Most of my FS9 flying is VFR in the Pacific Northwest. With the recent release of Megascenery PNW, I am forced to decide between two fundamental directions for my scenery.OPTION 1: PHOTOTextures derived from satellite or Aerial photography, such as the Megascenery series.OPTION 2: DATAUpdated landclass, road, coastline, etc. data, being offered (or soon to be offered) by several competing products.The main advantage of the photo scenery is that it is "what you see is what you get". It offers complete accuracy for terrain features, roads, cities, etc. It's fun to sightsee for actual buildings and landmarks.I have the megascenery southern california product, but I don't use it. While the effect can sometimes be pretty convincing, it is hard to shake the feeling of flying over a photograph. The textures seem too sharp, like a heavily compressed JPEG file. At higher altitudes things start to look better, but approaches and departures are pretty disappointing. You can use autogen, but there seems to be a visual disconnect beween Microsoft's autogen and the satellite photographs (not just in placement, but in "Feel").They have made some improvements with their recent products, including higher reasolution aerial photos for Seattle in PNW. A lot of the screenshots I have seen look really good, but I'm just not convinced. I am also worried that the texture loading wouldn't keep up with the RealAir Spitfire.To me, the default microsoft textures offer their own surreal reality which is not realistic, but somehow feels more real, especially at lower altitudes. When you add things like accurate coastlines, roads, etc. I think you end up with a pretty convincing VFR experience-especially at twilight.So, I'm leaning toward the data option. I currently have FSGenesis' road product, and some of Holger's scenery. I'll be taking a hard look at the "Ultimate Terrain" product when it is released. But, at the same time, I do feel like I'm missing out on something by not purchasing Megascnery PNW, but I have limited dollars for add-ons and I can't have everything.Is anyone else dealing with this decision? What do we think the future versions of MSFS will be optimized for? My guess is that the next version will offer support for higher resolution textures (maybe something like 2m/pixel, which will mean better looking photo textures), but with all of the activity around landclass/rivers/roads/coastlines, I would suspect (or hope) that Microsoft will give us more accurate default data in FS10.

I believe you are over-thinking the issue. There is no perfect scenery, no perfect aircraft, no perfect solution. The answer is what do YOU enjoy. What makes you feel immersed, or makes you feel like it's the most realistic, or even what is the best escapism! (I get enough realism in real-life, thank you very much).And the great thing about this is you can have both. You don't have to have just one and only one. I use both. When I am in Megascenery territory I use that, when I am in other areas I use what else is out there and enjoy the benefits they both have to offer.Get one photoreal area... try it out. Only you will know if this is the way to go.

I personally favor option 2). Apart from the problems you mentioned having a sharp boundary between photo and non-photo areas is a big drawback - unless you fly slow planes. But in fact no one does scenery type that I would favor - generally of 'data' type landclass scenery but getting progessively more detailed around bigger airports. For example within 2 nm radius of the airport resolution would be 1 meter, next 3 miles would be 2 meters, then 5 until it seamlessly joins standard landclass scenery.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

The lack of seasonal variation (at least in the original MegaScenery Pacific NW) release turned me away from photo scenery. Has this been fixed in any of the newer packages?

I have dealt with pretty much the same "ordeal".I'm leaning toward the photo-based option. Mostly because it's "real". For example, Microsoft's farmland textures contain randomly placed buildings, fields, roads etc. to give the simmer the general "feel" of flying over populated farmland.When flying over farmland using photographic scenery however, you know that every single building, road and even the shape of each individual crop is accurate. To me, this adds a lot to the experience because I'm not just flying over an artist's impression of what the area might look like, I have a perfect, albeit blurry and flat, "carbon copy" of the real world right in the sim for me to discover. What's worse, when flying over generic scenery, you quickly learn to recognize each individual texture tile - I hate flying hundreds of miles from one rural airport to another only to, at the end of the journey go "Hey, there's that farmland texture again - the one I flew past 2 hours ago...". It just doesn't feel very meaningful because there isn't really any "unique" scenery to discover.Sceneries like Misty Fjords and Holger's latest Columbia River Gorge sceneries are prime examples of what you can achieve with careful design of "data" type sceneries. However, probably because I started my simming with the FU series (with their photographic sceneries), I just can't shake off the feeling that I'm just flying over an approximation of the real world rather than actual scenery.There is a problem with texture quality. Megascenery really is on the borderline of what can be considered acceptable for cross-country. Their satellite images are quite blurry and "washed out" where as VFR Photographic etc. go with much more detailed aerial photos.Still, ever since I "abandoned" FU3, I've been waiting for a photographic scenery of the Seattle region and right now Megascenery are the only ones to offer this. I have Megascenery Norcal and Socal and I actually enjoy them a lot even though they are not as detailed as some other photo-sceneries so ordering PNW was a no-brainer for me.Is there a perfect scenery out there? Not quite, but almost: Switzerland Pro. The mesh is absolutely amazing and the textures are also nearly perfect (a little bright, but extremely detailed). I've done cross-countries at 1500 feet AGL or less and it still felt far more real than any flights I've done over other types of sceneries even though the scenery doesn't even feature autogen. Individual roads, houses, alpine huts and other features come out remarkably clear and detailed even at lower altitudes and the forests almost seem to be 3D even though they are just a flat texture on a mesh. I can look up actual photos of airports I plan on flying to (often a good idea since some airports in the Alps are quite tricky) and when I load up the sim and climb to a few thousand feet AGL it's almost as if I have been teleported into that photo.It's very unfortunate that this scenery at $130 is out of reach for so many people. I had nearly given up on simming before I got that scenery, but it completely changed my FS experience.

Taildragger - Megascenery PNW features summer and "hard winter" textures as well as a complete and very accurate night scenery.

Switzerland Pro is in my opinion the absolute best among photo sceneries and personally I think their textures are exactly spot on what they should be - not over saturated with colors (but still with plenty of color) and therefore pretty close to what a ground would look to a pilot from a moderate altitude. My only criticism of the product is that it has no night scenery but otherwise I would gladly pay the price.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2