With all the new lighting, shadows, and water quality.. The default scenery has never looked so good. Prepar3D has changed the default scenery a lot since FSX but not really until v2 did I start to actually enjoy default scenery. For those who don't have Prepar3D one of the first things they did after acquiring it was go after scenery tiles. They upgraded some 10 million tiles early on...

 

Anyway.... Am I the only one finding a new love for default scenery? It's by no far on Orbx levels  etc but. For most anything East of the Rocky Mountains.. It's not too shabby... 

 

I was just cruising over Honolulu and admiring the scenery and it dawned on me "Hey, this is default!"

 

100% agreed! I told myself the same thing earlier today as I flew in and around Montreal. I don't know if it has been updated or what not but it sure does look alike when I had GEX and UTX installed on FSX. One sure thing is that it does not look like default FSX with autogen maxed out, not in Montreal anyways. Moreover, the autogen looks sharper than before, seen from above but also the autogen in the distance. 

 

The main drawback with the default scenery is how land connects to water. Otherwise it's not that bad. 

The new graphics engine does miracles to the default scenery. The autogen and landclass textures in combination with HDR lighting and volumetric fog really shines! I really don't need the shadows

I have noticed, via screenshot postings, that the default scenery seems to have had a bit of nip and tuck here and there.  I am in the process of getting parts for my new build and am very much looking forward to loading things up. 

Agree, the default scenery that I have seen so far is perfectly adequate. The fact I'm now running all scenery and autogen at max may be helping. The new lighting and shadows have made the world look so much more realistic. In fact, bearing in mind this is a simulator it is the closest to real I've ever experienced.

Agree, the default scenery that I have seen so far is perfectly adequate. The fact I'm now running all scenery and autogen at max may be helping. The new lighting and shadows have made the world look so much more realistic. In fact, bearing in mind this is a simulator it is the closest to real I've ever experienced.

 

 

It's really good in certain areas.  The default nature shows it's face in other areas, but it's still better out of the box than FSX was.  The lighting and shadows do help immensely to spruce the place up.

 

I find the same effect with older aircraft - add those nice dynamic cockpit shadows, and it's almost like a new lease on life for many of the graphically older planes.