ORBX SOCAL

[hjsmuc 393]

As I expected I bought SoCal. I like ORBX and Carenado, which tells something about my preferences for the hard core simmers :-)

I am not so much disturbed by low fps, actually I think it is ok for the complexity of the scenery. However, I think I have some elevation issues. Something just doesn't look right I think, and I know that part of the world a little. What do you fellow simmers think?

I ran the Vector tool and also tried disabling Vector. Other sceneries for the area are off.

[allergiecheck 14]

do you use a 3rd mesh?

[hjsmuc 393]

do you use a 3rd mesh?

I have the FreeMesh USA but it is not active in my scenery.cfg. I will post another screenshot with exact coordinates and maybe someone can show how this looks in comparison on his machine.

[Greggy_D 935]

Orbx regions come with their own built in mesh which will override any 3rd party mesh.  (As long as the region entry is above the 3rd party mesh in the scenery library.)

[pmb 5,137]

Sorry Greg, thats incorrect. In case of mesh ist the one with the highest resolution taking priority, indepencent of its position in the scenery libary. There a few (rare) cases where Pilot's Ultimate Mesh interferes with Holger Mesh because of its higher resolution (e.g. in Pago Pago land).

 

Kind regards, Michael

[hjsmuc 393]

This is between Newport and Laguna Beach, at N33 35.76 W117 49.01, ALT 2124ft, HDG 197

 

The first is how it looks in Prepar3D and the second is the 3D Google image. Do you think that there is an issue with elevations/mesh in my sim or does it look right for you?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a bigger one from the first location. It looks very wrong to me.

 

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Man I was so excited for this product, do you think Orbx intended it to cause such a performance hit? Or was this product designed for only low and slow flyers?

 

Sure I understand the scenery is best enjoyed flying around slow and VFR, but I do think it should be more balanced, especially if you try flying the PMDG 777 in or out of Socal. 

 

Maybe they plan to optimize it down the road? Or have they hit a wall so to speak and they optimized as far as it could go?

 

I have a strong system i7 6700K 4.80Ghz, 16GB DDR4 3200Mhz, EVGA 980Ti, Samsung 850 500Gb SSD. 

 

I get 30FPS pinned (unlimited set) in the 777 on the ground at KLAX in VC. I would be sad to see it drop to like 15fps which some people say have happened. 

[AviatorMoser 353]

Well, I can tell you right off the bat that any elevation issues are independent of FreeMeshX, since the USA portion has yet to be released. FMX NA only contains Greenland and Canada. The USA is its own separate thing because of the differences (resolution, size) in datasets.

 

The elevation you see is all ORBX.

[hjsmuc 393]

Thanks Daniel, you are right. I tested the same position with all ORBX off, then adding Global, Vector and then SoCal, the latter also without Vector. These hills always look the same from this height with ORBX on. They start looking fine from about 4-5000 feet. Maybe it's not possible to give them a better 3D look although I find that the hills of the Samoa scenery from them look better IMO.

[Howellerman 104]

I am not certain about this, but I believe what you are seeing is the combination of "place high density urban photo real texture" on the "terrain at coordinates x/y". The urban texture is somewhat generic, so you will have that shopping mall/office building wrapped around a hill, houses and roads that are abruptly cut in half/terminated, or someone with their backyard in a ravine.

 

I have seen this is in all Orbx regions, and it is a good example of "don't look too closely". The Mega Scenery guys (which is photo real specific to all x/y coordinates) like to use this argument against Orbx, but Mega Scenery lacks auto gen that give a 3D appearance, IMHO.

[AviatorMoser 353]

I am not certain about this, but I believe what you are seeing is the combination of "place high density urban photo real texture" on the "terrain at coordinates x/y". The urban texture is somewhat generic, so you will have that shopping mall/office building wrapped around a hill, houses and roads that are abruptly cut in half/terminated, or someone with their backyard in a ravine.

 

I have seen this is in all Orbx regions, and it is a good example of "don't look too closely". The Mega Scenery guys (which is photo real specific to all x/y coordinates) like to use this argument against Orbx, but Mega Scenery lacks auto gen that give a 3D appearance, IMHO.

 

I think this is the case, and it's just a matter of which landclass (and its associated texture) ORBX chose.

[tttocs 301]

 

 

I have seen this is in all Orbx regions, and it is a good example of "don't look too closely". The Mega Scenery guys (which is photo real specific to all x/y coordinates) like to use this argument against Orbx, but Mega Scenery lacks auto gen that give a 3D appearance, IMHO.

 

Agreed.  Or to put it more precisely, don't look too closely in the wrong place.

 

Most of our scenery choices have compromises.  While Orbx regions are far more optimized than other landclass scenery, it's still landclass with autogen and occasionally some areas won't be quite right.  Of course as John notes, photo-scenery for this area (Blue Sky,  MSE...) also has its compromises, including color issues, lack of autgen for trees and buildings at low atlitudes and, of course, lack of seasons.

 

Scott

[Guest]

It's called the "blind eye" -- if you can't have one, all flight simulators are going to be a struggle to accept. 

 

Google Earth does have a flight simulator mode, try it ... it's mostly horrible with FPS around 8  and long pauses between areas ... and buildings that are positioned accurately but horrendously ugly.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[CFIJose 5,485]

I bought SCA on release and noticed the poor fps, micro pauses, and stutters in specific areas right away. I tried to warn simmers, but there were a few claims of high fps and good performance at 20 fps.  Some blamed the settings others the computer. Whatever!

 

I hope that ORBX finds a way to optimize this region, because it's one of my favorites.

[Greggy_D 935]

Sorry Greg, thats incorrect. In case of mesh ist the one with the highest resolution taking priority, indepencent of its position in the scenery libary.

 

Michael, thank you for catching my error.  I was wrong.  I completely forgot about the "highest rez mesh wins" rule.