Hello all,

I'm new to the world of add-on's for FSX. I've just built a new PC primarily to run FSX. I'm in the process of optimizing my OS and FSX following this great guide: http://www.simforums.com/forums/the-...opic46211.html

I've installed FSX and have arrived at the section detailing add-on's. I have a few add-ons I received for Christmas from FSPilotShop, but I'm not sure what kind of tax they may put on my system setup. The add-ons are:

1. REX Essential Plus w/ Overdrive
2. Real Environment Extreme (REX) Latitude
3. Aerosoft - Flight Tales I
4. ORBX Pacific Northwest (FTX NA Blue)

The only additional files I can see myself adding over time would be some Orbx regions, a few airports (most likely from Orbx), a few aircraft (Carenado), and perhaps some missions from our File Library. I know there are some freeware and additional payware options to what I have listed above. From what I can understand so far, some of the more common scenery/landscape/weather add-ons seem to be GEX, REX, UTX, FTX (same as Orbx?), FEX, and FSGenesis.

There appears to be some common combinations of these above products:
1. Gex and UTX
2. FTX Global and the Orbx regions
3. Ground Environment X, Ultimate Terrain X and FS Genesis *This seems to be a common combo
I'm in the process of completing my new system and getting FSX installed. Could I use Option #3 with Orbx NW and some additional small airports to be added later? What about Rex Latitude? I've read that some add-ons can cause issues or make undesired edits to the fsx.cfg file. I just want to be sure my current add-ons will not cause any issues before I install them.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I am looking for when I'm looking at possible add-ons to determine if they will change the FSX.cfg file and will work together. Any help would REALLY be appreciated! Thank you so much!

Since you have already started down the Orbx path (I did too) I recommend FTX Global over GEX. You can only use one or the other. Both change your global landclass texture library. Poke around the FTX support forum for more info.

 

Consider looking into a new weather engine to bring your REX clouds to life. OPUS or Active Sky. I went with AS. Read up on both.

 

Good luck.

 

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Thanks for the feedback! Sorry it has taken me a few days to respond - I couldn't access the site for a bit. I'll check out the forums over at orbxsystems.com for more info.

Just to point out, you've mentioned owning and planning to fly in the Orbx regions; other than the additional airports they (or others) sell, the regions themselves are complete - they do not benefit from mesh (FS Global or FSGenesis), textures (FTX Global or GEX), landclass (UTX or SceneryTech or the upcoming FTX OpenLC) or vector data (UTX or FTX Global Vector).  They come with everything. In fact, even the default smaller airports are often nicely upgraded, to a point where I'm generally happy enough with them not to need upgrades.

 

(The one exception I think is FTX AU, I believe it doesn't include a mesh.)

 

However, the minute you fly outside of the area covered by your Orbx region, then the above products will (usually) benefit your sim.  The most common combo in the past was UTX / GEX, but now with the Orbx / FTX family of products expanding, a lot of people have a bunch of different mix and match solutions.  They're generally compatible, as long as they don't do the same thing.

 

The other area briefly mentioned was weather - Rex Latitude is not a weather application in any respect.  To make the depiction of weather nicer, you'll need two things: replacement textures and a weather engine.  Some applications, like REX Essential Plus, have both.  Some applications, like REX Texture Direct, are just textures - you then need a weather engine such as ASNext or OpusFSX to actually depict the weather.

Just to point out, you've mentioned owning and planning to fly in the Orbx regions; other than the additional airports they (or others) sell, the regions themselves are complete - they do not benefit from mesh (FS Global or FSGenesis), textures (FTX Global or GEX), landclass (UTX or SceneryTech or the upcoming FTX OpenLC) or vector data (UTX or FTX Global Vector).  They come with everything. In fact, even the default smaller airports are often nicely upgraded, to a point where I'm generally happy enough with them not to need upgrades.

 

(The one exception I think is FTX AU, I believe it doesn't include a mesh.)

 

However, the minute you fly outside of the area covered by your Orbx region, then the above products will (usually) benefit your sim.  The most common combo in the past was UTX / GEX, but now with the Orbx / FTX family of products expanding, a lot of people have a bunch of different mix and match solutions.  They're generally compatible, as long as they don't do the same thing.

 

The other area briefly mentioned was weather - Rex Latitude is not a weather application in any respect.  To make the depiction of weather nicer, you'll need two things: replacement textures and a weather engine.  Some applications, like REX Essential Plus, have both.  Some applications, like REX Texture Direct, are just textures - you then need a weather engine such as ASNext or OpusFSX to actually depict the weather.

 

Thanks for the info Jimmy RFR. I mostly do general aviation flying in the Pacific Northwest region. If I kept my Orbx PNW add-on for now, could I add FTX Global and FS Genesis (or perhaps PILOTs FS Global 2010 FTX Edition mesh) and FTX Vector later on down the line if I found I was doing more "long-haul" flying, or do these add-ons need to be installed in a specific order?

