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ErichB

FS Global Ultimate - Next Generation Mesh

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Anyone know where they are hiding the actual

mesh resolution used for a particular area?

Is there an index map somewhere?

 

gb.


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My guess is that they updated FS Global to the 1 arc-second SRTM 3.0 data released in 2014 by NASA, which I used in FreeMeshX. This guess is based on the fact they used SRTM 2.0 for their previous line of products and it would be the cheapest solution for them since SRTM data is completely free.

 

Waking up and old thread here because after reading this comment I must ask why would anyone buy the new FS Global Ultimate Next Generation product even at the currently reduced upgrade price (55 euros + shipping and insurance) if you can get the same quality and resolution mesh for free with your FreeMeshX product?

 

Because from what you're saying about SRTM 3.0 you think Pilots used the same data you did?

 

I'm a current owner of FS Global Ultimate Europe & Africa and from what I understand after reading on the box it's LOD13 while FreeMeshX is LOD10. Wouldn't LOD13 equal higher resolution vs LOD10 used in FreeMeshX?

 

Looking at the size of the data and I guess bigger usually means more detailed data my current FS Global Ultimate Europe region is about 20 GB on the disk while the FreeMeshX Europe region is less than 4 GB according to the download link. But maybe that is only the size of the compressed download and it will then expand quite a bit once installed?

 

Thanks in advance for any input and help to fully understand all this because I was considering getting the FS Global Ultimate Next Generation upgrade but if I can get the same for free the choice obviously won't be a hard one to make.


Richard Åsberg

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This is going to be the new norm now high prices to addons. As someone said in the Fsl tread the market sets the price. So as long as people pay a high price then they will set a high price. So long had people pay to beta test. Guess what they will bring out products to be a "backer" look at elite dangerous and star citizen for example.

 

 

Back to topic...For fsglobal to keep selling products and make more profit, they have to keep reinventing them with a new line.

 

In 2 years time they will produce "fs global dimensions" Or "fsglobal blueprint" Or "fsglobal organic" and guess what it will be "better than ever"

 

Its like quote from stringer bell in the Wire "its the same ######. Just in a different coloured jello cap , that's all"

 

 

Its the same as why developers do the same airports over and over again. It a safe way to sell a product, tried and tested.

 

Fsglobal is no different to activesky.

 

I bet the guy who made fsreal time (a great program) sells a few a week. Unless he makes a "fsreal time origins" Or a "fsreal time ultimate" he's got a stale product.

 

The same as why Tony Robins sells his dvds, he just calls them a new name and bashes them out


 
 
 
 
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  913456

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I hear you Pete and I agree with most of what you say. Certainly many developers and/or publishers will try to get as much as they can from you and at the same time invest as little as possible into the new product/version as long as the customers keep buying their products.

 

However what I was asking for here was more a technical comparison between FS Global Ultimate, FS Global Ultimate Next Generation and FreeMeshX since I'm a bit confused after what I've been reading and seeing.

 

Looking at some of the screenshots of FreeMeshX it's doesn't look to be nearly as detailed as some of the screenshots I've seen of both the product I already own (FS Global Ultimate) and the Next Generation version.

 

Reading over at the FreeMeshX website it says LOD10 is used where the back of the box FS Global Ultimate came in when I bought it talks about up to 5m resolution which translates into LOD13 as I understood it vs 38m for LOD10.

 

At the same time the guy behind FreeMeshX says he's guessing the same SRTM 3.0 he used for FreeMeshX was probably also used for the Next Generation of FS Global Ultimate. That makes me really confused because again FreeMeshX features LOD10 while FSGU features LOD13 and to me it would be very strange if now the with Next Generation version of FSGU the resolution would have been decreased compared to the previous version.

 

So if someone who already upgraded from FS Global Ultimate to FS Global Ultimate Next Generation could comment on the improvement if any it would be very much appreciated. I also sent a question to the developer of the FS Global product line asking him pretty much the same things I've been asking in here. Looking forward to hear back from him.

 

Then lastly I would like to comment on how you compare FS Global with Active Sky. Even when I'm part of the HiFi beta team meaning my opinion is biased I find it a bit unfair. I like to think many would agree lots of new and some of them great and very innovative features have been presented in the Active Sky product line throughout the years.


Richard Åsberg

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Support of FSGlobat Mesh products is one of the worst I have ever seen.

 

I've purchased all titles of FSGlobal Ultimate when they appeared and spent altogether about 150 €. I cannot imagine what content/new features would justify another purchase. Support of FSGlobat Mesh products is one of the worst I have ever seen.

 

So not with me this time.

 

Totally Agree with you regarding their support.

