i thought I had this straight in my mind...I assumed UT included mesh. I had/have FS Global SE installed, and then added UT and GE. I always assumed UT had mesh, but then I unchecked the FS Global in the scenery library, and my mesh was back to the standard flatter MS version.So is there something wrong with my install, or am I wrong in thinking UT has mesh. I don;t mind, I've paid for them both, so if anyhting, I prefer to use them both, but I just want to make sure my installation is screwy.

No, there's no mesh with UT so you need to use FSGlobal as well. The combination of the two is a great improvement over the default, as rivers will now actually follow the valleys instead of randomly flowing uphill.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

Matthew,Perhaps you could explain something to me please? I have FSGlobal and UT(Europe) which gives me a great improvement in mesh and detailed ground scenery.How does GE improve the visual appearance of scenery and would you say it's as important to have as the other two?Thanks.

Ray,Sorry, I'm like you - I have FSGlobal and UT installed but not GE, so I can't comment on that specifically. I do, however, have FScene installed, which I think aims to achieve a similar effect. I would say that it does give you an improvement over the default textures, but it works better in some parts of the world than others. I think the trouble is that Flight Sim still uses tiles to cover the landscape, so you are always going to suffer from seeing repeating textures if you are flying at altitudes of anything higher than a few thousand feet. You can make the tiles more interesting to look at, but that doesn't stop them from repeating.I think FScene works best in agricultural areas where the tiles are illustrated with lots of small fields, so it's hard to tell where a tile has been repeated. I've found that France seems much better than the default, which previously always looked like a flat, boring carpet of plain green. I also like the urban and mountain textures. (Although I think that the urban textures clash horribly with UT Europe's Commercial / Industrial landclass textures - I decided to switch these off in favour of the detailed ports and industrial areas.)I'm less keen on the Asian textures, which although they are more interesting than the default still suffer from what I said above about easily being able to tell where they are repeated.In summary, I would say replacement textures are less essential than the improved mesh and road / river placement, but they do make it more interesting to fly in areas where the default Flight Sim textures are a bit boring.Was that any help?

I had the free Europe textures (sorry, forgot the maker's name) from the AV sim file library, and much as they were very good (esp considering they were free), I did find there was visible repertition in the snow tiles. It was really obvious from a higher altitude (I suspect they were the lower texture tiles at the more detailed texture wasn;t drawn at that distance).I installed GE, and had none of those problems. low down the ground looks the same, but even at a marginal alt, the building terrain files are really good. THey give much less repartition. I'm really happy with GE and UT, but for me, I needed them both together. I used to just have GE with FS global and Justflight's Roads and Rivers Europe, and though the roads were mostly accurate (flew some places I knew), the actual makeup of them was very clunky, and quite often out. I saw it most with roads floating on water textures and rivers flowing up and then down hill sides. Basically, the placement was off. WIth GE, UT and FS Global, I;ve only encountered it in a few little places, and then when I was so low down that I guess it's inevitable.

Hi Matthew,<>Yes, thank you. It sounds from what you're saying that I'm not going to get a transformation of the scenery with GE or FS Scene - more of a subtle change of presentation. I suppose there might be a clue in the price. I paid most for FSGlobal, a bit less for UT(Europe) and GE comes in at the lowest price.I fly jets at altitude so I can probably dispense with GE. I'm more than happy with the difference UT has made. I might even splash out on the US version.Thanks,

Thanks Gott,I haven't noticed any repetition of ground textures so maybe I can live without GE. Maybe at high altitude I'd miss most of the effects. With FSG and UT I can appreciate the effect even at FL310.Cheers,