Can someone explain to me what do you get with UT Europe and what does GE2006 gives you?I know GE2006 is predominantly textures plus autogen. Does UT Europe contain any textures, that would replace those of GE2006, or is it predominatly landclass, roads, coasts, mesh?, autogen etc. I really like the new night textures and city textures in GE2006 - does UT Europe replace these textures or simply add to them with autogen?What takes up the 9-10 GBytes of disk space and does it not replace any of the default files?Can someone please simply list the differences, explain what it actually contains, that make purchasing UT Europe worthwhile, before I go out and lay down hard cash? Also, although I know we all in the dark at the moment, but with FSX just around the corner, is this just a stop-gap?Regards,Stuart Hyett

GE is textures.UT-E is everything else.Except Mesh.Allcott

Vs?I am constantly amazed how many users still haven't learned to discern between Landclass, VTP's, Seasonal textures and mesh.It's not that hard.;)In the most basic terms what you see in the FS world is decided by different layers.First comes the mesh. A grid net that determines the relative height between various points thus giving your ground a shape. The higher the resolution the more close to the real shape of the terrain in reality you get. Second comes the landclass. A database that tells the engine where to put a field, a city a forrest. To achieve this the generic textures for the respective kinds of terrain are used. And here packages like Ground Environment, FScene and BirdsEyeview do their work by replacing the Microsoft texture set with their own artistic rendition of what their authors think a forrest, field or city should look like.UT does some work here as well because it has a better database to determine where a city, a field or a forrest should be than the default one.Finally there are the groundpolygons that determine how a river, a coastline, a street and a railroadnetwork looks like.Here Ulitimate terrain does it's magic by trasmforming the aproxmiation of Microsofts genric work into ther real deal by utilizing digitized sateltite and map data in a resolution high enough to draw every riverbend, pond and streetcurve as it would be in real life.

I take slight offence by that remark.I have been involved with FSim since FS95, and am fully aware of the differences between Mesh, Landclass, Textures, Autogen etc. etc. I was mearly asking whether UT Europe included anything that was already contained within GE2006 - e.g. textures, autogen?No hard feelings,Regards,Stuart

>I was mearly asking whether UT Europe included anything that>was already contained within GE2006 - e.g. textures, autogen?>>No hard feelings,>>Regards,>StuartThat wasn't entirely clear. It is now.UT is only ground data. No texture replacements at all.I see your point that it seems hard to grasp that this data would take up so much disk-space.Tells a lot of why the generic Microsoft data is so raw, in comparism to UT.As nice as it would be to have a complete world in this detail, it seems that the current method of compiling the data would give you a standard installation size of around 40 Gigabyte. And despite using only the standard textures, this amount of data being called on display does indeed wear down the current systems.It's true that UT does not impact frame rates. But it does affect loading times and refresh times. Not as bad as photoreal scenery, but noticeable nontheless.

Hi there,perhaps it helps to distinguish between two different categories of landscape add-ons: those that make FS look better and those that make it spatially more accurate.GE2006, BEV, FScene etc are "pure" texture packages that do not include any information for the sim about how and where those textures are placed. Thus, a town texture will look better than the default but it may still be in the wrong place.The other category includes three sub-categories: terrain mesh, land class, and vector & polygon data, like roads, railroads, and water bodies. Terrain mesh provides the accurate elevation data, land class (land use) files tell the sim where to place specific ground textures and their assoicated autogen objects, and products like the Ultimate Terrain series provide accurate data for placing water bodies and shorelines, and human infrastructure, like roads, railroads, and industrial areas.UT Europe is actually a bit of a hybrid product in that it includes land class files (focused on the delineation of urban areas) and a few custom textures with custom autogen for industrial areas. However, you'll still benefit from adding replacement textures like GE, more accurate land class files - e.g., the freeware files I listed here http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=49134 - and freeware or commercial terrain mesh files. What type of add-on, if any, is the right one for you really depends on what type of flying you prefer and what you expect of your sim (and what your computer can deliver). For some, a believeable-looking basic landscape limited to FScene, BEV, or GE textures might be the perfect solution, for others spatial accuracy trumps replacement textures, and for others some combination of the above is the Holy Grail. That is why I find the term "must haves" not very helpful because FS add-ons are not about what you should have but what you personally want your sim to look like.Hope that helps.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: I don't know where that 9GB figure comes from but on my sim UT Europe requires less than 2GB of HD space.

The whole Landclass, texture,autogen,scenery thing seems to create more confusion than anything else in FS. It would be good if say Avsim had someone write some good quality articles on various areas within FS to clarify these issues.

That wasn't entirely clear. It is now.UT is only ground data. No texture replacements at all.That's not entirely true. UT Europe also has a new Shoreline texture for sandy beaches, and also not sure about Europe, but UTUSA and Canada also has textures for golf courses and parks.

It's a good question Stuart,Don't take offence by what is said on a forum. Without 2 way live conversation it all too often goes wrong and people get upset.I'll keep this simple as it's a valid intelligent question.GE has some special textues in it that is designed to complement UT and that are exclusive to UT users. For example GE golf courses are designed to look like the included UT ones but enchanced to work and blend better with GE. The same applies to some parks and industrial areas.There is an opiton to install these "special UT/GE ehanced" texturtes when installing GE and this should be run after installing UT Europe.So in summary you'll get all that GE offers with enhanced ground textures everywhere in the FS world and special adjustments to make it work really well with UT Europe. Also, for the record GE works well with UT USA also.If you need any further help or want to talk this through contact me on msn messenger [email protected]

Pete! Does those special UT textures do anything for UTUSA and UT Canada? A know they say there for UT/Europe, but don't know if any are the same textures used in UT/USA/Canada?Thanks!

The special textures we use to further enhance the GE and UT combination for Europe does not affect UT USA.These textures have unique names and are exclusive to UT/GE only.Thanks for the question

Thanks Pete!