Pilot's FS Global 2018 or Pilot's FS Global Ultimate?

[Adrian West 6]

Hi. I will very soon be investing in a completely new rig designed specifically for P3D v4. On my existing computer I have been using Pilot's FS Global 2010 mesh with FSX. From what I have read I believe that my existing mesh would work with P3D v4, but that it is officially supported only up to P3D v3, and Pilot's FS Global 2018 is designed for P3D v4. However the latest product is of course Pilot's FS Global Ultimate. The question I have is which product to go for?

FS Global 2018 is the successor to FS Global 2010 and apparently has the same resolution of up to 9m (LOD 8 to LOD 12). FS Global Ultimate has a much higher resolution of up to 1m (LOD 8 to LOD 15). Pilot's states that both products are optimised for best frame rates and short loading times, however I would suspect that there must surely be a performance hit using Ultimate compared to 2018. Ultimate will no doubt look that much better because of the higher resolution, but it also takes up much more disk space (80 GB as opposed to 25 GB). Ultimate also includes bathymetry mesh for submarines in P3D - I had no idea this was possible - do I really need this??!!! Assuming I use just aircraft in P3D, will I see any difference in the appearance of the sea from the air due to the varying sea depth? In other words, is there any point to this if I will only be flying? Ultimate also costs more than 2018.

The system I am considering is based on W10 64, i7-7700K up to 4.6GHz, 16GB DDR4 2133MHz, GTX 1070 8GB, 500GB M.2 SSD, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda HDD. I am hoping that this will be no slouch and able to handle more or less anything thrown at it within reason. I will be running ORBX Global Base, Vector and openLC Europe on P3D, plus a number of high quality European airport addons, and probably REX Sky Force & ASP4.

So based on this, which mesh product would you recommend? Is there anyone here who has tried both on the same system and can give a comparison? Many thanks.

Adrian

[TonyD 131]

Honestly, neither - try FreeMeshX especially if you mainly fly tubeliners

[jzimmermann 238]

Adrian, I use the FS Global Ultimate - Next Generation Mesh and highly recommend it. While freeware mesh is certainly an attractive option for many, the fidelity of PILOT'S retail mesh is so much better. PILOT'S also use LIDAR data for some of the European Alps, a great enhancement if that's a region you typically fly over.

Jerome

 

 

[Adrian West 6]

I don't currently fly any tubeliners. My main addon aircraft will initially be Flight1 King Air B200 and Just Flight Piper Warrior II, so the maximum altitude I will fly at is around FL 250. Detail at lower altitudes will therefore be important. And yes,I may well fly around the Alps.

What I am really interested in knowing is the performance impact between the 2 products and whether I really need the extra level of details that Ultimate gives.

Thanks.

Adrian

[pmb 5,137]

I own nearly all of Pilot's products and had them installed at some point. According to my experience, performance isn't an issue on modern systems at all. Ultimate NT looks excellent and much better indeed with sharp edges, notably in mountains, etc.

Despite I settled for Global 2010 right now (2018 should be equivalent) for those reason's:

(i) It's officially supported and tested by ORBX. While Pilot's state all their mesh products being ORBX compatible, not only doesn't ORBX confirm this but has given a few counter-examples (look up their forum).

(ii) The higher the resolution the more danger of hills/valleys around airports. These can often be corrected by the ORBX Vector AEC tool (effectively contributed by Pilot's) and/or Pilot's own AFM tool. However, even then you will meet issues around airports, notably such with real-world sloped runways where you may have to leave the sim, try to correct settings in the tools and restart to see if those issues are gone. That does not happen very often but from time to time.

(iii) Prepar3d has a strange "feature" of morphing terrain when you approach it, i.e, it loads terrain at a certain distance and when you approach a point it reloads terrain in a better resolution such that it snaps into place, notably in hills. This "feature" is dependent on your system, settings, and style of flying, but as a low and slow flyer I am a dedicated victim. The lower resolution 2010 mesh appreciably minimizes this "feature" for me.

(iv) When flying within ORBX fat regions (80 % of the time for me), I don't use any 3rd party mesh at all. Those regions come with their own included "Holger" mesh begin optimum adapted to the scenery and issue-free.

As a final remark. You may or may not acknowledge that Pilot's is pretty much the only flightsim company I know which doesn't maintain a support forum. They only contact is via personal mail given on their website.

Kind regards, Michael

[djbully 210]

Hi Adrian, further to the above comments. 

 

My understanding is this:

Pilots FS Global NG Is the most accurate mesh they do.

Pilots FS Global 2018 is a slightly cut-down/optimised version of FS Global NG. I would estimate the accuracy of it somewhere between FS Global 2010 7 FS Global NG.

 

And apparently setting the P3d mesh resolution to 5m offsets the "popping" of the scenery. But that kind of defeats the object of having an accurate mesh to 1m in some cases. 

 

Hope that helps. 

Bully.

[F737MAX 5,553]

Adrian,

Wholly concur with the points made by pmb.

