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captain420

Your thoughts about FS Global mesh for P3D, yay or nay?

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I just upgraded to Windows 10, did a clean install and had to reinstall P3D from scratch again, it took a very long time but the outcome was worth it. I don't see blurries no more when flying, so I'm not sure what the problem was before. Anyways, that brings me to my next question. Any of you guys here use mesh products like FS Global 2010 FTX Edition, or the regular FTX Global? Not sure exactly what the difference is between the 2 but the FTX edition is a lot smaller and I guess it's optimized for those who use FTX products?

 

Is a mesh add-on really make a noticeable difference? The last time I used it, I'm not sure if it made the simming experience better for me as I didn't really see a difference except for the huge amout of space it took on my system.

 

I'm contemplating on whether or not I should add them back into my scenery library or not. I'm using FTX Global, Vector and openLC. What's your opinion on this?


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FreemeshX is the way to go. Save your money. Search here at Avsim.

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HI-FTX Global is great. Way better than the default terrain. FS Global 2010 is mesh, not terrain. I added FS Global 2010 to FTX Global and there was not any real difference afterward. FTX Global terrain is the way to go. Don't bother with FS Global 2010.

Also, FTX Vector is a real frame rate hog. Check the forums for the best setting. To me open LC adds a little improvement. Out of of these add-ons FTX Global is the biggest bang for the buck. Never tried freewareesh.


Forever indebted to the late Michael Greenblatt of FSGS.

 

 

 

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FreemeshX is the way to go. Save your money. Search here at Avsim.

 

This.


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  Any of you guys here use mesh products like FS Global 2010 FTX Edition, or the regular FTX Global? Not sure exactly what the difference is between the 2 but the FTX edition is a lot smaller and I guess it's optimized for those who use FTX products?

 

Is a mesh add-on really make a noticeable difference?  

 

I'm contemplating on whether or not I should add them back into my scenery library or not. I'm using FTX Global, Vector and openLC. What's your opinion on this?

Hi Aaron

 

A good mesh makes a lot of difference as it gives the 3D depth to the simulation. It makes the landscape more convincing. The mountains are sharper, the hills or valleys more accentuated, closer to the real thing. The need depends on your way of flying though. If you fly at 35K feet between airports situated in plains you won't see much difference. If you fly GA in the Southern Europe or Canadian Rockies OpenLCs, you will.  

 

The default mesh is not bad, better than it used to be in FS9 but, its definition is still coarser than some 3rd party meshes. How to choose it ? Look at the resolution and keep in mind that bigger is generally better because the grain is finer.  

 

I know of only two "Global" addons.

 

One, the FTX Global Base pack, is not a mesh. It is a texture replacement set made by OrbX and needed by the OpenLCs products. You don't see it in the scenery library as such.

 

The other, FSGlobal 2010, is a mesh made by Pilot's, an Austrian outfit, and somewhat used by OrbX developpers as a reference for some airports but not made or sold as an OrbX FTX product. It is not bad at all even if it has flaws like any mesh.

 

As  I always try to get the best mesh on the market I use the FSGlobal 2010 big brother, the Ultimate. The former is 25 GB, the latter105 GB (world bundle). Not perfect either but the best I could find. Expensive though.

 

Hope that helps a little.


Dominique

Simming since 1981 -  4770k@3.7 GHz with 16 GB of RAM and a 1080 with 8 GB VRAM running a 27" @ 2560*1440 - Windows 10 - Warthog HOTAS - MFG pedals - MSFS Standard version with Steam

 

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domkle, thanks so much for your advice. Do you know what the difference between FS Global 2010 FTX Edition and the Ultimate edition? 25gb vs 100gb is a huge difference in size.

 

I'm assuming that the FTX edition is optimized and 100% compatible for users who use FTX Global, LC, Vector, where as the ultimate edition is not?


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I do not know the details, country per country but the difference in weight necessarily comes from a finer sampling in many places. I suspect that G2010 may also not cover as well areas where I fly a lot, like Asia. To simplify a bit, there are two figures to consider  : the resolution in meters, the smaller the figure, the better the mesh (19m is better than 38 or 76m), the LOD, the smaller, the worse/the coarser (11 is better than 9) .

 

It seems that both Global 2010 and Ultimate have the same degree of compatibility with the OrbX layers. Both require using the Vector Airport Elevation Corrections tool in any case.

