Wow.  I've been spending the last few evenings airport hopping my way north from Half Moon Bay, doing little short flights to fit in with my free time.  My last flight was from Pentaluma (O69) over to Ocean Ridge (E55).  I was flying with RW weather (Opus) and it was pretty heavy cloud cover, so I really didn't get a lot of sightseeing in (actually had to utilize the Santa Rosa VOR to fly an outbound radial to find E55), but luckily the clouds were clear enough at E55 for a good landing.  But regardless, what really impressed me was seeing 'Ocean Ridge' on the runway at E55!

 

I've always had quite a bit of respect for all of the upgraded 'default' airports that Orbx provides, but that is definitely a step up from default.

 

Good work, Orbx!

It's fabulous but not a happy thing to fly into the bay area after sunset it's really hard on frames.  I think I'll end up using only FTXG if I fly something heavy out of the bay area and use North America for doing VFR in more rural settings.  Hopefully ORBX will give the user an option, some day, to TURN OFF vector road lighting which will help a little in the regard.  It looks like that must be in the plan since there is a checkbox in FTX Central.

Noel, for what it's worth the "hybrid" mode in FTX Central works just fine as far as I can tell (if there's some downside I haven't actually noticed it yet) and that does give you the optoin to turn off the vector road lighting.

 

James

Noel, for what it's worth the "hybrid" mode in FTX Central works just fine as far as I can tell (if there's some downside I haven't actually noticed it yet) and that does give you the optoin to turn off the vector road lighting.

 

James

Hmm.  I thought I tried this first, noticed the vector road lighting checkbox did stay off, but then discovered vector road lighting was actually still on in-sim.  I will check again thanks for that...

Wow, I never heard of this developer till now!

 

FlightBeam Site Bookmarked and have my CC ready for KSFO V3!

 

Thanks!

 

Oh boy - Mir is basically the top imho....  He also did PHX and IAD, DEN on the way.

I have two questions?

1- Can I install  NCA over FTX Global?

2- Did any one tested NCA with  Heavy complex airplanes  and How was the performance?

 

Thanks

1. Yes, absolutely.

2. No idea. Plan to find out this weekend. ;-)

I have two questions?

1- Can I install  NCA over FTX Global?

2- Did any one tested NCA with  Heavy complex airplanes  and How was the performance?

 

Thanks

NCA is everything from rural Nor Cal to the SF Bay Area.   Performance is strained for sure w/ even moderately complex airplanes in areas like the SF Bay Area and other complex metropolitan areas.  I have decent hardware and I can do OK w/ the ultra-easy on frames but pleasantly complex CS Super MD80 in FB's KSFO (being updated to fit better w/ NCA), but in general it's quite a strain compared to FTXG in the same areas.  It is so much more detailed though.  Flying in rural areas is amazing to say the least.  My plan is likely I will stay in Hybrid Mode or North America mode if I plan on doing more rural lower altitude flights.  This is where NCA really shines IMO.   As I say the MD80 kind is a good fit for the more metro areas of NCA, but I'll go on record now that a PMDG NGX for example would likely perform quite poorly in these areas in NCA, but that's just an educated hunch.  One can always toggle back to plain FTX Global w/o hybrid mode (i.e., effectively disable NCA it appears) to allow you to fly in and out of the big hubs in complex birds.  I would buy NCA again for certain.

about performance with heavy planes:

 

i have done a few flights in and out of ksfo with various aircraft:

 

with the pmdg 777, it definitely gets a little slower around the bay but not as much as i expected, i was still getting mid 20s or better. probably the only annoyingly noticeable part for me was on finals at sfo at the 28s the frames start to get a little chuggy with all the lights in the hills just beyond the airport.  i also had flightbeams ksfo installed for this.

 

the fslabs concorde is a vas hog (uses almost 2g by itself) and i couldn't operate out of there with flightbeam ksfo and nca at the same time, it was oom city before i even left the gate. with ksfo disabled it's usuable but pushing it in the vas realm..

 

majestic q400 flies great there, although this is no surprise as it is very fps friendly despite being a complex addon..

 

cheers

-andy crosby

 

 

with the pmdg 777, it definitely gets a little slower around the bay but not as much as i expected, i was still getting mid 20s or better.

 

Interesting.  Andy, can you post your basic settings in P3D V2.1?  I would not have guessed one would see that good performance in the T7, not even close to 'mid-20s', and that is based on my experience w/ the exceedingly easy to run Super MD80, which in the FSX world is miles ahead of the T7 for frame friendliness.  I won't ask about your hardware as I have as good a hardware as the next person for 2.1.

 

You used EMT for the T7 install Andy?

Interesting.  Andy, can you post your basic settings in P3D V2.1?  I would not have guessed one would see that good performance in the T7, not even close to 'mid-20s', and that is based on my experience w/ the exceedingly easy to run Super MD80, which in the FSX world is miles ahead of the T7 for frame friendliness.  I won't ask about your hardware as I have as good a hardware as the next person for 2.1.

 

You used EMT for the T7 install Andy?

 

lol, these were FSX observations, sorry if i wasn't more specific! the only setting i keep really low is using sparse autogen when i fly the heavies. as far as prepar3d goes,  i have used it a little bit but haven't really jumped in, still waiting for ASN and a few other of my favorite addons to be ready before i make the switch. i thought i read somewhere that the t7 doesn't work at all in p3d, even with the migration tool, although i haven't tried it. 

 

cheers

-andy crosby

It is just me?  When I fly in an area which has windmill farms, as found in the foothills east of the San Francisco bay, my FPS tanks from 30 fixed down to 20.  I'd gladly get rid of them if possible.

 

Overall, IMO, ORBX has created a masterpiece though not without flaws.  I find NorCal is usually spot on capturing the look and feel of NorCal, spoken by a native resident.

Is anybody else having problem with the KSFO 10L runway having terrain clash through it?!?

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/443818-ftx-north-cali-ksfo-runway-10-glitch/

 

FPS is excellent BTW. Getting over 30FPS around the bay - full autogen and scenery, but traffic off! Using a Q6600 at 3.0GHz.

Solved! After getting a hunch from a related issue (from aerosoft IIRC), I searched my FSX folder for "KSFO", and found a few which mentioned elevation. I added the file extension ".off" to the 2 files, and it is working great! Sitting on runway 10l and getting 50FPS/locked in the stock ultralite, too.