I have the default scenery in FSX along with some FS Dreamteam and Flytampa add ons but I am wondering if the Photo-etched scenery is worth looking at?  I would like more vivid fields and more dense scenery of houses etc.  I fly in the midwest so there are plenty of fields but not much to look at.  I fly in bigger cities around the country as well though. What could be some options for scenery enhancements?

Not really the Midwest, but Blueskyscenery offer some really great freeware photosceneries for California, Nevada and Wyoming. IMO it's really worth trying, and you get the impression of how it could look, so you can decide whether you like it or not.

Other than that, there would be MegaScenery Earth, which probably covers your area already, or at least it probably will in the future.

I have the MegaSceneryEarth V2 photosceneries and Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, etc., etc., provide excellent photoscenery for the Midwest.  Some people think they cannot see elevation changes as they are landing with this scenery but they are mostly wrong.  I bought Iowa a couple of weeks ago and from the Omaha area back in my childhood days and flew from Chicago to Eppley at Omaha and the bluffs near the airport (which represent Council Bluffs) were prominent and definitely at an elevated level with the Interstate running next to them.  Like being there.  Texas is another great state for MSE.  The good thing about the photoscenery is that you get to turn off Autogen (a fps killer).  If you look on the MSE website at the photos and videos they made, you will see it shows a lot of detail and probably the best photoscenery on the market right now.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Although I am a tried and true believer in MegaSceneryEarth, you might want to look at Ground Environment X, Ultimate Terrain X and a landclass program, all can be had from Flight1 as an alternative.   For best effects you will need all three programs.  Flight1 sells Scenery Tech landclass but I prefer Cloud 9 X-Class scenery, available here.  For those areas not covered by MSE these are the products I use.  Sometimes the dividing line between photoreal and generic is difficult to see.

I have been looking into the scenery options.  I saw pictures of the megascenery earth 2.0 and it looks great.  I use to have the ground environment x along with ultimate terrain x and it was killing my FPS.  I have alot of add ons as it is which a large frame rate hog is my REX Essentials Plus OD.  I have The PMDG aircraft which also take up some frames.  The only downside I found in Megascenery is that each state runs around 30 dollars or more which can add up quite fast.

Does the Megascenery have seasonal or is it just the season that the images show?  Also how is the night flying with Megascenery?

I would echo the suggestion to at least DL some of the Bluesky photo scenery to try.  I know it's not in the area you say you fly, but it's free (though consider a donation if you find you like it) and is generally of the same quality as Megascenery V2, so you can try it and see if photo scenery is to your liking.  I say this because photo has both upsides and downsides and most people either fall head-over-heels in love with it, or loath it.  A few, like me, like it it some areas and hate it in others.

 

Bottom line, try it to see where you fall on the spectrum.  Bluesky is an excellent way to do that.

 

Scott

Does the Megascenery have seasonal or is it just the season that the images show?  Also how is the night flying with Megascenery?

 

No seasons, and night flying is not its strength.  They have talked of going back and adding night textures after they finish rolling out the whole US in V2.

 

Scott

No, MSE does not have seasonablility.  It is a satellite photo of a certain place at a certain time.  What you see is what you get.  I cannot really comment as to other brands of photreal scenery but I suspect they are all the same.  IMHO, night scenery is only OK.  Not as good as that generated by programs like UTX and GEX, again, IMHO.

MN and IA are good MSEv2 states especially lowa can see where the windmills are and which crops are growing. Or just use sbuilderx make it yourself quickly if you do not need watermasking. Tileproxy another option but too lazy to fiddle with it.