Hi i'm thinking of getting ORBX GLOBAL but i have a few questions.

 

1. Is it Realistic?

2. Does VECTOR and LCEurope need ORBX Global base pack?

3. Is there another product from a different company more realistic?

4. What other companies provide Global overhauls ?

5. Would you recommend it?

 

Thanks

On 2: LCEurope needs Global Base. Vector does not need Base (I think), however Vector is highly recommended for LCEurope. In Addition, a good Mesh (FTX Pilot's) is highly recommended for LCEurope.

 

Dependencies are well documented in this guide:

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/74345-the-definitive-guide-to-ftx-products-the-go-to-source-of-ftx-information/

 

On 1: The question  "Is ORBX realistic" is a bit misleading. There are ORBX Region sceneries which - IMHO - are quite realistic, even more given the price and the relatively low amount of data (usually ~3-5 GB). However, these are regions like Northern California, Australia etc. I highly enjoy these and recommend them without reservation.

 

The OpenLC/Global/Vector/Mesh pack has another aim and covers much more extended areas, of course. If you ask me (and I own the whole pack) for my opinion: They are really good for displaying landscapes (even in different seasons) and small towns/villages, although a number of smaller towns have been reported to be missing, which seemingly will be corrected in an upgrade if they are > 1 km in extension. I do not like the way metropolitan areas/big cities are reproduced at present. Flying into Munich, which I know quite well, you find the city center as a scattered agglomeration of houses and trees, only badly respecting roads. This is not the way a German big town looks like with houses clearly aligned along roads and in blocks. Other big cities are similar. I am not asking to identify single houses or such, but I think it's the large-scale structure being wrong.

 

On 3. There is the GEX/UTX Combo from Flight1, however, given they will never ever support Prepar3d2 I doubt this will be a good investment into the future. I have an old license somewhere, but it's so old and I didn't use it for so long I don't recall any detail. From comparisons by others I recall there are areas being better and worse  than in ORBX/Global+OpenLC.

 

On 5. Compared to standard scenery it certainly is a big step forward, and there has been ongoing developmend promised. IMHO it's well suited for IFR where you are interested in details mainly around airports and have to get the general structure right otherwise. If you are a pure VFR pilot (like me) you'll find nice places, but it's less than optimum in its present state.

 

Kind regards, Michael

What I think most people agree about Global/Vector/OpenLC is that you get the general 'feel' for the area.  The cities, towns, rivers, lakes, roads, forests, parks are, roughly, in the right places.  They look plausible and right for the region.  There are few, if any, landmarks.  As Michael stated, metropolitan areas (especially dense ones) are not portrayed that well.  Outside of metropolitan areas, to me, it's pretty amazing looking.  I couldn't even fly in Europe before I had them but now it's a whole area needing to be explored. 

 

In dedicated regions, you won't find your house there either...but the accuracy is better, landmarks are there and it comes with mesh so elevations are correct.  The Orbx custom airports are, generally, pretty amazing.  

 

About the only thing that is going to be 'real' is photoreal but it has it's own downsides like very little autogen and lack of seasons.  (I'm a former photoreal fan.  Wish they could put this much autogen/objects on photoreal.)  Up high photoreal looks great.  Down low it's the morning after a bad date.  Orbx isn't perfect, though, and one area where I'd love to see some improvement is 'arid' textures.  Sometimes dry mountains look way too dry and desolate even in regions...not real.