Hi, PICs and Paul.Paul wrote:> NO ONE has done a really good Canadian Airport.Jean answers:Projet CYUL.http://okad.ca/cyul/cyul2002_fr.html There are even animated parts of the airport,in that one !Blue skies.

Good points Jaap! I live in the USA but would love to see more international airports that are of the Fly Tampa quality. And lets not forget the really cool German Airports series from Aerosoft!Cheers!David>Greetings!>>"(...) Let's concentrate on US airports (...)">>I am strongly opposed to that proposal. Let's concentrate on>NON-US airports and other stuff. FS9 is already strongly>biased in favor of the U.S., like in mesh density,>photographic sceneries, airports (both number and details). I>see no reason whatsoever for increasing this bias even more.>>On a different note: I fully agree with you that it's utterly>senseless to make a payware version of an airport that already>has a very good freeware version, regardless of where that>airport might be located.>>Be well!>>Jaap Verduijn.

Paul, while I agree YYZ needs to be updateded, there are alot of good freeware Canadian airports available. Flight Ontario has done a great job of Thunder Bay and Toronto City Center. I also have St. Johns, Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal Dorval now Trudeau, Ottawa, London, Winnepeg, Kelowna, etc. I know Simflyers is working on Vancouver. So the freeware designers are alive and well, keep up the good work guys and thank's.Dave FisherCYYZP4 Prescott 3.2e 478p 800mhz 1mg CPUP4P800S Asus Motherboard1.0 gig PC3200 DDR RAM 400MHZGeforce Ti 4200/128Maxtor 40 Gig ATA 133 HD x2WDC WD800 80 Gig HDhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpghttp://fs2crew.com/linepilot.jpg

Thank for all the responses...:-)First, George of FlyTampa is doing Boston Logan V2 (still freeware)...see FlyTampa's General Discussion Page.Second, Vancouver BC is being created by SimFlyers for release sometime (using current standards?) later this year.Thirdly, Sim-wings are doing an unknown European Airport? They refuses to release information before the project is well underway.Forth, Aerosoft (German Airports) should be releasing Frankfurt soon...I can't wait to purchase this airport!Fifth, We still need an updated LAX, DFW, JFK, etc...Why developers are skipping US Majors I'll never know, since the US is the largest market for software in the world? :-hmmm Btw...Overland Ltd is doing all the Japanese Airport Sceneries...Darryl

>Fifth, We still need an updated LAX, DFW, JFK, etc...Why>developers are skipping US Majors I'll never know, since the>US is the largest market for software in the world?In the good old days, we european developers were a little bit envious of the big "freedom country", were it was possibile to go in and out around an airport, taking pictures, asking questions, buying documentation, without the risk of being arrested. In Europe, rules were usually stricter.Thanks to post 9/11 rules, this is no longer possibile, so everybody is just relying on his "unofficial" connections, like friends who work at the place, users that sends pictures, etc.I, for example, couldn't officialy buy an FMC user manual from Honeywell, even with full explaination and written documentation of its use ( FS2004, of course ), the sale is now restricted. Of course, I was able to obtain it in a very short time from a different source, and this just confirms how silly these regulations are, because they simply affects normal people, were the real terrorists are surely able to aquire anything they want.The recent announcement from NGA about closing down the AIRAC free download, it's just the latest, I fear the next thing would be making products like PMDG or LevelD illegal, because they are too realistic!

Ah, another "let's dictate what others can make as addons based on my personal preference" post.If Cloud9 thinks there's a market for a rendition of KBOS by them (as I guess they do, and probably based on market research), they should make it.That's called a free-market economy and has been proven over the decades to work a lot better than the central planning you propose.

I'm glad they've update the original release. Kind of sorry that I didn't see it on the forum threads for so long.EHAM is a busy airport - and I'll take another look at the scenery - but since I fly all over the world - I'm really doubting the value of purchasing any airport scenery.My EHAM skies / AI traffic run about 250 aircraft - about 150 of those on the ground at EHAM. I have no trouble maintaining 22-26 FPS with NL2000 at maximum scenery sliders - but I have a good / optimized system for FS.By comparison - KBOS runs about 350 aircraft - with 120 aircraft on the ground at KBOS. I run about 35-42 FPS at that airport.Some other comparisons - EGLL - 585 aircraft - 190 on the ground at EGLL; EDDF - 250 aircraft - 120 on the ground at EDDF; LFPG - 450 aircraft - 210 on the ground at LFPG (I have about 80 aircraft on the ground at LFPB in my flight plans); KATL - 420 aircraft - 240 on the ground at KATL; KLAX - 650 aircraft - 170 on the ground at KLAX.When I turn off AI aircraft - I get about a 25-30% increase in FPS. About the same increase in FPS as I get when I drop the scenery sliders down to the minimum with full AI traffic at most airports.Unfortunately the AI slider is pretty useless for folks who don't use package flight plans like the default AI, Ultimate Traffic, Traffic 2005, My Traffic or PAI.Very few flight plan designers randomize their flight plan percentages. If you use MRAI flight plans - you have two choices - 100% AI & 0% AI because the flight plans are written to be 100% of the traffic at 1% on the AI slider.While AI aircraft not in the 10nm visual field do not have direct graphics card performance impact - they do have a significant impact on total FS performance - especially if other airports in the active AI zone do not have sufficient parking.While at EHAM - my AI zone shows aircraft at four other airports; EDDF - 4 other airports; KATL - 9 other airports; LFPG - 18 other airports; EGLL - 21 other airports; KLAX - 23 other airports; KBOS - 35 other airports.

