will (I mainly fly my local area, which isn't covered) but I might. And I'm keeping an eye on FTX Global, so that could be a problem. The main thing for me is that I've just lost patience with add-ons that need a lot of futzing and customization to work with the default program or with other, widely used add-ons. I gave up on EZDOK for the same reason. The effects were great (in the same way that the Experience X lights can be very attractive) but I didn't want to go through the rigamarole. I'm determined to have a lean, simple install this time - really.

[fritzgohl 29]

I'm determined to have a lean, simple install this time

 

I couldn't agree more, pine it down to what you really need and use and then configure for that.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz