FSX-MS Seriously thinking to ditch all payware airports...

[MarkW 1,491]

Come to the poor man's side; we've got nothing.

 

 

 

Well, actually we do have something: Consistently bad looking airports with always up-to-date ground layouts and terribly easy editability.

 

You also have great framerates and no OOM issues.

[1st fltsimguy 466]

I would never ditch my Payware Airports.  I only buy those that mean something to me, areas that I have travelled to in real iife or I am very familiar with, or am interested in the area.

 

The large tube liner airports generally bring my system to low performance and I avoid.

 

I fly GA, I buy GA airports, they are not very tough on the system.  I have almost every Orbx GA airport except the EU England ones.

 

I love the emersion of a payware airport with I leave and when I approach.

 

I focus on regions not helter skelter all over the place.  I also build regions by picking an interesting area and then securing every useable freeware airport and scenery upgrade I can find.  I recently did this for Venezuela.  Downloaded 45 freeware airports.  And then I use my Instant Scenery app to upgrade them even better.  Never been there before but with Orbx Global and these airports I now have some good destinations for short hops.  So I have fun flying and building.

 

I absolutely hate default FSX square green background, one straight runway and two default buildings stuck on the side.  Boring as heck.

Has anybody dared to try their Natural trees?

 

http://www.zinertek.com/flightsimulator/treeenvironmentx.html

 

I'm using FTX Global and a bit scared to try that.

 

See my earlier thread

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/427842-zinertek-natural-tree-environment-x-ntex-evaluation/?hl=%2Bzinertek+%2Bnatural+%2Btrees#entry3137044

[virtuali 4,421]

am wondering if I spend enough time on the ground at either for me to want to deal with some of the airport-management issues (couatl updates, the pause on final approach while KJFK loads its textures).

The pause on approach at KJFK (which can be probably controlled by raising the Anti-pop up slider in the Adddon Manager settings), it's a reason why the scenery works, in THAT area, without suffering of OOMs.

 

This because the scenery loading range, that we can control precisely thanks to the fact we don't rely on .BGLs to create it, has been carefully set in order to be sure that nothing from KLGA and not much from Manhattan is loaded. If we relied on the FSX default memory management, the scenery would be probably unflyable without a serious risk of OOMs.

 

You can't have it all: if you want a smooth loading experience, you must pre-allocate lots of memory before hand, but memory is not something we can waste, not in the New York area, and not when flying a memory-hungry airplane that takes more than 1GB just for itself.

 

Some said a while ago that JFK couldn't be done in FSX. And in some ways this is still true, if you stick with plain SDK techniques. I know that a pause on a approach is annoying, but I hope you'll agree that a pause it's much better than an OOM message!

[Bjoern 1,157]

You also have great framerates and no OOM issues.

 

No OOMs yes, but the framerates are usually eaten up by the Ai slider at 95-100%.

[virtuali 4,421]

I really hope scenery developers are reading this thread.   We value and count on your skills but it must be remembered that your works of art need to work in a simulator that is already heavy on PC resources, alongside other complex addons.

I'm reading you.

 

Sometimes it's difficult to understand what users really want.

 

We made a scenery for CYVR, which I firmly believe was our best yet, and we are proud of what we achieved with it, because nothing else out there ever come close to it (how many other sceneries have directional dynamic shadows that change during the day, based on real astronomical calculations, without affecting fps ?).

 

For that, we were almost crucified, because we tried too much, and the scenery supposedly "caused OOMs", but its only fault was that it's located in OOM-land, with lots of other 3rd party sceneries available and, shame on us, we thought it was a good idea to make a scenery that would enhance what users already had. But at least, we started a DISCUSSION on VAS and how precious is, and what's really affecting it, not just scenery, but anything, with complex airplanes first and foremost. And this started having users looking more into DX10, because this is what we always suggested to try, to save some memory.

 

 

For the next scenery, KIAH, we decided to play a BIT safer. That doesn't mean that KIAH looks "bad", it's just that we tried to do what is being suggested in this thread: make an airport with good detail, without going overboard with it, because users must be able to USE IT, with the airplane and the other add-ons they have, without having to worry about OOM. We don't have any complains on KIAH, it's probably the product that required the less amount of support, so this approach is clearly working.

 

And of course, we HAVE been crucified (again) on some websites, that KIAH is not as good as CYVR or KLAX, and we are "losing our edge", and bla, bla, bla.

 

It's a very thin line, between being crucified because we did too much, or being crucified because we didn't do enough...at the end of the day, we are being crucified just the same, so it feels many users are just being frustrated when realizing that FSX IS an outdated product, we simply asked too much from it, and unless we'll get a 64 bit version (not FSX, of course, but P3D), there's not much room for improvement, because expectations are raising, but the resources (32 bit) aren't.

[romanus 28]

I use a few free airports, and then try and find an afcad for those I may fly into. And I also have the Zinertek Airport Environment for when in FS9(yes, I fly both).

But I got into the trap where I spent more time tinkering than flying. But that's my inability to leave well enough alone.

 

I am enjoying a lot of GA flying around the area I live, so I only really worry about airports and traffic in that area. FSX is a lot more enjoyable now that I am focusing on just flying. Most of the time I don't notice the airports all that much. As long as there is traffic, the immersion is perfect for me.

