A most interesting and revealing FSX-G flight session (Michigan)

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

For the past hour or so, I have been flying over parts of Michigan that I hang out in real life, along the I-75 corridor.

 

I have been playing around with all sorts of combinations of the following two scenery sliders;

 

Scenery Complexity and Auto Gen

 

I have been trying out combinations of the two at both normal, both Very Dense, and both at Extremely Dense settings.  I then flew over terrain that I am most familiar with in the real world. Both at one higher or one lower than the other, as working combinations also...etc.

 

First of all, and again, Orbx's FSX Global Scenery was (IMO) the most dramatic changeover, since I have purchased FSX.  Absolutely. It has given me what I figured I was so waiting for in the next release of FS that as we all know, never came from Microsoft.  As far as I am concerned, and again personal opinion in play...I have that non-created, next franchise version, on my screen, right now!

 

So, back to what I (again...as always, personal opinion in play....) have been doing on this present flight (at pause as I take a moment to post this...) was to keep massaging those two sliders in different combos,  until I would arrive at the best representation of the real world in Scenery Complexity, the level of Auto-Gen in play, and general flight performance and update of scenery around the aircraft, so as to have no micro-stutter, smooth flight animation...in other-words, truly as real to mimic the real world as I possibly can.

 

The results of my putzing around, was that Michigan below me, in the areas that I fly and know like the back of my hand, are pretty much verbatim at the following settings;

 

Scenery Complexity at VERY DENSE

 

Auto-Gen at VERY DENSE

 

The aforementioned settings lays out (in using FSX-G) fields, terrain, the way the fields and terrain set upon the land...as well as the density of homes, streets, etc...to be almost 85 percent 'real life' situation. I found that if the sliders on both of the aforementioned settings go above VERY DENSE, they combined to add too much 'clutter' and fields, landscape, house and commercial density, that is not what is 'out there'.

 

So, for this flight simmer, having purchased FSX-G is a win/win on all accounts.  The FSX-G textures allows my mind to accept a lower performance setting as the 'real deal' as well as the level of Auto-Gen I need to have generated on that FSX-G scenery!   

 

As a result, I have now absolutely NO micro-stutter at any time (and this is mind-blowing for me....and am so excited for this...) whether I fly at tree-top over this fabulous world-wide scenery, or at the FLs.  Head-shaking, absolute rampant delight being generated in this!!!!!

 

Thank you again, ORBX, for conceiving this project, enacting it, and releasing it to market.  Yes, there are some areas that need serious and rapid response to address (patch....) for areas of the planet that are arid/desert in nature (the pond scum/pea soup has to go, and ASAP), and I am sure will be addressed to everybody's satisfaction very, very soon. This one add-on was/is an immense game changer for any flight simulator enthusiast.  The visuals generated by this package has allowed me to drop two very important and system-taxing sliders to where I now on my i7-975 Extreme/EVGA 680 2 GB Signature Factory Overclock system, can have true (in my personal opinion and over terrain where I live, work, and play) virtual REALITY of my flight simulation 'world' and at (FINALLY!!!!!!)---------> smooth as silk flight animation no matter what altitude, no matter what area of the world, or elevation particulars. No more O.O.M. or CTD generated because of the level of detail I needed to suspend disbelief.

 

Thanks ORBX....your products have made all the difference, and I will continue to support your efforts (OpenLC purchases) as they are released. This was the definite deal-slamming BEST all-round scenery package ever produced. It gives so much Return-On-Investment, for a very reasonable cost to obtain.

 

Signed,

 

One ecstatic and so satisfied FSX flight enthusiast! (massive smile as I sign off, and finally put to bed any further  need/tweaking of the Scenery Sliders)  It's done...DONE and the virtual world looks fabulous..... the plane responds instantly to control input, and like silk does it move through that virtual airspace. Thank YOU ORBX, for my slider settings and satisfaction at those settings are all laid down at your company feet!  I say,  FSX GLobal RULES!