Don't forget, it is only part of the world (European Alps, IIRC) where there is 1m mesh resolution. I own the 'bigger and better' Global Ultimate, but have found there to have been some issues with ORBX regions, so regularly reduce the slider in the sim to 5m - something to bear in mind if you're thinking of moving up from ORBX's Global and OLC products.

Performance impact is negligible on my PC and load times are very quick, so your upcoming system will perform even better with any of the versions.

[downscc 1,327]

I always push back on the notion that flying at flight levels (aka tubeliners) means the mesh is less important.  I disagree because when I installed FS Global NG Ultimate I was very pleasantly surprised with how great the US Plains looked from flight levels.  Default or freeware will depict the plains as a flat plane where in fact they are large undulations and subtle terrain features captured with a good mesh.  It really enhances the visual over the otherwise most drab of scenery.

[pmb 5,137]

8 minutes ago, downscc said:

Default or freeware will depict the plains as a flat plane where in fact they are large undulations and subtle terrain features captured with a good mesh.  

Does this refer to the acclaimed FreeMeshX, too? I never tried this myself, thus I am just asking.

Kind regards, Michael

[downscc 1,327]

1 hour ago, pmb said:

Does this refer to the acclaimed FreeMeshX, too? I never tried this myself, thus I am just asking.

Kind regards, Michael

I've not tried it either, but I'm under the impression the freeware is only marginally better than stock.  My point was that it doesn't take mountains to see the importance of a good mesh, the flatlands actually reveal much more in the subtlety of their variations.  Pilot's are the ones that provide altitude correction for Orbx, and their tool that comes with the mesh product for adjusting terrain surround an airport is pretty good in that is creates a slope rather than a flat or step change.  I'm pretty happy with their product.

[Adrian West 6]

Thanks for the interesting contributions. I will now need to consider whether to stick with my current 2010 mesh or switch to the 2018 product. Based on what you have said I think I will give the Ultimate mesh a miss - not sure I need that level of detail, especially if it could cause issues around airports. 

Adrian 

[downscc 1,327]

1 hour ago, Adrian West said:

especially if it could cause issues around airports. 

I've only use the airport elevation tool that comes with mesh for a couple of small addon airports.  No issues.

[G-RFRY 1,708]

I use Ultimate and I found in the UK hills in the default or ORBX do not do a good job, but Ultimate gives a better definition of the terrain.

[FalconAF 213]

Personally, I wouldn't use either one of them (and I don't).  For many of the same reasons Michael stated.  I've learned to be very cautious about PILOTS products.

There was a time ORBX sang their praises for both the Vector program and the Mesh products PILOTS made "for" ORBX.  But for over a year now, ORBX seems to have distanced themselves from PILOTS...and rightfully so in my opinion (even though ORBX still "recommends" PILOTS products to be used with ORBX scenery...which confuses the heck out of me).

Even the ORBX forum moderators themselves have said in their own posts things like, "Well, PILOTS hasn't responded to any support posts in our forums since last May (2017), so all WE can tell you is...…".  What the heck kind of support is that for a product someone STILL recommends using with THEIR own products?"

It's up to you.  But I spend my money where I know the developer hasn't "bailed out" on their products and appears to be hiding under a rock somewhere.  If ORBX is saying THEY can't get any support from PILOTS anymore, what do you think YOUR chances are?

 

[jzimmermann 238]

9 hours ago, FalconAF said:

Personally, I wouldn't use either one of them (and I don't).  For many of the same reasons Michael stated.  I've learned to be very cautious about PILOTS products.

There was a time ORBX sang their praises for both the Vector program and the Mesh products PILOTS made "for" ORBX.  But for over a year now, ORBX seems to have distanced themselves from PILOTS...and rightfully so in my opinion (even though ORBX still "recommends" PILOTS products to be used with ORBX scenery...which confuses the heck out of me).

Even the ORBX forum moderators themselves have said in their own posts things like, "Well, PILOTS hasn't responded to any support posts in our forums since last May (2017), so all WE can tell you is...…".  What the heck kind of support is that for a product someone STILL recommends using with THEIR own products?"

It's up to you.  But I spend my money where I know the developer hasn't "bailed out" on their products and appears to be hiding under a rock somewhere.  If ORBX is saying THEY can't get any support from PILOTS anymore, what do you think YOUR chances are?

 

Hi Rick,

Sorry, but your points have absolutely no merit whatsoever!

PILOT'S offer outstanding support via email, I've always had a reply within 24 hours, usually within just a few hours! And why would you expect PILOT'S to support FTX Global Vector in an Orbx forum? Orbx have their own mesh specialist and they sell the product, it's up to Orbx to offer support.

For you to suggest that PILOT'S is hiding under a rock and has "bailed out" on their products is ridiculous and shameful!

Far from it in fact, I just saw that they're listed as one of the official exhibitors at the upcoming Las Vegas venue - FlightSimExpo 2018!

Jerome

Edited May 27, 2018 by jzimmermann