[FleaJump 7]

Wow those trees are amazing.  Zinertek is really making a name for itself with the products it has out, starting from that flight deck upgrade for the Level D 767, to their water textures for FS9, and now these superbly rendered trees.   I see another $14 expenditure in my immediate future.

 

Much thanks for this mention here Greg.   No longer will I be unable to see the forest for the trees.  

[Pe11e 812]

This thread is coming alive pretty well, heh. I truly hope that some developers will read some of our statements where is the sweet spot, quality vs. performance.

 

Some of you guys said that best solution is medium detail (quality) airports are the best, and I agree. In a second I remembered how ORBX slightly upgraded all default airports and they delivered them with FTX Norway. Just check their rendition of Oslo airport, much better than default, but very easy on frames and vas, but somehow you still can recall that 30% of airport looks like default. Very interesting mix of default vs. custom textures and objects. Damn, now I want to go back to fly in Norway again. You have everything in that package, awesome LC, textures, upgraded airports (and bunch of it), custom mesh, vector and objects. 

[Need-To-Know 34]

virtuali -

 

"It has been said many times on the forums before".... sorry could not resist. (I crack myself up)

 

But your innovations and communications as well as actually responding (without condescending tones) is unsurpassed in the flight sim world! A true business professional!

 

Thanks for letting us know from the developers side.

[Alan_A 1,650]

 

 

I have to say that I think a lot of this is mere self-indulgence on the scenery artists part.

 

I'm not sure if it's self-indulgence - maybe - but I sometimes get the feeling that some developers, not only of scenery but of aircraft and weather and texture add-ons and the rest, test their products on plain vanilla setups, and don't think enough about the likely real-world use, where multiple add-ons get together and drag a system to its knees.  I hope that more of them will be inclined to test under "field conditions," or at least leave us more overhead than we have at the moment.

[BeechPapa 32]

Lots of good wisdom in this thread. I try to buy add-on scenery I have a personal attachment to, whether a nostalgic place I visited or area I lived. I agree that add-on scenery can present a performance compromise that most of the time is not worth it. It's always a temptation to turn up the eye candy but I usually end up enjoying smooth flight more than eye candy. It's too easy to forget it's a flight sim not a birds eye scenery viewer. There's also the issue of limiting where you fly to. When I first flew in FSX with out any addons, there was no preference to where I'd fly. When you have a scenery add-on, suddenly your locations are ranked in your head as far as visual quality, and it becomes harder to go back to "default". But you miss so much of the world that way.

[Alan_A 1,650]

Come to the poor man's side; we've got nothing.

 

 

 

Well, actually we do have something: Consistently bad looking airports with always up-to-date ground layouts and terribly easy editability.

 

And many of us are grateful for that.  

[~Craig~ 10]

It's a very thin line, between being crucified because we did too much, or being crucified because we didn't do enough...at the end of the day, we are being crucified just the same, so it feels many users are just being frustrated when realizing that FSX IS an outdated product, we simply asked too much from it, and unless we'll get a 64 bit version (not FSX, of course, but P3D), there's not much room for improvement, because expectations are raising, but the resources (32 bit) aren't.

 

I would suggest that all of your products are marketed in the same vain;  large, single airport products.   What I was referring to was something that was openly and publicly appealing to a different set of needs.   Something (just like UK2000's UK VFR Airfields) that is clearly offering more than one airfield, and that openly let's the buyer know that the level of detail is commensurate with the number of fields being offered, and the price of the product.

 

• If people are spending $35 for a single airport, they may have an expectation of detail and complexity, in line with that.

• If people are spending $35 on 6 regional airports in one pack; it's likely they will, from the outset, not expect each of the 6 airports to be of the same level of detail and complexity as the single airport at the same price.

 

If you think about aircraft addons;  we have complex addons like PMDG, or RealAir / A2a for GA, but there is also a healthy market for less complex aircraft for the more casual simmer.   Within the scenery market, we don't have this polarity, we don't have both ends of the market being provided for, in my opinion.    Scenery addons are just getting more and more complex and introducing more and more of a 'claim' on that ever valuable VAS.

 

Orbx have even perfected the art of making small GA airfields super, super detailed - and I'm not denying they're not beautiful - but some of these tiny airfields swallow up as much resource as major airports.

 

So what I'd love to see is a 'wider' airport offering;   more airports, less detail, more flying, more destinations for the money, more value, less PC resources used, less VAS, more frames.

 

Amen!

[Alan_A 1,650]

 

 

The pause on approach at KJFK (which can be probably controlled by raising the Anti-pop up slider in the Adddon Manager settings), it's a reason why the scenery works, in THAT area, without suffering of OOMs.

 

Thanks for reminding me - I'd honestly lost track of that feature.  Will try it out.  I agree about the need to balance performance in New York in particular - the area continues to be a bit of a sinkhole for me (though better in Prepar3d 2.4) - default KLGA takes me into the single digits.

[Sportsfan23 2]

 

 

For the next scenery, KIAH, we decided to play a BIT safer. That doesn't mean that KIAH looks "bad", it's just that we tried to do what is being suggested in this thread: make an airport with good detail, without going overboard with it, because users must be able to USE IT, with the airplane and the other add-ons they have, without having to worry about OOM. We don't have any complains on KIAH, it's probably the product that required the less amount of support, so this approach is clearly working.

 

Very true. Great performance and the details are fantastic.