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

How interesting, that California does not suffer from the same 'pall of green' for what should be brown,white,grey colors of the terrain, that the State of Arizona and the Great Sonoran Desert seems to suffer under.  I just took a flight from San Diego, to Oakland, California at 10,000 feet.  At the settings of Very Dense for Scenery Complexity and Auto-Gen, Southern California running FSX-G looked fabulous!

 

FSX-G was spot on, for representation of terrain colors.  Weird that one state over.....oh well.  Patch....... 

[TheDanger 182]

Excellent post. Tempting me to purchase this even more.

 

Do you not see any checkerboard effects with repeating textures? My only concern is the amount of texture tiles and placement in FTX-G as I hate that effect.

 

One thing though Mitch, with your system working sweet, don't forget to do a nice backup image just in case it all comes crashing down.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Excellent post. Tempting me to purchase this even more.

 

Do you not see any checkerboard effects with repeating textures? My only concern is the amount of texture tiles and placement in FTX-G as I hate that effect.

 

One thing though Mitch, with your system working sweet, don't forget to do a nice backup image just in case it all comes crashing down.

No, Plate, that's what I love about FSX-G....at both VERY DENSE settings on the two sliders, Michigan looks DEAD ON, for what it mostly looks like, in real life. That's why am so 'vocal' about it. No checker-boarding. Take the G.D.A. of Detroit...with FSXG and UTX in play...it is the massive sprawling sea of buildings and humanity that it is in real life.  With GEX and UTX, it seriously looked like a large town. This is NOT a dig at GEX. It is...what ....it is...   Again I will say, that FSXG, ....gave me FS(11).  It also allowed me to drop those two sliders down a notch each...and gave me back a gorgeous looking sim environment, and now lets me actually once more....touch the numbers at the end of the flight...and not kiss the desktop instead!   WIN, WIN...and uh er...WIN!

 

As a matter of course, I always do a complete system image, and have my 3 TB My Book set up this way:  I have a folder called;  Historical Backup. When W7 Ultimate makes a back up, it creates its own folder. After that back up, I move that entire folder into the Historical Backup folder, as the 'second latest backup', and then when I need to, will run another 'current' image system image onto the My Book. That way, if something screws up with the 'current'...I have the historical backup to drive a reload of that image. So...thanks for reminding me...it's all covered!  In fact, I now have to delete the 'current' folder, and run another image to capture the 1.10 patch.....  

 

Mitch

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Very interesting that you say it fixes the checkerboarding. Considering that this is only a texture replacement (and of course, autogen replacement) as of yet, that doesn't make much sense. I can image it's not visible from lower altitudes because of autogen, but it would only make sense for the repeating textures to be visible at much higher altitudes.

[klamal 282]

Take the G.D.A. of Detroit...with FSXG and UTX in play...it is the massive sprawling sea of buildings and humanity that it is in real life.

 

Also very interesting that the size of Detroit seems to have changed given that these are just texture changes as well. Though, I guess GEX texture perhaps didn't have as many "buildings" on it as now FTX-G does and maybe that gives the feeling of a bigger city? Either way, unless GEX really missed it with the textures they are applying to the same underlying land class definition, it's hard to see how this would matter unless the underlying land class was different too. The general "size" or "sprawl" of the city should have more or less stayed the same.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Also very interesting that the size of Detroit seems to have changed given that these are just texture changes as well. Though, I guess GEX texture perhaps didn't have as many "buildings" on it as now FTX-G does and maybe that gives the feeling of a bigger city? Either way, unless GEX really missed it with the textures they are applying to the same underlying land class definition, it's hard to see how this would matter unless the underlying land class was different too. The general "size" or "sprawl" of the city should have more or less stayed the same.

---------------------------------

 

I think that it the way the tiles are applied/placed and how they actually appear. With GEX, you had blocks of suburban textures intersperced with other depictions. With FSXG, you have miles of suburbs all around you that pretty well makes a good case for the depiction of the GDA as it truly looks in factual life. It looks fabulous to fly over day or night!