>My EHAM skies / AI traffic run about 250 aircraft - about 150>of those on the ground at EHAM. I have no trouble maintaining>22-26 FPS with NL2000 at maximum scenery sliders So these figures are valid for NL2000 AFCAD or UT ( or similar ) AFCAD ? It would be interesting to know how many AI you have with the Cloud9 AFCAD active.>By comparison - KBOS runs about 350 aircraft - with 120>aircraft on the ground at KBOS. I run about 35-42 FPS at that>airport.So it's quite clear that AI on ground impacts way more than AI in the air. Or, more precisely, AI on ground impacts both video card and CPU, while AI in the AIR ( if the MDL is well designed with LOD ) affects mostly the CPU.In this case, taking into account that grounded AI are the most frame rate intensive, a correct comparison should be made using polygon count, by multplying the number of AI by the actual polygon count that each model is using, because it's not the same having 100 MD80 or having 100 747! And, it's very difficult to estimate, because it depends on the designer of the MDL, how the LOD would be effective in saving fps.For example, if there is a terminal pier with many crammed stands, were all the AI are quite close to the user's point of view, maybe the distance is too small to trigger the less detailed models for the MDL. Or, the LOD levels in that AI MDL go abruptly from hi-detail to low-detail, so the difference between seeing the hi-detail version and the low-detail version is big, but maybe the distance is too small and prevents the low-detail to appear.The variables here are just too many: the number of AI ( dependent on what AI traffic product is installed ), the schedule, the time/date /season of the schedule, the airplane types present at that specific airport and at that specific time, how the MDL were designed, how the LOD switching scales nicely with the typicaly viewing distance at that airport. Even the airport *layout* can make a difference! Some airports are simply made in a way that you rarely see too many AI at a time, just because there are other buildings obstructing the view, so thanks to hardware z-buffering, their are not drawn on screen!Unfortunately, we don't have a polygon counter as we have a frame rate counter. I hope someone at MS will maybe consider this for future versions: it would be very usuful to scenery and aircraft designers to know in real time how many polygons are on screen at a specific time.Also, it will much better for users to assess their system performances, instead of a simple "fps" number, that doesn't mean anything without taking into account how much work the engine is doing, a "polygon/sec" counter would be a far better indication of how the system performs.

The only AFCAD I use for EHAM, and will use is Jim Vile's from his Active ILS series.Jim stripped the EHAM code down to the first node, the first parking spot and the airport reference point. Then rebuilt everything cleanly - most of it in XML - no deletions of nodes, parking spots, taxiways. If he found something didn't work, he went back to the previous version before the changes.I've gone over the code for the default EHAM, and it's about the worst default airport in FS2004. It's definitely the worst I've seen.I have made some additions and tweaks to Jim's AFCAD to line up with the NL2000 scenery - his is for the default scenery - but with the new runway added - and work approaches for all runways.I've shortened the takeoff end of Rwy 6 by changing it to 2000 feet of overrun to prevent takeoff aircraft from the long back taxi.I've also shortened Rwy 4/22 to 4990 feet to prevent jets from trying to takeoff on that runway.Jim's AFCAD has 192 parking spots - and I've added 30 additional because of some of the traffic I have.His AFCAD has 16 GA spots, 155 gates - 96 small, 16 medium, 43 heavy - and 23 cargo spots. 26 of the spots have no parking code which is just about a perfect ratio for this size airport.It's very easy to see with the TrafficToolBox SDK Explorer tool if the AFCAD does not have enough parking.If when loading traffic at an airport - the progress bar stops at 95% or 98% - some airport in the active AI zone does not have enough parking for the AI aircraft the system is trying to load.I also wish the FPS counter would go away. Polygons is a much more accurate measure. I've been able to see some of the addon sceney models from some developers with a few tools I have and terminal buildings with 100,000+ polygons in each pier were not uncommon a couple years ago.I do all my testing from a default B734 with a 2D panel view - first with the default airport, then with the addon. Too many people do not set a baseline for testing.

Fifth, We still need an updated LAX, DFW, JFK, etc...Why developers are skipping US Majors I'll never know, since the US is the largest market for software in the world?Huh?? Simflyers have detailed airports for all 3 of these airports. LAX also has Jan Martin's very detailed LAX. I agree many other US airports, can be done. On the freeware side, there are plenty (More woudn't hurt!!) of airport scenery in the library for both US and other countries, Jan Martin does both. So I don't think anyone can credibly claim a bias in this area to the US. There are also a number of international airports that are payware, Simflers, make some, there is Paris, and Heathrow and the list is growing each day.

I'll support that, jwenting . Still, they may be crazy, but it is up to them do what they want. Maybe they just like KBOS.Tony=http://www.flightsim-bevs.com]

Just to let you know, Jan Martin's LAX only changes the gates. Bill Melichar's LAX changes everything but the gates. Use 'em together. ;)http://www.kthxdone.com/images/kw_ft.jpgKen Weik [link:maam.org|MAAM-SIM][link:library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=root&SearchTerm=kenneth+weik&Sort=Added&ScanMode=0&Go=Change+View]My AFCADs