Open LC North America - impressions?

[sfgiants13 83]

Don't do that with OpenLC NA though or you just overrode 13 Gb of custom textures. Disable UTX landclass entirely or don't spend the $$ on OpenLC, it just defeats the prupose.

 

II had this realization after I bought OpenLC.  While I do like the product a lot (at least in other areas) with UTX now including landclass it's redundant and a waste of money.  Probably should've gone the all ORBX route even though UTX seems to be the choice betwen vectors.

 

I think I got it layered right.  The farm like textures have gone away.  It's weird because I had them in the same order before and it was no go.  I did just do an update to the library I wonder if that did something to make it work.

[Jim Robinson 122]

 

 

II had this realization after I bought OpenLC. While I do like the product a lot (at least in other areas) with UTX now including landclass it's redundant and a waste of money

 

I wouldn't call it a waste of money, the included landclass is sort of a secondary bonus feature that's included with UTX, there's no reason all the vector data (which is quality stuff) won't work just fine with OpenLC. Just switch off those 3 UTX landclass layers in the scenery library so your OpenLC can layer on top unhindered (you can also disable UTX LC using the UTX configuration utility). Note that we're talking geographical coverage areas here so if you have for example UTX Europe and OpenLC NA you can leave the UTX EU landclass active because the geographical coverage areas don't conflict, when you fly in Europe you'll simply see the UTX LC and when you're in NA you'll see the OpenLC NA product.

 

The UTX LC doesn't supply textures (OK there's 370 Mb of textures included in the "UT Landclass - Custom" area but that's by no means a complete set). When you use a landclass without custom textures the LC .bgl will call textures out of the Scenery\World\Texture folder. If you put the LC .bgl in an OLC\Scenery folder and then place a bunch of custom textures in the accompanying OLC\Texture folder the landclass .bgl will look there first for the textures it needs and use them if found, falling back to Scenery\World\Texture whenever a texture is not found. That's what OpenLC is really all about, it's the same tech they use for custom LC on the full fat regions basically.

[sfgiants13 83]

I wouldn't call it a waste of money, the included landclass is sort of a secondary bonus feature that's included with UTX, there's no reason all the vector data (which is quality stuff) won't work just fine with OpenLC. Just switch off those 3 UTX landclass layers in the scenery library so your OpenLC can layer on top unhindered (you can also disable UTX LC using the UTX configuration utility). Note that we're talking geographical coverage areas here so if you have for example UTX Europe and OpenLC NA you can leave the UTX EU landclass active because the geographical coverage areas don't conflict, when you fly in Europe you'll simply see the UTX LC and when you're in NA you'll see the OpenLC NA product.

 

The UTX LC doesn't supply textures (OK there's 370 Mb of textures included in the "UT Landclass - Custom" area but that's by no means a complete set). When you use a landclass without custom textures the LC .bgl will call textures out of the Scenery\World\Texture folder. If you put the LC .bgl in an OLC\Scenery folder and then place a bunch of custom textures in the accompanying OLC\Texture folder the landclass .bgl will look there first for the textures it needs and use them if found, falling back to Scenery\World\Texture whenever a texture is not found. That's what OpenLC is really all about, it's the same tech they use for custom LC on the full fat regions basically.

Ok thanks I might just do that.  For now my coverage is limited to NA I haven't expanded out to Europe yet.  I like the Landclass so much more with OpenLC.  The landclass looks so much better in the few areas that I've seen so I guess there is no reason to use both.

[sfgiants13 83]

Out of curiosity if I disable utx landclass will it help with loading times? Or does the sim just load whatever is highest in the library only.

[red259 31]

I'm using FSX steam in DX10 with FTX global and flying in North america mostly. Usually Montreal to NY or out west LAX, KLAS, KSFO etc. My flights will be with mostly pmdg and the new fslabs airbus. Is it worth getting NA LC and Vector? How is the hit on VAS? I'm having a hard time justifying the price and I am wondering how this improves flight or if its meant more for low level flying. I do take out some smaller planes once in awhile but most my flights are jets and I don't want to be going OOM all the time. I have a number of payware airports but I am considering just using default airports to cut down on VAS usage.  

[Luis_KMIA 242]

Huge improvement over default and more realistic.  As some of you mentioned, there is an OOM risk when flying between high detail add-on airports on great aircraft like PMDG.  Hopefully 64-bit for P3D gets here sooner than later, so OOM becomes a thing of the past.

[red259 31]

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Huge improvement over default and more realistic.  As some of you mentioned, there is an OOM risk when flying between high detail add-on airports on great aircraft like PMDG.  Hopefully 64-bit for P3D gets here sooner than later, so OOM becomes a thing of the past.

Huge improvement over default and more realistic.  As some of you mentioned, there is an OOM risk when flying between high detail add-on airports on great aircraft like PMDG.  Hopefully 64-bit for P3D gets here sooner than later, so OOM becomes a thing of the past.

How much of an oom risk over kust having ftx global. I get oom with high end airports but if i use payware aircraft with na lc but default airports will that avoid oom or does the LC stuff really add to the risk? Also, does anyone know if there may be a sale with this orbx stuff for columbus day weekend?

[Dominique_K 10,149]

How much of an oom risk over kust having ftx global. I get oom with high end airports but if i use payware aircraft with na lc but default airports will that avoid oom or does the LC stuff really add to the risk? Also, does anyone know if there may be a sale with this orbx stuff for columbus day weekend?

FTX Global is only a texture replacement set and has no impact (or extremely minimal). The textures are lovelier than the default but don't weight more.

 

OpenLC NA reorganizes these textures to describe more accurately the real world than the default LC map. Practically, that means you can have much more building autogen around large airports thus a higher processing load.  Telling you more is impossible without a deep diagnostic of the way you fly (hardware, settings, simming platform, weather, traffic etc. etc.).

 

These recent years, OrbX has been doing a sale from end of November to early January (and in June).

[Luis_KMIA 242]

p

How much of an oom risk over kust having ftx global. I get oom with high end airports but if i use payware aircraft with na lc but default airports will that avoid oom or does the LC stuff really add to the risk? Also, does anyone know if there may be a sale with this orbx stuff for columbus day weekend?

You'll be fine with just default airports.  My only OOM was from YUL - YYZ on PMDG with OpenLC NA.  Both of those airports are by FlyTampa and use a lot of memory.  I'm continuing to experiment with transcons across the U.S.

[red259 31]

You'll be fine with just default airports.  My only OOM was from YUL - YYZ on PMDG with OpenLC NA.  Both of those airports are by FlyTampa and use a lot of memory.  I'm continuing to experiment with transcons across the U.S.

Do you have vectors as well? Would that add substantially to the immersion factor with OpenLC? Does it add to the VAS or its about the same with or without vectors if you are running OpenLC. I have always found Flytampa airports to be less vas intensive than some of the other companies like FSDT airports.