I've been waiting for someone to make the default global scenery less barren feeling, or less like the world has no grass anywhere but in a few well done locations. How does global compare to their regional packs like Australia or pnw?

Their region specific packages are in a higher quality, but that's the goal too. Global is supposed to allow no FPS loss whatsoever while making the entire world look much more realistic.

 

It does add a lot to locations where MS seemed to drop the ball.

Their region specific packages are in a higher quality, but that's the goal too. Global is supposed to allow no FPS loss whatsoever while making the entire world look much more realistic.

 

It does add a lot to locations where MS seemed to drop the ball.

I have not lost one FPS to this product.  GEX--------> 29.9 (locked at 30)  FSXG--------> 29.9 (locked at 30)  Wonderful.

Global ups the autogen density. Their draw calls are more efficient though so performance stays about the same as default.

 

If you want cities and wooded areas to look less spotty, Global does indeed help a lot with that.

 

As far as looking barren, they did fix Asia for the most part. You'd have to be more specific though for me to give a better answer.

I don't have global yet.  But the textures for Global come from all the regional work that has been done to-date plus many other newer custom textures.

 

Each region while uses a specific set of textures for that region only and also much specific (custom) polygon texturing to provide accurate rendering for what's really on the ground.

 

Global will draw upon a world level landclass and therefore will not really do the best job in matching up with accurate rendering of a regional area.

 

Quite frankly I would recommend you buy the regions for the best flying experience in that area.  Global will fill in any area you do not have regional packages with a very good global texture experience but don't expect global to match the real world to the letter.

I've been waiting for someone to make the default global scenery less barren feeling, or less like the world has no grass anywhere but in a few well done locations. How does global compare to their regional packs like Australia or pnw?

 

To answer this question specifically, from just a casual flying viewpoint, I find flying out of PHX (for example) with UTX+Global to look very similar to comparable areas in CRM (let's say Boise). I also find UTX+GLobal to look very similar to what PNW puts out (assuming the two areas being compared are similar, i.e. wooded, mountains).

 

There's some crossover as far as quality goes.

 

Where the regions really take it a step up is in the little details like vector data, coastlines, waterclass, etc. But to be honest, if I'm not flying near my home I've got no idea where a road should of shouldn't be anyway and UTX fixes that stuff for me regardless.

 

I honestly wouldn't bother with the US Orbx regions unless the custom buildings they add to cities is important to you, assuming you have UTX to go along with Global.

 

Australia is a different story because you don't have a UT product for it. At only $45 for the entire country, it's just incredible bang for the buck with how detailed it is.