 

I have a feeling 64 bit P3D isn't far away, holding back on any more addons like this. Maybe it could transition over as it's only data but I'm not going to be a guinea pig. 

 

Buying any 32-bit compiled addons right now when we are the dawn of 64bit P3D is total money waste.  Going to wait till 64bit is out and and then see who moves up to 64bit and only support those developers (provided they have good support system)

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Totally Agree with you regarding their support.

 

As far as I can remember I only was in contact with them once regarding some installation issue years ago and that time I had a pretty fast and helpful response as I recall it.

 

 

 


Buying any 32-bit compiled addons right now when we are the dawn of 64bit P3D is total money waste.  Going to wait till 64bit is out and and then see who moves up to 64bit and only support those developers (provided they have good support system)

 

Very valid and I've been thinking along those lines as well but then I thought to myself it will probably be at least a year or even longer before I'll be able to actually enjoy a new 64-bit platform meaning anything I buy today I will still have lots of time to enjoy before I would consider it a total money waste.

 

At this point no one even has a clue when we'll see this 64-bit version of P3D. Maybe we won't see it until next Christmas and if you then start adding the time it will take for add-ons to be upgraded to work in this new 64-bit environment plus ironing out all initial issues it might very well be 6-12 more months meaning there will still be plenty of time to enjoy today's technology to the fullest and when flying in VR I want things to look as pretty and realistic as possible :smile:


Richard Åsberg

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You guys are going to jump to 64 if it comes? I might, but am dubious of tangible benefits to a 64 bit P3D.


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I do think going 64-bit is the only way forward but as I mentioned in some other thread I hope LM won't stop at that but also take the opportunity to replace lots of other stupid limitations in the current core of the simulator even if it will brake backwards compatibility in many areas.

 

This to make sure we'll be able to move forward with new, modern technology utilizing our hardware the way it was always meant to and allowing developers to become more creative rather than constantly finding their hands tied up by a core from the stone age and limitations of all kinds.

 

Personally I'm sure I'll move to this new platform but probably not on day 1.


Richard Åsberg

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I know Orbx OrbxDirect app is fully ready for 64Bit P3D.  JV just mentioned on Fullterrain (few days ago).  He did say sceneries are the most easiest to port as majority of the time they are independent from dlls.  I know the sceneries will probably have to be compiled again with 64bit flags and what not (I could be off, it has been a while since I did some major programming).

 

I figure Orbx will be ready on release day.  And I am making a huge assumption (and you know what they say about making assumptions!) that PMDG 64bit won't be far off either, I am quite positive that those guys are beta testing P3D 64bit (they are after all premier addon flight simulation company).

 

Hoping that FS Gobal 2010 is ready for 64bit


Active Pattern: MSFS2020 | In Long term Storage: Prepar3d  

How I Evaluate Third Party Sim Addon Developers

Refined P3Dv5.0 HF2 Settings Part1 (has MaddogX) and older thread Part 2 (has PMDG 747)

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Waking up and old thread here because after reading this comment I must ask why would anyone buy the new FS Global Ultimate Next Generation product even at the currently reduced upgrade price (55 euros + shipping and insurance) if you can get the same quality and resolution mesh for free with your FreeMeshX product?

 

Because from what you're saying about SRTM 3.0 you think Pilots used the same data you did?

 

I'm a current owner of FS Global Ultimate Europe & Africa and from what I understand after reading on the box it's LOD13 while FreeMeshX is LOD10. Wouldn't LOD13 equal higher resolution vs LOD10 used in FreeMeshX?

 

Looking at the size of the data and I guess bigger usually means more detailed data my current FS Global Ultimate Europe region is about 20 GB on the disk while the FreeMeshX Europe region is less than 4 GB according to the download link. But maybe that is only the size of the compressed download and it will then expand quite a bit once installed?

 

Thanks in advance for any input and help to fully understand all this because I was considering getting the FS Global Ultimate Next Generation upgrade but if I can get the same for free the choice obviously won't be a hard one to make.

 

This is all deduction on my part since their website doesn't really provide much information apart from marketing mumbo-jumbo such as "fractional-bit compiling" which is a standard feature of the SDK. For the majority of the world, they've probably upgraded to the newest SRTM dataset we use which will allow them to render up to LOD11 without oversampling. They've always used SRTM as a base in the past. That's a great base to work with, and why we chose the new SRTM dataset. To be clear, that doesn't mean they only use the same dataset.

