I am using Bill Melchar's great Honolulu scenery. I would like to eventually get Lago's VMAX version, but I am really strapped for cash for now and the future.I know you can turn off the parking and vehicles by adjusting scenery density down, but does anyone know of any otherways to make it a bit more friendly in as far as frame rates go? Approaches on Rwy 4 right is fine, but an approach on 8L or takeoff on 8L really kills the frame rates. If that is not possible, does anyone know of a freeware GMAX scenery of the area? I really do want to get Lago Honolulu at some point, but I wish they had a time limited demo so I could see the effect of the scenery on my machine. I tried dialing down traffic percentage a good deal but the frame rate gain does not justify how much traffic is being lost.Ideally I'd like to know of an editor that I could excise some of the detail of the airport, or compress the textures. Perhaps Bill would be interested in making a light version for this pacific hub. I have all of his other Hawaiian airports and really don't want to lose Honolulu.Thanks for your input.

Have you tried Justins HI Demo? http://www.fsgenesis.net Dont know how much it would improve Honolulu, as Ive had the payware version installed for a few years. So dont recall what the old one looked like, but it sure improves the shorelines and it sure looks good to me. If using XP, and you havent installed SP2, Id do it immediately. Ive been putting it off due to time constraints. But, did it this week, and was amazed at the improvement. It got rid of some other problems Id been having, and without even removing Norton, picked up 10-12 fps...Justins new Roads, Rivers, Railroads, Streams and Rivers in his American Data, is outstanding. A Bargain at $14.95 ! If anyone has USA Roads already, he also has a version without the roads at a reduced price, for the rest of the data USA Roads is missing. Its fantastic, combined with his Mesh. Today I followed the Columbia River from Portland OR all the way, throudh the canyons, etc. Right where it should be, with the Freeway running along the river all the way to the Dalles. Now you can truly fly VFR, following Freeways across the country. Even the Transmission towers follow their routes, with the right of way cleared of trees, etc... Bob

Hello Will, I do not have this scenery, so could not say what is causing the problem with frame rates.However, and in general, the principal cause of low frame rates is the amount and size of textures (and not the number of polygons, as some may think, although they are also a factor.)You could try taking a look at the textures. If they are very detailed high-resolution images, you may want to try reducing them in size. For example, reduce 1024x1024 textures to 512x512 or even 256x256. Textures will not be as sharp, but your frames rates will show considerable improvement.Martin Wright has provided a number of utilities that can help in this. Get them at:http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/DXTBmp will open textures in any format, allow you to edit them in an image editing program, then re-convert to DXT format (the standard FS format).Don't forget to also get his set of dlls without which his programs will not function.Good luck.Best regards.Luis

This is a suggestion for all scenery designers, which can help with the inenvitable conflict between detail and frame rate.Sceneries are composed of .bgl files. Some have a single file, and some have many files. Some have descriptive names, like "terminal.bgl" or "vehicles.bgl", while others have names like "airport6.bgl".To FS, each of these files is independent. If you remove one, all the others will continue to be installed, although the results may look weird. This does give the user the option of selectively using parts of the package. If the developers have used multiple files with descriptive names, you may be able to easily cut out some part of the scenery which is hard on frame rates while keeping others, simply be removing one or more .bgl files. (My own technique for this is to replace ".bgl" with ".bgx", which FS will then ignore, but the file will still be there in case I change my mind.)In situations where the files have non-descriptive names, you can still do this, but it's more trial-and-error.After you change files in a scenery package, you will need to either restart FS or de-install and re-install that scenery to get the change into the program.

I have the Lago Honolulu, so haven't played with Bill's, butI found I could disassemble and hack his airports (for my own use of course, not for reuse).OTOH, I have a very nice Waikiki scenery from a Japanese developer (Hawaii 2004) but it is referenced to the default coast and doesn't work with improved coastlines or USARoads. I disassembled it but it is designed with a single reference point and 1,000's of points. I tried just moving the reference point, but it appears to need to be rectified as well and I don't know any way to do that.scott s..

Yes, Hawaii 2004 is very nice with the exception of the very pixelated park textures he used for Ala Moana Beach Park. I have all of his scenery, and by far, Vegas is his best one. You should disable crashes and fly down Glitter Gultch and see the "freemont experience" from the street side.I have no experience hacking stuff. I may buy Lago Honolulu. Need to find the funds, and the fact that the dollar sucks against the Euro now add's another 5 bucks to the deal.Is it a quality scenery? Also, how well does it interface with Ultimate Traffic? Any extra fiddling need to be done?I like the new Hawaii coastlines, but prefer Waikiki to be on the beach, as inaccurate as the "beach" may be.

The Lago software I find very nice. The main problems I have had are that;1. When I installed the FS Genesis land class, there was an urban area under the airport that was showing through. I fixed that by creating a VTP terrain under the airport (also including the Mamala Bay golf course).2. I have a slight coast line misalignment (with my coast line and deleting the coastline files that are incuded in the Lago product). But it fits much better than with the default coast (but the Lago product does exclude the default coast so their files work fine. It's just a case of trying to use a better coastline.)3. USARoads line up, but there is a texture change (and sort of a layout change) where they transition to the Lago airport road. Not a big deal at all. 4. There is a separate sound package that was first provided with FS2002. I found the sounds very unrealistic, at least for HNL and removed it.There are some good AFCADs out for this scenery. The one I use I found the parking about 90% good, mainly needed some fixing at the commuter terminal (Pacific Wings and Island Air) and cargo ramps. There is almost no coverage in the AFCAD for Hickam, so you will need to work on that if you want parking for the Hercs, F-15s, tankers, and transients.The frames were great in FS2002, but are kind of slow on my rig on FS9 (but better than any of the symflyer airports for me and about on a par with the Bill Melichar PHOG or PHKO).scott s..