I think I'm ready to purchase my first addons for FSX. My problem is I'm unsure what I want/need to get in order to have the best experience. Over the past week I've read what seems like tons of reviews and forum posts but that only scratches the surface of what is out there. With that in mind I would love to get some recommendations from people about what addons they particularly enjoy and perhaps a brief reason that they like them.

 

I am particularly interested in things that will improve the look and accuracy of the terrain. I am enjoying flying the general aviation planes right now so addons that make the terrain look better from low altitude are of particular interest. I'm not so much interested in how the ground crew looks moving around an airport as I am the ground itself around said airport. I've tried some interstate flights and it's a little disappointing trying to look for terrain landmarks.

 

After something to take care of the landscape I may invest in one or two aircraft. I'm using FSX in DirectX 10 mode, following the posts on Avsim as how to set it up and get it working smoothly, so I'm interested in things that are compatible.

 

I figure people that have been using addons for years have probably changed their opinions and views on what works best over time. Hopefully you can share what you would begin with if you had to start fresh today.

 

I'd like to say in advance that I appreciate the time people take to reply and hopefully help me avoid making any more mistakes than I have to.

REX Essentials Plus, AS2012, or some other weather/texture program. (I seem to recall there being some other new one that people like)

 

For the ground, I would look at Orbx regions.

Welcome to AVSIM!

 

Where do you fly?

 

FTX sceneries and RealAir GA aircraft are highly regarded. The FTX Pacific Northwest terrain region is a popular FSX GA area, though FTX England and New Zealand may feature better performance and quality. With FTX terrain regions, finding specific man-made landmarks may be difficult, as some users have reported.

 

As the previous user suggested, general enhancements such as OPUS (weather) and REX (clouds, runway textures, sky colors, water effects) greatly enhance immersion. Accu-Feel and EZCA are camera effects programs that also enhance immersion, particularly for GA operations.

 

For commercial operations, PMDG aircraft and Flightbeam, FlyTampa, FSDT, and UK2000 airports are currently the most complex and realistic. There are a few great titles by other developers, but the above developers have displayed consistent excellence.

If accuracy of terrain/landscape is important, then try out Ultimate Terrain X by Scenery Solutions/Flight1.

Where do you want to fly?

I'm from Kentucky but I'm not particularly attached to having to fly there. Flying the planes and learning to navigate is fun. I'd like to do that over terrain that looks more real. I know that flying out of the local airport in the game the terrain is so much flatter than it really is. It might be more satisfying to fly out of a different place so I don't have any real means of comparison.

If you want to see real-world landmarks for pilotage, you may want to look at MegaSceneryEarth or other photo scenery products. I don't use photo scenery because I like to have seasonal textures and lots of autogen.

 

The things I use that make every flight better:

 

- REX Essentials Plus with Overdrive

- FSUIPC4

- AccuFeel 2

- Shade

- FS Water Configurator

- UTX

- GEX

- FSGenesis Mesh

 

Some people like to use REX textures with a different addon weather generator (eg ASE or Opus) but I've been having pretty good luck with REX's WxPlus mode.

 

Depending on where you fly, Orbx scenery is great and also airports from Orbx, FSDreamTeam, FlyTampa and Flightbeam are fantastic. There are many great freeware airport addons too.

 

I use RealityXP gauges and GPS in many of my GA aircraft (Miviz, RealAir, Carenado). The GNS430/530 expensive but you can spread the cost out over many airplanes.

 

Edit: I forgot to include TrackIR. I use it on every flight.

If I were starting fresh today, I'd get TrackIR head tracking system and a real world weather program first. My first ever addon was Active Sky way back when, and I really only bought that to get access to winds aloft information. Improved textures and weather was just a bonus. I suggest FSUIPC4, and at some point you'll want to register it, although it's useful even unregistered. If I could have nothing else, these three would be what I'd pick.

 

I don't have any scenery addons of any sort, so I can't recommend one. Actually, I'm pretty happy with the default FSX terrain. A few places need a better mesh, but that's about it.

 

Accu-Feel verson 2 adds a lot of feeling to your flying. Some of it is subtle, but you'll definitely notice if if you turn it off. Wind noises, bounce and noise on the ground, enhanced turbulence and gust effects and a few more. Check out the videos.

 

There's a freeware airport editor available if you want to enhance your home airport. It won't add elevation changes, as the flat airports is a restriction in FSX.

 

As for planes, it's going to depend on what you want to fly. For low and slow, the A2A Piper Cub with Accu-Sim is about as good as it gets. I don't know what it is, but that airplane is just fun to fly. If I could have only one addon airplane, this would be it.

