Has anyone tried this new download ? Can we have an assessment? Thanks

Downloading now, but with my connection, it'll take sometime;-(

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I am a great investor in MSE with pretty much everything they have sold so far. I checked the specs of the Arizona state scenery I purchased and it claims that the grand canyon scenery in that state was done at 50cm resolution, as is the new stuff,  so I suspect that this is aimed at customers who do not have the states?
My opinion about MSE is on the whole its the best we have to date and will have to last me a very long time indeed. its good quality for the most part of the time but they have dropped some right stinkers and do not seem in too much of a rush to put them right. UK is the old stuff from horizon for the biggest part of the country and so at least 10 years old. Waiting patiently for France, Norway and Austria now and that will pretty much do me for Europe.

If you don't have the entire state then I would buy the grand canyon. its great down low and slow, but for the extra couple of quid I would go for the state.

I'm not certain I have this correct, but my understanding is that for the MSE state-wide areas, the native resolution of the scenery is 50 cm, but it is actually displayed at only 100 cm.  For the "Ultra Resolution" cities, terminal control areas, and now areas like the Grand Canyon, the displayed resolution is actually at 50 cm.

 

I don't have the Megascenery Grand Canyon area yet, but I have a couple of the MSE Ultra Resolution areas in California.  Compared to their CA state-wide area, the Ultra-Res. areas are noticeably much more focused and clear.  Sometimes, in my opinion, the scenery is so clear that (above 1,000 ft. or so) it seems to take on a 3D appearance.

In 2010 I bought the MSE Grand Canyon region and was very pleased with its detail clarity and workmanship.  Little over a year ago I bought MSE 2 Utah and was disappointed with its detail clarity and workmanship (there are a few missing tiles), IMO a huge step backwards compared to how excellent their original GC was.  I can only think this "new release" is just a repacking of that original super excellent product.

I'm really struggling to see how the above posters have reached positive conclusions with this so called 'ULTRA RES' scenery.  I hardly EVER say such things here, but my personal view, and those I've shown it to (not simmers) is that it’s horrible. And that’s me being very polite!

 

I have a HUGE amount of photo scenery, so have a LOT to compare it with. It’s well below par compared to most that I have.  The only item that’s worse IMO is their England scenery.

It wouldn't be fair to state the above without clarification, so....

 

1) To get anything like an acceptable overall experience, I had to set LOD_RADIUS=8.5

 

2) Quite how they justify naming it 'ULTRA RES', when in reality, it’s nowhere near as good as the 'HI RES' Socal package, is beyond me. There's nothing 'ultra' about it, and personally, I think its being 'missold' and 'not as advertised'.

 

3) Even though I also have the full state installed, the join between the two scenery packages is truly awful.  Completely different colourings, completely destroying any immersive feeling. Considering both are produced, or at least released by the same company, I see no excuse for this.

 

4) What is REALLY bad IMO though....  Not only is that join bad, but there are numerous, and highly visible 'tiled' sections WITHIN the scenery package itself.  This totally destroys any feeling of being above real scenery.

 

I love photo scenery, but find this release a real disappointment. I also find it hard not to feel misled by the vendor.

 

I know just how harsh this sounds, but this IS payware, and I have a FREEWARE version of the Grand Canyon, that I shall be reinstalling after removing this.  After my last few purchases of Megascenery, I believe that MSE are, in general, bucking the trend when it comes to payware. Most developers and publishers are consistently raising the bar.  I’d find it very hard to say this is true here:-(

I'm befuddled regarding the statement that the MegasceneryEarth "Ultra Res" Los Angeles/San Diego scenery is "horrible" and is "nowhere near as good" as the old Megascenery southern California scenery.  I have both and have switched back and forth between them during a flight and the Ultra Res. was clearer and had better colors.    And my Ultra Res scenery meshes in fine with my state-wide Megascenery.  I have made no changes to my LOD_RADIUS, it's left at the default setting.     ???

