It just brings soooo much atmosphere to night flying.

 

 

Impressive!

Got ftx global today. Was using basically default fsx since I am fairly new. So far its been good. Did CYUL to KJFK and KLAS to KLAX. Day is good, night lighting is light years ahead of default fsx. Had some frame rate problems when I first started it up at KLAX, but things seem to have settled down. 

Wicked shots - thanks for sharing

Man night lighting in FTX Global looks fantastic! Wow!

Wow the night lighting has me sold. 

Looks excellent - but where's the traffic? :huh: (backhanded way of asking, does road traffic, UTX or default, work with the night lighting?)

Amazing! I guess it really is worth $100.

Looks excellent - but where's the traffic? :huh: (backhanded way of asking, does road traffic, UTX or default, work with the night lighting?)

 

Of course it does, I just have it disabled because personally I don't think it's worth the frames.

These pictures just keep taking my breath away. Thanks for posting.

 

Request for more pics of FSX Global, especially sunrise and sunset.

I have been drawn back to FSX from X-Plane- principally because of the fact that I can use my standalone hardware controllers (mcp panel, Hotas Warthog/Throttle/Joystick) much more effectively.  The MCP alone is worth coming back to FSX, as VRInsight has NOT built any drivers for their hardware to work in XPX AFAIK.  When ATC is handing you instructions in rapid fire succession with a lot of flow in your airspace, you don't have the luxury of unlimited time to futz with the mouse-clicks to adjust your heading, speed, altitude, rate of descent, yada yada.  With a physical hardware piece like the MCP Combo II (Boeing) teamed up with LINDA (Lua) and FSUIPC 4.9 (registered) - you can spin knobs or press buttons for VNAV, LNAV, LOC, APP, CMD A, and so on.  Your flight flow performance will GREATLY improve.  You'll be able to keep up with ATC, even WITHOUT a first officer helping you divvy up the tasks.

 

I did a complete fresh re-install of FSX, and that is a very good thing, because all of my addons.  I could pick and choose which ones, and backed up the entire system after installing each piece.  

 

In my view, too many of the add-ons can conflict with other things, which can adversely affect frames and the overall smoothness of flight.  So I built FSX back up by adding the things I considered MOST important one-piece-at-a-time, then flew test flights to see how the sim was performing.  This I did for EACH add on.  And I was very picky and choosy.

 

What I now have found and freely admit:

 

FTX Global is stellar- much closer to the 'good part' of XPlane.  As others have said, particularly the night lighting.  I own Orbx North America and Pacific Northwest, but don't think I will install either of them

.

GSX and the payware airports from FSDreamteam, FlightBeam Studios and LatinVFR (KSAN) are stellar.  The quality of those airports alone - makes FSX the ultimate eye candy.

 

EZ-DOK is back on (must-have!) and I can use by Logitech G13 gaming controller for an additional joystick and programmable buttons.

 

PMDG 737NGX is THE airplane, period.  Life without it over on the darkside (Xplane) was brutal.  Fly a 777 all the time in XPlane, you begin to feel like the Fat Guy at the ballpark.  You dwarf all the other traffic, and most gates don't "fit" your plane.  Simply stated, the 737NGX is a work of art.

 

I can't say enough about Pete Dowson and FSUIPC.  The guy is, in one word, VERY BRILLIANT!  Ok, TWO words!  Combining FSUIPC with everything else I'm trying to accomplish is a joy, calibrating my control surfaces and axis assignments... does it get any better?  NO!

 

HUGE DRUMROLL HERE:  I discovered how to make FSUIPC send the GPS data from FSX directly to my ANDROID Samsung Note 10.1 tablet, and thus I can run GARMIN PILOT.  That is an EFB on steroids - moving map, all the charts, High and Low Maps, even a glass cockpit, along with SAFE TAXI (moving map of your airport showing your airplane, and where you are with all the runways and taxiways identified).  Not cheap by any means ($75 a year base subscription plus $24 per year for SAFE TAXI), you can use Garmin Pilot in your RW airplane, or on your Sim Deck. It's a huge game-changer.  Other tablet apps like the Samsung Note app for jotting down ATC instructions, plus airport metar data from your favorite airports, make the idea of Tablet as a flight sim accessory irresistible.  To make this work with the Garmin Pilot app, you must enable GPSout  (GPS Output) within FSUIPC, and you need BLUETOOTH on your FSX PC to send the FSX data to a serial com port you connect to from your tablet.  Works great.  (This also can be done from XPlane, with a free utility called XPlane to GPS, but it will ONLY work with Xplane).  It's really not hard to do.  I also own the very fine AivlaSoft EFB for FSX, which is a great alternative if you don't want to run your Electronic Flight Bag on a tablet device.

 

By starting "over" with a fresh install, I elected NOT to install some of the other stuff (GEX not needed, replaced by FTX Global).  I did not install UTX either.  I am planning to put REX Essential Plus OD back on after further testing.

 

I discovered the Microsoft "Memory Heap" FixIt tool for Windows 7.  This is something that I applied and seems to work well.  I am not having stuttering or memory issues with FSX.

 

Now that I'm back in 32-bits, I can fly VATSIM any time I want, though I am almost exclusively flying PilotEdge because of their long hours of availability  (15 hours a day x 7 days/wk).  PilotEdge now added KSFO to their mix, so flying KSFO to KLAS Vegas or KSAN Diego you enjoy professional live ATC end-to-end, with no sudden "we're closing shop" just after you got your clearance filed!  Now, with all honesty, I 'get it' that some folks are fine with controllers or Unicom equally (because it's free).  I just sat down and penciled the cost of PilotEdge ($15/mo based on annual subscription) versus dumping 1 pay-channel (HBO or Showtime).  That was "no contest".  Other than Game of Thrones, I can live without HBO.  Not everyone will agree with that - maybe you downside from a King Kong coffee to a mid-sized at Starbucks... it's an individual thing.

 

Now, if I can get Ryan Mariarz from PMDG to help me tune my video card settings, I'll be golden!  I am doing the frames lock with the nVidia driver (1/2 refresh rate, adaptive) which has resulted in silky smooth flight, even with complex airports and with REX loaded up.  I only need a little help on the anti-aliasing.

 

I can live without the moving cars (to save frames).  I'm a happy camper, even if I'm NOT at "Band Camp!"

 

I think XPlane has some appeal, but as I loaded it up with more complex airports, I DID notice the frame rates begin to dwindle.  Also, the view at altitude in XPlane is still very poor (it gets blurry as you go further away from the plane).  At FL300, it's just not great.  If you fly VFR airplanes, that's less of a problem, because you're lower.

Lol, you sound like me. X-Plane and then went back to FSX.

nice shots Molleh! Please can you tell us what is your autogen density settings?

nice shots Molleh! Please can you tell us what is your autogen density settings?

my understanding is that with ftxg you can basically go fully to the right.

For some reason, FTXG seems to have become one of the more controversial flight sim (FSX) products.  Yes, it does have a few portrayal glitches here and there, mostly, I think, due to the limitations of the present state of the landclass programming we use, but I think those will be solved as Orbx releases the OLC programming. 

 

All that being said, I had been wondering what the night lighting would look like and I have to say I am impressed.  I am more than happy with what the daylight scenery looks like and now I can say I am looking forward to my first night flight.  Thanks much for the shots.