 

I sincerely appreciate you helping me to understand the huge world of FSX add-ons.

 

 

If I kept my Orbx PNW add-on for now, could I add FTX Global and FS Genesis (or perhaps PILOTs FS Global 2010 FTX Edition mesh) and FTX Vector later on down the line if I found I was doing more "long-haul" flying, or do these add-ons need to be installed in a specific order?

 

You most definitely could, and no, they really don't have to be installed in a specific order.  With those three, you'll have 3/4 of what you need for world-wide scenery improvement.  The only thing missing would be landclass - which Orbx is addressing with their upcoming 'FTX Global OpenLC' products.  If you needed something right now and didn't want to wait, there are a few other options.

 

The Orbx regions are 'sort of' compatible with almost everything - but only in the sense that they sit on top and hide / replace everything else, even their own FTX Global product family.  I said 'sort of' also because there exists certain compatibility issues with other region specific addons, such as the France VFR stuff.  But in terms of the broad addons - mesh, textures, vectors, and landclass - they co-exist just fine.

I also noticed that you've mentioned flying GA, and your profile mentions the Cessna Skyhawk - you really owe it to yourself if you're a fan of the type to check out the A2A C172.. To be honest, I would rather have the default FSX scenery and that A2A C172 over a few hundred dollars of add-on scenery and the default planes any day of the week!

 

Carenado (since your original post mentioned them) makes some very pretty planes indeed, but that is about where it stops.  Not knocking them, they fill a niche and do it very well, and I do have a few favorites from their stable, but there is several other developers out there that produce stuff that's on par visually and have far deeper and more realistic simulations.

I was reading up on the FTX Global OpenLC products. On the orbxsystems website they say: "What probably has not been made clear is that each openLC pack will come with its own additional set of unique textures to enhance the FTXG textures already installed. In other words, you will need FTXG installed for openLC to work (they won't work stand-alone)"

 

Am I reading the same product or is there something else I may not be understanding?

 

I'm sorry for all the basic questions - I'm just trying to wrap my head around all the different options! I just want to make sure I'm getting a return on what I buy and not just buying every single product offered and throwing it all into my machine I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions and help me get a better handle on all of these add-ons.

Well, until the OpenLC products get released, we won't really know for sure. I do believe that you're correct - they will have a requirement of FTX Global, and won't work standalone, since not only will they provide the improved landclass over default, but they will also include improved textures in additon to what FTX Global provides.

 

However, you are able to use other landclass products with FTX Global, such as UTX or SceneryTech, which is what most of us with FTX Global are doing at this point, since we may have already had those products.

So I'm just about ready to install the add-ons I currently have. I have 2 SSDs with the same read-speed installed on my computer. From what I understand, Orbx PNW needs to be installed on the same drive as where FSX is installed. Is that correct? If so, can my remaining add-ons (Rex Essentials w/ Overdrive, Rex Latitude, and Aerosoft - Flight Tales I) be installed on the second SSD that does not contain FSX?

 

 

So I'm just about ready to install the add-ons I currently have. I have 2 SSDs with the same read-speed installed on my computer. From what I understand, Orbx PNW needs to be installed on the same drive as where FSX is installed. Is that correct? If so, can my remaining add-ons (Rex Essentials w/ Overdrive, Rex Latitude, and Aerosoft - Flight Tales I) be installed on the second SSD that does not contain FSX?

 

• All Orbx installers need to point at your FSX installation.  The Orbx products are very tightly integrated with FSX, and cannot be installed elsewhere.  (There are very advanced and likely very not recommended methods of changing this.)
• Rex Essentials w/OD can be installed where you wish.  Inside that program, you have to configure it to 'see' your FSX installation, amongst other things.
• As for Res Latitude, pretty sure it can go anywhere as well - don't know though, as I don't own it.
• I don't own Aerosoft's Flight Tales either, so really can't comment on it.  It likely has components that install into your FSX location, but I don't know.

Hope that helps!

 

• All Orbx installers need to point at your FSX installation.  The Orbx products are very tightly integrated with FSX, and cannot be installed elsewhere.  (There are very advanced and likely very not recommended methods of changing this.)
• Rex Essentials w/OD can be installed where you wish.  Inside that program, you have to configure it to 'see' your FSX installation, amongst other things.
• As for Res Latitude, pretty sure it can go anywhere as well - don't know though, as I don't own it.
• I don't own Aerosoft's Flight Tales either, so really can't comment on it.  It likely has components that install into your FSX location, but I don't know.

Hope that helps!

 

 

That definitely helped clear things up! Thank you very much!!