 

They must use additional higher resolution datasets for places like the Alps and the USA because they do go up to LOD11 in some places in Europe and LOD12-LOD13 for America (up to LOD14 for a few mountain peaks). That is where the majority of that large file size will come from -- those higher-res areas with little compression. South America in FS Global Ultimate was LOD9, which would make sense if it was compiled from the 90-m SRTM source data available at the time. If they're using the new SRTM data, then the LOD in the new product will likely be LOD10 or LOD11 (the differences between the LOD10 and LOD11 will be negligible from our testing with the new SRTM).

 

So what I'm saying is that they probably upgraded their base mesh to the new SRTM, while retaining all the higher-res mesh included in the previous FSGlobal Ultimate. That would mean there would be an overall upgrade to the world not covered by special, high-res sources, but also could mean that the places that were already high res in the older FSGlobal Ultimate (e.g. USA, Alps) will not change much, if at all, from the previous release. Which would make sense since someone in this thread said North America isn't that much different (it would be covered by NDED/CDED datasets), while the rest of the world has improved (which would be covered largely by SRTM, I assume).

 

I'm definitely not saying FSGlobal Ultimate NG and FreeMeshX are identical -- far from it. I would never lie to you and say FreeMeshX has the better data -- at the most we share some of the same great data. FSGlobal Ultimate has stunning eye candy for various parts of the world -- those areas will set them apart from our free alternative. But for the majority of the world, we probably share the same new SRTM data. Now whether that's worth the upgrade from their older FSG Ultimate, IDK. Don't own it.

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I know Orbx OrbxDirect app is fully ready for 64Bit P3D.  JV just mentioned on Fullterrain (few days ago).  He did say sceneries are the most easiest to port as majority of the time they are independent from dlls.  I know the sceneries will probably have to be compiled again with 64bit flags and what not (I could be off, it has been a while since I did some major programming).

 

I figure Orbx will be ready on release day.  And I am making a huge assumption (and you know what they say about making assumptions!) that PMDG 64bit won't be far off either, I am quite positive that those guys are beta testing P3D 64bit (they are after all premier addon flight simulation company).

 

Hoping that FS Gobal 2010 is ready for 64bit

 

I do hope you're right. Would be awesome having some of our most important developers supporting the new platform from day 1!

 

 

This is all deduction on my part since their website doesn't really provide much information apart from marketing mumbo-jumbo such as "fractional-bit compiling" which is a standard feature of the SDK...

 

Many thanks for the very detailed answer and explanation Daniel, much appreciated and even a bigger thanks for your generous contribution to our hobby!!


Richard Åsberg

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Stay away from this company, their support is non existent !!!! 

I installed Ultimate NG into P3D v4.

To be fair,  the new AFM RC2 is much better than the old AFM but alas !!!  all body waters have water ridges and "Canyons " in them

 which negate all fun in VFR low level scenery flying near and over water.

I sent Steve 2 emails with pictures asking for his advice to no avail, so I hope this is not a wide spread bug but be informed.

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Could you post a link to one of the images?  I use both AFM releases, but I havn't tried AFM RC2 yet and now you have me concerned.  I guess I don't understand how waterbodies in the sim could have anything but a flat surface. Mesh products aren't supposed affect waterbodies (except for their shoreline elevation) and all AFM does is create a  local mesh that gradually matches the airport flatten with the surrounding terrain. This avoids having the airport  proper look okay but the airport is either in a valley or on a butte (like in FTX Vector).

 

It almost sounds like LM made some change to the mesh logic and there is now a conflict between add-on mesh and the default mesh. Or maybe even something more bizarre.:ohmy:

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6 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Could you post a link to one of the images?  I use both AFM releases, but I havn't tried AFM RC2 yet and now you have me concerned.  I guess I don't understand how waterbodies in the sim could have anything but a flat surface. Mesh products aren't supposed affect waterbodies (except for their shoreline elevation) and all AFM does is create a  local mesh that gradually matches the airport flatten with the surrounding terrain. This avoids having the airport  proper look okay but the airport is either in a valley or on a butte (like in FTX Vector).

 

It almost sounds like LM made some change to the mesh logic and there is now a conflict between add-on mesh and the default mesh. Or maybe even something more bizarre.:ohmy:

I suppose it's the lack of updated Vectors. I see the same thing in FreeMeshX in some areas the where corrected elevation change is drastic and the waterbody still sits at the original elevation. Hopefully, Vectors will be updated soon, and the waterbodies will align with the updated meshes.

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The way that mesh works in P3d is that there is no priority. The mesh file with the highest LOD always takes precedence, at least that's the way it used to be.  Vector waterbodies (rivers and streams) flow downgradient by resting on the mesh just like roads and railroads do. Maybe polygon waterbodies (ponds and lakes) are messed up now and they also "hug" the mesh.

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