I built my system yesterday and am enthralled with Prepar3D so far. Naturally, I'd like to up the ante on the visuals. I am looking for general recommendations on where to start and what to purchase. I used REX Essentials Plus years ago on FSX, that is my only experience. I believe I need a mesh product AND a texture product?

You can use any or all of the following products:

GEX or ORBX base for ground textures

UTX or ORBX vector for vector (ie: coastlines, roads, etc)

ORBX landclass

REX for cloud textures, airport markings, etc.

 

For a while I used UTX and ORBX base and it worked well.  Once V4 came around and VAS wasn't an issue I waited for an ORBX sale and bought vector.  There should be a sale coming up as well since they usually have one around the holidays.

The above does not include any mesh recommendation...., I am a big fan of the Pilot's FSGlobal NG Ultimate (I know, so many adjectives very silly but solid product).  They have P3Dv4 installers and they offer a tool that does a very good job of adjusting flat airports to match surrounding non-flat terrain.  I use that and ORBX FTX Global with openLC, which is a very good landclass tool that minimizes the repeating pattern look in much of the world and exceeds the normal fixed limit in FSX/P3D for number of possible landclass tiles.

For mesh products, I prefer Toposim. Justin who originally started FSGenesis is the developer of this product. Excellent quality as usual.

 

Vic

I use Toposim as well as GEX World for P3D and UTX. Orbx Regions are fine but I stay away from their Global stuff,

C

Whoops I forgot.  I use FreeMesh.

But do I have to have ORBX Global installed to use their regions?

54 minutes ago, snpower said:

But do I have to have ORBX Global installed to use their regions?

No, not if you want to just fly inside their regions. (You do not need to get it at all if you do not want to )

FTX Global enhances the rest of the planet with improved landclass data and better textures than what is provided as default in P3D. Thus the look of regions not covered by special addons (OrbX or others) definitely improves (much in my opinion) over the default.

See here for their own explanation of how FTX products work.

Regards
Frank

57 minutes ago, snpower said:

But do I have to have ORBX Global installed to use their regions?

No you don’t. The regions also includes mesh.

I think I mis-spoke out of ignorance. I need the Global Base in order to use the OpenClass LC for North America.

I appreciate the input so far. I have REX Essentials + HD from years ago and so I paid to license it in Prepar3D, and I am also going to install FreeMesh to get started!

21 hours ago, Psybear said:

I use Toposim as well as GEX World for P3D and UTX. Orbx Regions are fine but I stay away from their Global stuff,

C

Why does he need to stay away from their Global stuff??? I'm not even a fan of landclass scenery, but FTX Global is immensely popular, and works well with P3D v4.x.

It always amazes me how quickly people give answers to questions that lack basic information. You can't answer the OP's question without knowing where he likes to fly and what planes he uses. How can anyone suggest Global and Vector if the OP might want to fly GA in Norway?

13 hours ago, snpower said:

North America

Ok, finally some useful information. Well, partially. Where in North America do you like to fly? If you like the West Coast or Alaska you will be far better off with various FTX regions than you would be with Global and Vector. Regions also have upgraded airports and in general perform better (imho). Do you fly GA or airliners or both? Short hops or long hauls?

If you want to use landclass scenery, a good combination for a worldwide upgrade in Prepar3d 4.x is:

• Orbx's FTX Global - textures for the tiles that get placed on the ground in landclass scenery.
• Orbx OpenLC for N America, S America and Europe - to greatly improve the accuracy of the tiles chosen from the FTX Global set for a given location.
• Orbx FTX Vector (made by PILOT's) - pr=-0987'iop[]\vides the vector upgrade (roads, coastlines, river). The Ultimate Terrain products are alternatives if you don't need worldwide vector data.
• Mesh, to provide the topographical data : PILOT'S - FS Global Ultimate - Next Generation FTX (Download) - is currently the best option.
• Shaders, to improve the visual appearance of the graphics: Envshade
• Airport and sky: Envtex covers both. Optionally, you can add Rex Texture Direct Enhanced for more variation.
• Cloud textures: Active sky Cloud Art (plus Active Sky Prepar3d v4 as the engine).

Those items will give you a beautiful, 'next-gen' simulator with worldwide scenery (though a few more open landclass products are required from Orbx to provide this level of detail for Asia and Africa).

Missing is:

• Airport buildings: Nothing available currently, but REX Airport HD will hopefully be available one day.

 

I tend to go for short hops. I'd like to explore various areas around the continental U.S. as well Quebec, Nova Scotia.

I lean towards GA and military.

I've added FreeMeshX and am in the process of adding Adam Mill's textures as well.

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎11 at 9:44 AM, OzWhitey said:

Why does he need to stay away from their Global stuff??? I'm not even a fan of landclass scenery, but FTX Global is immensely popular, and works well with P3D v4.x.

I did not say he needed to, I said I do not use it and the reason is I use GTX World for P3D and the FTX global stuff is incompatible with it. Regions are fine though.

C