Got all lower 48 and just want Canada at least south of 55 degree N, just wish they redo the water masking at least, the states color differences do not bug me as can't shoot the USA all at the same time. Couple eye sores, but photo-scenery is historical footprint to me be worth tons someday. I look at Minnesota and Iowa photorealistic black and white ariels shot at 3000 ft from early 1960s, wow get hold of that and colorize it be surreal.

I'm befuddled regarding the statement that the MegasceneryEarth "Ultra Res" Los Angeles/San Diego scenery is "horrible" and is "nowhere near as good" as the old Megascenery southern California scenery.  I have both and have switched back and forth between them during a flight and the Ultra Res. was clearer and had better colors.    And my Ultra Res scenery meshes in fine with my state-wide Megascenery.  I have made no changes to my LOD_RADIUS, it's left at the default setting.     ???

Are we talking cross purposes? What i was saying, is that what they've labeled 'ULTRA' (ie the new Grand Canyon), is NOWHERE NEAR as good looking or crisp as the MUCH older and presumeably lower res 'HI RES' Socal release.

 

Surely, 'ULTRA' by the very definition of its name, should be higher res than simply 'Hi RES'?

 

The OLD Hi-Res Socal that I have installed, is nothing short of stunning to fly over, even at relatively low altitudes.

 

The NEW Ultra Res Grand Canyon package, at least on my PC, is pretty poor by comparison.

I prefer ultra cities because the state ones are so large that it takes forever to load the sim.  I don't know how people have 10-15 states installed and start their sim within reasonable amount of time.

 

Whats the secret?

I wish LM could have a tool to index these files prior to loaded the sim and then see how they can load the files only where its absolutely needed starting the sim instead of trying to read all files and reindex every time. Then I would totally go for Photoscenery for all states and countries.

Are we talking cross purposes? What i was saying, is that what they've labeled 'ULTRA' (ie the new Grand Canyon), is NOWHERE NEAR as good looking or crisp as the MUCH older and presumeably lower res 'HI RES' Socal release.

 

Surely, 'ULTRA' by the very definition of its name, should be higher res than simply 'Hi RES'?

 

The OLD Hi-Res Socal that I have installed, is nothing short of stunning to fly over, even at relatively low altitudes.

 

The NEW Ultra Res Grand Canyon package, at least on my PC, is pretty poor by comparison.

 

 

I have been thinking about getting the new "Ultra Res." Grand Canyon scenery.  I'm sorry to hear that it's not good, with poor color matches and obvious tile mismatches.  I agree that there's no excuse for that.

 

Regarding the resolution issue, my experience with other Megascenery areas has been that the "Ultra-Res" areas are better than the (lower-resolution) "Hi-Res" areas.  The big problem with the Grand Canyon is the vertical cliffs.  The geological feature that makes the Grand Canyon interesting, the cliffs, also makes the Grand Canyon very difficult to show with photoscenery.  The cliffs have the effect of spreading out the scenery.  So, although the resolution might be 1 pixel per 50 cm measured horizontally, the actual (vertical) surface area might be 500 cm.  So even if the photoscenery is from very high resolution photography, the final result can sometimes be blurry, smeared, ugly cliffs.

So which looks sharper, Mega Scenery Arizona 2.0 or Ultimate VFR 2.0 Arizona? 

 

Ultimate VFR 2.0 has night lighting, high definition water features, full autogen vegetation, high quality autogen buildings, and other features  according to their website. The AZ state looks as good as Mega Scenerys Ultra resolution cities from the photos.

Manny...google fsx scenery configurator...

 

Thats what i use...put all my regions into groups and only activate the group i am going to fly in...

 

Perfect and easy to use..

 

Dave

So which looks sharper, Mega Scenery Arizona 2.0 or Ultimate VFR 2.0 Arizona? 

 

(...)

 

 

Actually 1 m resolution looks a bit sharper to me than U-VFR's 1.2 m resolution. But with all those added U-VFR features, I'd say it's the superior product.