 

A few aircraft developers stand out. A2A and RealAir come to mind for smaller aircraft. PMDG has the airliners covered. Carenado planes are gorgeous, but the systems quality doesn't always match the visual quality. I'm not familiar with the others, but I'm sure there are a few other good ones.

 

Good luck!

 

Hook

For great quality starter GA planes, I would recommend Carenado. In specific, there Cessna 337 is amazing, lots of fun, and great at scrapping out of the small strips in the PNW region.

Oops, how could I forget. A good yoke or joystick and pedals. I use CH Products.

 

Hook

GA and ORBX are synonymous. Realair and sibwings aircraft. REX weather.

 

Scott

These all look like good recommendations.

 

What is the difference between Ground Environment X, the Ultimate Terrain X, and the FSGenesis Mesh? Do they all do different things?

 

I'm already planning the TrackIR with the tax refund as well as a yoke and pedals. I've tried out a friends CH Yoke and pedals and I was happy with the way they felt so I plan on going that route.

 

I admit I hadn't considered a weather addon but looking at all the recommendations and a quick check of some websites makes it look like it might be something worth getting.

you may want to look at MegaSceneryEarth or other photo scenery products.

Depending on the developer and region, photographic scenery may be blurry at low altitudes, thus rendering it potentially unsuitable for GA.

 

What is the difference between Ground Environment X, the Ultimate Terrain X, and the FSGenesis Mesh? Do they all do different things?

High-quality mesh increases terrain elevation accuracy (more prominent mountains and valleys, etc.), GEX enhances the general scenery textures that are placed on the mesh, and UTX enhances coast lines, rivers, roads, etc.

Photoscenery blurriness is often revealed at low altitudes, so it, depending on the developer and region, may not be the best option for GA.

 

 

High-quality terrain mesh increases the accuracy of terrain elevation (e.g., more-realistically prominent mountains and valleys), GEX enhances the general scenery textures that are placed on the terrain mesh, and UTX enhances the accuracy and depiction of coast lines, rivers, roads, etc.

Thank you

What is the difference between Ground Environment X, the Ultimate Terrain X, and the FSGenesis Mesh? Do they all do different things?

 

Yes, they do different things and they work together to make the scenery look better.

 

A good overview of mesh is here: http://stevemg.net/fst/overview.shtml. Both FSGenesis and FSGlobal are very good payware products. One disadvantage of mesh is that some airports can end up on plateaus.

 

UTX adds more accurate landclass, roads, rivers and other water bodies, railroad tracks and utility lines and other terrain features. Entire cities missing from FSX appear after installing UTX. UTX packages also correct the placement of many airports, so they don't end up under roads or other terrain features.

 

GEX gives you textures for each season. For each patch of ground in FSX (1.2km square tiles I think), there is a landclass. Based on the landclass, FSX chooses a texture. The GEX textures are higher resolution and better looking than default in most cases. In addition, textures have autogen annotation which defines where to put buildings and trees, and the GEX textures are improved over default in this way as well.

 

Put them all together and you get great looking scenery.

 

A product like Orbx gives you all of the above in one package and more (eg many custom 3D models that are hand-placed).

 

If you like having traffic, you might want to use an addon for that too. FSX default AI traffic is quite resource-hungry. I use MyTrafficX but UT2 is a great product too. There are also good freeware options.

Yes, they do different things and they work together to make the scenery look better.

 

A good overview of mesh is here: http://stevemg.net/fst/overview.shtml. Both FSGenesis and FSGlobal are very good payware products. One disadvantage of mesh is that some airports can end up on plateaus.

 

UTX adds more accurate landclass, roads, rivers and other water bodies, railroad tracks and utility lines and other terrain features. Entire cities missing from FSX appear after installing UTX. UTX packages also correct the placement of many airports, so they don't end up under roads or other terrain features.

 

GEX gives you textures for each season. For each patch of ground in FSX (1.2km square tiles I think), there is a landclass. Based on the landclass, FSX chooses a texture. The GEX textures are higher resolution and better looking than default in most cases. In addition, textures have autogen annotation which defines where to put buildings and trees, and the GEX textures are improved over default in this way as well.

 

Put them all together and you get great looking scenery.

 

A product like Orbx gives you all of the above in one package and more (eg many custom 3D models that are hand-placed).

 

Thank you. That sounds like it covers what I am looking for. You mention the three products you use in your original post. What do you recommend in comparison to Orbx? In regards to the U.S. it looks like Orbx has limited coverage vs the whole country coverage from the combination of FSGenesis Mesh + UTX + GEX. Is the quality of the terrain in the Orbx areas signifigantly higher than the combination of the other three in those same areas?