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Night Environment - What's all the Fuss?

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So, I have been watching Night Environment packages being put on the market for some time.

 

I have Global and all Orbx Regions, I have UTX packages....both these have night lighting aspects.  And when I occasionally do fly a night flight, I think the resultant look is fairly nice.

 

Can anyone advise me if there is any real value to buying these addons for night lighting when my other addons also claim to enhance night lighting?  Is there anything to be gained, really?  Are they not doing similar things?

 

cheers

Bryan


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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Enhances night lighting tenfold. You won't be disappointed.


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MSI Codex 5 10SC-262UK Desktop PC - Intel Core i7-10700, RTX 2060 Graphics, 16GB RAM, 2TB HDD, 256GB SSD.

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AVSIM hosts the Night Environment Forums here.  Might be a good place to check out for more information about these products.

 

Best regards,


Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

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AVSIM hosts the Night Environment Forums here.  Might be a good place to check out for more information about these products.

 

Best regards,

Yes Jim I did a bunch of research thanks and I saw the sub forum.

 

But, nowhere did I see some comparison or other general related comments about how this stuff compares to other products that I own for instance.

 

 

Enhances night lighting tenfold. You won't be disappointed.

 

OK that sounds good in general thanks, but do you have FTX or UTX and have you compared what they look like as compared to those products which I already own, I guess I'm interested in always enhancing my sim experience but have put out $$$ for tons of addons and now don't want to spend more if not really needed.

 

It almost looks like it puts lights where there would be none in real life, IE along secondary non lite roads.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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Yes Jim I did a bunch of research thanks and I saw the sub forum.

 

Hi Bryan,

 

Okay.  Cool!  Just wanted to be sure you saw it.  The way I see it is that a developer sees problems in some of the night lighting and sees an opportunity to enhance an area (in this case the lighting in an area) then that's good for the whole flight simulation community.  There are developers who do not like the sounds in some aircraft and create new sounds and then sell them to us too.  If a developer or someone who has the skills to enhance something, then I think it's a good deal for all of us.  Developers are the lifeblood of our hobby.  I agree there are some other software packages that include night lighting with their products but proper night lighting is like all commercial products.... it's only as good as the eye of the beholder.  Some think the night lighting in UTX and FTX/Orbx products are not enough or not very accurate.  They want the area they love to fly over to be as accurate/realistic as possible.  Same goes with the sounds.  I do agree with you it is a very expensive option in most cases to buy new sounds or new lighting but it's another option provided to all of us.  I would love to see it used with photoscenery as I love photoscenery over FTX/Orbx stuff.  MegaSceneryEarth did a bad job adding lighting to their products and maybe that's where Night Environment's products should be centered on enhancing.  If a product is not doing what it is advertised to do though, then that's a complaint for the developers and a good topic of discussion with members of the flight simulation community. 

 

Best regards,


Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

Submit News to AVSIM
Important other links: Basic FSX Configuration Guide | AVSIM CTD Guide | AVSIM Prepar3D Guide | Help with AVSIM Site | Signature Rules | Screen Shot Rule | AVSIM Terms of Service (ToS)

I7 8086K  5.0GHz | GTX 1080 TI OC Edition | Dell 34" and 24" Monitors | ASUS Maximus X Hero MB Z370 | Samsung M.2 NVMe 500GB and 1TB | Samsung SSD 500GB x2 | Toshiba HDD 1TB | WDC HDD 1TB | Corsair H115i Pro | 16GB DDR4 3600C17 | Windows 10 

 

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I just grabbed the Berlin freeware version to test out.  Its covered by UTX Europe v2.1 so I should be able to run some tests turning on and off features to see what it looks like compared to my current setup.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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Night Environment looks AMAZING compared to default FSX, but (a huge but) it requires ORBX users to have Vector, which we know is a performance killer, and it is also a performance killer it self. When you venture into dense area such as Los Angeles, your frame rates come to a crawl and OOM's are frequent. It is a great screen shot program but performance for me (6 core I7 @ 4.7 ghz and GTX 980's) is terrible. Just my 2 cents. 


Let me guess.... you want 64bit. 

Josh Daniels-Johannson

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Night Environment looks AMAZING compared to default FSX, but (a huge but) it requires ORBX users to have Vector

Since when did that become a requirement for ORBX users to have Vector? It doesn't say anything of the such on the product page and to the contrary says that it includes it's own roads that will light up at night that you won't see in the daytime.

 

Either your not understanding the product if you thin that it requires ORBX customers to have Vector or I am not understanding. Please post a link where it states what you said.

 

 

On a side note, I think the screen shots loom brilliant but I've seen a lot of users complaining about a severe performance hit when using the product with a complex aircraft that also may take a slight toll on overall performance.

 

I know they have a demo which I have not tried it and probably won't since I want to test a state that I actually fly in. If it were sold through Flight1 and have a 30 day money back guarantee I would have already purchased California or Florida to try out.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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I have a few of those Aerosoft Night Lighting packages for Europe. And UTX, GEX and Orbx/Vector too. Sure, the night lighting packages look nice, more little lightbulbs and 3D-ish too. But IMO not very realistic. In most countries, not all the cross country roads are illuminated all the time, quite the contrary. Moving headlights, varying in density, direction and speed according to road type, would be more like it.


