Hi All,

 

Back again asking for more purchasing advice!

 

FTX Global, yay or nay? I obviously want to make the Sim environment look as real as possible. I have a PC Pilot magazine subscription and this came with GEX Europe for free, however I have not got round to installing it, and understand it looks better when combined with UTX?

 

With the Orbx sale, and especially since FTX covers the whole world, this looks more tempting. I do have some reservations though - firstly I have quite a lot of add on airports, and also have VFR Gen X and lots of UK2000 airports for the UK. I still want to use these products and am worried that Global will conflict? I've seen screenshots of strange elevation issues with these products?

 

Also, performance - I have a fairly moderate PC. It's good but it's a few years old, the GPU especially (GTX560Ti) could do with an update. FSX runs reasonably well with moderate settings with add ons like the NGX and FlyTampa airports. I've never suffered an OOM (maybe just luck, who knows!) and I don't want to start introducing them, and I've heard Global can be a contributer.

 

Any advice would be very welcome!

 

Cheers

Hi Tom,

 

I was a GEX + UTX v1 user years ago, but I upgraded to FTX Global and have never looked back. The add-on updates your textures and gives you some nice (easy on fps) 3d lighting. You should have no problems with FTXG.

 

FTX Vectors (a replacement for UTX) is not installed on my system. I have not tried their latest update, but vectors v1 caused some mesh issues and an increase in vas usage which could lead to oom errors. I also experienced some stutters and poor performance when vectors was enabled. I don't have it installed, but there are some users that are happy with ftx vectors.

 

I think that you are confusing the 2 products:

 

FTXG (Textures)

 

FTX Vectors (Road, Rivers, Coastlines, etc.)

 

Both offer world-wide coverage.

 

GEX offers world-wide coverage, but UTX does not. These two products are offered by flight1 and come with a 30 day money back guarantee.

 

Back up your computer and try Europe GEX + UTX to see if you like them. If not, reset your computer, and try FTXG.

 

Jose

Installed Orbx FTX Global about a month ago, best software I've added period. I have UTX, GEX NA, GSX, many addon airports, both payware and freeware, including several UK 2000 scenery, some I've made myself and all work great. Not a FPS hog in any way. Looks better without photo scenery. Removed some Taubet photo payware and Orbx looks better. Lots of free off the beaten track, airports worldwide.

Snap it up looks great

Why not install your Global Europe and see for yourself if you like it? 

FTX Global is a good solution for some, but not for everyone.  Read the article below to better understand the pros and cons.  I opted not to buy it after learning about what it does to FSX under the hood, and how it is incompatible with some non-Orbx scenery products).  Instead I went with GEX + Xclass global landclass that I got for 70% off during the black Friday sale + FreeMesh (http://xtrnets.com/evntech/), and am quite happy with the overall results.  Looks like a new sim to me.  I expect to be even happier after FreeMesh releases its USA mesh). 

 

Andrew Jones

Both GEX and FTX Global provide worldwide texture replacements.

 

GEX does it at $149.75 USD total for six-separate products. 

 

FTX Global does it for $72.76 USD, or $47.28 at the current sale price.

 

I owned GEX - North America and was pleased, but went with FTX Global for the world wide coverage and have never looked back.

 

If you do install GEX as a trial, be aware that FTX Global is only on sale until the end of the year (Australian time!)

 

Ernie

 

Oh.. and I forgot to mention the 300+ freeware airport upgrades that seamlessly integrate into FTX Global, that the authors made available.

This is relevant to my interests....

 

I'm on the fence about it too. I see some posts that claim it really hit their computer hard, especially with vector. I'd love to improve the scenery but now I'm worried. They make it sound like turning it off isn't really an option and removing it is difficult.

 

My main concern is wanting to improve areas that need improvement. An example is the airport close to my home. It's rich with trees, buildings, homes, businesses. In the default FSX it's this lonely airport surrounded by flat tan desert. So bogus.

 

I just don't want a slide show when I'm running ASN and flying the PMDG NGX or RealAir Duke with GTN750. At some point the add ons begin to take a toll on performance. In FS9 I opted to forgo a lot of scenery enhancements because I'd rather have a smooth flight and the planes me more to me in the end.

Thanks for the replies and info.

 

I'm currently trying to tune all my settings again as installing ASN has really hit my fps, and I'm only getting 18-22fps at UK2000 Gatwick in the NGX. 

I had a pretty noticeable performance hit after installing Vector. I run full everything on an overclocked i5-3570K (4.4Ghz), so I was pushing the limit of my rig before I installed Vector. I was able to get it to run with little to no noticeable FPS hit by disabling all 3 traffic settings on the Transportation tab in the Vector Control Panel. There is one each for highways, primary roads, and secondary roads. 

 

I can do without the traffic. I love seeing the correct streets and waterways in the area where I live.  

FSX ground traffic hits performance pretty bad, and one thing Vector did is to add lots of roads with traffic on them, especially in places already loaded with complex scenery. And yeah, been doing without them as well, even though FTX Global tail-lights looked pretty neat.

I  guess that I was fortunate because I saw no difference in performance after adding FTX Vector to my already existing UTX North America installation. 

 

Perhaps had I went from no vector product at all to having one, but already having UTX may have softened the blow. :-)

 

Frames are set to 30 within FSX and I am running a i5-3570K OC to 4.2Ghz.