 

Giving advice is difficult as it is subjective. I do want the geography below me to be as exact as possible, elevation map  (thats why I bought Ultimate) or coastlines (that's why I've Vector). When I bought Ultimate in 2013 what I read convinced me then that it was the deal. If I already had G2010 today, I'd stay with it until I find that the relief a little too rounded than what it should be where I fly. Considering also that new better meshes may come to the market within two years.


Dominique

Simming since 1981 -  4770k@3.7 GHz with 16 GB of RAM and a 1080 with 8 GB VRAM running a 27" @ 2560*1440 - Windows 10 - Warthog HOTAS - MFG pedals - MSFS Standard version with Steam

 

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AFAIK the Ultimate edition has a higer resolution than the 2010 edition. The way I see it, Pilot's decided to keep their premium product (Ultimate) separate, maybe because there were problems to make it work with FTX. I know that I have some issues when using Ultimate together with the FTX products (especially sunken terrain on the airports). Requires a little bit of fiddling with the scenery order to make it work, and I assume the 2010 FTX version doesn't have that.

 

For Europe there are the excellent NextMesh products from FranceVFR (4,75m resolution). When browsing for mesh products, always make sure that the resolution is really better than what you already have. Happened to me that I bought a mesh addon and did not realize that what I had (FSGUX) was already on the same level. And be mindful of simulator performance. Higher resolution mesh pulls a little more FPS, and may cause stutters (more data to read from the disk). In my experience, using multiple high-res mesh products at the same time does also degrade performance even further - the sim is supposed to always use the highest resolution mesh automatically, but I am thinking that to decide which one that is, the sim first has to read all of them, which takes time. I try to keep only the one highest-res mesh product active that I absolutely need for my flight.


LORBY-SI

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Cool, thanks for the links, any reviews on those new meshes yet? I've never heard of them before.


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AFAIK the Ultimate edition has a higer resolution than the 2010 edition. The way I see it, Pilot's decided to keep their premium product (Ultimate) separate, maybe because there were problems to make it work with FTX. I know that I have some issues when using Ultimate together with the FTX products (especially sunken terrain on the airports). Requires a little bit of fiddling with the scenery order to make it work, and I assume the 2010 FTX version doesn't have that.

 

For Europe there are the excellent NextMesh products from FranceVFR (4,75m resolution). When browsing for mesh products, always make sure that the resolution is really better than what you already have. Happened to me that I bought a mesh addon and did not realize that what I had (FSGUX) was already on the same level. And be mindful of simulator performance. Higher resolution mesh pulls a little more FPS, and may cause stutters (more data to read from the disk). In my experience, using multiple high-res mesh products at the same time does also degrade performance even further - the sim is supposed to always use the highest resolution mesh automatically, but I am thinking that to decide which one that is, the sim first has to read all of them, which takes time. I try to keep only the one highest-res mesh product active that I absolutely need for my flight.

My experience (and only my experience..) with the FTX products and Ultimate : 

 

- the "fat" regions have their own built-in mesh, except for Australia and PNG for which OrbX offers a freeware mesh that you can add (Holgermesh).  No issue that I saw with Ultimate with two exceptions  : it is recommended  that  you disconnect any 3rd party mesh, G2010 or Ultimate at least,  for the Samoas and PNG sceneries. Easy enough and Holgermesh or built-in mesh are fine anyway.I didn't see any side effect of having two meshes on top of each others with my hardware. YMMV.

 

-  FTX standalone airports and default airports within an OLC : I've still to find a situation, with Ultimate, where I couldn't correct a trench or plateau with the Vector AEC tool. 

 

- Airports elsewhere i..e in the Global+Vector only world,  A lot of issues (trenches, plateaus) that the AEC tool does not correct. These issues are not related to Global or Vector, they come with any mesh sharper than default, including G2010   There are other issues btw, not related to mesh or G+V, as roads or river crossing runways because of the bad FSX/P3D airport coordinates database. Moving the airports is the only way. A PITA but not impossible.

 

I agree that a careful shopping around might be the way to go today, with Justin Tyme of FSGenesis fame back to business or FranceVFR meshes.  However, one has to see whether it is not more expensive than buying a Pilot's bundle if you want to cover a significant part the  world.


Dominique

Simming since 1981 -  4770k@3.7 GHz with 16 GB of RAM and a 1080 with 8 GB VRAM running a 27" @ 2560*1440 - Windows 10 - Warthog HOTAS - MFG pedals - MSFS Standard version with Steam

 

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I thought it was free from the name? How does it compare to paid products like FS Global?


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It is free! Just try it out. The download takes a while and the instructions seem a bit complicated, but it is easy to uninstall should you not like it.


Regards, Perry

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