LORBY-SI

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OK now this is becoming valuable.  I was wondering about performance.  As I have UTX already I am thinking I would not be getting much that I don't already have. No doubt it improved default, but no many of us are running default any more, most have upgraded to GEX, UTX, Orbx and other to replace default scenery elements.

 

 

Night Environment looks AMAZING compared to default FSX, but (a huge but) it requires ORBX users to have Vector, which we know is a performance killer, and it is also a performance killer it self. When you venture into dense area such as Los Angeles, your frame rates come to a crawl and OOM's are frequent. It is a great screen shot program but performance for me (6 core I7 @ 4.7 ghz and GTX 980's) is terrible. Just my 2 cents. 

 

There is no requirement for Orbx users to have Vector, that I know for sure.  But obviously if you do have Vector (I have UTX so don't need Vector and I personally think Vector is not as good as UTX), then you will likely have more and accurate roads where lights will be placed.

 

Your system seems like it requires some tweaking as you have a much more powerful system than I and I get good performance given the rating of my PC.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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Since when did that become a requirement for ORBX users to have Vector? It doesn't say anything of the such on the product page and to the contrary says that it includes it's own roads that will light up at night that you won't see in the daytime.

 

Either your not understanding the product if you thin that it requires ORBX customers to have Vector or I am not understanding. Please post a link where it states what you said.

 

 

 

There is no requirement for Orbx users to have Vector, that I know for sure.  But obviously if you do have Vector (I have UTX so don't need Vector and I personally think Vector is not as good as UTX), then you will likely have more and accurate roads where lights will be placed.

 

Your system seems like it requires some tweaking as you have a much more powerful system than I and I get good performance given the rating of my PC.

 

A while ago, Mathijs from Aerosoft said the following: "It is advised to either run this with ORBX Vector (vector lights off); or with photoreal underneath. With Vector, each light will have a road under it, as they use the same real world data as we do with NE. With FSX night textures there some roads not represented in default FSX data files with photoreal layer underneath the lights fit 1:1 fit to the roads and streets."

 

It isnt "required" per-se but it doesnt work as intended without high quality vector or mapping underneath. So technically you could use it without Vector, but it will not be the intended experience.


Let me guess.... you want 64bit. 

Josh Daniels-Johannson

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OK now this is becoming valuable.  I was wondering about performance.  As I have UTX already I am thinking I would not be getting much that I don't already have. No doubt it improved default, but no many of us are running default any more, most have upgraded to GEX, UTX, Orbx and other to replace default scenery elements.

 

 

 

There is no requirement for Orbx users to have Vector, that I know for sure.  But obviously if you do have Vector (I have UTX so don't need Vector and I personally think Vector is not as good as UTX), then you will likely have more and accurate roads where lights will be placed.

 

Your system seems like it requires some tweaking as you have a much more powerful system than I and I get good performance given the rating of my PC.

 

 

Important points covered in your own post already. Just to expand: ORBX already provide light poles with splash textures below them, so ORBX lighting is what gets you closest to Chris' Night Environment. You will have to compare added eye-candy from the NE editions to their added cost, added VAS usage, and added CPU load.

 

My own strategy is to leave ORBX regions the way they are, and invest into NE editions for areas that are mainly default or photoscenery. I own 11 NE editions by now and don't regret having bought them, but I, personally,  have little interest to add NE edtions to areas covered by ORBX lights already.

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It isnt "required" per-se but it doesnt work as intended without high quality vector or mapping underneath. So technically you could use it without Vector, but it will not be the intended experience.

Well, that's not what you said in your first post that's why I asked. You could use it with either Vector or UTX, or any program that draws vector based streets accurately. Basically, since it draws street lights where streets should be, then naturally it will look better if the road lights are going over roads and not cutting through someone's back yard.

 

The only problem is that using Vector or UTX, and having all the residential and secondary streets turned on is going to effect performance, even when not using this Night Environment, but using Night Environment will just make it worse having all those extra streets turned on. Although if your flying airliners and not nit picking scenery, then you could turn off some of the residential and secondary streets in Vector/UTX and probably not notice the difference that much at night.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Important points covered in your own post already. Just to expand: ORBX already provide light poles with splash textures below them, so ORBX lighting is what gets you closest to Chris' Night Environment. You will have to compare added eye-candy from the NE editions to their added cost, added VAS usage, and added CPU load.

 

My own strategy is to leave ORBX regions the way they are, and invest into NE editions for areas that are mainly default or photoscenery. I own 11 NE editions by now and don't regret having bought them, but I, personally,  have little interest to add NE edtions to areas covered by ORBX lights already.

 

Thanks Oliver, this makes a lot of sense. More and more I'm particularly worried about the CPU load hit, as I can't really take any more on my older machine.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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