Pretty Awesome add on scenery

[Guest cw1011]

I have a lot of trouble with the mega scenery - I have both so cal and nor cal, and both tend to show very signficant decay of image quality over time. You can't fly anything fast with the scenery, even with detail textures off.

[Guest cw1011]

I have a lot of trouble with the mega scenery - I have both so cal and nor cal, and both tend to show very signficant decay of image quality over time. You can't fly anything fast with the scenery, even with detail textures off.

[Guest cw1011]

I have a lot of trouble with the mega scenery - I have both so cal and nor cal, and both tend to show very signficant decay of image quality over time. You can't fly anything fast with the scenery, even with detail textures off.

[Guest cw1011]

I have a lot of trouble with the mega scenery - I have both so cal and nor cal, and both tend to show very signficant decay of image quality over time. You can't fly anything fast with the scenery, even with detail textures off.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Clayton,If you're looking for some cutting edge stuff you should consider getting VFR Terrain England and Wales (LOD11 19m) + VFR Photographic Scenery (England and Wales) based on Getmapping PLC's award winning aerial photography which displays in the sim at around 5m/pixel. Even better, add Visual Flight London to the mix and you have a veritable visual feast to rival anything else currently on offer :)At the end of the day, I think most of us will probably be content with downloading and installing accurate high resolution data for areas of the world we wish to explore in detail and become familiar. Personally, I am longing for the above equivalent to be produced for Scotland and the Western Isles. Meantime there is plenty on offer to keep me interested :)Cheers!Mike

[michal 44]

>Bautiful. The main problem with FS series is the ugly ground>textures. I disagree. The main problem with FS ground is that the number of textures is very limited. They are not ugly, there is simply not enough of them to create a convincing image of our Earth. I am using BlueSphere textures and they are slightly lighter default textures. Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Guest Ridge_Runner_5]

Colin:1. For future reference, 1 psot is enough, no need to do 7...2. Have you tried turning your framerate setting to Unlimited? I had the same problem, and moving the slider full right fixed it almost entirely for me...Another thing to do is read what the tips tell you....stay below 5000ft and 200kts, and the scenery should load up clearly by the time you get to it...

[Guest Kingair315]

>Hi Paddy>>begs the question when is FS going to look like this as>standard out of the box, the technolgy is there so why not>apply it?> COST! MS would have to increase the size of their development team, to include all those who make payware products. Just as they hired all the current ones, when they bought the FS from Bruce. Increasing space & employee needs. MS may pay their employees even more, increasing the cost of the product. (Because of wages and profit sharing MS has over 50 Multi-Millionaire's working for them now.) IF MS, added all the things to FS, it would cost so much that no one would buy it. By buying addons, those who can afford them do so, those who have systems capable of handling the frame rate hit, do so. IF MS added such detail, they would have to charge as much, as Mega. does for each area of the country, PLUS, the rest of the world. Many do not fly outside their own area, they can buy one addon package to improve it, much cheaper. Those who would get a major framerate hit by having such detail, would stop buying the FS. Because the customer base shrank drasticly MS again would have to increase the cost 5 to 10 times what it would be, just by adding such detail. Many who fly heavy iron, never see such detail due to altitude, what a waste of money that would be. Those who dont want to pay piecemeal for areas of the country, can improve their scenery from http://www.fsgenesis.net where you can get MESH, Roads, Streams, Railroads, Utilities and landclass for the _entire_ world almost as good, for much less. And, it does not give such framerate Hits.... Bob

[JimmiG 244]

The FSGenesis products are OK especially when combined with proper water scenery. Highly recommended for the casual VFR flyer. However they certainly have problems like missing towns and so on and of course landclass is just a combination of a fairly limited set of generic texture tiles.But mesh-only (which is what they have for most of the world) can not be compared to a complete scenery product. It's just elevation data like hills, mountains, nothing else. No wonder it's cheaper and takes less space.Microsoft should try to distirbute FS10 on DVD and at least include most of the world with 80m mesh as well as increase the number of "detailed" airports. I agree that from there they should let addon developers take over however. No need for super-accurate scenery when you're flying at 45,000 feet and only see a hazy blur below anyway.Re: framerate I get about 40 - 80 FPS over Megascenery, VFR Photographic etc. which is actually quite a bit higher than normal scenery. Most addon airports like Georender also provide excellent FPS.

[Jayjay 62]

Bonjour bonjourmoi44 and Ridge Runner 5,I am not from Denver, but before being retired I had worked for 25 years for a Denver based company. I did spend a lot of time in Denver, sometimes as much as a total of 10 weeks in a year. The mile high city became like a second hometown for me. And boy, do I miss it!I am impatiently waiting for this MegaCity scenery.J.J.JJ StruyfBraine-L'AlleudBelgiumhttp://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg

[Guest paddy]

Hi Bob,Right you are! At nowadays level of technical possibilities as to world scenery, it would not be fair to launch such requirements.However, as far as it concerns local area scenery, like the IGS-approach to rwy 13 of former Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, Fly Tampa has proven it can be done. See their excellent Miami, San Francisco, San Diego and Dubai sceneries. Imagine this same quality for add-on scenery for FS 2004 entitled: "Former Kai Tak Airport and the Hong Kong Area"...Wouldn't that be great?!Paddy.

[Guest Kingair315]

>The FSGenesis products are OK especially when combined with>proper water scenery. Highly recommended for the casual VFR>flyer. However they certainly have problems like missing towns>and so on and of course landclass is just a combination of a>fairly limited set of generic texture tiles. Missing Town? Just contact Justin, and it gets fixed. >But mesh-only (which is what they have for most of the world)>can not be compared to a complete scenery product. It's just>elevation data like hills, mountains, nothing else. No wonder>it's cheaper and takes less space. The autogen works better with FSGenesis, especially in the US, with American Data roads, streams, railroads, and utilities. Monday for the first time, I followed the railroad tracks from Fullerton, CA, to AZ along the route Amtrak takes. >Microsoft should try to distirbute FS10 on DVD and at least>include most of the world with 80m mesh as well as increase>the number of "detailed" airports.Not all have a DVD, dont even have one in my Dell.>Re: framerate I get about 40 - 80 FPS over Megascenery, VFR>Photographic etc. which is actually quite a bit higher than>normal scenery. Most addon airports like Georender also>provide excellent FPS. Mine framerate with the demo is 8-10 fps, so have not bought it. Bob

[JimmiG 244]

Sure you could contact Justin about missing towns but they are everywhere. Very apparent when combined with USA Roads or American Data as you get those clusters of roads everywhere even where FS is displaying forest or crops. He's slowly adjusting it (known as Phase3 of the landclass development) but it takes time.Not saying that landclass-type scenery and mesh is unusable. But it is an approximation or artistic impression of what the real area might look like. If you're just flying past with a chart for reference is good enough but if you live there or know the area well you will immediately notice things that are not as they should. Villages and other small features missing. Forest where you know there should be crops. Clusters of roads without the underlying urban texture. Regional "landmarks" like factories, cooling towers, quarries, clear cuttings etc. are missing. Small things maybe but often used for locating small airports in real life.It is obvious that smaller sceneries will be more accurate where as global or national sceneries must by their nature be less accurate since noone has the time or resources to model a big country like the US as accurately as Megascenery or Misty Fjords do for small areas (the exceptions being the England VFR scenery and Swiss Pro).

[Guest Kingair315]

>Fly Tampa has proven it can be done. See their excellent>Miami, San Francisco, San Diego and Dubai sceneries. Imagine>this same quality for add-on scenery for FS 2004 entitled:>"Former Kai Tak Airport and the Hong Kong Area"...Wouldn't>that be great?!>Paddy. A look at their airports is interesting, but except for San Diego so will consider it, never fly into any of the others. KSNA has some good freeware scenery. And Ive taken flights to many places from there. But, find 97% or more of the time, I begin flights from KFUL as I am 2 miles away, under the flight path. Go there about once a month for lunch on a Sat. As I mostly use GA airfields in FS, with runways 3500 ft or shorter. This makes paying $20 for others a waste. One of my favorite flights, is from Fullerton to Troutdale, OR VFR. or deviate into Yosemite on the way. Enroute, I do TNG's at all airfields. Its a great way to improve landings.Many fields have freeware scenery available on http://flightsim.com but some of those give a big frame rate hit. Sometimes have found they included an AFCAD file in the folder. By moving it to addon sceneryscenery it improves it. Sometimes CTD were caused by having two AFCAD files for the same airfield. Even I make mistakes :-) Only addon's Ive bought since about 1992 when I retired, other than a FSGenesis membership, have been Bill Lyons Waco, and Eaglesoft Citation X... Locally I use the waco, long distance the Citation, and they keep me very busy. :-) Having accurate Mountains, Rivers, Railroads, and Roads is what makes the FS for me. Ive flown all over southern CA with licensed friends in a Cessna. Traveled in 49 states by Motorcycle or RV, sometimes 40-50k miles a year. So flying VFR in the FS is remembering personal memories of the areas I fly. Flown a Waco myself over Oak Creek Canyon, and Sedona twice now, and rate it the BEST experience ever in an aircraft. Bob

[Guest Kingair315]

>Sure you could contact Justin about missing towns but they>are everywhere. Very apparent when combined with USA Roads or>American Data as you get those clusters of roads everywhere>even where FS is displaying forest or crops. He's slowly>adjusting it (known as Phase3 of the landclass development)>but it takes time. Must depend on where you fly... I'm using outdated charts I get from a flying school at KFUL, and have had no problem in this area finding the towns in the FS. Even before AD roads, I'd follow MSFS roads to Apple Valley, right into KAPV... Follow the roads from there to Big Bear City, etc. Have a friend who lives in a Mobile Home near KAPV, and the street the park is on was even in MSFS roads. Will have to check today to see if those in the park are there with AD roads. With Genesis mesh more accurate elevations, Bell Mountain and all others around KAPV became visable. The flight into Big Bear City, following MSFS roads was also possible. The MESH for the West coast was a huge improvement in the terrain, and the landclass was pretty close. However, Ive added lots of textures which are available. One for SW scenery which substitutes cactus for some of the trees, and more realistic trees for the Apple Valley/Desert area. Also found one to make more realistic Granite rock, which really makes Yosemite look real. Adding the firefall there also beings back long ago memories. Added Fireworks to Disneyland, which we watch on summer nights from home. There are so many freeware addons around, am fortunate that I am retired, it gives me the time to find and install them. Each day, I check out the files on AVSIM, and FLIGHTSIM.COM, takes a lot of time, though may only download a few files a day. It would be easier for those who can buy the scenery, to buy the LA area than find all these little files, if they have a system which can handle the framerate hit. When first using a FS, with Wire Mountains, what we have is amazing now. What I hated in FS98, was running into "invisible" mountains in S. CA... Flying a lear into at 14,000 into Vegas, and hitting a mountain which does not exist in reality, splattered me all over it. ;-) Bob